• DKennedy on March 23, 2014

  I love this book so much. My copy is falling apart. The recipes are all wonderful and Patricia really manages to make Joel Robuchon's cooking accessible. Photos are brilliant and really make the book.

• Hje131 on January 31, 2010

  Paris book has other favorite choc mousse--bittersweet

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Beets with creamy horseradish dressing

  • Gio on November 14, 2015

    Pg, 57. Used farm fresh beets that became jewel-like cubes of slightly sweet, tangy, creamy deliciousness. Definitely worthy of a revisit, perhaps on the Christmas dinner table.

  • stef on September 01, 2017

    Nice recipe. Even better the next day

• Caramelized pear napoleons with vanilla anise sauce

  • Gio on September 13, 2013

    Napoleons...!

• Lemon cake with double chocolate icing

  • DKennedy on December 31, 2013

    Made this in a bundt pan for Claire's fundraiser. It is a beautiful cake with great flavor but it came out a little dry. I didn't use the entire 2 T. of rum and opted to use 1 T. of Vanilla vodka instead. Next time I will cook if for less time and add the entire 2 T. The chocolate and lemon flavors really stand out and play nicely together.

• Grandmother's roast chicken

  • DKennedy on May 31, 2013

    My go to recipe. No need to truss or strain for a homey roasted chicken.

  • twoyolks on April 28, 2016

    I liked this but it didn't seem to be that much better than any other roast chicken recipe. The skin did brown very nicely but the chicken wasn't particularly moist. The sauce is mostly chicken fat with very little liquid so it added some moisture but was greasy.

• The "upper crust" potato gratin

  • DKennedy on April 14, 2014

    Excellent

• Cheese and bacon potato cake

  • L.Nightshade on November 23, 2017

    I made this today for Thanksgiving brunch, topped each slice with a fried egg. The instructions are a bit off, directing you to bake uncovered, then let it rest with the cover still on. So I covered it after I took it out of the oven. I thought mine was done at 40 minutes, but the potatoes were slightly al dente; it could have gone another five minutes. Still delicious though! Definitely a company-worthy dish. Page 203.

• Sea scallops with fresh ginger sauce

  • L.Nightshade on January 22, 2016

    I made this as a small first course, pretty much an amuse, for a dinner. It followed standing nibbles of gougères, and oysters with salmon roe, and preceded more courses, so I served only one scallop per person. I did not slice them in half as the recipe directs. These have a gentle ginger flavor, which worked well with our dinner, as some of the dishes had an bit of an Asian accent. The scallops are served atop leek matchsticks that are cooked until soft. I think this might also be nice with a few chards of leek hay scattered around for a slight crunch. http://www.chowhound.com/post/november-2015-cotm-simply-french-patricia-wells-fish-1027308?commentId=9798076

• Confit of fresh chestnuts, walnuts, fennel and onions

  • L.Nightshade on January 22, 2016

    I did not deep-fat-fry the chestnuts as Wells directs. I hate deep frying even when it’s warranted, and it didn’t seem so here, just to peel the chestnuts. So I fell back on the microwave method, which I believe I learned from Melissa Clark. Other than that, I followed the recipe. My expectations for this dish outran the results. I was pretty excited about it, and it was the one dish at table that didn’t receive rave reviews. It had all the right flavors, but they just didn’t meld together. For me, part of the issue was that the components are all rather large. Whole chestnuts, walnut halves, and pearl onions, are all about the size of a mouthful, so you never really taste them together. I tried this upon making, the next day at dinner, and again a couple days later, and it just never took off. http://www.chowhound.com/post/november-2015-cotm-simply-french-patricia-wells-vegetables-1027309?commentId=9798087

• Salmon on a bed of creamy cabbage

  • twoyolks on October 05, 2016

    This is a really great recipe. All the individual components are really good. They're even better together and compliment each other very well. The creamy cabbage is great even on its own.

• Individual dinner rolls

  • twoyolks on November 17, 2015

    These are about the perfect dinner roll. They are flavorful, they're crusty without being too crusty, and they have a nice crumb.

• Crispy sauteed potatoes

  • twoyolks on November 22, 2016

    I used baby yellow potatoes that were a pain to peel. They were so small I only cut them in half. Like most sautéed potatoes recipes, I found that the potatoes tend to burn (or come close to it) before they're fully cooked through. I had to adjust the temperature to make sure they fully cooked without burning. The flavor of the potatoes was pretty good. I used duck fat and it wasn't overpowering like some sautéed potato recipes; in this case, it was more subdued.

• Cinnamon ice cream

  • twoyolks on November 27, 2015

    Instead of grating cinnamon, I ground it (not fully) in a spice grinder. Unfortunately, when I strained the ice cream base, not all the cinnamon bits were strained out so the texture of the ice cream suffered. However, this ice cream has really good cinnamon flavor.

• Celery and Roquefort salad

  • bching on May 23, 2021

    Be sure to let celery marinate in the dressing a good while.

• Pear, vanilla, and star anise clafoutis

  • anya_sf on November 13, 2021

    I made 2/3 recipe in a 9" shallow pie plate, which just fit. I had preground star anise and used 1 tsp per the ground aniseed suggestion - it was fairly strong but not unpleasant. The clafoutis baked in 35 min. Unfortunately, my pears were firmer than I realized and didn't soften much in the oven, making the clafoutis slightly difficult to eat, but it still tasted very good. This recipe is quite similar to Ina Garten's 2 pear clafoutis recipes, but with a little more sugar; I didn't find this version overly sweet, but I also thought Ina's were sweet enough, so I'm sure the sugar could be reduced here.

• Fresh plum tart with fragrant almond cream

  • anya_sf on September 24, 2024

    Nice tart, not too sweet using medium-sweet Italian prune plums and sweet pastry crust. I could only fit 12 plums (about 1 lb) on top. My tart took 45 min to bake - maybe because my pan isn't black? After 30 min, I covered the edges so they wouldn't burn. The tart held up well overnight.

  • anya_sf on September 24, 2024

    Puff pastry not required; can be made with your choice of crusts from the book.

• Sweet pastry

  • anya_sf on September 24, 2024

    The vanilla bean added a nice flavor. Dough was easy to make in the processor. To line a 9" tart pan with overhang, it needed to be rolled out larger than 11" diameter. It was slightly fragile, but not too bad. Parbaking instructions worked, although trimming the edges after 5 min was a little tricky with the hot pan, and the scraps fell onto the baking sheet (hard to remove while hot) where they nearly burned while the crust baked.