The French Market Cookbook (5 page)

2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and 2 cups / 480 ml water. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise with a sharp knife, scrape the seeds from the inside of the bean with the dull side of the blade, and add them and the bean to the pan. Bring to a simmer, stirring often as the sugar dissolves.

3. Add half of the rhubarb to the simmering syrup, cover, and allow the mixture to return to a simmer. Once it simmers, cook for just 1 minute, until the rhubarb pieces are tender—test them with the tip of a knife; it should meet minimal resistance—but still holding their shape. Remove the rhubarb with a slotted spoon and transfer to a container. Repeat with the rest of the rhubarb and add it along with the syrup and vanilla bean (it will continue to impart its flavor) to the container. Let cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate until chilled. This can be prepared a day ahead. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.

4. Segment the oranges and divide among 4 dessert bowls. Spoon the rhubarb on top so the amount of rhubarb and orange segments is about the same, and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of the rhubarb syrup to each bowl.

5. Add a scoop of sorbet, sprinkle with the almonds, and serve.

note Use the leftover rhubarb syrup to make cocktails with sparkling white wine or seltzer.

GAZELLE HORN SORBET

Sorbet corne de gazelle

MAKES 2 CUPS / 480 ML

When I was growing up, my family often went out to eat at a Moroccan restaurant around the corner from our apartment. After the couscous dishes were cleared, the waiter would appear with a silver tray the size of a satellite dish bearing a full selection of picture-perfect North African pastries in pastel colors. We were allowed one each, and I usually went for the gazelle horn, a thin, crescent-shaped shell filled with almond paste flavored with orange flower water.

This heavenly taste memory prompted me to add a dash of orange flower water the day I tried turning almond butter into a sorbet. The almond butter makes it smooth and creamy and the sparkling water makes the mixture slightly foamy before you churn it, helping to make the sorbet fluffier. A scoop of it makes a nice garnish for fruit salads or soups—such as Poached Rhubarb and Orange Salad or Melon and Ginger Soup—or it can be frozen in ice pop molds for a lickable treat.

½ cup / 120 g smooth all-natural unsweetened almond butter, chilled

⅓ cup / 70 g unrefined blond cane sugar (also sold as evaporated cane juice)

1 teaspoon orange flower water, or more to taste

1¼ cups / 300 ml sparkling water, chilled

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the almond butter, sugar, and orange flower water. Pour in the sparkling water slowly, whisking constantly to incorporate it into the almond butter. The mixture will be frothy. Taste and add a little more orange flower water, if desired; the amount you’ll need depends on your taste and the potency of your orange flower water.

2. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Serve immediately or freeze for later; 20 minutes before serving, put the frozen sorbet in the fridge to soften slightly.

Lemon Corn Cookies

LEMON CORN COOKIES

Jembelles

MAKES 2 DOZEN

I first heard about jembelles while leafing through a fascinating cookbook called La Cuisine paysanne de Savoie by Marie-Thérèse Hermann, who gathered nineteenth-century recipes that document the peasant cuisine of Savoy, a mountainous region in the southeast of France. Jembelles are simple cookies made with cornmeal (in Savoyard it is called polenta, a word borrowed from nearby Piedmont; the final “a” is silent) and flavored with lemon zest.

I tinkered with the recipe to tone the sugar down a bit and dial up the lemon flavor and settled on this version, which produces moist little cookies, slightly gritty from the cornmeal and robustly lemony from the use of both the juice and zest of the fruit. Make sure you use a fine-grind cornmeal here; a coarse one won’t get you the right texture. Other citruses can replace the lemon; lime and orange make pleasing variations.

1¼ cups / 200 g fine-grind stone-ground cornmeal

6 tablespoons / 50 g all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

Zest of 1 organic lemon, zested into fine strips (see Note)

½ cup / 100 g unrefined blond cane sugar (also sold as evaporated cane juice)

8 tablespoons / 120 g high-quality unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup / 60 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. / 200°C. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest, stirring with a whisk to remove any lumps.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar and butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. (Alternatively, do this by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon.) Beat in the eggs and lemon juice; the mixture will look curdled. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

4. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving 2 inches / 5 cm of space between them.

5. Bake until the cookies are set and the edges are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. The cookies will keep for a few days in an airtight container at room temperature.

note To make thin strips of lemon zest for these cookies, I use a zester that has four sharp little holes that you scrape against the skin of the lemon, almost as if you were combing it. A Microplane zester can be used, too, but preferably the coarse kind. If you have neither of those tools, peel off wide strips of the lemon zest with a vegetable peeler, taking care not to get too much of the white pith, and use a sharp knife to slice them into the thinnest slivers you can.

SUMMER

L’ été

French summers are officially launched with the Fête de la Musique, a national festival that encourages musicians to come out and play on the street. It’s also an invitation to find a patch of green and have a picnic, as Parisians do at the first hint of mild weather, setting up camp on the nearest park lawn or by one of the canals.

In summer, I find myself gravitating toward the cuisines of Provence, the French Basque country, or Corsica, which make the most enthusiastic use of sun-kissed produce. The dishes in this chapter offer options to make both quick, simple meals for when your appetite has melted in the heat as well as more sophisticated preparations to please a tableful of friends.

PRODUCE TO PLAY WITH IN THE SUMMER

Apricots • Artichokes • Beets • Bell peppers • Black currants • Blueberries • Broccoli • Celery • Cherries • Cucumbers • Eggplants • Fennel • Figs • Garlic • Green beans • Kohlrabi • Lettuce and other salad greens • Melon • Nectarines • Onions • Peaches • Potatoes • Raspberries • Red currants • Rhubarb • Shell beans • Swiss chard • Tomatoes • Watermelon • Zucchini and other summer squash

EGGPLANT AND BLACK OLIVE CAVIAR

Caviar d’ aubergine aux olives noires

MAKES 2½ CUPS / 600 ML

When I come home from the market with eggplants in my basket, eggplant “caviar” is what I am most eager to make. Roasting is a foolproof method for cooking eggplants, and then it’s just a matter of puréeing the flesh to produce a marvelously silky spread to serve with slices of baguette or pita triangles at the cocktail hour or for a picnic spread. Eggplant caviar can also be used in sandwiches or scooped over a bowl of rice.

I have made countless versions of this Provençal classic over the years, experimenting with whatever flavoring ingredients waved at me from the shelves of my pantry, but this is the one I like best. It gets a good tang from black olives and refreshing notes from the lemon and parsley.

2 pounds / 900 g small eggplants

2 garlic cloves, cut into thin slivers

12 brine-cured black olives, such as Kalamata, pitted

1 cup / 20 g chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Hot sauce

1. Roast the eggplants a few hours in advance or the day before. Use a knife to pierce three or four slits in each eggplant and slip the garlic slivers into the slits.

2. Place the whole eggplants on a lightly oiled baking sheet and insert in the cold oven. Turn the oven to 400°F. / 200°C. and roast the eggplants, flipping them halfway through, until completely soft, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Set aside to cool completely. If roasting the day before, put the eggplants in an airtight container and refrigerate.

3. Halve the eggplants lengthwise and scoop out the flesh and garlic cloves with a tablespoon, scraping the skin to get as much flesh as possible. It’s okay if a little of the skin comes with it. Put the eggplant and garlic in a food processor or blender.

4. Add the olives, lemon juice, olive oil, parsley, a pinch of salt, a good grind of black pepper, and a dash of hot sauce. Process until very smooth (or chop the mixture by hand as finely as possible). Taste and adjust the seasoning.

EGGPLANTS

Younger, smaller eggplants are definitely preferable; they taste sweeter, with no hint of bitterness. Regardless of the size, pick eggplants that feel heavy, have a smooth and shiny skin, and a stem-end “hat” that looks green and fresh.

Goat Cheese and Rosemary Sablés

GOAT CHEESE AND ROSEMARY SABLÉS

Sablés au chèvre et au romarin

MAKES 4 DOZEN SABLÉS

When I was a child and our parents had dinner guests, my sister and I would feel tremendous excitement at the prospect of being allowed to sit on the carpet by the coffee table and devour the pretzel sticks, roasted peanuts, and tiny cheese crackers that normally lived in a special box high up in the kitchen cabinet above the sink.

Now that I am all grown up, I hardly ever buy anything like this from the store; home-baked apéritif nibbles turn out to be easy to make and I love that I have control over just what goes into them, unlike with store-bought, which are often loaded with additives. I also have to admit to deriving an absurd amount of gratification from making these for friends, who invariably ask, their mouths full, “Wow, you really made those yourself?”

I like to make bite-size savory cookies, flavored with goat cheese and rosemary, using the slice-and-bake method so I can have a batch in the oven in no time. The dough can be prepared in advance and kept in the freezer, ready to be sliced and baked for an apéritif spread or served with a green salad.

8 ounces / 225 g fresh goat cheese

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary or 1 tablespoon dried

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup / 60 ml extra-virgin olive oil

1½ cups / 195 g all-purpose flour, or more if needed

1. In a medium bowl, mash the goat cheese with the rosemary, salt, honey, pepper, olive oil, and egg yolks until smooth.

2. Stir in the flour. When most of it is absorbed, turn out the mixture onto a clean work surface and knead gently until it comes together into a smooth ball of dough. Add a little more flour if needed.

3. Divide into 4 equal pieces and roll each into a log about 1 inch / 2.5 cm in diameter. Wrap in plastic or parchment paper and place in the freezer for 1 hour. (If you prepare the dough further in advance, wrap the logs tightly to avoid freezer burn and transfer to the fridge 1 hour before slicing.)

4. Preheat the oven to 350°F. / 175°C. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

5. Take one log out of the freezer and cut it into ½-inch / 1 cm slices. Arrange on the prepared baking sheet, leaving a little space between them. Repeat with the remaining dough, working in batches.

6. Bake until golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. The texture of these is most enjoyable on the day they’re baked, but they will keep for a few days in an airtight container at room temperature.

Shaved Fennel Salad with Preserved Lemon

SHAVED FENNEL SALAD WITH PRESERVED LEMON

Salade de fenouil cru au citron confit

SERVES 4

Because of my childhood aversion to aniseed, it has taken me years to develop an appreciation for raw fennel. The turning point for me has been to discover that, when thinly sliced, it becomes a completely different animal, and that feathery wisps of raw fennel make for the most aromatic of salads.

I add fennel shavings to what the French call salades composées, or multi-ingredient salads, for complexity and crunch. But it plays an incredible solo, too, with background support from preserved lemon—an enchanting condiment drawn from the cuisine of Morocco—and a sweet-and-sour vinaigrette.

This makes a good salad for a picnic or packed lunch, as the flavors will develop as it sits. And if fennel isn’t your thing, this salad can be made with small waxy potatoes, steamed and halved, in its place.

4 medium / 1 kg fennel bulbs

Honey Lemon Vinaigrette, made without the salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1. Trim the fennel stalks and save them for your stock box, keeping a few fennel fronds for garnish. Slice off the root end. Using a mandoline slicer or very sharp knife, cut the fennel into the thinnest shavings you can.

2. Put the fennel in a medium salad bowl and add the diced preserved lemon and honey lemon vinaigrette. Sprinkle with black pepper and add a few fennel fronds. Toss to coat and serve.

Green Bean, Red Rice, and Almond Salad

GREEN BEAN, RED RICE, AND ALMOND SALAD

Salade de haricots verts, riz rouge et amandes

SERVES 6

Always on the lookout for tasty tricks for using leftover rice, I came up with this salad early one summer when I had a bag of the first haricots verts of the season, which I wanted to cook before they lost their youthful bounce, and a tub of cooked red rice from the night before. The result was this flavorsome salad, which has since become a fixture in my summer rotation.