Sweetcrust pastry (pâte sablée)

(Found inTexts)
Sweetcrust pastry is one of the basic pastry of French patisserie, used in many tart and cakes recipes, but it can also be rolled out and cut into biscuits, delicious with tea or coffee. This recipe is given for those who have a mixer (Kenwood, KitchenAid or other), but it can also be done with your hands. Please note that it's very important to make it several hours before using it, if possible the day before, as then it's much easier to work.

Meatballs

(Found inStages)
Used in several recipes like couscous, meatballs can also be a dish on thier own. The secret of this recipe is in the mix of two different kinds of meat with a little Parmesan. Note that it's a dish children always love.

Potimarron braised in meat jus

(Found inStages)
This is a very quick and simple recipe which makes an excellent accompaniment for roast meat, for example. It is also a good Sunday night dish.

Chocolate Truffles

(Found inStages)
Chocolate truffles: those dreamy, creamy chocolatey treats, rolled in cocoa powder or a mix of chopped dry-roasted pistachios and almonds.

Chocolate and matcha tea biscuits

(Found inStages)
Little spiral biscuits flavoured with chocolate and matcha green tea.

Kouign-amann

(Found inStages)
Kouign-amann is a traditional cake from Brittany. the name means butter cake in Breton (Kouign = cake, amann = butter). It is a sort of caramelized millefeuille, crunchy on the outside and melting in the middle.

Naan

(Found inStages)
Naan is a type of Asian bread made from wheat flour. This kind comes from the Punjab region of India.

Sushi

(Found inStages)
Sushi is probably the best known element of Japanese cooking outside Japan. For the Japanese it's a culinary art learned over time from masters, but we can make simplified and easier sushi which are still pretty and delicious. The most common types of sushi are nigiri: a little oval-shaped mouthfuls of rice topped with raw fish, and maki: a nori seaweed roll filled with rice and other delicious ingredients.

Tart Tatin

(Found inStages)
Tart tatin is one of the great classic desserts of French cooking. It's an apple tart cooked upside down. Apples are cooked in sugar until they caramelise. Then a circle of puff pastry is put on top, and the whole tart is baked at 356°F (180°C) for 20 minutes. To serve, the tart is turned over so that the apples are on top. Apples with caramel and crispy puff pastry taste amazing. The classic recipe uses shortcrust...

October 30^th 2015424 K 53.2 1 hour 20 min.

Moist cereal bars

(Found inStages)
Whether bars or rounds, this recipe produces delicous small cereal cakes.

Mixed seed grissini

(Found inStages)
Little crusty bread sticks of Italian origin, these are delicious for aperitifs, plain or with dips like tuna rillettes, guacamole or houmous.

How to peel a pineapple

(Found inStages)
For most recipes it is necessary to completely peel the pineapple, and to keep only the flesh which is then often cut into small pieces. Here is a method.

Diamond biscuits

(Found inStages)
These round biscuits no doubt get their name from the coating of sparkling sugar crystals around the edge.

Traditional nutty choc-chip cookies

(Found inStages)
A traditional American recipe for homely biscuits, which can be made in different flavours or with additions (seeds, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc.).

Autumn apple and plum crumble pie

(Found inStages)
This crumble with a difference captures real autumn flavours: apples, plums and hazelnuts. For a change, the crumble topping is pressed into a thin crust, more like a pie.

Fruit salad

(Found inStages)
To make a good fruit salad, there are three important points:

1. Choose fruits that go well together (avoid putting soft pears with crunchy apples for example).
2. Remove absolutely all skins and seeds.
3. Bring it all together with a good home made sugar syrup added to the fruit juices.

Here is a recipe which does all of that.

Chicken nems

(Found inStages)
Nems are probably the best known Far Eastern dish in France. These small crispy rolls can be made in different flavours: chicken, crab, pork, etc. Making your own is not very complicated, the only difficulty is in the rolling stage. You will find in this recipe full details on how to successfully make chicken nems. [Translator's note: the "rice paper" used here is not the same as the rice paper used in England under macaroons, it's sold in packs of thin round translucent wafers, rather like...

Crab Cakes

(Found inStages)
These crab cakes are a mixture of crab meat - of course - with onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, egg and mayonnaise. The cakes are made fairly thick and shallow fried in a pan, but they can also be deep fried.

Crème caramel

(Found inStages)
Crème caramel (upside-down caramel cream) is a classic of bistro cuisine. The vanilla cream is made with eggs, cooked in a dish with a layer of caramel in the bottom, and placed in a bain-marie. It's traditionally served turned out so that the liquid caramel runs down over the cream.

How to prepare spinach

(Found inStages)
For most people (and me most of all), spinach brings back bad memories of canteens... But, well prepared, it's a fine and delicate vegetable which goes remarkably well with scrambled eggs, fish, and many another things. Here are two ways of preparing it.

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 2024575 K 63.9

Make your own hot-wire or styrofoam cutter

A filicoupeur is a hot-cutting tool for polystyrene, which can be used to enhance any piece of polystyrene you've salvaged, and to do all kinds of things with it: model building, model making, arts and crafts, and so on. See here how to make your own.
February 20^th 2024533 K 433.5

The name of the elements

The names of the elements in Mendeleyev's table are generally derived from Latin, Greek or German, and refer to properties such as color, brilliance or geographical origin. Here's the origin of each element's name.
August 24^th 202479 K3.6

Solar lighting

As you know, every square feet of our planet receives huge amounts of energy which is sent by the sun. This energy, free, infinite, non-polluting is at our hands, but unfortunately for some sad reason we continue to use fossil fuels with all their harmful consequences to our environment.Is it...
August 29^th 2023253 K4.0

Start off well to cook well

What do I need to get started in the kitchen? First of all, a good website! That's it, you're there ;-), then a minimum of equipment, and the few products you should always have in your cupboards or fridge. Here are a few things to help you make your choices.
August 29^th 2023335 K 13.6

The peak of the apple season

As I write these lines, we are in the middle of the apple season, and it's an apple year, as you may have noticed if you have apple trees around you, they are bursting with fruit! Excellent news for the people in the west of France in particular, but let's have a little thought for those in the...
October 23^th 20218,9135

Divide and weigh dough into regular pieces

When you prepare dough for cupcakes in a pastry shop or bakery, at some point you're going to have to divide it, i.e. cut it into small pieces, which should all have the same weight. Sounds simple enough, but is it really that simple?
May 30^th 202311 K5

Toss the salad

When you've finished preparing a salad, green or otherwise, it's usually time to add the dressing and toss. It's often said to "toss the salad", which means to season and mix. Is it easy? Not so easy...
March 8^th 202411 K5

The window-pane test in bread-making

The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...
June 16^th 202196 K 23.9