Bouquet garni

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Used very frequently in French cuisine, a secret of French chefs, it adds flavour to a lot of recipes, and it's easy to prepare. The basic principle is to make a small bundle of herbs, bind them in green leek leaves and to tie it up, so that the whole thing can be removed and discarded easily after cooking.

Pilau rice

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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.

Eggs meurette

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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.

Bourguignon potatoes

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Potatoes cooked "bourguignon" (or Burgundy) style is a delicious twist on a classic potato gratin. The potatoes are cooked in milk, with added flavour from lardons and fried onions. A tasty topping of cream with Époisses cheese is poured over just before the dish goes in the oven.

White bean gratin "à l'italienne"

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White haricot beans enriched with the Mediterranean flavours of tomatoes and herbs. The beans are boiled first then mixed with chopped tomatoes and finished gratin-style in the oven.

Hearty potato and ham gratin

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A potato gratin with an original twist: fried diced ham with mustard.

Artichoke Soup

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For this recipe, we will first steam the artichokes, recover all the flesh, and prepare with shallot and milk a delicious soup.

Chicken "cantina"

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Chicken cantina is a simple recipe for spicy chicken with onions and tomatoes, served with rice, red beans or both.

Vegetable stock

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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.

Bolognaise lasagne

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Lasagne is an Italian pasta that comes in rectangular sheets. These are used to separate layers of filling, like a large savoury oven-baked millefeuille. A bolognaise lasagne combines bechamel sauce, minced meat and tomato sauce.

Blanquette of veal

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Blanquette is a classic dish of French family cooking, but can also be found in bistros. Veal is cooked slowly, and the sauce is thickened with a mixture of egg yolks and cream. I have set out a rather special way of making it.

Moussaka

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Here is my personal version of this famous recipe from the eastern Mediterranean. It's a kind of gratin, made with layers of aubergines, cooked meat with tomatos and bechamel sauce with cheese.

Potato gratin

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This classic French recipe is made with sliced potatoes baked in milk and browned on top.

Roast in the bag pork with fondant vegetables.

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Roasting "in the bag" is a simple but long method. The meat is sealed in a bag and cooked slowly at moderate temperature, keeping it very tender and with an amazing flavour. Meat cooked like this produces delicious juicies without adding anything else. These can be used to cook vegetables to a melting texture as a perfect accompaniment for the meat. This recipe might look complicated, but it is really very simple, just a bit long, and the flavour and texture are out of this world.

Hotpot my grandmother's way

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If you like slow-cooked dishes prepared with loving care (mitonné), you will certainly love this hotpot recipe, with the taste of Franche-Comté, inspired by my grandmother. It's an old-fashioned dish full of flavours and aromas, cooked vegetables, stock, smoked sausages, all cooked long and slow.

Coq au vin

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Coq au vin is one of those iconic classics of French cuisine, though these days it is more likely to be made with chicken. The poultry is marinated in red wine, fried, then flambéed in cognac before being simmered slowly in the wine marinade. It has much in common with that other classic, boeuf (beef) bourguignon: delicous tender meat cooked slowly in red wine for several hours. To simplify the recipe (the site is called...

Cream of cauliflower soup with smoked haddock

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This soup with a difference plays up an amazing flavour combination: creamy cauliflower with morsels of smoked haddock.

Five hours poultry

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Perhaps simplest recipe on this site, but what a result! The idea is to cook the bird, without fat, at low temperature, covered, and for a long time. In this way, the poultry cooks so as to be almost like a "confit": soft and very tasty. The effect is more spectacular with duck because it is a rather firm meat, tough even, but with this method it can be cut with a fork like a confit. This recipe is applicable to big poultry too, it's also a response to questions like "How to cook a turkey?" or...

Koulibiak in pie dish

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Koulibiak is a traditional russian recipe from, usually served in a flat puff pastry fish shape. Here is an easier version, in a pie dish.

Boeuf (beef) bourguignon

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Bœuf bourguignon is a traditional recipe of French cuisine (bourguignon means from Burgundy). It's chunks of meat cooked slowly with bacon, onions, carrots and mushrooms in red wine.

Cooking with herbs

Herbs: there's nothing else so small that can add so much to a recipe. They are not only for garnishing, but are a true part of the dish, sometimes one of the main ingredients. A small example of the "power" of herbs: you make a chopped carrot salad, which is very good with a vinaigrette, but if you...
June 3^rd 2024216 K 13.9

Perpetual stock

It's something you have probably have done yourself: cooked or pre-cooked vegetables before adding them to a recipe. This is almost always done the same way: peel the chosen vegetables (carrots, for example), cut them up, boil them in salted water (using a tablespoon or so of coarse salt per litre),...
November 22^th 201630 K5

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 20254,751 13