100 recipes: Crepes

Best recipe
Classic crêpes suzette – Delia Smith

About

Crepes are unleavened, paper-thin pancakes.

“Crepes are good made with milk or beer, with or without the addition of cognac or liqueur, and perfectly acceptable made with water. The batter may be enriched by the addition of cream, may contain more or fewer eggs, and olive oil may replace the butter”
- Richard Olney, The French Menu Cookbook

In Brittany, they are made simply with buckwheat flour, water and salt.

Aim for a smooth yellow batter. If you lumps develop, then strain the batter through a fine mesh sieve. It’s best to use a non-stick crepe pan. Your pan needs to be hot enough so that the batter starts to cook straight away. Crepes are suitable for both sweet and savoury dishes.

Crepe suzette where accidentally invented by Henri Carpentier while preparing a dessert for the Prince of Wales, in 1895,  when he was a fourteen year-old assistant waiter. Crepe suzette traditionally uses Grand Marnier, but Cointreau also works well.

Crepe batter can be made in advance.

Serve plain crepes with a choice of jams (usually apricot or cherry), sugar and/or lemon, or Nutella.

• How to cook crepes – Good Taste
  

Multimedia

• Crepes suzette video – Laurent Branover, Food Safari

Variations

• Apple crêpes with calvados – Delia Smith
• Buckwheat crepes with mushrooms – Andy Harris
• Crêpe cake with Suzette sauce – Catherine Adams
• Crêpes with orange butter sauce – Michel Roux
• Herb crêpes stuffed with ricotta and smoked trout – Max Allen

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Coq au vin

Best recipe
Coq au vin – Raymond Blanc

About

French: coq au vin, coq au Chambertin, coq au riesling etc

The best coq au vin recipe nominated by Rebecca Seal is by Raymond Blanc and appears in his Kitchen Secrets cookbook, as featured in the The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes. A PDF version of the recipe is available on his website.

Coq au vin is a classic dish from the Burgandy region of France. It is a typically a red-wine stew made from young chickens with onions, mushrooms and bacon. In France they will use their local wine.

This popular dish may be called coq au Chambertin, coq au riesling, or coq au whatever wine you use for its cooking. It is made with either white or red wine, but the red is more characteristic.
- Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking

If time permits marinate the chicken in the wine overnight to give it greater depth of flavour.

Julia Child recommends serving with only parsley potatoes and perhaps buttered green peas.

Multimedia

• Coq an vin video – Gabriel Gaté

Variations

• Coq au vin – David Bransgrove
• Coq au vin – Gordon Ramsay
• Coq au vin with plump prunes – Good Food
• Coq au vin and boulangere potatoes – Gustoso

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Chocolate mousse

Best recipe
Chocolate mousse – Raymond Blanc’s mother

About

French: mousse au chocolat

Chocolate mousse is possibly the most popular of French desserts.  Aim for a smooth, velvety consistency that melts in your mouth. Use a bitter-sweet chocolate with at least 70% cocoa solids. There are two ways to make chocolate mousse, one with raw egg yolks and the other cooks the eggs with a sugar syrup. Fold the egg mixture in carefully and quickly, but minimally with a plastic spatula to keep as much air as possible. For success the eggs need to be at room temperature.

The best chocolate mousse recipe nominated by Raymond Blanc is by his mother and appears in his Kitchen Secrets cookbook, as featured in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes. Jill Dupleix recommends Patricia Wells’ version, which can be found in The Paris Cookbook.

Robert Carrier’s version (petits pots au chocolat) is another favourite and features added whipped cream, strong coffee and rum.

Two tspn of vanilla essence to your chocolate mousse mixture is a nice addition. Vanilla has even been known to assist sexual stimulation, turning your mousse into a great dessert for date night!
- Claire Preen, Chocolatier, 50 Shades of Chocolate

It is best eaten soon after prepared, if not preferably the same day. Serve with a desert wine.

• How to make perfect chocolate mousse – Felicity Cloake

Multimedia

• Chocolate mousse video – Raymond Blanc

Variations

• Irish coffee mousse – Jill Dupleix
• Orange mousse – Andy Harris
• Petits Pots au Chocolat – Gordon Ramsay
• Spiced chocolate mousse – Matt McConnell

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

Best recipe
Chicken with 40 garlic cloves – Valli Little

About

French: Poulet aux quarante gousses d’ail

Richard Olney sums up ‘Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic’ as a classic, Provencal method for preparing roast chicken. The garlic cooks down to being a mild flavour, sweet but nutty and not over-powering as you might expect.

Try to use garlic cloves from your home country.

The dish can be served with rice, buttered noodles or fresh bread.

Variations

• Chicken cacciatore – Olive magazine
• Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic – Lindsey Bareham
• Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic – Nigella Lawson
• Roast chook with garlic and verjuice – Maggie Beer

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Cherry clafoutis

Best recipe
Cherry clafoutis – Maggie Beer

About

French: clafoutis aux cerises

Clafoutis is a traditional baked dessert from Limousin region of France. It is fresh fruit backed in a batter. Gabriel Gate says that it is “rather like a fruit flan without the pastry.”

The cherry flavour is intensified if you leave the stones it, but other chefs recommend you leave them out.  You can use a special cherry stoning gadget to remove them.

Clafoutis is best served warm rather than cold – alone or with ice cream. It can be served in one large dish or individually in small ramekins.

You can vary the recipe by using apricots,  blueberries, figs, mangoes, peaches, and plums.

Variations

• Amaretto cherry clafoutis – Lindsey Bareham
• Berry clafoutis – Brigitte Hafner
• Blood plum clafoutis – Peter Ojansuu
• Clafoutis Limousin – Anne Willan
• Clafoutis of pear with hazelnuts – Lynne Mullins
• Raspberry and blackberry clafoutis (Clafutis do Lamponi e More) – Antonio Carluccio

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Cassoulet

Best recipe
Cassoulet - Gabriel Gate

About

French: cassoulet de toulouse

Cassoulet orginates from the southwest of France, with area boasting a different version. The three best known cassoulets are perhaps Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse. The hearty dish typically contains meat, sausage and beans slow-cooked in a casserole dish.

In France, dried haricot beans are used. In Australia, slightly bigger cannellini beans, or great northern beans, are a better choice because the dried haricots sold here are often very old and require lots of cooking.
- Philippe Mouchel, More than French recipes and stories.

Jill Dupleix recommends the cassoulet with duck confit recipe by Anne Willan.

• How to casserole meat with step by step illustrated instructions – Delia Smith
• How to make a casserole – delicious magazine
• How to make a casserole – Michelle Southan

Multimedia

• Duck casserole in red wine video – Gabriel Gate

Variations

• Cassoulet – Raymond Blanc
• Cassoulet with lamb, pork and goose – Matthew Evans
• Chicken and red wine casserole with herby dumplings – Jo Pratt
• Toulouse sausage and butter bean casserole – olive magazine
• Muffin-topped winter beef stew – Lesley Waters

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Beef Bourguignon

Best recipe
Beef bourguignon – Gordon Ramsay

About

French: bouef bourguignon

Beef bourguignon is from the Burgundy region of France, which is famous for its red wine. The wine used should be a pinot noir. Sometimes the dish is called beef burgundy. It usually contains beef chunks,  onion, mushrooms, onions and speck lardons.

The dish can be prepared in advance and is excellent the next day.

“The meat must be a gelatinous cut – oxtail (which is never larded), shank, heel or chunk are all good….. Properly done, the meat will be firm, moist and tender, and the sauce, a deep, warm brown, will have sufficient body to coat all the solid ingredients.”
- Richard Olney, The French Menu Cookbook

Julia Child recommends serving the dish traditionally with boiled potatoes, or alternatively you could serve buttered noodles or steamed rice.

Multimedia

• Beef bourguignon video – Guillaume Brahimi, Food Safari

Variations

• Beef à la mode – Lisa Featherby
• Beef daube – Andy Harris
• Boeuf bourguignon – France-Soir restaurant
• Carbonnade flamande – BBC Good Food
• Classic boeuf bourguignon – Nigel Slater

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Creme caramel

Best recipe
Creme caramel – Donna Boyle

About

French: creme au caramel

Creme caramel is a custard dessert with a soft caramel top and sauce. Aim for a silky texture with bittersweet caramel sauce. You can strain the custard mixture to achieve a silky texture.

Jill Dupleix recommends Gay Bilson’s creme caramel with orange and cardamon.

Use a sugar thermometer to work out when the caramel stage has been reached – take care as it becomes extremely hot. The longer the caramel it is left in the fridge, the more sauce you will have, so overnight is ideal.

Multimedia

• Creme caramel – Joao De Almeida
• How to make creme caramel video – Michelle Southan

Variations

• Chocolate-and-orange crème caramel – Karen Martini
• Crema Catalan – Bridgette Hafner (Frank Camorra)
• Creme caramel with pistachio praline – Lynne Mullins
• How to make perfect creme caramels – Alison Adams

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Bouillabaise

Best recipe
Bouillabaisse – Guillaume Sorrieu

About

French: Bouillabaise

Bouillabaise is a Marseilles classic. It is more of a stew than a soup, usually with more than three types of seafood used. It was originally cooked by the fisherman over a wood fire on the beach, with fish stock made from the unsold fish of the day. Typical  ingredients include seafood, saffron, tomatoes, herbs and orange. Sometime versions have potatoes and or wine. It can be served with fried slices of baguette and garlicy mayonnaise known as rouille.

Traditionally, bouillabaisse is eaten in two parts. First most of the both is served as a soup, with rouille and toast on the side. This is followed by the fish and shellfish, which have been kept moist in some of the broth.
- Skye Gyngell, How I cook

Serve with a glass of rose wine.

Multimedia

• Bouillabaise video – Gabriel Gaté
• Hearty and filling soup from the River Café audio – Ruth Roger and Rose Gray

Variations

• Bouillabaise – Antony Worrall Thompson
• Bouillabaise – Peter Evans
• Bouillabaisse with rouille – Thierry Galichet
• Zuppa di pesce – Pietro Porcu

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

Tomato salad

You’re probably wondering why there is even a recipe here for tomato salad. A few extra simple steps make all the difference from a soggy mess into something tasty.

We have used heirloom black Russian tomatoes in this dish. Any type of tomato will do, but make sure it is ripe and flavoursome. Consider varying the fresh herbs to whatever you have in the garden. Finely chopped shallots would also be suitable.

The dressing is a little on the generous size, so leave it in a glass jar in the fridge if you end up with too much dressing to tomato ratio (like I did).

tomatoes, sliced
parsley, finely chopped
basil, f inely chopped

Dressing
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp red or white wine vinegar

1. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a colander over a bowl to collect the excess juices. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Leave to drain for 15-30 minutes. Stir occasionally, but there is no need to press them.
2. Arrange tomato slices on your serving dish. Top with the parsley and basil leaves.
3. Mix the olive oil and vinegar together in a cup and then sprinkle the dressing over the salad.
4. Leave to stand at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before serving.