A lovely way to serve an omelet in springtime is with freshly shelled peas, with a scattering of mint and scallions for an extra burst of flavor. You can add cheese, ham or bacon, baby spinach or arugula — anything your palate desires. The omelet is light, fresh and ultraquick to prepare. Peas straight out of the pod need to be cooked for only a minute. Then whip the eggs, swirl them into the pan, and lunch can be on the table in just ten minutes.
Omelette aux petits pois / Spring omelet with fresh peas
As soon as peas come into season each year, I make a beeline for the market. Stands are piled high with peas in their pods and the other fabulous offerings of spring. Rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries, spring onions, baby carrots, baby turnips — it’s beautiful. I enjoy the rite of shelling the peas. Unless you plan to make a meal of them, this goes quickly and can be done while chatting with friends, listening to music or watching the news. It’s hard to resist tasting as you go. The peas can be sweet as sugar, and they’re virtually calorie free.
When I had my place in the Burgundy countryside, I enjoyed growing peas. My neighbor taught me to plant crisscross bamboo stakes over the tiny sprouts in early spring. Pale green tendrils soon wrapped themselves around the poles, blossoms appeared and the first baby pods took form. Waiting for the peas to mature was a challenge, but worth it — by late May or early June, we could gather them up and serve them in any number of ways.
The classic French way of preparing fresh peas is called, aptly, petits pois à la française and includes … cooked lettuce. That may sound odd, but when baby lettuce leaves are sautéd in butter with baby onions and then gently braised with peas and a little thyme, the result is surprisingly wonderful. Like other French chefs, I often include bacon.
My love of fresh peas translates into many other recipes: fresh pea soup with mint, risotto with asparagus and fresh peas, tagine of veal with fresh peas and lemon, pasta with peas and country ham, and perhaps my favorite, jardinière de légumes, a medley of tender spring veggies. I made that this week alongside grilled salmon, with rhubarb compote as a dessert. If any of these dishes tempt you, it’s time to head to the kitchen.
Happy cooking!
This dish of roast chicken with a garlicky basil sauce tucked under the skin was inspired by my friend Valérie, a superlative cook. It’s a spin-off from a venerable ancestor, poularde en demi-deuil, or ‘chicken in half mourning’, a specialty of Lyon in which truffle slices are slipped under the skin. As truffles are expensive and hard to come by, Valérie often substitutes herbal sauces. One of her favorites is pistou, the Provençal version of pesto.
The idea for this Mediterranean-style dip came my way the other day when a friend brought me a packet of beautiful dried white broad beans. I wanted to use them quickly, but they were so large that I feared they might be intimidating if served whole. So I cooked them to tenderness and puréed them with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and a dash of cumin. As my friends and I appreciate spice, I added a crushed cayenne pepper as well.
Fluffy gnocchi sautéd with fresh sage in melted butter is one of my go-to dishes when I need to get a quick meal on the table. The butter is browned ever so slightly, enhancing the lusty flavor of the sage, and a topping of freshly grated parmesan adds a delightful tang. This subtle Tuscan-inspired dish is elegant enough to serve for lunch when last-minute guests arrive. And its real beauty is that it takes just five minutes to prepare.
Along with rosemary, thyme, basil, lavender and campanula (bellflowers), I bought a small lemon tree, which is rewarding me with lovely white blossoms that I hope will be lemons by the autumn. They have joined my my venerable sage plant, transplanted from the country some years ago and still producing darling new leaves every spring and pale flowers in the summer.
Baby spinach lightly sautéd in olive oil with garlic is one of my favorite ways of preparing this versatile veggie. Add a dash of lemon juice and you have a treat with a southern French edge. In northern France you’re more likely to find spinach prepared with cream or butter, the leaves most often served whole in a generous pile. I use spinach in maybe a dozen ways — in salads, in omelets, in savory tarts and as a side dish, as in the photo.
This is a fish story, the upshot of which is a dish of baked sea bream with a delicate lime-flavored sauce. It started two weeks ago when I went to the market and my fishmonger wasn’t there — he’d apparently gone on vacation during the French school holidays. So I wandered through the market and found another fish stand with a remarkably beautiful display. In the middle was a large red fish that looked like a giant goldfish.
Although I had never encountered pageot before, I bought two, brought them home and looked it up: red sea bream. Fine. The next day I set to work for my guest. I coated the fish lightly with olive oil, inserted a couple of lime bits in the cavity and oven-baked it whole. While it was baking, I chopped and steamed a leek and made a sauce of cream, lime zest and lime juice. When the fish was done, I set it on a bed of leeks and drizzled it with the sauce. On the side I served steamed baby zucchini. My guest was delighted.
To give you an idea of the wealth of fish on offer at this stand, here’s another photo. On display in just this tiny corner of the stand are daurade royale (gilthead sea bream), merlan (whiting), limande sole (lemon sole), encornets (squid), seiche (cuttlefish), tourteaux (crab), praires (clams), rascasse (scorpion fish), colinot (hake), colinot friture (small hake for frying) and bar d’élevage (farmed sea bass). This is what makes it so delightful to be a culinary-minded person in Paris, even in a time of lockdown.
If you’ve ever been to Paris, you will most likely have encountered a croque-monsieur, the classic French grilled sandwich of ham, cheese and a creamy sauce. No one makes them at home because they’re served on virtually every street corner, at virtually every café. But with the cafés closed now and snow drifting down the other day, I decided to give it a go. And being in a non-traditional mood, I made an open-faced version on rustic country bread.
When I decided to make a croque, my first step was go down the street to a bakery called 
I like the challenge of going into the kitchen and creating a dish with whatever ingredients happen to be around. So the other day I made a zingy salad from a couple handfuls of lettuce leaves bathed in a garlicky mustard vinaigrette, topped with croutons straight out of the oven. I didn’t exactly create it because I’ve been making this salad for years. The pleasure was in finding the fridge nearly bare and still being able to produce a tasty lunch.
A couple years back I was served this intensely flavorful French dish of lamb and beans on a cold winter’s evening by an English friend who happens to be a superlative cook. Snow was drifting down outside her cottage as a maddeningly delicious aroma wafted from the kitchen — rosemary, thyme, bacon, garlic, tomato and lamb. When I asked for the recipe, she said she didn’t have one — she’d been making it so long that she did it by instinct.
This is a French take on that cold-weather classic, split pea soup. A traditional dish in Alsace, where it is known as as erbsesupp, it has a smoky flavor, imparted by bacon, while a drizzle of cream lends a soothing touch. It’s hearty enough to stand on its own as a lunch dish, perhaps accompanied by melted cheese on toast or some cold cuts. And it can be made in less than an hour.
