La Buvette: Recipes & Wine Notes from Paris, by Camille Fourmont and Kate Leahy, 2020, Ten Speed Press, $24.99
Backgrounder: Camille Fourmont opened her cave à manger (wine bar with snacks), La Buvette, in 2013 in a dull stretch of what was rapidly becoming a hot Paris neighborhood, the 11th arrondissement. It was an instant hit: called “hyper-fashionable” by the New York Times and named Wine Bar of the Year in 2014 by Le Fooding. A buvette is a refreshment stand, and La Buvette is tiny; Le Fooding calls it “about the size of a sardine tin.” It’s a good metaphor, as there’s no kitchen — just a fridge, a wooden cutting board and a portable burner. What Fourmont serves (she’s cook, sommelier, bartender, etc.) is smart little bites put together from great ingredients, including some that come from cans, like her famous gros haricots blancs au zeste de citron — gigante beans with lemon zest.
Why we love it: La Buvette is a modest book of small ambition, great charm and a sweet foreword by co-author Kate Leahy. Fourmont, who describes herself as an “untrained cook,” shares stories that make you feel part of the intimate little scene and recipes that come from what’s obviously her great palate. Most of them are perfect for “apéro” — France’s version of happy hour, which involves an apéritif or glass of wine and a little bite to go with it. Many are super easy to put together, really more ideas than recipes — like those beans, which “people come from all over the planet to eat,” as her headnote explains.
La Buvette’s ‘Famous’ Gros Haricots Blancs au Zeste de Citron made using dried gigante beans in the Cooks Without Borders kitchen.
The dish was born early on when Fourmont opened a can of giant white judión beans imported from Spain and seasoned them with olive oil, Maldon salt and bergamot zest. “The key to this very simple dish,” she writes, “is the fresh citrus grated on top, which brightens the flavor of the beans.” She changes citrus according to the season, “from bergamot to mandarin to lemon or citron,” and sometimes decorates the beans with a few edible flowers, such as chive or garlic blossoms.
It’s not so easy to find plain canned giant white beans stateside (most I find are swimming in tomato sauce), but if you can put your hands on dried gigantes, you can cook them up. Then, following Fourmont’s instructions, put them on a plate, drizzle them with your best olive oil “until the beans look shiny, add a good pinch of salt and grate zest directly over the top to finsh.” That is literally it for the recipe. I have made gigante beans a bunch of different ways, and as simple as this one is, it is my hands-down favorite.
Besides the dishes she serves at La Buvette — which include pickles, flavored butters, things to do with cheese and some simple charcuterie — there are also “Anytime Recipes” Fourmont puts together at home. They’re the kind of “imprecise recipes that allow freedom to add more of a favorite ingredient or to be flexible with what you do have on hand.” In other words, perfect for cooking from a pandemic pantry. There are things to do with sardines (serve them with flavored butter and halved seared-till-caramelized lemons), unusual salads (like green bean, white peach and fresh almond), a “really buttery” simplified croque monsieur and an anchovy, egg yolk and hazelnut pasta that’s a riff on carbonara. We haven’t made these yet, but have our eye on that croque monsieur.
You’ve gotta try this: Another chapter, “Le Goûter,” offers treats for afternoon snack, which in France usually means something sweet. It’s here we found Fourmont’s recipe for Rose, Cumin and Apricot Sablés. Tender, buttery and savory from the cumin — with a lovely sandy texture and a beautiful whisper of dried rose petal (sounds like a wine description!) — they’re one of the best cookies ever to come out of our kitchen.
Rose, Cumin and Apricot Sablés from Camille Fourmont’s ‘La Buvette’ cookbook
From the “At La Buvette” chapter, we got a kick out of making cured magret — duck breasts — which is so much easier and quicker than you’d think. Besides the duck breasts, only salt and pepper are involved, and they’re ready in two or three weeks. Just bury the breasts in salt, leave in fridge 12 hours, wipe them off, add pepper, loosely wrap them in a kitchen towel and let them cure tucked away in the fridge till firm and dry to the touch. Slice and serve: The result is pretty stunning.
Slices of Cured Magret
I couldn’t resist trying a “classic chocolate mousse,” which Fourmont and Leahy adapted from Trish Desein’s Je Veux du Chocolat! It was very good and easy to achieve, but much denser than what I think of as a classic mousse. In fact it was so dense and rich none of the three of us could eat more than half a serving — which felt like a miracle, considering we enjoyed it so.
I was torn about whether to offer the recipe, as it’s so dense and intense (definitely for serious chocolate lovers), and in the end decided to skip it. We’d happily reconsider, though, if there is interest — do let us know.
Still wanna cook: Rillettes! Our favorite sandwiches in France, filled with the potted pork spread known as rillettes, and accented with cornichons, have become harder and harder to find there in the last 10 years. (According to Fourmont’s headnote butchers at Rungis, the wholesale market outside of Paris, pack into a cafe called Le Saint Hubert to eat sandwichs rillettes at 4 or 5 a.m.) Fourmont’s recipe, adapted from Terrines by Le Repaire de Cartouche’s Rodolphe Paquin, looks approachable and easy. If it’s as good as it looks, we’ll be slathering baguettes with it sooner rather than later.