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.
February 21^th 2011335 K5 4 hours 7 min.

Apple charlotte with toasted brioche

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This rather special charlotte is made with toasted slices of brioche instead of finger biscuits and stewed apples. Cooked once assembled, it can be eated warm or cold.
June 5^th 2013272 K3.8 2 hours 20 min.

Butter cream

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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.
October 13^th 2010320 K4.6 60 min.

Succès praliné (praline meringue)

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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...
June 20^th 2010365 K 34.1 4 hours 20 min.

Apricot fool

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The traditional fruit fool is a rather old-fashioned dessert, consisting of whipped cream (Chantilly) with a fruit coulis gently folded into it.
August 8^th 2010187 K5 20 min.

Kouign-amann brioche

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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...
December 30^th 201959 K4.3 15 hours 55 min.

Oatmeal cake

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This cake has the distinctive and delicious flavour of old-fashioned rolled oats, also known as oatmeal. In the basic cake recipe, part of the flour is replaced with oats, which have been toasted, then blended.
September 20^th 201798 K 24.2 1 hour 8 min.

Rustic chicken and mushroom pie

(Found inTexts)
This homely looking pie gets back to what good, old-fashioned pies are all about: it's round, deep and has both a proper bottom and lid. The one small concession to modernity is the use of puff pastry for a lighter, crisper crust. The filling combines mushrooms, leeks and diced chicken in a cream...
May 10^th 202366 K 1 hour 35 min.

Snails in a brioche

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A flat brioche filled with snails, themselves filled with a knob of sophisticated beurre d'escargot. The flat round shape is reminiscent of the old-fashioned French snail dishes. Cut into bite-sized morsels, this makes a good aperitif snack.
September 17^th 202454 K 1 hour 45 min.

Home-made potato crisps

(Found inStages)
Making your own potato crisps (or chips, if you are American) is quite easy. All you need to do is slice potatoes and fry them. That is all well and good in principle, but there are a few tips it is important to know. I'll explain them for you in this recipe.
March 19^th 2014104 K3.9 30 min.

How to prepare green beans

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Here's how to turn freshly bought (or picked) green beans into ready-to-use vegetables.
August 11^th 202315 K 25 min.

Hachis parmentier

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This is the French answer (meat with mashed potato and cheese) to the English cottage or shepherd's pie: a typical family recipe which is an excellent way of using up leftover meat. The proportions are vague here: you need "whatever you have left over"...
February 21^th 2011398 K 24.4 1 hour 25 min.

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 2024433 K4.0

My best addresses...

Quite a few of you often ask me where I can find this or that? or is such and such a thing a good buy? or which brand is best for this or that? On this page, I'm going to group together my good addresses for suppliers of this or that product or utensil, and good books on the subjects that interest...
August 29^th 2023300 K3.9

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...
February 6^th 201114 K 14.6

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...
November 3^rd 201123 K4.5

Choosing a chopping board

It's a no-brainer, surely? If you want a chopping board, just find a piece of wood, and Bob's your uncle! You can happily chop away with a knife and not damage the table or worktop. But in reality, it's a bit more complicated than that. You need to be careful what you are buying, in particular the...
May 8^th 201246 K4.6

Using stretch food film effectively

Maybe you use food film in your own kitchen. You know, the very thin, clear plastic stuff that you can stretch, often used to cover food and protect it from the air. It’s become so widely used that it’s now an essential item for pros. They even have a verb for it in French: “filmer”: to...
May 12^th 201819 K 14.9

The two frying pans

Where we see that a non-stick frying pan, if it is very practical in general, sometimes it is not enough.
February 26^th 20227,9744.7

In Praise of the Vegetable Mill

When a recipe or preparation calls for something solid to be pureed, as in a soup for example, the natural reflex is to take out the blender and plunge it into the saucepan. This works very well in most cases, but there are times when you'd like to puree something and at the same time remove the...
July 12^th 20236,2435