French

Rhubarb paired with raspberries may not be as common a pie filling as rhubarb and strawberries, but the combination is just as delicious (or even more so, depending on who you ask). Here, the two are simply tossed with cornstarch and sugar, then centered on small rounds of pâte brisée to create individual galettes.

Invented by the Tatin sisters, who owned an inn in the Loire Valley, this dessert is popular all over France, especially in Paris. The tart is baked upside down in a pan in which the apples have been sautéed. When inverted, the finished tart boasts a layer of golden, caramelized fruit atop a base of flaky puff pastry. A copper Tatin pan is made specifically for this purpose; its two handles are designed for easy unmolding. However, any oven-safe skillet, such as a cast iron pan, will work. You can also easily substitute pears for the apples. For the ultimate in flavor and texture, make your own puff pastry from scratch; see the recipe on page 334. Otherwise, choose a good-quality, all-butter brand such as Dufour.

All you need is one formula to produce a nearly infinite variety of French-style fruit tarts. Start with a pâte sucrée crust, add pastry cream, and top with fresh fruit. You can scatter the fruit freehand, or arrange it in a pattern to make a tarte composée (literally, a “composed tart”). Here, summer berries are mixed and matched, but you can also use stone fruits such as cherries or apricots, or fresh figs or grapes. Pâte sucrée is sturdier than pâte brisée, making it a good choice for tarts that are unmolded before serving. Because the filling is not baked in the crust, it is necessary to blind-bake the shells completely. Traditionally, French fruit tarts are glazed with jam for a polished sheen, but this step is optional; a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar or a few tiny flowering herbs look equally lovely. To make a nine-inch tart, use half a recipe of Pâte Sucrée, and add about five minutes to the baking time.

A fresh-baked fruit galette is proof that you don’t need specialty equipment—or even a pie plate—to successfully bake a beautiful dessert from scratch. Here, sliced plums are arranged on an irregular round base of pâte brisée (ground almonds are sprinkled over the crust first). The dough is then simply folded over the filling to make a rough border. There’s no crimping or embellishment required; the unfinished edge is a big part of the appeal.

We’ve revived this simple, classic French sauce with a combination of extra-virgin olive oil, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and some toasted pine nuts. It’s a summertime sauce that’s typically served with fish, but we like it with many of the meatballs, including Duck Balls (page 31) and Veal Meatballs (page 48). On a hot summer day meatballs can be dauntingly heavy, and a bright, fresh sauce can turn them into a suprisingly light lunch. Since chervil can be tricky to find, feel free to skip it if you can’t find it.

In the 1970s, when everyone and their sisters and brothers became enchanted with French cooking, with Julia Child leading the way, quiche became the savory custard pie. The classic, quiche Lorraine, made with bacon and Gruyère cheese to enrich the custard, enjoyed star status as an elegant staple for brunch or for a first course in a multitiered dinner à la français. Variations in great numbers soon followed, and quiche in one or another guise turned into a favorite on buffet tables and appetizer menus. Here, with Toulouse sausage and a green splotch of spinach, the lovable custard-in-a-crust reinvents itself into an uncomplicated light dinner. Even though it is easier to purchase a prepared pastry crust, to settle for that is to miss the flaky, unctuous mouth delight of a homemade one. A food processor provides a quick, simple, and almost hands-free way to make an exceptional crust. A removable-bottom tart pan, such as the type the French would use for quiche and sweet dessert tarts, makes it easy to present the pie standing alone rather than in a dish, which is more awkward to serve from.

On my brief sojourn in the Toulouse area, I traveled to many local villages and towns acclaimed for their charcuterie. Among them was Castelnaudary, a small village built of stone, close by the fairy-tale-like medieval castle of Carcassonne. The castle was a thrill; even more so was the cassoulet I enjoyed in Castelnaudary, known as the cradle of cassoulet. I mustered the nerve to ask the chef what his secret was. He graciously shared his version of “the cassoulet secret”: The kind of beans you use is crucial. They should be lingot beans, also called white kidney beans or cannellini beans, or coco beans, which resemble slightly elongated navy beans. Both are sweetly buttery and cook up soft and tender enough to soak up juices, but still hold their shape. Then, the beans must be allowed to cool completely in their cooking liquid before assembling the cassoulet. Overnight is best. Stuffed whole duck legs (drumstick and thigh combination) make a delectable sausage star for a faux cassoulet. To sidestep the lengthy process of curing the duck overnight then braising it in duck fat to make confit, the whole legs are sprinkled with a salt and herb seasoning and refrigerated for a few hours to allow the seasonings to imbue. The sausage is then stuffed under the thigh skin, making a single package of sausage and duck meat.

I opened Pig-by-the-Tail because I wanted to bring to the American marketplace the charcuterie I had fallen in love with on sojourns to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Austria. Two years after its debut, I decided it was time to put some “bones” onto that passion. I traveled to France to learn from M. Roger Gleize, the charcutier in the small town of Revel in the Haute-Garonne just outside of Toulouse. It was an eye-opening experience to watch him use a hand grinder to grind pounds and pounds of perfectly succulent pork, not too lean, not too fat, for the region’s specialty Toulouse sausage. He seasoned the meat with salt, peppers, and a dash each of nutmeg and sugar, and then added a soupçon of water to moisten the mixture for easier stuffing. He fitted the same manual machine with a sausage-stuffing funnel and proceeded to turn out a seemingly endless supply of fresh Toulouse sausages. Everything he made was quickly purchased by local households to use for their daily meals and by local restaurants to include in the renowned cassoulet of the region. From that sojourn, I carried home a deep admiration for simply, yet perfectly done ways with food, and Toulouse sausage became one of my go-to household sausages. For this book, I have modified the recipe to call for bulk sausage, rather than links. But, if you would like to follow tradition, use hog casing.

Some claim that macaroons were first made in Venice during the Renaissance, gaining their name from the Italian maccherone, or “fine paste.” Others say that the original recipe came from a monastery in France. Whatever its origin, the combination of almond paste, sugar, and egg whites produces a cookie with a crackly outer layer and a chewy center

Like little cakes with a citrus perfume, these shell-shape treats are equally delightful as a light dessert with fresh fruit or as an accompaniment to a cup of tea. Madeleines are most often associated with the French author Marcel Proust, who immortalized them in the opening scene of the novel Remembrance of Things Past.

The concentrated, complex flavors of Cabernet Sauvignon provide a good match with chocolate. Chef Arthur Kelly Jr. has incorporated cocoa as a savory flavoring in a Finger Lakes take on the traditional French dish.

To accompany the fine and fancy food at Holloway House, there has always been Sally Lunn bread. The recipe dates back to Colonial America, although history tells us there was actually no one named Sally. The words may be a corruption of sol et lune, French for sun and moon, probably used by French immigrants to describe the round shape of the buns, similar to brioche. Sunday suppers in Bloomfield wouldn’t be the same without it.

In Quebec, only two real game meats can be legally sold, caribou from the great north and hare snared in the winter. The taste of these meats is surprising at first, the incarnation of the word “gamey,” but like truffles or blue cheese, it becomes what you crave. Many little classic Parisian restaurants offer this dish in season, and there are as many ways to cook it as there are chefs. The basics are wild hare (lièvre), red wine, shallots, thyme, and garlic. The rest can vary. At Joe Beef, we use both hare and rabbit. D’Artagnan (www.dartagnan.com) ships in-season Scottish game hare that we have tried. It’s gamey all right, but it’s the real McCoy. If you can’t find a hare, you can use all rabbit. Count on two days to prepare this recipe. It should yield six to eight portions, and it freezes well.

This tangy herring pickle somehow made its way from northern Europe to Nova Scotia, where you can find it in every grocery store. It’s like roll mops but less sweet. Here the classic preparation is done not with salted herring but with fresh salmon, which we salt the living daylights out of, then desalt and pickle in jars. It screams saltines and mustard. The Nova Scotians will tell you that the name Gundy is Nova Scotian, but the Brits, the French, and the Jamaicans all claim it for their own, too.

We can’t stress enough the importance of cleanliness when doing a recipe of this sort. That means a good washing of the jar and other equipment and yourself.

Here is another great dish from the repertoire of Nicolas Jongleux. We used to scoff at people who said they knew how to make a great dessert that wasn’t too sweet. But as you get older and the espresso and the social cigarillos have started to erode your taste buds, you find yourself liking bourbon, lemon, and dandelion. This is a perfect little dessert in that fashion. It’s zingy and alive. We burn it with a blowtorch. If you don’t have one, just use your broiler. Heat it to the max and put whatever is holding the grapefruit right under it. Don’t forget dry rags or oven mitts and an ovenproof vessel.

We love éclairs, even the soggy ones with a crusty fondant. This is a recipe with many parts: the pâte à choux (dough) and the pastry cream are the constants, and then come the variations of fillings and toppings. It seems confusing, but it’s not; plus if you can handle the variations here, you’re adding a whole new level to your dessert repertoire. In terms of assembly, it’s best to make the pastry cream first, as it needs 2 hours to chill.

The financier gives you a failproof moist cake that will stand through the rigors of pâtisserie de cuisine. It is simple to make, which is a good thing for us at Joe Beef, with our limited space and no real pastry chef, and for the home cook. Keep in mind that baking is a science, and although we include volume measures here, weighing the ingredients is recommended. We use ornate wax paper tartlet molds. If you don’t have them or can’t find them, you can just fill muffin cups half full and you’ll get the same result. Serve the cakes with ice cream and sweet wine.