Bechamel sauce is a basic in French cooking. It’s a thick sauce made of butter, flour, milk and nutmeg that adds creaminess to a lot of famous French dishes. You can use it for making veggies au gratin with spinach, egg plant, Belgian endives or anything you like! Bechamel is often used in lasagna and eggs mimosa. You can even subsitute creme fraiche with Bechamel when making quiches! Explore

Bechamel sauce is also used in the famous Croque-Monsieur served in Parisian brasseries. Coming soon…

Preparation time: 15 to 20 minutes

Ingredients (for 2 cups)

1.4 oz (40 g) of butter
4 tablespoons (1.4 oz/ 40 g) of flour
2 cups (50 cl) of milk
1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Dice butter and melt it in a small pan over low heat. (Be careful not to let your butter get burnt! Once it gets a brownish color, it’s too late… The taste has changed and it’s pretty bad for health eating it like that. If it happens to you, best choice is to throw it out and do it again with new butter.)

2/ Once butter is melted, add all flour at once and stir energically with a wooden spoon until mixture is homegeneous.

3/ Let mixture cook for about 5 minutes stirring often so it doesn’t get burnt. (You’ll see it bubbling; mixture should keep its white color at all times.)

4/ Pour a small quantity of milk and stir. Repeat operation until you get a nice creamy texture. (If it is too liquid, just leave it for a while over low heat, it will thicken.)

5/ Season with grated nutmeg, salt and pepper and stir again. (At this point, you should taste your bechamel and adjust seasoning if needed.)

6/ That’s it! Ready to use

There are many ways of cooking rabbit in French cuisine but with mustard sauce is the most famous of them. In my version of the recipe, I use both Dijon mustard and old fashioned mustard. That’s because old fashioned mustard doesn’t taste as strong as Dijon mustard. It’s a way to get the Dijon’s taste keeping the old fashioned look of the dish.

If you only have one kind, don’t worry, it should work too

Preparation time: 10 minutes – Cooking time: 50 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1 whole rabbit (cleaned, in pieces)
4 tablespoons of old fashioned mustard
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons of creme fraiche
1 glass (25 cl) of dry white wine
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 shallots
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Season rabbit pieces with salt and spread them with old fashioned mustard using a kitchen brush or a knife.

2/ Pour olive oil in a large iron-cast casserole. Heat it over medium heat.

3/ Peel and chop shallots.

4/ When oil is hot, add rabbit pieces and leave them 2 minutes on each side or until they get a golden color. Take them off casserole and set aside. (If your casserole is too small to broil all rabbit at once, repeat this step several times).

5/ Pour shallots into the casserole.

6/ Once shallots are translucent, add white wine and get to a smooth boil until the strong smell of alcohol is gone.

7/ Return rabbit pieces to the casserole. Cover and leave over medium/low heat for 25 minutes.

8/ Combine creme fraiche with Dijon mustard and the old fashioned mustard you have left (if any).

9/ Uncover casserole, add mustard sauce and stir well so your sauce is homogeneous.

10/ Leave it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until sauce thickens.

11/ Serve with potatoes, rice or tagliatelle and top generously with mustard sauce.

This is the simplest recipe you can make when craving for a fresh salad on a hot summer day. It’s extremely easy to prepare and you might even have all the ingredients at hand already

It’s a very typical Mediterranean bean salad recipe. A very good basic you’ll be able to play with. Try replacing vinegar by lemon juice, add chopped cilantro, parsley and small chives and you’ll get into a whole new world!

Preparation time: 5 minutes – Refrigeration time: 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1 can (15 oz/ 425 g) of white navy beans
1 medium sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 red onion

Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel red onion. Dice it finely. Plunge onion dices into a glass of water. (Before using raw slices of onion in a salad, you should always plunge them into fresh water for a while so they don’t taste too strong.)

2/ Wash and dry red and green pepper. Remove the core, pith and seeds. Dice pepper.

3/ Rinse and drain white beans.

4/ In a salad bowl, combine white navy beans, onion, red and green pepper. Season with salt and toss ingredients together.

5/ Prepare vinaigrette: In a small bowl, pour vinegar and oil. Stir energetically until vinaigrette is homogeneous. Add salt and pepper and stir again.

6/ Sprinkle two pepper and bean salad with vinaigrette. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Serve cold.