Recipes by Best-Selling Food Author Trish Deseine

Delicious, simple, and easy-to-prepare recipes are my hallmark. With four children, life got busy, fast. I simply didn’t have time to spend hours in the kitchen, mastering complicated techniques with hi-tech equipment. I learned to select a few choice ingredients, and to combine them simply to create a meal bursting with flavour.

My early roots in Northern Ireland’s farm country, combined with almost thirty years in France, cultivated my taste for exceptional ingredients. While living in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, La Grande Épicerie de Paris was my local supermarket. La Grande Ép’, as it’s affectionately called by Parisians, is the food hall at the famous Bon Marché department store; it offers an impressive selection of 30,000 exclusive gourmet products, from regional French produce to delicacies from around the globe. The range is phenomenal – fresh fruit and vegetables, artisanal dairy and meat products, chocolate and pastries, exotic spices and condiments, wines, gourmet prepared meals – you just can’t go wrong.

My latest book, C’est Bon, highlights both facets of my culinary philosophy: simplicity combined with fresh, premium ingredients. Simple doesn’t have to be basic; these recipes can all be made at home, by chefs of all levels, in relatively little time, but they are full of inventiveness, surprising combinations, and above all flavour. You’ll transform classic mussels with garlic butter into a gratin topped with almond-coriander pesto; add pizzazz to buttered mash with truffle pecorino cheese; give marinated beef a twist with black rice, olives, and chocolate; or enjoy the delicate aroma of pan-seared pumpkin slices with fresh sage and mint before indulging in the sheer perfection of goat’s cheese with cherry preserves and chocolate on toast! Enjoy these recipes – from my kitchen to yours. C’est si bon!

These recipe extracts are taken from C’est Bon by Trish Deseine, published by Flammarion. Purchase the book on Amazon below.

CAULIFLOWER VELOUTÉ WITH VADOUVAN-ROASTED CAULIFLOWER AND CHOCOLATE

Serves: 4-6 | Preparation time: 5 minutes | Cooking time: 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 cauliflower
vegetable stock (optional)
olive oil
100ml milk
70g butter
1 tablespoon vadouvan curry paste 50g chocolate, grated
salt, pepper

1 Cut the cauliflower into florets, keeping about a quarter of the florets for garnish. Cook the rest in boiling water or vegetable stock, or steam them.

2 Cut the cauliflower reserved for garnish into tiny florets and drizzle with oil. Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil or a silicon liner and roast for 15-20 minutes.

3 Blend the cooked cauliflower in a food processor and thin with the milk to the required consistency. Pour into a saucepan, season with salt and pepper, and add the butter, stirring until it has melted.

4 Remove the roasted cauliflower from the oven and toss with the curry paste. Season with salt.

5 Pour the soup into a serving bowl, scatter over the vadouvan-roasted cauliflower florets, and garnish with grated chocolate.

6 Enjoy with Morgon Côte du Py or medium-dry Vouvray.

GRILLED MUSSELS WITH ALMOND AND CORIANDER PESTO

Serves: 4 | Preparation time: 15 minutes | Cooking time: 10 minutes

FOR THE PESTO

1 garlic clove, peeled
125g blanched whole almonds, chopped 1 bunch coriander
125g parmesan, coarsely grated
olive oil
salt, pepper

FOR THE MUSSELS

24 large mussels, opened on the half shell
4-5 tablespoons Japanese panko bread crumbs (or dry bread crumbs)
lemon wedges, to serve

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C / Gas Mark 4.

2 For the pesto, combine all the ingredients – except the olive oil and seasoning – in a mini food processor and reduce to a paste. Gradually add the oil, processing again until you have a soft mixture. Season to taste.

3 Arrange the mussels on the half shell on a baking sheet and top each one with a spoonful of the pesto. Sprinkle lightly with the panko crumbs or dry bread crumbs.

4 Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until the pesto is bubbling lightly and the crumb topping is golden.

5 Remove from the oven and serve hot, with lemon wedges to squeeze over.

6 Enjoy with white Côtes de Provence.