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

Fall into Cooking Featured Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table : Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good I've got a slideshow of random snapshots that runs as a screensaver on my computer, and every time the picture of pumpkins for sale at Scott’s Farm Stand in Essex, Connecticut, comes up, I smile. In the picture, it’s a sunny day and the pumpkins, scattered higgledy-piggledy across a big field, look like so many roly-poly playthings. Some people might squint and imagine the jack-o-lanterns that many of these pumpkins are destined to become. Me? I see them sitting in the middle of my dining table, their skins burnished from the heat of the oven and their tops mounded with bubbly cheese and cream. Ever since Catherine, a friend of mine in Lyon, France, told me about how she and her family stuff pumpkins with bread and cheese and bacon and garlic and herbs and cream, I can’t look at a pumpkin on either side of the Atlantic without thinking, "Dinner!" Of course, pumpkins are a New World vegetable, but I’m seeing them more and more in the Paris markets, which means I’m making this dish more and more wherever I am. It’s less a recipe than an arts and crafts project; less a formula than a template to play with and make your own. Basically—and it’s really very basic— you hollow out a small pumpkin, just as you would for a jack-o-lantern, salt and pepper the inside, and then start filling it up. My standard recipe, the one Catherine sent to me, involves seasoning chunks of stale bread, tossing them with bacon and garlic, cubes of cheese (when I’m in France, I use Gruyere or Emmenthal; when I’m in the States, I opt for cheddar) and some herbs, packing the pumpkin with this mix and then pouring in enough cream to moisten it all. But there’s nothing to stop you from using leftover cooked rice instead of bread--I did that one night and it was risotto-like and fabulous--or from adding dried fruit and chopped nuts, cooked spinach or Swiss chard, or apples or pears, fall’s favored fruits. And I was crazy about the dish when I stirred some cooked hot sausage meat into the mix. The possibilities for improvisation don’t end with the filling: You’ve got a choice about the way to serve this beauty. I think you should always bring it to the table whole--you wouldn’t want to deprive your guests of the chance to ooh and aah--but whether you should slice or scoop is up to you. If you serve it in slices, you get a wedge of pumpkin piled high with the filling, and that’s pretty dramatic (if something this rustic can be called 'dramatic'). The wedge serving is best eaten with a knife and fork (or knife and spoon). If you scoop, what you do is reach into the pumpkin with a big spoon, scrape the cooked pumpkin meat from the sides of the pumpkin into the center, and stir everything around. Do this and you’ll have a kind of mash--not so pretty, but so delicious. Catherine serves it scooped. I serve it sliced sometimes and scooped others. Either way, I can’t imagine this won’t become an instant fall favorite chez you. -- Dorie Greenspan Makes 2 very generous servings or 4 more genteel servings You might consider serving this alongside the Thanksgiving turkey or even instead of it--omit the bacon and you’ve got a great vegetarian main course. Ingredients 1 pumpkin, about 3 pounds Salt and freshly ground pepper ¼ pound stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into ½-inch chunks ¼ pound cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into ½-inch chunks 2–4 garlic cloves (to taste), split, germ removed, and coarsely chopped 4 strips bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped About ¼ cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme About 1/3 cup heavy cream Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg 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, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that’s just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it might stick to the casserole, so you’ll have to serve it from the pot — which is an appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a baking sheet, you can present it freestanding, but maneuvering a heavy stuffed pumpkin with a softened shell isn’t so easy. However, since I love the way the unencumbered pumpkin looks in the center of the table, I’ve always taken my chances with the baked-on-a-sheet method, and so far, I’ve been lucky. Using a very sturdy knife--and caution--cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween jack-o’-lantern). It’s easiest to work your knife around the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot. Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper--you probably have enough salt from the bacon and cheese, but taste to be sure--and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled--you might have a little too much filling, or you might need to add to it. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little--you don’t want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want them nicely moistened. (But it’s hard to go wrong here.) Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours--check after 90 minutes--or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid, I like to remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little. When the pumpkin is ready, carefully, very carefully--it’s heavy, hot, and wobbly--bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you’ll bring to the table. Storing It’s really best to eat this as soon as it’s ready. However, if you’ve got leftovers, you can scoop them out of the pumpkin, mix them up, cover, and chill them; reheat them the next day. Fall into Cooking Featured Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table : Marie-Helene's Apple Cake I remember once trying to teach a French friend of mine the expression, "as American as apple pie." After I’d explained what pie was, I thought the rest would be easy..but not exactly. "I don’t understand," she said, "we have apples, too, and we make delicious desserts with them. Why couldn’t we say, 'As French as tarte Tatin?'" I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her, especially when she was right about all the delicious desserts the French make with apples. One of my favorites is one that’s not anywhere near as well known as the upside-down tarte Tatin. Actually, I don’t think it has a formal name of any kind. I dubbed it Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake because it was my Parisian friend, Marie-Hélène Brunet-Lhoste, who first made it for me. Marie-Hélène spends her weekends in Normandy, the land of cream, butter, Brie, and apples, and the cake she made had apples she’d picked from her backyard that afternoon. I call this dessert a cake, mostly because I don’t know what else to call it. The rum-and-vanilla-scented batter is less cakey than custardy. And there’s only enough of it to surround the apples. It’s a very homey, almost rustic cake and it’s good no matter what kinds of apples you use. In fact, when I asked Marie-Hélène which apples she used, she said she didn’t know--she just used whatever she had. The cake is extremely easy to make (foolproof, really, you just whisk the ingredients together in a bowl), satisfying, fragrant (I love the way the house smells when it’s in the oven) and appealing in an autumn-in-the-country kind of way. It may be as French as can be, but it’s become this American’s favorite. I hope you’ll like it too. Now’s certainly the time for it. -- Dorie Greenspan Makes 8 servings Ingredients ¾ cup all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt 4 large apples (if you can, choose 4 different kinds) 2 large eggs ¾ cup sugar 3 tablespoons dark rum ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter an 8-inch springform pan and put it on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in small bowl. Peel the apples, cut them in half and remove the cores. Cut the apples into 1- to 2-inch chunks. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk until they’re foamy. Pour in the sugar and whisk for a minute or so to blend. Whisk in the rum and vanilla. Whisk in half the flour and when it is incorporated, add half the melted butter, followed by the rest of the flour and the remaining butter, mixing gently after each addition so that you have a smooth, rather thick batter. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the apples, turning the fruit so that it’s coated with batter. Scrape the mix into the pan and poke it around a little with the spatula so that it’s evenish. Slide the pan into the oven and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top of the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean; the cake may pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer to a cooling rack and let rest for 5 minutes. Carefully run a blunt knife around the edges of the cake and remove the sides of the springform pan. (Open the springform slowly, and before it’s fully opened, make sure there aren’t any apples stuck to it.) Allow the cake to cool until it is just slightly warm or at room temperature. If you want to remove the cake from the bottom of the springform pan, wait until the cake is almost cooled, then run a long spatula between the cake and the pan, cover the top of the cake with a piece of parchment or wax paper, and invert it onto a rack. Carefully remove the bottom of the pan and turn the cake over onto a serving dish. Serving The cake can be served warm or at room temperature, with or without a little softly whipped, barely sweetened heavy cream or a spoonful of ice cream. Marie-Hélène served her cake with cinnamon ice cream and it was a terrific combination. Storing The cake will keep for about 2 days at room temperature and, according to my husband, gets more comforting with each passing day. However long you keep the cake, it’s best not to cover it — it’s too moist. Leave the cake on its plate and just press a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper against the cut surfaces. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Acclaimed writer and baking wizard Greenspan, author of the James Beard Award-winning Baking, celebrates French home cooking in this noteworthy and visually stunning collection. A part-time Paris resident for more than a decade, Greenspan focuses on what French people really eat at home: easy-to-prepare yet flavorful dishes that are suitable for just about any time of day. From Bacon and Eggs and Asparagus Salad to Chicken in a Pot to Veal Chops with Rosemary Butter, her offerings are hardy, mostly uncomplicated, and superbly appetizing. She also provides sidebars on a wide range of topics, including whether or not to wash raw chicken, several ways of cooking beets, mussels, and more. She offers variations on classic dishes such as Pot-au-Feu, including recipes for seafood and veggie versions that take minutes instead of hours. Recipes include advice on storing leftovers as well as serving information. The chapter on vegetables and grains is particularly welcome, with delectable gratins, lentil, and rice dishes as well as a baby bok choy and sugar snap dish that will make hard-core carnivores drool. A feast for the eyes and palate alike, this superb collection belongs in every foodie's kitchen. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. "Food that doesn't take a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu to prepare, from a 'culinary guru.'" ( New York Times ) Inducted into the Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America, DORIE GREENSPAN is the author of the James Beard Award-winning Baking: From My Home to Yours. She worked with Jean-Georges Vongerichten in his first U.S. kitchen and was Elle magazine's first food writer, recipe tester, and translator. With Pierre Hermé, Dorie wrote Desserts by Pierre Hermé , winner of an IACP Cookbook of the Year Award, and Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé , winner of the Gourmand prize for best cookbook in the English language. A contributing editor for Parade, a long-time special correspondent for Bon Appetit , and frequent guest on NPR's All Things Considered and The Splendid Table , Dorie lives in Paris, New York, and Westbrook, Connecticut.Fellow creator ALAN RICHARDSON has photographed dozens of best-selling cookbooks, and his work appears in many leading food and women's magazines. He is the coauthor of The Breath of a Wok, which won two coveted awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 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.xa0When 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.xa0Now 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... Read more