French Recipes
9 recipes
White Bean and Sausage Cassoulet
Dried white beans cooked with salt pork and aromatics, then baked slowly with browned pork sausage until the liquid reduces and a browned crust forms and re-forms on the surface.
Tarte Tatin
Apple halves cooked down in butter caramel in the pan, covered with puff pastry, baked, and turned out upside down. Deep amber, barely sweet, and best served warm the day it is made.
Provencal Vegetable Tian
Thin rounds of zucchini, eggplant and tomato shingled over a bed of slow-cooked onion and garlic, baked with olive oil and herbes de Provence until the edges brown and the vegetables collapse.
Gratin Dauphinois
Thinly sliced potatoes simmered in garlic-scented cream and milk, then baked slowly until the top browns and the center sets into sliceable layers. No cheese, no flour, just potato starch doing the thickening.
French Onion Soup
Yellow onions cooked down slowly until deep brown, deglazed with white wine and simmered in beef broth, then topped with toasted bread and Gruyere melted under the broiler.
French Crepes
A thin egg-and-milk batter rested an hour, then swirled into a hot buttered pan until the edges go lacy. Folded around either sweet or savory fillings.
French Baguette
Flour, water, salt and a pinch of yeast fermented overnight, then shaped, slashed and baked with steam. The long rise is what gives the open crumb and blistered crust.
Coq au Vin
Bone-in chicken braised for over an hour in red wine with bacon lardons, then finished with separately browned pearl onions and mushrooms. The sauce reduces to a glossy, wine-dark gravy.
Chocolate Mousse
Bittersweet chocolate lightened with whipped egg white and cream so it sets airy and rich without gelatin. Pasteurized eggs keep the uncooked mixture safe to eat.