High summer is the time to make and enjoy this dish of roasted eggplant topped with a pungent walnut sauce. Traditionally served as a starter, it also makes a fine side dish or the star of a mezze spread. The walnuts are ground with garlic and fresh cilantro. Red wine vinegar and cayenne add tang, coriander seeds add spice, and celery adds a bit of crunch. It may not exactly be French — but it will have you saying ooh-là-là.
Aubergines farcies aux noix / Eggplant with walnut sauce
I’m posting this recipe in honor of my friend Beatrice, a wonderful cook and a lover of all things eggplant. Beatrice thought it might make an interesting addition to her culinary repertoire. As she already has a book of of 159 eggplant recipes — Essentially Eggplant, by Nina Kehayan — I couldn’t resist the challenge.
The dish is a specialty of Georgia that I first tasted in the ’80s while reporting from the USSR. The occasion was a visit by Margaret Thatcher to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. I went along and was invited to a gala dinner. The food was spectacular and so was the ambiance — mustachioed men singing Georgian chants as we downed glass after glass of vodka. By the time we finished, everyone felt like dancing.
Thus began my love affair with Georgian cuisine. When I returned from Moscow to Paris, I looked for a Georgian restaurant and came up dry. So I learned to make Georgian dishes myself, helped by two cookbooks — Anya von Bremzen’s wonderful Please to the Table, and Dishes of the Georgian Cuisin (sic), which is basically a pamphlet printed on rough paper in three languages: Georgian, Russian and English.
My version differs from the classical recipe in that the eggplant halves are coated with olive oil and roasted, not fried. This makes for a lighter dish, which is appreciable in hot weather. Using eggplant straight off the vine, you will get a maximum of flavor with relatively little effort for a super healthy dish that is both vegetarian and vegan.
The dish would marry well with the other Georgian recipes on this site — red bean salad with walnuts, chicken with walnuts, green beans with walnuts — or with herbal tomato salad, white bean dip, pomegranate relish, or roasted meat or poultry.
Since last communicating with you I’ve spent a couple of weeks in California, where I had a wonderful time — and enjoyed foods not widely available in France. Sweet corn on the cob, barbecued ribs, lobster roll, a green enchilada (with salsa verde), a proper Caesar salad, my brother’s famous dal — a very nice change of menu. And I have to admit it was also very nice not to cook a single thing while on vacation.
But I’m back in the kitchen now, and have been assembling a line-up of dynamite recipes to post for you in the months ahead. On the list: from Provence, a savory tart with goat cheese, figs and rosemary; from Normandy, chicken cooked in cider and served in a creamy sauce; from Dordogne, a salad with country ham, green beans and foie gras; and from Burgundy, a home-bottled apéritif known as ratafia. At the moment, I’m also longing to make a blackberry tart, and if I can fit that in somewhere, I will.
So… watch this space. And happy cooking.
Paupiettes de veau, a classic bistro dish, are veal scallops stuffed with a savory meat filling. They are rarely made from scratch in French homes as they can be bought already stuffed from the butcher — and merely need to be braised before serving. But as I discovered, they’re fun to make and easier than one might think. The veal is folder around ground meat flavored with onion, garlic and herbs, then barded with bacon and tied up with string.
Preparation of paupiettes de veau begins by pounding the veal scallops to ensure they are thin enough to wrap around the stuffing. Tying them up is simple — it’s like wrapping a birthday present. Once stuffed, the paupiettes are browned on all sides and then braised in white wine or, sometimes, rosé.
These light and crispy zucchini fritters are a French adaptation of a dish I discovered on a Greek island. Flavored with mint, dill, oregano and grated onion, they make a delightful start to a meal and may also be served at cocktail hour or as part of a mezze spread. Or you can serve them alongside grilled fish, meat, chicken or veggies. They marry extremely well with tzadziki. Add a bottle of chilled rosé, and you’ll feel like you’re in the Cyclades.
So, on my second try with the zucchini fritters, I went with my instinct and folded a beaten egg white into the batter. Success! I made myself some tzadziki (see the bottom of 
This Thai duck salad with French accents is a dish my friends ask for time and again when they come over. It combines Thai flavors — lemongrass, cilantro, Asian fish sauce, lime juice and red pepper — with the supremely French cut of duck known as magret, aka the breast, fat attached. The duck is cooked to a warm rosiness, then sliced and placed over or beside the herbal salad. Add a glass of chilled rosé, and lunch or dinner is ready.
This is a very unusual crumble in that the strawberries are not baked but rather piled fresh into a glass and layered with crumble baked separately, whipped cream and homemade caramel sauce. The result is a light, fresh spring/summer dessert that is as lovely to behold as it is to eat. I can tell you that the crumble in this photo was devoured in seconds by my daughter, and its twin by her boyfriend. And this all came about thanks to French TV…
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.
My love of fresh peas translates into many other recipes: 
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.
