Herb olive oil

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
This flavoured olive oil, easy to prepare, goes very well with Mediterranean cuisine: pizzas, pastas, pan bagnat, etc...
301K3.8 21 min. February 21^th 2011

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.
451K4.2 2 hours 14 min. June 21^th 2017

French dressing (vinaigrette)

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
Here is a very simple recipe, but it could completely transform, maybe even transcend, your salad.
1.0M4.5 7 min. July 7^th 2011

Sausage mushroom and cheese crumble

(Found inTextsIngredientsComments)
A small ramekin filled with sausage sandwiched between two layers of cooked mushrooms, topped with a savoury crumble made with cancoillotte (a cheese typical of eastern France). All the French region of Franche-comté is in this recipe: Morteau sausage, cancoillotte cheese, and Jura white wine.
239K 24.6 2 hours 45 min. May 10^th 2023

Tartiflette

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
A personal version of a classic recipe from Savoy.
591K 14.6 1 hour 27 min. September 16^th 2019

Parcels of fish fillet in spinach

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
These parcels are made with small pieces of fish fillet, wrapped in a blanched spinach leaf and lightly fried in butter. They can be served with a salted white wine sabayon (as in the recipe of scallops with crunchy vegetables), a beurre blanc, a dash of olive oil with herbs, or any other sauce of...
232K5 2 hours 23 min. March 18^th 2013

Guacamole

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
For this typically Mexican recipe there are two main methods: smooth mashed avocado (made with a blender), or simple mashed avocado (made with a fork) with small pieces. And you can add, or not, finely diced tomato. You will find the first version (smooth) below.
289K4.1 1 hour 21 min. November 26^th 2011

Hummus

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
Hummus (or houmous), is one of the famous and delicious Lebanese "mezzes".
327K4.7 16 min. May 30^th 2020

Vegetable pie

(Found inTexts)
Three layers of vegetables, baked in puff pastry.
233K3.9 1 hour 21 min. September 10^th 2018

How to cook hard-boiled eggs properly

(Found inTextsStagesComments)
A hard-boiled egg is properly cooked when: shell is not broken, white and yolk are firm, yolk is only yellow with no traces of green around it. Here are some tips to make this easy.
1.4M 65 1 hour 28 min. November 4^th 2013

Green parsley sauce

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
This sauce, with a great parsley taste, is perfect with steamed vegetables or fish. At the bottom you will find the coulis version of this recipe.
504K 44.3 23 min. February 21^th 2011

Fougasse with bacon and Comté

(Found inTextsIngredients)
This is a richer version of the traditional Mediterranean recipe (originaly, it was a simple olive oil bread).
329K4.1 3 hours 9 min. October 24^th 2017

Pizza dough

(Found inTextsIngredients)
Pizza dough is a lind of bread dough with olive oil, which make it softer. This is the same dough that I use for pizzas and flammenkuches, this is no doubt incorrect, but it's very good nevertheless. At home we used to make pizza dough quite thick, and flammenkuche as thin as possible.
499K4.6 1 hour 59 min. August 27^th 2020

Tomato sauce (for pizzas)

(Found inTextsIngredients)
This is the sauce to put on pizza bases before the toppings.
518K4.3 1 hour 15 min. October 19^th 2010

Preserved tomatoes

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
Softer than dried tomatoes, they can be used as a kind of chutney in pasta dishes for instance, or simply served to accompany an aperitif.
334K4.8 5 hours 6 min. February 21^th 2011

Fish petals, vegetables julienne, and beurre blanc

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
This recipe consists of delicate flakes ("petals") of poached fish, cooked with smoked ham, served on a bed of julienne vegetables (fine sticks of carrots, turnips and cabbage), with a "beurre blanc" sauce made with vinegar and shallots. Not difficult, but entails some work.
249K4.3 1 hour 34 min. December 31^th 2013

Hamburgers

(Found inTextsStages)
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.
411K4.8 33 min. December 6^th 2015

African style chicken

(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)
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).
399K5 2 hours 4 min. February 21^th 2011

How to prepare tomatoes

(Found inTextsStages)
Yes, I know you will say to me: why peel tomatoes? The answer is very simple: it's much better, gives a better texture, softer in the mouth. The skin is tough, adds nothing to the taste (and you will have noticed that commercial tomatoes have practically no taste), and finally it's there (on/under...
324K 24 40 min. June 6^th 2012

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.
248K 24.2 1 min. February 21^th 2011

Films and papers in the kitchen

Various papers and plastic films used in cooking .
570K 93.6 August 29^th 2023

Homemade plancha

Make you own plancha and cook the Spanish way on this scorching hot metal plate.
255K 43.7 June 3^rd 2024

My best addresses...

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

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...
185K 13.9 June 3^rd 2024

Advice on heating oven

Construction of a Fayol bread oven: advice on heating and preparing for baking bread.
176K4.0 August 29^th 2023

Elements in the table

All elements of the Periodic Table in practice.
35K3.9 August 29^th 2023

Electronic controlling of a pump

How to switch on a pump with a timer automatically using high water level .
169K4.4 August 29^th 2023

Start off well to cook well

How to get off to a good start in cooking; what equipment and basic ingredients you should always have to hand.
305K 13.6 August 29^th 2023

Ice-cream and sorbets

All about ice-creams and sorbets, their differences and how to make the most of them .
426K4.0 August 29^th 2023

Basic temperature in bread-making

Basic temperature in bread-making.
225K3.7 August 29^th 2023

Preservative oil, an asset for taste

When you prepare a dish using an ingredient that has been preserved in fat, for example a springtime mixed salad with tuna in oil or sun-dried tomatoes, you're probably going to make a french dressing (vinaigrette) next. In that case, why not use the preserved oil from the tuna or tomatoes?
2,3815 June 5^th 2024

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...
13K4.7 January 30^th 2021

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...
47K4.4 February 6^th 2011

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...
32K4 January 28^th 2015

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...
37K4.2 February 9^th 2011

Good fridge management

We all have a fridge at home – it's an indispensible part of the kitchen and so much a part of the furniture that we tend not to pay it much attention. But often, out of habit, we don't use it properly. Here are a few tips to help you get more from your fridge. .
25K4.4 April 19^th 2011

The time of the jams

We are well into summer as I write this, and this is the time when most of the fruit is giving or about to give in full. And for many of us, it will also be the time for jams and jellies, one of the best ways to preserve fruit for the next winter.
23K4.5 July 12^th 2021

Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.

Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
38K4.5 March 26^th 2012

The painter, the restaurant owners and the opera singer

You might well have noticed that there are recipes involving names that have been so overused (often for any old thing) that they have almost become common nouns.
17K4.4 September 25^th 2012

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. .
105K 14.0 November 6^th 2012

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...
16K4.4 November 26^th 2012

Preserving egg yolks

If you're using only the egg whites in a recipe (such as meringues ), you'll need to store the yolks until you're ready to use them again. There's nothing very complicated about this in principle - all you have to do is chill them, but there are a few pitfalls to be avoided in practice.
2,2455 June 18^th 2024

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.
2235 July 24^th 2024

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...
87K 23.9 June 16^th 2021

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.
26K 13.4 February 27^th 2015

Perpetual stock

It's something you have probably have done yourself: cooked or pre-cooked vegetables before adding them to a recipe. This is almost always done the same way: peel the chosen vegetables (carrots, for example), cut them up, boil them in salted water (using a tablespoon or so of coarse salt per litre),...
23K5 November 22^th 2016

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...
12K5 March 9^th 2017

What can I use for blind baking a pastry case?

When it comes to home-made desserts, tarts are always popular. They can be divided into two basic types: those cooked with their filling, such as an apricot and almond cream tart, and those where the filling is added after baking the pastry case, such as a strawberry tart or chocolate tart. For...
105K4.5 May 2^nd 2017

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,...
19K5 May 31^th 2017

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.
7,6555 December 5^th 2017