French

This timeless dish is a beautiful, delicious, easy beginning to dinner. You can also think of mimosa as a nice way to add a little inexpensive protein to a vegetable side or leafy green salad.

This version of the classic is gorgeously cheesy, not gunky. Slow cooking gives the broth depth of flavor and a silky texture.

If you want dramatic impact on your holiday table, look no further. These leaf-shaped breads (traditionally one of the 13 desserts of a Provençal Christmas Eve) are large and sculptural, with a heady fragrance of orange and anise.

Dainty pink cookies sandwiched together with a silky ganache look as if they belong on a restaurant's petits fours plate. In fact, the perfect little rounds can be made with a makeshift pastry bag.

Traditionally piped through a pastry bag into rosettes to garnish a roast, this classic French potato mixture is here transformed into a rich casserole that can be prepared in advance and is still the perfect match for a prime rib roast.

Editor's note: The recipe below is from Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, by Nigella Lawson.

A super-easy compound butter features the flavors of the classic French sauce without the fuss. The butter tops the lamb chops and is stirred into the Smashed Fingerling Potatoes.

You'll feel positively Continental after your first taste of these tartlets, made with the thoroughly French combination of prunes and Armagnac. The creamy Italian mascarpone filling is just the thing to mellow out the sophisticated flavors.

The flavors of this tart are remarkably balanced—it's a bit savory and a bit sweet. (In fact, in the south of France, where it's known as tourte aux blettes, you'll often see the pastry served for dessert.) Paired with a simple salad, it makes for a supremely satisfying light dinner.

Provençal-inspired, this light, brothy seafood dish will have you wondering how something so delicious could be so easy to make.

In this version of cassoulet, garlic-crumb topping is served on the side. Rather than acting as a thickener, the crumbs give our brothy version of the dish a crisp layer of texture.

Gnocchi à l'Alsacienne In the winter, we serve gnocchi with squash and sage crisped in brown butter, an ever-satisfying combination that also works well with just about any pasta. In this dish, the gnocchi are browned in butter, then tossed with sautéed mushrooms and squash and returned to the pan; lemon is added at the end to complete what becomes a classic brown butter sauce, used throughout bistro cooking.

Inspired by one of the most popular desserts of the '70s, as immortalized by Wolfgang Puck when he was at Ma Maison.

The original financier was an almond pastry created by a 19th-century Parisian pastry chef for his wealthy banker clients. This chocolate version is worth its weight in gold.

Tart, refreshing lime balances the richness of the chocolate.

An update of duck à l'orange, this recipe replaces whole duck with Muscovy duck breasts, and the syrupy orange glaze of yore with a red-wine sauce and tart-sweet candied kumquats.