The composed salad
From Richard Olney's The French Menu Cookbook

A composed salad may be a combination of any number of things. Lobster, truffles, asparagus tips, chicken breast, crayfish tails and artichoke hearts often enter into the composition of elegant versions. Depending on its makeup and the menu, it may begin a meal, or be the principal course, or replace the usual green salad. Dill has a rather special taste that does not please everyone. Fines herbes may be substituted.

Serves 4

celery heart 1

mussels 3 pints

new potatoes 3 small of non-mealy variety

dry white wine 125ml

onion 1, chopped

freshly ground black pepper

lettuce leaves

For the sauce:

lemon 1

fresh dill 1 tsp, chopped (or a pinch of dried dill orfines herbes)

French mustard a scant tsp

salt and pepper

heavy cream 125ml (a few days old, if possible)

If the celery is not absolutely crisp, put it to soak in ice water for an hour or so. Scrape the mussels and rinse them well several times in salt water (if sand is imprisoned inside the shells, the bulk of it is usually disgorged this way).

Boil the potatoes in their skins, peel them the moment they are drained, slice them fairly thickly into a soup plate or bowl, pour the white wine over, and leave to cool.

Put the mussels and chopped onion into a large pot, grind in some pepper, pour over them the wine from the cooled potatoes, cover tightly, and place over a high flame, shaking the pot occasionally. Leave only long enough for all the mussels to open (3 or 4 minutes). Remove them from their shells, put them aside, and allow the cooking liquid to settle for a few minutes. Pour it carefully through a couple of layers of muslin into a small saucepan, leaving all the heavy sediment behind. Reduce the liquid rapidly by half. Taste it – fresh mussels often contain a large quantity of sea water and their cooking liquid is intensely salty – and use it accordingly in the seasoning of the sauce. (If the cream for the sauce is not very thick, forget about the cooking liquid.) Cut the celery crosswise into approximately 5mm slices

To make the sauce, mix together the juice of half a lemon, the chopped dill, the mustard, and some freshly ground pepper (if dried dill is used, allow it to macerate for half an hour in the lemon juice). Stir in the cream and add as much (if any) of the mussels' cooking liquid as the sauce can support without becoming too thin. Taste for salt, lemon and other seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Mix the celery, the mussels and the potatoes into the sauce carefully, so as not to damage the potato slices, turn it out on to a platter or shallow bowl lined with lettuce leaves and sprinkle with chopped fresh dill or fines herbes.

Bouillabaise for northern seas
From Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World

Serves 6-8

carrots 4, sliced

Spanish onions 2, sliced

garlic 4 cloves, bruised

leeks 2, sliced

olive oil 150ml

tomatoes 4-6

a bouquet garni of thyme, bay leaf, parsley, celery, rosemary

eel 400g, cut in 5cm lengths

fish (cod, haddock, sea bass, etc) 800g cut in 5cm lengths

potatoes 4-6, cut in slices

fish stock (made from fish trimmings) 550ml

saffron ½ level tsp

salt and freshly ground black pepper

cayenne

mussels 24, cleaned

small lobsters 1 or 2

Place carrots, onions, garlic, leeks and oil in a large, thick-bottomed, fire-proof casserole and sauté until golden brown. Seed and chop the tomatoes coarsely; add to vegetables with bouquet garni and sliced eel, fish and potatoes and cook about 6 minutes, stirring gently from time to time. Add fish stock and just enough water to cover fish; season to taste with saffron, salt, freshly ground black pepper and cayenne, and bring to the boil. Cook for 15 minutes. Add mussels and lobsters and continue cooking until mussels open.

Serve this wonderful dish in two courses: the amber-tinted soup first in a deep soup tureen, accompanied by garlic-flavoured croûtons and rouille, and the fish and potatoes immediately after the soup.

To make a rouille, pound 2 fat cloves of garlic and 2 hot red peppers in a mortar with ¼ slice of white bread with the crusts removed, which you have dipped into water and squeezed dry. Blend to a smooth paste with 2 tbsp olive oil, and then thin this to the consistency of heavy cream with ¼ pint of hot fish stock.

Brown bread ice cream
From Jane Grigson's English Food

Serves 6-8

wholemeal breadcrumbs 175g

double cream 300ml

single cream 300ml

icing sugar or pale brown sugar 125g

egg yolks 2

rum (optional) 1 tbsp

egg whites 2

Spread the breadcrumbs out on a baking tray and toast in a moderately hot oven, 190C/gas mark 5. They should become crisp and slightly browned. Meanwhile beat the creams with the sugar. Mix the egg yolks and rum, if used, and add to the cream mixture beating it in well. When the breadcrumbs are cool, fold them in gently and thoroughly, so that they are evenly distributed. Lastly, whip the whites of the eggs stiff and fold into the mixture. Freeze in the usual way, at the lowest temperature. There is no need to stir up this ice cream.

Ragù (Bolognese sauce)
From Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook

A properly made ragu clinging to the folds of home-made noodles is one of the most satisfying experiences accessible to the sense of taste. It is no doubt one of the great attractions of the enchanting city of Bologna, and the Bolognese claim one cannot make a true ragù anywhere else. This may be so, but with a little care we can come very close to it. There are three essential points you must remember in order to make a successful ragù. 1)The meat must be sautéed just barely long enough to lose its raw colour. It must not be brown or it will lose delicacy.

2) It must be cooked in milk before the tomatoes are added. This keeps the meat creamier and sweeter tasting.

3) It must cook at the merest simmer for a long, long time. The minimum is 3½ hours; 5 is better.

Serves 6

chopped onion 2 tbsp

olive oil 3 tbsp

butter 40g

chopped celery 2 tbsp

chopped carrot 2 tbsp

minced lean beef, preferably chuck or the meat from the neck 350g
salt

dry white wine 250ml

milk 8 tbsp

nutmeg ⅛ tsp

tinned Italian tomatoes 400g, roughly chopped, with their juice

An earthenware pot should be your first choice for making ragù. If you do not have one available, use a heavy, enamelled, cast-iron casserole, the deepest one you have (to keep the ragù from reducing too quickly). Put in the chopped onion, with all the oil and butter, and sauté briefly over a medium heat until just translucent. Add the celery and carrot and cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the minced beef, crumbling it in the pot with a fork. Add salt to taste, stir, and cook only until the meat has lost its raw, red colour. Add the wine, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the wine has evaporated.

Turn the heat down to medium, add the milk and the nutmeg, and cook until the milk has evaporated. Stir frequently.

When the milk has evaporated, add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly. When the tomatoes have started to bubble, turn the heat down until the sauce cooks at the gentlest simmer, just an occasional bubble.

Cook, uncovered, for 3½ to 5 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste and check salt. (If you cannot keep an eye on the sauce for such a long stretch, you can turn off the heat and resume cooking it later on. But do finish cooking it in one day.)

Ragù can be kept in the refrigerator for up to five days, or frozen. Reheat and simmer for about 15 minutes before using.

If you are using fresh tomatoes, peel and deseed them and cook in a little water for 10 to 15 minutes. Then pass through the finest blade of a mouli-légumes, or a sieve, and proceed with the recipe.

Tabbouleh
From Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food

The tabbouleh that was made a hundred years ago in Aleppo and Damascus – the way Jews preserved the recipe when they left for Egypt and the Americas at the end of the 19th century – is more substantial and wheaty than the very green salads you find in Lebanese restaurants, which only have specks of wheat.

Serves 4

fine bulgar (cracked wheat) 175g

firm ripe tomatoes 500g, diced small (5mm)

salt and pepper

lemon(s) juice of 1 or more to taste

spring onions 4, thinly sliced

flat-leaf parsley a very large bunch, finely chopped, preferably by hand

mint 1 bunch, finely chopped

butterhead lettuces 4 for serving tabbouleh

Soak the cracked wheat in plenty of cold water for 10 minutes. Rinse in a colander and put in a bowl with the tomatoes. Leave for 30 minutes to absorb the tomato juices. Mix gently with the rest of the ingredients.

A traditional way of eating tabbouleh is to scoop it up with small butterhead lettuce leaves or very young vine leaves.

Duck with green peas
From Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking

Serves 4-6

duck 2kg, weight before drawing and dressing [1.5kg, free-range with giblets]

coarse sea salt

onions 2

carrots 4

a bouquet garni of bay leaf, thyme and parsley

streaky bacon 113-170g

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil or butter

turnip a small piece

celery one stick

small fresh peas in their pods 1.4kg [400g fresh peas or a large tin of French petits pois, drained]

Buy the duck the day before it is to be cooked. Rub it all over with coarse salt and leave it in a big dish until the next day.

Prepare a generous 300ml of stock by simmering the giblets of the duck, an onion, 2 carrots, a bouquet of herbs and the rind of bacon in water, with seasoning, for an hour. Strain.

In a heavy oval braising pot, heat a little olive oil or butter. Put in the bacon cut into strips. Add 2 diced carrots, a finely sliced onion and the little pieces of turnip and celery. When the fat from the bacon is running, put in the duck from which the excess salt has been wiped with a soft cloth.

Cover the pan and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes until the vegetables are beginning to brown and the fat is running from the duck. It is an improvement to the finished dish if the duck is now removed from the pan and all the fat poured off. Put back the bird. Pour in the heated stock. Put in the bouquet of herbs. Add a little freshly ground pepper but no salt. Cover the pan. Transfer to a preheated oven at 160C/gas mark 3, and cook for an hour. Now pour all but a very little of the stock out of the pan into a bowl. Return the duck and the bacon, etc, to the oven and leave uncovered so that the skin of the bird can cook golden and crisp.

Half-cook the fresh peas in salted water, strain them and put them round the duck to finish cooking [or add the tin of French petits pois, drained, at this stage]. By the time the duck and peas are ready, in about another 15 minutes, the gravy you have poured off should be fairly cool and the fat risen to the top. Pour this off. Quickly reheat the remaining clear gravy in a small saucepan, tasting it to see if the seasoning is right. Transfer duck, peas, bacon and all the little pieces of vegetable to a sizzling hot serving dish. The gravy is to be served separately.

Readers may think this all represents rather a performance for a simple dish of duck and green peas. But on second thoughts, they will probably realise that duck, which can be so good, is a fat bird and, if care is not taken with the cooking, may easily produce a greasy dish. In this recipe, the overnight salting of the bird, the successive pouring off of the fat and the clearing of the gravy will, if carefully attended to, produce a finished dish which is neither cloying nor too fatty. It is, after all, attention to these small extra details which makes the whole difference between a rough and ready dish and one which a Frenchman would call soigné.

Gong bao chicken with peanuts
From Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan Cookery

Gong Bao chicken is beautiful to look at: a glorious medley of chicken flesh, golden peanuts and bright red chillis. The sauce is based on a light sweet and sour, pepped up with a deep chilli spiciness and a trace of Sichuan pepper which will make your lips tingle pleasantly.

The ingredients are all cut in harmony, the chicken in small cubes and the spring onions in short lengths to complement the peanuts. The chicken flesh should be just cooked and wonderfully succulent; the nuts are added at the very last minute so they keep their crispiness. [It's worth checking wingyipstore.co.uk or shop.waiyeehong.com for the ingredients.]

Serves 2 as a main course

boneless chicken breasts, with or without skin 2

garlic 3 cloves, and the equivalent amount of fresh ginger

spring onions, white parts only 5

groundnut oil 2 tbsp

dried Sichuanese chillis at least 10 (or dried chillis 6-8)

whole Sichuan pepper 1 tsp

roasted peanuts 75g

For the marinade:

salt ½ tsp

light soy sauce 2 tsp

Shaoxing wine 1 tsp

potato flour 1½ tsp

water 1 tbsp

For the sauce:

sugar 3 tsp

potato flour ¾ tsp

dark soy sauce 1 tsp

light soy sauce 1 tsp

Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar 3 tsp

sesame oil 1 tsp

chicken stock or water 1 tbsp

Cut the chicken as evenly as possible into 1.5cm strips and then cut these into small cubes. Place in a small bowl and mix in the marinade ingredients.

Peel and thinly slice the garlic and ginger, and chop the spring onions into chunks as long as their diameter (to match the chicken cubes). Snip the chillis in half or 1.5cm sections. Discard their seeds as far as possible.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl – if you dip your finger in you can taste the sweet-sour base of the gong bao flavour.

Season the wok then add 2 tbsp of oil and heat over a high flame. When the oil is hot but not yet smoking, add the chillis and Sichuan pepper and stir-fry briefly until they are crisp and the oil is spicy and fragrant. Take care not to burn the spices (you can remove the wok from the heat if necessary to prevent overheating).

Quickly add the chicken and fry over a high flame, stirring constantly. When the chicken cubes are beginning to turn white, add the ginger, garlic and spring onions and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes until they are fragrant and the meat is cooked through. Give the sauce a stir and add it to the wok, continuing to stir and toss. As soon as the sauce has become thick and lustrous, add the peanuts, stir them in, and serve.

Variations of the same dish can be made with cubes of pork, pieces of pig's kidney, shrimps or prawns. Cashew nuts can be used instead of peanuts for a grander version of this dish, although peanuts are more traditional.