How to know when a cake is cooked

(Found inTextsStages)
It's a frequently asked question and it's not so easy to answer it, especially for beginners: you can have a cake that's nice and golden brown outside, but which is not cooked enough in the middle.
May 7^th 2020283 K4.1 1 min.

Big knife-cut chips (French fries)

(Found inTextsStages)
These chips (French fries) are made from potatoes steamed then fried in their skins. Usually we make big ones (3 times the usual French fry) and serve 2 or 3 per guest.
February 21^th 2011271 K4.1 1 hour 20 min.

You should not push with the sharp edge of a knife

(Found inTextsStages)
When you cut something into small pieces on your working surface, it's an automatic gesture to push the pile with your knife blade. It's a bad habit because this will blunt your blade.
February 21^th 201159 K5 1 min.

How to prepare an onion or shallot

(Found inTexts)
Onions and shallots are widely used in the recipes on this site, generally finely chopped. Here is a method to do it quite easily with a simple knife.
February 21^th 2011177 K5 10 min.

Cheese Soufflé

(Found inTexts)
A soufflé sounds difficult to make, but it's really not. The important thing is to break down the steps carefully: you start by making a béchamel sauce, then add cheese, then egg yolks (and it becomes a Mornay sauce), and finally the beaten egg whites. All that's left to do is place in a...
June 13^th 2024126 K 14.4 1 hour 35 min.

Cigarettes Russes (Piroulines)

(Found inTextsStages)
The French name for these tubular biscuits means "Russian cigarettes". Cigarettes Russes are perfect for serving with ice cream or other desserts. The basic biscuit is fairly easy to make; the tricky bit is rolling the tube once cooked.
May 25^th 2014102 K 54.5 50 min.

Spinach Croque-monsieur

(Found inTexts)
A croque-monsieur is a French toasted sandwich. Here, the 2 slices of buttered bread are filled with bechamel sauce, hard-boiled eggs, blanched spinach and melted cheese. The assembled sandwich is popped in the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.
May 24^th 201563 K4.5 45 min.

Brussels sprout salad

(Found inTextsStages)
It might seem unlikely, but Brussels sprouts are very good raw, like in this salad, pepped up with lemon and Parmesan.
March 28^th 202126 K 35 min.

How to prepare celeriac

(Found inTextsStages)
When faced with the ball of a whole celeriac, it's not obvious how to tackle it: what do you hold on to? Where do you start? Here's a fairly simple way to go about it.
April 10^th 202226 K 15 min.

Foie gras fingers

(Found inStages)
An elegant canapé which consists of a crisp layer of shortcrust pastry topped with a layer of foie gras.
December 21^th 2011132 K4.6 2 hours 50 min.

How to extract passion fruit juice

(Found inStages)
Passion fruit are rather strange fruit as they do not really have much flesh, but rather seeds surrounded by a fine layer of pulp. Here is a way to extract the juice.
March 23^th 2011514 K 32.3 20 min.

How to prepare an avocado

(Found inStagesComments)
Here is how to get from an avocado only the flesh of the fruit.
January 9^th 2010194 K 14 15 min.

How to roll out pastry for a tart

(Found inStages)
Rolling out pastry from a block and lining a tart mould or tin is not as straighforward as all that. To help you to succeed every time, here is a very simple tip. It will to change your opinion of tarts...
October 13^th 2010294 K4.6 25 min.

Caramelised walnuts

(Found inStages)
These delicious nuts can be used in several cakes, but you can also put them on ice-cream, pancakes, fruit salad, or eat them just as they are.
February 21^th 2011363 K5 25 min.

How to prepare rhubarb

(Found inStages)
Rhubarb and its characteristic flavour can be the basis of delicious desserts, but it needs to be prepared a certain way before using.
October 13^th 2010212 K4.9 30 min.

Chocolate cereal bars

(Found inStages)
These have a chocolate sweetcrust pastry base, topped with dried fruit, toasted nuts and seeds, bound with a brown-sugar and butter mixture, then gently baked. Once the flapjack-like cake has cooled, it can be cut into bars.
July 11^th 201835 K 1 hour 20 min.

Olive twists

(Found inStages)
These savoury puff-pastry twists (rather like smoked salmon sacristains) make an ideal aperitif snack. The pastry is simply spread with tapenade.
September 7^th 201865 K3.7 1 hour 40 min.

Tomato feuilleté with pesto

(Found inStages)
This is a fairly simple recipe, but the result is an elegant, thin tart, bursting with delicious Italian colour. The base is a a feuilletage, but savoury this time, topped with the concentrated flavours of Italian cuisine: pesto, tomatoes and Parmesan.
September 8^th 201840 K4.1 60 min.

Ham "friand" pie

(Found inStages)
A "friand" (the word means "fond"!) is a sort of French pasty. This pie-style version has two layers of puff pastry filled with a mixture of cheese, ham and bechamel sauce.
September 8^th 201886 K4.2 1 hour 5 min.

Chinois

(Found inStages)
"Chinese" - what a strange name for this cake! A kind of brioche, filled with confectioner's custard (crème pâtissière) which can be decorated with fondant icing.
September 10^th 2018262 K 24.7 5 hours 30 min.

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 2024258 K 43.7

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 2024188 K 13.9

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 2024509 K 433.5

Slashing loaves

When it's time to put them in the oven, the dough pieces for future breads or viennoiseries need to be "lamés", i.e. made with a very sharp blade, by making quick incisions at the top, known as "grignes". Let's see how it's done.
August 29^th 2023282 K 43.6

chives

Chives grow in clumps, and the leaves used as a herb have an extraodinary taste. It's an essential for adding to salads, and everything else that can be eaten cold, because it doesn't like long cooking during which it loses most of its flavour.
August 29^th 202376 K3.8

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 202360 K4.1

fresh coriander (cilantro)

This is a plant of which the leaves are used fresh. It has a very subtle flavour which is remarkable in salads. It is an indispensible ingredient in Asian and Mediterranean cuisine. The seeds are also available (like white pepper grains but paler), which have a different taste.
August 29^th 202341 K4.2

tarragon

Tarragon is a herb with strongly aromatic leaves. These are used for their characteristic flavour that goes very well with meat and fish.
August 29^th 202351 K4.1

mint

There are several kinds of mint with different flavours, some stronger than others. The important thing, if you have the choice, is to use the strongest flavour possible (crush a leaf with your fingers, and smell to compare).
August 29^th 202337 K4.2

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 2023308 K 13.6

When should I change my knife?

I already spoke to you in a previous post about knives, those without which nothing is possible (or almost) in the kitchen, so I'm going to come back to them a bit and try to answer the question "When should I change my knife?
November 2^nd 201712 K4.7

The right bread knife

We almost all have a bread knife in our kitchen, that is to say the knife we use almost exclusively to cut bread. Is this knife efficient, is it really the one you need? Here is some information to guide you in your choice. .
September 15^th 20228,151

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

How to zest a fruit?

You will have no doubt noticed that many recipes call for the zest of citrus fruit. The zest is that outer layer of the skin which adds so much flavour to a dish. There are many different ways to peel off the zest and various tools are available. Here is a summary of the “dos and don'ts” of...
November 5^th 201342 K3.8

Artichoke stalks

When preparing artichokes for cooking, you may well already know that we often need to remove the first round of leaves, if they are tatty or dirty, as well as the inedible stalk. The operative word here is “remove” , rather than “cut off”.
October 25^th 201649 K4.3

There is vanilla and vanilla

The vanilla is a delicious taste that can be found in many many dessert recipes, creams (the cream and the cream for example), ice creams, but also cakes and entremets. Whenever you need to add this vanilla note, you have several possible choices because vanilla is commercially available in...
December 14^th 20179,1685

The mock CAP baker's certificate exam

The next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days ago we had to go through the mock CAP exam. A sort...
May 1^st 201817 K4.4

The 3 essential knives

You must have heard a chef or cook say: "There’s no good cooking without good ingredients". This is very true, of course, but for any amateur or beginner it is equipment that really counts to start with. What I mean is that you should not skimp on kitchen equipment, good utensils, a food...
May 30^th 201821 K5

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 201928 K4.2

The bitterness of endives

As I write these lines, we are entering the endive season, and if you like it, it's time to enjoy it, if possible with your local producers. Endive is good, but the reproach that is often made of it, and children in particular, is: "It's bitter! And it is (somewhat) true of course, endives...
February 9^th 20199,9314.9

Drawing a pattern in pastry

Often in the kitchen, in pastry-making, or in baking, we need to trace a pattern on a pastry. It's just a question of aesthetics but it has its effect after baking on a galette, pithiviers, pâté en croute (terrine in a pie crust), etc.
May 23^th 201927 K4.1

The right way to cook potatoes

If you simply boil them (not steam them), or bake them in the oven, at some point you will have to ask yourself the question "are they well cooked?".
March 23^th 202012 K4.7

Zester like a pro

Have you heard of the microplane? It's an extraordinary tool that allows you to grate very, very finely, and therefore zest with disconcerting ease. Here's some information about it.
December 25^th 20204,7924.9

Croutons

Do you use croutons, that typically French trick of toasting small pieces of bread on the side to add to a recipe? They're just delicious, but you need to know 2 or 3 things about them. .
December 30^th 20206,0605

Coarsely chopped herbs

Although we are in the middle of winter as I write these lines, you should not hesitate to make salads at this time, it is actually quite simple, rather fast, and so pleasant. A while ago, I already told you that a salad is a salad, but a salad with herbs is immediately something much better:...
January 9^th 20219,4724.9

The perfect boiled egg

Making boiled eggs is always a delight and it pleases the young and old alike. This little transgenerational side puts them on the list of "things to do on Sunday evening when you don't know what to do" in many families (including mine)... That said, it's not that simple, you have to pay...
January 30^th 202113 K4.7

Unmoulding cakes while hot

When you make a cake, pound cake or whatever (what bakers call a "travel cake" because it's easy to carry around) you've most likely made a batter, either by hand or in a food processor, which you then pour into a buttered pan. It's a classic, and I've already talked to you about 2 or 3 tips on...
February 6^th 202134 K4.6

The skin side of the fish first?

When it comes to cooking fresh fish, if it's filleted with its skin on and you're planning to pan-fry it in a little olive oil, for example, you might ask yourself the following question: Which side, skin or flesh, should come into contact with the pan first?
February 13^th 202121 K4.4

Let's rehabilitate the burger

The burger is a sandwich that is very fashionable at the moment, and as for all other sandwiches, the worst (often) rubs shoulders with the best (much more rare). In principle, I'm probably not teaching you anything, it's a sandwich made of a small round bun, rather soft, like a sandwich bread,...
April 10^th 20215,8354.9

In praise of the whetstone

Have you ever seen a butcher or a chef sharpen his knife before using it? Usually he uses a special tool, a long thin cylinder made of very hard metal. And in a smooth and elegant gesture, he very quickly passes the edge of the knife against the rifle, which makes a very characteristic noise,...
June 5^th 20216,8654.8