Poulet grillé aux herbes

Posted on July 25, 2025 by Meg

Grilled chicken with rosemary and thyme is one of the delights of the summer season, particularly if you have access to a barbecue — but even if you don’t, as I experienced once again last weekend while staying at a friend’s place in Normandy. We marinated the chicken in olive oil, lemon juice, minced garlic and the herbs, fresh from her garden. We had planned a barbecue, but alas the heavens opened. So we grilled it in the oven. Ab fab…

Poulet grillé aux herbes / Grilled chicken with rosemary and thyme

This is a recipe I have made dozens of times over the years, first on the barbecue with garden herbs at my Burgundy cottage, and now in Paris with fresh herbs from my balcony. You can use dried rosemary and thyme, but the flavor is far deeper with fresh herbs.

There are many ways to vary the recipe. You could substitute red wine for the lemon juice in the marinade, you could add more herbs (fresh tarragon, for example) or you could add a pinch of ground cumin and/or coriander seeds to the marinade. If you choose to add the spices (or even if you don’t), you could make a sauce to go with the chicken: one pot plain yogurt, juice of half a lemon, one minced garlic clove, salt, pepper.

This is a go-to recipe when time is short, as it takes only five minutes to make the marinade. The rest of the time — while the chicken is steeping and then grilling — you can be doing something else. However, as simple as it is, this is perhaps the dish friends most often request when I ask what they’d like for dinner.

To go with the grilled chicken, you could serve a seasonal dish like ratatouille or Provençal tomatoes, or keep it simple with  green beans or potatoes. A green salad would also go well, perhaps with melon slices, as in the photo. Or you could try you’re hand at zucchini-potato pancakes, as we did in the country. But I’m saving that recipe for my next post…

Happy cooking.

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Tapenade verte

Posted on July 11, 2025 by Meg

The green olive spread from Provence known as tapenade verte is delightful at cocktail hour on warm summer evenings. Like its cousin, tapenade noire, it is usually served on toast, accompanied by a chilled dry rosé or white from the region, or a local apéritif. And the good news is that tapenade verte can be prepared in just five minutes. You blend the olives with ground blanched almonds, capers, thyme, black pepper and olive oil — et voilà.

Tapenade verte / Green olive spread from Provence

For me, tapenade verte is more than a culinary experience. Just the thought of it conjures up memories of Provence — the lavender fields, the chirping cicadas, the olive trees, the warm Mediterranean breezes. Lazy evenings when the light lingers as friends gather for l’heure de l’apéritif, which can start early and often goes on for far more than an hour.

I like to replicate that experience here in Paris by making tapenade in my own kitchen and inviting friends over for drinks on the veranda. (It’s not Provence, but heck — I’ve got a lavender plant out there, as well as some Mediterranean herbs.) When I have time, I go to the market in search of picholines or Lucques, fruity olives from Provence with an unbeatable flavor. But there’s more good news — tapenade verte may also be made with normal green olives out of a jar. The results are almost as spectacular.

Now let’s talk about drinks, starting with wine. If you’d like to go local, regional rosés include the omnipresent Côtes de Provence, which encompasses many châteaux. The most chic at the moment is probably Château Minuty, which costs about €15 a bottle at my local supermarket — more than double the price of a simpler Côtes de Provence. Other pricey options include Bandol, named for its sunny seaside town, and Porquerolles, produced on an island about a 20-minute ferry ride from the Mediterranean port of Hyères.

If you prefer white, choose a crisp, fruity variety. Or you may like to serve pastis, the oh-so-Provençal anise-flavored apéritif. Pastis, of which there are many varieties (Ricard, Casanis, Pernod, etc.), comes out of the bottle deep yellow but turns a cloudy pale yellow when water is added. Pour about an inch (2.5 cm) of it into a glass, add ice and top up with water. This goes brilliantly with tapenade — green, black or both.

As for ingredients, it’s best to start with whole blanched almonds and grind them yourself. You’ll get more crunch and more flavor. And fresh thyme is far better than dried. I grow a pot of it on my balcony. If you’d like to start a plant, you could try Thymus longicaulis from plant d’Avenir (‘plant of the future’), a climate-aware online garden shop that ships to destinations in France and Europe.

Once you’ve made your tapenade, it will keep for several weeks in the fridge — and it’s far superior to the store-bought variety. In fact, you may want to double the recipe!

Happy cooking.

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Confiture d’abricots

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Meg

Forget everything you’ve ever heard about jam-making taking all day. It doesn’t! A few jars of apricot jam, for example, can be made in less than an hour, setting you up with a burst of summery flavor all year long. The key words being ‘a few jars’. If you make your jam in small batches, you can fill your cupboards as the seasons unspool. So far this year, I’ve made strawberry and apricot. I’ll go on to plum and fig jam (one of my favorites).

Confiture d’abricots / Apricot jam

When I discovered the French method of jam-making during my first summer after moving to France, it was a revelation. This was back in 1975. I was spending a few weeks at a friend’s place in the Cévennes, a gorgeous region to the west of Provence. Chirping cicadas, olive trees, wild lavender, the whole shebang. The garden was overflowing with fruit of all sorts. No way could we eat it all as it ripened. The answer? Make some jam.

The French do this the simple way. All you need is the fruit, sugar, two large pots, a wooden spoon and some empty jars with screw-on lids. No need for paraffin. You sterilize the jars in boiling water as the jam is cooking. You then ladle the hot jam into the sterlized jars and screw on the lids. This forms a vacuum that will preserve your jam perfectly.

French recipes for apricot jam differ widely, notably on how much sugar to add to the fruit. Many call for equal weights of sugar and fruit — i.e. for two pounds of fruit you need two pounds of sugar. I tend to use less. For example, my apricot jam recipe calls for five parts fruit to three parts sugar — i.e. for one kilo (1000 g) of fruit you need 600 g of sugar. With American measurements, this works out to 2-1/4 pounds of fruit and 3 cups of sugar.

Using less sugar means that you need to cook the jam a little bit longer, but I find this to be an acceptable trade-off for deeper, tangier fruit flavor in every mouthful. If you perfer your jam sweeter, then you can simply add a bit more sugar and reduce the cooking time.

Another question is which type of sugar to use. Some recipes call for unrefined raw sugar — cassonnade or demerara. Some call for honey. I prefer to use white sugar, which I find allows the full flavor of the fruit to come through most clearly.

I generally do my jam-making in the morning, when it’s still cool. Five to ten minutes to pare the fruit, half an hour to let the apricots steep in the sugar, 15 minutes to cook the jam and sterilize the jars, and five minutes to fill the jars and seal them. Easy peasy. One hour and you’re out of the kitchen and ready to enjoy the day.

For one kilo of fruit, you will get 3-4 jars of jam. That may not sound like much, but if you do it several times a summer with different types of fruit, you’ll end up with enough to last the winter. I missed the red and black currant season this year, but plums and figs are yet to come, and with any luck I might find some blackberries in the autumn.

Meantime, I’ve started updating the Menus section of the site for summer. When you’re wondering what to make for lunch or dinner, you can check it out to find everyday and weekend menus — for omnivores, vegetarians and vegans.

Happy cooking.

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Bo bun

Posted on June 13, 2025 by Meg

Bo bun, which originated in Vietnam and has taken Paris by storm, is an ultrafresh, healthy, flavor-packed bowlful of lemongrass beef, rice vermicelli, veggies, fresh herbs and peanuts, bathed in a tangy sauce. It is often topped with nems (mini fried spring rolls). Making it at home is a bit of a challenge, as there are many steps. But how else to enjoy this fantastically tasty salad bowl if you don’t live within range of a place that sells it?

Bo bun / Lemongrass beef and rice noodle salad bowl

The first step in making bo bun is to check the ingredient list and then head to your local Asian grocery store. Asian ingredients involved include lemongrass, nuoc mam or another Asian fish sauce, rice vinegar, red bird’s-eye pepper or sambal oelek (an Asian hot sauce), rice vermicelli and, of course, the nems. Even if you have all the other ingredients on hand, the mini spring rolls need to be purchased from an Asian restaurant or grocery store.

Once you’ve assembled all the ingredients, making the dish proceeds by steps: marinating the beef, marinating the carrots, making the sauce, preparing the other ingredients (cucumber, lettuce, mint or Thai basil, peanuts), cooking the noodles, pre-assembling the bowls, heating the nems, cooking the beef and final assembly. Most of this may be done in advance. All that needs to be done at the end is to stir-fry the beef and heat up the nems.

Bo bun has been around in Paris for decades, having arrived with the wave of Vietnamese who came here during the war years. But not until about a dozen years ago did it proliferate to the point where it seems there’s a bo bun joint around every corner. I am lucky enough to have two in my immediate neighborhood, and at least a dozen in an Asian food district just a 15-minute walk away. I go out for bo bun nearly every week.

In Vietnam, bo bun is always served with beef, as its name implies (bò = beef, bún = rice vermicelli). Here in Paris, there are many other versions: with shrimp, pork, chicken, shrimp and beef, and vegetarian. These dishes exist in Vietnam as well, but go by other names. In Paris, they seem always to be bo bun, whatever the topping.

Bo bun is a great dish for summer because of the cold-hot aspect and because it’s so fresh. Serve it with a chilled dry rosé or ice-cold beer. It does take some effort to make it, but you can take your time — and you will be rewarded when mealtime rolls around.

Meantime, if you’re into growing your own herbs, I’d like to point you in the direction of plant d’Avenir (‘plant of the future’), a nursery near France’s Atlantic coast that sells drought-tolerant plants. Here you can find Mentha x piperita ‘Chartreuse’, a spicy mint that would work well in bo bun and many other dishes. For example, mint is key in rouleaux de printemps (fresh spring rolls), which would be a delightful prelude to bo bun.

Happy cooking.

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Tarte au fromage

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Meg

Making a French cheese tart is — dare I say it? — as easy as pie. And it can also be creative if you put your own imprint on this classic dish by combining the cheeses of your choice. Of course, if you want to keep it French, then Comté is the cheese most often used over here — either on its own or mixed with another French cheese. For example, chèvre (goat cheese), Epoisses (a Burgundy cheese) or Roquefort, as shown in the photo.

Tarte au fromage / Savory cheese tart

Preparation is quick, particularly if you use store-bought pâte feuillétée (puff pastry) — although you’ll get more oohs and aahs if you make the pastry yourself, preferably a pâte brisée (all-butter savory crust). Once the pastry is in the tart pan, you merely need to grate or crumble the cheese(s), mix together some eggs, milk and cream, add a dash of salt, pepper and nutmeg, assemble the tart and pop it into the oven.

You may be wondering why I’m calling this a tart and not a quiche. Good question. The answer is that a French quiche tends to be deeper and fluffier, while a savory tarte is thinner and denser. And let’s not forget about the tourte — a French pie with a top crust.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that this is my first post in quite a while. I’ve been absent due to circumstances beyond my control — three broken vertebrae. This has limited my activities in the kitchen. I had originally been planning a more complex dish for this post, namely bo bun, a Vietnamese beef-noodle salad that is wildly popular in Paris. That will come next time. This time, I chose to make something simpler.

I guess it was a success because barely had the cheese tart come out of the oven when my daughter and her friends went on the attack. I quickly took a photo before they demolished it entirely, and also placed a slice on a plate to be photographed later, when I had time. I stashed the slice at the back of the fridge, hidden under foil, but when I went to retrieve it, it had already disappeared. Had to laugh about that…

This cheese tart is versatile. You can serve it as the main course of a light meal, perhaps accompanied by a salad; as the starter of a more substantial meal; or cut into thin slices or squares as a palate-teaser at cocktail hour. It is best served warm, and will be enhanced by wine, for example a hearty red or a fruity white from the region of one of the cheeses.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 4a. Savory Tarts and Tartines | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Oeufs Bénédict

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Meg

Is there a truly French version of eggs Benedict, or is this dish — which has taken Paris by storm — just a copy of the American original? The basic recipe of poached eggs, Canadian bacon, English muffin and hollandaise sauce has been ‘Frenchified’ over the years. The most surprising variation, oeufs bénédictine, was created by the great chef Auguste Escoffier in 1903 and consists of truffled purée of cod topped by poached eggs and cream sauce!

Oeufs Bénédict / Eggs Benedict

Elle magazine, which boasts many superlative recipes, has three for oeufs Bénédict. The first is identical to the original except that bacon strips — ‘poitrine fumé’ in French, ‘streaky bacon’ in Britain — are used instead of Canadian bacon — ‘bacon’ (pronounced bah-KON) in French, ‘back bacon’ in Britain. The second is a veggie version that substitutes shiitake mushrooms and snow peas for the meat and adds some chives for le look. The third also leaves out the meat and instead inserts a potato pancake between the toasted muffin and the poached egg, adding a sprinkle of fresh thyme and chervil on top.

If you go out for brunch in Paris, you can find hollandaise-topped poached-eggs-on-a-muffin with smoked salmon and red caviar (Petrossian), Canadian bacon and spinach (Ralph Lauren), cured Basque ham and salad greens (Le Fumoir) or truffle shavings (Shangri-La). At Ladurée they dispense with the muffin and instead serve the eggs with smoked salmon and spinach on a toasted slice of brioche. Now how French is that?

One could also make the argument that, hollandaise sauce having been invented by the French, eggs Benedict is fundamentally a French-inspired dish. Nonetheless, the dish was reputedly born in New York City, although exactly when and where is unclear. The best known version has it that a certain Lemuel Benedict went to the Waldorf Hotel one morning in 1892 and asked for his eggs to be served this way — the problem being that the Waldorf didn’t actually open until 1893. Another version has a Mrs. LeGrand Benedict asking the chef at Delmonico’s restaurant to whip up something new for her lunch back in the 1860s. A third story involves a certain Commodore Benedict, a New York banker and yachtsman, but it’s not clear whether he thought up the dish or merely enjoyed it.

The recipe I’m posting today — just in time for Easter — is very close to the New York original. The first step is to make the hollandaise (with my mother’s foolproof recipe). The second is to toast the muffins and lightly fry the Canadian bacon. The eggs are then poached for 3-4 minutes in water with a dash of vinegar (which helps the white hold together). Et voilà. You can assemble your masterpiece.

Happy cooking.

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Bar rôti, tian pommes de terre-fenouil

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Meg

Sea bass and finocchio marry well. In this combo from Provence, fillets of roasted sea bass are served with a tian of potatoes, finocchio, garlic and fresh thyme. But what, you may ask, is a tian? Well, it’s two things. First, it’s the name of an earthenware cooking dish typical of Provence. Second, it’s the food cooked in the dish, generally sliced veggies drizzled with olive oil. Happily you do not need a tian (dish) to make a tian (baked veggies).

Bar rôti / Roasted sea bass
Tian pommes de terre-fenouil / Potato-finocchio tian from Provence

I was inspired to make this dish on a recent sunny Sunday while walking to my neighborhood farmers market. I had originally planned on posting a recipe for gefilte fish (carpe farcie in French) ahead of the Passover holiday, which begins on the evening of April 12, with a recipe for eggs to follow before Easter (you’ll soon see). But the sunshine evoked summer days to come, and summer in France often evokes Provence. Exit gefilte fish (maybe next year). Hello, fennel and sea bass.

As always with fish, you’ll want to begin with the freshest sea bass available (or, if sea bass is not on offer, you can substitute another white-fleshed fish). I opted for wild sea bass — which, at nearly 25 euros a kilo ($12 a pound), isn’t cheap — instead of the less expensive farmed variety. Ask your fishmonger to fillet the fish, keeping the skin on. To roast it, simply coat with olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes, until the skin begins to brown.

If serving the sea bass with the tian, you’ll want to get that going first. The potatoes and finocchio are finely sliced and layered into a baking dish with minced garlic, salt, freshly ground black pepper and thyme. I highly recommend using fresh thyme if at all possible (I grow some on my balcony for use in all seasons). If you don’t have fresh thyme, use a tiny pinch of dried thyme or a scattering of herbes de Provence.

The tian may of course be served alongside other fish or meat, or as part of a vegetarian/vegan meal, perhaps with Provence-style roasted tomatoes, ratatouille or roasted eggplant, Mediterranean style. For a full-fledged Provence experience, break open a bottle of chilled rosé to serve with the fish and/or veggies. You’ll feel the sun shine through.

Happy cooking.

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Moudardara

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Meg

This deeply flavorful, earthy dish of rice, lentils, caramelized onions and spices can be found at Lebanese market stalls and restaurants in Paris and is easy to make at home. The ingredients are cooked separately, spices are added and everything is combined at the end, with more fried onions on top. I’ve served it twice recently — with shawarma chicken and with roast quail — and am happy to report that my guests thoroughly enjoyed it.

Moudardara / Rice with lentils and fried onion

Although the version I’ve seen in Paris is Lebanese, moudardara is popular across the eastern Mediterranean. It comes in many variations — different types of lentils, differents types of grain (sometimes bulgur is used instead of rice) — and has a cousin, moujadara, that consists primarily of lentils. It is often served topped with yogurt. An Egyptian version called kushari includes vermicelli and is topped with tomato sauce.

One of the mysteries of making Lebanese-style moudardara is the essential addition of the ‘Lebanese seven spice mix’. But which seven spices? Opinions vary wildly. For the recipe posted here, I chose cumin, crushed coriander seeds, turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, allspice and black pepper. Other recipes may include nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, ginger, cayenne or fenugreek. The only constant seems to be cumin, Mix and match as you prefer.

Another question concerns the best type of lentils to use. I asked the friendly fellow at a Lebanese market stall about this, and before telling me to get lost — ‘I’m too busy to be giving out recipes’ — he said that the proper Lebanese lentils were not available in Paris. So I opted for blond lentils, which seemed like the closest match, although some recipes call for green lentils. Again, up to you. As for the rice, I would recommend basmati.

Moudardara has the advantage of appealing to omnivores, vegetarians and vegans alike. It goes well with a wide range of dishes, from grilled meat to veggies like eggplant, spinach or Middle Eastern salads like fattoush (cucumber, tomato and fried bread). You could pair it, for example, with lamb kebabs or roast chicken, or make it part of a veggie spread with hummus, roasted eggplant salad, chickpea salad, tomato salad and/or eggplant gratin.

Bottom line: While moudardara is known as a poor man’s dish, I can guarantee that you’ll be richly rewarded if you give it a try.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 9. Pasta, Rice, Grains | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Velouté de champignons

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Meg

Let’s see off the winter with a bowl of creamy mushroom soup, a classic French recipe lightened in this version by using a mixture of cream and milk instead of pure cream. A dash of lemon juice adds tang, and herbs also brighten the flavor. The soup is hearty enough to make a fine main dish at lunchtime, perhaps followed by a salad, and can be served as a first course at dinner or in small glasses as a palate teaser at cocktail hour.

Velouté de champignons / Creamy mushroom soup

This soup is known as a velouté because of its creamy texture. The word, which derives from velours (‘velvet’), has been part of the French culinary repertoire since the 1700s, when it was used to refer to creamy desserts or sauces. The great French chef Escoffier was reputedly the first to create a soup called a velouté, and it was considerably richer than modern versions, being thickened with both cream and egg yolk.

These days chefs sometimes dispense with the cream altogether when making a velouté (as in the recipes for broccoli soup and butternut soup already on this site). Other recipes call for cream in one form or another — heavy cream, crème fraîche, sour cream or, for vegans, coconut cream (e.g. with velouté of watercress or creamy zucchini soup).

Mushroom soup may also be made without cream. For example, there are delicious East European versions that use mushrooms with potatoes, onion, dill and sometimes carrots. But I’ve never encountered a French version that didn’t call for cream.

So, yes, velouté de champignons is comfort food. Never mind the calories, we still need comfort food here in Paris, having just gone through the grayest year in 30 years (see view out my bedroom window of a typical January morning). Météo-France, the French weather service, reports that Paris enjoyed only 1,509 hours of sunshine in 2024. I did the math. This means that the sun broke through during daylight hours only about a third of the time.

And the gray goes on, with cloudy skies as I write. Here’s hoping that, in this grayest of seasons, we will finally start to get some serious sunshine before my next post, when we can lighten up the menu for spring. In the meantime…

Happy cooking.

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Crumble aux pommes

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Meg

Le crumble is hardly a French invention, yet it has become wildly popular in this country, with apple crumble topping the list of favorites. So in honor of Valentine’s Day I’m offering you this delightful dessert — sweets to the sweet, dear readers. The recipe is simple: peel the apples, chop them, pile into a baking pan, add a butter-flour-and-sugar topping, and bake. When the crumble comes out of the oven, you’ll find that love is all around…

Crumble aux pommes / Apple crumble

The apple crumble pictured here came about when a friend came to dinner recently. I had asked him ahead of time what he’d like me to cook for him, and surprisingly he provided the menu (most people when asked say, unhelpfully, ‘Anything’.) Given the wintry weather, Joel said, we should have some seasonal specialties: French onion soup, boeuf bourguignon and apple crumble. Of course he didn’t realize how labor-intensive the first two items can be. I proposed substituting duck breast for the beef. His reply? ‘I love duck!’

I got started a day ahead of time, making the beef broth for the onion soup, which takes about four hours. The next morning I made the soup (except for the topping) and then the crumble, which was quick and easy. (The only problem was keeping my daughter away from it until dinnertime.) When Joel arrived we made a cozy fire in the fireplace. We heated the soup, filled our bowls, topped them with toast and grated cheese, and popped them into the oven. That went down a treat. We took a break while I made the duck (with honey and thyme instead of cassis), and another break to reheat the crumble, which I served with crème fraîche. Joel was so happy with the dinner that he posted about it!

But getting back to the French love affair with le crumble, it’s fairly recent — as I do not remember seeing crumbles on bistro menus when I first moved to Paris in the ’70s. At some point since then it hopped the Channel from Britain, where the crumble is viewed as a national institution. After adopting the idea, the French got creative, and now crumbles of every variety are on offer at eateries from simple bistros to three-star restaurants.

Crumbles are popular with home chefs here too. The magazine Elle, which features excellent recipes every week, has a long list of crumbles in its archives, starting with apple — apple-hazelnut crumble, apple-grape crumble, apple-pear crumble with Calvados — and going on to other fruits (plum, raspberry, cranberries, pineapple), savory crumbles (zucchini-chicken, finocchio, sweet potato, cauliflower-goat cheese), and even a chocolate crumble. One recipe builds a tower of tomato and mozzarella slices topped with a crumble that incorporates powdered almonds, black olives and anchovies. Now, that’s creative!

As I happen to be a big fan of crumbles, not least because they are so easy to make, I’ve posted various other crumble recipes on this site — with blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb and a summer crumble with plums, peaches and black currants. Haven’t got around to a veggie crumble yet, but I just might add that to my list dishes yet to come.

Happy cooking.

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