Maxence and I like to spend a weekend in Amsterdam every once in a while: we love the atmosphere of the city in any season, and we usually stay in a neighborhood called Nieuwmarkt that is both lively (plenty of shops and restaurants) and residential (real people live there), the ideal mix if you want to pretend you’re an Amsterdammer (only with terrible language skills) for a few days.

It doesn’t hurt that it is also the neighborhood where Pâtisserie Kuyt is located. This award-winning pastry shop and tea room is home to an irresistible apple confection called appelschnitte: sold in rectangular servings, this “apple slice” starts with a layer of dough that is halfway between a cake, moist and tender, and a cookie crust, sturdy enough to be handheld. Gently spiced chunks of apple sit atop that crust, with raisins and sliced almonds in their lap, and the whole thing is dusted — or rather, sandstormed — with confectioner’s sugar.

I’ve never had anything quite like it, and if you visit Amsterdam you should absolutely have a taste and send me a piece as my commission. Until then, here is my humble attempt to recreate it, on a slightly leavened pâte sablée made with ground almonds, and using cooking apples that soften when baked, for a tender mouth feel. It is very easy to make and the result is close enough, to my recollection at least, though I suspect the original involves a more substantial amount of butter and, without a doubt, a lot more icing sugar.

I served this autumnal dessert with a scoop of the easiest ice cream you can possibly make: it is simply sweetened sheep’s milk yogurt, to which I’ve added the egg white and liquor leftover from the apple slices, because it seemed like a clever thing to do. Chill, churn, and there you have it: a whiter than white, subtly tangy frozen yogurt to accessorize the still warm, apple-topped squares.

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Long comme un jour sans pain.”

A literal translation would be, “as long as a day without bread,” and it is used to express that something is very long — in reference to physical length (a long road, a long list) or, more frequently, to the duration of an event (a long speech, a long wait) — and dreary.

I have found a couple of sources suggesting that an English equivalent was, “like a month of Sundays,” but I’ve never heard or seen it used myself — perhaps one of you can confirm?

Example: “Tu as bien fait de ne pas venir à la conférence, c’était long comme un jour sans pain.” “You did well not to attend the conference, it was as long as a day without bread.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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The funny thing about a food blog, especially one that has been around for a long time, is that it doesn’t really reflect the frequency with which each featured dish is cooked: if you look at an archived post from years ago, how do you know whether it was just a one-time experiment, or if it has made weekly appearances at the author’s table since then?

After a recipe has been given the spotlight once, most bloggers are reluctant to write about it again, lest their readers think — assuming they keep track, which is fairly unlikely in these overstimulated times — they are rehashing old ideas. But then, aren’t you most interested in those ideas special enough to sustain the cook’s appetite time and time again? I certainly am.

Every once in a while, I make a personal classic that gets me as excited as it did the first time, and I think, “This is just too good not to remind the world about it.”

I find that a microblogging tool such as twitter helps with that conundrum, allowing me to note, for those who care, that I am making very ginger cookies again, or gratin dauphinois or poppy seed cake.

But then, every once in a while, I make a personal classic that gets me as excited as it did the first time, and I think, “This is just too good not to remind the world about it.”

This explains today’s post, which is another take on this one, first published five years and eight days ago. In the intervening time, I have gone through innumerable packages of fregola sarda, that toasted Sardinian pasta that is considerably tastier than its humble looks might suggest, is impossible to find in Paris (it would be too easy), and therefore requires trips abroad and favors from friends for me to replenish my stash.

I have tried eating fregola sarda in other ways than this, and though I must say it works splendidly with fresh peas, nothing quite compares to the chemistry between the teeny, lightly chewy pasta, soft wedges of zucchini, and coarsely grated parmesan.

I make it a bit differently now, blanching the zucchini quickly in the pasta water instead of sautéing it separately, and I frequently omit the pine nuts, to skip the toasting step. But if there are cherry tomatoes in the red star-shaped bowl on the counter I’ll add them in, and if I have little bits of meat scraped from a roast chicken carcass, as I did the day I took the above picture, they round out the dish nicely, too.

All in all, it is a one-pot dish that takes no longer to prepare than the time needed to boil the pasta — though fregola sarda is a little longer to cook than most, I’ll grant you that — and it is still, after all these years, my go-to meal when I’m having dinner on my own. It is just as good hot, barely warm, or cold, which means I can prepare a double serving, eat half on the spot, and have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

On the subject of pasta, I have just struck a good deal on a pasta-making apparatus, and I am anxious to it try soon, probably using the ratio laid out by Michael Ruhlman in his book (three parts flour to two parts egg). Any handmade pasta advice to share, or favorite recipes of your own?

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These matcha shorbread cookies are inspired by a popular type of French cookie called sablés diamant.

These “diamond cookies” are classic butter cookies that you form using my favorite technique, referred to in English as slice-and-bake, in which you shape the dough into a log and slice it into simple rounds. I’ve always thought of it as a home-style shortcut (as opposed to spreading the dough and cutting it into shapes with a cookie cutter), but it is in fact part of the traditional French culinary repertoire.

You will roll the log of dough in sugar before slicing, so that the edges of the finished cookies are prettily dotted with sugar crystals that sparkle like a hundred diamonds if you are blessed with a fervent imagination.

In any case, the true reason why it’s used for these sablés diamant is not so much to save time as to make the diamond thing happen: the recipe has you roll the log in sugar before slicing, so that the edges of the finished cookies are prettily dotted with sugar crystals that sparkle like a hundred diamonds if you are blessed with a fervent imagination.

In addition to the visual appeal, this produces an ideal texture, the cookie tender and crumbly, its flanks offering a distinctly crunchy note. I decided to use the same idea to make matcha shortbread, using the fine powder that is made by grinding green tea leaves (it can be purchased from Japanse grocery stores, and from good tea shops).

I used confectioner’s sugar and ground almonds in the dough itself to make it extra smooth on the tongue, the better to highlight the contrast between center and rim. And I blended in a moderate dose of green tea powder: just enough to give the sablés a delicate grassy flavor without overpowering the round notes of butter and almond.

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