Fifty years since he first set foot in France, chef Rick Stein has returned to the food and cooking he loves the most.

Apricot Tart

Serves 6-8

This is a celebration of the apricots I saw in Périgueux market. Ever since reading John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi for O-Level, I’ve associated apricots with sensuousness. The duchess is secretly pregnant and greedy for them – “…her tetchiness, and most vulturous eating of the apricocks, are apparent signs of breeding,” says the malcontent Bosola.

I do a lot of tarts like this one because of the ease of ready-made all-butter puff pastry. Here, I have just put some ground almonds in the base to absorb the juice which will come out of the fruits when baking, then dusted the apricots with icing sugar before they go in the oven to caramelise. The tart is finished with a glaze of warm sieved apricot jam. Cold crème fraîche is the only accompaniment to this.

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Ingredients

275g all-butter puff pastry

4 tbsp ground almonds

450g fresh ripe apricots, stoned and cut in halves or quarters, depending on size (or use tinned apricots)

2 tbsp icing sugar

6-8 tbsp apricot jam

Crème fraîche, to serve

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C. Roll out the pastry into a long bar shape measuring about 15 x 35-40cm and transfer it to a baking sheet. With a sharp knife, score all around the pastry about 1.5cm in from the edge, but take care not to cut all the way through to the base. You just want to allow a border to rise around the fruit.

2. Sprinkle the ground almonds over the pastry within the score lines. Arrange the apricots, cut side up, over the ground almonds, keeping them tightly packed. Dust the apricots with the icing sugar.

3. Bake the tart for 25-30 minutes until the apricots are tender and caramelised and the pastry is risen and golden. Allow to cool to room temperature.

4. Warm the apricot jam over a low heat, then pass it through a sieve before brushing it liberally over the tart to glaze.

5. Serve with crème fraîche.

Coq Au Riesling

Serves 4-6

A lsace’s answer to coq au vin. The chef, food writer and designer Richard Cawley describes coq au vin as ‘love in a lorry’ and once you’ve heard that, it slightly takes the romance out of this time-honoured French dish.

In fact, I’ve never been entirely happy with coq au vin because the ‘vin’ bit always seems rather pale. I think if you are going to make a red wine sauce, make it deep and red, or everything can take on a rather mauve hue. Coq au Riesling, on the other hand, works much better because white wine with some cream and lots of parsley just looks much more appetising. The acidity of Riesling can be a rather surprising joy in Alsatian cookery.

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

70g unsalted butter

12 shallots, peeled but left whole

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

160g smoked bacon lardons

250g chestnut mushrooms, wiped and halved if large

1 free-range chicken (about 1.7kg), jointed into 8 pieces

1 tbsp plain flour

500ml medium-dry Riesling

350ml chicken stock

1 bay leaf

2 thyme sprigs

100ml single cream

1 egg yolk

Small handful flatleaf parsley, chopped, to garnish

Salt and black pepper 1

Method

1. Heat half the oil and butter in a shallow flame-proof casserole dish and fry the shallots, garlic and bacon lardons until the shallots have started to colour. Add the mushrooms and fry for a couple more minutes. Transfer everything to a bowl with a slotted spoon.

2. Add the remaining oil and butter to the casserole dish. Dust the chicken joints with flour and brown them in a couple of batches. Put all the chicken back in the pan and add the wine, stock, herbs and the cooked shallots, lardons and mushrooms. Season with a teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, uncovered. Pass everything through a colander set over a bowl and keep the chicken, lardons and vegetables warm.

3. Return the strained liquid and juices to the pan and reduce a little. Take the pan off the heat. Whisk the cream with the egg yolk and a ladleful of the reduced cooking liquid, then pour this into the pan with the stock. Place over a medium heat until the sauce has thickened, but don’t let it boil.

4. Put everything back into the pan and let it warm through. Check the seasoning and garnish with chopped parsley.

Lentil, Beetroot And Goats’ Cheese Salad

Serves 2 as a main course; 4 as a starter

In line with a general feeling that salades composées are an important part of a French restaurant menu, I came up with this recipe. It’s a melange of the kind of things I like to find in a salad.

Ingredients

175g small beetroots, washed but not peeled

2 tbsp olive oil

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

100g Puy lentils, rinsed

1 fresh thyme sprig

Small handful flatleaf parsley, chopped

1 ripe pear

100g goats’ cheese log

2 small handfuls rocket leaves

4 walnut halves, roughly chopped

Salt and black pepper

Dressing: 2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp walnut oil

1 tbsp Banyuls or sherry vinegar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C. Put the beetroots on a baking tray and roast them for up to an hour, depending on size. They should be tender to the point of a knife when done. Leave them until cool enough to handle, then peel off the skins and cut them into wedges. Set aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in a pan and sweat the shallot and garlic over a medium heat until softened. Add the lentils, 300ml of water, thyme, half a teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper, then simmer for 23 minutes. You may need to add a little more water, but the object is for it all to become absorbed. Leave the lentils to cool down, then add the chopped parsley.

3. Core and slice the pear, leaving the skin on. Cut the cheese in half horizontally or into 4 slices, depending on how many you are serving.

4. Preheat the grill and grill the cheese on one side. Mix the olive oil, walnut oil and vinegar to make the dressing.

5. Put the lentils in a wide dish, then top with some rocket leaves. Nestle beetroot wedges and pear slices among the leaves and top with the grilled goats’ cheese and dressing. Sprinkle over the walnuts and serve at once.

Extracted from Rick Stein’s Secret France, published by BBC Books at €31.99. Photography by James Murphy

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