The French love affair with asparagus and eggs blooms every spring, when the spears — green, white or violet — are served bathed in luscious hollandaise sauce. This year I decided to try giving asparagus a starring role in an omelet, and this, too, proved to be a happy marriage of flavors, enhanced by tangy parmesan. As preparation takes less than 10 minutes, it’s an easy lunch dish that is both elegant and satisfying.
Omelette aux asperges et parmesan / Asparagus-parmesan omelet
Green asparagus is best for this omelet for reasons both esthetic (the color is beautiful against the eggs) and practical (you don’t have to peel the spears). I would not have been able to produce such an omelet when I arrived in France more than 40 years ago. At the time, only white asparagus was available. I learned to love it, but preparing it is a chore.
White asparagus is white because it is grown underground, like Belgian endive. The spears tend to be quite thick with a tough peel that must be removed. The flavor is reputed here to be more delicate than that of green asparagus, although I don’t find that to be the case.
Violet asparagus is seen here more rarely. It, too, is grown underground, but the heads of the spears are allowed into the light, which gives them their purple color. Why they don’t turn green instead, I don’t know.
Happily for lovers of green asparagus, it is now widely available in France and in fact begins appearing as early as March, imported from Spain. If you are lucky enough to live in a region where wild asparagus is available, by all means use it. (As it tends to be quite thin, you will need more spears per omelet.)
An asparagus-parmesan omelet can be the centerpiece of lunch or a light supper, accompanied by a green salad and followed by cheese and/or fruit. It can also be served as a starter at dinnertime. As for wine, I’d suggest a fruity red to accompany this omelet, for example a Beaujolais or a Chinon.
Happy cooking.
This quintessential French dish evokes happy days at the seaside, where plates of small crispy fish are served up along with a chilled bottle of white or rosé. For me, petite friture inevitably makes me think of summer, which is perhaps why — after this long, dark, cold Parisian winter — I decided to try making it at home when I came across an inviting mound of tiny, silvery fish at a market the other day. Preparation proved surprisingly simple.
There’s an easy way and a hard way to make the delectable French strawberry dessert known as charlotte aux fraises, as I learned when setting out to make one for this post. A charlotte is an unbaked cake of ladyfingers with a creamy filling. Many modern recipes for strawberry charlotte use a thick dessert cream known as a bavaroise for the filling, and this involves the use of gelatin. As it turns out, that’s the hard way…
Because the easy way is so easy, the dessert is fun to make. If kids will be sharing it, you can skip the cassis and use strawberry syrup for flavoring the ladyfingers. Once assembled, the charlotte needs to be refrigerated for at least four hours, after which you can decorate it with sliced strawberries and mint. And no, the second time, it didn’t collapse…
Roast shoulder of lamb makes a fine centerpiece at Easter, Passover or any time of the year. In this recipe, the meat is surrounded by whole cloves of garlic, which soften while roasting into a sweet, succulent paste. The garlic cloves are roasted in their jackets, and the lamb may be boned for easy carving. Not counting the roasting time, preparation takes about 5 minutes. Add some roasted cherry tomatoes, and you’ll have a feast.
The lamb is imbued with the garlic flavor while it is roasting, and some sprigs of fresh thyme lend a taste of the wildness of Provence. Thyme may also be used on roasted cherry tomatoes, which you can pop in the oven at the same time as the lamb. They come out sweet and very tender.
Here’s a fresh take on avocat vinaigrette, a popular starter on bistro menus when I arrived in Paris 40 years ago. In the original, avocado halves were filled with a thick, mustardy sauce. This version is both lighter and prettier, the pink-orange of smoked salmon contrasting with the pale green of the avocado and darker green flecks of dill. Although it has the look of spring, it can be made in any season — and it’s incredibly quick to prepare.
Leek gratin is traditionally made with Reblochon, a pungent cheese from the French Alps, but it has been snowing in Paris. The snow brought the city to a standstill, and by the time it stopped the stores were empty. No Reblochon to be found! I wanted to make this recipe, so I improvised with raclette, a similar cheese. Tantalizing waves of aroma spread through the house as the leeks baked. This is winter comfort food at its best.
This is what I found. At the front of the store, the salad shelves were empty, a sign announcing that due to the weather, delivery trucks had been unable to get through. This was two days after the snow stopped. The dairy shelves, usually packed with a thousand types of yogurt, were empty too. In the cheese department, after hunting in vain for Reblochon, I found a lone packet of raclette and snatched it up. I already had the leeks.
The lobster known as le homard — the one with alarming claws — is hugely expensive in Paris, and so is its kinder, gentler cousin, la langouste (no pinchers). But this winter frozen langouste tails began appearing at a reasonable price, so I brought some home and began to experiment. I served them French style, butterflied and grilled with a vermouth-flavored 
Butternut soup is suddenly the rage in Paris. Walk down any street and you will see it listed on menu-of-the-day chalkboards outside bistros. This is all the more surprising given that butternut squash was virtually unknown in France until a few years ago, when it began appearing in farmers’ markets. Having captured the national imagination, it also captured mine, and today I’m offering two versions of this pleasant winter soup.
Perhaps in their (probably hopeless) effort to protect the language, the French have rebaptized what is originally a New World vegetable as courge doubeurre, which translates loosely as ‘sweet butter squash’. But I have never seen it marketed under that name, and you would most likely get a quizzical look if you asked at a grocery store for doubeurre. In fact, you might instead be given a packet of butter (du beurre). Better to use the French pronunciation of butternut — boo-tair-NOOT.
Here’s a cold-weather dish that is both sophisticated and supremely French. Duck parmentier — shredded duck confit topped by puréed potatoes — has turned up on Paris bistro menus recently and I was lucky enough to be served this version in early December. It came surrounded by a parmesan cream sauce and, to quote a friend, it was absolutely divine. After finishing every bite, I asked the bistro owner for the recipe.
I had a surprise recently when a friend from Alsace presented me with a recipe for butterbredel, small butter cookies in festive shapes that are traditionally served over the holidays. They’re not just pretty but incredibly easy to make. And fun! You can get the whole family involved. There are many variations on the recipe, but this one is the real thing. It’s from a bakery in Saverne, a small town near Strasbourg in northeastern France.
