Archive
French home cooking is not elaborate. It is one very good ingredient, correctly handled, surrounded by things that get out of its way. Compl...
October and November belong to chestnuts. Street braziers appear, and chestnuts move into savoury dishes rather than desserts: with cabbage,...
Mushrooms are never washed under a tap in France. They are brushed. Water fills them, and a waterlogged mushroom steams in the pan instead o...
The water that vegetables or pasta cooked in is an ingredient, not waste. It carries starch and salt, and a ladleful will bind a sauce more ...
Parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives are added off the heat, at the table if possible. Cooking them destroys exactly what you bought them f...
Cheese goes after the main and before anything sweet. The order is fixed because it follows the wine: the last of the red is drunk with the ...
Poaching happens at a temperature where the water shivers but never bubbles. A rolling boil tears delicate proteins apart. If you can hear i...
The first soup of September marks the end of summer in a French kitchen. It is usually a soupe au pistou or a simple vegetable puree, and it...
A cold knob of butter, whisked in off the heat, at the very last moment. Monter au beurre gives a sauce gloss and body that no amount of red...
For a pilaf, French cooks toast the dry grains in butter until they turn translucent at the edges, and never rinse. The surface starch is wh...
The French judge stone fruit by smell at the stem, never by squeezing. A peach with no smell will never develop one. Pressure only tells you...
In August the French stop cooking. Meals become assembled rather than prepared: charcuterie, tomatoes, a cold soup, bread. Turning on an ove...
Real ratatouille is not one pan. Each vegetable is cooked separately, then combined at the end. The French accept the extra pans because cou...
Fat is a preservative, not just a cooking medium. Duck confit exists because a duck cooked slowly in its own fat and stored under it keeps f...
Salt goes on meat well before it meets heat, ideally the night before. Salting at the pan is too late: the salt has no time to travel and on...
Potatoes for a salad are dressed while still hot, in white wine or stock before any oil goes near them. Cold potato absorbs nothing; hot pot...
Haricots verts go into aggressively salted boiling water, uncovered, and come out while still squeaking against the tooth. Then straight int...
Melon with a slice of jambon cru opens a summer lunch in the south of France. It is not a dessert and never appears at the end. Sweet and sa...
A tomato is never refrigerated in France. Cold destroys the volatile compounds that make it taste like anything. A tomato lives on the count...
One bay leaf, added at the start, removed at the end. The French treat it as structure rather than flavour: it is doing something you would ...
The chicken comes out of the oven and sits for twenty minutes before anyone touches it. This is not politeness. Cutting early empties the bi...
A French shopper buys the amount of cheese that will be eaten within two or three days. Cheese is a living thing and refrigeration is a comp...
Nothing is thrown away. Yesterday bread becomes pain perdu, croutons, or the thickener in a soup. A French kitchen assumes bread has three l...
A French market shopper arrives with no list. The list is written by whatever is best that morning. You walk the entire market once before b...
Before cooking anything substantial, the French start with mirepoix: diced onion, carrot, and celery sweated slowly in butter. This aromatic...
By law, a traditional French baguette contains only flour, water, salt, and yeast. No sugar, no oil, no preservatives. The simplicity is the...
French cooking uses fewer spices than almost any cuisine, but uses them with precision. The four essentials: salt, pepper, thyme, and bay le...
The French serve cheese before dessert, never as an appetizer. Always at room temperature, always odd numbers on the board (three or five va...
A French vinaigrette is made in the bottom of the salad bowl, not in a separate container. The ratio is sacred: one part acid to three parts...
In France, scrambled eggs are cooked low and slow, stirred constantly with a wooden spoon. The result is creamy, almost custard-like curds t...