List of recipes from category Tips and tricks: 92 recipes
A short selection of recipes from this list
List of recipes from category Tips and tricks
- Cooking: 11 recipes
- How to...: 54 recipes
- Tarts: 1 recipe
- Tricks: 13 recipes
- Work on/prepare an ingredient: 5 recipes
- You should not...: 8 recipes
Cooking
How to bake blind
This method allows you to cook a tart case, and then fill with a preparation which may or may not need further cooking (fruit, chocolate, crème patissière , etc...). May 6th 2017929 K5 1 hour 40 min.
How to cook hard-boiled eggs properly
A hard-boiled egg is properly cooked when: shell is not broken, white and yolk are firm, yolk is only yellow with no traces of green around it. Here are some tips to make this easy. November 4th 20131.38 M 65 1 hour 30 min.
How to slow cook meat
By cooking meat slowly with no added fat, it will become very tender - almost melt-in-the-mouth - and can be cut with a fork. November 6th 2011173 K5 4 hours 45 min.
How to cook rice in rice-cooker
Cooking rice in a specially adapted "rice-cooker" is practical and quick: you don't have to watch it during cooking, it's fast (15 minutes) and the rice-cooker switches automatically to "keep warm". February 21th 2011935 K 24.9 20 min.
Cooking sugar
Cooking sugar, which is one of the basics of patisserie and sweet-making, is a delicate operation in which sugar is heated from 100°C or 212°F to 180°C or 356°F. Here is some information on this tricky subject. [Translator's note: the terms used below correspond to the French tradition, as often used by English-speaking chefs, but there are other stages and terms in other traditions. Best to use a thermometer, and be guided by temperature, as the English terms commonly used in domestic... April 3rd 2019505 K4.9 45 min.
How to cook bacon and remove excess fat
To prevent excess fat in a recipe using bacon, you can "blanch" it before use, leaving most of the fat in the pan with the water. February 21th 2011391 K 44.8 15 min.
How to fry eggs well
You've probably heard the expression: "S/he can't even cook an egg," suggesting that the person referred is a hopeless cook. In reality, frying eggs well isn't as easy as it might appear. The two most frequent errors: the white develops a brown crust around the outside which is unpleasant in the mouth, or the yolk is surrounded by white that is still raw and runny. Here is a foolproof and easy method that will help you avoid both. March 11th 2018515 K 14.6 20 min.
How to cook pasta properly
Here is some advice for pasta that's properly cooked and doesn't stick. July 18th 20191.16 M4.4 25 min.
How to grill salmon well
This is not as simple as it might at first appear. A properly grilled piece of salmon should be crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. This soft interior is achieved by very strict timing (cooking fish just right is a sign of a true chef), as undercooked it is unpleasant, and overcooked the salmon dries out. October 13th 2010485 K4.3 25 min.
How to cook Morteau sausage well
This is, in my opinion, the best smoked sausage. You can cook it in a number of ways, here are three of the best known. November 15th 20182.78 M 23.4 40 min.
How to cook red meat properly
Cooking red meat well is not as simple as it might seem. Even if you start with high quality meat, with poor cooking it can become dry and tough. Here's a way that will guarantee you a perfect result. October 13th 2010481 K2.7 1 hour 25 min.
How to...
How to divide a preparation evenly
It often happens in cooking: one makes a cream for 6 people in a saucepan, then the recipe says "divide the cream evenly between the glasses", which usually gets done by eye with varying degrees of success. To divide out the preparation more precisely, here's a simple tip just using June 3rd 201158 K5 20 min.
How to dust
"Dusting" in cooking is sprinkling a very fine layer of something in powder form. Icing sugar or cocoa powder on cakes for example. As this is not very easy to do evenly, here is a way to do it. October 13th 2010154 K5 2 min.
How to make ravioli
In theory, making ravioli is fairly simple: just roll out wide bands of thin fresh pasta dough and encase small pieces of pre-prepared filling between two sheets of pasta. In practice, it's a bit trickier than that and having the right equipment is important. This recipe shows you how to make beautiful ravioli step by step. May 30th 201692 K5 1 hour 20 min.
How to prepare a bain-marie
A bain-marie is the best way to cook or heat a preparation gently without risk of burning. July 5th 2013521 K5 7 min.
How to use a forcing bag (piping or icing bag)
The forcing bag is the tool needed whenever you need to deposit a blob of something precisely in a particular place (in a mould, a glass, on a plate, etc). Here is how you do it. January 14th 2011302 K 15 25 min.
How to prepare rhubarb
Rhubarb and its characteristic flavour can be the basis of delicious desserts, but it needs to be prepared a certain way before using. October 13th 2010225 K4.9 30 min.
How to cook caramelized puff pastry well
When puff pastry is caramelized to use in patisseries like millefeuille, French chefs call it a "feuilletage" (which means "lamination" or "leafing"). This is baked on its own before being assembled with cream, fruit, etc. The baking needs to be carefully managed: the pastry should puff into layers, but not swell too much (just a few millimeters normally). To achieve this, we need to follow a special method that I have explained for you here. September 3rd 2017284 K 24.9 40 min.
How to use gelatin
Gelatin is a gelling agent use in some desserts where a rather firm texture is required when cold. It can also be used to stabilize a dessert (mousses especially) that you need to keep longer than usual. July 9th 2018421 K4.8 7 min.
How to prepare a lettuce
It is much more economical to buy a whole lettuce than separate leaves in a plastic packet. And it's so simple to prepare - you can see how here. April 17th 2011411 K4.8 30 min.
How to rehydrate dried mushrooms
Rehydrating dried mushrooms restoes them to something like their fresh texture, ready to use in a recipe. You will see that there is more to it than simply leaving them to soak in water. At the same time, we can also make a delicious mushroom "jus" to use in recipes. Throughout the recipe, I have used morels as the example, but the same applies to any other dried mushrooms. April 5th 2017359 K4.8 1 hour 10 min.
How to prepare a pumpkin (or potimarron)
Here is how to prepare a pumpkin for use in a recipe like the delicious potimarron soup. February 21th 2011413 K4.6 25 min.
How to roll out pastry for a tart
Rolling out pastry from a block and lining a tart mould or tin is not as straighforward as all that. To help you to succeed every time, here is a very simple tip. It will to change your opinion of tarts... October 13th 2010307 K4.6 25 min.
How to prepare cucumber
Or how to start with a whole cucumber and finish with small crunchy dice, ready to be added to a salad. August 6th 2019254 K4.6 40 min.
How to cook potato grenaille
The French call very small potatoes "grenaille". This is a typical way of cooking them: the tiny potatoes are pan-fried in their skins and make an excellent accompanient for meat. Grenaille can be made with any kind of potato; it is a question of size, rather than variety, though I think that firm-textured potatoes, such as rattes or charlottes, work best. I am using rattes in the photos. The cooking is a combined method: boiling first, then frying. This is quicker than using a single method. September 16th 2015467 K4.5 45 min.
How to glaze a tart
Professional pastrycooks usually say that "a beautiful cake is already half sold", it is one of the reasons why they do not put a tart on sale without glazing it ("abricoter" in Fench), i.e. coating it with a thick apricot syrup. This glaze gives a glossy finish to the tart (see the photographs below) and also protects it from the air and thus from oxidation and browning. It's a quite simple technique that you can easily apply to give to your desserts a professional look. This is how you do it. February 15th 2016463 K4.4 7 min.
How to make marzipan decorations
Making marzipan decorations for cakes or desserts is fairly simple. Here are some tips to make it even easier. October 13th 2010221 K 24.3 15 min.
How to peel a fruit
Usually French chefs says "peler à vif", which means to completely peel the fruit (removing skin and core) and keep only the very best of the flesh. Here is a method for grapefruit, but it can be used for all the other citrus fruit, and many other fruits. February 21th 2011190 K4.3 35 min.
How to use a vanilla pod effectively
Vanilla pods are used in many recipes, but they need to treated in a particular way to be effective, detailed here. February 21th 2011397 K4.3 35 min.
