Finger biscuits

(Found inTexts)
These small biscuits, that look a bit like savoy biscuits, are delicious alone or with Champagne, but are also the base for charlottes or Tiramisu.
329K5 50 min. July 30^th 2021

Macarons (the original French macaroons)

(Found inTexts)
This recipe really is "of the moment": the success of these small, highly-coloured cakes, in an infinite variety of flavours, is impressive. It's a recipe which needs some care, in order to produce a result worthy of a professional pastrychef. No problem, I will guide you through the recipe,...
1.6M 714.6 2 hours 38 min. October 3^rd 2019

Bouquet garni

(Found inTexts)
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...
404K3.5 12 min. March 21^th 2017

Clarified butter

(Found inTexts)
This is a way of melting butter to eliminate all the impurities. The clarified butter can then be heated without spoiling, and is more digestible. It is ideal for cooking at high temperatures where small black specks would spoil the appearance, or for emulsified sauces like béarnaise or mousseline.
447K4.2 2 hours 14 min. June 21^th 2017

Citrus crunch

(Found inTexts)
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...
221K3.7 1 hour 16 min. February 2^nd 2016

Fish petals, vegetables julienne, and beurre blanc

(Found inTextsStages)
This recipe consists of delicate flakes ("petals") of poached fish, cooked with smoked ham, served on a bed of julienne vegetables (fine sticks of carrots, turnips and cabbage), with a "beurre blanc" sauce made with vinegar and shallots. Not difficult, but entails some work.
246K4.3 1 hour 34 min. December 31^th 2013

Chantilly cream

(Found inTexts)
Chantilly cream, it's simply whipped liquid cream with sugar. It is use in many desserts, but already delicious simply with strawberries or other fruits.
655K5 18 min. September 17^th 2013

How to peel a fruit

(Found inTexts)
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.
174K4.3 32 min. February 21^th 2011

How to prepare egg glaze

(Found inTexts)
Bakers and pastry chefs use a glaze ("dorure" in French - the same word as for gilding) made with whole full eggs, beaten in a blender. This is used with a brush on pastry that would not naturally brown during cooking (brioche, puff pastry, ...).
292K4.3 2 min. October 17^th 2018

Hotpot my grandmother's way

(Found inTexts)
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.
328K5 4 hours 7 min. February 21^th 2011

Béarnaise sauce

(Found inTexts)
This very tasty sauce, flavoured with tarragon, chervil and shallot, with its hint of acidity, is perfect for grilled fish or meats. Its well-known as a difficult sauce, but here are all the tips that you need to succeed.
330K4 1 hour 6 min. May 22^th 2016

Cooking sugar

(Found inTexts)
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...
476K4.9 43 min. April 3^rd 2019

Avengers' potatoes

(Found inTexts)
Lurking behind this strange name (see reason below) is a kind of potato-cheese gratin, which is wrapped in thin slices of bacon. It's cooked first on the hob, then in the oven.
294K5 1 hour 54 min. February 21^th 2011

Gratin Dauphinois

(Found inTexts)
This recipe is a bit sensitive for people from Dauphiné (a French area around the city of Grenoble), many of them are sure to have the "true" recipe. Here is the version of the famous French chef Michel Guérard. The most interesting thing about gratin Dauphinois, is that it has a delicate hint of...
380K 25 1 hour 3 min. August 13^th 2016

Hollandaise sauce

(Found inTexts)
This sauce is quite similar to Béarnaise sauce, but with a light lemon flavour. It can be used hot, warm or cold on several things: vegetables, fish, eggs... Not easy to get right, like all "emulsified warm sauces" (Béarnaise, Hollandaise, etc.), but you will find all the tips you need here.
231K 14.7 22 min. July 25^th 2019

Pan-fried potatoes

(Found inTexts)
What could be simpler than fried potatoes? No need of a recipe for that! Quite right, but it's also very easy to end up making fried mash instead. Here are the main pitfalls to avoid.
286K4.4 1 hour 37 min. February 3^rd 2011

Boeuf (beef) bourguignon

(Found inTexts)
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.
459K 32.5 4 hours 20 min. February 21^th 2011

How to prepare carrots

(Found inTexts)
Here's how to prepare carrots, from the simplest way (peeled then rinsed) to a more sophisticated version where only the very best ofthe vegetable is kept.
162K4.3 14 min. February 21^th 2011

How to grill salmon well

(Found inTexts)
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...
465K4.3 22 min. October 13^th 2010

Succès praliné (praline meringue)

(Found inTexts)
The "succès" (success) is a classic of traditional French patisserie, made with two layers of almond meringue filled with praline butter cream. It's very rich and a little old-fashioned these days, but still has many faithful fans. The original recipe comes from the master chef Gaston Lenôtre, and...
355K 34.4 4 hours 16 min. June 20^th 2010

What is this site, and who am I?

The important thing is the content of the site, the recipes and information you can find, but some of you want to know who is behind it all.
201K 44.2 August 29^th 2023

Other cookery websites

List of my other favourite sites.
189K3.9 August 29^th 2023

The recipes

Hints for using the recipes: how to read and recreate them.
164K3.6 August 29^th 2023

My best addresses...

My good addresses, favourite suppliers, ingredients, products and equipment.
295K4.0 August 29^th 2023

Start off well to cook well

How to get off to a good start in cooking; what equipment and basic ingredients you should always have to hand.
302K 13.6 August 29^th 2023

Films and papers in the kitchen

Various papers and plastic films used in cooking .
568K 93.6 August 29^th 2023

The power of sayings and beliefs in the kitchen

One day, in the comments on the recipe for beaten egg whites, a young woman asked if you could beat egg whites stiff while having a period, as a friend had told her it wasn't possible. Sometime later another person commented that for mayonnaise it had been (get this!) scientifically proven that a...
47K4.4 February 6^th 2011

Fried potatoes or fried mash?

In cooking there are a lot of dishes that appear to be extremely simple but which can actually prove to be very tricky. Amongst those that I'm aware of having this reputation are omelette and fried potatoes. Take fried potatoes; it's very simple because it's all there in the name of the dish: you...
20K4.5 February 6^th 2011

Properly cooked! (the taste)

Going out to a restaurant is getting harder at the moment. In France, at least, you have to try and find one that has agreed to pass on the new lower rate of VAT at anything other than a symbolic level, and there aren't many. And then, most importantly, you have to find a good one: one where you...
13K 14.6 February 6^th 2011

Maillard reactions

This subject cropped up recently in a discussion with my three charming nieces; do you know what Maillard reactions are? With a name like that, they could well be some principle in mechanics, but in fact the term applies to something much closer to all of us: it's what gives food more flavour...
32K4 January 28^th 2015

The ideal restaurant

Like all passionate cooks (I suppose), from time to time I dream of opening my own restaurant. I imagine loads of things: it will be like this or like that, we'll do this, I'll cook that, the room will have this or that – in short, I dream. But now I have a son who's in the trade...
12K4.4 October 15^th 2012

Well-cooked meat

Have you ever noticed that if you like your meat well done, it invites strange looks? For instance, in a restaurant, when asked “How would you like that cooked?” If you reply, “Well done,” it is almost as if you are swearing….
29K 14.4 May 21^th 2011

Too much sweet and savoury

There is a food trend which is creeping in everywhere in France right now: mixing sweet with savoury. In some restaurants, it is becoming difficult to order a classic dish, like “roast veal” for instance, without being served fruits in the garnish or honey/conserves/syrup in the sauce or cooked...
22K4.5 November 3^rd 2011

Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.

Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
37K4.5 March 26^th 2012

The painter, the restaurant owners and the opera singer

You might well have noticed that there are recipes involving names that have been so overused (often for any old thing) that they have almost become common nouns.
17K4.4 September 25^th 2012

The secret of cooking until "done"

This is a real chef's skill: being able to look at a fish fillet cooking and say, "Stop – that's enough, it's cooked". I always admire this ability to see at a glance if something is done. It is what sets the professionals apart from us mere amateurs. And it's true that how fish is cooked is...
15K4.4 November 26^th 2012

Foie gras without force-feeding: it can be done

I adore foie gras... I willingly admit it, I adore foie gras: the texture, the taste, the festive aspect – I enjoy all of it. I really love eating it, preparing it and, most of all, sharing what I have made with my family over Christmas and New Year. ...but then I begin to have doubts Of...
44K4.4 December 15^th 2014

Steam for baking bread

What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
136K4.5 June 16^th 2021

Foie gras service

For the upcoming christmas meals you too may be sacrificing to the tradition of foie gras? If so, I suggest you take a look at everything that revolves around serving foie gras: how to serve it, and what to eat and drink with it.
10K4.9 December 23^th 2017

The golden-brown finish on puff pastry

Let's take a look at the tricky matter of producing puff pastry with an attractive, golden-brown finish. French pastry chefs call this "dorure" (literally, "gilding"). Behind this quirky term there lurks a real problem (and the solution): when using puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) for a pie, or...
39K 24.7 February 8^th 2018

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.
71K 24.4 February 15^th 2018

The 3 essential knives

You must have heard a chef or cook say: "There’s no good cooking without good ingredients". This is very true, of course, but for any amateur or beginner it is equipment that really counts to start with. What I mean is that you should not skimp on kitchen equipment, good utensils, a food...
19K5 May 30^th 2018

For well opened (puffed) cakes

It's always nice to have a well puffed up cake after baking, not only will it taste good but it looks great too. Let's see how to get this beautiful shape almost every time.
26K4.2 January 23^th 2019

The right weight of pastry for a pie

Let's try to solve a thorny problem: How much dough will I need when I make my next pie? You're planning to make a pie, you're going to use your favourite mould or circle, but how much pastry will you need to fill it completely with a well spread pastry, without being too thin, or on the contrary...
58K4.3 March 20^th 2020

Circles vs. moulds tins

If you like to bake or make quiches, pies etc. you must surely have one or more pie pans at home, in different diameters and perhaps materials. They are indispensable, without them there is no way to make beautiful pies, and they work very well, but you have another option, instead of moulds,...
11K5 October 2^nd 2020

Zester like a pro

Have you heard of the microplane? It's an extraordinary tool that allows you to grate very, very finely, and therefore zest with disconcerting ease. Here's some information about it.
3,7964.9 December 25^th 2020