all the recipes
This perfect and simple wintery dessert transports me back to a very happy, spontaneous and magical day, probably about 30 years ago. It was in Montreal and I was visiting my family on my birthday weekend, from Ottawa or Paris, I really can’t remember. We were just planning an intimate family evening dinner for 4 which, right after...
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...
A French-style apple cake is another example of simplified and humble perfection, because it’s like a pound cake (already perfect) with apples. This version uses equal weights but double the volume of apples to the batter to create a huge cake that keeps fresh for over one week in the fridge and is so moist and tasty that it can be...
… Because most of us have been doing it backwards and wrong and for sooooo long ! I’ve always known how to approximately make taramosalata dip, also known as “tarama” which should be a pale, creamy and almost mousse-like preparation of salt-cured fish roe, soaked bread, olive oil, lemon juice and some onion and my very...
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...
The memories of my family’s new year’s VASILOPITA cake (celebrating Saint Basil) were it’s density and compactness, with the occasional large air bubbles appearing throughout its crumb, it’s tenderness and its moistness and the magical intermingling aromas of mastic resin, mahlab kernels, orange zests, nutmeg and...
An easy recipe that combines puff-pastry cases, to be filled with your poultry leftovers from any holiday meal and a home-made béchamel sauce, to become an impressive starter to a meal or to be served by two VOL-AU-VENT per guest with a salad as a main meal. This version combines poultry, regular or wild mushrooms, some extras for...
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...
The easiest Italian salad (as an accompaniment or entrée or even light summer meal) to prepare, requires a fine balance of subtle flavors and adjustments depending on the ingredients used, so we’ll talk about all these little adjustments and how to accentuate the individual flavors to make them the best that they can be, before...
Poor little raisins, so often forgotten and considered much less interesting or fancier than other red or blue dried fruits. And yet, at home, we often had an after dinner ritual, instead of eating overly sweet desserts (which was rare in our home after dinner), and that was eating freshly peeled or sliced fruits or the other option, which was to...
Portokalópita (from “portokáli or orange and “pita” or cake) is a typical Greek cake whose main ingredient is sweet orange, dried shredded filo as well as yogurt, eggs, sugar and vegetable oil. It belongs to the family of desserts called “siropiasta”, which are sweets that are bathed...
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...
For all the lovers of GREEN PEPPERS, who are so often ignored because we are so few and forced to enjoy only sweeter roasted red peppers (also great but different), here’s an easy way to enjoy the earlier, greener summer harvests for a bit longer ! I know so many people whose first reaction is to cringe at the sight of a green pepper,...
This is the simplest recipe that I’ve ever had the opportunity to prepare. The simple association of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and salt which is TOUM, is a Mediterranean’s dream and the result is often almost as white as snow, but not for my reinterpreted version. It’s more intense and darker. But why ? Even though...
Back to the huge loquat tree in our garden that gives dozens of kilograms of fruits every 2 years ! Of course, jam or fruit preserves are a must but what to do with the seeds ? Make “NESPOLINO” which is yet another bittersweet liqueur, made with the seeds of a fruit called a loquat (or japanese medlar) and which is quite similar to...