This week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays comes from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Everyday Dorie and is intriguingly named Carrot and Mustard “Rillettes. When I think “rillettes” I think of a meaty spread (“pork immersed in fat and cooked almost forever”) much like the many versions we’ve made before cooking through Dorie and David’s books (see here).
In fact, there’s no meat in sight here as this is all veggies! Inspired by a dish from MOMA’s restaurant, The Modern, this is a vegetarian dish instead of the classic iteration and “is made of quickly steamed carrots, cubes of cheese and lots of mustard”. Um, ok then.
Dorie’s photo shows beautiful toasted slices of baguette with cubes of both cheese and carrots which, to me, looked 1. difficult to eat and 2. tedious to cut the carrots and cheese small enough that they had a chance of staying on the bread as they made their way to your mouth. Hmmm…
I riffed on Dorie’s recipe, grating both the cheese and the carrots to eliminate the cooking step for the carrots and for less mess and fuss. Also, I figured the mixture would stand a better chance of staying on the bread (I was right).
The carrots and cheese are mixed with mustard (smooth and grainy), cumin and caraway seeds, pepper and olive oil and left to sit for a while to absorb all the flavours. The bread is toasted and spread with a mixture of mustard seeds, mayonnaise, Greek yoghurt and more mustard (this is outstanding as a spread, btw).
It’s kind of like a carrot salad on baguette – like bruschetta but different. I quite liked this but it was a lot of work for a small snack (I made 1/4 of the recipe to serve two of us for an apéro and even then it made more than we could eat). Would I make this again? Probably, for a crowd. Would I grate the carrots again? 100% !
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Carrot and Mustard “Rillettes” on page 10 of Everyday Dorie or here.
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Everyday Dorie” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions 100% my own.
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I’ll admit I looked at these with a slight side-eye at first…but in fact they were a wonderful apero snack.
They almost had a sardine-y feel to them, which I know makes no sense whatsoever. But there you have it.
Found myself searching for a glass of Fino (Sherry) or perhaps a bottle of Muscadet Sevre et Maine.
oh, yes to the fino sherry!
I was very skeptical of these but we ended up loving them! I didn’t have any trouble with the carrots and cheese staying in place but I can see how your idea works as well! I did like the roasted carrot flavor though!
Like you, I thought Rillettes were something completely different so I was a happy to see this version. Your ideas about grating the carrots and cheese is a good one, cutting those teeny tiny bits definitely took more time than grating. I made my baguette in cross slices as I thought the longer version would be harder to eat for some reason, but I love the shape of yours, so now I’m regretting that decision. Next time. Beautiful photos here, as always. (I know…can you believe I’m finally jumping in over here…it took me longer than I thought to get over our Alex’s death, five years now so I need to swing back into things like this.)
These look great! Can’t wait to try them.
Free-styling is the fun way to go. I like how yours turns out.
I agree the spread was wonderful. I love all your “free-styling”, what ever works to get it on the table. Sounds like a surprise hit for all of us.
interesting moves with the shredding- much easier to eat!