Apple

When I visited my cousins in Annecy, they served me this unusual salad. Its variety of colors and textures is stunning. As with many other cooked salads, it tastes even better the next day, making it a great dish for dinner parties or picnics. The kosher dill pickles came from shopping trips to Geneva and were a big treat.

I once knew a very distinguished French ambassador to the United States who felt that soup was the only way to start a dinner. For Jewish people in France, the broth of a stew is often the prelude to holiday and weekday meals, whether it is an Alsatian pot-au-feu or a North African dafina. A way to give new life to leftover meat and vegetables, soup has always been the food of sustenance for poor people. When I first tasted this extraordinary soup at a dinner at the French embassy in Washington, I thought that it must have been made with good chicken broth and heavy cream, but to my surprise, it wasn’t. Francis Layrle, the ambassador’s former chef, made it with fresh vegetable broth, something he used very often for guests at the embassy who kept kosher or were vegetarians. This elegant and light soup has become one of my favorites, with its wonderful vegetarian broth that can be used as a basis for so many other soups. Those who do not keep kosher may, of course, substitute chicken broth. I have separated the ingredients for broth and soup, to facilitate making the vegetarian broth as a separate recipe for other occasions.

Chef Daniel Rose starts his day in the kitchen at 7:30 a.m. He begins with the chicken broth, first browning chicken wings, then adding a wine reduction, and then water, leeks, and other aromatics, but never carrots. “This isn’t the way my grandmother would have done it,” Daniel told me. “But we don’t want so much sweetness in our soup.” He doesn’t bother with a bouquet garni: “I just stick the herbs in the pot.” Freeze any broth that you don’t use right away.

This haroset recipe originated in Toledo, Spain, before the Inquisition, and found its way to Tétouan, near Tangier, in northern Morocco, and then to Paris, where it is served today. Dates, the predominant fruit in most Moroccan haroset, are mixed with apples before being rolled into little balls. Sylviane Lévy (see page 65), whose mother gave her the recipe, says to roll them in cinnamon, then serve them in little paper cups. These balls look like chocolate truffles and taste like Passover petits fours!

Hélène Sancy’s Haroset recipe goes back to her family’s residence in Portugal before the Inquisition. It is probably one of the oldest existing haroset recipes in France today, if not the oldest. Her husband’s job is to grind the fruits and nuts with the brass mortar and pestle, which they inherited, handed down through the generations. Although the Sancys do not roll their haroset into balls as is called for in other old recipes from Spain and Portugal (recipe follows), they have another fascinating Passover custom. First they say a blessing over the bitter herbs (maror)—in their case, romaine lettuce—as a reminder of slavery in Egypt. Then they wrap the romaine around parsley that has been dipped in salt water, a little chopped celery, and about a teaspoon of haroset. The Ashkenazi way, in contrast, is to sandwich bitter herbs and haroset between two pieces of matzo. Curiously, the Sancys’ recipe for haroset, in this land of vineyards in the southwest of France, includes no raisins.

Yogurt relishes are eaten with meals throughout India. They are nearly always savory, though in western states like Gujarat a little sugar is added as well as the salt to give a sweet-sour-salty flavor.

Serve with plain rice steamed in the Persian manner (page 338) or the quick and easy boiled and steamed rice (page 339).

This is a Persian stew which is a sauce for plain rice. You will find many more Persian sauces with meat in the rice chapter. Use dried pitted sour cherries.

I have also made this Persian stuffing for Christmas turkey, using twice the amount.

For this delicately scented fruit salad, have a mix of fruit chosen from three or four of the following: peaches, nectarines, apricots, bananas, plums, grapes, apples, pears, strawberries, mangoes, melon, pineapple, dates, pomegranate seeds.

Peppers and tomatoes are often partnered around the Mediterranean, but the surprise of finding sweet apples and chili peppers makes this a very special first course to serve with bread. The peppers can also be fried with the onion, but I like to roast them.

This is the perfect thing to make after you’ve gone apple-picking or to celebrate the first crop of apples at the local farmers’ market. This is a delightful filling for Miniature Fresh Fruit Tarts (page 243).

Apple Brown Betty is an old-fashioned dessert that looks and tastes as wholesome as can be.

Baked apples are a splendid example of “nursery food,” and children as well as adults deserve this sort of comfort on a regular basis. To ease preparation, you need a very sharp, short knife for coring the apples.

The red wine caramel adds a sexy complexity to this classic French staple and the fresh thyme gives it a sweet, earthy depth.

Pork roasts are perfect for picnics. One dish and you’re set—all you need to do is slice it and serve it (with a dollop of slaw on the side, of course). Leftovers, if there are any, make a dynamite wrap the next day. Brine the pork roast the morning you plan to serve it for dinner. The meat needs a good 6 hours to break down. Do not let it soak overnight or the pork gets too mushy. The result is the most tender pork on the planet. Serve with Corn Roasted in Its Own Jacket (page 265) if you wish.