List of 140 recipes using Water

"Buttonhole" quail eggs

This little appetizer consists of a small finger of toast, a slice of cured ham and three quail egg yolks arranged on a rectangle of egg white. It is a bit tricky to make, but very attractive to serve, and delicious, of course.

Auvergne soup

Auvergne soup, sometimes called "Soupe de raves", is a turnip and potato soup poured into a bowl over toasted croutons and diced Saint-nectaire cheese.

Du Barry soup

Du Barry is a creamy cauliflower soup, including small whole pieces of cauliflower.

French onion soup

This warming onion soup is an emblematic French dish, both in bistro cuisine and home cooking. This is a very classic version. The long, slow cooking is the secret to revealing its full flavour.

Gazpacho

Gazpacho is a cold soup of Spanish origin, most commonly associated with Andalusia, made with blended raw vegetables. It is served well chilled, often in the summer, as an appetizer or a light meal.

Hummus

Hummus (or houmous), is one of the famous and delicious Lebanese "mezzes".

Kale and potato soup

Kale, potatoes and croutons for this simple but delicious soup.

Leek and Jerusalem artichoke soup

Jerusalem artichoke and leek is a much rarer combination than the classic potato and leek, but it works rather well, as you will see in this recipe.

Leek and potato soup

A classic of French family cooking.

Mushroom velouté

This smooth, creamy soup with its lovely mushroom flavour is quick and easy to make.

Pumpkin (or potimarron) soup

A smooth and fragrant soup, it's much better with potimarron (Japanese chestnut pumpkin) than ordinary pumpkin.

Quick courgette soup with cheese

This really is an express recipe, less than 30 minutes from washing courgettes to serving soup.

Sesame and Comté Crackers

These ultra-crispy crackers feature a delicious combination of toasted sesame seeds and grated Comté cheese.

Sesame fried scampi

Scampi, coated with a sesame crust, fried quickly, and served with a herb salad.

Sorrel soup

Smooth with a slight sharpness, this soup has a very particular taste.

Soup Cornouaillaise

This rustic soup comes from Cornouailles in Brittany – France's very own Cornwall. It is made with fried bacon and onions, and thickened with a little buckwheat flour, typical of the region.

Super-green, super-thrifty soup

It's all too easy to just throw away the leaves or other green parts of our usual fresh vegetables. This is a real shame, because most of them can be cooked, as in this very green soup that uses up radish tops, spring onion greens and pea pods. I'm sure you'll get how it's "green" in every sense: economical, simple and a way to reduce waste.

Turnip and Jerusalem artichoke soup

This soup combines the earthy flavours of Jerusalem artichokes and turnips. This is the chance to use not only the roots, but the turnip tops as well, if possible.

Turnip top soup

It may no longer be widely known these days, but the leafy tops of certain root vegetables are edible, so it's a shame to waste them. Better still, the leaves can be made into interesting accompaniments for their root vegetable, or soups with amazing flavours. In this recipe, I will show you how to make a soup with turnip and radish leaves.

Winter vegetable soup

A warm, comforting winter vegetable soup whose recipe can be adapted to whatever vegetables you find on the market.

Langoustine gratin

This elegant gratin has a layer of brunoise vegetables in the bottom, with langoustine tails (scampi) cooked in two stages on top, finished with a thick creamy sauce, made with the "fumet" from the langoustines. This recipe is quite long to make, but can be prepared in stages over a number of days. The end result is well worth all the effort.

Langoustine sabayon tart

For this recipe, the tart cases are made with sheets of filo pastry. These are filled with langoustines coated in a delicious lime-flavoured sabayon.

Salmon chard rolls

For this dish only the green part of the chard is used. The blanched leaves are rolled around grilled salmon portions. The rolls are served coated with a savoury lemon sabayon, or the sauce of your choice.

Turban of sole with langoustines

The turban is made from a rolled fillet of sole poached in fish stock. Each turban is then filled with sautéed langoustines and a tasty cream sauce, flavoured with langoustine stock. This dish takes quite a long time to make because of the langoustine stock, but you will really impress your guests.

Confit of carrots with bacon

As with any confit, these carrots are cooked long and slow. This is done in the oven in chicken stock, with the carrots rolled in a strip of bacon or cured ham that has been lightly fried.

Fillet of beef in a rosemary crust

This is a sophisticated way to cook beef fillet (tenderloin): we make an unleavened bread dough (which will not be eaten), adding plenty of salt and lots of roughly chopped springs of rosemary. The beef fillet is seared all over in a frying pan, then wrapped in the dough before being cooked in a hot oven.

Quick chicken curry

This curry is quick to make if you have left over cooked chicken, and is always delicious.

Rabbit civet "à la normande"

In French cooking, "à la normande" means there are apples involved, as Normandy is famous for them. In this twist on the classic civet, the rabbit meat is cooked on the bone in cider, after marinating overnight. The sauce is made at the end with the cooking juices and cream.

Sausage and lentils "en cocotte"

This is a casserole-style version of the traditional French sausage-and-lentils recipe with a special feature: the lentils are cooked in just the right amount of water. The other ingredients add flavour as does, most importantly, the sausage (preferably smoked). When pricked, this will release its full flavour into the lentils during cooking. Not only will the lentils be perfectly cooked and extra-tasty, thanks to the sausage, they are ideal to serve with the sausage itself.

Sausage and mashed potatoes

Sausage and mashed potato, a classic family favourite, served here with a delicious reduced gravy.

Steak burger topped with egg

A succulent steak burger, topped with a perfect egg. Here are all the tips you need to produce this simple but delicious dish.

Cassoulet

Cassoulet is typical, even emblematic, of southern French cuisine. It is a "slow food" casserole in which meat and vegetables, particualrly dried beans, are cooked together for a long time. Here is a simplified version of this famous dish.

Cheese tart

This is a very simple recipe for a "Pontarlier" style cheese tart that allows you to prepare a number at the same time. They freeze very well, so you can easily stock up for later.

Chicken pie

Apart from the obvious chicken, this pie's puff pastry "lid" also conceals mushrooms, bacon, hard-boiled eggs and leeks.

Couscous

In couscous, the meat and vegetable mixture is rather long to cook, but not difficult. And the couscous itself (a kind of coarse semolina) is simple and quick to prepare.

Creamy risotto with diced vegetables and flax seeds

Risotto is one of the great Italian recipes. It's the special way in which rice is cooked and mixed with several other things, which produces this famous dish. One can make different flavour risottos, here is a fairly simple recipe with diced vegetables and flax seeds.

Eggs meurette

Eggs meurette or "œufs à la bourguignonne" is a great classic of French cooking, and of Burgundy in particular. It consists of poached eggs on a bed of fondue onions and bacon, served on a slice of fried bread. This is topped with a tasty reduced red wine sauce.

Morel risotto with Vin Jaune and Mont d'Or

This is a rather special risotto recipe with Morel mushrooms, cooked with Jura Vin Jaune wine, and with Mont d'Or cheese added just before serving to make it extra creamy. With the trio of morels, Vin Jaune and Mont d'Or, this is an ideal way to bring together the delicious flavours of the Franche-Comté region.

Potato and onion scarpaccia

Scarpaccia is the delicious Italian recipe for a very thin, very crispy patty, here in a version with potatoes and onions.

Provençal braised carrots

Pieces of carrot, here in a variety of colours, braised in a vegetable stock flavoured with herbes de Provence, and served on a bed of couscous.

Purple artichokes à la romaine

Artichokes à la romaine, or carciofi alla romana, are a typical Roman specialty: whole artichokes, trimmed and gently cooked with garlic, parsley, mint and olive oil, until melting and fragrant.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti "bolognese" (after the town of Bologna, Italiy) is a well-known dish, but so often amounts to nothing more than pasta topped with minced meat in a plain tomato sauce. Here is a more traditional version, in which the sauce is made with tomatoes, herbs, red wine and - of course - meat.

Zucchini and potato scarpaccia

Scarpaccia is a recipe from Tuscany, Italy, a simple but delicious zucchini and potato cake with Parmesan cheese.

Caramel rice pudding

We start with a classic rice pudding and add beaten eggs, this is poured onto hot caramel in the bottom of a dish, and then cooked in a bain-marie in the oven until firm like a cake.

Caramel semolina pudding with raisins

Semolina pudding, like rice pudding, is a throwback to another era – time to rediscover its delights! This is an updated version, with a caramel sauce and raisins. Its smooth, creamy texture comes from the custard added towards the end.

Chocolate eclairs

This might appear to be a straightforward recipe: choux pastry, chocolate confectioner's custard and fondant icing, but in practice it is quite technically tricky and all three stages need care to produce a perfect result. But don't let that discourage you; there are demonstration videos and I will take you through the whole process, paying particular attention to the most difficult stages.

Clementine cake

This easy-to-make clementine cake is an end-of-year delight for the clementine season. It's a cake with a double clementine flavor: the whole fruit in the dough on the one hand, and a syrup made with their juice to punctuate it after baking on the other.

Dandelion flower jelly

With dandelion flowers and a hint of lemon, here's how to make a delicate and surprising jelly, which in franche-comté (eastern France) is called "cramaillote", or sometimes "dandelion honey".

French Family Cake

The idea of a "family" cake can mean so many different things, depending on where your family came from. This French version consists of a layer of pears in liquid caramel, topped with a basic cake mixture, similar to the four quarters recipe.

Gingerbread

Maybe this recipe will bring back memories.

Grapefruit cake

A moist, triple grapefruit cake: zest, juice and syrup.

Hazelnut and orange cake

A very elegant cake topped with a sprinkling of hazelnut crumble, and with a double helping of orange flavour from chopped candied peel and the orange syrup soaked into the cake after cooking. The recipe is rather sophisticated, inspired by those used by pastry cooks at the INBP. It is a bit trickier than a basic cake, but the result is well worth it.

Kouign-amann

Kouign-amann is a traditional cake from Brittany. the name means butter cake in Breton (Kouign = cake, amann = butter). It is a sort of caramelized millefeuille, crunchy on the outside and melting in the middle.

Lemon and lime custard tart

This is a delicious version of the classic French baker's "flan", with the twin flavours of lemon and lime. It involves two different confectioner's custards poured one on top of the other. This gives an attractive layered effect when the tart is cut. Not just pretty, it is delicious.

Lemon tart

Lemon tart (tarte au citron) is one of France's great classic desserts, though there are many different versions. This is more or less the classic version, with sweetcrust pastry and a creamy filling that uses both lemon zest and juice for a deliciously tart tart!

Mint and chocolate cream

Inspired by the chocolate cornstarch cream, this cold cream, with the very matching flavors of mint and chocolate, will give you a delicious and quick dessert.

Minted Melon

It is tempting to call this a melon Mojito: little balls of ripe melon in a light Mojito-flavoured syrup with mint, rum and lime.

Mojito peaches

A simple fruit salad of white peaches bathed in mojito flavours: lime, rum and mint (with a delicate hint of vanilla).

Nonettes

Nonettes are small, jam-filled cakes from a bygone age. They originated in Dijon, where they were made by nuns (hence the name, which means "little nun" in French). The traditional version is closer to the French "pain d'épices", but this recipe has a more of a citrus flavour, made with marmalade.

Nougat

Nougat is a sweet made with honey and almonds that has changed very little since ancient times. The nougat we know today is the Montelimar variety, in which egg whites are added to the basic recipe for a lighter texture. Here is a simplified version.

Quick orange marmalade

Just oranges (organic) and sugar in this simplified marmalade recipe.

Rum babas

Rum baba is a classic French dessert, consisting of a small cake soaked in rum syrup and filled with a little Chantilly (whipped cream).

Shortbread tart with sweet apricots and rosemary

In this shortbread tart, the apricots, which are generally rather acidic after cooking, are first poached in syrup to give them a particular sweetness, which goes very well with the rosemary.

Toffee apple upside-down cake

With a flavour reminiscent of the French classic tart tatin, this cake is made with a ring of tart apples arranged on a layer of caramel, then covered with the batter. After baking, the cake is turned out while still hot so that the caramelized apples are on the top with the moist cake underneath.

Valay-Brest

A Valay-Brest is a mini eclair, filled with apple-flavoured confectioner's custard and topped with a rectangle of walnut nougatine.

Ali Baba bread

This bread is so-called because its magical sesame flavour is non-negotiable! The triple dose comes from tahini (sesame paste), sesame oil added to the dough before kneading, and toasted sesame seeds both in the dough and on top of the loaves. The texture is soft, rather like ciabatta, but with a very distinctive taste - so "open sesame" and enjoy!

Aperitif rolls

These are small, bite-sized, soft bread rolls made with bacon bits and topped with grated cheese.

Bacon rolls

These tasty little rolls are enriched with bacon bits and toasted sesame seeds. The slightly flaky texture comes from lard, folded in like for puff pastry. Served sliced, these make an ideal savoury snack to share with friends over a drink.

Benoîton

This curious name (explained below) applies to a small bread fingers made with a blend of wheat and rye flour, enriched with raisins and almonds.

Ciabatta

Ciabatta is a small, very soft Italian bread. The name means "slipper". It normally takes a long time to prepare as a special leaven called "biga" is used, but this simplified version is quicker and just as good.

Classic French white bread

This is the recipe for classic, everyday French bread raised with yeast. French bakers call this "pain courant". It is quicker and easier to make than leavened bread or new leavened bread, so ideal for a beginner.

Cornmeal baps for Anne

These small round baps are made with a mix of wheat flour and fine cornmeal. The dominant corn gives a moist and very yellow crumb.

Cretan Bread

This Cretan (or Cretan-style) bread has a soft dough, enriched with olive oil, preserved tomatoes, green olives and cooked onions.

Fougasse with bacon and Comté

This is a richer version of the traditional Mediterranean recipe (originaly, it was a simple olive oil bread).

Franche-Comté sticks

Thin baguettes made with Morteau sausage and cancoillotte cheese. The cancoillotte is added in the form of crumbled metton curds (normally melted in milk to make the creamy cancoillotte). Sliced thinly, these sticks make an ideal aperitif snack for sharing with friends.

French baguettes

This classic of French baking is rather different from the recipe for leavened bread, it's a question of making a good crust and light crumb along the whole length. To succeed, you should know that there are two secrets: water first of all (much more than for normal bread), and the working of the dough, which is also very different.

Leavened bread

It might be harder to achieve good results than with traditional yeast bread, but what a flavour! It also keeps better. This recipe is designed for baking bread in a wood-fired oven but, of course, you can use the conventional oven in your kitchen.

Lumberjack turnovers

These are small stuffed bread turnovers (similar to calzone), made with fougasse dough and filled with bacon, mushrooms, onions, cheese and tomato sauce. Lovely and golden-brown after baking, they are best eaten hot or while still warm.

Mixed seed grissini

Little crusty bread sticks of Italian origin, these are delicious for aperitifs, plain or with dips like tuna rillettes, guacamole or houmous.

Mustard baps

These baps are perfect burger buns: soft, with a distinctive mustard flavour and the added crunchy texture of toasted mustard seeds. These will give your burgers a gentle hint of mustard, but without the normal "bite".

Natural leaven

Leaven is a natural raising agent, a fermented mixture of water, flour and the microscopic yeasts which are present in the air. It's a delicate living substance, sensitive to the external environment. The recipe is around 4000 years old and dates back to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, via a beautiful history...(note: the ancient Egyptians seem not to have had exclusive knowledge of the process: in Germany evidence of cooking a fermented dough has been found from 8000 BC (the Neolithic era). The...

New leavened bread

This new recipe for leavened bread is simple and delicious, but needs rather long resting times. If you'd like more more information about making your own bread, look at this dedicated page.

Olive and pesto bread

This bread with olives and pesto has a very Italian flavour: a ciabatta dough, herbes de Provence and green olives. The loaf is baked in a tin, with a thin layer of pesto spread in the middle between two pieces of dough, and green olives (with stones removed) pressed into the top.

Panettone

Panettone is a brioche-style Italian loaf, made with dried fruit (raisins and candied peel) and flavoured with left-over citrus fruit. The recipe is a bit complicated but, above all, it takes time, a great deal of time...

Peanut rolls

Combining soft and crunchy textures, these flavour-packed peanut rolls are delicious just as they are, but they are also ideal for burgers.

Pitta bread

This Lebanese speciality is made as a flat round pocket, which can be filled with all manner of things.

Pizza dough

Pizza dough is a lind of bread dough with olive oil, which make it softer.

Poitevin twist

This short baguette, from the Poitou region of western France is soft-textured, made with walnuts, walnut oil and goat's cheese. As the name suggests, the bread is twisted, rather than slashed, just before it goes into the oven.

Raisin breads (pains aux raisins)

Raisin breads (pains aux raisins) are one of the three viennoiseries found in all good French bakeries, along with croissants and pains au chocolat. It is a delicate roll of yeast-based flaky dough (the dough of croissants) filled with custard and raisins.

Seeded loaf

This seeded bread is based on a French baguette dough, with a mix of dry-roasted seeds added (poppy, millet, linseed, sesame...). Delicious on its own, this bread makes excellent toast to go with foie gras, adding an amazing complementary crunch.

Special small breads

When you are have mastered the basic leavened bread, you certainly ought to try special breads: with nuts, cheese, seeds, etc... Here is a series of recipes, based on traditional leavened bread.

Tomato foccacia

Foccacia is an open-textured Italian bread. The French sometimes refer to it as the Italian fougasse. This version is made with preserved tomatoes, green olives and parmesan.

Two-olive ciabatta

Enjoy the real flavour and scent of the Mediterranean in this ciabatta made with two olives (green and black).

Blackcurrant liqueur

The fruit liqueurs (or "creams" in French) are a mix of neutral alcohol in which fruits are macerated, and sugar syrup. They are the basis of the very famous "Kir", mixture of dry white wine and blackcurrant liqueur. This recipe is for blackcurrant, but it can be made with other soft fruits like raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc.

Italian hot chocolate

This delicious, custardy chocolate treat is made in minutes. A treat for kids (and big kids) to enjoy at teatime, or any other time.

Apple compote with verbena

For this version of stewed apple, we'll add the delicate taste of fresh verbena, which goes very well with apples.

Butter cream

Butter cream is made with egg yolk, sugar syrup and, of course, butter. These days it has fallen rather out of fashion, probably because it's very rich, but it still has its aficionados. Here is the classic plain version, which you can lighten and flavour as you wish.

Chocolate Chantilly

If we look at the more scientific side of Chantilly cream we can see that it's mainly cream, and cream is a mix of very small droplets of milk fat and water, which is called an emulsion. When we whip this emulsion, we incorporate air into it and so create a mousse or foam. In the end Chantilly is a foaming emulsion. The interest of this observation is that we can imagine doing the same not only with cream. We just need water and fat. And it works, so you can make chocolate Chantilly. Please...

Choux pastry (pâte à choux)

Choux pastry is used for making profiteroles, eclairs and other small pastries.

Citrus crunch

These are fine crumbs of candied citrus peel. It can be used to sprinkle a dessert or other preparation to add both crunch and the flavour of the chosen citrus fruit. It is easy to prepare well in advance, and will keep in an airtight jar. This recipe is given for clementines, but can be made with all citrus fruits: lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit...

Citrus syrup

This citrus-flavoured syrup blends the bitterness of the zest with the delicious acidity of the juice. It can be used to soak biscuits or cakes when making desserts. You can make this with whatever citrus fruits you prefer. It can be prepared in advance and will keep for several days.

Green parsley tahini sauce

This greeen sauce with tahini and parsley is an excellent accompaniment for lots of vegetables (raw or cooked) and also goes well with poultry.

Italian Meringue

Italian meringue is made with sugar cooked to 120°C or 248°F. This is different from the French, which is made from caster sugar. The cooked sugar gives a softer meringue which can be added to other preparations or use as it is.

Pilau rice

Pilau rice (also called "restaurant rice" in France) is a way of cooking rice that's very different from using a rice-cooker. In this recipe, the rice is first "pearled" with onion in olive oil, then chicken stock is added, and the whole lot is put in the oven. This produces a very tasty moist rice, which can easily be kept waiting without drying out.

Pistachio powder or paste

Pistachio paste has a similar texture to almond paste, but the similarity ends there, as its flavour and colour are quite characteristic.

Poaching syrup

Less sweet than normal sugar syrup, poaching syrup is specially for slow cooking fruits to be used in other recipes.

Potimarron (Japanese chestnut pumpkin) purée

Potimarron can be easily made into purée, you don't need to peel it, which makes for a quick and delicious recipe.

Praline

Praline is a preparation of caramelized nuts (in this case almonds), with a very characteristic flavour. Either crushed or as a paste, it is used to fill or flavour all manner of things like creams, chocolates, biscuits, etc.

Praline spread

See in this recipe how to make your own spread, much better and healthier than those from the food industry.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)

Puff pastry is an incredible assembly of thin layers of butter enclosed in thin layers of dough. After cooking this give a succession of thin crisp pastry leaves that produce exceptional desserts or pies. It's a jewel of French patisserie. Making your own puff pastry is not very difficult, it's just a little work with a good recipe (like this one!). This recipe is for quick puff pastry ("feuilletage rapide") perfect for beginners.

Quince and apple compote

This compote is a tricky balancing act between the characteristic quince flavour and just enough apples to sweeten it. You should end up with a compote that has a delicate quince flavour rounded out by the apples and brown sugar.

Quince compote

Quinces make an excellent compote, full of their delightful perfume and flavour. However, preparing the fruit is hard work, so here's a recipe to show you how to manage this.

Red mixed pickle

This mixed pickle is made with a variety of vegetables left to mature for 2 weeks in diluted vinegar. The result is similar to gherkins and can be added to lots of recipes, or eaten with a snack or sandwich. This red version gets its name from beetroot and red cabbage, which eventually colour everything else in the jar.

Stewed apple (compote)

Here is a very basic but delicious recipe, and the pitfalls to avoid.

Stewed apricots

Here is how to make delicious stewed apricots, both an easy and a more sophisticated way.

Stewed plums

Quick and simple, stewed plums can also be spread like jam.

Sugar syrup

This syrup is mainly used as a basis for all sorbet recipes, which consist of this syrup and fruit pulp, but it can be also used to soak biscuits for example, or for fruit salads.

Vegetable stock

Vegetable stock is a very easy and versatile basic recipe. It can be used in many different ways: for cooking rice, making soups, sauces, etc. It's a good idea to keep a supply of vegetable stock in your fridge or freezer.

Yeast-based flaky dough (for croissants)

This yeast-based flaky dough (or croissant dough) is where puff pastry meets a yeast dough (such as brioche dough). This means that not only will we get flaky layers, but the dough will also swell and rise. The method is along the same lines as for a feuilletage: the basic dough is first kneaded, then layered with butter and folded over several times (in "turns") to give it its flakiness. This is a highly technical dough and quite tricky to make well at home by hand, with a rolling pin. But...

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 cooking...

How to cook pasta properly

Here is some advice for pasta that's properly cooked and doesn't stick.

How to cook rice in rice-cooker

Cooking in a pressure cooker, often called a "rice-cooker", is a simple and practical way to cook rice: you don't have to watch it, it's quick (15 minutes) and the appliance switches to the "keep warm" position automatically. Here's how it works.

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.

How to heat milk without it catching on the bottom of the pan

Very often, when you heat milk in a saucepan, a sticky, brown residue forms on the bottom of the pan (especially if the milk has boiled over)—milk that has burned and stuck to the pan. To prevent this, here’s a very simple and effective tip.

How to prepare a bain-marie

A bain-marie is the best way to cook or heat a preparation gently without risk of burning.

How to prepare endives

A very classic recipe, but which can easily fail due to two main errors: too much water in bottom of dish because endives give off a lot, and endives that are too bitter so that children hate it. Here is a method which avoids these two problems.

How to prepare Jerusalem artichokes

Jerusalem artichokes are quite an unusual vegetable with a strong artichoke taste, if you want to use them in a recipe, here is how to prepare them.

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.

How to seal a terrine or casserole dish

The French have a term for it: "luter", which means to seal around the lid of a cooking dish with dough. The dough forms a crust and hermetically seals in all the steam and flavours while the dish is cooking in the oven. This is a good way to concentrate flavours. The dish is brought to the table sealed and the crust broken open in front of diners so that everyone can share the delicious smells as they are released at that fleeting moment. It is possible to use ordinary bread dough, but an...

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.

Chicken nems

Nems are probably the best known Far Eastern dish in France. These small crispy rolls can be made in different flavours: chicken, crab, pork, etc. Making your own is not very complicated, the only difficulty is in the rolling stage. You will find in this recipe full details on how to successfully make chicken nems. [Translator's note: the "rice paper" used here is not the same as the rice paper used in England under macaroons, it's sold in packs of thin round translucent wafers, rather like...

Chorba

Chorba is a spicy meat and vegetable soup, typical of the Maghreb. This is my own personal version.

Minestrone

Minestrone is a traditional Italian soup. It is made with a mix of vegetables and a poultry stock. It is quite simple to make, but preparing all the vegetables takes time. There are doubtless as many minestrone recipes as there are Italian cooks, but here is my version.

Naan

Naan is a type of Asian bread made from wheat flour. This kind comes from the Punjab region of India.

Nachos

Nachos (or tortilla chips) are small Tex-Mex snack triangles, often served with guacamole. Authentic nachos are made from tortillas, cut into triangles and fried, but here is a lighter, oven-baked version. The recipe is very simple, though the cutting out is a bit of work, and I've given you 2 methods for this.

Paella

Paella is a traditional Spanish dish made with round rice, associated mainly with the Valencia region. The name comes from the large two-handled pan in which it is traditionally prepared. This is an adapted version with a mix of meat, vegetables and shellfish.

Papadums

Papadums (pronounced "poppadoms") or papad are very thin, crisp Indian crackers. They are often served as an aperitif snack in Indian restaurants. The tricky part of making them at home is rolling them out thinly enough.

Sushi

Sushi is probably the best known element of Japanese cooking outside Japan. For the Japanese it's a culinary art learned over time from masters, but we can make simplified and easier sushi which are still pretty and delicious. The most common types of sushi are nigiri: a little oval-shaped mouthfuls of rice topped with raw fish, and maki: a nori seaweed roll filled with rice and other delicious ingredients.

Taos hotpot

This hotpot inspired by a stay in Taos (New Mexico) is a mix of different meat and vegetables cooked long and slow, served with polenta. The preparation is rather long, as is the cooking time, but it reheats very well.

Vietnamese prawns

In this recipe, the prawns are first lightly fried, then spiced up with a piquant sauce.