main courses recipes

Called “bamies latheres me domata” in Greek, which means oil-braised okra with tomatoes, it’s most often prepared as a summer vegetarian dish that I adore but rarely ever eat here in France; but since I’m heading to Montreal soon to see my family, I hope I can prepare this stew with my mom ! Okra, also called gumbo or...

My nextdoor neighbours are young girls, studying part-time and working part-time and they were sweet enough to knock on my door and hand me a big piece of a quiche like this. It was honest and comforting and delicious in its simplicity. Here’s how I think their version was put together and how I modified it slightly to remember their...

Spring festivities roast lamb leftovers can take a while to get through, so here’s an option to make a second dish with what’s left, after at least the 2nd day of enjoying the initial preparation, with a colorful Mediterranean twist ! Shepherd’s pie, as opposed to Cottage pie, is made with lamb or mutton, while the second...

This lighter & brighter version of the traditional “FAKÈS” soup, which is usually both dense & heavy, quite brown in appearance (and in flavor) and laden with garlic, incorporates more of the other vegetables to give it brighter colors as well as flavors and lighten it all up ! I’m not saying that the...

A multi-step approach to make an earthy, autumnal and vibrant cream of mushroom soup, with layers of flavor and intensity, due to the combination of the simmered as well as the roasted and also fried ingredients, recombined and tamed to become a comforting soup, through its smoothness and its creaminess. As the title suggests, there are 4 parts...

Lamb belly, also known as breast of lamb, is rich and flavoursome, yet an underrated and thus inexpensive cut of lamb, due to its small size and higher fat content, yet providing excellent results when oven-roasted or barbecued with herbs, lemon and spices, if correctly prepared beforehand, so here’s a...

Here’s a clever and easy way to use up your salmon and/or mashed potatoes leftovers from a previous meal. Add a few extras for flavoring and texture, perhaps a little sauce and salad and the meal is ready ! The patties or fish cakes can be served as is, on plate for adults or even sandwiched in a bun for kids, using the same sauce and...

Here’s my 5th leg of lamb recipe for this year’s Catholic and Protestant Easter (in 7 days), Orthodox Easter (in 14 days), Jewish Passover (which begins in 4 days) and Muslim Ramadan (which began 10 days ago and will last another 19 days), because even when I erroneously think that my last recipe and method can be set in stone, it...

Here’s a pizza experiment with mushrooms, maximizing the mushroom flavor of a predominantly mushroom pizza and obtaining a balance between the mushrooms, the tomato-less sauce, the cheeses and the dough, while using every part of the mushroom (the caps as well as the stems) to achieve this and using the oven-roasting juices of these same...

FASOLAKIA are green string beans and LATHERA means with oil, because when making this meatless version, the extra virgin olive oil gives it both taste and body. My version also adds beer as well as yeast extract to give it more body and I roast the vegetables before adding them to the tomato base, making this simple stew into something...

A modern reinterpretation of the famous Galician (north-western Spanish) and Portuguese tuna pie, prepared in a smaller hand-held individual format, called an empanada (like a turnover); combining a filling of cooked tuna, peppers, onions, tomatoes, olives and hard-boiled eggs and encased in crunchy flavourful pie crust. Historically the...

A pairing that occurred haphazardly because I happened to have all the ingredients on hand, combining the various textures and colors, as well as the delicate flavors, to create this particular loaf-shaped quiche; crunchy, buttery, creamy, yellow, pink and green ! I didn’t grow up eating salmon nor asparagus but living here in France...

… composed of a blend of dried aromatic herbs, onion and garlic powders, dried lemon zests and of course salt, ground green peppercorns and the most interesting secret ingredient of baking powder, for even crispier skin, all finely ground into a an herbal and zesty Mediterranean powder for dry-basting overnight before roasting. What is a...

The end-of-the-year holidays countdown is upon us : home, work, family, family, friends, neighbors and all those lists of extra things that need to get done today, tomorrow, next week, in 3 weeks, maybe sooner or maybe later ! So here’s a customized & international dish whose ingredients can be prepared in advance and then heated and...

I discovered a new type of filo dough. A sheet of dough so thick that 5 sheets weigh 400 grams ! This version here, at least the dough part, was an experiment, in addition to my other older pita recipes ! A traditional spanakopita is more rustic and could include a modifiable variety of ingredients but of course is composed of mostly spinach...