Red onion marmalade (confit d'onions)

I didn't notice how this month passed so full it was on everything and especially on cooking. We kept receiving guests and cooking for them, visiting friends and cooking for them, giving cooking classes and doing guess what there... While packing after one of those classes we found a bowl of sliced red onions left uncooked for some reason. Quite a large bowl of crisp red onions, which are now in season. That's how the time came for me to try making French onion marmalade. And I'm so glad I did.

Crustless almond melon tarts

These almond tarts hardly take over half an hour to make because they are crustless. I suddenly found that this way I like them way more that the classic version in short pastry shells. You can use more traditional apples, pears or cherries instead of melon. I never thought about using melon here before a month ago. Turned out that it does a great job here, everybody seems to love the dessert, but I'll better tell you the whole story.

Baked camembert with thyme and lingonberry jam

This is a stunning guilty pleasure. Not only it tastes as good as classic fondue. It also is three times easier to make. You unwrap a wheel of camembert cheese and stick it into the oven. Once you take it out all you need to do is deep your slice of baguette in. But if you are feeling more sophisticated than that, you add some sweet and sour jam, some thyme or rosemary and the whole thing gets romantic.

Roast duck with quince

My body just knows that winter is around the corner and it won't let the calendar fool it. After around two years when I didn't want any meat or fish at all, I came to eating almost just those. And given the cold, the greasier they are the more I want them. So I've been in serious relationship with salmon and duck during the last two months. I kept roasting duck for Christmas for many years and it looks like this year it will also happen. There is something extremely family uniting in sharing one good bird for a Christmas dinner. And nothing goes better with it for me than sweet spices and sour fruit.

Chocolate fondant

It's been so long since I said something here... I can't tell you how much I missed it. Somehow Christmas hustle started early for me this year and I was to busy and tired to produce any kind of warm and positive content. Now finally I have a lot to say and chocolate fondant will be good to start with. This little chocolate cake which oozes out melting chocolate as you break through its crust with your teaspoon contains highest quality happiness in incredible intensity. Especially if you serve it with a melting scoop of vanilla ice-cream on top. Approaching Christmas is perfect timing for it.

Salade aux chèvre chaud (French salad with hot goat's cheese)

This post has been due for at least two years now. When I just came to Fontainebleau I immediately fell in love with salade aux chèvre chaud (literally salad with hot goat's cheese) and it stayed my absolute favorite throughout the months of my residence. Though very simple to make it is incredibly rich in flavor and texture. Just imagine savory hot and melting goat's cheese with sweet fig jam, crispy toast and walnut over crunchy chilled salad leaves dressed with honey and French mustard.

Proper French onion soup

I always loved the French onion soup and for some reason couple of day ago I got obsessed with making it myself. I mean that full blown version where you start from making brown stock (which cooks for 5 hours), then you caramelize onions for 40 minutes etc. There was something so fascinating about this whole process of making it slowly and properly. The result tasted better to me that what I got to try in restaurants so far. I must have got really biased during those 5 hours.

Buckwheat galette with an egg

This galette is one of addictions I got while living in Fontainebleau. At first I had certain trouble eating French there with my vegetarian preferences. So very fast I switched from bistrots (common casual dining French restaurants, which were mainly meat dominated) to creperies. These were a true paradise with their menus filled with both sweet white crepes and savory buckwheat galettes. The galette with an egg was apparently the most sexy and always managed to beat everything else.

Broccoli and Brie cheese gratin

This broccoli and Brie cheese gratin came to mind spontaneously last weekend. Unlike many "on the go" simple foods I make for myself this I don't want to go unnoticed. It made a beautiful, simple and delicious dinner. Together with a glass of cider it even made me nostalgic about France. You just need to like both broccoli and cheese to enjoy as much as I did.

Picture perfect Tarte Tatin

I keep making Tarte Tatin since I came back from France. Last time I made a pretty innocent one, with not much sugar and butter. This time I wanted it to be rich and really pretty. The idea was to make a thick apple layer. Like the one I saw in Berthillon Paris cafe.

A magic cup of cinnamon hot chocolate

I just needed something energizing yesterday night. So I thought about hot chocolate recipe I saw in David Lebovitz The Sweet Life in Paris. Happily I had an appropriate chocolate bar at home. I was too lazy to go out.

Quiche with red onion and blue cheese

We started routinely baking quiche in my family well before I went to study in France. Once I made the classic Quiche Lorraine (bacon and cheese quiche) after I bumped into a recipe in Gastronom.ru. Everybody liked this idea of an open savory pie filled with something baked in egg custard and we started trying different fillings.

Tarte aux poires normande (French pear tart)

While I was living in Fontainebleau Tarte Normande was one of my favorite desserts. In one of the bakeries I frequented it was just incredible. I tried it once and got addicted forever. Since then I was almost never able to leave this bakery without a piece.

Petits sablés (French butter cookies)

I love making cookies since I was a little girl helping my mother in the kitchen. Every Christmas we would stock lots of nuts, butter, sugar and flour and start mixing the short pastry. Then we'd roll it, take out the little shapes and start cutting out the stars, hearts, rounds, rhombs and crescents.

The perfect vanilla sauce

If I had to pick one favorite dessert sauce it would definitely be creme anglaise. With its intense vanilla flavor, its thin and light structure it is just a perfect complement to many of my favorite sweets, especially fruit cakes and crumbles, chocolate fondant and muffins. I like it so much that it became my habit to make it.

Savoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers)

To complement the Sabayon I made last night I also made savoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers). Besides the fact that they are perfect with sabayon and as part of tiramisu, there is nothing better for a morning cup of espresso.

Hot and spicy mulled wine

One of my greatest joys at cold season is mulled wine. It sounds as "Glintvein" in Russian and it's just around you in the winter. Every single Moscow restaurant and cafe has it on the menu. Cooking magazines keep publishing mulled wine recipes. I absolutely associated it with Russian food before I went skiing to Austria and then to France and bumped into their "Glühwein" and "Vin chaud".

Long, exhausting and delicious Bouillabaisse

The whole day was busy with this 'fish soup' (forgive me for saying these two words, I don't mean to hurt your feelings). And I didn't even wake up early enough to join our chef shopping. If I put it into bouillabaisse recipe format it is going to look long and scary. Better I'll just tell you about the day. Misha's bouillabaisse is inspired by Le Miramar port restaurant in Marseille. 'It is getting more and more expensive to have bouillabaisse in Marseille' he sais, 'last time the two of us paid something like 350 euros in Le Miramar'.