Chervil

Salade de Laitue The word laitue comes from the Latin word for milk, from the milky juices some lettuces can exude. Hearty, buttery Bibb leaves are a good example of the rich, juicy quality lettuce can have. They're so big and rich, in fact, that this salad almost qualifies as a meal in itself. This salad is all about freshness. Use plenty of freshly picked fines herbes: parsley, chives, tarragon, and chervil; harder herbs, such as savory, rosemary, and marjoram, would be too strong. Finish it with a squeeze of lemon juice. Buy nice rounded, mature heads of Bibb lettuce, with good weight; these will have the greatest amount of tender yellow interior leaves. If the leaves have become at all soft and leathery, a rinse in cold water will refresh them.

Gnocchi à la Parisienne Parisienne gnocchi are made from pâte à choux, a versatile dough made by cooking flour and water together until the flour cooks, after which eggs are stirred in. It can then be piped into various shapes and baked for profiteroles and éclairs for dessert, or savory preparations such as gougères, or gently poached in water as gnocchi. Parisienne gnocchi are tasty, satisfying morsels that, like Italian gnocchi or any pasta, can be paired with all kinds of ingredients and transformed into countless dishes. They're excellent simply sautéed in butter. They can be additionally flavored with fines herbes, mustard, and cheese. At Bouchon, we don't serve much pasta or rice, so we use gnocchi as an interesting base for a number of our vegetarian dishes. They're not a classic bistro food, but the technique is a French one, dating back to before Escoffier. This recipe will make about 240 gnocchi, double what you'll need for the Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash . Once they've been poached, gnocchi can be frozen for a month to six weeks.

If you don't have any baby squash, just slice up some regular-sized ones. This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This salad was inspired by a classic Salade Niçoise with its fresh anchovies, potatoes and green beans, and one offered to me by Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse, who comes to France every year to avail herself of, among other things, the fine green beans of summer.

This is delicious as an accompaniment to cooked shellfish and many white-fleshed fish.

Stitt likes to use rock salt — the kind used for old-fashioned ice cream churners — as a bed for these oysters because it keeps the shells from tipping and sliding around in the pan and on the plates. Rock salt is sold at many supermarkets, but kosher salt is a good substitute. At the restaurant, Stitt makes this recipe with local Apalachicola oysters, though he also likes the flavor of East Coast varieties such as Blue Point, Pemaquid, and Malpeque, so feel free to use your favorite.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Lobster stew is a very traditional dish made with lobster, milk, butter, salt, and pepper. You will find this in many restaurants in Maine, the best being the ones with the most lobster. I have embellished on the original dish but have left intact the strong and rich lobster flavor. When Craig Claiborne asked me to put together a New England Thanksgiving dinner, this was the soup I served. It is also great as a hearty main course soup.

Tartines de Caviar à la Crème Aigre Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 25 min

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 2 1/4 hr In addition to being a great complement to the poached salmon, this mayonnaise is a good pair with shrimp, veal, or poached chicken breasts.

I usually forget how satisfying it is to eat mussels this way — splashing into the steamy bowl fragrant with spring herbs — until I'm at a restaurant eating them and think, "Mmm, I should make these again, soon."

This sauce is really just another variant of Hollandaise, but it is sufficiently famous to be dignified with a separate heading. The sauce calls classically, for a variety of fresh herbs which may be difficult to obtain. Adequate substitutes and dried herbs solve the problem. The only real problem is tarragon. Do not use dried tarragon. If you cannot obtain fresh tarragon, use tarragon packed in vinegar.