• fprincess on October 15, 2010

  A great source for classic bistro recipes. Fun to read and most recipes are simple to execute.

• she11ey on February 02, 2010

  The sections on stock and roast chicken are worth the price of the whole book! I also like the way Tony has organized the ingredients, tools, and steps for each recipe. But the main reason to own this is to read Bourdain himself, just for the sheer fun and joy of his writing.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Poulet basquaise

  • Foodelf on March 12, 2013

    This was a terrific weeknight dish, easy and fast to prepare - the flavours were great. I found it worthwhile to reduce and cook down the ingredients and sauce as mentioned in the recipe - it resulted in a rich tomato, onion, pepper sauce that was ideal for the chicken. This recipe can be as spicy or mild as you prefer and I'd definitely be more generous with seasoning next time. It reheated well and I suspect it would be a pretty good candidate for freezing, too, but it doesn't look like I'll have enough left to test that.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Generally nice flavours and a relatively juicy chicken but far too much sauce with not enough flavour

• Roasted chicken (Poulet roti)

  • Cheri on March 13, 2011

    Excellent. Roasted 6 lb. bird at 375 deg. convention for 1 hr 45 min. Sauce is good. Very moist and tender. Served with big salad and hearty hearth bread.

  • Cheri on March 31, 2011

    Made this again. This is the best roasted chicken recipe I have ever made.

  • fprincess on June 22, 2011

    I tried this recipe with some shortcuts (week night, I was trying to get dinner on the table fast) and used butter instead of herbed butter. The chicken was very tasty and the sauce a nice touch (I got rid of the fat in the roasting pan before making it although that was not specified in the recipe).

  • Lnbrittain on July 13, 2019

    Make this super amazing, perfectly tender, well seasoned roast French chicken. Do it. For trussing instructions, I like Jacques Pepin’s video. Bourdain’s instructions were, ahem,unclear. (Cut a hole in the skin WHERE and insert chicken leg tips?) Make the perfect sauce. Don’t eat much of it because it’s chicken fat.Make the herb butter. It’s worth it! Finally, if you follow the timing and size of the chicken, you’ll have a tender bird with some pink. As he says, don’t be afraid. I gave it five extra minutes. But the fact that it isn’t over cooked is the main point. Perfect roast French chicken from an old-school master.

• Chocolate mousse

  • Cheri on April 03, 2011

    This came out grainy. Not sure what I did wrong. Flavor was good, but texture ruined it. Probably my fault....

  • westminstr on December 04, 2017

    I wanted to make a chocolate mousse for a dinner party and chose this recipe based on EYB reviews from people I trust (Hi Delys!) I made as written except I subbed cointreau for grand marnier and only used 1 Tbsp of it. I had never made chocolate mousse before and had no idea what to expect. There were more than a few points during the process where I thought it was ruined. I forged ahead and the final result was outstanding. So good that I don't see the need ever to try a different recipe. It was perfect. I used Guittard semisweet chocolate.

  • okcook on March 23, 2015

    I'm not a dessert maker but this was so easy and it's a make ahead dessert which is perfect for dinner parties. I served it with a crunchy biscuit/cookie. Thumbs up.

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Classic chocolate mousse. Delicious.

  • Delys77 on January 22, 2012

    Mush as the other review said, this is a classically done mousse which yields fabulous results.

  • KarinaFrancis on September 11, 2021

    It’s a nice, light and airy mousse but my end result was a touch grainy and not quite chocolaty enough. I’m unlikely to repeat as I have preferred recipe

  • anya_sf on December 04, 2020

    Pretty classic. This recipe is nearly identical to the one in CI's The Best Recipe, except 3x the Grand Marnier. Like Cheri, my chocolate became slightly grainy, which I believe was due to the large quantity of liqueur. Vigorous stirring mostly smoothed it out; I thought I detected it in the final mousse, but no one else did. Husband requested that I make this again soon.

• Fennel and tomato soup

  • mirage on July 18, 2014

    Nice, light soup. Low fat, but tastes creamy.

  • fprincess on October 09, 2011

    Good soup, a nice balance of flavors. I used sliced garlic and pastis (Pernod) to boost the taste, as suggested in the recipe. eGullet post and pictures here: http://egullet.org/p1842304

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    This is very similar to the fennel and potato soup from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, except with tomatoes. I would say the actual tomato doesn't do much for the flavour,and while the soup is pretty good I think the version from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is better.

• Boudin noir aux pommes

  • okcook on November 05, 2013

    I made this for my husband and he thought the combination of the caramelized apples with the sausage worked really well. Our sausage was kind of thick so it took 15 minutes in the oven rather than the 10 minutes in the recipe. As he suggested, the mashed potatoes went very well with this dish.

• Grilled lamb steaks

  • okcook on September 12, 2014

    A simple marinade. My steaks were marinated for 7 hours and they really picked up the flavours. This is a wonderful recipe for an uncomplicated dinner.

  • saladdays on July 07, 2013

    Good clear grilling instructions. Recipe suggests marinading for several hours but I did it for one, out of the fridge, so the steaks weren't cold when they hit the grill pan. A simple tasty persillade to go with it as well. What more do you want on a warm summer's evening?

• Leeks vinaigrette

  • fprincess on September 29, 2011

    Even though this is classic dish, I am not sold on this recipe. I guess if you like leeks a lot, this would be a good recipe. The sauce gribiche felt a little out of place to me. I'm more used to seeing a vinaigrette with leeks.

  • Ro_ on April 08, 2020

    I have to agree with the previous comment...I didn't feel this was anything special. The leeks were quite bland, and the acidity of the sauce gribiche was very one-note. The technique of keeping the leeks whole was interesting, but I wouldn't make this recipe again.

• Gigot de sept heures

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Another super easy and delicious classic recipe by A Bourdain. Leftovers are great with pasta.

• Gratin Dauphinois

  • fprincess on November 05, 2010

    Classic potato again. Nothing to change, this is perfection. Picture: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/?p=2034508

  • Delys77 on October 22, 2012

    The addition of the herbs gives the cream a nice flavour but I have to say this isn't my favourite variant. I don't think all the cream is necessary, I often cut with a bit of milk and have had no ill effects. For me however this dish is missing the breadcrumbs in the topping. I ended up adding some to ming and dotted with a bit of butter, much better that way.

• Moules marinieres

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Dead easy, and ready in 15 minutes.

  • fprincess on March 08, 2013

    Can't get much easier than that. I call it French "fast food". Photo here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/?p=1911630

• Onglet gascon

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    This is super rich with the inclusion of bone marrow in the sauce. I use demi glace from d'Artagnan instead of stock.

  • fprincess on July 31, 2012

    In this recipe the hanger steak - one of my favorite cuts of beef, flavorful and a little livery - is served with a marrow bone. The rich sauce is obtained by deglazing the pan with white wine, reducing, adding stock and demi-glace, reducing further, adding the juices from the meat (which is resting at this point) together with plenty of butter and some Dijon mustard. The sauce sticks to your teeth and is pure umami. Note that I had run out of parsley so I used chives instead, but parsley would be my first choice. Picture here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/page__st__210__p__1886901#entry1886901

• Onion soup Les Halles

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Classic onion soup recipe - absolutely perfect. I always keep inexpensive port wine from Trader Joe's on hand for this recipe. Aged gruyere can also be found at TJ.

  • fprincess on February 28, 2012

    If I am short on the chicken stock I use stock + water and a little bit of demi-glace. Works great! Pcitures here: http://egullet.org/p1868265

  • anya_sf on December 07, 2020

    Very good. Lots of onions relative to broth. Port and balsamic vinegar enhanced the sweetness of the onions. Couldn't find slab bacon, so used regular; think it could be omitted. I slightly prefer the flavor of Ina's multi-booze broth, but this was delicious too. Half the recipe filled 3 of my ovenproof soup bowls. Without measuring first, I just made 2 baguette croutons per bowl, then discovered they didn't nearly cover the top, so much of the cheese melted directly on the soup - oh well.

• Rillettes

  • fprincess on October 26, 2010

    This is really easy to make and absolutely delicious.

• Roasted veal short ribs

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    After testing a dozen different short rib recipes, this is THE one! I typically make it with beef (veal is very hard to source). It's extremely easy to make and the flavors are great. I get the sherry vinegar from Bristol Farms.

• Mushroom soup

  • fprincess on September 29, 2011

    I like this recipe because it's simple and flavorful, and requires very few ingredients. I am not exactly sure what the texture is supposed to look like in the end. In my version the mushrooms are not completely smooth in the end, there is are still small but distinguishable pieces.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Comes together very easily and yields a nice earth flavour complimented by the port.

• Pate de campagne

  • fprincess on October 26, 2010

    Some of the ingredients can be hard to source (pork liver, caul fat, etc) but it's well worth the effort.

• Pommes puree

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Not exactly light but absolutely delicious.

• Pot-au-feu

  • fprincess on May 16, 2011

    I would skip the cabbage and add extra carrots. Other than that, it is absolute perfection.

  • fprincess on June 22, 2011

    Also, it's probably a good idea to degrease the broth before serving it, otherwise it's quite greasy.

  • fprincess on October 04, 2011

    eGullet post with picture http://egullet.org/p1841212

• Bouillabaisse

  • fprincess on December 01, 2010

    Made this once. It was quite a lot of work and sourcing the ingredients was challenging (I ended up going to 3 different asian supermarket to find the skate wings). The soup was delicious but my fish ended up being completely overdone (my mistake). I would make this again if I find a good fishmonger that can get all the ingredients for me.

• Boeuf Bourguignon

  • fprincess on April 17, 2012

    This is still my go-to boeuf bourguignon recipe, with a few tweaks. For the meat, I used good-quality chuck roast that I cut in 1.5 to 2-inch cubes. It's important to make sure to brown the meat really well on all sides. I used an entire bottle of wine instead of 1 cup. I used demi-glace (about 1 tablespoon). I used 1 very large onion (4 onions in the recipe). I put my covered dutch oven in the oven at 325F so I don't have to use the stove for the braising step. At the end, I added a garnish of fried lardons (homemade tesa/pancetta) and lightly browned pearl onions. I made this recipe numerous times in the past and the sauce is not very thick. Using the whole bottle of wine resulted in a thick sauce that was wonderful as is and did not need to be further reduced. Picture here on eGullet: http://egullet.org/p1873605

  • fprincess on October 20, 2010

    This recipe has the advantage of being simple, however for me there are two major ingredients missing - the lardons (diced bacon) and the pearl onions.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Good but not as good as Julia's and odd that some of the garnish is missing.

• Beurre blanc

  • fprincess on February 25, 2011

    Classic French sauce. I was actually able to freeze it and it did not break (the texture was a little different though but still pleasant). So I would recommend making a double batch and it becomes an instant sauce for fish.

• Blueberries with lime sugar

  • fprincess on August 02, 2011

    The lime sugar process was a little time consuming. In the end this is a good dessert if you have high quality blueberries.

• Carre d'agneau au moutarde

  • fprincess on December 02, 2010

    Easy & tasty recipe. I had to cook the rack longer than what indicated in the recipe (approx. 25 min for medium rare instead of 17 min).

• Charlotte de marrons

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    It's a delicate, light recipe with a fantastic flavour. I had a hard time finding the chesnut puree, which Whole Foods seems to carry around the holidays. Ladyfinders from Trader Joe's. Picture: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/?p=2034510

• Filet of beef, sauce porto with roasted shallots

  • fprincess on November 21, 2010

    Delicious.

• Daube provencale

  • fprincess on November 02, 2016

    Made with lamb neck and homecured pork belly for the bacon. This is wonderful! https://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/?do=findComment&comment=2079375

• Faux-filet au beurre rouge

  • fprincess on September 29, 2011

    I love this. This is classic French at its best and it's simple too.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Simple but fabulous. Prepared with a 5 oz filet using approiximately far less of the butter. Started the steak on the stove in cast iron and finished in in the oven, to make a total of just over 2 mintues per side and 2 minutes in the oven.

• Clafoutis

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Love this classic recipe. It's super easy to make as long as you have a cherry pitter.

  • fprincess on August 09, 2011

    Made again. The clafoutis cooks very fast so you need to take a look at it before the end of the 40 min cooking time to make sure it does not brown too much. I turned down my oven a little from 450F to 430F. It only took about 30 min to bake (I used the skewer test).

• Coq au vin

  • fprincess on December 01, 2010

    Made this once; was quite involved. Overall it was good but I still prefer boeuf bourguignon. Maybe it would taste better with an older rooster/chicken (which I could not find) than a regular chicken.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Intense and super tasty

• Coquilles Saint-Jacques with Champagne

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    The flavors are great and I love the use of champagne in this sauce (plus you can drink the leftovers with the meal!). Make sure you get a nice sear on the scallops for optimal flavor.

  • fprincess on May 12, 2012

    Made this favorite recipe again with some leftover champagne that went flat. I use fish stock instead of fumet which allows me to skip a reducing step. Picture here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/page__st__210__p__1877122#entry1877122

  • Smokeydoke on January 02, 2018

    Love the flavors in this dish, I didn't follow it exactly, it's basically seared scallops with a deliciously creamy champagne cream sauce. I used both sea scallops (as the recipe directed) and bay scallops (as Mr. S requested) and, honestly, I liked the bay scallops better, I was able to get a better caramelization too. It was my first time searing scallops, you need a very hot pan! I tested my pan at 350 and it didn't get a good sear on my sea scallops, even with the unusually long 3 mins per side. Next time, I'll air-dry the scallops a bit and heat the pan to 400. Ghee is a must! Regular butter will smoke and burn at that temp. Photo included.

• Skate grenobloise

  • fprincess on July 29, 2011

    Made with halibut instead of skate (which I love but is really hard to find). Absolutely love this. Classic French cooking at its best. It's very flavorful and the croutons are a beautiful touch.

  • katiesue28 on September 10, 2021

    Made this without the croutons last night. So delicious, simple, and fast. Served with an arugula salad, it was a beautiful and elegant weeknight dinner.

• Soupe au vin

  • fprincess on February 04, 2013

    Very nice, like a thinner version of the boeuf bourguignon sauce. One thing I will do next time will be to degrease the soup slightly as there was a lot of bacon fat. Photo here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/page__st__210__p__1908036#entry1908036

• Steak au poivre

  • fprincess on September 29, 2011

    Wonderful as all the other steak recipes in that book. Very old school.

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Make sure you don't overheat the pan or the sauce will be burnt

  • Smokeydoke on December 27, 2016

    I've never had steak au poivre before, it is a very spicy dish! Much too spicy for me, I could barely swallow it with the mashed potatoes. But Mr. Smokey says this is how it is suppose to be. I made it again, but only added black pepper to the butter sauce per taste and it was wonderful, but it was hardly steak au poivre. I used Costco's Black Malabar Peppercorns which are very strong. Make sure to open all the windows and have the vents going. The dish is a stinker!

• Tomato salad

  • fprincess on October 15, 2010

    Simple, classic, delicious and authentic.

  • fprincess on September 12, 2012

    Excellent tomato salad recipe but requires excellent tomatoes! The tomatoes are liberally pre-salted, peppered and degorged to concentrate the flavors. The salad bowl is rubbed with garlic. The version I made recently was the olive oil/balsamic vinegar/basil version of the dressing, but the olive oil/red wine vinegar/parsley version is also very good (and much more French). There is also a very thinly sliced red onion in there (red shallot for the French version). I love this so much I usually end up drinking the juices from the plate as a special treat once I have finished the salad... Photo here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53228-les-halles-cookbook-by-anthony-bourdain/page__st__210__p__1890648#entry1890648

  • Ro_ on July 30, 2020

    This was delicious, but a bit faffier than other tomato salad recipes. I definitely think the salting and squeezing is worth it for the red onions, but I'm not sure I'd bother again salting and peppering the tomatoes in advance, then getting all the salt and pepper off and deseeding them...I guess it does give more concentration of flavour, but I think if the tomatoes are good enough it's a step I could do without most of the time. The dressing was very nice, and we mopped up all the leftover dressing and juice with liberal amounts of bread.

• Vichyssoise

  • fprincess on August 02, 2011

    This is a good soup but I had some texture issues even though I used a stick blender. I need to give this recipe another try.

• Whole roasted fish basquaise

  • fprincess on September 29, 2011

    This is a very pretty dish with the whole fish and the bell peppers.

• Palette de porc a la biere

  • owaint on November 22, 2010

    Really tasty but the crust is pointless, really doesn't add anything in terms of flavour. It is impossible to carve so don't even try, better served as pulled pork.

• Mignons de porc a l'ail

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Excellent, go heavy on the garlic

• Red-wine vinaigrette

  • Delys77 on June 18, 2012

    Pg 256 Perfectily balanced vinaigrette. I would suggesty mincing the garlic with a bit of salt to really bring out the garlic flavour.

• Pommes fondants

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    The flavour is really nice but it was hard to get them in the right shape, and they took far longer to cook. Had to use quite a bit more chicken stock.

  • Ro_ on May 06, 2020

    Totally agree with other note: this took a lot longer to cook than stated in recipe. I ended up cooking the potatoes over a low heat with a lid on the pan for at least 15 extra minutes at the end. However, the flavour was delicious. A shame there ends up being a lot of waste from the potato parings, maybe next time I'd save to make hash browns.

• Boeuf a la ficelle

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Did a rutabaga instead of a turnip and it was quite nice. Mustard is a bit strong so you should try bechamel with a little horseradish.

• Asparagus and haricots verts salad

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Simple and not bad in flavour but nothing to write home about

• Soupe au pistou

  • Delys77 on October 31, 2011

    Very good don't go too heavy on the parmesan

  • VineTomato on April 23, 2017

    An all time favourite in our household.

• Salade d'onglet

  • Delys77 on June 18, 2012

    Pg 123 I scored this reciped a 4 out of 5 because it yields very interesting results, with a lovely interplay of asian ingredients such as soy and ginger, with the richness of French butter. I served the beef topped with the salad and it made for a lovely presentation. My only qualms are with the level of salt. He has you salt the dressing and the salad, the salad is quite salty, and then you salt the meat which has been marinated in soy. You finish by saucing the beef with the butter and soy sauce. There is just far too much salt in this reciped. I would omit the salting of the greens and cut the soy in the sauce back by about 25%. Also be very careful when salting the steak. With these modifications it will be even more of a winner.

  • Ro_ on September 23, 2020

    Maybe I somehow got my quantities off (I was halving the recipe) but I ended up with very little sauce and a whole load of dressing, meaning the dish was very vinegary and the meatier, Asian notes from the sauce were lost a bit.

• Les Halles fries

  • Smokeydoke on November 22, 2016

    Perfect frites! A bit labor intensive. Perfect served with the steak au poivre.

• Duck a l'orange

  • anya_sf on December 13, 2020

    After the stated cooking time, the duck meat was definitely done, but the skin was not nearly as crisp or brown as I would have liked. I tried cranking up the heat for a bit, but it seemed that was going to take a while and my kitchen started to get smoky, so I gave up. For the sauce, more precise instructions would have been helpful. My stock (canned) was room temperature, so didn't remotely bubble when added to the sugar-vinegar - was it supposed to? I wasn't sure how much to reduce the sauce. Before the stated 45 minutes were up, it was almost down to nothing so I turned off the heat. There weren't that many non-greasy juices, so not much more to reduce then, but later after adding the citrus juices, I actually did want to reduce the sauce a little more. At any rate, the meat was tender - we managed to stretch it to 3 servings - and the sauce was delicious. There were more orange segments than needed and maybe a little too much confited zest, but that's minor.

• Sauce gribiche

  • Ro_ on April 08, 2020

    This was very acid and one-note. The hardboiled egg was the only non-sharp thing, and it wasn't enough to give a balance of flavour. I have never tried a sauce gribiche before, so maybe it is meant to be like this, but I didn't like it that much (even though I love capers and cornichons and all the individual ingredients in it).

• Chicken liver vinaigrette

  • Ro_ on August 25, 2020

    I wasn't sure about this (the concept of pureed chicken livers isn't that appealing), even after making it and tasting it. But once I had dressed the salad (the book's recipe for frisée and lardon salad) with it, I was totally sold. It really works extremely well as a dressing for this kind of salad, giving the whole dish a very unctuous, creamy, indulgent feel and packing it full of flavour.

• Foie de veau lyonnaise

  • Ro_ on April 09, 2020

    Best liver and onions recipe I've tried so far. The liver was perfectly cooked. I added a bit of sugar and water at the reducing-down stage, as the sauce was very vinegary. Probably broke a cardinal rule in adding some granulated veal stock instead of demi glace, but whatever - the results were great!

• Frisee aux lardons

  • Ro_ on August 25, 2020

    This is definitely the best recipe I've tried so far for this kind of salad. The chicken liver vinaigrette really brought it to the next level, and all the flavours were perfectly in balance. I used half the quantity of bacon, which was fine for 2-3 servings, and a full quantity of the recipe for the chicken liver vinaigrette.

• Cote de porc a la charcutiere

  • Ro_ on November 23, 2020

    A great recipe for making the most of of pork chops. The ones I ended up buying were much less thick cut than I had hoped, so I reduced cooking times to just a couple of minutes in the pan and then six minutes in the oven. The sauce then really picks up all the delicious flavour left in the pan, and was delicious. You could probably leave out the cornichons, I quite liked them but I think it would still be a lovely sauce without. I'll make this again.

• Canard sauvage

  • Rroskey on November 03, 2018

    I have this book. Does any one know what to do with the liver? It never really says.