Every country has its own way of celebrating the holidays with food. In the States, we have our gingerbread, and in France, they have pain d’epices, or spice bread.

Just one more small difference. In the U.S., we eat gingerbread with a big spoonful of whipped cream, and for dessert. Here, pain d’epices is usually trotted out with a first-course with foie gras — the slightly sweet bread strikes a mighty fine balance with super-rich goose (or duck) liver, it turns out. There’s often a tiny spoonful of jam or caramelized onions served on the side, too.

As simple as this looks (and actually is), pain d’epices is one of those things that people seem to get wrong more than right. Over the last few years, I’ve tasted more dry pain d’epices than moist; I’ve had it with chocolate chips, with lavender, and or just as it is, plain, and sweetened with honey.

I pretty much gave up on liking pain d’epices until this summer, when I was at Philou (the Canal St. Martin bistro recently named one of the top 15 in Paris by Le Figaro). There, I was served pain d’epices like no other…sweet, crispy, and toasted, served with some of the best foie gras I’d ever tasted.

So I decided it was time to give this a try at home. I played around with a few recipes and after a few fails, came up with this, inspired by La Pâtisserie des Rêves‘ Philippe Conticini’s version and a few others. It’s actually more cakey than breadlike, but that’s why I like it. I haven’t tried it with fois gras yet, but barring that, I think it’ll work just fine as it is, or toasted with salty butter…

Pain d’Epices (Spice Bread)

Makes one loaf

• ⅓ cup/80 grams of brown sugar
• 1 stick/125 grams of butter
• ⅓ cup/110 grams of honey
• ½ cup/12 cl of milk
• ¾ cup/105 grams of all-purpose flour
• ½ cup/60 grams of sarasin flour/buckwheat flour
• ¼ teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon of ginger
• ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1-2 teaspoons of quatre epices or pumpkin pie spice
• the zest of 1/2 lemon
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C, and line a 10-inch by 4-inch loaf pan with parchment paper.

2. Melt your brown sugar, butter, honey, and milk in a saucepan over low heat.

3. Whisk together the flours and spices, and add the beaten eggs to this mixture. Pour the melted sugar mixture into this and mix until the lumps disappear — you can do all of this by hand, with a wooden spoon. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until the cake springs back slightly when you touch it. Let cool on a rack. Slice and serve with salty butter, cream cheese, or a bit of jam – or you may want to dust with confectioner’s sugar. So festive and snowlike!

]]> http://cowgirlchef.com/2011/12/06/pain-depices-spice-bread/feed/ 2 http://cowgirlchef.com/2011/07/15/sundried-tomato-pesto-palmiers/ http://cowgirlchef.com/2011/07/15/sundried-tomato-pesto-palmiers/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:49:30 +0000 epierce http://cowgirlchef.com/?p=6187

What better reason to jump back on board the Twitter #LetsLunch bus than with champagne?

Sadly, I missed our last gathering (pies), but when I saw that champagne nibbles were on the list for July, to celebrate our 2nd birthday (already?!), I had to join in.

Two years since our round-the-world BLTs, and Cheryl Tan upstaging us all with her lattice-bacon layer (a stroke of genius, by the way). Since then, our group has grown, and we’re still lunching together. I love it.

Anyway, I’m delighted to share with y’all the easiest recipe in the world – and one that’ll impress your friends. When they ask you what these are, you can casually say, “Oh, palmiers,” like they’re canned biscuits or something.

Which they practically are. The recipe’s so easy, there’s almost nothing to write down. I bought some (1) all-butter puff pastry (which you should be able to find in your freezer section in the U.S.), and smeared some (2)  sundried tomato pesto (also store bought – you may also use pesto or tapenade), and rolled it up to make these little bite-size French-inspired snacks. Before I cut them (because the dough was getting warm quickly), I put the rolls in the freezer for about 10 minutes, and then slicing was a snap.

A snap, I tell you. Fifteen minutes in a 400°F oven, and that’s it.

Is that a champagne cork I just heard?

Here’s what the rest of the gang made for the festive occasion. Bon anniversaire, everyone.

ShowFoodChef’s Purple Peruvian Potato Chips

Caitlin Shetterly’s Gruyere Lace Cookies

A Tiger in the Kitchen’s Cheddar-Pecan Crisps

Zest Bakery’s Bacon, Apple and Swiss Quiche

The Taste of Oregon’s Salmon Tartare

Chez Us’ Home-Cured Copper-River Salmon

Be A Wok Star’s Grilled Hoisin Pork Shoulder (and more)

Dreaming of Pots and Pans’ Salmon Bites

GeoKaren’s Goat-Cheese Filled Parmesan Cups

Free Range Cookies’ Cheese Straw Crackers

Monday Morning Book Club’s Salmon Tartare

The Bubbly Girl’s Parmesan Toasts

Hot Curries and Cold Beer’s Samosa-Shingara Pies

The Kitchen Trials’ Stuffed Figs, Not Parmesan Crackers and Spicy, Cheesy Pecans

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the best things that I’ve made in a long time — a thin-crusted bread covered in Roquefort crumbles (a lot of Roquefort crumbles, which is why the entire top is green), and baked for just 15 minutes in a super-hot oven.

See how crispy that brown edge is? See how thin? See how cheeeeezy?

My mouth’s watering again, just thinking about the fun of that first bite.

The craziest thing is how this is made — from a batter, not a dough — with vodka as one of the wet ingredients, and then poured into a sizzling hot pan brushed with olive oil and slipped into the oven. The cheese sinks into the batter and cooks right into it — it’s pure alchemy, this is.

I found this recipe in Saveur, and it’s really for what’s called alevropita, or feta tart. Because my feta had just gone south, and I had a brand new chunk of Roquefort in the cheese drawer, so I decided to do a swap. No one would mind, I figured. Certainly not me.

I didn’t intend for X and I to eat the whole thing in one sitting, but yes indeedy, we did.

I think that any good melty cheese, stinky or not, will work here, in addition to the feta. I’ve got a notion to experiment with cheddar and jalepeños, and swap out tequila for vodka, for the next round.

Roquefort Crispbread

Adapted from a recipe in Saveur magazine

INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons vodka
1 egg
1 ¼ cups flour, sifted
¼ teaspoon sea salt
⅛ teaspoon baking powder
5 oz. Roquefort, crumbled

Heat oven to 500 F.

1. Put a 10″ x 14″ rimmed baking sheet in the hot oven for 10 minutes, or while you make the batter.

2. In medium bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, egg, vodka, and 1 cup of water. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, salt and baking powder. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and whisk until smooth.

3. Pull the hot pan out of the oven and brush the other two tablespoons all over the surface and sides. Add the batter to the pan, using a spatula to evenly distribute. Sprinkle the cheese all over the batter, and slide into the oven for 20 minutes (or a little less if you’re using the convection setting).

Slice and serve or just tear into pieces.

Would be great with feta, as it was originally intended, or any other great melty cheese. I’m using cheddar/jalapenos/tequila next time.

How do you totally impress X’s family at their annual Christmas Eve holiday dinner, which begins around 7:30 with the pop of the first bottle of Champagne, and ends far past midnight, long after the foie gras, the poularde, heaps of vacherin, marrons glacés and mountains of tiny macarons have been eaten?

You bring Dorie Greenspan’s salmon rillettes.

Around 1 a.m., as X and I bundled up to leave the other evening, wrapping ourselves in as many layers as we could to make the brisk walk to the car in the sub-zero temperature, X’s sister and mother were still telling me how much they loved the salmon rillettes. But I already knew this. I watched as the entire jar (photographed above) disappeared as we opened presents.

I really can’t take the credit. It’s Dorie’s recipe; not mine.

As most of y’all know by now, I’m less of a Dorie fan than a full-fledged Dorie groupie. When I’m stuck, and have baked my way into a corner — and by that, I mean, I’ve created some sort of disaster — I turn to Dorie. First, I pull out one of the many Dorie cookbooks on my shelves and try to figure out what I’ve done wrong; and if I can’t find the answer, I simply ask her. I send her an email, and she zips a cheery note right back, as if she doesn’t have fifty dozen other things on her “to do” list that day.

I interviewed Dorie a few months ago for a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about her newest cookbook, “Around My French Table” (which is where I found this recipe), and we spent an afternoon together laughing and giggling as we chopped up veggies for the couscous that she was serving for dinner that night. At the end of the day, I felt like I’d made a friend — and I think that everyone that meets Dorie feels that way, too.

It’s why, I think, her books are best-sellers — this book made The New York Times best-seller list within weeks of its release, and was listed on every major “Best Cookbooks of 2010 list,” too. Not only are her recipes flawless — I don’t know of any other cookbook author that I’d trust to make a recipe for the first time to take to a Christmas dinner — they’re written in an easy, conversational tone; with language that’s instructional, yet never pedantic. Simply put, I trust her recipes.

In the notes for her salmon rillettes recipe, Dorie suggests making more than you think that you’ll need, so I did.

My only regret was making a double-batch, and not a triple.

Next time.

Salmon Rillettes

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table”

Makes about 2 cups

INGREDIENTS

1 lemon
1 small *red chile, seeds and membrane removed (See note at bottom; I used a jalapeno with seeds, and it wasn’t too hot)
½ cup dry white wine or white vermouth (I used a Chardonnay)
½ cup water
1 bay leaf
5 white peppercorns (I used black because I didn’t have white)
5 coriander seeds
2 spring onions, finely chopped, green tops reserved, or one shallot, finely chopped, rinsed and patted dry
sea salt
½ pound (8 oz.) salmon filet, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4-6 ounces smoked salmon, cut into 1/4-inch dice
freshly ground white pepper (I omitted this)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
about ¼ teaspoon pink peppercorns, crushed with the back of your knife
toasted bread or crackers, for serving

1. With a vegetable peeler, cut a strip of lemon zest and put it in a medium saucepan. Finely grate the rest of the zest into a small bowl and set aside with the lemon. You’ll use these later.

2. Cut a thin strip of the chile, and toss it into the saucepan with the lemon zest. Mince the rest of the chile, and put it in a small bowl, too, and set aside.

3. Pour the wine or vermouth and the water into the saucepan with the strips of zest and chile, and add the bay leaf, peppercorns, coriander, onion tops, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil over medium heat. When it boils, lower the heat, cover and let simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Now drop the cubes of salmon filet into the pan, cover and poach for 1 minute. Pour everything into a strainer, drain, and transfer only the salmon cubes to a medium bowl — you can discard the herbs, spices and vegetables.

5. Use the back of a fork to gently mash the poached salmon cubes. Add the smoked salmon, grated lemon zest, chile (you may want to add a small amount, then taste and add more), and chopped onions or shallot, and give it a stir. Taste and add salt and pepper.

6.Add the butter and mix until well incorporated.

7. Squeeze about half of the lemon juice into the bowl and taste. Here, taste and add more lemon, salt and pepper (again, I omitted the white pepper and simply added a bit more finely chopped jalepeno). Stir in the pink peppercorns and taste again (I added just a teensy bit more of these, too).

8. Tightly pack into a glass jar (or you may use a bowl), press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface, and chill for at least 2 hours.

Serve with tiny toasts or crackers, and lots and lots of Champagne.

*A word about chiles: A red Thai chile is at least 20 times hotter than a jalapeno, so I’d advise using this without seeds, and sparingly. When I made this, I added the finely chopped jalapeno little by little until I found the right amount of heat — you don’t want too much, either. The idea is to have just a tiny bit of heat — it’s not Tex-Mex, y’all.

I picked up a new mandoline (plus one of those great gloves that’ll keep you from slicing off your finger) when I was in Texas last month, and I’ve been dying to give it a spin. I had some potatoes that looked like they were ready  to be eaten, just sitting there in my big blue bowl, and I figured this would be a great way to see if the new V-slice system was superior to my old straight-edge mandoline (now in la poubelle), as I was hoping.

As you can see from the photo above, the new ride worked beautifully. The potatoes sliced up evenly, and stacked themselves quite neatly below. That took about, oh, 3 minutes. Then, all I did was smoosh the dough that I’d made earlier that day onto my cookie sheet, make a rectangle shape, press it down so it was even(ish), and fan out the taters.

Extremely facile.

Now, for those of you that are still mandoline-less, don’t despair. If you’ve got a sharp knife and a steady hand, just slice up your potatoes as thin as you can. If they’re not perfect, don’t worry about it. They’ll cook up just fine, anyway. Plus, you can always just call it “rustic,” and people will swoon. Rustic is always in.

Just remember you heard it here first.

Rosemary-Potato Pizza

Makes six 4” x 4” slices

INGREDIENTS

3 medium potatoes
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
1 ⅓ cups lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus a bit more for the plastic bag, and for brushing the pan and dough later)
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups wheat flour
1 ¾ cup bread flour, plus extra for dusting the board and rolling pin
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
sea salt
pepper

1. With a mandoline, slice the potatoes and set aside.

2. Put the yeast, water, honey and olive inot a bowl and stir a bit. Let rest for 5 minutes, until foamy.

3. Add salt and flours, and knead the dough for 3-5 minutes on medium-high, if you’re using a Kitchenaid mixer. Drizzle a bit of olive oil into a large Ziploc bag or bowl, put the dough inside, cover, and put in the fridge for 6-8 hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 225C/450F.

4. On a 10 X 13 cookie sheet lined with parchment paper that’s been brushed with olive oil, press out half of the dough until it’s about ¼-inch thick. You don’t need a rolling pin for this; just use your hands and you’ll be fine.

5. Brush a thin later of olive oil onto the dough, and starting from one end, lay the potatoes out in rows overlapping slightly. When you’ve covered the dough in potatoes, brush with a little bit more oil, and then sprinkle the rosemary and a bit of sea salt and pepper on top.

Cook for 30 minutes or until the dough crisps.

Makes a fab light supper with a salad, or works equally well as an appetizer.

Lucky for me, peas were on sale last week for 3 euros a kilo. Even luckier, I’ve got some kind of spongy memory bank that, when it comes to recipes, sops up the good stuff and stores it far, far away, apparently, somewhere in my subconscious. So when I decided to make this little pea pesto, I knew how I wanted to put it together, but I didn’t know where I’d gotten the idea.

When I tasted it, I thought I was gonna die. This bright green sweet pea-Parmesany stuff was one of the best things I’d ever spread on top of bread (besides that Speculoos crack that they sell near the cash register at the Franprix).

I knew that I was not this brilliant. So I looked in my email box, and found one recipe by La Tartine Gourmande that’s similar, but more of a pea-hummus sort of thing. Was that where I got the idea, I wondered? No, it couldn’t be. I’d had a sticky note with the word, PEAS, on my wall for more than a month now, to remind me to buy them when I went to the market.

Then, finally, after clicking on a few favorite blogsites, I found the source of this incredible pea paste, or pesto, if you will. Or peaness, if you want to get all Michael Procopio on me, which is where I saw the idea first, almost two months ago, on his hilarious blog, Food for the Thoughtless.

Michael’s the man. He’s the one with the peaness. Not me.

See? We’re all connected. Everything is derivative. We all borrow from each other, reinterpret, add to, or take away from. And in some cases — even without knowing it — we steal.

Michael uses garlic, and I don’t, and I use mint where he uses chives and lemon zest, so is my version mine or an adaptation of his? Or is it inspired by?

What else has my subconscious picked up and run away with without telling me, I wonder?

I read a long post the other day by Dianne Jacob about this very thing — where recipes come from, and how we should attribute. It’s something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to, because I’m in the midst of writing my first cookbook, and I’m very aware that I’m influenced by everything around me. For the record, I’m trying the best I can to try to remember where it all springs from in the vast emptiness otherwise known as my brain, and to give credit where credit’s due.

So Michael, Beatrice Peltre/La Tartine Gourmande, the man at the market with the 3 euro peas, and Darty, where I got my dreamy baby silver food processor, thank you. Thank you all for making my life a little more delicious.

Now, please pass me that pea spread/pesto/peaness or whatever you want to call it and let’s eat.

Sweet Pea Pesto

INGREDIENTS

1 kilo/2 pounds fresh peas
½ cup Parmesan, shredded
6 leaves mint
1 tablespoon shallot, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
½ teaspoon sea salt

1. Shell the peas. (I got about 4 cups from my batch, and this will vary depending on the size of your peas.)

2. Put a medium-size pot of salted water onto boil. When it boils, drop in the peas and set the timer for 2 minutes. While the peas are cooking, fill a large bowl with ice cubes and cold water.

3. When the timer goes off, drain the peas in a colander, and put them in the ice water bath.

4. Make the pesto. In a food processor, add the drained peas and the rest of the ingredients and pulse just until combined (this is meant to be coarse rather than smooth). Put in the fridge for an hour or two to let the flavors come together.

Serve on top of grilled flatbread or country bread for maximum fun and fabulousness.

Nearly every day for the past week or so, X would walk in the door after walking Rose around dinnertime, and say, “What’s that I smell? Artichokes?”

“No,” I’d tell him. “I’m not making artichokes.”

But I got the hint. Artichokes are, along with chocolate mousse, one of the foods that make up his fondest childhood memories. His mother used to steam them, and give one to each member of the family, which they’d eat dipped in mayonnaise. I’m pretty sure they had chocolate mousse for dessert.

Steaming’s fine, but I wanted to do something different. I flipped through my fat black binder filled with recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines, and found one that sounded like just what I wanted – a baked artichoke with a crispy, cheesy gratin top. I changed it up a bit – substituting what I had on hand, Parmesan, for Pecorino Romano, and opting not to use garlic, but a shallot, which wouldn’t overwhelm the artichoke’s delicate flavor, and upping the overall amount of breadcrumbs so I’ve have plenty for the two big boys that I’d found at the market.

Turns out, we didn’t need two, but just one for the two of us – which meant that we got to have artichokes two nights in a row. I figure I’ve just bought myself some time.

Artichoke Gratinee

Adapted from Bon Appetit, April 2008

Makes 2

INGREDIENTS

2 large artichokes
1 shallot, minced
¼ cup Parmesan, shredded
2 tablespoons capers, roughly chopped
2 cups breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon fresh thyme
sea salt
pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lemon, halved
1 cup white wine (dry)

Preheat oven to 200 C/400 F.

1. Make the stuffing. In a medium skillet, drizzle the 2 tablespoons olive oil and add the chopped shallot. Cook until the shallot begins to become translucent, 3-5 minutes, and then add the breadcrumbs, sea salt and pepper. Stir and let the breadcrumbs cook a bit, about 1 minute or so. Remove from heat. Let cool a little bit, and then add the Parmesan and the fresh thyme. Set this aside.

2. Prep the artichokes. Pull off the large bottom leaves, and with kitchen scissors, snip off about 1-inch of all of the remaining leaves, including the top. With a melon baller or spoon, scoop out the inside leaves and the hairy “choke.” Squeeze lemon juice all over the top and sides of the artichoke and then plunge the cleaned artichoke into a bowl filled with water. Squeeze the rest of the lemon in the water, and do the same with the other artichoke.

3. Stuff the middle and inside of the leaves of both artichokes with the breadcrumb mixture, place in a Pyrex dish, and pour the wine and 1 cup of water around them both. Cover tightly with foil and slide into the oven. Cook for 1 hour to 1 ½ hours, depending on the size of the artichokes (mine took 1 ½ hours).

Eat warm, or at room temperature (or cold the next day – it’s still delicious).

I wasn’t sure what to call this – a dip, salsa, pesto, or spread – since it can really work as all four.

I just love things that can multi-task, don’t you?

The other day, I was thumbing through my oversize black binder, filled with recipes that are more than 20 years old, and found a recipe for spicy red pepper and walnut dip that I’d clipped from Food & Wine in 2005. This seemed like a perfect hummus replacement (not that I don’t like hummus, but I’m growing a bit weary of seeing it everywhere), something that I could eat with toasted pita chips and serve as an appetizer, and I liked that it could be made quickly and without turning on the oven (since we’re having one of the hottest summers ever in Paris, this was key).

Thick and pesto-like this also seemed like it would work well stirred into pasta, roasted veggies, or spread on a sandwich in lieu of mayo. When I tasted it, I realized that this recipe closely resembled the Spanish tapas staple, Romesco sauce — made with peppers, tomato, ground almonds and breadcrumbs — traditionally served with shrimp or seafood.

See what I mean? This little salsa/dip/spread/whatever-you-want-to-call-it can do whatever you want.

I took quite a few liberties with this recipe — I simplified it by using jarred peppers, used breadcrumbs that I had in the freezer, added some Parmesan and cayenne, and I just mixed everything together, all at once, in the food processor. The only thing that you’ll need heat for is the walnuts, which I like to do in a cast-iron skillet on the stove, so I can watch them more carefully.

If you don’t have walnuts on hand, pine nuts or almonds would work, too — just be sure and roast them first, whatever you decide to use. (Roast, roast, roast. I’m all about roasting, aren’t I? I guess you probably figured that out by now.)

What will you use this salsa for?

Roasted Red Pepper and Walnut Salsa

INGREDIENTS

3 large red bell peppers, roasted (I used the jarred ones)
1 cup walnuts, roasted
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or cayenne
2 cups breadcrumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until combined. Refrigerate or let rest for an hour before serving so the flavors can combine. 

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top before serving, if you’d like.

I don’t know where I’ve been — have I missed the savory muffin movement? — but in Paris, it’s not that uncommon to find muffins and breads with all sorts of veggies stuffed inside.

When I first saw a recipe for ratatouille muffins (which this one’s based on) in Elle a Table magazine last year, I thought, Hmm, what an interesting idea. I need to try this someday. Since then, I’ve seen breads stuffed with just about every veggie imaginable, including whole pieces of broccoli (which looks really nice when sliced).

With summer around the corner, I thought that these would make nice hors d’oeuvres, especially in miniature. I love the combination of eggplant, feta, and tomato, and added some Kalamata olives, too, because I had a few on hand, and fresh basil.

You really could do whatever you wanted with this — add zucchini and make it really ratatouille-like, or swap out asparagus for the eggplant, or whatever you’re in the mood for. I used feta to keep the Mediterranean vibe, but any other cheese would work. I like that the batter is easy to mix up, and uses olive oil instead of butter — they’re kind of like France’s answer to cornbread muffins.

Eggplant, Tomato and Feta Muffins

Makes 16 regular size muffins

INGREDIENTS

1 large eggplant, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
1 pint (16 oz or 450 grams) cherry tomatoes, halved
6 oz feta (150 grams), crumbled
15 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
10 leaves basil, chopped
3 small leeks, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup (220 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
3 ½ oz (10 cl) olive oil
4 large eggs
3 ½ oz (10 cl) whole milk

WHAT YOU DO

Preheat oven to 400F/200C

1. Lay the sliced eggplant on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (this will keep the eggplant from sticking). Put the cherry tomato halves on another parchment-lined cookie sheet, too. Drizzle the cherry tomatoes (not the eggplant) with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle a bit of sea salt and pepper on top. Roast the eggplant, then the tomatoes. Each will take 15-20 minutes. Set aside.

Turn the oven down to 350F/175C.

2. While you’re roasting the eggplant and tomatoes, in a medium skillet, drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add the leeks and the garlic. Turn on medium-low and cook until the leeks begin to soften, about 15 minutes. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, and add the milk and olive oil. Add the flour mixture and combine. Gently fold in the veggies and garlic, olives, feta, and basil. 

With a spoon or scoop, put batter in lined muffin tins, filling just under the top. 

Bake for about 20 minutes or until muffins are a bit firm to the touch. Serve warm or room temperature.

I was breezing through BHV the other Saturday, the worst of all possible days to hit Paris’ multi-floored, one-stop shop for everything from toilet plungers to wine-making equipment (naturellement), 300 euro Le Creuset Dutch ovens, Yves Delorme sheets and the latest Chanel lipstick (Think Home Depot, Target, and Neiman’s, rolled all into one very cramped place. No, wait — add Container Store, MJ Designs, and Border’s, too.).

On this particular day, I was looking for plastic boxes to store my ever-expanding collection of blue-and-white, but I got distracted by the book department; in particular, the table with new cookbooks.

I saw the fun drawings of crabs, fish, chicken and Swiss chard before I saw the title, “Nature,” and way before I saw the name on top of that, which was no other than France’s most well-known chef, Alain Ducasse, who’s built a humongous global restaurant empire (Benoit, Spoon, Alain Ducasse at Plaza Athenee, etc.), and recently gave a culinary face-lift to the restaurant that sits in the city’s most famous landmark, Le Jules Verne.

I flipped open the book, and was immediately taken in by the beautiful photography, and the cute drawings and repartee between Ducasse and Paule Neyrat, the dietician who helped put the book together (or who put the book together, and then Alain’s name was put on top – it’s hard to tell). But what I loved most were the simple, healthy recipes, with a strong emphasis on grains, veggies and fish.

I’ve got to set Alain straight on guacamole (Olive oil? Green onions?), but I think that he’s spot on with his tapenade recipe, which I made the other day. So easy! Isn’t tapenade one of the best things ever?  You cut up a baguette, open the wine, and you’ve got such a perfect little appetizery kind of snack. Is doubly good with a bit of fresh chevre smeared on the toast first, if you want to get extra fancy. Perfect to pack for your spring picnics.

I followed his recipe exactly, except I used Kalamata olives instead of Nicoise, simply because I had them on hand. It takes, oh, about 5 minutes to whip this up. No need to ever, ever buy that stuff in the jar again. Plus, it’s so much nicer when you make it yourself, because you can keep it sort of chunky and rustic. I like that.

PS. I’m going to try to start writing these recipes with European measurements as well as American, because the folks that I’ve surveyed seem to be split right down the middle on whether they’d like to see grams vs ounces. I’ll round up or down where it makes sense.

Tapenade

INGREDIENTS

150 grams (about 5 oz) black olives, such as Nicoise or Kalamata

1 clove garlic, minced

5 leaves basil, chopped

1 teaspoon capers

10 cl (3.38 oz or about 1/3 cup) olive oil

1 anchovy filet

WHAT YOU DO

Either chop everything by hand, or do this the cowgirl way: put the garlic in your baby food processor and pulse a few times. Now add everything else, and pulse only until the olives are in small bits. You want this chunky and country-style, not a puree.

Cowgirl Tip: Try using a cherry pitter to pop the seeds out of the olives. Tres cool!