Winter French Dishes That will stick to Your Ribs

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In some countries, the best season for eating is the heart of summer, when tomatoes and zucchini pop up in abundance.  For other countries, it’s fall — the time of harvest and the time when all the best new wines come out.

For France, however, I think that the best food season is the winter.  So much of French cuisine is heavy, soup-oriented and cheese-filled — it’s just what you need to warm you up on a cold day and keep you toasty!

So what are some of the dishes you ought to try?

Pure Melted Cheese

Raclette is the supreme French winter season dish: melted cheese, in some cases with ham or other meat, spooned over potatoes or even eaten on its own. Tartiflette is a variation on raclette with onions, lardons, and in some cases smoked salmon.

You’ll see street vendors all over France stirring huge skillets of raclette.  My recommendation?  Enjoy it with a cup of hot red wine — and make sure to take a long walk afterward to work it off!

Another similar option is andouillette, a lyonnais specialty.  Melted cheese, mustard, and a variety of unusual meats and offal, including pig stomach and veal neck, are cooked together in a skillet.  The mixture is then spread on tiny rounds of crispy bread.

Andouillette is an example of a peasant dish gone chic.  You can find it in restaurants throughout boutique hotels in Paris — in this case, I tried it at Baragones, a beautiful little red wine bar in Lyon.  Not unlike haggis, it tastes much better when you don’t think about what you’re eating.

The Soups

Say whatever you want about the French — they know how to make a satisfying soup.

French onion soup is the most famous, and this version at cafe le Conti in Paris took it to the next level. just look at the size of it — and how thick that cheese is!

The ideal companion to butternut squash soup?  Three slices of cured ham.  I loved this dish at the chic Do Mo in Lyon.

And if you’re not going to have soup, why not opt for escargots for your starter instead?

I love when the escargots come out of the oven hot and sizzling, still in their shells.  After deftly maneuvering to remove them from their shells, sit back and soak up the fantastically garlicky sauce with your bread.

These escargots were part of a three-course meal at Le Paname in Montmartre in Paris — a delicious cheap find in an expensive neighborhood.

Simple Lunches

Most days, I would stop for something like a quiche and salad for lunch.

Quiches can be huge blocks of cholesterol, as in my much beloved quiche lorraine — but sometimes, like in this case, they’re simply a stack of vegetables glued together by a little bit of egg and set in a crust.  Not a bad choice.

Main Courses

Is there any French dish much more well-known than boeuf bourguignon?

Though this is the most conventional of French dishes, I tried it in a decidedly nontraditional way — at Mon Histoire dans l’Assiette in Lyon, a restaurant that specializes in allergen-free cuisine.  All of the dishes are gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, and nut-free.  Ingredients like mustard, soy, shellfish, celery, and sesame are avoided as well.

You’d never know — this was a incredible beef stew!  The supreme comforting dish on a cold day.

But many days, I went for salmon for my main course.

God, the French know how to do salmon — the rich, buttery sauces are ideal for winter.  I had this one was at the excellent Le Vernissoir in the Marais in Paris.

And now for Something Different…

Why not get a big bowl of pho?

Paris has a big Southeast Asian population, and Vietnamese restaurants abound.  I tried the tiny restaurant outside the Crimée stop in Paris’s 19th arrondissement.  I found a big bowl of pho to be the ideal antidote to days and days of heavy food — and infinitely much more French when paired with an Orangina.

Dessert

And now, what some say is the best course of all: dessert!  Crepes are always an outstanding option, and nobody does better crepes than Breizh cafe in Paris.

If by some great chance you arrive at Breizh cafe in the future, make sure you purchase a crepe with salted caramel.  It’s their specialty dish and I guanull