A shareable spud and meat staple

This month's FRIENDSHIP FOOD recipe made its way from the kitchen table to restaurants and back.

Bonjour! Bonjour!

Yes, I am writing to you from Paris and I’m delighted to be here and to have you with me.

Every time that we fly over, I promise myself that I’ll stay up the whole first day, but nope — even though I was crazy excited to be here and even though the day was gorgeous, by the time I unpacked (it’s embarrassing, but after 25 years, I still don’t know how to just bundle up my laptop, notebooks and pencils and get on the plane), I was worthless and needed a nap. But I’ve been vertical every day since. A double treat: I’m in Paris and walking under my own steam — my knee seems fine (as I knock on wood while typing), which is such a good thing, given that our metro station is 70 steps down and 70 steps up.

It’s been croissants and coffee ever since — the croissant below is from Isabelle.

Pizza night, too. Dan Pearson, who was making fabulous worth-traveling-across- town pizzas on off nights at Le Rigmarole, now, along with the Rig team, has his own place, Oobatz, and as Meg Zimbeck wrote in Paris by Mouth, it’s worth the hassle of nabbing yourself a reservation.

And dinners chez us, including one with Jane Bertch, she of La Cuisine Paris and The French Ingredient, which was exceedingly homey, even if the main course was inspired by a dish I had in a restaurant. And even if that dish is usually served at home — a delicious kind of roundabout.

The evolution of the dish was such fun and the dish so good and so perfect for sharing, that it’s my pick for this month’s FRIENDSHIP FOOD recipe. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you the humble hachis parmentier, also doing business in homes across the world as Shepherd’s or Cottage Pie.

And because a FRIENDSHIP FOOD recipe always includes a donation in the name of my friends — that would be you, my readers — this month I contributed in your honor to Heifer International, an organization that seeks to eradicate poverty and hunger by providing resources and education to farmers and their communities around the world.

Crying with a view, or chopping onions in my Paris kitchen

Hachis Parmentier/Shepherd’s Pie

The first time I saw hachis parmentier on the menu at Le Bistrot Paul Bert in Paris, I was surprised — this is a dish that’s regularly served at home and rarely in a restaurant, even in a bistro. I was also delighted — it’s a wonderful dish and I’ve never met anyone who eats meat who doesn’t like it. In fact, as I wrote in Around My French Table years ago [Get a copy at Amazon or Bookshop.org], I’d finished a luxurious meal at Restaurant Daniel in New York City, and asked the chef, Daniel Boulud, what he’d be having that night. His dinner was going to be hachis parmentier and he told me this with the same glee you’d expect him to muster for blini and caviar. It is for French people what mac ‘n’ cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, and mom’s best roast chicken is for us Americans: A dish that takes you home. It’s a base of well-seasoned meat — usually leftovers — topped with mashed potatoes. While shepherd’s pie is often built on lamb, hachis parmentier can be any kind of meat and, if it’s made from leftover pot-au-feu, a classic boiled dinner, it might be several kinds of meat. The meat is highly seasoned, moistened with broth and then spooned into a baking dish — think casserole — topped with mashed potatoes and baked until the potatoes are browned and everything on the bottom bubbles up to the top and gets drippy. Think sloppy Joes with spuds.

Photo by Alan Richardson for Around My French Table

In fact, the dish that brought hachis parmentier to mind at Paul Bert was tomate farcie (stuffed tomato), where an heirloom tomato from the bistro’s farm is filled with a mixture reminiscent of a sloppy Joe, and then served on a bed of tomato-rice. It’s a dish that’s so popular in France that many butchers sell it all put together and ready for you to take home, bake and pass off as grandma’s.

Paul Bert's hachis Parmentier and tomate farcie, and a butcher-prepared tomate farcie

Since it’s unlikely I’d ever have the remains of a pot-au-feu hanging around — and rarely have leftover potted meat (although I did make an excellent hachis parmentier from the bits that I salvaged from my favorite stew [recipe for that stew here] ) — I began making the dish from scratch, using ground meat or cut up pieces of inexpensive beef, and amping up the flavor with sausage and spices.

The joy of a hachis parmentier is that it’s happy to be nudged in whatever direction you like — just like meatloaf, meatballs and sloppy Joes.

This past weekend I made a version that nodded to North Africa.

Photo by Ellen Silverman for Everyday Dorie

I’ve got that recipe for you. And I’ve got pictures of the Mediterranean-ish pie for you, too. What I’m missing is what food stylists call “the hero” — the picture that sets you to imagining what it would be like to serve the dish in your own home. For this recipe, the hero would have been a generous ladleful of the meat and potatoes in a bowl (I like this as bowl-food) with a glistening green salad snug up against it. Sadly, instead of snapping a picture of the food, I served it. It wasn’t until we were reaching into the center of the table to take seconds that I realized I hadn’t caught the moment. Instead, we ate everything when it was hot and fragrant and delicious. I’m sure you understand.

Maybe this is our new definition of FRIENDSHIP FOOD, delicious food that encourages friendship.