Salade de hareng fumé

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Meg

This zingy smoked herring salad proved a winner when I was asked to cook for 50 people at a party in Normandy in late August. It was meant to be served on the night of the party as part of a salad buffet to accompany a mechoui — slow-roasted lamb cooked over an open pit. But the 30 or so guests who had arrived by noon had it for lunch, which worked out well as I hadn’t really made enough for 50. Reader, they ate it all and asked for more.

Salade de hareng fumé / Smoked herring salad

The only challenge I faced with this dish was figuring out how much to make for such a large crowd. The recipe is simplicity itself. The fish is chopped and tossed with minced red onion, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh dill. It takes just five minutes to prepare if you’re making it, say, for two people as a light lunch, perhaps accompanied by a mesclun salad, or for up to six as cocktail-hour canapés. But 50? Now that was a brain twister.

As much as I love to cook, and despite my early experience as chef at a small restaurant in Ithaca, New York, it’s rare these days for me to make a meal for more than, say, twelve. The hostess had instructed me to arrive no earlier than noon on Friday, the day before the party. The house would be full of guests, so I’d have to find a way to cook unobtrusively — and very quickly — to get everything ready in time for the festivities on Saturday night,

What would be on the menu? We put our heads together and came up with a selection of easy-to-make dishes that wouldn’t break the bank and that would marry well with the lamb. Many are already on this site: Georgian red bean-walnut salad, spicy Moroccan carrot salad, herbal tomato salad, French potato salad and spicy lentils. We added a pasta gratin and had planned to include roasted eggplant salad as well, but I ran out of time. For dessert I made three huge flaky baklava cakes (recipe coming soon).

Preparation turned out to be less problematic than I had feared. I was able to work undisturbed on the first day as the other guests were off visiting the D-Day beaches. And I had help on the second day in the form of a couple of young guests from Texas who peeled and chopped and stirred and generally amused me with funny stories. By lunchtime on the Saturday we were virtually done.

At this point the man in charge of the mechoui had been at work for a couple of hours. He’d dug a huge pit on the edge of the garden and set up two three-tier arrays of spits loaded with lamb. He lit the fire, and the aroma wafted over the property all afternoon as guests played games and picked flowers to set out on the seven white-clothed tables installed in a giant tent in the yard, and as a musician friend tested out the piano and sound system, which had been installed under the tent the day before.

The original idea for the fish had been to serve it on small squares of black bread for the Saturday evening toast that opened the festivities, accompanied by icy vodka. For yes, one of the guests of honor was the Russian husband of our hostess. (He spends most of his time in France these days and opposes the war.) He had turned 70 this year, and their younger daughter had turned 30, making this a 100-year birthday party.

The smoked herring having already been eaten, we improvised for the toast with smoked salmon on black bread. The dinner proved a success, and afterwards there was music (variations on ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in the style of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Mussorgsky by our incredibly talented musician friend), a raffle (I won a kitschy ceramic biker filled with vodka — not kidding) and dancing into the wee hours. Super fun.

So where does this leave us, cooking-wise? Bottom line: you don’t need 50 people to enjoy smoked herring salad. You can make it for two, or just yourself.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 1. Starters | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fusilli aux brocolis et saucisses

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Meg

Pasta with broccoli, sausage, olive oil and red pepper flakes is a family favorite that I tend to make when cooler weather sets in — which has suddenly happened in Paris after a couple of warm months that went by in a flash. We had a hailstorm yesterday and overnight the temperature dipped to 6º C (43º F). It’s enough to send you scrambling for a warm quilt and a bottle of hearty red, which goes well with this spicy, garlic-infused dish.

Fusilli aux brocolis et saucisses / Pasta with broccoli and sausage

Preparation is super simple. You slice up and fry the sausage, chop the broccoli into bite-sized flowerets, boil the pasta — adding the broccoli towards the end, drain and toss in a sauce of olive oil, garlic and crushed cayenne or red pepper flakes. Top with freshly grated parmesan — et voilà. A one-dish meal in 20 minutes or less.

The recipe may be made with any kind of pasta. I chose fusilli this time because the sauce clings nicely to the little spirals. Sometimes I make it with spaghetti or with conchiglie rigate (shells). As Italian sausage isn’t that easy to find in Paris, I generally use a similar French variety called saucisse de Toulouse. What it lacks is Italian spicing — but you can do that yourself by combining the sausage meat with some fennel seed and herbs.

To make more of a meal of it, a lovely Italian-style starter in autumn would be country ham with fresh figs. Another possibility is ‘Salade de l’ambassadeur‘, a salad with bresaola and late summer fruit (which got its name from the person who gave me the recipe, the former French ambassador to Poland!). Vegetarian starters that marry well include burrata with mesclun and hazelnuts, roasted eggplant salad and salad with garlic and croutons. And by the way, a veggie version of this dish is easy — just omit the sausage.

If you’re serving this pasta to guests and would like to add a dessert, I’d recommend tiramisu, which is not only popular but also fun to make. Or you could serve a fresh fig tart, a walnut tart or — why not? — a classic French apple tart. Any of these options would make a fine coda to a comforting meal as, after the joys of summer, we head into a cooler, darker season…

Happy cooking.

Posted in 9. Pasta, Rice, Grains | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Omelette au fromage

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Meg

This fluffy cheese omelet, a classic of French cuisine, is the last thing I expected to write about when I returned from Provence last week. I’d picked up three new recipes, including one for a fabulous garlic spread that is served in the region but largely unavailable elsewhere in France. Well, dear readers, I made it twice — and both times it was a dismal failure. So I consulted my fridge to see what else I could make on short notice…

Omelette au fromage / Cheese omelet

Yes, I had eggs, yes I had a block of cheese, yes I had a little butter and olive oil as well as some fresh basil to scatter over the omelet. Easy peasy. And to my surprise, I found that after posting recipes here for over a decade — there are now more than 500 on the site — I had never shared this absolutely essential French dish. There’s a technique to making it in the French style, and this is explained in the recipe.

Cheese omelets are served across France  both at bistros, generally accompanied by French fries, and at home at lunchtime, suppertime and, more recently, also for brunch (a meal that is catching on over here, although not traditional). The cheese is generally Comté, Gruyère or Emmenthal, which hail from eastern France near the Swiss border. But I’ve experiemented a lot and can testify that this omelet is also delicious with cheddar, gouda with cumin and many other cheeses.

The omelet was a handy solution after my two attempts at crème d’ail resulted in a garlic spread that I wouldn’t serve to my dog, if I had one. No comparison to the version we picked up at the market in Apt, a charming town in Luberon region. After tasting it I wanted to ask the vendor for his recipe but, alas, the market is only on Saturdays and I was leaving on Thursday. Maybe next year.

The second recipe I picked up was for making green olives in the Provençal style. These superb olives are known as picholines. They’re available at farmers markets elsewhere in France but not always easy to find. The recipe came my way when the gregarious landlord of our rental stopped by to clean the pool and we began conversing about his olive trees. It’s a recipe I’d like to try, but unfortunately I don’t have a fruitful olive tree in Paris. (There’s a small one on my veranda, but this year it produced exactly one olive…).

The third recipe is for caponata, a Sicilian take on ratatouile that includes black olives, celery and capers as well as the other ingredients and is served cold, never hot. This deeply flavorful dish was brought to our table by our friend Christian, a superlative cook, and he was kind enough to share the recipe. But I’ll wait untili next summer to post it as I first need to check in with my Sicilian friend Gisella, another fabulous cook.

So there you have it. Even though it’s still officially summer and we’re in a new round of the Olympics here in Paris, there’s a whiff of autumn in the air. Residents who fled the first round are returning in droves, the kids go back to school on Monday and the first bounty of the fall season is appearing at markets. Today I bought girolles, the larger French cousin of chanterelles, and the year’s first plump grapes are also on offer.

Here’s wishing you a gentle rentrée (post-summer return to reality). And… happy cooking!

Posted in 4. Omelets, Soufflés, Quiche | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Poisson brésilien au lait de coco

Posted on July 19, 2024 by Meg

This dish of fish in a tomato-coconut-lime sauce hails from Brazil, where it is known as moqueca. I discovered it at the home of a friend in the English countryside, and found it so wonderful that I had to share it with you. Jane, the friend in question, learned to make it while her husband was serving as a senior British diplomat in Brasília. They entertained a lot and, as she put it, this is a great party dish because it can be largely prepared in advance.

Poisson brésilien au lait de coco / Brazilian fish stew ‘moqueca’

Regular readers of this site may remember that the recipe in my last post was also from an English friend, another superlative cook. What’s the connection? We all lived in Moscow when it was still the capital of the USSR — and thus we learned to be creative cooks. There were a few state-run restaurants but there was nothing resembling normal nightlife. If we wanted to have a nice dinner, we had to prepare it ourselves.

This involved creative shopping as well. The building to which all three of us were assigned was within easy walking distance of a decent farmers market, but the quality and quantity of the food on offer there was unpredictable. Even less predictable were the state-run shops, hence the habit of every Muscovite of never going out without an avoska (string bag) in case something interesting should turn up. Which happened rarely.

One food item that was generally available somewhere was ice cream, and it was excellent. People lined up for it in the streets in winter, never mind the -30 temperatures. But there was only one flavor — vanilla. Well, dear friends, creative cooking means figuring out how to go beyond vanilla. Soon I was delighting my dinner guests with exotic flavors like chocolate or strawberry. (Hint: let the ice cream soften, add cocoa powder or mashed strawberries, stir and refreeze). Another thing I learned to make in Moscow was French-fried onion rings — as no such thing was available there (coming soon).

Getting back to moqueca (pronounced moo-KAY-ka), fillets of any firm, white-fleshed fish are marinated for a while in lime juice, garlic and ginger, then cooked in a sauce of sweet red pepper, onion, garlic, tomato and cayenne, with coconut milk, more lime juice and chopped cilantro added at the end. The dish is traditionally served over rice.

And, you may well ask, why is a Brazilian dish that came to me via Moscow appearing on a French food blog? Well, for one thing, I made it in Paris. For another, we’ve got the Olympics happening here in a matter of days, and what better way to celebrate the Olympic spirit of friendly competition among nations than a multi-culti dish?

Happy cooking.

Posted in 5. Fish and Shellfish | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Salade aubergine-tomate-poivron

Posted on July 5, 2024 by Meg

This summery salad of roasted eggplant with tomatoes and sweet red pepper is a versatile dish that may be served as a starter, as a side dish, as part of a mezze spread or as the star of a vegetarian meal. It is similar to its French cousin, ratatouille, but in fact hails from further east. Crushed coriander seeds lend an exotic flavor, while cayenne adds bite. Enjoy it chilled with a bottle of crisp rosé as we head into the hottest time of the year.

Salade aubergine-tomate-poivron / Roasted eggplant salad

I discovered this dish in April while visiting my friend Penny in England. A fabulous cook, she shares with me a background in the former Soviet Union and picked up many delicious recipes there. This salad, which is served across Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and other former Soviet republics, is known in Russian as baklazhannaya ikra and in Ukrainian as baklazanu ikra, both of which translate as ‘eggplant caviar’. But it bears little resemblance to the eggplant caviar served in France and the Middle East.

This is not only because it includes other veggies in addition to the eggplant, but also because the veggies are not puréed or mashed together but remain recognizable, with their lovely colors making an attractive dish. I served it twice recently, first alongside smoked fish and dark rye bread, in honor of a Polish dinner guest, and then beside roast chicken, which was the most reasonable thing I could think of to serve to a friend who came over to watch the French election results — roast chicken being the ultimate French comfort food.

For a vegetarian or vegan summer meal, the roasted eggplant salad could be served with herbal tomato salad, Moroccan carrot salad, chickpea salad with cumin and dill, tangy fava spread, beet salad with walnuts, summer salad with fresh figs, and the list goes on. If you’d like to serve something warm alongside, I’d recommend bulghur with red onion and mint, spicy lentils with onions, provençal tomatoes or — why not? — potato pancakes.

As for drinks, this salad goes well with rosé or red wine — and also, given its origins, with chilled vodka. We may be needing a lot of that over here with the far-right National Rally poised to dominate in the French parliament after the second round of legislative elections this Sunday. Less than a month ago, it was inconceivable to me that my adopted country could find itself governed by the heirs of the Vichy leaders who oversaw the massive deportation of Jews from France during World War II. But then President Macron pounced with his insane decision to dissolve the National Assembly.

To calm my nerves, I plan to spend a lot of time over the coming weeks being creative in the kitchen — as making beautiful food is not only my art form, but also my zen.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 3. Salads | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tagine de poulet aux petits pois

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Meg

This deeply flavorful Moroccan dish of garlicky chicken infused with cumin and coriander on a bed of meltingly soft peas makes a fine family supper or a festive dish for special occasions. And as we are reaching the tail end of the season for fresh peas, this is a good time to try it out. The recipe is easy but takes time as the chicken needs to marinate before going into the oven. The peas are cooked separately, and everything is combined at the end.

Tagine de poulet aux petits pois / Spicy Moroccan chicken with fresh peas

I first encountered a version of this dish at a Moroccan restaurant down the street that is fittingly called Le Tajine (the word is transliterated from the Arabic, and is alternatively spelled with a ‘g’ or a ‘j’ in France). It was springtime, and in addition to the usual menu of various tagines and couscous there was a seasonal special — tagine de pigeon aux petits pois. This I had to try, and I was not disappointed.

The next day I called the woman who runs the place to ask for the recipe. This was a few years ago, when farmed pigeons were still available at my local farmers market (which they no longer are because apparently they’ve become too expensive).

Armed with the recipe, I headed to the market and bought two large handfuls of peas in the pod. Then I bought a couple of pigeons, had them cut in half, came home and marinated them as suggested — in a sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, crushed coriander seeds, salt and pepper. While the pigeon was marinating, I shelled the peas.

That’s the first stage. The second was to roast the birds and cook the peas until they were meltingly tender — which is kind of counterintuitive in that peas are more commonly served only just barely cooked these days. When the pigeon and roasting juices were combined with the peas at the end, the flavors married beautifully.

This tagine (Moroccan stew), which unlike many other tagines does not feature fruit, proved popular at home. So when pigeon disappeared from the market, I started making it with guinea fowl (pintade) or chicken. The results, while less exotic, were fine.

The tagine may be served on its own or over couscous. For a festive dinner, it could be preceded by by a Moroccan carrot salad, herbal tomato salad, chickpea salad and/or eggplant caviar. For dessert you could serve fresh seasonal fruit, a walnut-almond-orange cake or sliced oranges with star anise. A smooth red or crisp rosé would go well.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 6. Poultry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Pain perdu

Posted on June 7, 2024 by Meg

Forget maple syrup, bring on the powdered sugar. French toast, French style, is mainly served as a dessert or an afternoon snack. Known as pain perdu (‘lost bread’), it was a poor man’s dish until, according to lore, it was discovered by the nobility in the 16th century, becoming a favorite of King Henri IV. From the king’s table, French toast made its way abroad, and the rest is history.

Pain perdu / French toast, French style

Unlike the American variety, the French version of French toast is dipped into an egg-milk mixture that has been sweetened and flavored with vanilla, or possibly cinnamon. It can be made with any type of bread, from baguette to the currently trendier pain brioché, which is similar to egg bread or challah. (Brioche also had it’s moment in history, when Marie-Antoinette allegedly said, ‘Let them eat cake’ — Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.)

French toast had a moment in my family’s history during our first trip to Paris back in 1967. At our first café lunch, my perenially amusing 14-year-old brother got that look in his eye. We were in France? He wanted French toast. With two years of high school French, I was the only French speaker in the family. ‘Le French toast?’ I tried. The waitress stared at me blankly. I listed the ingredients – bread, milk and egg. ‘Ah, du pain perdu!’

Lost bread? That seemed illogical even then. The idea of using stale bread to create a confection surely meant that the bread was saved, not lost… For the record, my brother continued his quest to unravel the mysteries of French cuisine by ordering French fries (frites) and French dressing (an equivalent doesn’t exist). Meanwhile, I was trying French onion soup (gratinée) and loving every minute of it.

These days French toast is rarely seen on bistro menus. It is most commonly served in French homes for the afternoon goûter (snack), a national institution for French schoolchildren to tide them over until French dinnertime, around 8 p.m. But this can also be a sophisticated dish. Serve it at your next brunch, with fruit and/or bacon, and prepare for applause.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 4. Omelets, Soufflés, Quiche | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Aïgo boulido

Posted on May 24, 2024 by Meg

French garlic soup from Provence is called aïgo boulido, which translates amusingly as ‘boiled water’. Well, you can believe me — it’s a lot tastier than hot water. The garlic is boiled until soft, allowed to steep with fresh sage, thyme and a bay leaf, puréed with an egg yolk and olive oil, and served over toast topped with freshly grated cheese. Pale yellow, creamy and deeply flavorful, it’s a delight to the palate and the eye.

Aïgo boulido / French garlic soup from Provence

Although less famous than it’s illustrious cousin, French onion soup, garlic soup is served throughout France. In the north, the garlic is typically cooked in chicken broth with potatoes, carrots and cream or butter. Sometimes smoked garlic is used. In the southwest, where garlic soup is known as tourin à l’ail, it may include onion, flour and wine vinegar. The provençal version tastes like sage-infused aïoli (garlic mayonnaise), but is far lighter.

Even in Provence, there are many versions. As Andrée Maureau, author of the wonderful cookbook Recettes en Provence, explains, ‘A chaque famille sa recette‘ — each family has its own recipe. She provides several versions, the first of which consists simply of garlic boiled with sage, thyme and bay, unblended and served over toast. This may hark back to the days when hikers in the Alps of Provence made the soup using herbs they gathered and water from bubbling brooks, which they boiled for purposes of purification.

Possibly because it’s a family thing, or perhaps because the regional aspect of French cuisine persists to this day, garlic soup is rarely seen on Parisian bistro menus. In fact, I owe the inspiration for this post to my sister-in-law, Mary Foran of Oakland, California. I guess that means it’s a family thing for us, too. Mary encountered a recipe for garlic soup in a novel and ran it by me to check on its authenticity. That sparked my curiosity. I’d been wanting to try aïgo boulido, the version from Provence, for a long time, looked into it and finally made some. Very glad that I did!

Happy cooking.

Posted in 2. Soups | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mousse de rhubarbe aux fraises

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Meg

Springtime in Paris means rhubarb and strawberries, and they combine delightfully in this light, bright dessert. The mousse can be whipped up — literally — in just a few minutes. The rhubarb is softened with sugar, the strawberries are puréed, the mix is lightened with a beaten egg white and whipped cream is folded in at the end. Topped with strawberry pieces and perhaps a sprig of basil or mint, the mousse makes a lovely end to a meal.

Mousse de rhubarbe aux fraises / Rhubarb-strawberry mousse

When I served this dessert the other night to three friends who dropped by for supper, the talk turned to rhubarb. Was it poisonous if eaten raw? Rather a moot point in my humble opinion, as raw rhubarb is so disagreeably tart that one bite would discourage anyone. But we asked Dr. Google and found that the raw stalks are not toxic, but the leaves are.

I looked into it further in the morning and learned that rhubarb has been cultivated for nearly two millennia, for both culinary and pharmaceutical purposes. Over the centuries it moved from China to the Islamic world over the Silk Road and then on to Europe and the Americas. Rhubarb was deemed so precious in the 1400s that it was included in a diplomat’s list of the best products arriving in Samarkand from China, along with silk, satin, diamonds, rubies, pearls and musk (merci Wikipedia).

It made its way to our table via a circuitous route stemming from my daughter’s request that I make a rhubarb dessert she’d had in England at the home of my friend Penny, a superlative cook. The email exchange that followed established that the dessert in question must have been ‘rhubarb fool’, in which the rhubarb is baked in the oven and then combined with the juice of a blood orange and custard, i.e. what is known in France as crème anglaise. Penny advised using forced rhubarb for its bright red color.

Well, mes amis, forced rhubarb, which is grown in sheds by candlelight, may be popular in England but I’ve never seen it here in France. Meantime the season for blood oranges is behind us, and preparing custard is a bit of a production. So I decided to go French and make a mousse instead. The moral of this story? Next spring my daughter will have to board the Eurostar and go to Penny’s for a very special April fool.

Happy cooking.

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Poêlée pois gourmands-petits pois-asperges

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Meg

Snow peas, fresh peas, asparagus and chives star in this bright green medley of spring vegetables bathed in a French-Asian fusion sauce. With the sun making timid appearances and the chestnuts finally in blossom, it’s beginning to feel like spring in Paris. I’d been planning to make this dish for a long time, and at last it was the right season. So I headed to the market, where spring veggies were out in abundance — except for snow peas…

Poêlée pois gourmands-petits pois-asperges / Spring veggie medley with snow peas

… And therein hangs a tale. But first, the recipe. The veggies are cooked until just tender and then immersed in a sauce of olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, with chives snipped on at the end. The dish may be served either warm as a side or at room temperature as a salad. For example, I served this medley the other night alongside lamb chops cooked by my daughter (who had the brilliant idea of coating the meat with cumin and Chinese bean sauce). The flavors complemented each other beautifully.

The dish was all the more special because I rarely use snow peas, for a simple reason. They’re available in supermarkets, imported from Kenya or Guatemala, but they are rarely seen at farmers markets. I asked the man at my veggie stand about this. He was presiding behind tables laden with every spring vegetable you could imagine — artichokes, asparagus, peas in the pod, beautiful bunches of young turnips and carrots, fresh garlic, etc., but no snow peas. Why? ‘They’ve become too expensive for our clients,’ he said.

A few stalls down, I spotted some snow peas at a stand selling organic vegetables. They were homegrown. Good. But the price! At 14 euros a kilo, or about $7.50 a pound, that was too much for me. So I headed to the supermarket, hoping that a farmer in Guatemala would benefit somehow from my purchase.

Snow peas — known in French both as pois gourmands (‘delectable peas’) and as mange-tout (‘you can eat all of it’) — have been problematic for me before. I got into trouble a couple decades ago when I bet a friend that snow peas were actually just young peas. ‘Mais non’, she replied, ‘it’s a separate vegetable.’ We looked it up. I lost.

More recently, during lockdown, I began doing a lot of Chinese home cooking (mainly Sichuan) as restaurants were closed and we were feeling deprived. Snow peas sometimes featured in these meals, the recipes for which I often found on China Sichuan Food, one of my favorite cooking sites. But snow peas are still a relative rarity at our table. So I was all the more pleased when the snow pea medley turned out well.

If you prefer, you can make a Franco-French version of this dish simply by omitting the sauce and instead sautéing the veggies briefly in butter or olive oil once they are tender. Whichever method you choose, I have a belated message for you. Happy spring!

And happy cooking.

Posted in 8. Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment