My Cookbooks Part IV – The French Market Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier

Today I want to write about a nice little cookbook: The French Market Cookbook – Vegetarian Recipes from My Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier. Clotilde also has this nice blog, Chocolate & Zucchini, which isn't a vegetarian blog, but there are many nice and innovative vegetarian recipes as well.

The book is divided into the four seasons and the dishes are obviously seasonal, which is a very clever way to arrange a cookbook. Clotilde has a pleasant writing style and she writes a story to each recipe, including some French market flair. I find that to be a nice touch, and as a friend of French food markets, I love reading anything about them.

I adore this book especially for its wonderful spring recipes made with beautiful ingredients, some of which I have posted here on the blog, like: Very Green Salad (p. 18-19), Crunchy Lentil and Watercress Salad (p. 20-22) and Radish-Top Pasta (p. 26-28). I loved cooking all of those dishes and they were packed with good flavours. I'm sure I will regularly look into this book for ideas and good recipes.

These are my previous posts in My Cookbooks series:

Part I 

Part II 

Part III 

 

Lentil and watercress salad

I'm still keeping the French theme up, as I again got some inspiration from The French Market Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier, and today's recipe will be the tasty Crunchy lentil and watercress salad – Salade croquante de lentilles et cresson (Please also have a look here at my take on Clotilde's other salad recipe). 

I cut a couple of corners here, impatient as I am, but the salad ended up being a nice fresh, crunchy and spicy spring salad. This recipe makes enough salad for four people, as the ingredients are quite filling.

Ingredients

Salad:

1 cup green dried lentils

1 shallot

1 bay leaf

200g radishes

200g watercress

8 fresh mint leaves

20g fresh chives

Dressing:

2tbsp olive oil

1tbsp cider vinegar

1tsp honey

1tsp ground mustard seeds

Ground black pepper

Sea salt

Method

Rinse and cook the lentils in water with the bay leaf and finely chopped shallot for about 20 minutes until tender. Remove the water and let the lentils cool.

Chop the radishes into small cubes, and also chop the mint and chives finely.

Mix the dressing ingredients together and add it to the salad just before serving.

Combine all the components and serve the salad cool.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Very green salad

I have been looking into French vegetarian cuisine, because this year lucky me is spending Easter in Paris! Vegetarian meals are not so typical in traditional French cooking, but I'm determined to find the best influences and ideas. I have never been to Paris, and now I want to visit several vegetable markets, and hopefully will be able to find nice vegetarian cafés and restaurants. Any recommendations? I'm definitely going to post some exciting bits from my trip here afterwards, but now to today's recipe.

I recently purchased the wonderful vegetarian French Market Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier, where I found this recipe for the Very green salad – Salade toute verte (p.18-19). I was impressed by the freshness of the recipes in this book, and particularly in this one the flavours were nicely balanced. Have also a look at Clotilde's blog here, it's not a vegetarian blog, but many dishes are plant based. 

Here is my take on this filling warm and cold spring salad.

For the salad:

500g new potatoes + a sprinkle of salt and vegetable oil for roasting the potatoes

200g asparagus

1 cup of frozen peas

1 large heart of romaine lettuce

½ cup hazelnuts

For the dressing:

Some fresh coriander leaves

1tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp grapeseed oil

1tbsp hazelnut oil

1tsp sea salt

½tsp ground black pepper

Method:

Wash the potatoes, place them in a roasting dish, brush with vegetable oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast them at 180C for about 40 minutes until cooked. Toss them a few times during the roasting.

Toast the halved hazelnuts. Put then in an oven dish and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes. Steam the asparagus and peas until tender.

Cut the lettuce and prepare the dressing by just mixing the ingredients together. Add the dressing to the lettuce just before the warm components are done. I decided to serve the peas and asparagus also warm, just like the potatoes.

Then mix all the ingredients together and serve instantly. Bon appétit!

Your VegHog