European

Some famous French hostess supposedly started the fashion for the recipe below and created a sensation in her salon. I am sure a reputation and a leading position in any town can be built up if you serve enough of them for they are as contagious as measles. A good friend of mine can eat a dozen of them at one sitting. Not only is this delicious, but it is one of the most decorative canapés you can make, for an edging of brilliant green enhances the golden yellow of the brioche and makes a most appetizing tidbit.

This needs to set up overnight, so start one day ahead.

Scallops only taste rich: A 4-ounce serving has just 78 calories, and the shellfish can cost less than a good cut of beef. Plus, they’re super easy to cook. See&151;and enjoy&151;for yourself!

One of the many treats my brother and I looked forward to during the Christmas holidays was having a freshly baked petit bonhomme for breakfast or for an afternoon snack. The breads seemed to have a best friend, too: hot chocolate. Still today shop windows display the petits bonhommes in sizes ranging from seven or eight inches to several feet high. Some families buy a large bread to put in the middle of the holiday breakfast table. My father made his petits bonhommes from brioche but tells me they can also be made from the kugelhopf dough.

Jellied candies like these are eaten all over Europe as post-dessert petits fours.

Soaked in cherry eau-de-vie, these boozy bites are made for Black Forest Cake but taste equally great in a cocktail.

This is the stew that made such an impression on the final episode of the first season of Top Chef Masters. Each of us had been asked to create a meal that would be an autobiography told through the dishes we would present to the judges. I immediately thought of baeckeoffe ("baker's oven"). The name refers back to the time when bakers used wood-fired ovens. After the bread was done, this dish would be baked long and slow in the falling temperatures of the cooling oven. Since everyone in town would see the baker every day for the family's daily loaf, each would often bring a casserole to be baked in the oven. It was traditional, particularly on Mondays, when the women went to the river to do their laundry. They would have marinated their meats and vegetables overnight, dropped their casseroles off in the morning on their way, and then picked them up—plus a loaf of bread—on their way home. Even though my father was not the bread baker and had a modern, gasfired oven, people still took their casseroles to him. They liked to drop in because he always had some joke or story to tell. Before the village baker also invested in a modern oven and was still using wood, when my father turned over a fresh loaf of bread to give it the traditional blessing, he would sometimes see pieces of charcoal embedded in the crust. That would send my dad wild, muttering that "he [the baker] did not thoroughly clean his oven!" I make this dish often, both at home and at the restaurant. But these days we tend to increase the vegetables and use less meat, and sometimes we use only vegetables and leave out the meat entirely. While there is never a mushroom in the classic recipe, you can add them or make a vegetarian version with mushrooms and a rich vegetable stock. I've also made this stew as the centerpiece for Christmas dinner, adding plenty of sliced black truffles. The classic dish uses a mix of meats including a pig's foot, which gives a rich, gelatinous texture to the stew. You may be able to special-order a pig's foot. Ask the butcher to slice it crosswise into three pieces. But even at the restaurant I sometimes have trouble ordering them, and your stew will still be delicious without one. You can also use just one or two kinds of meat instead of all three.

For my first two months in the army I was based outside Toul. In the town was a pâtisserie that made the best brioche with pastry cream. I would go to the shop whenever I could. The baker spread pastry cream over the dough, and then rolled it up like a biscuit rolé (jelly roll). My father made a brioche-and-pastrycream roll, too, but shaped it like a bretzel. Chantal still remembers them from the first time I brought her home to meet my parents—to do that you had to be serious. When I told my father I planned to put them in this book, he was so pleased.

Pinhead oats, which are similar to steel-cut oats but contain some oats that are ground finer, like flour, make a foolproof crunchy-crisp gluten-free crust for pan-fried fish. You can exchange the catfish for just about any common white fish here—use a lower heat level under the pan and a longer cooking time for thicker fillets. Some good options include U.S. farmed tilapia, ocean perch, Pacific halibut, and line-caught Atlantic cod. Wild salmon would also be delicious—just be sure to avoid overcooking it.

Grapes appear here in three forms: crushed and whisked into the vinaigrette, halved and tossed with arugula, and aged in saba, a balsamic-like syrup made from grape must.

A sformato is essentially a soufflé that doesn't rise because there isn't any air or egg white whipped into it—foolproof! I serve it in place of mashed potatoes, since it has a great flavor without an excess of butter and cream. If I have people over, I'll bake it in individual gratin dishes with a few fresh thyme leaves on top for presentation's sake. Delicata squash has a flavor similar to that of butternut, but the skin is much thinner—edible, in most cases—and the squash is more delicate overall (hence the name). The flesh of a butternut or acorn squash would be a fine substitute. Cooking with squash in the fall and early winter months will yield the best results with this recipe. I find that out of season the squash become a bit waterlogged. You can do everything but bake the sformato in advance. Bring the dish to room temperature before baking.

The more carefully you arrange the potato slices, the prettier the results and the better the individual-size cakes will hold together.

Swiss chard, olives, raisins, and pine nuts make this dressing irresistible.

Adding egg yolks, cream, and sugar transforms a standard crust into something almost cookie-like. Freeze the second crust for later use.

The best leftover dish is the first sandwich you make from what's left of the turkey, standing barefoot in a quiet kitchen lighted only by the dim bulb above the stove: thick toast with mayo and cranberry sauce and dressing and slices of just-carved meat.
No, scratch that (though it's delicious and you should make two or three). The best leftover recipe is risotto with turkey and wild mushrooms, the grains of rice plump with turkey broth and made nutty with cheese. The soft richness of the meal recalls Thanksgiving, then amplifies the memory, giving it a rakish flair.

Frascatelli, a semolina dumpling, is the one homemade pasta suited for weeknight dinners. Just sprinkle water over a tray of semolina flour; the dumplings cook up in about a minute.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.