France

This hearty, rich, piquant, and utterly fabulous beef stew adds a splash of brilliant Provencal sunshine to a winter dinner. It never fails to please. I make this at least twice every winter.

The ingredients that give it the special Provencal zest are herbes de Provence accompanied by orange zest, capers, and anchovies instead of salt. It simmers for a few hours in a mix of red wine and balsamic vinegar. 

This is an easy and tasty dish to accompany all sorts of winter recipes, especially heavy roasted meats, pies, and stews.

It can cook away on the back burner while your attention is occupied by more demanding projects, and the carrots do not suffer from a little overcooking because the flavor is concentrated in the diminishing stock and the glaze and seasoning emphasize the flavor. 

This homey, simple French preparation is an easy and delicious way to serve this common and inexpensive winter staple.

Turnips and rutabagas are a lot less simple than you might expect. You can learn more than you ever wanted to know at this article. 

I made this flavorful dip of salt cod and potatoes with garlic and olive oil for Annette's birthday in December 2014, which had a sort of Alpine apres-ski angle.

This is a great cold-weather party dish, and it keeps well. It's good with beer or wine, maybe during a football game. 

This is the best kind of recipe! It's forgiving when you are in a rush, but you can make it utterly sublime if you have the time to pay attention and use all your best techniques. This is the low-stress version. If you have the techniques and the time, then you'll know what to do.

Beef Burgundy, known in the land of Charlemagne as Boeuf Bourguignonne (or something to that effect) is in the simplest terms a beef stew made with mushrooms, bacon, onions, and red wine. Thyme and black pepper are always a part of that tableau; everything else is optional (even garlic!). 

I expect the inventor of beef burgundy got a Nobel prize. Like the tuxedo, it's one of those 4-star treats that you can't screw up, but with a little imagination you can make superb.

I made this for Valerie's Home From Paris Dinner and again for a Feast of Southern France in 2018. It was light and delicate and easy. We get fresh sole often, so it's a good recipe to have handy.

Fish Stock is easy to make, and Fish Veloute is just fish stock thickened with a little flour and butter and then reduced. 

This was completely counterintuitive. We think of lettuce as the light, crisp, fresh base for a salad. The thought of cooking lettuce seems bizarre. But many times while flipping through the pages of Mastering the Art of French Cooking I have seen this recipe and I knew that one day I would attempt it. 

I did, and it's delicious!  Slow cooking in rich stock tames the lettuce and makes it fascinating and wonderful.