French Appetizers: Comté And Sesame Twists, Eggs with Mayo and Persillade, and Aioli Dip
I would love to attend a Sunday evening dinner party with Rebekah Peppler, author of À Table: Recipes for Cooking and Eating the French Way. After reading her book I wanted to eat everything, drink everything, and invite everyone I knew over to enjoy it.
Here I will share with you a few gems I made and would recommend for any future dinner party, or picnic, or Tuesday night for that matter. All of the following recipes are adapted from À Table by Rebekah Peppler.
Comté And Sesame Twists
Makes 16 twists
One package (8 ounces) all-butter puff pastry
1 cup grated Comté cheese
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 small egg, lightly beaten
Flaky sea salt
1. Heat the oven to 400°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat.
2. Transfer the puff pastry to a lightly floured surface, and roll into a 10-by-10-inch square, about ⅛ inch thick. Sprinkle the Comté and sesame seeds on one half of the dough rectangle, leaving a ¼-inch border around the edges. Fold the other half over the cheese-and-sesame filling.
3. Cut the dough crosswise into 16 strips, each about 2/3 in wide. Transfer the strips to the prepared baking sheets and, working with one strip at a time, brush lightly with the beaten egg. Twist each strip and sprinkle with flaky salt.
4. Bake until deeply golden brown, 18 to 25 minutes. Serve warm or transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely about 15 minutes, before serving.
Note: They are best the day they are baked but can be reheated in a 300° oven for 5-10 minutes to re-crisp for leftovers.
These eggs were a revelation, I love the jammy-ness of a lightly hard-boiled egg, and the creamy yet punchy mayonnaise with persillade was so delicious paired with the jammy eggs. I served some sliced fresh baguette along with these to sop up the sauce, and make little two bit sandwiches. These will definitely be a new go-to recipe for me!
Eggs with Mayo and Persillade
8 large eggs, room temperature
¼ cup homemade mayonnaise (below)
¼ cup Persillade (below)
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1. Fill a large bowl with ice water and set aside. Bring a large saucepan of water to boil over medium-high heat. Using a slotted spoon, carefully lower the eggs into the water one at a time (if the eggs are cold they may crack upon hitting the hot water, but will still be fine). Cook for 7 minutes (for a soft hard-boil). Transfer the eggs to the ice bath and set aside to cool.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the ¼ cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup persillade, and tablespoon lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Peel the eggs, then gently halve them using a sharp long knife. As they are a soft hard-boil there may be a little runny yolk so be careful not to make a mess. Wipe off the knife between eggs. Spread each half with a bit of the mayo mixture and arrange on a platter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.
Mayonnaise
Makes about 1 cup
2 large egg yolks
½ cup grapeseed oil
¼ cup olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 large egg yolks and 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard.
2. Whisking constantly, as slowly as possible (literally drop by drop) add some of the ½ cup of grapeseed oil until the mixture thickens.
3. Continuing to whisk constantly, start to slowly pour the remainder of the grapeseed oil and ¼ cup of olive oil in a slow, steady stream.
4.Just as slowly whisk in 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.
Persillade
Makes ~1/2 cup
1 cup tightly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley
6 garlic cloves
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
In a food processor, combine parsley, garlic, and oil. Pulse until finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper.
*The author notes that since this sub-recipe makes more than the appetizer recipes calls for you may be wondering what else you can use this for, she says it can be used on pasta, avocado toast, you name it. So far I have stirred it into chickpea salad, spread it on toast, and added it to hummus. I recommend making plenty so you can try it on everything!
If you make the Eggs with Mayonnaise in the recipe above — you have already done the hardest part of this recipe, you may as well make this Aioli! If starting from scratch, you can add the finely minced garlic in step one of the mayonnaise recipe above to make the Aioli, but in my opinion, it works just as well to add at the end, as long as you let it rest for a few minutes to let the flavors blend.
Aioli
1/2-1 cup homemade mayonnaise
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
Serve with fresh vegetables such as:
Sliced radishes
Cucumber wedges
Carrot sticks
Celery sticks
Boiled and chilled baby potatoes
More ideas:
Boiled and chilled cauliflower, green beans, or asparagus
Raw and sliced bell pepper, fennel, cherry tomatoes, endive
Hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved or quartered
1. For the Aioli, just add to homemade mayonnaise ½ clove of garlic, very finely minced - per ¼ cup of mayonnaise and whisk to thoroughly blend. Let rest in the fridge to allow the flavors to marry, while you prep the vegetables.
2. Arrange the vegetables on a platter around the bowl of aioli -- et voilà.