Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)

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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.

Quick orange marmalade

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Just oranges (organic) and sugar in this simplified marmalade recipe.
February 26^th 2014150 K3.9 1 hour 15 min.

How to cook red meat properly

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Cooking red meat well is not as simple as it might seem. Even if you start with high quality meat, with poor cooking it can become dry and tough. Here's a way that will guarantee you a perfect result.
October 13^th 2010467 K2.7 1 hour 25 min.

Jelly-style plum jam

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Lots of people make plum jam, but you can also elevate this to a rather elegant jelly, simply by removing the skins. It's not a true jelly (this is normally made with juice), but leans towards that style: light and, above all, delicious.
October 13^th 201995 K 13 hours 15 min.

How to cook caramelized puff pastry well

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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.

Windfall apple jelly

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This jelly is an excellent way to make use of all those unripe apples that have dropped off the tree. They (or rather, their juice) makes a delicious jelly with a very delicate flavour. As these apples are green and generally tart, we need to use a little more gelling agent than for a normal jelly...
August 19^th 2021161 K5 60 min.

Home-made terrine of foie gras

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Preparing your own home-made foie gras from raw is immensively satisfying: good quality liver and a simply amazing flavour – much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is a bit tricky, but quite within everyone's grasp, as long as you follow the 3 most delicate stages carefully. These are,...
December 17^th 20235.23 M 64.2 4 days 15 hours 50 min.

Chocolate rice pudding

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If you're already a fan of classic rice pudding, I'm sure you'll enjoy this even more comforting version, made with two kinds of chocolate.
November 15^th 202036 K 30 min.

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

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 202189 K 23.9

Using stretch food film effectively

Maybe you use food film in your own kitchen. You know, the very thin, clear plastic stuff that you can stretch, often used to cover food and protect it from the air. It’s become so widely used that it’s now an essential item for pros. They even have a verb for it in French: “filmer”: to...
May 12^th 201819 K 14.9

Asian hornets: Why and how to limit their spread

In France, the Asian hornet is one of the most dangerous insect species, and a formidable predator of our domestic bees. Having arrived straight from South-East Asia, it poses a real threat to local beehives.
October 10^th 20194,2015

What happens to the bread when you make it?

This bread that we eat every day, and that our baker makes for us, what happens during its manufacture so that it becomes bread? I will try to answer this question, and to summarize the complex alchemy that takes place.
May 28^th 20219,9984.9

In praise of Mont d'Or cheese

Do you know the Mont d'Or, this extraordinary cheese from the Haut-Doubs in France, with a unique taste and appearance, which can be eaten both raw and cooked? I'll tell you a few words about it, and with some tips on how to choose it and cook it. .
November 27^th 20217,8595