Desserts
Crème Brûlée
A vanilla custard so smooth it barely holds a spoon, under a sheet of caramel thin enough to crack with a tap. The…
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French recipes — all 128 recipes
Dinner
Beef Bourguignon
Julia Child put this Burgundian beef stew on every home cook's bucket list, and it earns the effort: beef braised…
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Baking
Butter Croissants
Genuinely laminated croissants with a honeycomb interior and a shattering shell — 27 layers of butter folded into…
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Dinner
French Onion Soup
Forty-five minutes of patient caramelisation turns four pounds of onions into something meltingly sweet and mahogany…
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Desserts
French Macarons
The Parisian macaron, with smooth domed shells, ruffled feet and a chewy centre. This uses the more forgiving French…
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Lunch
Croque Monsieur
The Parisian café sandwich raised to its proper form: ham and Gruyère between buttered pain de mie, blanketed in…
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Lunch
Quiche Lorraine
The original quiche has no cheese in it, and once you taste this custard — barely set, heavy on cream, studded with…
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Dinner
Gratin Dauphinois
Waxy potatoes simmered in garlicky cream and baked until the top is bronzed and the layers have fused into something…
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Healthy
Provençal Ratatouille
The Provençal original, in which each vegetable is cooked separately before they are married — the only way to get…
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Dinner
Steak Frites
The bistro standard done properly: a hard-seared steak rested under herb butter, with twice-fried chips that stay…
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Baking
Brioche Loaf
The richest bread in the French repertoire: a dough carrying half its weight in butter, worked until it is silky…
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Desserts
Profiteroles
Choux buns filled with cold vanilla cream and drowned in hot dark chocolate sauce. The temperature contrast is the…
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Dinner
Moules Marinières
Mussels steamed open in white wine, shallots and parsley in under ten minutes. The broth they release is the sauce…
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Baking
French Baguette
A true baguette de tradition: four ingredients, a long cold ferment, and a crust that crackles audibly as it cools…
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Baking
Madeleines
Proust's shell-shaped tea cakes, with the crisp browned edge and the hump on the back that tells you the batter was…
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Dinner
Duck Confit
Duck legs cured in salt overnight, then cooked submerged in their own fat until the meat gives at a touch. A…
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Dinner
Coq au Vin
Chicken braised in red wine with lardons, mushrooms and pearl onions — the rustic cousin of bourguignon, and faster…
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Desserts
Crêpes Suzette
Paper-thin crêpes folded into an orange-caramel butter sauce and flambéed at the table with Grand Marnier. A piece…
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Dinner
Tartiflette
A Savoyard mountain bake of potatoes, lardons and onions buried under a whole halved Reblochon, which melts down…
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Desserts
Apple Tarte Tatin
Apples caramelised in butter and sugar directly in the pan, covered with pastry and baked, then flipped to reveal a…
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Desserts
Cherry Clafoutis
A Limousin dessert somewhere between a flan and a pancake: cherries dropped into a loose batter and baked until it…
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Desserts
Chocolate Éclairs
Crisp choux shells, split and piped full of vanilla crème pâtissière, capped with a dark chocolate glaze that sets…
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Desserts
Mille-Feuille
Three sheets of caramelised puff pastry alternating with crème pâtissière, topped with the marbled feathered icing…
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Baking
Canelés de Bordeaux
A Bordeaux pastry with a black, almost burnt caramel shell and a soft, custardy centre shot through with rum and…
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Desserts
Chocolate Soufflé
A soufflé that rises two inches above the ramekin and stays up long enough to reach the table, with a molten centre…
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Dinner
Soupe au Pistou
A Provençal summer vegetable soup finished at the table with pistou — basil, garlic and olive oil pounded to a…
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Desserts
Pots de Crème
Small pots of dark chocolate custard, baked in a bain-marie until barely set and eaten cold with a spoon. Three…
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Lunch
Salade Niçoise
A composed salad, not a tossed one: each element dressed and arranged separately so every forkful is deliberate…
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Dinner
Sole Meunière
The dish that made Julia Child fall in love with France: sole floured and fried in butter, finished with foaming…
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Dinner
Blanquette de Veau
France's great white stew: veal poached with aromatics, the broth turned into a velouté enriched with cream and egg…
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Dinner
Pot-au-Feu
The dish the French call their national plate: beef and marrow bones simmered for hours with whole winter…
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Appetizers
Coquilles Saint-Jacques
Scallops poached in wine, folded into a mushroom velouté, piped back into their shells under Gruyère and browned. A…
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Appetizers
Pissaladière
Nice's answer to pizza: a bread base under a thick layer of onions cooked down for an hour until they are sweet and…
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Lunch
Salade de Chèvre Chaud
Rounds of goat cheese on toast, grilled until the surface blisters and the centre slumps, dropped onto dressed…
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Lunch
Salade Lyonnaise
Bitter leaves, a hot bacon dressing poured over so they half-wilt, croutons fried in the same fat, and a poached egg…
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Desserts
Gâteau Basque
A thick shortcrust shell around a layer of vanilla pastry cream or black cherry jam, scored across the top before…
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Dinner
Marseille Bouillabaisse
Marseille's great fisherman's stew: a saffron and fennel broth built from the bones and heads, poured over firm…
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Dinner
Cassoulet de Toulouse
The great slow-cooked bean casserole of southwest France: white beans, confit duck, sausage and pork built into…
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Appetizers
Chickpea Socca
A single thick pancake of chickpea flour, olive oil and water, baked fierce in a heavy pan until the edges blister —…
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Lunch
Seared Tuna Niçoise
Tuna steak seared rare, over green beans, egg, olives and tomato with an anchovy vinaigrette — the Niçoise without…
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Quick Meals
Croque Madame
Ham and Gruyère between buttered bread, blanketed in béchamel, grilled until it bubbles, and crowned with a fried egg.
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Desserts
French Fruit Tart
The pâtisserie window tart: crisp sweet pastry, a proper vanilla crème pâtissière, and whatever fruit is worth…
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Dinner
Lobster Bisque
The shells are the recipe. They are roasted, simmered into a stock, and that stock is reduced hard before any cream…
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Desserts
Chocolate Mousse
Four ingredients and no gelatine: melted chocolate, egg yolks, whipped whites and a little cream. The air is all…
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Holiday Specials
Galette des Rois
Two discs of puff pastry around a frangipane, scored in a sunburst and glazed to a mirror. There is a bean hidden…
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Holiday Specials
Bûche de Noël
A rolled chocolate sponge filled with cream, coated in ganache and dragged with a fork into bark. The sponge is…
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Breakfast
Eggs Florentine
Poached eggs on wilted spinach and a toasted muffin under blender hollandaise. The hollandaise takes ninety seconds…
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Appetizers
Céleri Rémoulade
Raw celeriac cut into matchsticks and bound in a mustard-heavy mayonnaise. The most ordered starter in France and…
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Appetizers
Poireaux Vinaigrette
Whole leeks poached until completely soft, pressed, and dressed while warm with a mustard vinaigrette. Served cold…
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Appetizers
Œufs Mayonnaise
Halved boiled eggs under a blanket of proper mayonnaise. There is a French society dedicated to defending it, which…
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Appetizers
Carottes Râpées
Grated carrot in a lemon and mustard dressing with parsley. Two minutes of work, and the only variable that matters…
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Appetizers
Salade de Lentilles
Green lentils dressed hot with mustard vinaigrette and shallot. Puy lentils if you can, because they hold their…
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Appetizers
Gougères
Choux buns with cheese beaten through, baked until hollow and eaten warm with a glass of something cold. Burgundy…
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Appetizers
Rillettes de Porc
Pork shoulder cooked for hours in its own fat until it can be pulled to threads, packed into a pot and sealed. A…
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Appetizers
Terrine de Campagne
A coarse country pâté of pork, liver and fat baked in a bain-marie and pressed overnight. Rustic on purpose — you…
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Appetizers
Jambon Persillé
Ham set in a parsley jelly made from its own cooking stock, from Burgundy. Turned out and sliced, and the parsley…
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Appetizers
Escargots à la Bourguignonne
Snails baked under garlic and parsley butter until it bubbles over the shells. The butter is the recipe; the snails…
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Appetizers
Tapenade
Black olives, capers, anchovy and garlic pounded to a rough paste. Named for the capers — tapena — which everyone…
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Appetizers
Anchoïade
Anchovies melted into olive oil with garlic and served warm for dipping raw vegetables into. Three ingredients and…
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Appetizers
Aïoli
Garlic pounded to a cream and emulsified with olive oil, sometimes with a yolk to help it. Provence eats it with…
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Appetizers
Brandade de Morue
Salt cod beaten with potato, garlic, oil and milk into a warm purée. Nîmes makes it without potato and everyone else…
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Appetizers
Œufs en Meurette
Eggs poached in red wine and served on fried bread under a sauce made from the same wine. Burgundy taking the…
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Lunch
Vichyssoise
Leek and potato soup enriched with cream and served cold. Invented in New York by a French chef, which the French…
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Lunch
Potage Parmentier
The hot original that vichyssoise is a chilled version of: leeks, potatoes, water and butter. Julia Child called it…
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Lunch
Garbure
The Gascon soup of cabbage, beans and preserved duck, thick enough that the spoon should stand up in it. A meal, not…
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Lunch
Soupe de Poisson
Whole small fish cooked down and forced through a mouli, served with rouille, croutons and grated cheese. Not…
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Dinner
Hachis Parmentier
Braised beef minced by hand under a potato purée and baked. The French version predates the English one and is made…
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Dinner
Poulet Basquaise
Chicken braised with peppers, tomato and piment d'Espelette from the Basque country. The peppers are cooked down to…
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Dinner
Poule au Pot
A whole chicken stuffed and poached with vegetables, the broth served first and the meat after. Henri IV wanted…
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Dinner
Navarin d'Agneau
Lamb braised with the first vegetables of spring, each added at its own moment. The vegetables are the point, not a…
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Dinner
Daube Provençale
Beef marinated in red wine with orange peel and cooked for three and a half hours. Provence rather than Burgundy —…
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Dinner
Carbonade Flamande
Beef braised in dark beer with a slice of mustard-spread bread laid on top, which dissolves and thickens the sauce…
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Dinner
Choucroute Garnie
Sauerkraut cooked in riesling with a collection of pork and sausages piled on top. Alsace, and the sauerkraut should…
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Dinner
Magret de Canard
Duck breast started in a cold dry pan so the fat renders out slowly and the skin turns to glass. Fifteen minutes…
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Dinner
Poulet Rôti
Roast chicken with butter under the skin and lemon inside, started on its side. The French method turns the bird…
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Dinner
Gigot d'Agneau
Leg of lamb studded with garlic and anchovy and roasted pink over potatoes that catch the juices. The anchovy is not…
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Dinner
Épaule d'Agneau de 7 Heures
Lamb shoulder cooked for seven hours until it can be served with a spoon. No knife on the table, which is the…
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Dinner
Steak Tartare
Raw beef chopped by hand and seasoned at the table with capers, shallot, mustard and egg yolk. Chopped, never minced.
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Dinner
Entrecôte Marchand de Vin
Sirloin with a red wine and shallot sauce built in the pan the steak came out of. Marchand de vin means wine…
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Dinner
Cordon Bleu
Chicken breast wrapped around ham and cheese, breaded and fried. Swiss in origin, French in execution, and the seal…
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Quick Meals
Rognons à la Moutarde
Lamb kidneys seared hard and finished in a mustard cream sauce. Fifteen minutes, and the kidneys must leave the pan…
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Quick Meals
Foie de Veau Lyonnaise
Calf liver with onions cooked slowly to sweetness and a splash of vinegar at the end. Lyon does it best and does not…
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Quick Meals
Boudin Noir aux Pommes
Black pudding fried with apples cooked down in butter. Sweet against iron, and about as good as twenty minutes of…
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Dinner
Endives au Jambon
Chicory braised, wrapped in ham, covered in béchamel and baked. The bitterness of the chicory is the point and is…
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Dinner
Quenelles de Brochet
Pike beaten with choux paste into weightless dumplings, poached and baked in a crayfish sauce. Lyon, and one of the…
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Dinner
Bouchée à la Reine
Puff pastry cases filled with chicken, sweetbreads and mushrooms in a cream sauce. Named for Queen Marie…
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Dinner
Moules Frites
Mussels steamed open in white wine with shallots, and chips fried twice. The mussel liquor is the sauce and should…
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Dinner
Sole Normande
Sole poached in cider and cream with mussels and prawns. Normandy, so cider and cream rather than wine and butter.
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Dinner
Lotte à l'Armoricaine
Monkfish in a sauce of tomato, brandy and shellfish stock. Armoricaine after Brittany, though half of France still…
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Dinner
Bar en Croûte de Sel
A whole fish buried in salt bound with egg white and baked. The crust sets hard, seals completely, and the fish…
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Dinner
Fondue Savoyarde
Three cheeses melted into white wine with garlic and kirsch. The cornflour is not cheating — it is what stops the…
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Dinner
Aligot
Potato purée beaten with fresh tomme until it becomes elastic enough to lift in ropes. From the Aubrac, and the…
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Dinner
Truffade
Sliced potatoes fried slowly in fat and folded with fresh tomme until they form a single cake. The Auvergne cousin…
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Lunch
Pipérade
Peppers, tomatoes and onions cooked down to a jam with Espelette, then eggs stirred through. Basque, and often eaten…
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Dinner
Gratin de Courgettes
Courgettes cooked down with rice and bound with egg and cheese, from Provence. The rice is cooked in the courgette…
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Dinner
Gratin de Macaronis
Macaroni in a nutmeg béchamel under Gruyère and breadcrumbs. The French version is looser and less cheesy than the…
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Lunch
Frisée aux Lardons
Curly endive with hot bacon, a vinegar-deglazed dressing and a poached egg on top. The dressing is made in the bacon…
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Quick Meals
Omelette aux Fines Herbes
A French omelette: pale, rolled, and barely set inside. Two minutes of cooking and about a decade of getting it right.
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Baking
Pain de Campagne
A country loaf of white and wholemeal flour raised with a levain, baked dark. The crumb should be open and the crust…
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Baking
Fougasse
Provençal bread slashed into a leaf shape and stretched so the cuts open. More crust than crumb, which is the point.
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Baking
Pain aux Noix
A dense walnut loaf that turns faintly purple where the nuts touch the crumb. Made for cheese and very little else.
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Dinner
Tarte Flambée
Alsatian flatbread with fromage blanc, onion and bacon, baked in two minutes at the top of a furnace-hot oven. Thin…
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Lunch
Pan Bagnat
A salade niçoise pressed into a round loaf until the bread soaks up the dressing. Bagnat means bathed, and the…
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Lunch
Galettes Bretonnes
Buckwheat crêpes filled with ham, cheese and an egg, the edges folded into a square. Savoury and dark, and a…
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Appetizers
Saucisson en Brioche
A poaching sausage baked inside brioche. Lyon, and the trick is that the sausage is cooked and cooled before it is…
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Baking
Pain au Chocolat
Laminated dough rolled around two batons of chocolate. The same dough as a croissant, and the same single problem…
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Desserts
Tarte au Citron
A thin pastry case filled with lemon curd set with butter and eggs. Sharp enough to make you blink, which is the…
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Desserts
Tarte aux Pommes
Apple slices fanned over an apple purée in a thin pastry case, glazed with apricot. The purée underneath is what…
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Desserts
Tarte Normande
Apples baked into an almond custard in a pastry case, with Calvados. Wetter and richer than a plain apple tart and…
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Desserts
Flan Parisien
A deep custard tart with a thick, wobbling set and a scorched top. Sold by the slab in every French bakery and…
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Desserts
Far Breton
A dense batter pudding with prunes, somewhere between a clafoutis and a flan. Brittany, and traditionally made with…
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Baking
Kouign-Amann
Laminated dough with sugar folded into the layers, so it caramelises against the tin and sets into glass. Breton for…
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Desserts
Paris-Brest
A ring of choux split and filled with praline mousseline, made for a bicycle race and shaped like a wheel. The…
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Desserts
Saint-Honoré
Puff pastry base, choux buns dipped in caramel, and piped crème chiboust between them. Named after the patron saint…
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Desserts
Religieuse
A large choux bun with a small one on top, both filled and glazed, finished with a collar of buttercream. Meant to…
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Desserts
Opéra
Six layers: almond sponge soaked in coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, chocolate ganache, repeated, and a poured…
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Desserts
Fraisier
Strawberries stood upright around the edge of a génoise, packed in mousseline cream. Summer, and the strawberries…
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Desserts
Dacquoise
Discs of nut meringue layered with buttercream. Chewy rather than crisp, which is what separates it from a vacherin.
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Desserts
Mont-Blanc
Chestnut purée pushed through a ricer into vermicelli over meringue and cream, made to look like the mountain. Piped…
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Desserts
Pithiviers
Almond cream sealed between two discs of puff pastry, the top scored in curves from the centre. The scoring is what…
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Desserts
Baba au Rhum
A yeasted sponge soaked until it is saturated with rum syrup. It should be heavy with it — a dry baba is a failed one.
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Desserts
Crème Caramel
Baked custard turned out so the caramel runs down it. The caramel goes into the moulds first and dissolves into a…
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Desserts
Île Flottante
Poached meringue floating on crème anglaise under a thread of caramel. The meringue is poached in milk, not baked.
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Desserts
Riz au Lait
Rice cooked slowly in vanilla milk until it is creamy but the grains still hold. Served warm in the bowl it was…
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Baking
Financiers
Small almond cakes made with brown butter and egg whites, baked hot so the edges crisp. Named for the gold-bar shape…
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Baking
Palmiers
Puff pastry rolled in sugar, folded into a heart and baked until the sugar caramelises on both faces. Three…
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Baking
Chouquettes
Small choux buns rolled in pearl sugar and baked empty. Sold by weight in paper bags and eaten before you get home.
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Baking
Gâteau au Yaourt
The cake every French child learns first, measured in the empty yogurt pot rather than on scales. Plain, reliable…
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