Overview

Food served in small glasses — verrines — has been popular in France for at least four years. José Maréchal’s book Verrines, published by Murdoch Books, is only the second book in English to focus strongly on this type of dish. Two of Maréchal’s French books on verrines (published by Marabout: Verrines, Verrines toutes fraîches) have been combined to produce this compact 128 page volume in English which gives an excellent introduction and provides lots of inspiration.

As a food-of-the-moment, verrines are easily dismissed as a fad, but they have been popular enough in France that they can’t be ignored. Interestingly, they haven’t translated into common British or North American dining in any appreciable way. As Maréchal puts it, a verrine is “an entrée or a dessert interestingly composed with layers of food of different texture, flavour and colour.” There’s little genius to putting food in a glass, yet the results are pretty enough to be indulged, and changing the form of eating can change perception of flavours.

Being a stylish kind of concept, a book about verrines is destined to contain stylish recipes (fancy ingredients or presentation). Maréchal’s book presents some modest, simple recipes and many fancier ones, such as: Niçoise crumble with goat’s cheese cream (ratatouille topped with goat’s cheese and then a crumble); watermelon gazpacho (combines classic and new ingredients); avocado-orange milkshake wih crab; zucchini caviar with parmesan cream; rice pudding, raspberries and speculaas; bilberries with red wine and rosemary; tropical trifle with coconut tapioca.

Verrines contains over 50 full recipes (sweet and savoury), plus a few pages of equipment tips and interesting quick preparation ideas such as scallops with vanilla oil, oranges, cinnamon and shortbreads, or coffee mousse with nougat chips. The recipes are cleanly formatted and Akiko Ida’s photographs make the dishes appear delicious and beautiful.

Although presented as a no-nonsense cookbook with little time spent on detailed instruction, the perishability of some dishes and the use of raw egg could have justified a little more comment than a note hidden at the back of the book about possible hazards from raw eggs. And while the suggestion of advance freezing of mousses, pestos and some other items in ice-cube trays for practicality (”tip them out, when you’re ready to add the final ingredients”) is nifty, my stomach lurched at the prospect of months-old cubes of stuff being added to verrines by inexperienced cooks.

Verrines is a fun and useful book to have, with a genuinely French feel that reflects the trend (and might also scare off some cooks unfamiliar with boudin noir, speculaas, ras el hanout or other sometimes exotic ingredients). Despite my concerns about certain hazards, this is a title that deserves five stars because it achieves what it needs to so well, combining a feel for the dishes with tips and inspirations. This book suits cooks who enjoy food presentation and bright flavours and who have at least basic technical confidence. And if you don’t like trendy food presentation, just scale-up the recipes to something less dainty and, I would guess, equally delicious.