Saumon rôti aux lentilles épicées

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Meg

Roasted salmon on a bed of spicy lentils is a dish that delivers the comfort we crave in winter without too much heft. Here, the dish is paired with spinach for a combination that’s as pleasing to the eye as to the palette. I made this dish last week during a cold snap in Paris — below-freezing temperatures and snow that didn’t melt for days, a rare event over here. After fireside suppers featuring heavier winter dishes, the salmon made a welcome change.

Saumon rôti aux lentilles épicées / Roasted salmon with spicy lentils

The weather has turned warmer now — can you believe I have daisies, carnations and nasturtiums in bloom outside my veranda? — but it’s incredibly gray and depressing. This is a typical Paris January. Last year I decided to get out of town in hopes of escaping the gloom. Went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in California, and got a douche froide (cold shower) as the state was treated to ‘atmospheric rivers’ (read: constant downpours) and a ‘bomb cyclone’ (read: gale-force winds). So this year I stayed home.

As the cold is bound to return, both here and elsewhere, I thought I’d share some of the dishes I’ve been making to cheer this frigid season, in hopes of inspiring you. Over the last month or so I’ve served: gratin of Belgian endive with country ham; paupiettes de veau (stuffed veal scallops) with celeriac purée, preceded by frisée aux lardons (curly endive with bacon — cannot believe I haven’t posted that recipe, coming soon); harissa chicken; veal stewed in white wine with cauliflower purée; sole meunière preceded by oysters and foie gras (Christmas Eve); stuffed roast of guinea hen with cabbage purée, preceded by Russian-style gravalax (Christmas Day); Ukrainian ‘syrniki’ pancakes (Boxing Day brunch); and lobster tails with beurre blanc sauce (New Years Eve). That was all in December.

After all that entertaining, I slowed down this month, mainly cooking for my daugher and myself, as well as a couple of guests. So far I’ve served roast chicken with mashed potatoes, preceded by leeks with vinaigrette sauce; brandade de morue (puréed salt cod and potatoes); potée auvergnate (cabbage and veggie soup with sausage); cauliflower gratin; poulet bonne femme (chicken with bacon, mushrooms and onion); penne à l’arrabiata; lamb chops with rosemary; chili con carne (not on the site yet); and the roasted salmon with lentils. Whew! That’s a lot of cooking. Think I’ll take a break…

For the record, although it is definitely a lot of cooking, I find that going into the kitchen is a great way to relax. I enjoy making beautiful food for my friends — indeed, I often say that cooking is my art form. And I also enjoy making lovely meals for just me and my daughter, or even just myself. It’s an esthetic experience…

Happy cooking.

Posted in 5. Fish and Shellfish | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Poireaux vinaigrette

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Meg

A classic French bistro dish that’s particularly pleasant in winter is leeks in vinaigrette sauce. It’s incredibly quick and easy to make at home, and there are many variations: with mustard vinaigrette, balsamic vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, topped with shallots or not, topped with herbs or not, topped with chopped egg or not etc. etc. In today’s recipe, the leeks are steamed, then topped with mustard vinaigrette, chopped shallot and chopped parsley.

Poireaux vinaigrette / Leeks with vinaigrette sauce

Sounds simple, right? Well, it can be. It took me 15 minutes from start to finish to make the dish shown above, and that included enough time to let the leeks cool down so I could take the photo without the lens steaming up. However, some chefs prefer to take the why-to-make-it-simple-when-you-can-make-it-more-complicated approach.

While scouting around on the internet, I stumbled upon the recipe of Philippe Etchebest, a French chef most famous over here for hosting the cooking reality show Top Chef. His list of ingredients includes — in addition to leeks — butter(!), olive oil, white wine, beef stock(!), flour(!), sherry vinegar and old-style mustard with mustard seeds. In case you’re interested, here’s his recipe, including a 10-minute video on how to do it… his way…

Let me assure you that this is absolutely not traditional. In my view, beef stock and flour have no place in poireaux vinaigrette. Etchebest says the beef stock adds flavor. I say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The leeks have their own subtly delicious flavor which would be drowned out by adding the flavor of beef. Not to mention the fact that this dish, served the traditional way, is a very healthy and economical dish for winter, the height of leek season, that is also vegetarian/vegan — if you don’t add unnecessary ingredients, like butter.

The traditional version of poireaux vinaigrette is a dish usually served as a starter, although it could also accompany a main dish of your choosing. It’s tastiest if served while the leeks are still a bit warm. On the recipe page you will find various options for the sauce. My favorite for this dish remains mustard vinaigrette — if you’ve never made it before, you can check out this how-to video. The recipe also gives tips for different toppings.

It snowed in Paris this week, and on one snowy evening I invited a friend over to dine in front of a cheery fire. We had the leeks vinaigrette shown in the photo, and followed up with roast chicken and mashed potatoes. Who says winter’s all bad?

Happy cooking.

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

Pancakes ‘Syrniki’ au fromage blanc

Posted on December 29, 2023 by Meg

The recipe for these fluffy little pancakes came to me via my Grandma Anne, whose family hailed from a small Jewish village in Ukraine. She called them ‘cottage cheese pancakes’, which always baffled me since cottage cheese has curds and the cheese in these pancakes was perfectly smooth. Eventually, after spending time in the Soviet Union, I worked out that the original cheese involved must have been tvorog, a smooth white cheese.

Pancakes ‘Syrniki’ au fromage blanc / Ukrainian ‘Syrniki’ pancakes

Given the absence of tvorog in the United States, my grandmother used baker’s cheese, which was smooth but very dry. To compensate for the dryness, her recipe called for adding ‘1/2 eggshell water’. This drove my mother crazy. It wasn’t scientific. Worse, the recipe called for ‘1/3 cup flour, more or less’. My reading of this situation is that my grandma cooked without a recipe, by feeling, and then one day transliterated what she’d done to a recipe card for my mom — who wanted to make the pancakes to please my dad.

Here in France, I make the pancakes using fromage blanc, a smooth fresh cheese that is wetter than baker’s cheese. Hence, I do not add the 1/2 eggshell water. Other cheeses that could be used, depending on where you live, include farmer’s cheese and quark. I suppose ricotta could be used in a pinch, but it doesn’t have the tang of the other cheeses.

An acquaintance of mine here in Paris who is from Moldova but ethnically Ukrainian says she makes her own tvorog for syrniki (the word, by the way, derives from the Russian/Ukrainian word for cheese: syr). This she does by heating fromage blanc to the boiling point, then draining it overnight through a colander lined with cheesecloth.

I’m not prepared to go that far, especially as one of the great advantages of syrniki is that they can be made in a matter of minutes. The cheese is mixed with eggs, flour and a little baking powder, and the batter is then fried in butter. Presto! The pancakes are traditionally served with crème fraîche/sour cream and jam, such as strawberry in the photo. They make a lovely brunch dish — perhaps for New Year’s Day?

Happy cooking, and Happy New Year.

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

Biscuits de Noël aux amandes

Posted on December 15, 2023 by Meg

Who invented butter-almond crescents, the sugar-dusted confections served at Christmas time in many parts of the world? Some say the cookies were invented by a Viennese baker who adopted the shape of the Ottoman flag’s crescent moon to celebrate victory over the Turks in the 17th century. But I’m not so sure, as crescent almond cookies exist far beyond Vienna. In North Africa, for example, they’re called gazelle horns…

Biscuits de Noël aux amandes / Butter-almond crescents

Butter-almond crescents are also French, as they are served in Alsace from Advent to Christmas. In the States, they were a specialty of my Jewish mother, and even more so of her mother, Hilda, who had roots in Vienna. Happily they both passed the recipe down to me — I have handwritten copies from each of them — and today I wanted to share it with you. It feels appropriate, at this parlous moment of world history, to mark a holiday that is devoted to peace on earth with a cookie enjoyed by Christians, Muslims and Jews alike.

Butter-almond crescents, known in the German-speaking world as vanillekipferl, are an almond shortbread flavored with vanilla and dusted with confectioner’s sugar, aka powdered sugar, icing sugar or sucre glace. Making them is both easy and fun. Butter, flour, sugar and vanilla are blended together to form a dough. The dough is chilled before being formed into crescent shapes, baked briefly, then dipped into the powdered sugar.

The dough may be formed into other shapes, such as disks topped with a candied cherry or a small bit of candied lemon, orange or lime rind. This makes for a colorful display when you bring the cookies out over the holidays. But beware — once the cookies come out of the oven, it can be hard to keep them around long enough to have any left by Christmas. This happened this year. I made the cookies early to be able to write this post. I had intended to save them all until Christmas Eve, but my daughter had another idea…

The remaining butter-almond cookies have now been stashed in the freezer along with another of my mother’s specialties, bourbon balls. I haven’t posted that recipe yet, but it’s similar to the recipe for chocolate truffles if you’d like to create a mixed plate of pretty sweets. I made the bourbon balls early this year, too, in order to be able to send both kinds of cookies to my brother and sister-in-law in California. Happy holidays, Ben and Mary!

With Christmas only ten days away, this is a good time to check out The Everyday French Chef‘s Holiday Menus, with ideas for festive meals with a French touch for omnivores, vegetarians and vegans. Here’s wishing you a joyous holiday season. And happy cooking!

Posted in Desserts | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Soupe patates douces-poireaux

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Meg

A nice warm bowl of silky-smooth soup of sweet potato and leek with coconut milk, lime juice and spices might be just what the doctor ordered as we head into December. I came up with this one when a glitch in this year’s Thanksgiving plans left me with an abundance of uncooked sweet potatoes. It was a cinch to make — took less than half an hour — and the result was a very soothing soup with Asian flavors that was both healthy and economical.

Soupe patates douces-poireaux / Spicy sweet potato-leek soup

What do I mean by economical? A single large sweet potato produces enough soup to serve three generously. What do I mean by a cinch? You simply peel and slice the sweet potato, boil it to tenderness with the white part of a single leek, purée it and add the coconut milk, lime juice and spices — coriander, cumin and cayenne. And as for healthy, this soup will receive a seal of approval from vegans and vegetarians as well as omnivores.

Now that we’re past Thanksgiving, I’m starting to think about the end of year festivities, notably Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. This year I expect my addition to the Holiday Menus already on the site to be a family Christmas cookie recipe — my Grandma Hilda’s fabulous almond-butter crescents. More on that next time…

In the meantime, if you’re celebrating Hanukah, which begins on the evening of Thursday, December 7, you might want to check out galettes de pomme de terre, the French version of latkes (potato pancakes), which are fun to make and a crowd pleaser. A nice Hanukah menu might begin with these lacy pancakes, follow with roast chicken, roasted winter vegetables and a salad, for example of lamb’s lettuce and beets, and conclude with a non-dairy dessert such as poires au vin et cassis (pears in red wine and black currant liqueur).

Returning to the sweet potato-leek soup, it may be served at lunchtime, accompanied by sandwiches or a salad, or as a first course for a more elaborate meal. My daughter and I enjoyed it for lunch with salade vigneronne (winemaker’s salad), in which tender greens, walnuts and grapes are bathed in a garlicky balsamic vinaigrette. Herbal salad with hazelnuts would also marry well. At suppertime, you could begin with the soup and follow up with any seasonal main dish.

Happy cooking.

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

Plov d’agneau

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Meg

Plov is a rich and spicy rice dish from Central Asia that is traditionally made with lamb, although other meats are sometimes used. The lamb is browned with carrots and onions before being simmered with cumin seeds, paprika and turmeric or saffron. Quince or chickpeas may also be included. A layer of rice studded with whole cloves of garlic is added at the end and steamed to tender perfection to create a festive one-dish meal.

Plov d’agneau / Lamb and rice, Central Asian style

Although obviously not French, plov has made its way to Paris and beyond, brought by emigrés from Central Asian since the breakup of the former Soviet Union more than 30 years ago. Today’s recipe is based on the version served in Uzbekistan, where plov is the national dish — and in fact has been inscribed as such, under the name palov, on UNESCO’s ‘Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’.

These names derive from the Persian pilav, which is of course also the root of the English-speaking world’s pilaf — although there is a world of difference between pilaf and plov. Not just the exotic spicing but also the incorporation of some fat into the dish make plov a far more regal experience than the pallid pilafs I was served as a child back in the States.

And speaking of names, a cut of lamb often used for plov is shoulder, but in the version shown in the photo above I used a French cut from beneath the shoulder that is amusingly named épigramme d’agneau. It’s an inexpensive cut with some fat attached and plenty of bones, which add delicious flavor to the plov. But how did it get its name, I wondered?

A quick web search turned up a plausible tale. Apparently a young noblewoman was serving dinner to some officers in the mid-18th century when one of them said they had dined at the home of a count who’d regaled them with excellent epigrams. The young woman, who didn’t know an epigram (‘clever saying’) from her elbow, turned to her cook, a creative chap named Michelet, and asked him to rustle some up for the next day’s dinner. At a loss as to what to do, the poor fellow cooked up some lamb — breast and ribs — and called it ‘épigrammes d’agneau a la Michelet‘. And so a name was born.

This is hardly the only French cut of meat with an amusing name. One of the best cuts of steak is called poire (‘pear’), apparently because of its shape. You will rarely see it displayed, however, as butchers hide it away for their best customers, along with two similar cuts, merlan (‘whiting’, as in the fish) and araignée (‘spider’).

For those of you who may be interested in such arcane bits of French culinary terminology, I promise to write about it again on another occasion. But right now I need to go make dinner — lamb soup (with the épigramme leftovers!). I hope you’ll try the plov.

Happy cooking.

P.S. With Thanksgiving around the corner, here are some recipes that could lend a French touch to the festivities: Roast turkey, French style, Pumpkin gratin, Pumpkin soufflé, Penne with pumpkin and walnuts, Sweet potatoes with herbs and Walnut tart.

Posted in 7. Meat Dishes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pommes de terre sarladaises

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Meg

There are four key ingredients in these melt-in-the-mouth, intensely garlicky, skillet-fried potatoes from southwest France — the potatoes, the garlic, parsley and duck or goose fat. As duck fat may not be available to all readers, my question was, how would the dish be without it? The answer was: almost as spectacular. Which is why I am offering the original and an alternative version of this classic, which marries well with just about anything.

Pommes de terre sarladaises / Skillet-fried potatoes with garlic and parsley

Pommes de terre sarladaises (pronounced sahr-lah-DEHZ) take their name from the pretty town of Sarlat-la-Canéda in Dordogne. Farms in the surrounding area raise ducks and geese, which star in the local cuisine in the form of confits (preserved duck or goose), foie gras and cassoulet (a bean stew that I plan to write about in due course). Sarlat has a bustling farmers market throughout the year, and over the winter it also hosts a marché au gras, where fatted fowl and their products are sold according to ancient custom.

Among the products sold are duck and goose fat in jars or cans, which simplifies matters if you’d like to make Sarladaise potatoes the authentic way. These days duck fat is also available in stores throughout France and online in the States, Britain and many other countries. However, I have never purchased this product, as I prefer to make my own.

Rendering duck fat is easier than you may think, providing you cook duck once in a while. For example, if you’re preparing a magret de canard (duck breast), you can pour off the fat into a recipient as it cooks, then strain it through a sieve into a clean jar. Once it cools you can refrigerate the duck fat, which will keep for months. You can add to the jar over and over, and use the fat as needed for cooking — well, I mainly use it for Sarladaise potatoes.

Lacking duck fat, you can fry the potatoes in a combination of butter and oil.

For success with whatever version you choose,  here are some tips. First, don’t be tempted to accelerate preparation by steaming or parboiling the potato slices before frying — they need to be fried raw (à cru) to achieve the crispy exterior and meltingly tender interior. Second, wait until the potatoes are golden and ready to serve before adding the garlic. The minced raw garlic is what produces the delightful pungency of these potatoes.

If you’d like to try your hand at rendering duck fat, you could start out with one of these recipes: magret de canard au cassis (duck breast in a black currant sauce), salade thaïe au magret (Thai-style salad topped with sliced duck breast) or canard rôti au miel et au thym (roast duck with honey and thyme). Each recipe will produce about half a jar of duck fat — more than enough for frying up a panful Sarladaise potatoes.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 8. Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Salade d’herbes aux noisettes

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Meg

I wanted to make an autumnal salad with hazelnuts and fresh herbs. This, I thought, would be a simple matter. Mais non, mes amis. I made the mistake of starting with hazelnuts still in their peels. Figured it would easy to blanch the nuts and remove the peels. I was wrong. It took me half an hour to rub the peels off just 20 hazelnuts, and the job was imperfect, with stubborn bits clinging on. Then I roasted the nuts, and they burned…

Salade d’herbes aux noisettes / Herbal salad with hazelnuts

Not to be defeated, I tried again the next day, this time with success. The solution was to buy hazelnuts that had already been blanched. I watched closely as they toasted and took them out when they had turned a light golden brown, enjoying the delicious aroma of roasting hazelnuts that wafted through my kitchen.

The rest was, pardon the mixed metaphor, a piece of cake. The leaves of assorted fresh herbs are stripped from their stems — cilantro, basil, parsley, dill, mint, tarragon, chervil, in whatever combination you prefer. The herbs and hazelnuts are scattered over a bed of tender leaves, then sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The result is a salad that is easily made and can go with just about anything. You can serve it as a first course, perhaps with cured ham such as prosciutto alongside. You can embellish it with grapes, bits of dates or pear, crumbled roquefort, goat cheese, etc. Or you can serve it as a side salad with roasted meats, poultry, fish or veggies.

I’ve always enjoyed hazelnuts, but I grew particularly fond of them after discovering a hazelnut bush on the property of my newly acquired country cottage in Burgundy. This was back in 1999. For the next two decades, the local squirrels and I waged a battle royal every year to see who could get the hazelnuts first. Sometimes they won, as I only went down there on weekends, but often enough I was able to collect a small basketful that lasted right through the winter. I never tried to blanch the hazelnuts, however.

Having blanched almonds many times and easily slipped off their peels, I was surprised this week by how hard it was to do the same with hazelnuts. If I hadn’t managed to find some that were already peeled, this recipe (as such) would never have made it onto the website. So — what to do if you cannot find pre-peeled hazelnuts? I’d suggest substituting walnuts. It’s a different flavor, but would be good nonetheless. And just as autumnal!

Happy cooking.

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

Eglefin au four sauce tartare

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Meg

One of the simplest weeknight dinners I know is baked fish, in this case fillets of haddock with homemade tartar sauce, French style. The fish is dusted with salt, pepper and a little cumin — no flour is involved — and drizzled with olive oil before being roasted in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. While the fish is cooking you can whip up the tartar sauce, and presto. Dinner is ready in less than half an hour.

Eglefin au four sauce tartare / Baked haddock with French tartar sauce
Sauce tartare / French tartar sauce

Before returning to the subject of the sauce, I’d like to say a few words on the subject of the fish. First, it doesn’t have to be haddock. The recipe works well with all types of fish fillets. Second, fresh fish will produce superior results, but frozen fish may be used as well (so long as the fillets are fully defrosted before you begin). Third, and here is where it gets interesting from a linguistic point of view, what do the French mean by haddock?

The answer, mes amis, is that they mean ‘smoked haddock’, which is sold here in bright yellow-orange skin-on fillets. But not to panic. This recipe calls not for haddock (pronounced ah-DUCK), but rather for églefin, or ‘fresh haddock’.

Oddly, the word églefin derives from a Dutch word, schelvisch, which looks more like shellfish to me. But languages evolve in mysterious ways, and somehow over the centuries the word changed to something that sounds far more French — égle evoking aigle, or ‘eagle’, and fin meaning ‘fine’ or ‘thin’…

But this does not answer the question of: why two words for the same fish? Well, one only has to think about ‘kippers’ (smoked herring) and ‘herring’ (other forms of herring) to understand. This fishy linguistic duplicity can be tricky for people new to France. I remember that when I moved to Paris in the ’70s it took me a long time to figure out that cabillaud (fresh cod) and morue (dried salt cod) were indeed the same fish.

Ok, now on to the sauce. How is French sauce tartare different from the tartar sauce served, say, in the States or in England? Well, for one thing it isn’t sweet. For another it uses capers and can dispense with pickles or pickle relish altogether. This produces a more sophisticated flavor, in my view.

French sauce tartare combines the capers with mayonnaise, lemon juice and chopped fresh herbs. You don’t need to make the mayo. Store-bought is just fine — but check the sugar content (no sugar = more authentic). The French sometimes also include chopped cornichons, the tiny vinegar-cured cucumbers that pass for pickles over here. But as they are hard to find elsewhere, I have omitted them from today’s recipe. And to be honest, I prefer my sauce tartare without the cornichons.

French tartar sauce marries beautifully with fish and shellfish, and may also be used alongside chicken, veggies and cold meats. It takes no more than 5 minutes to prepare.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 5. Fish and Shellfish | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tarte roquefort-poires

Posted on September 22, 2023 by Meg

A savory tart made with pears and Roquefort cheese can be a lovely start to a meal, and with pears now in season this is a perfect time to try it. The tart is best if you make the crust yourself, in this case a pâte brisée — a tender, savory crust. This may be done a day ahead of time, after which preparation is remarkably quick. I had my tart in the oven 15 minutes after getting home with the pears, and 40 minutes later it was ready.

Tarte roquefort-poires / Roquefort-pear tart

By that time tantalizing aromas were wafting through the house. I waited a short while for the tart to settle, then had a taste — just to make sure it was safe to serve to the guests arriving later. Well, dear reader, I wasn’t disappointed. The tang of the Roquefort marries beautifully with the sweetness of the pears, and these flavors are enhanced by a fruity red. I’d suggest a Beaujolais, say a Brouilly, Fleurie or the delightfully named Saint-Amour.

The beauty of this tart is that it may be made in advance and reheated just before serving — as a lunch dish, accompanied by a green salad, or as the starter for a more elaborate meal. If you’re serving it at dinner time, you could stick with the fruity theme and follow up with a dish like chicken with fresh figs or duck with black currant sauce. Or you could choose a more classical main dish, such as roast shoulder of lamb or, for vegetarians, roasted butternut with pine nuts or caramelized celeriac with walnuts and greens. And for a fruity autumn dessert,  pommes au four (baked apples). Of course!

Happy cooking.

Posted in 4a. Savory Tarts and Tartines | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments