Cooking up the best for the holidays with Sophie Dudemaine

MarketWatch (MCT) - With the stock market falling faster than the mercury in many parts of the country, many people may decide to hunker down this holiday season and celebrate with family and friends at home.

The idea of entertaining at home during the holidays sounds cozy, but it can also be overwhelming. Yet cooking at home and bringing family and friends to the holiday table doesn't have to be difficult, says Sophie Dudemaine, well-known French chef, cookbook author and television personality.

"Just having confidence in what you cook goes a long way to the success of the dish," she says.

Giving home chefs the confidence to expand their repertoire of dishes is one of her specialties.

She recently released a cookbook designed just to do that: "Ducasse Made Simple by Sophie: 100 recipes from the Master Chef Simplified for the Home Cook." (Les Editions d'Alain Ducasse, $35)

In it, Dudemaine has selected and simplified 100 recipes from chef Alain Ducasse's encyclopedic "Grand Livre de Cuisine." While retaining the spirit of Ducasse's recipes, Dudemaine has made the world-renowned chef's cuisine accessible to home cooks. In addition, Linda Dannenberg, the author of more than 20 books on French cooking and culture, has tested and adapted the recipes for American readers.

And Dudemaine is serious about making grand recipes manageable for home cooks. In France, she insists her phone number be included in her cookbooks so that readers can call her for feedback or in a culinary crisis.

Dudemaine says it's this bond with her audience that gives her the insight into what people want. And many, she says, want the ability to cook and entertain like a master chef at home, without the hassle or fear of failure.

She calls Ducasse "The Master" and herself the "Queen of the desperate housewives" and was so "dazzled" and "fascinated" with his cooking that she contacted him to see if she could adapt his recipes.

"When I was calling the master Mr. Ducasse to suggest rewriting his recipes, it was important to me to keep his magic touch ... I love the raw and cooked, hot and cold contrast in all of his dishes. Because it is important that for our guests, we surprise them with something that is not usual, it's original, so I kept that in the recipes."

After tasting three of the recipes she had adapted, Dudemaine said, Ducasse agreed to let her write the cookbook interpreting his recipes. She said she worked closely with co-author Dannenberg to be certain all the ingredients and utensils called for in the recipes could be easily found in America.

The book includes a wide range of starters such as pumpkin volute soup and scallop salad; entrees such as salmon with morels, scampi capriccio, spicy lamb loin, and duck a loran; side dishes such as pesto pasta and risotto with zucchini and parmesan; and desserts such as apricot tarts, macaroons with macaroni, and caramel ice cream.

Free Christmas & Advent PDFs | Available in English, Spanish and French

Many of the recipes in the book are suitable for home entertaining, especially as they allow the cook to spend time out of the kitchen and in the company of guests. Dudemaine admits she too is often in her kitchen during parties because she loves to cook. But she loves to be with her friends and family, she says, so she does serve a lot of casseroles which can be made ahead of time.

"In France, Christmas is for family and News Year's Eve is celebrated with friends" she said. And Dudemaine allows everyone to pitch in. The French love finger foods and appetizers, she added, which are usually provided by her guests, along with desserts. She tackles the main course and often prepares her favorites, scallops with shrimp or traditional French dishes with duck.

But she says the best recipe for any aspiring chef is to "be Zen, be cool, and proud of your dishes and they will be a success."

___

© 2008, MarketWatch.com Inc.