5 Selected Recipes from French Cookbooks that I Love

Salut and Happy frenchy foodie Friday! My Friday posts either involve food or France or both, because I love a good theme and yay, or should I say hourra, this one is both! I have so many French or Paris inspired cookbooks. It’s so easy to look online for recipes, I need to get back to enjoying my cookbooks. I’ve been collecting cookbooks and recipes forever, I love looking through them for inspiration, and most of them are just beautiful. I’ve found 5 unique recipes that I had to share. So, sans plus tarder, here are 5 selected recipes from French cookbooks that I love.

The Market Gardner’s Zucchini and Curry Soup from The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells.

I’m so glad I pulled this book from my bookshelf! I think this might be the first French Cookbook that I ever purchased. Maybe even before my first copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I think the shimmery blue image of the Eiffel Tower on the cover drew me to it. So many great recipes from great Paris restaurants. I couldn’t find a link to this recipe, so here is my adaptation.

1 large onion, peeled, sliced thinly
2 T. olive oil
2 t. curry powder
1 quart chicken stock, or vegetable stock
4 small zucchini, sliced thinly into rounds
sea salt

To a stockpot, add onions, oil, curry powder and salt. Stir, cover and cook over low heat until onions are soft. Add stock and zucchini and stir. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and simmer slowly for about 20 minutes. Put soup in blender, or use immersion blender, and process until soup is smooth. Reheat soup and serve warm or cool and refridgerate and serve chilled. Either way, a dollop of creme fraiche or plain yogurt on top would be delicious also.

Deviled Avocado from Tasting Paris by Clotilde Dusoulier

I adore Clotilde, I’ve been following her forever, I think her food blog was the first I ever followed, I don’t think they were even called blogs back then, I guess her website? Anyway, she seems like such a beautiful person. So creative, so accomplished! I think I’ve talked about the most awesome omelette recipe from this book before. I also thought about picking her Rye & Red Miso Bread recipe, I must make that again. But this Deviled Avocado looks beautiful. Perfect for brunch.

Breizh Roll Artichoke and Wakame from Crepes and Galettes from the Breizh Cafe by Bertrand Larcher

I can’t believe I’ve never made it to either of the Breizh Cafe’s in Paris yet. It is definitely a must on my next trip. I did buy the book though. Of course the slick cover drew me in (again), but wow! All the cool, different galette and crepe recipes! I’m so glad I took this one out again too. This is an appetizer galette. No recipe link online, so here’s an adaptation.

1 artichoke heart (I use frozen – thawed and patted dry)
1/2 c. buckwheat galette batter (your own recipe, or buy the book 😉 )
1 oz. grated Comte or gruyere
1 egg (cooked – I’m thinking in non-stick pan, cook on one side, flip, then cook until yolk is no longer runny)
ground wakame seaweed
1 tsp. butter, melted
salt, white pepper

Sauté artichoke in butter until tender, about 15 minutes. Cut into strips, season with salt and pepper. Pour batter into crepe pan, or medium non-stick skillet, swirl and cook until done. Add cheese, egg, artichoke, and a sprinkle of wakame to one edge of galette. Roll galette and brush with butter. Transfer to cutting board and cut into chunks, like a sushi roll. Miam!

Tarte Provencale from Ripailles by Stephane Reynaud

This book is gigantic, 480 pages! Needless to say there are all kinds of inspiring french recipes. Hundreds of beautiful pictures, portraits of people who work with the food, even songs. In the summer I love provencale, nicoise style recipes, they fit right along with the season and what’s fresh. This recipe could also replace your Friday night pizza, it looks just beautiful. Here’s an adaptation.

9 oz. puff pastry
5 cherry tomatoes
5 sundried tomatoes in oil
1 zucchini
small eggplant
1 onion
1 branch of basil
8 pitted nicoise olives
salt, pepper

Peel and slice onion, cut zucchini and eggplant into small cubes. Sauté vegetables in olive oil, not too long, so they don’t get mushy. Roll out the pastry, prick with a fork. Arrange vegetables, basil leaves and olives on top. Top with a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake in a preheated 350 F. oven for 30 minutes.

Raspberry Soufflé from French Country Cooking by Mimi Thorisson

Another gorgeous cookbook, drawn in again by the beautiful cover with a terrier on it no less, in fact there are plenty of pictures of their terriers in it, which you know I love. “You can’t write a French cookbook without including at least one souffle – in fact, there is probably a law against it.” – quote from Mimi. I was tempted to talk about her White Asparagus Soufflé, but decided on the Raspberry Soufflé, because we are moving into summer and asparagus season is behind us, but mainly because raspberries are my favorite and this looks like a dream. I found a nice adaptation from Playing with Flour that you can link to. And speaking of raspberries Mimi has a Rhubarb and Raspberry Cordial that is perfect for my mocktail spree.

Memories

As you might have noticed, all of the recipes I’ve chosen are vegetable based. I’m leaning more and more towards vegetarian recipes as I’ve mentioned before. Especially local, organic vegetables. Not that all of these books don’t have wonderful meat and seafood recipes that I want to try. Like Le Duc’s Hot Curried Oysters from The Paris Cookbook. Or the Chicken and Pistachio Terrine from Clotilde which she says is “following the example of La Régalade…” – oh this brings back memories. I took out my journal from Trip of a Lifetime Part Deux in 2011. It was my mom and I’s 2nd Budapest-Paris trip. “Dinner @ Regalade St-Honore. Seated by an older couple from Long Island, helped her translate menu. Ordered bottle of dry white vin. Served a complimentary chicken terrine and jar of pickles (cornicons). I ordered big white asparagus w/ poached egg and vinaigrette for entree, duck for plat and fromage for dessert. Mom had pea soup (bowl w/ peas and romaine, broth poured in at table), fish arranged like a terrine in layers of spinach and strawberry rhubarb dessert. Everything was delicious.” Le sigh. Are you reading this mom? Part Trois… 😉

These books are going to be staying in the kitchen, and I’ll definitely be making these recipes and more from them in the weeks to come. I hope you enjoyed my 5 selected recipes from French cookbooks that I love! Please share with me your favorite French cookbook recipes, I’d love to hear. À bientôt!