Around My French Table (22 page)

Using your fingers, shred the chicken—minus the skin and bones, if there were any—into small pieces. Bring the soup back to a boil, lower the temperature so it just simmers, and stir in the chicken and noodles. When everything is hot, add more fish sauce to taste and as much lime juice as you'd like. Stir in the cilantro, taste, and add more salt if you think the soup needs it.

Ladle the soup into large bowls and serve with any or all of the optional garnishes.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

SERVING
Ladle the soup into four big bowls. If you like, set out bowls of basil and mint leaves, lime wedges, and bean sprouts. Put the hoisin sauce and chile oil on the table, and make the final seasoning of the soup a do-it-yourself affair.

STORING
Although you can refrigerate the soup base and the poached chicken overnight, it's best to serve the soup soon after the noodles and seasonings are added.

BONNE IDÉE
Curried Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup
.
To make a soup with the curry flavor that's more reminiscent of
la sa ga
, warm 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in the soup pot over low heat, then add 3 to 4 tablespoons (more or less to taste) curry powder. Cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds, then add some of the broth to stop the cooking, and proceed with the recipe. If you'd like, you can add about 2 tablespoons minced lemongrass to the soup—it's nice with the curry.

W
HEN MELONS ARE PLENTIFUL
in the markets, they're common on the French table. During the season, just about every restaurant has melon somewhere on the menu. And just about every home cook is serving melon as well, usually as a starter and often in dishes as basic as slices of melon wrapped with ham, hunks drizzled with balsamic, or halves filled with port.

This soup is inspired by one I had at Alain Ducasse's former hilltop retreat, Ostapé, in the Pays Basque. It's a cross between a soup and a fruit salad and, in many ways, a cross between a fancy restaurant dish and one that's exceedingly fast and easily made at home. It's nothing more than pureed melon (the soup), topped with melon balls and strawberries (the salad). The only must-have is an absolutely ripe melon. In France, that would be a small Cavaillon; in America, it's a cantaloupe.

At Ostapé, the soup was served in glasses, and I'd suggest that you serve it that way too—it would be a shame to hide the soup's beautiful color.

BE PREPARED:
You'll want to allow at least
2
hours for the soup to chill.

Cut the cantaloupe in half and scoop out the seeds. Using a melon baller or a small spoon, cut balls from one of the melon halves. Put them in a bowl, cover, and chill for at least 2 hours, or for up to 6 hours.

Meanwhile, peel the other half of the melon, cut it into chunks, and toss the chunks into a blender or food processor. Process, scraping down the container often, until the melon is reduced to a juice. Add the ginger, 1½ tablespoons lime juice, and the salt. Taste and, if you think it needs it, add the remaining ½ tablespoon of lime juice. Pour the soup into a pitcher and chill for at least 2 hours, or for up to 6 hours.

At serving time, divide the soup among four wide mouthed glasses (or four small bowls) and top each portion with a tablespoon of wine, if you're using it. Spoon in the melon balls (depending on the size of your glass and the size of the melon balls, you may have some left over; you want the fruit to come about halfway up the sides of the glass, so you have room to spoon out the fruit and the soup), top with the berries, and finish each with a sprig of mint.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

SERVING
Serve the soup well chilled. If you're serving it in glasses, you might want to serve it with long spoons of the iced-tea variety.

STORING
While the soup and melon balls should be well chilled at serving time, the soup is meant to be made and eaten the same day.

Anne Leblanc's Pistachio Avocado
[>]

Café-Style Grated Carrot Salad
[>]

Hélène's All-White Salad
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Leeks Vinaigrette with Mimosa
[>]

Roasted Peppers
[>]

Vanilla Vegetable Salad
[>]

Orange and Olive Salad
[>]

Mozzarella, Tomato, and Strawberry Salad
[>]

Lime and Honey Beet Salad
[>]

Chunky Beets and Icy Red Onions
[>]

Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle with Cucumbers and Lemon
[>]

Salade Niçoise
[>]

Bacon and Eggs and Asparagus Salad
[>]

Deconstructed BLT and Eggs
[>]

Crab and Grapefruit Salad
[>]

Couscous Salad
[>]

Quinoa, Fruit, and Nut Salad
[>]

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad
[>]

Lentil, Lemon, and Tuna Salad
[>]

Potato Chip Tortilla
[>]

Basque Potato Tortilla
[>]

Eggplant "Tartine" with Tomatoes, Olives, and Cucumbers
[>]

Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flans
[>]

Cheesy Crème Brûlée
[>]

Cheese Soufflé
[>]

Muenster Cheese Soufflés
[>]

Recipe-Swap Onion "Carbonara"
[>]

Gérard's Mustard Tart
[>]

Gorgonzola-Apple Quiche
[>]

Quiche Maraîchère
[>]

Spinach and Bacon Quiche
[>]

Mushroom and Shallot Quiche
[>]

Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs
[>]

Tomato-Cheese Tartlets
[>]

Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza
[>]

Scallop and Onion Tartes Fines
[>]

Smoked Salmon Waffles
[>]

Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche
[>]

Tuna-Packed Piquillo Peppers
[>]

Winter Ceviche
[>]

Tuna and Mango Ceviche
[>]

Salmon Tartare
[>]

Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar
[>]

Crab-Avocado "Ravioli"
[>]

Shrimp-Filled Zucchini Blossoms
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Sardine Escabeche
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Chicken Liver Gâteaux with Pickled Onions
[>]

Cabbage and Foie Gras Bundles
[>]

Coddled Eggs with Foie Gras
[>]

FRESH TUNA, MOZZARELLA, AND BASIL PIZZA
(
[>]
)

A
S SOON AS WE MOVED INTO
our first apartment in Paris, I walked around the corner and stocked up on oils from Huilerie J. Leblanc, makers of some of the finest, fullest-flavored nut oils in the world. (You can find Leblanc oils at many specialty stores in the United States.) The shop was run by the late Anne Leblanc; it's her brother who makes the oils (and it was their father before him). That first day, Anne had me taste many of the oils, and when I fell in love with the pistachio oil—as many people do—she told me that the best way to eat it was with a perfectly ripe avocado.

Anne was so enthusiastic about the combination that I went directly to the fruit stand when I left her. That night, more than ten years ago, I served Anne's dish, and I've been serving it ever since. And everyone falls for it as quickly and as happily as I did.

Because this is hardly a recipe—more a list of ingredients—I was hesitant to include it, but it's just too good not to share.

Cut the avocados in half and slice off a sliver of skin from the bottom of each half to make a steady resting place for the fruit. Remove the pits and quickly sprinkle the flesh with lemon juice to keep it from blackening. Give the hollow in the center an extra squirt or two—you want about 1/8 teaspoon juice in the cavities. To make transporting the filled avocados easier, put them on plates or in small bowls now. Season with fleur de sel and fill the hollows almost to the top with pistachio oil. That's it.

Serve immediately, with lemon wedges, if desired.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

SERVING
If you'd like, serve the avocados with a wedge of lemon on the side of each plate. Or make the avocado and pistachio oil combo part of a heartier dish (see Bonne Idée).

BONNE IDÉE
I make this combination part of my Salmon Tartare (
[>]
), but you can also slice the avocado, drizzle it with the oil, and serve the slender wedges with crab salad (
[>]
), grilled shrimp tossed with vinaigrette, or chicken (it's great with Lemon-Grilled Chicken Breasts; see Bonne Idée,
[>]
).

W
HEN I FIRST WENT TO PARIS,
carottes râpées,
or grated carrot salad, was served at the least expensive student cafés and offered at the priciest take-out shops. Decades later, you can still find the salad just about everywhere, sometimes speckled with raisins, sometimes not; sometimes dressed with lemon juice and a splash of oil, sometimes with a vinaigrette that plays sweet against sharp (the version I like). You can even find grated and salad-ready carrots in every supermarket.

Carrot salad falls into the category the French call
crudités,
or raw salads. But since the French aren't all that crazy about uncooked vegetables in general, the fact that this salad has held on for so many years speaks to its goodness—and its versatility. While it's most often served as a starter, sometimes side by side with other salads, like vinaigrette-dressed beets (
[>]
) or pickled cucumbers (
[>]
), it's a good platemate for leftover chicken or beef and, not surprisingly, the perfect pack-along for a picnic.