Crème brulée

(Found inTextsStages)
Crème brûlée (burned cream) is quite easy to prepare: it's a simple egg-cream dessert. The only difficulty is in making the delicious crunchy caramel layer on top. The perfect crème brulée (for me) is a cold and soft cream, with on top a nice hot caramel crust. This is a completely new version...
December 31^th 20111.67 M 74.3 4 hours 40 min.

Clarified butter

(Found inTextsStages)
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.
June 21^th 2017470 K4.2 2 hours 15 min.

Chocolate sauce

(Found inTextsStages)
This rich smooth chocolate sauce, with its full flavour, is one of the indispensable ingredients of profiteroles, but it can be used with many others desserts.
February 21^th 2011312 K 24 35 min.

Breton galettes (pancakes)

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
Of uniquely Breton origin, this is a buckwheat pancake on which you cook an egg with ham and cheese before folding it over. Easy and quick to make, it's an ideal answer to the question "what are we going to eat this evening?".
February 21^th 2011223 K 23.9 20 min.

Small cheese and bacon rolls

(Found inTextsStages)
These small aperitif snacks can be prepared in advance and heated at the last minute, or served cold.
September 7^th 2018363 K5 1 hour 25 min.

Natural leaven

(Found inTextsComments)
Leaven is a natural raising agent, a fermented mixture of water, flour and the microscopic yeasts which are present in the air. It's a delicate living substance, sensitive to the external environment. The recipe is around 4000 years old and dates back to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, via a beautiful...
April 3^rd 20201.71 M 304.0 7 days 15 min.

Sandwich bread

(Found inTextsStages)
Soft and moist, almost like brioche, it can be made in a tin or mould or as a classic long French-style loaf.
October 24^th 2017358 K3.9 3 hours 30 min.

Surprise bread

(Found inTexts)
This recipe is for a large surprise bread so you can make six layers (48 small sandwiches if you divide each layer in 8), with three different flavours: smoked salmon/lime, smoked ham/butter, mayonnaise/chicken.
December 27^th 2020711 K 84.5 6 hours 25 min.

Chocolate rolls (petits pains)

(Found inTextsStages)
Here is a recipe for "real" chocolate petits pains, i.e. with a milk bread dough (not croissants dough) and with a stick of chocolate inside.
October 30^th 2021446 K4.6 5 hours 30 min.

Scallops with crunchy vegetables and wine sabayon

(Found inTextsStages)
This is a bed of vegetables cut small, lightly cooked to stay crunchy. The scallops are cut in half and fried, filled with a morsel of foie gras, and served coated with a savoury reduced white wine sabayon. It entails some work, but the result is impresive.
June 11^th 2011315 K4 2 hours 60 min.

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.
December 6^th 2015426 K4.8 35 min.

African style chicken

(Found inTextsStages)
This is a sort of smoked chicken, cooked in a tomato-coconut sauce, and served with kidney beans and plain rice. It's quite a simple recipe, with ready-made ingredients, but which needs a long cooking time on low heat (one hour).
February 21^th 2011417 K5 2 hours 4 min.

How to glaze a tart

(Found inTextsStages)
Professional pastrycooks usually say that "a beautiful cake is already half sold", it is one of the reasons why they do not put a tart on sale without glazing it ("abricoter" in Fench), i.e. coating it with a thick apricot syrup. This glaze gives a glossy finish to the tart (see the photographs...
February 15^th 2016461 K4.4 7 min.

How to heat milk without it catching on the bottom of the pan

(Found inTexts)
Very often when you heat milk in a saucepan, it forms at the bottom of the pan (especially if the milk boiled) a sticky and brown bottom of milk that burned and attached. To avoid this here is a very simple and very effective tip.
February 21^th 2011259 K 24.2 1 min.

How to keep meat tender after cooking

(Found inTexts)
When you cook meat, the cooking heat causes the juices to run back inside, so the outside dries up somewhat. Here is a tip to avoid this.
February 21^th 2011118 K4.3 5 min.

How to prepare a bain-marie

(Found inTextsStages)
A bain-marie is the best way to cook or heat a preparation gently without risk of burning.
July 5^th 2013520 K5 7 min.

Cooking sugar

(Found inTextsStages)
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...
April 3^rd 2019504 K4.9 45 min.

Peach and mint salad

(Found inTexts)
Here is a very simple, fresh and delicious recipe; the flavour of mint goes very well with peaches.
September 7^th 2012317 K 24 20 min.

Bechamel sauce

(Found inTextsStages)
Bechamel sauce is a classic, made from a cooked butter-flour mix called "roux", where milk is added and slowly cooked. We get a thick sauce, used in many recipes.
June 13^th 2024439 K4.3 20 min.

Moussaka

(Found inTextsStages)
Here is my personal version of this famous recipe from the eastern Mediterranean. It's a kind of gratin, made with layers of aubergines, cooked meat with tomatos and bechamel sauce with cheese.
August 1^st 2011384 K 14 2 hours 55 min.

Advice on heating oven

For good results with a wood-fired oven, it's very important to manage the heating process well. Here is some advice to help you succeed in this delicate operation.
August 24^th 2024180 K4.0

Flours

At the most basic level, wheat grain is put through a mill, which produces a white-ish powder flour... Well, actually it's not quite that simple. First of all we need to distinguish between the different grains that can be made into flour: wheat of course, but also rye, barley, buckwheat, etc. So we...
June 3^rd 2024737 K 413.6

Films and papers in the kitchen

It's now fairly easy to find a range of papers and plastic films that are invaluable, and sometimes indispensable, kitchen aids. Here's a quick overview of the main products available, and what you can and can't do with them.
August 29^th 2023581 K 93.6

A little molecular gastronomy

Long-cooked meat becomes meltingly soft. What happens to achieve this result?
August 29^th 202341 K4.4

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 2024570 K 63.9

Bread oven

Building a bread oven was until a few years ago a job for the professionals. But now you can buy a kind of kit which allows you to build your own bred oven without professional masonry know-how. You should know that the kits only provide the main part of oven, the hearth, where you light the fire...
October 15^th 20241.18 M3.6

Homemade plancha

The plancha is a cooking method that originated in Spain. It consists of a very hot metal plate on which food, usually cut in small pieces, is cooked with little fat.Contact with the hot plate means that cooking is very rapid, only a few minutes, and there is an obvious "cooked" side. Food is well...
June 3^rd 2024263 K 43.7

Some hints for a pizza-party

A pizza party is always a very pleasant and convivial occasion. Good people (friends and family) get together to enjoy delicious pizzas, baked right in the oven. Here are a few tips to help you make yours a success.
July 14^th 2025189 K3.7

Cooking with herbs

Herbs: there's nothing else so small that can add so much to a recipe. They are not only for garnishing, but are a true part of the dish, sometimes one of the main ingredients. A small example of the "power" of herbs: you make a chopped carrot salad, which is very good with a vinaigrette, but if you...
June 3^rd 2024195 K 13.9

Closed fire cooking

For this method, the oven is emptied of embers, cleaned, and door closed until it drops to the cooking temperature of 250°C or 482°F. It's the method used for breads, pies and tarts, cakes, etc.
August 24^th 202453 K4.4

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 2024518 K 433.5

A mist free mirror

I don't know if you're like me, but I find it very annoying after a shower or bath to have to wipe down the bathroom mirror 36 times with a towel just so I can see myself shaving (or putting on make-up for the girls).How do you solve this tricky problem? First of all, by looking at the cause of the...
August 29^th 2023223 K 13.6

Home Automation and CP290 with Excel

If you're using a CP 290 interface to do a bit of home automation and, for example, regulate your heating, you must have used the "Lighthouse" software under DOS and Windows 3.1. Apart from the fact that this software is in English with AM and PM times, and that it wasn't very user-friendly, the...
August 29^th 2023149 K4.2

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 2023241 K4.0

The steam machine

Fogging is an essential element in a bread oven. It's not easy to see, but it's the presence of fog that makes breads golden brown. To get steam on a regular basis, you can put a ramekin full of water in the bottom of the oven, or spray the inside with a sprayer, but this solution requires you to...
August 24^th 202461 K4

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 2023314 K 13.6

Advices for writing your recipes

If you choose to submit one of your recipes, you'll need to do so via a form (accessible when you're logged in), in which you'll need to enter all the information about the recipe. Please note that in order to log in, you must first create an account. Here are some tips on how to fill in the various...
August 29^th 202361 K4.4

One should cover a pan while heating?

You've probably heard it before: "Cover your pan, it'll boil faster", but is it true? Let's find out.
February 27^th 201528 K 13.4

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...
February 6^th 201150 K4.4

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 201116 K 14.6

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...
January 28^th 201535 K4

In praise of slow cooking

You will no doubt have noticed that in cookery, it's often the actual cooking process that gets neglected. This is understandable; it comes at the end of the recipe and getting the dish in the oven is something of a relief (ah, that's done!), which frees us to cope with what's left: tidying the...
February 9^th 201140 K4.2

Should I believe my oven?

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 201130 K4.6

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...
November 26^th 201218 K4.4

Fruits which can ruin your jelly

There are many ways of making a fruit mousse, but one of the simplest is to prepare a fruit jelly (basically a fresh fruit coulis with gelatine) and then mix this jelly before it sets completely with whipped cream. The result is perfect for filling a charlotte, for example. But do beware;...
March 6^th 201375 K4.0

The 3 kinds of meringue

Meringue – what could be simpler? Just beaten egg whites with sugar added. This makes a fairly stiff mixture which can then be cooked in a cool oven to create those lovely, light confections. But in the world of professional patisserie, meringue comes in three different kinds. Even if the...
June 14^th 201361 K4.5

The different cooking modes

In cooking, cooking means bringing food into contact with a source of heat, to transform it: improving its taste, and sometimes its texture. This contact with the heat source can be achieved in a number of ways: these are the cooking methods, and let's take a look at the main ones.
July 24^th 20246,3314.7

Making the most of seeds: Dry roasting

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 201559 K4.0

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...
June 16^th 2021141 K4.5

Children and vegetables

This is an attempt to address the question that all parents and grandparents, maybe you included, face so often: how can we get children to like vegetables? And at the same time, we might get away from the familiar, day-in, day-out round of pasta, chips, toast.. Well, I can hear you say, it's...
March 9^th 201713 K5

The right way to use a blender

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 201721 K5

A few tips for effective kneading at home

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 2021277 K 23.7

Vegetable soups

As I write this post, we are slowly slipping into winter, and this late autumn is the perfect time for soups, especially vegetable ones. Soups, that somewhat "soft" dish, often associated with our childhood, infallible remedy against a cold evening or an ugly weather, or both.
December 5^th 20179,3325

Fats for cooking

If you need to fry or sear anything a frying pan or saucepan, the temperature is likely to be high. In particular, I have cooking red meat in mind. In this case, what should fat should we use? And at what temperature?
January 23^th 201818 K5

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.
February 15^th 201878 K 24.3

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.
January 23^th 201930 K4.2

Baking cakes

Where we see that to put a cake in the oven, once the dough is finished and in its mould, there is no hurry and that the cold is your friend.
June 28^th 201942 K4.1