Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours

Contents

Title Page

Contents

Frontispiece

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

NIBBLES AND HORS D’OEUVRES

Gougères

Goat-Cheese Mini Puffs

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Onion Biscuits

Cheez-it-ish Crackers

Pierre Hermé’s Olive Sablés

David’s Seaweed Sablés

Mustard Bâtons

Herbed Olives

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts

Hummus

Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese (aka Boursin’s Mama)

Guacamole with Tomatoes and Bell Peppers

Eggplant Caviar

Tzatziki

Sardine Rillettes

Salmon Rillettes

Tuna Rillettes

Arman’s Caviar in Aspic

Dilled Gravlax with Mustard Sauce

Mme. Maman’s Chopped Liver

Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread

Savory Cheese and Chive Bread

Dieter’s Tartine

Tartine de Viande des Grisons

Two Tartines from La Croix Rouge

Goat Cheese and Strawberry Tartine

Pissaladière

Provençal Olive Fougasse

Socca from Vieux Nice

SOUPS

Cheese-Topped Onion Soup

Asparagus Soup

Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup

Corn Soup

Christine’s Simple Party Soups

Celery-Celery Soup

Leek and Potato Soup, Smooth or Chunky, Hot or Cold

Creamy Cauliflower Soup Sans Cream

Côte d’Azur Cure-All Soup

Paris Mushroom Soup

Spur-of-the-Moment Vegetable Soup, aka Stone Soup (The Carrot Version)

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis

Béatrix’s Red Kuri Soup

Spiced Squash, Fennel and Pear Soup

Chestnut-Pear Soup

Provençal Vegetable Soup

Garbure from the Supermarket

Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India

Orange-Scented Lentil Soup

Riviera Fish Soup

Simplest Breton Fish Soup

Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

Cold Melon-Berry Soup

SALADS, STARTERS, AND SMALL PLATES

Anne Leblanc’s Pistachio Avocado

Café-Style Grated Carrot Salad

Hélène’s All-White Salad

Leeks Vinaigrette with Mimosa

Roasted Peppers

Vanilla Vegetable Salad

Orange and Olive Salad

Mozzarella, Tomato, and Strawberry Salad

Lime and Honey Beet Salad

Chunky Beets and Icy Red Onions

Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle with Cucumbers and Lemon

Salade Niçoise

Bacon and Eggs and Asparagus Salad

Deconstructed BLT and Eggs

Crab and Grapefruit Salad

Couscous Salad

Quinoa, Fruit, and Nut Salad

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad

Lentil, Lemon, and Tuna Salad

Potato Chip Tortilla

Basque Potato Tortilla

Eggplant Tartine with Tomatoes, Olives, and Cucumbers

Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flans

Cheesy Crème Brûlée

Cheese Soufflé

Muenster Cheese Soufflés

Recipe-Swap Onion Carbonara

Gérard’s Mustard Tart

Gorgonzola-Apple Quiche

Quiche Maraîchère

Spinach and Bacon Quiche

Mushroom and Shallot Quiche

Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs

Tomato-Cheese Tartlets

Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza

Scallop and Onion Tartes Fines

Smoked Salmon Waffles

Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche

Tuna-Packed Piquillo Peppers

Winter Ceviche

Tuna and Mango Ceviche

Salmon Tartare

Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar

Crab-Avocado Ravioli

Shrimp-Filled Zucchini Blossoms

Sardine Escabeche

Chicken Liver Gâteaux with Pickled Onions

Cabbage and Foie Gras Bundles

Coddled Eggs with Foie Gras

CHICKEN AND DUCK

Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux

Hurry-up-and-Wait Roast Chicken

M. Jacques’ Armagnac Chicken

Chicken in a Pot: The Garlic and Lemon Version

Chicken Basquaise

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes

Chicken Couscous

Chicken Breasts Diable

Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande

Cinnamon-Crunch Chicken

Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote

Chicken B’stilla

Olive-Olive Cornish Hens

Sausage-Stuffed Cornish Hens

Twenty-Minute Honey-Glazed Duck Breasts

Duck Breasts with Fresh Peaches

Pan-Seared Duck Breasts with Kumquats

BEEF, VEAL, PORK, AND LAMB

Bistrot Paul Bert Pepper Steak

Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger

My Go-to Beef Daube

Beef Cheek Daube with Carrots and Elbow Macaroni

Boeuf à la Ficelle (Beef on a String)

Boeuf à la Mode (aka Great Pot Roast)

Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port

Hachis Parmentier

Next-Day Beef Salad

Green-as-Spring Veal Stew

Veal Marengo

Veal Chops with Rosemary Butter

Osso Buco à l’Arman

Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

Coconut-Lemongrass-Braised Pork

Chard-Stuffed Pork Roast

Pork Roast with Mangoes and Lychees

Cola and Jam Spareribs

Navarin Printanier

Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb

Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine

FISH AND SHELLFISH

Almond Flounder Meunière

Skate with Capers, Cornichons, and Brown Butter Sauce

Cod and Spinach Roulades

Monkfish and Double Carrots

Mediterranean Swordfish with Frilly Herb Salad

Salmon with Basil Tapenade

Roasted Salmon and Lentils

Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote

Spice-Crusted Tuna

Tuna Confit with Black Olive Tapenade and Tomato Salsa

Seafood Pot-au-Feu

Moules Marinière

Curried Mussels

Mussels and Chorizo with or without Pasta

Scallops with Caramel-Orange Sauce

Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil

Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

Vanilla-Butter-Braised Lobster

VEGETABLES AND GRAINS (Mostly Sides, but a Few Mains Too)

Asparagus and Bits of Bacon

Lemon-Steamed Spinach

Pancetta Green Beans

Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli

Spiced Butter-Glazed Carrots

Boulevard Raspail Corn on the Cob

Corn Pancakes

Endives, Apples, and Grapes

Crunchy Ginger-Pickled Cucumbers

Pipérade Stir-Fry

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Tomatoes Provençal

Chanterelles with Napa and Nuts

Baby Bok Choy, Sugar Snaps, and Garlic en Papillote

Swiss Chard Pancakes

Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic

Go-with-Everything Celery Root Puree

Matafan (Fluffy Mashed Potato Pancakes)

Broth-Braised Potatoes

Salty-Sweet Potato Far

Potato Gratin (Pommes Dauphinois)

Cauliflower-Bacon Gratin

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good

French Lentils: A Basic Recipe

Dressy Pasta Risotto

Beggar’s Linguine

Herb-Speckled Spaetzle

Gnocchi à La Parisienne

Storzapretis (aka Corsican Spinach and Mint Gnocchi)

Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu

Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach

Cardamom Rice Pilaf

Lemon Barley Pilaf

DESSERTS

Long and Slow Apples

Compote de Pommes Two Ways

Baked Apples Filled with Fruits and Nuts

Spice-Poached Apples or Pears

Roasted Rhubarb

Citrus-Berry Terrine

Salted Butter Break-Ups

Cocoa Sablés

Almond-Orange Tuiles

Speculoos

Honey-Spiced Madeleines

Croquants

Butter and Rum Crepes, Fancy and Plain

Nutella Tartine

Waffles and Cream

Sugar-Crusted French Toast

Coupétade (French-Toast Pudding)

Top-Secret Chocolate Mousse

Crème Brûlée

Coeur à la Crème

Floating Islands

Rice Pudding and Caramel Apples

Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake

Quatre-Quarts

Visitandine

Caramel-Topped Semolina Cake

Ispahan Loaf Cake

Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade

Michel Rostang’s Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

Tourteau de Chèvre

Whole-Cherry Clafoutis

Financiers

Coconut Friands

Caramel-Almond Custard Tart

Crispy, Crackly Apple-Almond Tart

Orange-Almond Tart

Sablé Breton Galette with Berries

Double Chocolate and Banana Tart

Cheesecake Tart

Gâteau Basque

Vanilla Éclairs

Paris-Brest

Peach Melba

Olive Oil Ice Cream

FUNDAMENTALS AND FLOURISHES

Everyday Vinaigrette

Tapenade Vinaigrette

Anchoiade

Black Olive Tapenade

Basil Pesto

Mango Chatini

Mayonnaise

Crème Fraîche

Poached Eggs

Ruffly Poached Eggs

Brioche Dough

Bubble-Top Brioches

Tart Dough

Sweet Tart Dough

Cream Puff Dough

Crème Anglaise

Vanilla Pastry Cream

Chocolate Pastry Cream

Lemon Curd

Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce

Hot Fudge Sauce

Warm Caramel Sauce

Vanilla Ice Cream

Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

SOURCES

INDEX

Copyright © 2010 by Dorie Greenspan

Photographs copyright © 2010 by Alan Richardson

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Greenspan, Dorie.

Around my French table : more than 300 recipes from my home to yours / Dorie Greenspan ; photographs by Alan Richardson.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-618-87553-5 (hardcover)

1. Cookery, French. I. Title.

TX719.G758 2010

641.5944—dc22

2010014232

Book design by George Restrepo

Food styling by Karen Tack

Prop styling by Deb Donahue

eISBN 978-0-547-50481-0

v6.0319

For Michael, who made my dream of a French life come true, and with whom I am so lucky to share the joys of that life.

For Joshua, who makes life even sweeter.

For my French friends, who have shared their lives and their tables with me.

And in memory of my mother, Helen Burg, who visited Paris just once, but who cherished the pleasures of that city for the rest of her life.

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK IS SPECIAL TO ME in every way. Special because I got to write about the food I love in France, a country that means so much to me, and very special because I got to work with an extraordinary group of people, many of whom I’ve been fortunate enough to work with for years.

From the day I met my agent, David Black, he told me that this was a book I had to do. Now that it’s written, I know he was right, but I also know that it would not have been the book it is without his constant encouragement, his wise eye, and his warm heart.

Anyone who knows me is probably tired of hearing me say this, but I was so very lucky to have Rux Martin as my editor. As she did with Baking: From My Home to Yours, Rux, with her sharp intelligence; profound appreciation of food, writing, and writers; and ever-ready blue pencil made this a better book than it was when it arrived on her doorstep. She also made me laugh, and when you’re racing a tight deadline for a big book, the benefits of laughter can’t be overestimated.

At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, I got to work with the A-team. Many thanks to George Restrepo, for his beautiful book design; Eugenie Delaney, for carrying it out; Teresa Elsey, who saw the book through production; Jacinta Monniere, who once again translated scribbles into type; and Rux’s ever helpful and always patient assistant, Tim Mudie.

When photographer Alan Richardson, food stylist Karen Tack, and prop stylist Deb Donahue signed on to work on this book, I was so happy that I actually burst into tears. It had been my dream that we could work together again—this is the team that made Baking so gorgeous—but I hadn’t dared to imagine that it would happen. As an author, you trust your food to those who will illustrate it—never has there been a more trustworthy crew.

This book, my tenth, marks the twentieth anniversary of my working with the best cookbook copyeditor ever, Judith Sutton. We’ve worked together on all my books, and I hope we always will. Thanks also to proofreaders Jessica Sherman and Susan Dickinson, whose sharp eyes made this book better.

I am grateful to Jennifer King, a founder of Liddabit Sweets, for testing—and retesting—my recipes. Jen has all the qualities you want in a tester: skillfulness, meticulousness, a love of food, and an appetite for learning.

Barbara Fairchild, the editor in chief of Bon Appétit, has encouraged me for years, and with each year, I appreciate her support more and more. I’m also deeply appreciative for the enthusiasm and support of Janice Kaplan, who was my editor at Parade.

More so than any other book I’ve written, this one depended on and was made infinitely richer by the generosity of friends. In America, I had great help from Eric Render, Beth and Michael Vogel, Laura Shapiro, and Stephanie Lyness. While I was in France, among the friends who were at my side or with me around my table or theirs were Martine and Bernard Collet, Hélène Samuel, Juan Sanchez, Drew Harré, Christian Holthausen, Simon Maurel, David Lebovitz, Alec Lobrano, Paule Caillat, Patricia and Walter Wells, and my friend and mentor in all things sweet, Pierre Hermé, and his wife, Barbara.

Many people shared their wonderful recipes with me, among them: Bertrand Auboyneau; Marie-Hélène Brunet-Lhoste; Yves Camdeborde; Béatrix Collet; Marie- Claude Delaveau; Jacques Drouot; Danielle Easton; Sonia Ezgulian; Didier Frayssou; Laëtitia Ghipponi; Sophie-Charlotte Guitter; Rosa Jackson; Pierre Jancou; Gérard Jeannin and his wife, Sylvie Rougetet; Anne Leblanc; Nick Malgieri; Françoise Maloberti; Sonia Maman; Claudine Martina; Olivier Martina; Marie Naël; Anne Noblet; Marie- Cécile Noblet; Braden Perkins; Betty Rosbottom; Kerrin Rousset; Kim Sunée; Yannis Théodore; Alice Vasseur; Christine Vasseur; and Meg Zimbeck.

Merci mille fois and a thousand times more to France for being the country of my heart and the land where food, wine, friendship, and home cooking flourish.

And, as always and forever, my love and thanks to the men in my life, Michael, my husband, and Joshua, our son.

Introduction

I WAS RECENTLY MARRIED, JUST OUT OF college, and working at my first grown-up job when Michael, my husband, came into a bit of money, a few hundred dollars that seemed to fall from the sky. He took one look at the check and thought, Car payments! I, ever the romantic, saw it and almost screamed, Paris!

Whoever said screaming will get you nothing was wrong. A month later, we landed in France.

Somewhere there’s a picture of me from that trip. I’m an impossibly skinny young woman with a huge grin. I’m spinning around with arms out wide, and I look like I’m about to grab Paris and hold on to her forever. Which I did.

There were a million reasons I took Paris into my heart. Everything about the city entranced me, from the way the women walked on towering stiletto heels over bumpy cobblestoned streets to how old-fashioned neighborhood restaurants still had cubbyholes where regulars could keep their napkin rings. I loved the rhythm of Parisian life, the sound of the language, the way people sat in cafés for hours.

I fell in love with the city because it fit all my girlish ideas of what it was supposed to be, but I stayed in love with all of France because of its food and its people.

I’m convinced my fate turned on a strawberry tartlet. We were walking up the very chic rue Saint-Honoré, pressing our noses against the windows of the fashionable stores and admiring everything we couldn’t afford, when the tartlet, a treat within our means, called out to me. It was the first morsel I had on French soil, and more than thirty years later, I still think it was the best tartlet of my life, a life that became rich in tartlets.

This one was a barquette, a boat-shaped tartlet so teensy that all it could hold was a lick of pastry cream and three little strawberries, but everything about it excited me. The crust was so beautifully baked and flaky that when I took the first bite, small shards of it flew across my scarf. It was butter that gave the crust its texture, remarkable flavor, and deep golden color, and a little more butter and pure vanilla that made the pastry cream so memorable. And those strawberries. They were fraises des bois—tiny wild strawberries—but I had no idea of that then. What I did know was that they tasted like real strawberries, whose flavor I must have subconsciously tucked away in my memory.

That evening, after searching for a restaurant that would keep us within the budget set by Europe on $5 a Day, we settled into a crêperie near our hotel. It was startling to see a big menu offering nothing but crepes, and not a single one famous in America! Everything we tasted was a novelty: the buckwheat crepe was lacy and chewy, and the sunny-side-up egg that accompanied it had a yolk the color of marigolds and the true taste of eggs.

I returned home to New York City, assured my mother that I loved her even though she’d made the mistake of having me in Brooklyn instead of Paris, and proceeded to devote the rest of my life to remedying her lapse in judgment.

I took French lessons, learned to tie a scarf the French way, and in anticipation of spending more time in cafés, I practiced making an espresso last long enough to get through a chapter of Sartre.

And I cooked. I made the food I’d loved in France, the food you’ll find in this book—simple, delicious, everyday food, like beef stews made with rough country wine and carrots that I could have sworn were candied but weren’t (I’ve got a similar dish on page 244); salads dressed with vinaigrettes that had enough sharp mustard in them to make your eyes pop open (see page 484); and hand-formed tarts with uneven edges that charred a bit when they caught the oven’s heat (just as the one on page 458 does).

I returned to Paris as often as I could and traveled through France as much as I could. On each trip, I’d buy cookbooks, collect recipes from anyone who’d share them (and almost everyone I asked, from farmers in the markets to chefs, was happy to share), and take cooking and baking classes everywhere they were offered. Then I’d come back and spend days at a stretch trying to perfect what I’d learned or to teach myself something new.

When Marie-Cécile Noblet, a Frenchwoman from a hotel-restaurant family in Brittany, came to live with us as an au pair for Joshua, our infant son, I was working on a doctoral thesis in gerontology but thinking I wanted to make a change in my life. Within weeks of her arrival, I was spending more time in the kitchen with her than in school with my advisors.

Marie-Cécile was a born cook. When she made something particularly wonderful and I asked a question, she’d give me a perfect Gallic shrug, put her index finger to the tip of her nose, and claim that she’d made it au pif, or just by instinct. And she had. She could feel her way around almost any recipe—as I’d later see so many good French cooks do—and she taught me to trust my own instincts and to always have one tool at my side: a spoon to taste with.

IT WOULD TAKE ME A DECADE TO make my passion my work, but shortly after Marie-Cécile arrived, I put aside my dissertation, left my job in a research center, and got a position as a pastry cook in a restaurant. A couple of years later, I landed some assignments as a food writer: I became the editor of the James Beard Foundation publications and was hired to write for Elle magazine. Best of all, I got to work with the greatest French chefs both here and in France.

It was the late 1980s; some of les grands, as the top chefs were called, were shaking up haute French cuisine and I had a front-row seat at the revolution. I worked in Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s first American kitchen when he banished butter from his sauces and did away with long-cooked stocks in favor of light pan jus, vegetable purees, and his then-radical flavored oils. I tagged along with Gilbert Le Coze, the chef-owner of Le Bernardin, a new breed of seafood restaurant in New York City, as he strode through the Fulton Fish Market picking the best of the catch and teaching other city chefs how to get the most out of fish, like monkfish and skate, they’d once ignored. And I was lucky enough to spend some time with Alain Ducasse learning how he worked the sunny ingredients and the easygoing style of the Mediterranean into his personal take on rigorous French cuisine.

These amazingly talented chefs and others like them were adding flavors from all parts of the world to their cooking and, in the process, not only loosening up French cooking, but making it more understandable to us Americans—more like the melting-pot cooking that’s the hallmark of our own tradition.

I was dazzled by their brilliance, but I was fascinated by something else: the unbroken connection to the cooking of their childhoods. After making a startlingly original ginger sauce for his famous molten chocolate cake, Jean-Georges urged me to taste a cup of thick lentil soup, because it was made exactly as his mother would have made it (my version is on page 90). Having prepared a meal that included a kingly amount of precious black truffles, Daniel Boulud told me he couldn’t wait to have hachis Parmentier, a humble shepherd’s pie (see page 258). And Pierre Hermé, France’s most famous pastry chef, after making a chocolate dessert that was masterly, revealed that its haunting flavor came from a jar of Nutella (just as it does in his tartine on page 415).

FOR YEARS I CONTINUED TO TRAVEL BACK and forth between New York City and France. Then, thirteen years ago, I became truly bicontinental: Michael and I moved into an apartment in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, and I got the French life I couldn’t ever have really imagined but had always longed for. Finally I could be a regular in the small shops of my neighborhood and at the vendors’ stalls at the market, and nicest of all, I could cook for my French friends, and they for me.

Now I can chart the changing seasons by what my friends and I are cooking. When asparagus arrives, dinner at Martine Collet’s starts with pounds of them, perfectly peeled to their tips, steamed just until a knife slips through them (see page 128), piled on a platter, and flanked by two bowls of her lemony mayonnaise. In early fall, when the days are warm but the nights are a little cooler, Hélène Samuel makes her all-white salad (page 108), a mix of mushrooms, apples, celery, and cabbage dressed with a tangy yogurt vinaigrette. When the cold weather is with us for real, Paule Caillat can be counted upon to serve Parisian gnocchi (page 374), a recipe passed down to her by her Tante Léo. And throughout the year, we lift the lids of Dutch ovens to reveal tagines, the beloved spice-scented Moroccan stews (try the one for lamb with apricots on page 284), or slowly braised boeuf à la mode (page 252) with a sauce gently seasoned with anchovies, or chicken braised in Armagnac (page 204), or an all-vegetable pot-au-feu (page 376).

What’s being cooked in French homes today is wonderful partly because it’s so unexpected. One week you might have a creamy cheese and potato gratin (see page 360) just like the one a cook’s great-grandmother used to make, and the next week you’ll be treated to a simply cooked fish with a ginger-spiked salsa (page 489) taking the place of the butter sauce that would once have been standard.

I love this mix of old and new, traditional and exotic, store-bought and homemade, simple and complex, and you’ll find it in this book. These are the recipes gathered over my years of traveling and living in France. They’re recipes from friends I love, bistros I cherish, and my own Paris kitchen. Some are steeped in history or tied to a story, and others are as fresh as the ingredients that go into them; some are time-honored, and many others are created on the spur of the moment from a basket full of food from the day’s market.

This is elbows-on-the-table food, dishes you don’t need a Grand Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu to make. It’s the food I would cook for you if you came to visit me in Paris—or in New York City, where all of these recipes were tested. The ingredients are readily available in the United States; almost everything can be bought at your neighborhood supermarket, and the techniques are straightforward and practical, as they must be—French home cooks are as busy as we are.

Holding this book of recipes, a record of my time in France, I have the sense of something meant to be: the reason that Michael and I ended up with plane tickets and a strawberry tartlet all those years ago.

About the Recipes

All the recipes in this book were made with large eggs, unsalted butter, and whole milk unless otherwise specified.

Just about every time you cook or bake, you’ve got to make a judgment call—it’s the nature of the craft. I tested these recipes over and over and wrote them as carefully and precisely as I could, but there’s no way I could take into account all the individual variables that will turn up in your kitchen. I couldn’t know exactly how powerful medium heat is on your stovetop, how constant your oven temperature is, how cool your steak is when you slide it into the pan, how full your skillet is when you’re sauteing, and a million other little things that affect the outcome of what you’re making. And so, I’ve given you as many clues as I can for you to decide when something is done, and I’ve often given you a range of cooking or baking times, but the success of any cooking—whether from this book or any other—depends on using your judgment. Don’t cook something for 15 minutes just because I tell you to—check it a little before the 15-minute mark, and then keep checking until it’s just right. I always feel that when I send a recipe out into the world, I’m asking you to be my partner in making it, and I love this about cookbookery. I trust your judgment, and you should too.

NIBBLES AND HORS D’OEUVRES

Gougères 4

Goat-Cheese Mini Puffs 7

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Onion Biscuits 8

Cheez-it-ish Crackers 10

Pierre Hermé’s Olive Sablés 12

David’s Seaweed Sablés 14

Mustard Bâtons 15

Herbed Olives 16

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts 18

Hummus 19

Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese (aka Boursin’s Mama) 20

Guacamole with Tomatoes and Bell Peppers 22

Eggplant Caviar 23

Tzatziki 24

Sardine Rillettes 25

Salmon Rillettes 26

Tuna Rillettes 28

Arman’s Caviar in Aspic 29

Dilled Gravlax with Mustard Sauce 30

Mme. Maman’s Chopped Liver 32

Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread 33

Savory Cheese and Chive Bread 34

Dieter’s Tartine 38

Tartine de Viande des Grisons 41

Two Tartines from La Croix Rouge 42

Goat Cheese and Strawberry Tartine 44

Pissaladière 45

Provençal Olive Fougasse 48

Socca from Vieux Nice 51

PROVENÇAL OLIVE FOUGASSE (PAGE 48), HERBED OLIVES (PAGE 16), AND MUSTARD BÂTONS (PAGE 15)

Gougères

WHEN YOU’RE AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, there’s nothing more flattering than to have French people ask you to share your recipe for one of their national treasures. Of all the things I make for my French friends, this is the one that gets the most requests.

The easiest way to describe gougères is to call them cheese puffs. Their dough, pâte à choux, is the same one you’d use for sweet cream puffs or profiteroles (page 502), but when the pâte à choux is destined to become gougères, you fold in a fair amount of grated cheese. In France, I use Gruyère, Comté, Emmenthal, or, just for fun and a spot of color, Mimolette, Gouda’s French cousin; in America, I reach for extra-sharp cheddar, and sometimes I add a little smoked cheese to the mix.

Gougères are made everywhere in France (and can be bought frozen in many stores), but their home is Burgundy, where they are the first thing you get when you sit down in almost any restaurant. In Burgundy, gougères are often served with the local aperitif, kir (see box, page 6); chez Greenspan, while I serve them no matter what I’m pouring as a welcoming glass, my favorite sip-along is Champagne. I love the way Champagne’s toastiness and gougères’ egginess play together.

Although you must spoon out the puffs as soon as the dough is made, the little puffs can be frozen and then baked straight from the freezer, putting them in the realm of the doable even on the spur of the moment.

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

Bring the milk, water, butter, and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over high heat. Add the flour all at once, lower the heat to medium-low, and immediately start stirring energetically with a wooden spoon or heavy whisk. The dough will come together and a light crust will form on the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring—with vigor—for another minute or two to dry the dough. The dough should now be very smooth.

Turn the dough into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or into a bowl that you can use for mixing with a hand mixer or a wooden spoon and elbow grease. Let the dough sit for a minute, then add the eggs one by one and beat, beat, beat until the dough is thick and shiny. Make sure that each egg is completely incorporated before you add the next, and don’t be concerned if the dough separates—by the time the last egg goes in, the dough will come together again. Beat in the grated cheese. Once the dough is made, it should be spooned out immediately.

Using about 1 tablespoon of dough for each gougère, drop the dough from a spoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of puff space between the mounds.

Slide the baking sheets into the oven and immediately turn the oven temperature down to 375 degrees F. Bake for 12 minutes, then rotate the pans from front to back and top to bottom. Continue baking until the gougères are golden, firm, and, yes, puffed, another 12 to 15 minutes or so. Serve warm, or transfer the pans to racks to cool.

MAKES ABOUT 36 GOUGÈRES

SERVING

Gougères are good straight from the oven and at room temperature. I like them both ways, but I think you can appreciate them best when they’re still warm. Serve with kir, white wine, or Champagne.

STORING

The best way to store gougères is to shape the dough, freeze the mounds on a baking sheet, and then, when they’re solid, lift them off the sheet and pack them airtight in plastic bags. Bake them straight from the freezer—no need to defrost—just give them a minute or two more in the oven. Leftover puffs can be kept at room temperature overnight and reheated in a 350-degree-F oven, or they can be frozen and reheated before serving.

dijon’s famous aperitif

Arguably the best-known aperitif of France, kir is named for Canon Felix Kir, who was a priest, a World War II hero, and the mayor of Dijon. It was he who popularized the drink, a cocktail of crème de cassis (black currant liqueur) and white wine, by serving it at town gatherings. Today’s kir is usually made in the ratio of one part crème de cassis to four or five parts (or more, to taste) white wine. Earlier kirs are said to have been one-third crème de cassis and two-thirds wine, producing a very sweet and quickly intoxicating aperitif, since crème de cassis is quite alcoholic. To get the best and prettiest mix, first pour the cassis into the glass—a white-wine glass or Champagne flute—and then pour in the chilled white wine. In Burgundy, the traditional wine for kir is Aligoté, a somewhat acidic white wine of no prestige in the region. Of course, you can use whatever wine you wish: use red wine, and you’ll have a kir communard or cardinale; use Champagne, and it’ll be a kir royale.

Goat-Cheese Mini Puffs

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE A TIME when cream puffs wouldn’t be a hit, but there’s something particularly appealing and surprising about them when they’re savory. The puffs themselves, which look like something precious plucked from a pâtisserie, are made from basic pâte à choux, or cream puff dough, and the filling is a mix of herbed goat cheese, cream cheese (I use Neufchâtel in France), and a little heavy cream. They’re much richer than popcorn—classier too—but they’re no less serially munchable.

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

Using about ½ tablespoon of dough for each puff, drop the dough from a spoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space between the mounds.

If you’d like to glaze the puffs, lightly beat the egg with a splash of cold water and, using a pastry brush, coat just the top of the puffs with a little glaze. Try not to let the glaze dribble down the sides of the dough, or the drips will hamper the puffs’ rise.

Slide the baking sheets into the oven and immediately turn the oven temperature down to 375 degrees F. Bake for 12 minutes, then rotate the pans from front to back and top to bottom. Continue baking until the puffs are golden, firm, and, yes, puffed, another 12 to 15 minutes or so. Place the baking sheets on cooling racks and let the puffs cool to room temperature.

TO MAKE THE FILLING: Using a flexible rubber spatula or an electric mixer, beat the goat cheese, cream cheese, and heavy cream together in a bowl until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.

If you’d like to fill the puffs without cutting them, fit a pastry bag with a small plain decorating tip and spoon the filling into the bag. Use the tip to poke a hole in the side of each puff and squeeze the filling into the puffs. Alternatively, you can cut off the top third or so of each puff, spoon in some filling, and replace the caps.

Serve warm, at room temperature, or slightly chilled.

MAKES ABOUT 40 CHEESE PUFFS

SERVING

The puffs are good slightly warm, at room temperature, or even ever so slightly chilled. They’re great with white wine, particularly a white from the Loire Valley (consider a Sancerre), which is as well known for its goat cheese as it is for its wine.

STORING

Although you must spoon out the puffs as soon as the dough is made, the mini puffs can be frozen and then baked straight from the freezer. Unfilled puffs can be kept lightly covered at room temperature overnight. You can reheat them in a 350-degree-F oven for a few minutes to refresh them before filling. Cover any leftover filled puffs and keep them in the refrigerator; let them stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes before serving.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Onion Biscuits

WHILE I’M A REGULAR BISCUIT BAKER in New York, it had never occurred to me to make the little quick breads in France until one New Year’s Eve, more than ten years ago, when my friend Jim Ferguson told me he was bringing a good ole Carolina country ham to our very Parisian party and asked me to have biscuits at the ready. Who knew they’d be such a hit!

I made traditional plain biscuits for the country ham, but when I saw how much my French friends appreciated them, I created these onion biscuits, named them after our neighborhood, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and made them a house special.

I make the dough, pat it out, and cut it into small rounds—I use a piece of PVC pipe, about 1½ inches in diameter, that the plumber left after doing some kitchen repairs—then freeze the quick breads. Right before friends are due to arrive, I pop the frozen biscuits into the oven.

I think you’ll be as surprised as I was to discover how good this simple Southern staple is with fine French Champagne.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Have a biscuit cutter or tall cookie cutter, one that’s between 1 and 2 inches in diameter, at hand.

Put ½ tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet or saucepan and cut the remaining butter into 12 pieces.

Set the pan over low heat, melt the butter, and add the onion. Cook, stirring, just until it softens, about 3 minutes. Pull the pan from the heat.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a bowl and whisk to combine. Drop the butter pieces into the bowl and, using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until you’ve got a bowl full of flour-covered pieces, some small and flaky, some the size of peas. Scatter the cooked onion over the mixture, then pour over the cold milk and, using a fork, toss and turn everything together until you’ve got a soft dough. If there are some dry bits at the bottom of the bowl, reach in and knead the dough gently a couple of times.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour, turn the dough out, and dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour. Pat the dough down gently with your hands (or roll it out with a pin) until it is about ½ inch thick. It doesn’t have to be an even square or round; just do the best you can, and do it quickly.

Dip the biscuit cutter into the flour bin, then cut out as many biscuits as you can—cutting the biscuits as close to one another as possible—and transfer them to the baking sheet, leaving a little space between them. Gather the scraps of dough together, pat them down, and cut out as many more biscuits as you can; put these on the lined baking sheet too. Alternatively (and perhaps more economically), you can pat or roll out the dough into a rectangle or square, then, using a long knife, cut square biscuits, about 1 to 1½ inches on a side. (You can make the biscuits to this point and freeze them on the baking sheet; when they’re solid, pack them airtight and freeze them for up to 2 months.)

Bake the biscuits for 15 to 18 minutes, or until they are puffed and lightly browned. They’re ready to eat now or to use to make cocktail sandwiches.

MAKES ABOUT 32 BISCUITS

SERVING

Biscuits are always best right out of the oven while still warm. However, these are also good at room temperature—the onion flavor is interesting enough to compensate for whatever fluffiness is lost when the biscuits cool.

STORING

Unbaked biscuits can be frozen for up to 2 months and baked straight from the freezer—just add a couple of minutes to the baking time. Once the biscuits are baked, they’re best eaten quickly.

Cheez-it-ish Crackers

I LOVE WHITE WINE WITH CHEESE, and I love to serve something cheesy as a nibble with before-dinner drinks (see the recipe for Gougères on page 4). So, since it’s just not done to serve a hunk of cheese with aperitifs in France—hunks, rounds, and wedges are served after the main course, before dessert—and since the preferred nibble with that first coupe de Champagne or glass of wine is something small and often crunchy, I created these little crackers, which are so much chicer than pretzels. The dough is easily made in a food processor (although you could do it by hand), and it can be either rolled out or shaped into logs, chilled, and then sliced and baked (see Bonne Idée). While I make these most often with Gruyère, Comté, or Emmenthal, they’re awfully good with cheddar, a cheese I’m convinced the French would love if only it could be made on their terroir.

Put the butter, cheese, salt, white pepper, and Aleppo pepper or cayenne, if you’re using it, in a food processor and pulse until the butter is broken up into uneven bits and the mixture forms small curds. Add the flour and pulse until the dough forms moist curds again—these will be larger. There are times, though, when you pulse and pulse and never get curds—in that case, just process for a minute, so that everything is as moist as possible.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead it gently until it comes together. Divide the dough in half, pat each half into a disk, and wrap the disks in plastic. Chill for at least an hour, or for up to 3 days.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Working with 1 disk at a time, roll the dough out between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper to a scant ¼ inch thick. Using a small cookie cutter—I use a cutter with a diameter of about 1¼ inches—cut the dough into crackers. Gather the scraps together, so you can combine them with the scraps from the second disk, chill, and roll them out to make more crackers. Place the rounds on the baking sheet, leaving a scant inch between the rounds.

Bake for 14 to 17 minutes, or until the crackers are lightly golden and firm to the touch; transfer the crackers to a rack to cool. Repeat with the second disk of dough (and the scraps), making certain that your baking sheet is cool. You can serve these while they’re still a little warm, or you can wait until they reach room temperature.

MAKES ABOUT 50 CRACKERS

SERVING

Just pile these into a basket and serve them with aperitifs, or keep them handy for snacking.

STORING

Packed in an airtight tin, the crackers will keep for at least 4 days. While you can freeze them, I find it’s better to freeze the dough instead. To make things really simple, roll the dough out, leave it between the sheets of plastic or wax paper, and put it in the freezer. When the dough is frozen solid, peel off the plastic or paper and rewrap it airtight. To use, let the dough soften just enough so that you can cut out the rounds, then bake as directed; the crackers might need another minute or two in the oven if the dough is still frozen when you start to bake.

BONNE IDÉE

Slice-and-Bake Crackers.

You can make this simple recipe even simpler by dividing the dough into thirds and shaping each piece into a log. (The diameter is up to you.) Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for at least 3 hours—or freeze them—then slice them into rounds that are a scant ¼ inch thick. Bake just as you do the cutouts.

Pierre Hermé’s Olive Sablés

YOU CAN LOOK AT THIS COCKTAIL nibble as either a sweet cookie with a spot of savoriness or a savory cookie with a touch of sweetness, but either way you’ll have something beyond the borders of the expected and deep within the realm of the irresistible. The sablés (French shortbreads) are undeniably sweet—in fact, that’s the first taste you get—but then, just as you’re about to shake your head in wonder, up come the salty olives, followed by the base flavor of olive oil. The only thing that’s not surprising about these remarkable cookies is that the recipe was given to me by Pierre Hermé, France’s most famous pastry chef and the roi of remarkable.

The dough for these slice-and-bake sablés includes the grated yolk of a hard-boiled egg, an ingredient not uncommon in Austrian baking, a tradition Pierre knows well. Combined with the recipe’s potato starch and confectioners’ sugar, it creates a cookie of supernatural tenderness.

I use oil-cured black olives, plain or herb-flecked, for these. You want a meaty, chewy olive with a lot of flavor, so stay away from canned black olives (they won’t work in these at all) or the kinds of olives that fall apart or turn mushy when chopped.

BE PREPARED: The dough should chill for at least several hours, or, preferably, overnight. This rest not only firms the logs enough so that you can work with them easily but gives the olives time to fully flavor the dough.

Grate the hard-boiled yolk onto a piece of wax paper. Put the flour and potato starch in a strainer set over a large bowl and sift into the bowl; whisk to thoroughly blend.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until it’s soft and creamy. Beat in the olive oil, followed by the grated yolk. Blend in the confectioners’ sugar, reduce the speed to low, and add the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough just comes together—there’s no reason to beat this dough, and you shouldn’t—then stir in the chopped olives. You’ll have a very soft, very pliable dough. (If you prefer, you can make the dough by hand, using a rubber spatula to blend the butter, oil, yolk, and sugar and to fold in the dry ingredients and olives.)

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, divide it into thirds, and shape each piece into a log about 1½ inches in diameter. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for at least several hours, or, better yet, overnight. If you’re in a hurry, you can freeze the logs for an hour or so.

When you’re ready to bake the sablés, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Working with 1 log at a time, slice the cookies ¼ inch thick and arrange them on the baking sheet—you want to bake these one sheet at a time.

Bake the sablés for 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the midway mark, or until the cookies are firm but not colored. They may turn golden around the edges, but you don’t want them to brown. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool, and repeat with the remaining logs of dough, making sure to use a cool baking sheet each time.

MAKES ABOUT 60 COOKIES

SERVING

Great with white wine and Champagne, these are also perfect with cocktails.

STORING

The logs of dough can be frozen for up to 2 months; there’s no need to defrost before slicing and baking.

David’s Seaweed Sablés

THESE BUTTER COOKIES ARE AS SURPRISING as you’d guess they’d be from their name. They’re truly sablés, sweet, buttery slice-and-bake cookies; truly salty, as salty as pretzels; and truly a Paris trend. Pâtisseries all over the city offer some version of classic sablés with unclassic add-ins like olives (see Pierre Hermé’s recipe on page 12), cheese (see page 10), bacon, cracked spices, or seasoned salt. The salty cookies are playful, chic, and attention-getting; in other words, the perfect cocktail-party tidbit.

The recipe for these treats was given to me by cookbook author, pastry chef, blogger, American-in-Paris, and friend David Lebovitz. Originally David made these with French seaweed fleur de sel, but since it is not that easy to come by, I use plain fleur de sel and stir finely chopped toasted nori into the dough.

BE PREPARED: The dough should chill for at least 1 hour.

You can make the dough with a mixer, but if your butter is really soft, the dough is easy to make by hand with a sturdy rubber spatula. Beat the butter, nori, and salt together in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Beat in the sugar, then the egg yolk. Stir in the olive oil, then mix in the flour. When the dough is smooth, stop; you don’t want to overwork it.

Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a slender log about 8 inches long. Wrap the logs tightly in plastic wrap and chill them for at least 1 hour, or for up to 5 days.

When you’re ready to bake the sablés, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Working with 1 log at a time, slice the cookies on the scant side of ¼ inch (as David says) and arrange them on the baking sheet—you want to bake these one sheet at a time. If you’d like, sprinkle a couple of grains of salt over the top of each cookie.

Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are slightly firm but not colored. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool, and repeat with the second log.

MAKES ABOUT 70 COOKIES

SERVING

These can be served with red wine, but they’re particularly good with white and sparkling wines that are not very dry.

STORING

The logs of dough can be kept tightly wrapped in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months. You can slice and bake the sablés straight from the freezer—there’s no need to defrost the logs—but you might need to bake the cookies an extra minute. Seaweed sablés are best the day they are made, but they can be stored overnight in an airtight container.

Mustard Bâtons

LIKE ANNE LEBLANC’S STARTLINGLY SIMPLE AVOCADO with pistachio oil (page 106), mustard batons are proof that it doesn’t take much to make something great tasting, and good looking too. I’m embarrassed to admit that I resisted this recipe for years. No fewer than three friends told me I had to try it, but looking at the ingredient list—puff pastry, Dijon mustard, and an egg for the glaze—I just couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to bake a batch. It wasn’t until I was at a party in Paris and tasted the slender strips that I ran home and made them myself. They’re a terrific hors d’oeuvre and they’re make-aheadable. The only caveat is to make sure your mustard packs some punch—these are best when the mustard is strong. The photo is on page 2.

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Have a ruler and a pizza cutter (or sharp knife) at hand.

Working with 1 sheet of pastry at a time, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until you have a rectangle that’s about 12×16 inches. If necessary, turn the dough so that a short side of the rectangle is closest to you. Measure the length so that you can find the middle, and spread ¼ cup of the mustard over the lower half of the dough, stopping about ⅛ inch from the side and bottom edges. Fold the top portion of the dough over the bottom and, using the pizza cutter (or knife), with your ruler as a guide, cut the pastry from top to bottom into strips about 1 inch wide (I actually use the width of the ruler itself as my guide), then cut the strips crosswise in half. (If you prefer, you can leave the strips long.)

Carefully transfer the bâtons to one of the baking sheets and chill or freeze them while you work on the second batch. (You can make all the strips to this point and freeze them on the baking sheets, then pack them airtight and keep them frozen for up to 2 months.)

Lightly beat the egg with a splash of cold water and brush just the tops of the strips with this glaze. If you’d like, sprinkle them with poppy seeds.

Bake the bâtons for 8 minutes. Rotate the sheets from front to back and top to bottom and bake for another 7 to 8 minutes, or until the strips are puffed and golden brown. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let the bâtons rest for a couple of minutes before serving.

MAKES ABOUT 40 BÂTONS

SERVING

These are especially good with white wine or kir (see box, page 6), the official aperitif of Dijon.

STORING

Unbaked bâtons can be kept in the freezer for up to 2 months and baked while still frozen. Brush them with the egg wash and sprinkle them with the poppy seeds, if using them, just before baking.

BONNE IDÉE

Tapenade Bâtons.

Spreading the puff pastry with tapenade, homemade (page 487) or store-bought, makes savory strips that are great on a summer’s evening with an iced rosé. Before folding over the puff pastry, I like to sprinkle the tapenade with grated lemon zest and/or grated Parmesan; other good add-ins are teensy slivers of roasted peppers or sun-dried tomatoes, paper-thin slices of onion, and toasted sliced almonds.

Herbed Olives

NO MATTER THE SIZE of a French outdoor market, you can be sure that among the vegetable sellers and butchers, the cheese makers and fishmongers, you’ll find a stand where the specialty is olives. Well, olives, along with nuts and spices, dried fruit, citrons confits (preserved lemons), and often a few savory snackables, like stuffed cherry peppers or rice-filled grape leaves, hints that the vendors have their roots in regions around the Mediterranean. Their selections of olives are wide, ranging from small, shiny black Niçoise olives to shriveled oil-cured olives and green olives the size of Ping-Pong balls; some glisten with olive oil, and others are speckled with herbs and strips of lemon zest. I prefer to buy the plainest olives in the bunch, bring them home, and flavor them myself.

Although it’s rare that I season the olives the same way twice—the tweaks are usually a result of what herbs are on hand or what zest I can grab—I do keep the basic proportion of olives to oil pretty consistent. So here’s a base recipe that you can play with and make your own. And as to the olives themselves: just use ones you like. In fact, if you’ve got different olives on hand, some left over from one party and some from another, put them together and flavor them—it will give them a delicious second life. The photo is on page 2.

BE PREPARED: Although you can serve these as soon as they’ve cooled, it’s best to let them stand for at least 8 hours, and they’ll be so, so much better if you allow them to flavor for a week or two.

Spoon the olives into a clean 1-quart jar (I like a canning jar here), another heatproof sealable container, or a bowl. Remove the leaves from 2 rosemary sprigs and 2 thyme sprigs (discard the stems), and chop the leaves.

Put a heavy skillet over medium heat, and when it’s hot, toss in the coriander seeds, peppercorns, and fennel seeds, if you’re using them. Swirl them around in the pan just until you catch a whiff of their fragrance, then scrape them out of the pan into a small bowl.

Let the pan cool down for a couple of minutes, then put it over very low heat. Pour in ¼ cup of the olive oil and add all the remaining ingredients, including the spices, herb leaves, and the intact rosemary and thyme sprigs. Heat the mixture just until it’s warm and fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Pour the herbed oil over the olives and add as much of the remaining oil as needed to cover them. Mix everything around once or twice, and let the jar stand until the ingredients reach room temperature. You can serve the olives now, but they’ll be much tastier if you seal the jar or cover the bowl and let them macerate in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or for up to a week or two.

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS

SERVING

Olives like these are the perfect nibble with cocktails, but they’re also good to take along on a picnic. While I like them just as they are, if you want to, you can warm them slightly, either in a small saucepan over very gentle heat or in 5-second spurts in a microwave, before serving at home.

STORING

Stored in a covered container in the refrigerator, the olives will keep for about 2 months. When the olives are gone, use the oil to dress salads, toss with pasta, or drizzle over chicken.

buttered radishes

At first mention, butter and radishes seem an odd couple, but they’re a classic French combination that, given how great American radishes are, should be adopted across our land. Like most right-minded people, the French prefer their radishes young, mild, and lacking a serious hit of heat (something all radishes develop with age), but no matter the kind of radish, Gallic taste decrees that the force of the radish needs a mellowing counterbalance, and butter does the trick (just as it does when you have buttered bread with briny oysters or salty Roquefort).

If you want to serve radishes in the French style, wash them well, and if they came with stems and leaves, trim their topknots, leaving just enough greenery to serve as handles. Drop the radishes into a bowl of ice water and keep them there until serving. (You can even serve them on ice.) Serve the radishes whole accompanied by very soft butter for spreading on the radishes and a bowl of sea salt, preferably fleur de sel, for dipping; small rounds of dark bread or baguette are optional.

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts

IF A SURVEY WERE TAKEN to find out the most popular nibble offered with drinks in France, nuts would take first place, followed by olives. You get peanuts at many cafés when you order an aperitif; pistachios and salted almonds at friends’ homes; and cashews chez us, because they’re Michael and my son, Joshua’s, favorite. But as good as fresh nuts are in their natural state, they’re better when they’ve been personalized a bit. In fact, flavored nuts are the kind of thing that can quickly become a spécialité de la maison, something friends look forward to having when they’re at your house.

I like to make the nuts with a mix of chili powder (I bring it from New York to Paris, where the closest thing to chili powder I can find is a mixture suggested for cooking things à la Mexicaine), cinnamon, salt, and sugar, but you can play with the flavors as well as