French recipes

Salade Niçoise

 A classic salad from the south of France. 

Rip a lettuce into pieces. Roughly dice a few tomatoes. Finely chop e few spring onions, dessed and dice green peppers, peel a cucumber and slice thinly.

Put all the vegetable into the salad bowl, add hard boiled egges cut into quarters, throw in some small black olives and a few anchovy filets (these can be replaced with flaket tuna).

In a small bowl prepare a vinaigrette dressing by mixing olive oil, vinegar, chopped fresh basil, salt and pepper and pour over the salad before serving.

Pissaladière

Fry 4lbs (2kg) of onions in olive oil, add salt, pepper and a pinch of thyme and cook gently until soft.

Spread the onions over a pizza base 1/4" (1/2cm) thick, top with desalted anchovy fillets and sprinkle with black olives.

Drizzle with olive oil and bake in the oven for about fifteen minutes at a hig heat.

Before serving sprinkle to taste with freshly ground black pepper.

Ratatouile

Dice the aubergines and courgettes, cut a desseded pepper into rings and finely chop a few onions.

Sprinkle the vegetables with flour and fry them separately in a frying pan with a little olive oil.

Plunge the tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes before removing the skin and deseeding and simmer gently in a saucepan with basil and garlic until it reduces down into a concentrated sauce.

Put all the ingredients into a large saucepan, add parsley and thyme, and cook gently over a low flame for about 30-40 minutes.

Croque Monsieur

Croque Madame

A very traditional snacks in France and very simple to make.

Croque-monsieur : Butter a slice of sandwich bread.

add a slice of ham, then a slice of semi-soft cheese (emmenthal, gruyere, cheddar...), and finally cover with another slice of sandwich bread. Put in oven for 10 minutes and serve right away.(the bread will toast and the cheese will melt).

You can serve it with a salade (lettuce).

Croque-madame : do the same, and just add an egg on the bread.

 Bouillabaisse

In a large saucepan, cook together a generous amount of olive oil, salt, pepper, a few strands of saffron, 2 finely chopped onions, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, 3 or 4 crushed tomatoes, a bit of fennel, 1 or 2 bay leaves plus a little thyme.

Stir well before adding the firmer fleshed fish and shellfis (conger eels, scorpion fish, grey mullet, razorfish, moray eels, crabs...).

Cover with 6 pints/3litres of boiling water and cook over a high flame for 5 to 6 minutes, then add the more delicate fish (whiting, hake, cod, monkfish) and slices of potatoes (optional) letting the mixture boil for another 6 to 8 minutes.

In the meantime, crisp slices of bread in the oven to make croutons and prepare the rouille (for the rouille: 3 cloves of garlic, 1 red chilli pepper, breadcrumbs made from bread soaked in water then squeezed dry).

Crush al the ingredients with a pestle and gradually add olive oil until the mixture attains the right consistency for spreading on the croutons.

Serve the fish and potatoes in a soup bowl.

 Blanquette de Veau

Ingredients :
• 750 g brisket of veal
• 60 g butter
• 1 large soup spoon flour
• 1 bunch of mixed herbs (parsley, thyme, bay leaves)
• 125 g fresh mushrooms (cut in pieces)
• 6 small onions
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 half of a lemon juice

Cut 750 g brisket of veal into pieces. Blanch pieces during 10 minutes, in boiled salted water. Your saucepan has to be off-fire. (That is essential if your meat is slightly red). Strain the meat.

In a saucepan, melt the butter with a large soupspoon flour, mixed by adding our pieces of veal. Be careful, the color of your mixture should not change. At the same time, add a full glass plus half glass of water with salt and pepper, and add a bunch of mixed herbs (parsley, thyme, and bay leaves).

In another saucepan, cook in a soft heat fresh mushrooms (cut into pieces) with 6 small onions.

Time of cooking: About 90 minutes
• Before serving, put your pieces of veal in a dish.

Take out your sauce from the cooker to be off fire, and add an egg yolk with half of a lemon juice.

Top your meat with the sauce, and serve hot.

It is OK to reheat Blanquette if you need to.

Chicken with Lyonnaise Sauce

Serving: 4

Ingredients :
• 1 chicken (about 1.5 kg) cut into pieces
• 60 g butter
• 1 tomato
• 100 g fresh mushrooms
• 1 glass white wine
• salt, pepper
• 1 glass Cognac
• 1 clove of minced garlic
• 1 pinch of parsley

Melt the butter in a fried pan. When the butter reach a light brown colour add the pieces of the chicken. Cook the pieces over a fast heat.
Add to the chicken a tomato, cut into slices with the mushrooms, and the glasses of white wine and Cognac. Salt and pepper. Cover your meal and let it slow-cooked for 20 minutes.
Put the pieces of the chicken in a dish. Add to the sauce at the last minute some parsley and some minced garlic. Once your sauce has been reduced, pour it over your meat and serve.

Crème brulée

 Dessert

Separate ten eggs from the whites and the yolks. Boil the milk with the pods of vanilla.
When the milk has boiled, remove the pods of vanilla.
Grate the pods thinly and add them again in the hot milk.
In a bowl, mix 10 yolks with an entire egg, and sugar.
Add to that mixture the milk with the vanilla, and the liquid cream.
Pour your mixture in separate and individual ramakin.
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes at thermostat 2

(60°C / 140°F).

At the last minute, add on it some brown sugar, and put your ramekins 10 minutes on the grill of the oven. The Crème Brûlée is ready to be served when a nice brown crust.

Crème Vanille

(Vanilla cream)

 Dessert - Very simple

Ingredients :

• 1 litre milk
• 100 g sugar
• 1 clove vanilla
• 3 eggs yolk
• 1 egg white

Boil 1 litre of milk with 100 g of sugar and a clove of vanilla.
Remove from the heat, and let it cool down.
Remove the clove of vanilla, and add to the milk 3 eggs yolk and 1 egg white.
Mix and pour the mixture in a fruit bowl.
Place your cream in a bain-marie during 20 minutes.

And if you like cooking, you'll find below some very interesting links with French recipes for all tastes.

à la carte  The culinary ramblings, thoughts, comments, observations, and recipes of a Francophile.

Bien Cuisiner (Good Cooking)  Fully illustrated set of traditional recipes and dietary menus.

French Paradoxe  Health, beauty benefits of wine ad olive oil.  he misteries of wine and olive oil.

And bon appétit!