all the recipes
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...
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...
A new & improved, easy summer dessert classic, with lemon of course and good quality olive oil, but also lime (for a more complex flavor) and buttermilk (for extra fluffiness and moistness), but you’ll have to work fast because of the reactive chemistry of the mixture but I’ll explain ! As you all know, this is one of the...
One part egg white + two parts sugar + three parts ground almond powder, with a few extras. What could be simpler ? But I realized that most people were doing it all wrong ! This is the better and much easier way for perfect and flawless results … It’s such a pity that I only make these when I have leftover egg whites and often...
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...
Is “tiramisu” a dessert classic ? For my generation, perhaps not, since it only appeared and was most probably first prepared in the early 70’s in Italy, then was modified and reinterpreted over time until today, 50 years later, everywhere. This dessert is a simple assembly of repeated layers made of ladyfinger cookies,...
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,...
I hadn’t realized that I had never shown you all how to make the simplest of all Greek-style cheese pies or called “TIROPITA” when large and then sliced into squares or smaller turnovers called “TIROPITAKIA” when shaped or folded into small triangles to become 2-bites appetizers ! Of course I’ve shown you...
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...
Quite obviously, everyone that we know has their very own "best carrot cake recipe ever" that they’ll stick to forever and never change and that’s all fine and dandy, of course. But just in case somebody would like to try out another version, perhaps to be kindly adopted in your family of recipes, then here’s a fresher...
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...
A dip made with fresh bread & fresh herbs, not to be enjoyed with other starches like breads nor chips nor crackers but rather with more summery preparations like fresh or grilled vegetables as well as grilled meats, fish and seafood too. I often will simultaneously buy lots of small “bouquets” of fresh herbs at the market and...
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...
… an updated & foolproof version with a logical approach for making an even better traditional Greek sweet bread for the Orthodox Easter festivities. The idea behind this recipe and instructions, after meticulously analyzing my own family’s traditional recipes and comparing it to other existing and successful recipes was...
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...