10 Legendary Julia Childs Recipes (2024)

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What are Julia's 10 best recipes? ›

Child's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe was featured in one of the earliest episodes of The French Chef and has become a classic among the many Child enthusiasts at GBH. In fact, GBH News host Henry Santoro concludes there's no better recipe for the dish.

Soup was one of Julia Child's favorite things to eat, and reportedly, her absolute favorite was vichyssoise. Leek and potato soup, known as potage parmentier in French, is a classic base soup recipe. What sets vichyssoise apart is the addition of cream—and the fact that it is traditionally served chilled.

Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken

Child seasoned this roast chicken inside and out by packing sautéed vegetables, lemon slices, and fresh herbs into the cavity, then rubbing the skin with butter. In typical French fashion, she trussed the bird to promote even cooking.

For their first meal in France, Paul ordered oysters, sole meunière and a green salad. Child devoured the meal, calling it “perfection.” Alex Prud'homme, Child's grandnephew and cowriter of her memoir, “My Life in France,” opened the book with this now famous scene.

Child and her husband, Paul, stopped for lunch at Restaurant La Couronne (“The Crown”) in Rouen, the capital of the northern region of Normandy. For their first meal in France, Paul ordered oysters, sole meunière and a green salad.

Child's set included a backdrop for this very purpose, where she would perch at the end of each episode to dig in — and it was where she memorialized her famous closing line, which was, in fact, ad-libbed, just as portrayed in “Julia”: “Bon appétit!”

According to Distractify, while Child was raised for the most part in California, her voice may have been inspired by Mid-Atlantic accents while attending Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

3. She used an exorbitant amount of butter — even later in life. According to PBS, Child used a whopping 753 pounds of butter during the time she filmed "Baking with Julia." That program aired for just four seasons, from 1996 through 1999, so that's a pretty impressive amount of dairy.

Julia Child is probably best known for bringing French cuisine into America's mainstream. But, few know that she had a dynamic career as an intelligence officer before she became a cooking icon. She was born in Pasadena, Calif., on Aug. 15, 1912.

What famous cookbook did Julia Child write? ›

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both from France, and Julia Child, who was from the United States. The book was written for the American market and published by Knopf in 1961 (Volume 1) and 1970 (Volume 2).

This Queen of Sheba Chocolate Cake is one of Julia Child's most famous recipes, and for all the right reasons. It's a simple cake recipe that yields a rich chocolatey taste with hints of almonds and a thin layer of chocolate buttercream to wow your guests.

Thermador Thermal Convection Oven used by Julia Child.

Where did Julia Child shop? Aside from the many French restaurants Julia would frequent, her favourite place to go was E. Dehillerin — a French cookware store in Paris. Established in 1820, this historic landmark was Julia's treasure trove of copper pots during her time living in Paris in the 50s'.

Little, Brown & Company turned the blog into a book, “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.” Although some critics wrote that it lacked literary heft, it went on to sell more than a million copies, mostly under the title given to the paperback: “Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.”

Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. While working for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in August 2002, Powell began the Julie/Julia Project, a blog on Salon chronicling her attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Julia and Winston are Outer Party members. She brought real coffee, real sugar, jam, and some white bread.