Artichauts à la barigoule

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Meg

barigoule2Artichokes simmered lovingly with garlic and parsley — this dish is served throughout southeast France and Italy, and probably has been since Roman times. There are many variations, often with pancetta, breadcrumbs, tomatoes, onions, carrots or white wine. I prefer the simplest Provençal variety — no bacon, no wine, just trimmed artichokes, olive oil, garlic and parsley. It’s good, earthy peasant fare and, for me, a rite of spring.

Artichauts à la barigoule / Artichokes with garlic and parsley, Provence style

But what, you may well ask, is meant by barigoule? I had the same question. As it turns out, it’s a Provençal word for a kind of mushroom found on the roots of a thistle-like plant, field eryngo, that grows wild in the region. This mushroom — aka the king oyster mushroom, among other names — was chopped and used in a stuffing for artichokes. That practice has fallen by the wayside, but the word continues to be used to describe a method of preparation in which the artichokes are trimmed, their chokes removed and the centers stuffed with whatever.

The first of two culinary sources — Andrée Maureau, author of Recettes en Provence — remarks that the barigoule, or bérigoule, mushroom lent its name to a flat straw hat worn in the Arles region more than 200 years ago, before the French Revolution of 1789. She gives two ways of preparing artichauts à la barigoule — one, with just parsley and garlic, from the Lourmarin area north of Aix-en-Provence, and the other, with onions, garlic and tomatoes but no parsley, from the Alpilles mountain region further west.

My second source is Corinne Patin, whose web site, Le Festin de Corinne (Corinne’s Feast), is worth a look by anyone interested in Provençal cuisine. She says that peasants in the region originally cooked their artichokes in the same way as they cooked the mushrooms — grilled with salt, pepper and olive oil. Only later did they begin braising artichokes stuffed with chopped barigoule mushrooms, various herbs and salt pork.

I had similar dish a little more than a year ago in Sicily, where my friend Gisella, a superlative cook, prepared carciofi trifolati as part of her Christmas Eve feast. The artichokes were not stuffed but rather trimmed, sliced and simmered with garlic and parsley for what seemed an eternity. The result was a sultry, smoky dish to die for.

Artichoke season is just beginning. Happy cooking!

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Saumon à l’oseille

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Meg

salmon sorrel4At some point in the wee hours of this morning, Paris time, views of this culinary blog soared past 100,000. That’s not huge by web standards. Last year I met a fellow at a cookbook conference who told me his videos on pastry making got 250,000 hits a day. But for me this is a milestone that deserves celebrating — and so I give you one of my favorite recipes, a fish dish that is supremely French, quick and easy to prepare, and certain to win applause when brought to the table. A perfect dish for an everyday French chef.

Saumon à l’oseille / Thick-cut salmon with sorrel sauce

A quick word about the recipe before turning to the blogging past and future of this site. If you can’t find sorrel, not to panic. Baby spinach leaves are a perfectly acceptable substitute — you will just need to add some lemon juice to the sauce to replace the tanginess of fresh sorrel. The salmon may be fresh (preferable) or frozen. The sauce is the crowning glory.

Now, getting back to the 100,000. First and foremost, I’d like to thank every reader of this site for your interest and support. When I started The Everyday French Chef a year and a half ago, it was more or less on a dare — from my then 12-year-old daughter. After a period of giving cooking lessons in my Paris kitchen, I wanted to publish a cookbook. I contacted a top cookbook agent, who told me that I would first need to have ‘tens or hundreds of thousands of followers.’ Tears ensued. This is where my daughter stepped in. ‘Mom, don’t cry,’ she said. ‘Just start a web site.’

mayonnaiseI took her up on it, and it’s been an adventure. Plenty of things have gone wrong. Like the day last winter when a friend came over to shoot a video of me making mayonnaise and the sauce kept curdling. We couldn’t figure out why — until my hands started shaking so hard that I dropped the bottle of oil, which spilled all over the floor. Only then did we realized how cold it was in my kitchen. The only heat source was from the adjacent bathroom, and we’d closed the door to get the light right for the video! Well, mes amis, without warmth mayonnaise won’t ‘take’.

But what’s amazing is how many things have gone right. I’ve had visitors from the States get in touch via this site to attend cooking lessons — and made some fascinating acquaintances as a result. Lots of other bloggers have been in contact, usually to propose some sort of recipe sharing. Last fall I had the thrill of meeting — and cooking for! — Georges Blanc, one of the most famous of France’s three-star chefs. And, best of all, more and more people from across the globe are signing up to follow this site.

After 18 months of forgetting about the cookbook idea, I’ve now started thinking about it again. It wouldn’t be the all-encompassing Julia-Child-modernized type of book I originally envisaged. That’s what this site is for — the full range of French cooking — and I’m having so much fun with it I’m not about to stop. Instead I’m thinking about doing a smaller book with a theme, for example French veggies, French soups, French desserts. Or — or — or — maybe a book of seasonal menus with recipes attached. The menu section has proved to be one of the most popular on this site. If you haven’t yet been there, check it out. There are everyday and weekend menus for vegetarians and vegans as well as for omnivores like myself — and by the way I’ve just posted the latest menu update.

So here’s a request for input from you, my wonderful worldwide network of French cooking enthusiasts. What kind of book would you like to see? Or do you think the site stands alone and no cookbook is needed? It’s true that one can find recipes of any kind on the web. But personally I still enjoy browsing through books of recipes and taking them with me into the kitchen, learning the lore of another chef and being creative in new ways.

Mes chers amis, I will look forward to your suggestions. Tonight I will raise a glass to you all — and to the joys of French cuisine. Thank you! And happy cooking.

Posted in 5. Fish and Shellfish | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Soupe aux betteraves à l’ukrainienne

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Meg

borshch1This is one of my favorite soups, a recipe I picked up after returning to Paris from a long posting in the USSR. But is it French? In a word, nyet. On the other hand, it’s ‘French style’ for a couple of reasons explained in the recipe. The original borshch hails from Ukraine, a place many of us have been thinking about these days as what appears to be a revolution unfolds before our eyes. I won’t make any predictions about what may ensue (hint: watch for developments as soon as Sochi closes down), but I will dedicate today’s post to the Ukrainians standing their ground against surrogate Kremlin rule.

Soupe aux betteraves à l’ukrainienne / Ukrainian borshch, French style

Now let’s talk about borshch. If the word evokes a thin red liquid with bits of beet floating in it, then you’ve had the same sort of borshch that was served to me in my childhood in the States. But no, my friends, real Ukrainian borshch is totally different. It is loaded with vegetables — cabbage, carrots, onion, potatoes, sweet pepper, parsley, and of course the beets. It’s one of the healthiest starters around, and you can also make a meal of it, served perhaps with a salad and cheese. With wine or a couple shots of vodka on the side.

My personal history with borshch goes back several generations, to the great-grandparents on my father’s side who emigrated to America in the late 1800s. My great-grandma Sarah always said they came from Odessa, but in fact, I later learned, what she meant was that the boat left from Odessa. They lived further inland, presumably within the pale of settlement to which Jews were confined in those days. This was big borshch country, and although I was never served the real thing as a child I must have inherited some sort of atavistic food gene, for I recognized this soup as deeply familiar upon tasting it in the Soviet Union. The flavor is earthy, the colors magnificent. And it’s a soup for all seasons. Here’s to the future of Ukraine. And happy cooking.

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Omelette au saumon fumé et aux épinards

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Meg

spinach salmon omelet3One of the keys to making a great omelet is having a great omelet pan. It doesn’t matter too much what it’s made of. I’ve used all kinds — cast iron, stainless steel, nonstick steel or aluminum. What you need is a pan that will cook the omelet evenly and allow the eggs to move around and slide out without sticking. And then, of course, you need great ingredients — like this combination of smoked salmon, spinach, cream and dill.

Omelette au saumon fumé et aux épinards / Smoked salmon omelet with spinach

Getting back to the omelet pan, Julia Child recommends a plain iron pan of the French variety. We used that sort of pan when I worked as a chef in Ithaca, New York, at the Café Dewitt, where omelets were a specialty. I was surprised when I started there to learn that the omelet pan was never washed. Every day before the restaurant closed, the omelet pan would be salted and wiped clean with a paper towel. This ensured that we always had a seasoned pan ready to go the next day.

I’ve tried this at home, but my kitchen is small and there’s just not enough cupboard space to reserve one pan only for omelets. The solution? A high-quality nonstick pan. These didn’t exist when Julia Child wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or she might have recommended one, too. They’re practical as they can be used for cooking many things, and washed. And they’re still ready to go when you want to make an omelet.

On other fronts, I attended an amusing event last week at the American Library in Paris — a discussion between Patricia Wells and Ann Mah on their approaches to food and cooking. Patricia Wells, one of my French cooking gurus, has just published a new book, The French Kitchen Cookbook. Ann Mah, whose book Mastering the Art of French Eating came out a couple of months ago, posted a funny account of the evening on her blog. Their verbal jousting elicited the surprising disclosure by Patricia Wells that she thinks it’s fine for French restaurants to serve frozen food. Well, not top-class restaurants, but ordinary cafés. This is a hot topic in Paris at the moment due to growing public anger over the practice by certain restaurants of serving reheated food that was prepared somewhere else. I’ve had the experience myself and, believe me, I was not impressed. Nonetheless, it’s a trend that has taken root deeply enough for the government to get involved.

Now, under a brand new law enacted yesterday, restaurants in France may label a dish homemade — fait maison — only when it is prepared using fresh ingredients. We should all applaud this measure, which by the way is less extreme than a previously proposed law, never enacted, that would have banned eating establishments from calling themselves ‘restaurants’ if they used any sort of pre-packaged food in their establishment.

After all, French cuisine is all about cooking with respect for the food being prepared — using the freshest ingredients, locally produced if at all possible, and taking the time necessary to create a superlative dish. It’s about cooking with love. And on that note, Happy Valentine’s Day. And happy cooking!

Posted in 4. Omelets, Soufflés, Quiche | Leave a comment

Poires au vin et cassis

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Meg

pears in wine2Just in time for Valentine’s Day, my favorite winter dessert — pears gently poached in red wine with crème de cassis, rosemary, vanilla, black peppercorns, or other spices. It’s light, it’s bright, it’s meltingly tender. Like (we hope) like the heart of our loved one. You can serve poires au vin on their own, with a macaron or cookie alongside, or with vanilla ice cream. Fabulous!

Poires au vin et cassis / Pears in red wine and cassis

Now here’s a little lore. This dish is also known as poires à la beaujolaise, presumably because Beaujolais was the wine traditionally used for making it. These days, you don’t need to spring for a Beaujolais — any drinkable dry-to-fruity red wine will do. The cassis (black currant liqueur) is essential, but opinions differ on spices. Patricia Wells, for instance, recommends cinnamon and lemon juice, while Paul Bocuse likes cinnamon, cloves, orange juice and grated orange peel. There are probably as many ways of making poires au vin as there are cooks in France. I omit the cinnamon and cloves in order to enjoy the full intensity of the pears. The dish is very easy, so you can experiment.

Front.coverUpdate for Parisians: I will be reading from my memoir, Desperate to Be a Housewife, this Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 3 p.m. The Parler Paris Après-Midi event is hosted by Adrian Leeds, who has asked me to chat about the book — but also about how I started this cooking blog! Here’s the address: 96 Rue des Archives, on the corner of Rue de Bretagne, in the 3rd. Please come along if you can. It should be fun. And in the meantime, happy cooking!

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Gratin de tortiglioni aux lardons

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Meg

tortiglioni2Picture this: A cold winter’s night, a cheery fire, a bottle of red, and a dish that comes to the table hot and bubbling and irresistibly aromatic. What is it? A gratin, of course — pasta and bacon bathed in a creamy sauce with garlic and thyme, topped with grated cheese and baked until golden. It’s cold-weather comfort food at its finest, the No. 1 favorite of the younger set in our house, but (blush) a crowd pleaser with the older set, too.

Gratin de tortiglioni aux lardons / Pasta gratin with bacon and thyme

What I particularly appreciate about this recipe is that it’s the kind of dish you can make in half an hour without a major shopping expedition. Good for evenings when guests unexpectedly arrive — serve it as a main dish with a green salad on the side. (This is a fine meal for vegetarians, too. Simply omit the bacon.) On the other hand, if you plan ahead, gratin de tortiglioni makes a wonderful side dish for roasts and even stews. For a hearty meal, try serving it, for example, with boeuf bourguigon.

Here’s a winter’s evening menu suggestion with this gratin in pride of place: assiette de crudités, gratin de tortiglioni, salade verte, poires au vin. (The latter, pears in red wine, is not on the site yet. You will find it here next week.) Happy cooking!

Posted in 9. Pasta, Rice, Grains | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Soupe aux poireaux caramelisés

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Meg

leek soup1Soup, glorious winter soup. The glory being that it’s so simple to make — two leeks, one potato, a little broth and that’s it. A peasant approach to a winter’s supper. And yet, and yet. What lifts this soup out of the ordinary is the manner of cooking the leeks. They are sautéed until they turn a deep golden brown, intensifying their natural sweetness into a rich caramelized flavor. When blended, the browned leaves of the leeks add dark flecks of texture to the velvet of the soup. Simple, but complex. Sophisticatedly satisfying.

Soupe aux poireaux caramelisés / Winter soup with caramelized leeks

Being a winter vegetable, the leek comes into its own in January, when the sweet peas of spring and red ripe tomatoes of summer are but a distant memory. I usually pick up some leeks at the market on Sundays, and decide how to use them as the week rolls along. This week I had been planning to use my leeks in a quiche to put on this site — but when I opened the vegetable bin the other day they seemed to be calling to me: ‘Soup, soup!’

As it turned out, the leeks were right. One of the main things I’ve learned about cooking is that you need to follow your instincts. I had never made this soup before. Just created it on the spot. When my daughter got home from school, she let out a little whoop of joy when she saw the soup. The recipe says it serves 3-4 but that may be a wild exaggeration. The two of us finished it off in one sitting, with seconds all around. Happy cooking!

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Blanquette de veau

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Meg

blanquette1This most classic of French veal dishes got its name from it’s light-colored creamy sauce. The sauce is more or less white (blanc), and the dish could translate as ‘little white veal stew.’ Ah oui, mes amis, but let’s not stop there. The veal in a blanquette is stewed until tender and then blanketed in its lovely sauce. Surprise, surprise — our English word ‘blanket’ derives from the Old French word blankete, itself a diminutive of blanc.

Blanquette de veau / Veal in cream sauce

And it doesn’t end there. When we say, ‘blanket with sauce,’ the French say napper, deriving from nappe, or tablecloth, a word with links to our ‘napkin’ (little cloth).  All these diminutives demonstrate the tenderness with which blanquette de veau is regarded by the French. An ultimate comfort food on a cool winter’s evening.

But what about wine? Not just what to drink with the veal, but whether or not to stew it in wine? In classic recipes, the veal is stewed in water or stock without being browned first. This is to ensure it retains its light color. But the culinary arts have evolved, and many recipes — including this one, inspired by Paul Bocuse — call for browning the meat before adding the liquid: water, stock, white wine or a combination. I got into a conversation about this the other day with a senior expert at the French strategic planning commission who also loves to cook. I asked him about his strategy with blanquette. Did he stew the meat in wine? ‘Yes, always,’ he said, ‘because that’s how my grandmother did it.’ A fine strategy, if you ask me.

Now, the potentially trickier question of which wine to serve with the veal. The subject came up last night at a friend’s Parisian table. Among the guests were three with deep French roots, and they all had different opinions. ‘Julienas,’ said Françoise. ‘A simple red, nothing too complicated,’ said Philippe. ‘A Rhone wine,’ said Danielle. ‘What about a nice Bordeaux,’ said I. At that point Philippe, a scholar of the classics, gave a Gallic shrug and said it didn’t really matter. ‘We are omnibibes!’ he said. Latin for ‘We’ll drink anything!’

Front.coverP.S. On a totally different subject, for those of you in Paris, I will be reading from my memoir, Desperate to Be a Housewife, on Tuesday at the American University of Paris. It starts at 7 p.m. in the Grand Salon, 31 avenue Bosquet. I’d love it if you stopped by!

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Salade de chèvre chaud au miel

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Meg

goat cheese salad2There’s something wild about the flavors in this salad — goat cheese warmed to melting, a sprinkling of herbs from Provence, honey, olive oil, mixed greens and mint. For me it conjures up the warm days of summer, even in the bleak midwinter. Which is why I like to make it at this time of year, when the lengthening evening light is already — barely perceptibly — heralding spring.

Salade de chèvre chaud au miel / Mixed greens with goat cheese and honey

So this is my new year’s offering to you — a crowd-pleaser that’s very quick to make. And speaking of crowd-pleasers, I’d like to ask for your advice on the dishes you’d like to see in coming weeks. After posting recipes here for nearly a year and a half, I’ve barely scratched the surface of French cuisine. So many treats are still in store: soupe aux champignons, quiche aux poireaux, brandade de morue, pintade au chou, blanquette de veau, risotto aux morilles, poires au vin… Your thoughts, please!

Front.coverOn other fronts, Ann Mah spoke with me recently about the connection between food and place and history in an interview with Paris Writers News. Ann, author of Mastering the Art of French Eating, also posted one of my recipes on her site this week. It’s something I used to make with my French boyfriend in the 1970s — brown rice with veggies and bacon — as described in my memoir, Desperate to Be a Housewife. For those of you in Paris, I will be reading from Desperate at the American University of Paris on Jan. 21. Click here for details. And happy cooking!

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Coulibiac

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Meg

coulibiac1Coulibiac — it’s a French dish, right? The first time I made this succulent layered fish pie was back in the 1970s, with a Julia Child recipe. But wait. It’s also Russian, isn’t it? They call it kulebiaka and fill their pie sometimes with fish, sometimes with meat or cabbage. So what’s going on? French or Russian? I did a little research, and may have found an answer to this puzzle…

Coulibiac / Coulibiac

This dish was most likely invented in the 18th century, when the kings of French cuisine were serving the tsars of Russia. Antonin Carême, who was brought to St. Petersburg by Alexander I, is sometimes credited with its creation, combining French techniques with Russian ingredients to produce a dish far more marvelous than the sum of its parts.

Coulibiac consists of different types of fish layered between dilled rice, mushrooms and other fillings, all encased in a flaky pastry shell. The Russian version often includes chopped boiled eggs, but I omitted them from this recipe, substituting spinach instead. It’s a wonderful party dish, guaranteed to produce oohs and aahs when you carry it, steaming, from the kitchen — and even more swoons of delight when the guests try their first forkful.

Forward planning is essential, as preparation of this dish is a bit of a production. But it’s also fun as you build your masterpiece. And hardly a chore, now that high-quality store-bought pâte feuilletée or puff pastry is available and you don’t have to make your own dough. What to serve with coulibiac? A light starter, and then it’s a full meal in itself, accompanied by a fine white wine (French style) or iced vodka (Russian style).

The Everyday French Chef will be on vacation next week, back with more great recipes on Jan. 10. In the meantime, happy cooking. And Happy New Year!

Posted in 5. Fish and Shellfish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment