This dish from Southern France is packed with flavour but is very light. This sauce also goes perfectly with halibut, sablefish, or lobster.
Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C).
Rub red bell pepper with a little vegetable oil, place in baking pan, and roast in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until skin blisters. Leave oven on, but remove pepper and transfer to a bowl; cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 10 minutes so skin will loosen. Peel red pepper, remove and discard seeds, then chop coarsely.
Season chicken generously with salt and freshly ground white pepper. Heat olive oil in large ovenproof frying pan on high heat. Add chicken legs, skin side down, and sear for 2 to 3 minutes, or until golden. Turn chicken over. Place pan in oven for about 25 minutes, basting with drippings every 5 minutes, until done (juice should run clear when pricked with sharp knife). Remove from oven and allow to rest so juice stays in meat.
To make sauce, place stock, roasted red pepper, capers, olives, and garlic in large saucepan on high heat. (Do not use small saucepan, as you will be reducing the sauce, and a larger surface area speeds this up.) Cook for about 3 minutes, or until stock is reduced by half. Just before serving, gently stir in mixed herbs, oil, and tomatoes. Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper.
Place a piece of chicken in each of six warmed bowls. Spoon sauce over chicken, making sure that each serving gets two tomato halves. Drizzle a bit of extra-virgin olive oil over each serving.
Tourtière is, for me, the dish that best represents Québec. It can be traced back to the 1600s, and there’s no master recipe; every family has their own twist. Originally, it was made with game birds or game meat, like rabbit, pheasant, or moose; that’s one of the reasons why I prefer it with venison instead of beef or pork. Variation: If you prefer to make single servings, follow our lead at the restaurant, where we make individual tourtières in the form of a dome (pithivier) and fill them with 5 ounces (160 g) of the ground venison mixture. Variation: You can also use a food processor to make the dough. Place the flour, salt, and butter in the food processor and pulse about ten times, until the butter is incorporated—don’t overmix. It should look like wet sand, and a few little pieces of butter here and there is okay. With the motor running, through the feed tube, slowly add ice water until the dough forms a ball—again don’t overmix. Wrap, chill, and roll out as directed above.
My love of artichokes continues with this classic recipe, one of the best ways to eat this interesting, underrated, and strange vegetable. Frozen artichoke hearts are a time-saving substitute, though the flavour and texture of fresh artichokes are, by far, much superior and definitely preferred.
Cervelle de canut is basically the Boursin of France, an herbed fresh farmer’s cheese spread that’s a speciality of Lyon. The name is kind of weird, as it literally means “silk worker’s brain,” named after nineteenth-century Lyonnaise silk workers, who were called canuts. Sadly, the name reflects the low opinion of the people towards these workers. Happily for us, though, it’s delicious—creamy, fragrant, and fresh at the same time. Cervelle de canut is one of my family’s favourite dishes. It’s a great make-ahead appetizer that you can pop out of the fridge once your guests arrive. Use a full-fat cream cheese for the dish, or it will be too runny and less delicious.