Brunch

My friend Wendy makes the best Bloody Marys—full of punchy, spicy flavor. Serve them with little dishes of pickles as well as the usual cucumber and celery spears for fun mix-and-match garnishes.

With their outsize flavor and perfectly bite-size proportions, deviled eggs never go out of style. The best part is that they’re one of the few dishes fit for entertaining that’s also so simple, you can probably throw them together on a moment’s notice without even going to the grocery store. All you need are some eggs and a little something to give them zip, from chopped pickles or pickle relish to cayenne pepper or spicy pepper relish. I like this version, which is topped with fresh herbs and cornichons or other pickled vegetables, like okra or asparagus.

A favorite from the land of the Jazz Brunch … Sometimes this is made with half-and-half, cream, or even ice cream to create a richer drink.

These seem to cry, “Brunch! Brunch!” Take the time to make someone special a Sunday morning treat with a big cup of café au lait, and you won’t regret it. These fritters, a take on beignets, the French Quarter’s most famous doughnut, are a snap to make.

This recipe was adapted from one I found in the Jackson, Mississippi, Junior League cookbook, Come on In! We have served them at Bayona forever, and they go fast. The sweet potato gives these rolls a beautiful color and rich, moist texture.

A cala is a rice beignet or fritter that used to be sold by New Orleans street vendors back in the 1800s. It was a tasty way of using up leftover rice, since rice was a staple on the table pretty much every day. I first researched cala recipes when I started cooking Sunday brunch at Savoir Faire many years ago. I wanted to find an authentic yeast-raised batter, which causes fritters to develop a more interesting (slightly fermented) flavor than when a baking powder version is used. I love to eat these warm, with strawberry preserves and plenty of café au lait.

Here’s a great way to use a small amount of smoked salmon to good advantage. Fresh herbs and lemon brighten the taste, and the cream cheese acts as a medium to carry the rich flavors. I love to serve this spread on toasted pumpernickel bread, atop tiny baked fingerling or new potatoes as an hors d’oueuvre, or as an open-faced sandwich with thin cucumber slices and watercress.

This recipe is an adaptation of a dish from the Troisgros Brothers, a famous restaurant in Lyon. The “gâteau” is a stack of delicate crêpes layered with creamy béchamel sauce, Gruyère or Comté cheese, ham, and prosciutto. There are countless variations to this elegant dish. You can use plain crêpes or herbed, as I do here. I sometimes make a more “locally flavored” version by folding crayfish and spinach into the béchamel (and omitting the hams). The key is cooking the assembled gâteau until it’s bubbly and brown. I like to serve this with a deeply flavored Smoked-Tomato Butter (p. 63), but this dish is great on its own. For a quick assembly, make the sauce and the crêpes a day or two in advance. Wrap the crêpes in plastic wrap and freeze until needed.

For years, I would eat eggs only as an excuse to have bacon and hash browns. And then I made this discovery—the French method of slow cooking. The results of this technique are so good, I’d be perfectly happy to eat the eggs plain, without embellishment, but in this version I still get my potatoes and bacon. This dish requires patience: it’s tempting to turn the heat up and finish the eggs quickly, but if you do, they will lose the creamy, custardy consistency that elevates this dish beyond breakfast. Try these eggs as a first course before something simple and light, such as a vegetable or chicken sauté, or grilled fish or beef. You can also serve them for brunch, with fresh fruit or a green salad.

Rather than eliminating yolks altogether, we used fewer—to reduce fat and to avoid the rubbery texture that can be obtained by using only egg whites.

Like the asparagus tart that’s a harbinger of spring (see page 69), this mushroom-topped variation is a crowd-pleaser. It makes a lovely dinner, or, when cut into bite-size pieces, a perfect hors d’oeuvre for a cocktail party.

This is a fine breakfast after a late night out with friends, but it’s so good (and good for you) you could really eat it any time of day. The mix of potato, turnip, and red bell pepper along with the sweet taste of corn is a good-looking, great-tasting combination and an excellent way to get a bunch of veggies in at breakfast.

I know what you’re thinking: “Aren’t tortillas those Mexican things that you make quesadillas out of?” Well, yes and no. In Spain, tortilla is an eggy dish a lot like an omelet or a frittata. When I was in Spain, my friend took me out for tapas (Spanish hors d’oeuvres) and one was tortilla. That one was gigantic—really thick, made in big round pans, and sliced for individual servings. Here is a smaller version, but it’s just as delicious. It can be served warm or at room temperature.

Eggs are always a good choice when you’re on a tight budget. They are loaded with protein, you can make them a million different ways, and they taste great. I think that’s the food trifecta. If the idea of making an omelet on the stovetop intimidates you, this one is the perfect solution—just put the pan in the oven, no flipping or folding required.

Though French by definition, these delicate and lemony crêpes are an American tribute, boasting a sweet filling of tart, silky lemon curd and a juicy blueberry compote. The black currant–flavored crème de cassis contributes a sophisticated undercurrent of berry flavor to the compote and enhances its deep purple-blue color. Just as a stack of blueberry pancakes is made that much better by a melting pat of butter, a drizzle of browned butter enhances this dish with its nutty richness.

The classic dessert bananas Foster was created in 1951 by Paul Blangé in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was named for Richard Foster, a friend of Owen Brennan’s who was then the city’s Crime Commission chairman. If you have been fortunate enough to visit New Orleans and eat at Brennan’s, then you know what an incredible dessert bananas Foster is. Sautéed in a buttery, cinnamony caramel sauce and flambéed with dark rum and banana liqueur, bananas are then poured over creamy, rich vanilla ice cream. On the brunch menu at Bar Americain, I take all those yummy components, replacing the ice cream with a slightly tangy crème fraîche whipped cream, and pair them with delicate crêpes. These crêpes are served as an entrée and not a dessert. I can’t think of a better way to start off my weekend.

It used to be that flapjacks were made from a cornbased batter, this being the major distinction between them and their close cousin pancakes, which were made from a wheat flour–based batter. Today the two terms are roughly synonymous, though I love the heartiness that the term flapjacks implies, and the three that we stack up per serving are more than enough to satisfy even the hungriest Bar Americain bruncher. That said, the buttermilk in the batter makes the flapjacks light and fluffy, as does taking care not to overmix the batter and giving it ample resting time before you start cooking. Instead of folding the tasty extras into the flapjack batter, I load warm maple syrup with the good stuff—crunchy pecans and sweet apricots. Apricot season is short, and finding really flavorful ones is not always easy, so I use dried apricots in the syrup, rehydrating them in simple syrup and then roasting them. The sugars are slightly caramelized in the process, and the fruit’s sweet, slightly tart flavor is magnified.