Warm apple feuillantines

(Found inTexts)
It's a rather long recipe but which never fails to impress, perfect for a special dinner party. It's made up of 3 circles: one almond "tuile", 2 of caramelized brik sheets, with a caramelized apple layer between each, whipped cream on top, and custard all around. Everything, except whipped cream,...
May 28^th 2012321 K5 3 hours 9 min.

Confectioner's custard (Crème pâtissière, or French pastry cream)

(Found inTexts)
Quite similar to crème anglaise but much thicker. It is used in many pastries like choux pastry (pâte à choux) or millefeuille.
January 27^th 2017747 K 313.7 40 min.

Blackcurrant coulis

(Found inTextsStages)
Blackcurrants make a very good coulis, but it's a bit more difficult than with other fruits. Here is a simple method to help you succeed.
February 21^th 2011443 K 23.5 25 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)

(Found inTexts)
Puff pastry is an incredible assembly of thin layers of butter enclosed in thin layers of dough. After cooking this give a succession of thin crisp pastry leaves that produce exceptional desserts or pies. It's a jewel of French patisserie. Making your own puff pastry is not very difficult, it's just...
January 19^th 2011444 K 63.3 2 hours 45 min.

Millefeuille

(Found inTextsStages)
Millefeuille is one of the best pastries available, if it is well made, i.e.: 2 layers of light vanilla cream between 3 layers of fine crispy (possibly caramelized) puff pastry.
October 13^th 2010327 K4.6 1 hour 45 min.

Terrine of foie gras

(Found inTextsStages)
This simple way preparing a terrine of foie gras is ideal for beginners. In this recipe the liver is passed through a sieve or vegetable mill rather than kept in large pieces. The final appearance is smoother, less marbled, but just as delicious.
June 2^nd 2015247 K 15 17 hours 8 min.

Bolognaise lasagne

(Found inTexts)
Lasagne is an Italian pasta that comes in rectangular sheets. These are used to separate layers of filling, like a large savoury oven-baked millefeuille. A bolognaise lasagne combines bechamel sauce, minced meat and tomato sauce.
February 27^th 2011225 K4.4 2 hours 3 min.

Kouign-amann

(Found inTexts)
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.
May 24^th 2018136 K4.3 6 hours 40 min.

Crackers

(Found inTexts)
These crisp savoury biscuits are ideal for dipping into a sauce as an aperitif snack. It is quite easy to make your own crackers at home and they are much healthier and even more delicious than the commercial kind.
December 9^th 2012117 K 14.8 1 hour 40 min.

Seafood feuillantines

(Found inTexts)
Little savoury "millefeuilles" with a very Breton taste of the sea: a mix of crab and salmon in a herb mayonnaise, piled up between crisp circles of buckwheat pancake.
April 28^th 2013100 K5 50 min.

Fillets of sole meunière

(Found inTexts)
Sole "meunière" gets its name no doubt from the flour used to coat the fish ("meunière" is French for miller's wife). It is a classic of French bistro cuisine, rich with butter, basically simple, but easy to do badly. Here are all the tips you need to succeed, using fillets rather than fish on the...
November 10^th 2014188 K4.3 25 min.

Seeded loaf

(Found inTextsIngredients)
This seeded bread is based on a French baguette dough, with a mix of dry-roasted seeds added (poppy, millet, linseed, sesame...). Delicious on its own, this bread makes excellent toast to go with foie gras, adding an amazing complementary crunch.
October 24^th 2017152 K3.8 4 hours 30 min.

Quick Strawberry Millefeuille

(Found inTextsStages)
A millefeuille (which in french means "thousand sheets") is a delicious pâtisserie consisting of layers of puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) sandwiched together with cream, fruit, etc. In this recipe, we will be using sheets of caramelized brik or filo, which makes a delicious, light...
May 3^rd 201563 K5 50 min.

Mixed salad stack

(Found inTexts)
A stack ("pressé" in French) can be made of sliced vegetables or other ingredients piled up and pressed in a ring mould to keep them in shape. The ring is removed before serving. This stack consists of tomato, avocado, red onion, hard-boiled egg and anchovy fillets. Serve surrounded with with a...
November 25^th 201560 K5 30 min.

How to cook caramelized puff pastry well

(Found inTexts)
When puff pastry is caramelized to use in patisseries like millefeuille, French chefs call it a "feuilletage" (which means "lamination" or "leafing"). This is baked on its own before being assembled with cream, fruit, etc. The baking needs to be carefully managed: the pastry should puff into layers,...
September 3^rd 2017269 K 24.9 40 min.

Peach and verbena feuilleté

(Found inTexts)
In French, a "feuilleté" can be anything, sweet or savoury, wrapped in or with a base of puff pastry, from a sausage roll to a millefeuille. This is an elegant tart-style feuilleté with a caramelized pastry base, topped with a light custard flavoured with verbena. This is based on a confectioner's...
September 3^rd 201737 K4.1 2 hours 25 min.

Quince and apple compote

(Found inTexts)
This compote is a tricky balancing act between the characteristic quince flavour and just enough apples to sweeten it. You should end up with a compote that has a delicate quince flavour rounded out by the apples and brown sugar.
December 30^th 2019109 K3 60 min.

Benoîton

(Found inTexts)
This curious name (explained below) applies to a small bread fingers made with a blend of wheat and rye flour, enriched with raisins and almonds.
February 4^th 201846 K 4 hours 35 min.

Mini lemon millefeuilles

(Found inTexts)
These dainty and delicious mini millefeuilles have layers of puff pastry filled with lemon confectioner's custard (pastry cream). They are a bit tricky because they are quite fragile and do not keep well once assembled. But freshly made, they are a true delight.
March 25^th 201839 K 2 hours 25 min.

Fillet of salmon meunière

(Found inTexts)
A fillet of salmon can be cooked in a similar way to sole: à la meunière. The fish is lightly floured, pan-fried in butter and served drizzled with lemony butter and flat-leaved parsley. Every bit as good as sole.
April 11^th 202138 K 25 min.

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 2024728 K 413.6

Information on weights and measures in the kitchen

The way ingredients are described in a recipe varies from country to country. This difference, which is quite profound, relates not only to units of measurement, but also to the way in which they are measured: weight or volume. Let's take a look.
August 22^th 2024822 K3.7

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

A Mendeleiev periodic table in 3D

It's an old idea that was in my mind for years: making a real periodic table of Mendeleiev (who always fascinate me) in 3D, where in each element box, there is some atoms (at least) of this element.
August 24^th 2024201 K 13.6

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 202473 K3.6

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

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 20236,2455

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 201148 K4.4

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 201533 K4

Different kinds of pastry and dough

When cooking in general, and particularly in baking, we can make and use many different kinds of pastry and dough. All built on the same "base": flour - a powder to which we add fat, liquid or both to produce the dough which is then cooked. .
November 6^th 2012106 K 14.0

How to choose a good password

These days more and more websites ask you to create a user account, so that you can be identified before being allowed to access some service or other. To create an account you need to choose a user identity. This is simple, as your email address is used in most cases (ann.other@gmail.com, for...
March 29^th 201317 K4.1

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

Foie gras service

For the upcoming christmas meals you too may be sacrificing to the tradition of foie gras? If so, I suggest you take a look at everything that revolves around serving foie gras: how to serve it, and what to eat and drink with it.
December 23^th 201711 K4.9

The first breads of humanity?

I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when? Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.
February 16^th 20199,8035

The French baguette and UNESCO

As you may have already read here or there, France has initiated for some time the procedure to try to have the French baguette classified as an intangible world heritage by UNESCO. When you put it like that, it sounds a bit namby-pamby, and it would be tempting to imagine an American (for...
March 18^th 202011 K4.9

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

The infinite variety of salads

Making a salad for a meal, a few ingredients of your choice and a sauce to bind it all together is still one of the best ways to cook something really good quickly and simply. And since there is often a "fresh" aspect with the vegetables in the ingredients, not only does it taste good, but it's...
March 13^th 20216,4384.6

The return of the vegetable grater

If you are of a certain age (say +50) you may have known, when you were a kid, something that your grandmother had in her kitchen set, the vegetable grater. A kind of mill, to be turned by hand, and which with cutting discs of different sizes, allowed to grate a lot of vegetables, carrots first...
March 20^th 202112 K4.6

The 29-cent "baguette" scandal

You probably heard about it a few days ago, and that was the point: Leclerc hypermarkets in France are going to freeze the price of their baguettes at 29 centimes for 6 months. This measure caused quite a stir in the media, with a lot of talk, and in particular a lot of talk about Leclerc...
January 29^th 20226,9284.5

Soup vs. potage

It's true that we're finally coming out of winter as I write these lines, and that we'll all be making, no doubt, a little less soup and potages, but even if it's out of season, it really is a simple and delicious dish, which is one of the always easy answers to "What's for dinner this (Sunday)...
April 9^th 20225,868

How to properly roll out a pie crust?

Very often in pastry making, you have to roll out a pastry before using it for a pie or another dessert. At home, of course, you get out your rolling pin and simply roll it out. Is there a way to get an evenly rolled out dough? That's what we will see in this article.
May 10^th 20235,4324.9