Recipe: Quick goat cheese bread with mint and apricots

QUICK GOAT CHEESE BREAD WITH MINT AND APRICOTS

Serves 6 to 8.

Note: "When I ate dinner at the home of Nathalie Berrebi, a Frenchwoman living in Geneva, she served this savory quick bread warm and sliced thin, as a first course for a dinner," writes Joan Nathan in "Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France." "Now I often make this quick bread for brunch or lunch and serve it with a green salad."

• 2 c. flour

• 1 tsp. baking powder

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

• 1/3 c. milk

• 1/3 c. olive oil, plus extra for pans

• 2 oz. grated Gruyère (or aged Cheddar or Comte cheese)

• 4 oz. fresh goat cheese

• 1 c. chopped dried apricots

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 5- by 9-inch loaf pan with olive oil.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and pepper and reserve.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs. Add milk and olive oil and whisk until smooth. Add flour mixture to wet mixture, stirring until everything is incorporated and dough is smooth.

Spread batter into prepared pan, sprinkle grated Gruyère, crumble goat cheese on top and then scatter apricots and mint. Pull a knife gently through batter to blend ingredients slightly.

BABKA A LA FRANCAISE

Makes 24 rolls.

Note: This recipe must be prepared in advance. Author Joan Nathan discovered this savory treat in the bread basket at chef Thierry Marx's Cordeillan-Bages in Pauillac. At first glance, she thought it was a miniature chocolate or poppy-seed babka. Wrong. "This trompe l'oeil was in fact a savory babka, filled with olives, anchovies and fennel -- a delicious French take on a sweet Polish and Jewish classic," she wrote. From "Quiches, Kugels and Couscous."

For dough:

• 21/2 - 3 c. flour, plus extra for rolling dough

• 1/4 c. sugar, divided

• 21/2 tsp. active dry yeast

• 1/2 c. whole milk, at room temperature

• 1 egg, plus 3 to 4 egg yolks (enough to make 1/2 c. egg and egg yolks, combined)

• 1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces, plus extra for bowl and pans

• 11/4 c. pitted black picholine olives

• 2 (2-oz.) cans anchovies, drained, divided

• 1 tbsp. fennel seeds, pulverized

• 1 to 2 tbsp. olive oil

• 2 tbsp. melted butter

To prepare dough: Grease a large mixing bowl with butter and reserve.

In a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine 21/2 cups flour, salt and all but 1 tablespoon sugar. In a small bowl, combine yeast, remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water and stir just until sugar and yeast have dissolved.

With mixer on low speed, pour yeast mixture, milk, egg and egg yolks into flour mixture and mix until dough is smooth, shiny and elastic, about 10 minutes, adding a little more flour as needed. Add butter, a piece at a time, until it is incorporated, then continue to mix, on low speed, for about 5 minutes, until dough is silken and rich.

Transfer dough to prepared mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise, at room temperature, for about 2 hours. When dough has risen, press it down, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 or 2 hours or overnight.

To prepare tapenade filling: In bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine olives, 1 can anchovies, fennel and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Purée mixture until smooth. Taste and add more anchovies, and another tablespoon of olive oil if filling is not smooth enough.

On a lightly floured surface, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out one piece of dough into a 12- by 16-inch rectangle. Using a knife or offset spatula, spread half of olive-anchovy filling very thinly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border all around.

Beginning with the long side, tuck in ends and roll up dough tightly. Cut rolled-up dough into 12 equal pieces and place them in a single layer, with one of the cut sides of each facing up, in one of the prepared pans.

Repeat with remaining dough, filling other prepared pan. Cover pans with a towel and let babkas rise, at room temperature, for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush babkas with melted butter. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer pans to a wire rack. Once rolls are cool enough to handle, gently pull them apart into individual babkas.

RATATOUILLE

Note: "The word 'ratatouille' is related to the word touiller and the Latin tudiculare, meaning 'to stir,' 'crush' or 'toss,'" writes Joan Nathan in "Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous." "After being cooked, the vegetables were originally assembled in a rectangular earthenware tian casserole, then gratinéed, and served hot or cold on the Sabbath." Piment d'Espelette is a hot but not fiery Basque pepper from Espelette, a town near Toulouse, and can be substituted with hot paprika or New Mexico red chili powder.

• 1/4 c. olive oil

• 5 medium yellow onions, cut into1/2-in. pieces

• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

• 2 tsp. salt, plus extra to taste

• Freshly ground pepper to taste

• 2 lb. tomatoes, cut into 1/2-in. pieces

• 2 lb. eggplants, preferably small ones, cut into 1/2-in. pieces

• 1 red bell pepper, stem removed, seeded and cut into 1/2-in. pieces

• 1 green bell pepper, stem removed, seeded and cut into 1/2-in. pieces

• 1 tsp. piment d'Espelette (or hot paprika, or New Mexican ground red chili), divided

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm olive oil. Add onions, garlic and salt and cook until onions are just translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove three-quarters of onions to a bowl.

Add zucchini to skillet with remaining quarter of onions, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook for a few minutes, until zucchini begins to brown. Transfer zucchini-onion mixture to an 8-inch square or circular baking pan.

Sauté eggplants and a third of onions, then transfer mixture to its own 8-inch baking pan.

Divide the remaining third of onions in half. Sauté red peppers in half of remaining onions until peppers just begin to brown, then transfer mixture to its own 8-inch baking pan.

Sauté green peppers and remaining onions until peppers just begin to brown, then transfer mixture to baking pan with the red pepper mixture.

Cover pans with aluminum foil and bake 60 minutes. Uncover pans and sprinkle 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon piment d'Espelette (or hot paprika, or New Mexican ground red chili) over each pan and gently stir.

Return pans to oven, uncovered, and bake an additional 60 minutes. Remove pans from oven. If any liquid remains in pans after second hour, drain vegetables and reserve liquid.