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.
331K5 4 hours 7 min. February 21^th 2011

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.
269K3.8 2 hours 20 min. June 5^th 2013

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.
316K4.6 58 min. October 13^th 2010

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...
360K 34.1 4 hours 16 min. June 20^th 2010

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.
184K5 17 min. August 8^th 2010

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...
56K4.3 15 hours 55 min. December 30^th 2019

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.
93K 24.2 1 hour 8 min. September 20^th 2017

Rustic chicken and mushroom pie

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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...
63K 1 hour 35 min. May 10^th 2023

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.
50K 1 hour 43 min. November 11^th 2018

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.
100K3.9 26 min. March 19^th 2014

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.
12K 22 min. August 11^th 2023

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"...
395K 24.4 1 hour 22 min. February 21^th 2011

My best addresses...

My good addresses, favourite suppliers, ingredients, products and equipment.
297K4.0 August 29^th 2023

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...
14K 14.6 February 6^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...
23K4.5 November 3^rd 2011

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...
46K4.6 May 8^th 2012

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...
18K 14.9 May 12^th 2018

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.
7,4304.7 February 26^th 2022

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...
5,6755 July 12^th 2023