Meringues

(Found inTexts)
A very simple recipe but which always impresses.

Home-made terrine of foie gras

(Found inTexts)
Preparing your own home-made foie gras from raw is immensively satisfying: good quality liver and a simply amazing flavour – much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is a bit tricky, but quite within everyone's grasp, as long as you follow the 3 most delicate stages carefully. These are, in order: de-veining the liver, seasoning and cooking. As usual, I have explained every stage of the recipe in full, with photos to help you.

Foie gras cured in salt

(Found inTexts)
This a quite different preparation from the terrine of foie gras, this time it does not go in the oven, the liver is salted for 48 hours and it "cooks" (or cures) in this way.

How to cook hard-boiled eggs properly

(Found inTextsSteps)
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.

Hamburgers

(Found inTexts)
Hamburgers don't have to be the greasy flabby things you find in fast-food outlets, well-made they can be excellent. It's a very convivial recipe as everything goes on the table, and everyone assembles their own burger according to personal taste.

How to use a forcing bag (piping or icing bag)

(Found inTexts)
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.

Shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée)

(Found inTexts)
This is for sweet or savoury tarts, quiches or pies. The difference between this and sweetcrust pastry (pâte sablée) is in the very small amount of sugar and the absence of ground almonds.

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.

One should always cover a pan while heating

(Found inTextsComments)
Tradition says: "One should always cover a pan while heating". In other words, if you heat water (or something else), it comes to the boil faster with a lid on the pan than without. True or false? Let's try the experiment...

Terrine of foie gras

(Found inTexts)
This simple way preparing a terrine of foie gras is ideal for beginners. In this recipe the liver is passed through a sieve or vegetable mill rather than kept in large pieces. The final appearance is smoother, less marbled, but just as delicious.

Cherry clafoutis

(Found inTexts)
A clafoutis batter and cherries lightly cooked in sugar and Kirsch, then de-stoned. The clafoutis is baked in the oven.

Pancake batter

(Found inTexts)
Here is a pancake batter that is a little more sophisticated than the traditional version. The pancakes will be tastier with a softer texture.

St Tropez tart

(Found inTexts)
This famous dessert from St Tropez is more of a cake than a tart. The sugar-sprinkled brioche layers are sandwiched together with a rich vanilla filling which is a mixture of confectioner's custard and whipped cream.

Lemon Confectioner's Custard

(Found inTexts)
This recipe is for a confectioner's custard with a difference: it's a little less sweet than the classic confectioner's custard (crème pâtissière, or french pastry cream) and has double lemon flavour, using both zest and juice, for plenty of tangy lemon taste. It's the perfect filling for lemon tarts, of course, but also verrines, profiteroles, eclairs, etc.

Breton Sandwich

(Found inTexts)
This is a sandwich with a difference: its Breton character comes not only from the crab in mayonnaise, but also from pieces of "galette" (buckwheat pancake), fried in butter.

Kouign-amann brioche

(Found inTexts)
This is unusual brioche is halfway to being a Breton Kouign-amann. The difference is in the treatment of the dough, which is layered with sugar and butter. The basic dough is rolled out with butter in stages, like for croissants, but with 2 "turns" of sugar for one of butter (granulated and vanilla sugar). The brioche is assembled in a round tin with spirals of dough that rise and caramelize during cooking. This recipe is rather rich, but what a treat!

Oven omelette

(Found inTexts)
For this omelette with a difference, we'll fry sliced potatoes, bacon (lardons) and onions, then pour the beaten eggs over and finish cooking everything together in the oven. The French sometimes call this an "Omelette of Moyenmoutier" after a village in the Vosges.

Breton leek and mushroom tart

(Found inTexts)
This is a "tart" with a difference: the case is not made with pastry, but with a double layer of lightly buttered Breton galettes (buckwheat pancakes). The filling is made with shallots, sautéed mushrooms, leeks and cream. You might have noticed that this recipe includes the key elements of Brittany's cuisine: buckwheat pancakes, butter and shallots.

Creamy spinach and potato gratin

(Found inTexts)
This is a gratin with a difference: before going in the oven, the layers of spinach and potato are topped with cream in which Mont d'Or cheese has been melted (or another cheese, if you prefer).

Quick flaky pizza

(Found inTexts)
This pizza with a difference has a thin puff-pastry base instead the traditional dough. Apart from this small refinement, the basic elements you would expect are all there: tomato sauce, a variety of toppings and fresh basil leaves.

Ice-cream and sorbets

Making homemade ice cream may seem complex, but with the right methods and a few tricks, you can achieve a creamy texture and incomparable flavors. On this page, we'll be revealing the secrets of successful homemade ice cream, guiding you step by step through the various stages of preparation. ...
August 12^th 2024478 K4.0

Making your own bread

You'll find a whole range of bread and pastry recipes on this site, but before you get started, perhaps you'd like to know more about the subject, get some tips and tricks, and find out what the main mistakes beginners make? If so, this page is for you.
August 22^th 2024580 K 63.9

parsley

There are different kinds of parsley, the two main ones are curled parsley and flat-leaf (or Italian) parsley. The most important difference between the two, except the leaf shape, is taste: flat-leaf parsley has much more flavour.
August 29^th 202368 K4.1

verbena

Verbena is an herb with a delicate flavor, which is best used in sweet recipes (cakes, custards, creams, etc.).
September 13^th 202332 K 23.7

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 2017138 K 14.2

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...
February 6^th 201154 K4.4

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...
February 6^th 201120 K 14.6

Can you really trust your oven? This is an important question as we are always tempted to take the temperature indicated as gospel truth and, unfortunately, this is rarely very precise. .
July 4^th 201135 K4.6

As we use more and more new technology, we leave ourselves increasingly vulnerable to companies who make money out of collecting our personal data. For instance, when we use the internet, we need to be wary of what is collected about what we do, our habits, etc. Here is a list of simple...
April 16^th 201320 K4.0

When we want to make a dough or batter rise when baking, either in patisserie or bread-making, we need to use a raising agent or leavening agent, one of which is called leaven. In the context of baking, a raising agent is simply what "makes something rise". It is a substance which, when added to...
June 16^th 202160 K4.8

In cooking, and particularly in baking, there are a lot of seeds we can use, such as linseed, sesame, poppy, etc. Usually, recipes simply say to add them just as they are to the mixture or dough. To make a seeded loaf, for example, prepare a plain bread dough as usual, then, towards the end of...
January 30^th 201566 K4.0

You've probably heard it before: "Cover your pan, it'll boil faster", but is it true? Let's find out.
February 27^th 201534 K 13.4

It's something you have probably 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), then...
November 22^th 201634 K5

You may well have a blender in your own kitchen. You know, that useful gadget that allows you to liquidize stuff at high speed into a smooth liquid. Of course, the most obvious use that comes to mind is for soups: if you have boiled some vegetables in water, with just a quick blast of the blender,...
May 31^th 201725 K5

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 2021289 K 23.8

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.
December 23^th 201717 K4.9

Let’s try and answer a question that crops up in cookery and patisserie, even if it verges on the existential: do the egg yolks in a custard recipe really need to be beaten until pale, or not?
February 28^th 201846 K4.3

When we make brioche, it is generally sweet, that is to say that in the dough there is sugar or honey or dried or candied fruits, or even sometimes the 3 together. It's normal, it's very good, it's a viennoiserie. But you may also need brioche for a savoury dish, like a saucisson or a sausage in...
June 30^th 201916 K4.9

If you like almonds, in their dried fruit version, you must use them quite often in cooking or baking, whether powdered or whole. It is not obvious, but in fact there are 2 kinds of almonds on the market, basically with or without the skin. .
February 8^th 202026 K4.7

If you like to bake or make quiches, pies etc. you must surely have one or more tart tins 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,...
October 2^nd 202019 K5

You've probably come across this unpleasant phenomenon where, when you try to incorporate an ingredient (usually a solid or powder) into a preparation (usually a liquid), the mixture doesn't mix properly and you end up with little "balls" or little lumps of the solid part that refuse to mix with the...
October 9^th 202027 K4.8

You've probably heard this before, we're talking about "nervous" meat, or meat with nerves, to describe what is indicated by the blue arrow on the left. This is a piece of beef, and what we call a nerve is not a nerve, it is in fact collagen (chemists sometimes call it a "collagen sink"), a...
April 16^th 202143 K4.4

You probably heard about it a few days ago, and that was the point: Leclerc hypermarkets in France are going to freeze the price of their baguettes at 29 centimes for 6 months. This measure caused quite a stir in the media, with a lot of talk, and in particular a lot of talk about Leclerc...
January 29^th 20228,4344.5

It's true that we're finally coming out of winter as I write these lines, and that we'll all be making, no doubt, a little less soup and potages, but even if it's out of season, it really is a simple and delicious dish, which is one of the always easy answers to "What's for dinner this (Sunday)...
April 9^th 202214 K

Morteau sausage

(Found inTexts)
Morteau sausage is a delicious sausage, smoked for at least 48 hours with conifer sawdust in the highlands of the French region of Franche-Comté. Unfortunately it does not yet benefit from A.O.C. status (French culinary heritage protection) and it's a real shame! but only a geographic protected...
39 K4.3

Butter

(Found inTexts)
Butter is a fat obtained from dairy cream by the mechanical process known as "churning" (traditionally done from ancient times in a receptacle called a churn, in which the cream is agitated until it turns into butter). Simply put, the cream goes in and comes out as butter. .
26 K4.0