Delicious winter salads are a challenge because the usual ingredients are limited and mostly tasteless. This blood orange and radicchio winter salad is more of a suggestion than a recipe! By combining two seasonal winter ingredients you get a taste that complements them both. I…
One of my favorite chefs, Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, recently posted on Instagram a dish he was creating of raw salmon fillet with cabbage. That reminded me of a similar dish by another great chef, Michel Guerard of Les Prés d’Eugénie – La griblette…
Braised lettuce? It seems like every blog is raving about braised or roasted lettuce. I have to admit that I have been tempted and then seriously disappointed with the taste and texture of the end result! But I recently came across one recipe for braised…
I have always loved Moules Marinière. I first had them in Normandy where they are made with white wine, garlic, shallots and parsley. Last year we spent Christmas in Cornwall and I had their mussels with cider, leeks and cream. Both are delicious! On a…
Something about August and all the summer produce has put me in a Summer Mezze frame of mind! I have been inspired by Yasmin Khan’s The Saffron Tales, Recipes from the Persian Kitchen. I’ll be posting other recipes inspired by this book over the next…
I love serving this raw and roasted summer salad as a starter for an informal lunch or brunch as I did last summer when we were allowed to have friends over in the garden. The memory of that lunch basking in the warmth of the…
The weather is getting warmer here in the UK which has me dreaming of garden vegetables and this Zucchini and Tomato Gratin I made late last summer. At the end of the season there is always a glut of vegetables especially and happily zucchinis and…
When I first tasted an apple Tarte Tatin at the Auberge du Chasseur near Lausanne Switzerland I fell in love and proceeded to learn to make this simple yet sublime caramelized apple dessert. Over the years I substituted the apple for pears, peaches and even…
This Pork Pie can! My husband introduced me to a pork pie on one of our first dates. I have been in love ever since – with both of them! And I have been on a never ending quest for the best in the world…
Want to know a little bit about me? Before I met Adrienne (she’s the brunette, I’m the blond) there wasn’t a vegetable out there that I could say I loved…ok, corn on the cob but that probably doesn’t count. And fish, please, I ate it…
Scrambled eggs with black truffles is a classic combination and for good reason! The earthy aroma and taste of the black truffle marries well with the rich consistency of scrambled eggs. And they can be served at any meal: breakfast, brunch or dinner! There are…
On a whim I bought a tagine at an Emile Henry outlet store in France last year and after trying a lot of different recipes this Lemony Chicken Tagine is now my go-to dish! A tagine is an earthenware dish with a domed lid like…
If you’ve never pickled anything before you are in for a treat with these quick and easy Lime Pickled Red Onions. It takes no time to prep and they are ready to serve in 30 minutes. In addition to spicing up salads you will find…
I discovered Carrots à la Fermière, or Farmers Carrots, in ‘The Monet Cookbook, Recipes from Giverny’. This very simple and delicious way of cooking carrots creates a lovely sauce with hardly any effort and the carrots remain firm not mushy even though they cook in…
Through a collaboration with Xu Minji’s Conversation with China Instagram channel Cooking with Adrienne has expanded its audience to China foodies with a Sweet & Sour Chicken recipe. The goal of Minji’s blog is to bring together people from different cultures by sharing their common experiences…
Brandade de Morue, or Bacalao, is often served as an hors d’oeuvre or tapas all over the Mediterranean on a piece of toast or stuffed into a small tomato. But this creamy garlicky puree of salt cod and potatoes, with its salty deep sea taste, …
This is totally a Jamie Oliver recipe and one of the reasons I love his food. The simply delicious combination of squid with black pudding stuffing and a sticky cherry tomato sauce can’t be beat. It may seem strange to combine meat with squid but…
The Turkish Spiced Hake with Yogurt Sauce came about because I wanted to change up the cooking of fish and be a bit more adventurous with the flavors. I came across a recipe by David Tanis that I had been meaning to try using halibut…
Adrienne introduced me to this Mock Hollandaise sauce one evening when we were having a simple dinner of grilled scallops and a salad. I love the bright lemony lightness of it. It became my go-to sauce for so many dishes – try it on trout…
We all know we should be eating more fish and now with the excess of the holidays behind us it’s the perfect time to broaden your repertoire of fish recipes with these Five Easy Fish Recipes for the New Year. The Dover Sole with browned…
The citrus and ginger combination kick up the taste in this dish of Salmon Fillets with Mandarin and Ginger from the wonderful cookbook Citrus by Catherine Phipps. If you can’t lay your hands on mandarins I have used an orange or tangerine as a substitute. …
Grilled Dover Sole with Brown Butter Sauce and capers is a simple but sublime dish that takes very little time to prepare or cook. You must apply your full attention to both the grilling of the sole and browning of the butter. All it takes…
This simply delicious smoked haddock omelette is beyond easy and ready in 30 minutes from start to finish. Just add a green salad and dinner is sorted! I keep smoked haddock in the freezer so it is always on hand.
I know many of you are in the throes of planning Christmas dinner and probably wishing for an easy, elegant alternative to roast beef or turkey. Don’t get me wrong I love a good roast with all the trimmings but it is a lot of…
I have been living in England for four years now and every Thanksgiving we host a drinks party for all our friends and neighbors. I miss the traditional turkey and trimmings but we cannot do the real thing just for the two of us. So…
As the sorrel patch in my garden produces its second or third growth I am reminded of the first time I made sorrel soup with Adrienne. We cut mountains of sorrel in the morning and sat together at the kitchen table stripping out the thick…
Is there a Cooking with Adrienne version of Dinner in 30 Minutes? Escalope de Foie Gras à la Vinaigrette is the CWA answer! Inspired by a recipe from Michel Guèrard, Escalope de Foie Gras à la Vinaigrette is easy and elegant – and ready in…
Adrienne was always determined to produce good tasting food that looked appetizing with as little fuss as possible. Duchess potatoes are those lovely little piped puffs of mashed potatoes with the crisped brown edges. They are a bit of a fiddle to make using a…
Adrienne made this Heavenly Plum Clafoutis only when the Italian Prune Plums are in season. Sometimes called Empress Plums or Quetsche, they are the European-style plum (Prunica domestica) – small, dense, egg-shaped fruit with blue or purple skin, freestone pits (they separate easily from the…
This is exactly the time of year that Adrienne would be making Moussaka. At the end of the summer when the eggplants came fast, furious, and enormous, we made moussaka by the trayful. The whole family gathered round to lend a hand in the preparations.…
This is exactly the time of year that Adrienne would be making Moussaka. At the end of the summer when the eggplants came fast, furious, and enormous, we made moussaka by the trayful. The whole family gathered round to lend a hand in the preparations. But in reality we were all waiting for a taste of that first batch of fried eggplant, hot and melting in the middle – it’s the best part of making moussaka. Of course the finished product was devoured as well, but that taste of fried eggplant hot from the skillet is the reason we always begged Adrienne, “Please make moussaka!”
You must salt the eggplant slices in order to draw the water out or they will not fry properly. If you don’t, the liquid they exude will make the moussaka soupy and bitter. And it is helpful to have two pans for frying the eggplant and two people manning them. If your kitchen is big enough and you have enough friends/family, a third person can make the meat sauce. When I do it solo, it takes the best part of an afternoon, so to make the time truly worth it, I usually make double the quantity, one for dinner and one for the freezer. I cut the moussaka destined for the freezer into quarters and freeze each section separately. Countless times I have been delighted to find this delicious homemade dish in my freezer when I was too tired to cook.
You must salt the eggplant slices in order to draw the water out or they will not fry properly. If you don’t, the liquid they exude will make the moussaka soupy and bitter.
Ever since they started travelling to France, Adrienne had wanted a kitchen to cook the food she was drooling over in every market they visited. Marché Forville was about to become her destination food market. In the USA in the late seventies it was still…
On one of my first trips to France with Adrienne and Martin in the early Nineties, we literally had champagne and foie gras at almost every meal! Admittedly we were in the Champagne region for the first few days and then in Aquitaine but it…
I had never heard of ‘fluting’ mushrooms until Adrienne’s husband told me this story. In the late Sixties Adrienne took a series of cooking lessons in Paris with Simca Beck, co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. One day she taught Adrienne how to flute…