1,542 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven.
What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven.

Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but is this the right way to do it?

5,659 4/5 (2 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Fillet Oil Vegetables Spread Even Seasoning Mix Coat Brush

Last modified on: July 13^th 2025

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

A drizzle of olive oil

A good method?

Let's say it right away, no, it's not a very good method, and here's why:

Spreading the oil in this way, in one quick gesture, will apply a little, but alas, not everywhere, and a good proportion of the vegetables won't be oiled. As one chef joked, "You put it everywhere, except where it's needed".
By doing this, you're only going to put oil on the top of the vegetables, which may be intentional, or on the contrary, it may interfere with the cooking process.

What to do?

Here are 2 more effective ways.

1) Put the vegetables in a salad bowl, pour the oil over them, mix them thoroughly, and only then put them in the baking dish.

Note : Little oil used, evenly distributed, seasoning can be done at the same time.

By the way, the best and quickest way to mix the contents of a bowl like this is to place a plate or lid on top, hold it in your hand, and shake gently.

2) Coat the vegetables with a brush dipped in oil all over their surface, then only send to the oven.

Note : Very little oil used, perfectly distributed, brush can be replaced by a sprayer, seasoning can be done after the brush stroke, rather suitable for large pieces (half-vegetable).

I've used the example of vegetables with olive oil here, but of course this can be applied to any recipe where you need to spread a liquid (oil, wine, juice, syrup, etc.) on one or more foods.

In short: To spread a liquid on food, it's best to mix it together, or coat the food with the liquid.

Lasts posts

Butter vs. grease

We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?
December 1^st 20251,2075

Getting out of the fridge early

Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24^th 20251,2105

Who's making the croissants?

When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23^th 20251,104

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20253,0005

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20257,7053

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?

This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .
February 7^th 2017134 K 14.1

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20255,4145

Oven height

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021284 K 23.8

Egg yolks and caster sugar

We often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together.
February 15^th 201883 K 24.3