Well-Prepared: Alain Passard's Vegetarian Recipes (2024)

Alain Passard, esteemed chef of the Michelin-starred restaurant L'Arpège, in Paris, banished meat from his kitchen more than a decade ago in favor of fresh produce harvested from his own organic gardens. In his new cookbook, The Art of Cooking with Vegetables, Passard shares his celebration of seasonal ingredients with simple, elegant recipes that are illustrated with collages created by Passard himself. The book is organized by month, to catch key ingredients at their peaks. Here are some of our favorite recipes, in Passard's own words, to help you capture the flavors of the season.

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I always like to give a lift to stone fruit simply by adding a tangy touch of lemon juice to it. This recipe takes the lemon further: its chunky segments are stewed alongside segments of peach in a little butter. The lemon adds a vivacious piquancy to the gentle peach, and the heady scent of saffron and some grenadine syrup enhance their flavors. The real key to this gastronomic treat, however, is the trick of adding olive oil – of the finest quality you can afford – at the end of cooking. Slivered toasted almonds complete the presentation.

Drink with: A sweet (moelleux) Viognier, or a Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 yellow peaches, each one cut into 6 segments with the skin intact

1 lemon, cut into 6 segments, seeds removed

2 ounces lightly salted butter

A pinch of powdered saffron, or a saffron thread dissolved in a little water

1 tablespoon grenadine syrup

2 tablespoons acacia honey or pale runny honey

4 tablespoons virgin olive oil

2 ounces toasted slivered almonds

Steps:

1. In a large sauté pan set over low heat, melt the butter and 
add the 24 segments of peach, the 6 segments of lemon, the saffron, and the grenadine syrup. Partially cover the pan, and adjust the heat to allow the juices to murmur very gently for 
20–30 minutes. During this time, do not stir or mix the ingredients, or the segments of peach may break.

2. When the fruit is tender yet still holding its shape, remove from the heat. Drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle with the toasted, slivered almonds.

This marbled mosaic of green vegetables, viewed through glass containers, is a dream of a dish. Its translucence seems to open up a window on today's culinary ideas about crudités. Here, the game of texture and flavor—which includes pistachio macaroons—is played out beneath the supreme control of a basil-flavored dressing. And in this visibly "open" presentation, each ingredient must hold its shape and its place. With this mosaic, I invite you to a glorious summer tasting.

Drink with: A dry, fruity white wine from the Loire Valley or Alsace, preferably made from the Chasselas grape

Serves 4

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons virgin olive oil

Leaves from ½ bunch of purple or green basil

7 ounces shelled fava beans

1 baby cucumber, weighing about 3 ounces, deseeded and cut into small, even-sized pieces

1 zucchini, weighing about 9 ounces, peeled free of thick ribs and cut into small, even-sized pieces

1 green apple, cored and cut into small, even-sized pieces with the skin intact

1 lime, peeled and cut into pith-free segments

About 12 small, sweet green or yellow grapes (preferably Chasselas grapes), cut in half

6 small pistachio macaroons, crumbled into small pieces

Fleur de sel or the salt of your choice

Steps:

1.To make the dressing, blend together the basil leaves, olive oil, and a good pinch of salt, using an electric blender. Set it aside in a sauce boat.

2. Parboil the shelled fava beans for 3 minutes, then drain and refresh them in cold water for 5 minutes to retain their color. Drain again and slip the beans free from their skins.

3. Put the broad beans in a large salad bowl. Add the cucumber, zucchini, apple, segments of lime, and grapes. Mix these elements together very gently.

4. Transfer the mixture to 4 glass fruit dishes, ideally of a size which allows the components to be piled up in the dish. Drizzle a long trail of basil-flavored dressing over the top. Sprinkle with the crumbled pistachio macaroons and serve. To serve as a main course, increase or double the portion size. If you do not have glass bowls of a suitable size for individual servings, offer the "mosaic" from one large glass bowl. An accompaniment of nut bread goes extremely well with this dish.

Rhubarb and trawberries with ralines and range

This is a culinary love affair of opposites: the tartness of rhubarb and the sweetness of strawberries. Just thinking about these two mingling in the warmth of melting butter and sugar, I can smell their fragrances rising from the pan. And, in my mind's eye, I can see little pearls of juice being released, red from the strawberries and pink from the rhubarb. It's a splendid partnership. Here, segments of orange and pralines de Montargis—almonds wrapped in caramelized sugar—come to witness the marriage and make it all the more memorable.

Drink with: A Cosmopolitan co*cktail—40 ml Vodka, 15 ml Cointreau, 
30 ml cranberry juice, and 15 ml fresh lime

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 red-colored stalks of rhubarb, washed and cut into 4½-inch sticks

9 o strawberries, rinsed quickly and hulled

4½ o almond pralines de Montargis

1 orange, cut into 6-8 segments depending on size, removed and the skin left intact

2 o lightly salted butter, clarified

4 o cater sugar (superfine sugar)

juice of ½ lemon

Steps:

1. Put the butter in a large sauté pan, preferably with flared sides. Set it over very gentle heat and, when the butter starts to foam, add the sugar and stir the ingredients together for about 2 minutes to blend them. Add the sticks of rhubarb and the quarters of orange in a single layer without overlapping. Leave them to cook, uncovered, very gently for 20–25 minutes, turning them over carefully after 12 minutes. During the cooking of the ingredients, do not mix them, otherwise they will lose their shape and form. You should also maintain a very low heat so that the butter and sugar mixture remains light-colored.

2. Add the strawberries and pieces of praline and leave them to soften—again without mixing—for about 7 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender and the strawberries are half-cooked.

3. To serve, transfer the ingredients to 4 warm table plates. Add the lemon juice to the pan, and stir quickly over heat to dissolve the deposits and make a sauce. Drizzle this sauce over the dessert and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a dessert biscuit.

A hot pan of softening plums with a slice of butter containing crystals 
of salt . . . it is a simple but inspirational starting point for a dessert. In France, I use the esteemed Reine Claude variety of plum—truly the queen of plums in my view. What this recipe reveals to us is that plums have a hidden penchant for travel and for the taste of citrus fruit from warmer climates. So, in this recipe, segments of orange and lemon, tenderized and sweetened by cooking, come to flavor the plums 
and transport them somewhere refreshingly new to our palates.
Drink with: A sweet Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley—Quarts 
de Chaume or Coteaux du Layon or Montlouis 
sur Loire

Serves 4

Ingredients:

About 2 pounds ripe plums, preferably Reine Claude (greengages)

1½ ounces Brittany butter with sea salt crystals*

2 tablespoons caster sugar (superfine sugar)

2 tablespoons acacia honey, or a pale runny honey of your choice

1 orange cut into segments, seeds removed and skin intact

1 lemon cut into segments, seeds removed and skin intact

*You can concoct this special blend of butter yourself by gradually beating a heaped teaspoon 
of large-grained sea salt into 40 grams (1½ ounces) of softened unsalted butter.

Steps:

1. Choose a sauté pan, preferably with flared sides, large enough to eventually accommodate the plums in a single layer. Add the butter, sugar, and honey. Over low heat, stir these ingredients to blend them, then add the segments of orange and lemon. Cover with a lid set askew and leave the ingredients to murmur gently and infuse for 10–15 minutes.

2. Add the plums, whole, to the syrup mixture, arranging them carefully in a single layer. Stew the fruit, partially covered, for 30–40 minutes or until the fruit is tender but not mushy.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the plums to cool in the syrup for 10 minutes.

4. Serve the plums warm, with vanilla ice cream. Offer a sweet biscuit or cookie of some kind: lightly toasted palmiers are lovely with this dessert, but shortbread could also be put to good use.