For Matthew Ryle, the Executive Chef of London’s Maison François, French cooking is all about going back to the basics. “People are tired of messing around with food and trying to create new stuff,” he tells me in the few minutes he has to himself between dinner service begins. “The future for us is in the past, and if we want to do delicious food for people and excite people, let’s look at what’s been done before.”
This is the modus operandi behind Ryle’s new cookbook, French Classics: Easy and Elevated Dishes to Cook at Home. A physical extension of the British chef’s popular social media presence, in which he takes little-known regional French specialties and breaks them down with ease, French Classics is a guide for the home cook who might otherwise be intimidated by all the hoopla around French cuisine. “A lot of it is super regional, because, you know, there was a time before they had the convenience of being able to go to the supermarket and get everything all year. People were just cooking while they had at hand, and all these amazing dishes were born. So there’s a nice kind of simplicity to that,” he explains.
Matthew Ryle’s ‘French Classics’
These dishes might range from Savoie’s hearty, cheesy tartiflette, to the produce-forward specialties of Provence, like le grand aïoli or soupe au pistou. But what they all have in common is that they are designed to be simple, straightforward recipes that anyone can attempt. Ryle cuts through the language barrier and the perceived formality and cheffiness of French cuisine, always with his ideal reader in mind: “My mum wouldn’t attempt to make a coq au vin at home, but then, if you explained to her that she’s actually just making a chicken stew with red wine, she probably would give it a go.” He’s not going to shame you for using store-bought stock instead of homemade, and he won’t tell you how to enjoy what you’ve made—only how to make something enjoyable.
Ryle stayed away from dishes that felt too “restauranty,” like terrines or rillettes, and tried to narrow in on a list of recipes that would be recognizable enough for the average home cook to attempt. You’ll find humble countryside recipes for ratatouille or bouillabaisse, and boeuf bourguignon, the chef’s go-to for an easy, no-fuss meal. “You’re literally just putting it in a pot, and leaving it in the oven for four hours, there’s very little prep work that goes into it.”
Yet there are still plenty of dishes designed to impress, like lobster thermidor and duck à l’orange, or Ryle’s unconventional raspberry soufflé recipe, made with a rice pudding base.
Each recipe includes hard-earned tips from working in restaurant kitchens that can be applied to home cooking as well, whether that’s freezing choux pastry for easy profiteroles or éclairs down the road, or adding a splash of soy sauce to your French onion soup for a boost of umami.
As he says in the book’s intro, “If it was chefs who made this simple everyday food into haute cuisine, it’s only fair that another chef brings the recipes back to their domestic beginnings.”
French Classics: Easy and Elevated Dishes to Cook at Home is available wherever books are sold.
Catherine Rickman is a writer, professional Francophile, and host of the Expat Horror Stories podcast. She is currently somewhere in Brooklyn with a fork in one hand and a pen in the other, and you can follow her adventures on Instagram @catrickman.
