French

I adore sweetbreads, but, alas, they are becoming increasingly hard to get. So, whenever I see a package of them in the supermarket, I snatch them up and give myself a treat. I’m apt to vary the aromatics, but basically the technique is the same. If you do all the preparation in the morning, or even the night before, the final sautéing with just the right complementary flavors takes about 15 minutes. And when you have your first bite, there is something so deeply satisfying about the tender creamy texture of sweetbreads, and their ability to absorb and transform the aromatic flavors you give them, that you feel a small miracle has taken place. No wonder they are called sweetbreads.

As a child, and well into adulthood, I was allergic to scallops. But little by little I got over it. It can happen; the body does change. So I’ve been making up for my years of deprivation and quite often treat myself to a full plate of carefully cooked sea scallops. I remember Julia Child emphasizing how important it was to use a large pan, so the scallops would have plenty of space to brown. And because they needed to cook over high heat, clarified butter was essential. We were once having lunch at an elegant French restaurant in New York, which will be nameless, and Julia ordered scallops. After her first bite, she put down her fork and proclaimed that the chef hadn’t used clarified butter. As she tucked away most of the flawed dish, she emphasized again the importance of using clarified butter when browning over high heat, although she did admit that most Americans aren’t going to take the trouble to clarify their own butter, and that it was okay for the home cook to use half butter and half light vegetable oil, which would temper the burning. I am always careful to watch the pan, as if Julia is still looking over my shoulder, whenever I make this dish.

I had never cooked with sorrel until I worked with André Soltner on his Lutèce cookbook. He was then the devoted chef-owner of the restaurant, on East Fiftieth Street in Manhattan, but he never forgot his roots in Alsace. There, leafy green sorrel is common, and its tart flavor accents any number of dishes. So it was not surprising that when André was developing a sauce for that quintessential American specialty, shad roe, his secret ingredient was sorrel. However, sorrel was not so easy to find in markets in those days, and André would have to bring an armful of handpicked sorrel from his own garden in the Catskills down to the Lutèce kitchen, so as not to disappoint his loyal customers. Later, when my husband and I bought our summer place in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, we discovered that wild sorrel grew abundantly in the surrounding woods and in the garden. I even planted a cultivated variety to make sure we had enough, and I soon dubbed sorrel, along with gooseberries, the lemons of the North. And now that Lutèce is no more, and I can’t enjoy a lunch there, I celebrate this spring delight by making myself André’s delectable shad roe with sorrel sauce.

I can’t resist making this special tart for myself when my Duchess apple tree in Vermont is laden with the most flavorful apples I’ve ever tasted. I’ve never sprayed the tree, so, yes, there are what we call wormholes, but I peel around them or dig out the dark tunnels with the point of a knife. If you’re using a frozen portion of your own tart dough, remember to take it out in the morning and let it defrost at room temperature. If you’re making up a new batch, be sure to make extra to put away for a repeat performance.

I prefer thin French pancakes to the more doughy American kind, so I often make a batch of crêpe batter for a Sunday breakfast and have plenty left over to whip up a rolled savory crêpe filled with some leftover that needs dressing up, or a sweet version enrobing some fruit or berries. For breakfast, I slather a warm crêpe with yogurt—preferably Greek-style, because it’s less runny—put another crêpe on top and more yogurt, and leave the final layer bare to catch the warm maple syrup I pour over it. A few berries scattered around complete the picture I remember how James Beard would teach the making and baking of crêpes and pancakes in his opening class for beginners. He liked the students to observe what happened when the batter—some with baking powder, as in American pancakes; some not, as in French crêpes—hit the hot surface of the pan and baked: one rising perceptibly, the other hardly at all but acquiring a crisper tan. And he would prowl around among the students, encouraging them to use their fingers to turn the crêpe and get the feel of the texture. The “nervous Nellies,” as Julia Child always called them, held back, but the intrepid relished the quick finger-flip, and you could tell that they were the ones who were really going to enjoy cooking.

I make this pastry dough on a leisurely weekend when I want to treat myself to a small quiche for lunch, or a fruit pastry for dessert. Then I store the rest of the dough in the freezer, so I’ll have it on hand if family or friends show up unexpectedly, or if I feel like making something for myself one night that requires a pastry topping, such as Beef and Kidney Pie (page 34). I use a food processor to make the dough, because it is so easy, and if you measure the pulses carefully as you are mixing the dough, you can’t go wrong. I learned from Lydie Marshall, that incomparable French-cooking teacher, the trick of saying “alligator” out loud to determine the length of each pulse.

What could be more appealing on a weekend than to fill the kitchen with the good smell of bread baking? I like to start my bread dough when I get up, and for lunch I reward myself with a fresh-from-the-oven pizza. Perhaps I’ll share a baguette over dinner with friends, and have some mini-loaves to put in the freezer and enjoy in the weeks ahead—all made from the same dough. If there are children around, I announce what I’m up to, and invariably they will want to join me and pitch in. For them, there is something magical about making bread-the way it rises quietly in a bowl under a cover, the fun of punching the dough down, forming the loaves, and creating steam in the oven just before baking. To say nothing of how good it tastes. I started baking bread in the sixties, when I persuaded Julia Child to work out a recipe for French bread that could be baked in an American home oven. In those days, it was almost impossible to buy a crusty baguette. Now there are artisan bakers all over who have mastered the techniques, and there’s really no need to bake one’s own. But it is such fun.

This dish has much of the flavor of a cassoulet but is considerably simpler, because it uses ready-cooked duck-leg confit, which is obtainable today in most good markets and can also be ordered online.

“Tian” is a Provençal word for a shallow pottery dish, and there are almost as many tians as there are vegetables. The common ingredient is usually cooked rice enlivened with a green vegetable, aromatic seasonings, and cheese. To make it for one, use a shallow, single portion baking dish.

I prefer this sauce to any other for cold meats, fish, and poultry, or those innards that I like so much.

One of my favorite suppers is a good sausage with warm potato salad. I love the way the sausage juices mingle with the tender new potatoes bathed in a mustardy vinaigrette—a very French taste that makes me nostalgic.

Here’s a sparkling salad that makes superb use of that one-third or so of a plump fennel bulb that you couldn’t consume in one sitting.

Endive is an overlooked vegetable in America—at least, few people cook it. But it makes a very special lunch or supper dish when done this way.

It is so easy to make a vinaigrette, the classic French salad dressing, that I can’t fathom why so many people living alone go out and buy bottled dressings. Not only do they pay more, but the dressing never tastes as fresh, and you can’t vary the seasonings as you wish. So I beg you to make your own vinaigrette as part of your cooking life. The amounts I’m giving will be enough to dress two or three small salads, but you can double or triple the quantities if you’re an avid salad consumer and want enough dressing to see you through the week. Just refrigerate the extra in a jar, tightly sealed.

Once, when I was in Cambridge working all day nonstop with Julia Child, as we often did, it was almost 11 p.m. when she finally swept away the manuscript and announced we’d make dinner. She then turned to me and said: “Judith, you make a nice little potato dish while I fix the meat.” Slightly unnerved, I managed to rise to the occasion and put together what I would call a fast stovetop version of the classic potatoes Anna. As I mashed some garlic and salt together and smeared this between the layers of sliced potatoes, Julia was looking on a bit skeptically, and although I used lots of butter, of which she always approved, it wasn’t clarified butter. But when we sat down and she took her first bite, she pronounced the potatoes delicious, and her husband, Paul, toasted me. I was in cook’s heaven. I probably made my potato dish that night in a standard round 5- or 6-inch skillet for the three of us, but in recent years I’ve made it regularly for myself in a 4 1/2-inch-square cast-iron frying pan, which once belonged to my father. After he retired, he liked cooking for himself, and I remember his acquiring this little pan with pride so that he could make himself one perfect fried egg. It’s unlikely that you’ll have such a pan, particularly one imbued with fond memories, but any very small skillet will do.

Recently this hard-to-pronounce French dish became a household word in America overnight, when the delightful movie Ratatouille swept the country and won our hearts. Not many Americans would begin to know how to make a ratatouille, but that such a dish had the power to evoke an overwhelming taste memory was something we could relate to. I fell in love with ratatouille when I was a jeune fille living in Paris, and I have been partial to it ever since. There is a classic way to make it—cooking each of the ingredients separately, then putting them all together—but that is time-consuming, and I’m not really sure that it produces such a superior dish. I feel that rules are made to be bent in cooking, and that there’s no harm in simplifying and putting your own imprint on a dish. So here is my version, subject to variations according to the season. I always make triple the amount I’m going to eat immediately, because I put it to so many good uses.

Treat yourself once in a while to homemade mayonnaise prepared in a food processor. This simple version is delicious and light—and it takes about 5 minutes to whip up. It will keep about a week, but mine usually vanishes before that, particularly if I use some of it to make the Mediterranean Pistou Sauce that follows.

There is something pleasantly sensual and mindful about eating an artichoke all alone, dunking each leaf in a tart, buttery sauce and scraping off that little bit of flesh, then getting to the bottom and carefully removing the prickly thistles to the heart. I remember loving this as an adolescent and always asking for an artichoke when I knew I would be home alone and could relish each bite. If you’re feeling in a cooking mood, make yourself a little hollandaise sauce (page 110) to go with this treat.

The other day, at a French brasserie across the street from our offices in New York, I ordered their single soufflé served with a green salad. It was a perfect lunch, and I went away wondering why I didn’t make soufflés anymore. It’s not only a good way to use up some of the bits of cheeses you may have around, as well as other leftovers that need reincarnation, but it’s lovely to behold and scrumptious to eat. But to make it for one? I was sure it could be done, so I purchased myself a one-person, fluted soufflé dish, 2 3/4 inches high and 4 inches in diameter, and proved that it could. My recipe for one is based on the eight pages of careful instructions that Julia Child devoted to making the perfect soufflé in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Every now and then, I get a yearning for a bit of warm, smooth, buttery-lemony hollandaise sauce to dip artichoke leaves into, to top a poached egg with so that I can enjoy that delicious flavor play of eggs Benedict, or to spread over a piece of grilled salmon—or other fish. But to make a small amount for just one or two servings of this tricky sauce (and then reheat what’s leftover)? Impossible, the pros would say. However, where there’s a will, there’s a way. So I experimented and managed to work out a method that served my purposes beautifully. Here it is.