Cod loin with saffron

(Found inStages)
A thick, deboned loin of fish (cod in this case), pan-fried and served with a reduced white-wine and cream sauce, flavoured with shallot and saffron.

Spring veal sauté

(Found inStages)
This sauté combines small chunks of veal with spring onions in a white-wine sauce with just a dash of cream.

Welsh (French Welsh Rarebit)

(Found inStages)
This is a French version (as served in brasseries in northern France) of the traditional Welsh rarebit. It contains boiled ham as well as the usual toasted bread and Cheddar cheese melted in beer.

New York style pasta

(Found inStages)
Pasta served like in NYC: tagliatelle or spaghetti with lightly fried ham, peas and a nutmeg-flavoured cream sauce.

Aperitif rolls

(Found inStages)
These are small, bite-sized, soft bread rolls made with bacon bits and topped with grated cheese.

Sausage with duchess potatoes and a Mont d'Or fondue

(Found inStages)
The duchess potatoes are poached in a roll before being sliced and fried. They are served in alternate layers with slices of sausage, also cooked in two stages (boiled then fried), then topped with a fondue of Mont d'Or cheese.

Little vegetable omelettes

(Found inStages)
As an appetiser or starter, little thick soft omelettes, with diced tomato, courgette and smoked ham.

Scallops with green asparagus tips and parmesan

(Found inStages)
In this recipe scallops are fried quickly, then cooked aaparagus tips are added with a sprinkling of parmesan to serve.

Quail egg canapés

(Found inStages)
This starter is a small canapé consiting of a toasted and buttered bread slice covered with a slice of smoked ham topped with a fried quail egg.

Rolls of fish in smoked ham

(Found inStages)
Pieces of white fish rolled in thinly sliced smoked ham. These rolls are cooked in a little olive oil and served with French beans. The pairing of smoked ham with fish might seem a little strange, but in fact these flavours marry well.

Roscoff salad

(Found inStages)
This Roscoff salad, named after the pretty little town on the Brittany coast, is a delicious mix of regional ingredients: sliced cauliflower, smoked sausages and, of course, onions.

Bistro-style red endive salad

(Found inStages)
Have you tried red Belgian endives? They are similar in size to the more common white sort, just as crunchy, but slightly less bitter. They are the main feature in this salad inspired by French bistro cuisine: combined with chopped hard-boiled eggs, fried ham and croutons, in a rémoulade dressing.

Boulangère potatoes

(Found inStages)
This great classic of French home cooking consists of sliced potatoes with slivers of bacon between, on a bed of onion fondue, moistened with poultry (or beef) stock and baked in the oven. It takes a fairly long time, but is so good, and reheats very well.

Ratatouille confite

(Found inStages)
In this ratatouille recipe, the vegetables are cooked longer than usual to get a richer melting dish.

Polish-style beetroot salad

(Found inStages)
This salad combines raw beetroot with fried potato slices and morsels of smoked sausage.

Lime crémeux

(Found inStages)
This "crémeux" is a creamy mixture ideal for filling tarts, either on its own or as a bottom layer topped with fruit, for example.

Pork Chops Champvallon style

(Found inStages)
Pork chops à la Champvallon are a nicely historic recipe of meat and potatoes in long cooking.

Sliced veal with leeks and mushrooms

(Found inStages)
Small strips of veal sautéed with mushrooms and leeks in a creamy sauce.

Seafood rice salad

(Found inStages)
This warm rice salad ("riz du pêcheur" – fisherman's rice in French) combines cooked rice with sautéed prawns, mussels and flaked salmon in a rémoulade dressing.

Home-made terrine of foie gras

(Found inStages)
Preparing your own home-made foie gras from raw is immensively satisfying: good quality liver and a simply amazing flavour – much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is a bit tricky, but quite within everyone's grasp, as long as you follow the 3 most delicate stages carefully. These are, in order: de-veining the liver, seasoning and cooking. As usual, I have explained every stage of the recipe in full, with photos to help you.

Bread oven

Building a bread oven was until a few years ago a job for the professionals. But now you can buy a kind of kit which allows you to build your own bred oven without professional masonry know-how. You should know that the kits only provide the main part of oven, the hearth, where you light the fire...
October 15^th 20241.19 M3.6

Advice on heating oven

For good results with a wood-fired oven, it's very important to manage the heating process well. Here is some advice to help you succeed in this delicate operation.
August 24^th 2024185 K4.0

Cleaning endives

If you buy your endives elsewhere than in supermarkets, and in this case the best is of course from a market gardener, he or she is the one who planted and harvested them, in this case you will have endives full of earth or sand, depending on where they were grown, which is normal and reassuring, we...
March 24^th 202025 K4.6

How to choose a centrifugal juicer

A centrifugal juicer is an appliance designed to extract juice from all kinds of fruit and vegetables. It will produce juice from tomatoes, carrots, apples, pineapple, blackcurrants, etc.
April 1^st 201144 K4.4

Unmoulding cakes while hot

When you make a cake, pound cake or whatever (what bakers call a "travel cake" because it's easy to carry around) you've most likely made a batter, either by hand or in a food processor, which you then pour into a buttered pan. It's a classic, and I've already talked to you about 2 or 3 tips on...
February 6^th 202138 K4.6