When our friends came over for dinner on Saturday night, I felt like serving a simple and light dessert. By “light” I do not necessarily mean light in calories, but rather light as in “not too rich”. I wanted to make something fruit-based, with a little cookie-type thing to dip in and accompany it. I like that kind of dessert, because it allows each guest to adjust his serving to his own appetite : if you feel pretty full, you can just have the fruity part. If you have a sweet tooth and enough room, fill up on the cookies!

Just the day before I had seen beautiful rhubarb at the store, and I just cannot get enough of that fruit, so I decided to repeat the Compote Rose experience, which took care of the fruit part. It couldn’t be easier to make, you just have to peel the rhubarb, combine with raspberries and sugar, bake, and voilà : Compote Rose, pretty, acidulé and delicious.

As for the cookies, the idea of making speculoos had been in the back of my mind for quite a while, ever since my grandmother gave me a bag of cassonade brune from Belgium, that special dark brown sugar made by Candico. And then just recently, when I posted about a certain giant Speculoos, a reader named Peter kindly submitted a recipe in the comments, translated from the Belgian recipe website La Bonne Cuisine. The recipe looked simple enough, and it came recommended by Peter, so that’s what I set out to make.

The traditional recipe uses cinnamon and cloves for spices, but I used the pumkin pie spice mix I had bought at Trader Joe’s back in the days. For that I do hope that my ancestors — my father’s family comes from the North of France — will forgive me. Regardless, I was delighted with how they came out : the taste is very close to store-bought speculoos. They aren’t as crumbly though, which I think means that there is more butter in the store-bought version, but the texture of mine is extremely pleasant nonetheless, crispy on the edges and slightly soft in the center.

And they were just perfect with the rhubarb and raspberry compote. And with coffee. And with tea. And by themselves. And again. Yum.

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[Codfish with Fava Beans, Cranberries and Pistachios]

This is the main dish I served on Saturday night, when our friends came to dinner. The idea for this sort of came to me out of thin air : I was leafing through cookbooks but nothing was really calling my name, when all of a sudden I had visions of fish, baked, with colorful little veggies. This materialized into codfish fillets, baked on a bed of green onions and sprinkled with fava beans, whole cranberries and pistachios.

We served it with quinoa, which I cooked with onions and herbs and served cold, and long-grain rice, served warm. Both sides were plated using my metal circle, with the help of my beloved assistant plater.

I highly recommend baking fish in a foil-covered dish : it’s a gentle cooking method which allows the fish to stay moist, and the circulating steam infuses it with the flavors of the other ingredients you add. Here, the mix of tastes worked really well : the green onions, fava beans and pistachios brought their gentle sweetness, while the cranberries and lime juice played it slightly sour and tangy. In terms of texture, we had the green onions for the softness, the beans and pistachios took care of the crunch, while the juicy cranberries burst on your tongue — all of them complementing the pleasantly firm codfish really well. Oh, and did I mention the gorgeous mix of colors?

It was also a rather light dish, which left plenty of room for the cheese platter that followed : all of us are huge cheese fans, so Maxence and I had carefully selected a few of our favorites at our cheese store on the rue Lepic earlier in the day. In attendance were : a Maroilles, a remarkably tasty Camembert, a Reblochon, a Chèvre Fermier, a Brebis du Larzac, of which we are particularly fond, and a Brocciu, with ample fresh baguette resources. Brocciu is a very fresh and very delicious sheep’s milk cheese from Corsica, and we served it with membrillo, the quince paste we had brought back from Madrid. The pairing was a real hit. Here : don’t they look happy and contented?

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[A Duet of Pesto : Rucola Pesto and Red Pesto]

On Saturday night, my dear friends Marie-Laure and Laurence and their respective (and dear, too) boyfriends Ludo and Jean-Christophe came over for dinner. This had been decided just the day before, so Saturday morning saw me sitting on the couch, surrounded by cookbooks, perusing them for inspiration. In passing, I have plans to create an exercice video which I will simply call “The Cookbook Workout” : I’m certain I burn an insane number of calories just lugging those piles of cookbooks around, from shelf to couch to counter, and back to shelf.

I decided to keep things simple, and skip the first course, replacing it with a little something to eat with the apéritif (pre-dinner drink). I like doing things that way, because it’s a friendly, laid-back way to start the meal, and I like the dynamics it creates, allowing people to hover around the bar and mingle. I also like to welcome my friends with something homemade : they’re probably hungry, and what you eat on an empty stomach is what you appreciate best, so it might as well be something I’ve lovingly prepared, no?

The idea of making pesto variations had been on my mind for a while : you start from the basic pesto recipe (basil, pinenuts, pecorino and/or parmesan cheese, olive oil and garlic), and work from there, replacing some of the ingredients by their cousins, be they close or removed — another kind of herb, another kind of nut, another kind of cheese. In this instance, I made two variations : I made a green rucola pesto, subbing rucola leaves (a.k.a. arugula) for the basil, and I used sundried tomatoes to make a red pesto.

I served both in their little jars, with a basket of thin ciabatta slices and two knives : each of us could prepare his own little canapés, putting as little or as much of the pesto of his choice as suited his taste. In truth I ended up doing most of the spreading while we chatted, but that’s just because I enjoy those things. And you know, these boys get so engrossed in conversation that they’ll starve if you’re not careful.

I will most definitely do this again : it is colorful and tasty, it is incredibly easy to make, and it gives me the perfect excuse to buy a big and beautiful granite mortar and pestle! You can prepare the pestos ahead, and keep them on hand for an improvized mini-meal. The pestos can also be used like regular pesto of course, in pasta, as a sandwich spread, as a salad dressing…

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[Goat Cheese and Herb Vegetable Terrine]

When trying to decide what to bring to the Paris Potluck the other day, my thoughts immediately turned to a terrine. I love terrines : I like the name, I like the dish you make them in (and specifically my own), I like the nice, country feel they have to them. They are also a wonderful thing to bring to a buffet, because they can usually be sliced into many servings (well unless they are micro-terrines like Barrett would have me make in my mini paper cups), they need to be made ahead, and they are best enjoyed cold or at room-temperature.

I have a great terrine cookbook I’ve mentioned before, but they were running an article on terrines in the latest issue of the French magazine Saveurs, and I decided to try one of the featured recipes. Coincidentally, it turned out that Christoph, who also attended the potluck, had bought that same magazine, and had decided to make a terrine from that same article on that same night. Thankfully we picked different ones : the plan wasn’t to turn the potluck into a side-by-side taste comparison of the same terrine made by all the attendants. Although, come to think of it, that would have been fun too!

The recipe I chose was originally for a “Terrine de légumes au fromage de chèvre et à la menthe“. I didn’t have mint on hand, but I had flat-leaf parsley and window-sill basil, so it turned into a “Terrine de légumes au fromage de chèvre et aux herbes”. The recipe has you steam carrots and zucchini in sticks, and layer them with a batter made of fresh goat cheese, eggs and faisselle. Faisselle is a kind of fresh soft cheese (usually cow’s milk, but also goat’s or sheep’s), which looks and tastes like a thick and slightly curdled yogurt. It is sold in a tub, with a draining rack inside that you pull out to separate the whey from the faisselle. If this is unavailable to you, my best substitution guess would be half thick yogurt and half cottage cheese.

My terrine turned out just as I had hoped. It was pretty easy to assemble, and it cooked perfectly in the time imparted. This is always a source of anxiety with egg-based terrines : realizing, right as you serve, that the inside of your beautiful construction is completely raw and collapsing from the center, is a torment I would not bestow upon my worst enemy — fret not, I have a slew of other horrifying things in store for them.

We brought the terrine to Isabelle and Ethan’s place, still in its dish (beautiful, beautiful dish, have I mentioned that?), and I managed to claim territory over a small area of the kitchen counter, to double-flip it onto a serving plate and slice it. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but Isabelle’s knife bread worked well and I managed to keep the slices together.

The terrine’s taste was very pleasant and fresh, and the cut slices looked oh-so-pretty, with their confetti of green and orange. The cheese part is moussy and soft, and the vegetable pieces, cooked al dente, come in delightful contrast. I do think, however, that this terrine would be better served on its own with some bread, than as part of a buffet : its taste is subtle and mild, and somehow all the different flavors of all these other delicious dishes overpowered it a little. But I would definitely repeat this, possibly with other vegetables and goodies layered inside, provided they’re dry enough (otherwise the cheese batter may not set) and not too heavy (or they may sink to the bottom).

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