main courses recipes
We’ve talked about “GEMISTA” before, which are all those different mediterranean and/or greek versions of stuffed vegetables, sometimes vegetarian and sometimes not. This partcicularly green bell pepper version is my favorite, stuffed with beef and rice and a larger mix of different grated vegetables inside, with more fresh...
I don’t pay enough attention to leeks, even though they always flavor most of my broths, my spanakopita spinach pie as well as additions in many soups and stews and chicken & fish dishes, but it’s never the STAR of the dish ? So here’s a quiche with extra leek flavor because when I say LEEKS, I mean that 50% of the quiche...
Here’s a reinterpreted soup from my childhood days growing up in Quebec, Canada where it is still very popular and available in every restaurant but pea soup is international and existed in Ancient Rome and Greece around 500 B.C. and was even sold in the streets by vendors during that era ! Could this be the most ancient soup in the world...
It’s a good time to show you this improved recipe for northern Greek BIFTEKI since it’s my dad’s 85th birthday this weekend and he’s healthy, strong and happy and with the appetite of a young man ! My family back in Montreal will probably be having a few people over to celebrate with lots of preparations and I...
In an ideal world, everybody would celebrate everybody’s holidays together, discovering similarities and understanding differences. All of this often happens quite easily when sharing a traditional holiday meal, around the same table, especially when it’s COUSCOUS. Couscous, instead of rice or pasta, is the easiest thing to do. I...
A seafood dish prepared in spring as we anticipate and wait for the summer to make its official entry. These pleasantly tender, chewy & grilled baby calamari (which could either be made with squids or cuttlefish) are easy to prepare with bright lemony and fennel flavors and stuffed with a delicate filling of various greens, fresh...
What else would you eat in this freezing weather ? Something hot, something you can chew on but also slurp, something meaty (unless you’re vegetarian and you add beans instead) and served in a large bowl that you can wrap your hands around to warm them up ! It’s just a simple rustic vegetable soup with cabbage and smoked...
A savory cake that’s like a pre-assembled sandwich, made with cured meats and cold cuts, cheeses, some marinated vegetables, fresh aromatic herbs and some salad leaves too, all nestled comfortably in a baked aerated batter that is almost like a dough and simply sliced and eaten at room temperature or even toasted and warm ? A fine practical...
A special seasonal dish prepared “once every summer holiday” (or maybe twice) made up of 6 layers of pasta, 4 individual & separate layers of roasted vegetable slices (1 layer of zucchini + 1 layer of eggplants + 1 layer of peppers + 1 layers tomatoes), each layer of which is slathered with some ratatouille-style tomato sauce,...
A humble wintery cream of leek and potato soup can be brightened up with springy lemony & herby flavors and dressed up with windowpane (or sandwiched semi-transparent layers of) oven-baked crispy leek & potato chips, filled with more fresh herbs too. All of this is because here in France, we thought that spring had already placed a...
Another new pizza recipe, celebrating the flavors of SPAIN and PORTUGAL, using the same techniques that I’ve used in the past but with different toppings and some modifications to get the Iberian flavor balances just right ! A balance between smokiness, spiciness, sweetness, acidity, freshness, crispiness & gooeyness. What’s...
The simplified method for this traditional preserving method for seasonal duck meat could easily become an alternative for an easier do-ahead prepared holiday meal. The method, that involves pre-salting, some waiting and then preserving the salted meats in fat seems simple enough but sometimes we get the ratios wrong so here’s how I do it...
I use these heirloom tomatoes like a "spell that I cast", to bring back the almost non-existent Parisian summer that eluded us this year, while the sun continued relentlessly hammering so many other countries ! Needless to say, I bought these beautiful heirloom tomatoes at the outdoor market. And to top it all off, my father in...
Both an African (Angola & Mozambique) & European (Portugal) recipe, this succulent preparation with a whimsical sing-song name, refers to the sauce prepared with small bird’s eye or bird’s tongue chilis called PIRI-PIRI (or peri-peri or pili-pili), generously slathered on chicken most often but also used on shrimps and usually...
Could this smaller and easier-to-handle yet handsome, home-made and hearty preparation be an eventually possible option for a small Easter or other spring celebration meal for 4 people (in this unusual era and year of lockdowns, curfews and limited-number gatherings) to replace the more usual gigantic leg of lamb or other...