Learning The Art of French Cooking - By Craig Chambers

By Craig Chambers

My passion for French cooking began the year I spent in France learning about this famous art. I knew French meals were delicious but also came to realize that the production of a meal was just as important as learning how to cook it.

While there I threw myself into the history and art of French cuisine, going to cooking school as well as learning from the locals and was able to bring back a wealth of information to include in my everyday cooking. Learning the history of how this cuisine is prepared and served on a daily basis gave me a better appreciation of the art of French cooking and helped me add true authenticity to my meals. It is important to understand what a strong influence French cooking techniques have had on the western world. The mastery of its styles and methods has become the center of culinary arts and has become what is taught as the basis of all other forms of cooking in cooking schools around the world.

Learning and mastering these styles and methods is what makes it the best in the world and what makes French cuisine truly authentic. One of the most famous techniques adopted from French cooking and one that we are all familiar with, is sauteing. Sauteing refers to food cooked in oil or butter over moderately high heat and being constantly stirred or moved. Classic French cooking has evolved over time and has been influenced over the years by surrounding European countries as well as new products like herbs, spices and items such as Cocoa brought back from distant lands by explorers.

Like all cuisines, French food depends and changes along with the seasons. Salads and fruit are very popular during the summer months because of their freshness and also because they are able to be bought very cheaply. The fall and winter months make up the hunting season in France and a variety of meat dishes, often ornately made in celebration of the successful hunt, are served.

French menus also include a selection of delicious cheeses ranging from fresh, hard, rich or creamy. It is important to learn how to serve a truly authentic French meal. A typical day in France starts out with a light breakfast of hot drinks such as milk, coffee or chocolate, served with the famous buttered baguettes or French sticks and sometimes croissants served with jam.

These delectable breads are usually bought fresh in the morning from the local bakeries called boulangeries. Later on in the day, lunch is served in three courses beginning with a mixed salad, a main course of meat and vegetables, and a variety of cheeses served with a green salad. Dinner is usually a simple meal of soup and a light main course. Maybe one of the best known parts of French cuisine is the dessert.

I am convinced that a meal would not be complete without it and always include a dessert or two in my meal plans as an after dinner treat. The eclairs and profiteroles, made of a puffed pastry filled with coffee or chocolate custard, are some of the most popular and my favorites. They are also easy to make and something that everyone loves. The elegant style of French cooking can bring new flavor to your meals and new life to your kitchen.

Mastering the art of French cuisine is easy to accomplish with a little bit of creativity and a love for great food. Try something new for dinner tonight and your family or friends are sure to fall in love with French cooking!

Craig Chambers is a cooking enthusiast who enjoys French cooking and offers an extensive free cooking guide, recipes and resources on his website http://www.cookingyourbest.com

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Precision In The French Kitchen - By Jimmy Cox

By Jimmy Cox

Here are a few general principles that should be followed in the creation of delicious French dishes. I trust that experienced cooks will forgive me for mentioning what, for them, must appear to be obvious. Nevertheless, I feel that insistence on the artistry of a profession or a hobby, be it painting or cooking, can bear repetition if it is for the benefit of those who may feel that they have not yet mastered certain techniques.

I recommend earthenware pots and copper and enamel pans. But it is not every home that is in possession of such ware. So, if it has to be aluminum, then use the heavier kind, so as to be able to cook these dishes d la minute (i.e. for the exact time given). If thin aluminum pans are employed, then care must be taken to adjust accordingly the prescribed cooking time; for the food in the thin aluminum pan will heat centrifugally and cook too rapidly, instead of heating gradually and retaining a steady, even, overall temperature. This is of major importance in cooking.

Careful timing in cooking contributes greatly to Alexandre Dumaine’s insistence on precision in the kitchen. A kitchen alarm clock and a keen interest in preparing food are about all that are required - provided the ingredients are of the best quality - to be able to succeed in perfecting simple dishes. A good test is to be able to prepare the fillets of John Dory and the accompanying sauce hollandaise so that they are ready to be served together the minute that both of them are just cooked and no more.

It really is worth the effort to spend the little extra money, time and trouble in buying and cooking just the required amount of top-quality food, instead of playing around with an unnecessary amount of the second-best. It should be borne in mind that the presentation of a carefully prepared dish is of considerable importance. For example, it can make a great deal of difference as to how my Indo-Chinese curry dish is arranged and set on the table. It can easily be made to look both attractive and appetizing. Lack of interest or imagination will result in the opposite, distressing, effect.

Often times the sauce should be reduced, or cooked gently, until it thickens. Careful and closely watched reduction and blending of a sauce can make all the difference to a dish which, in itself, may have required exacting measurements and preparation. So, surely, as far as sauces are concerned, it is worth both time and trouble to stay in the kitchen and to cook the sauces cautiously without having to go off to attend to other household matters.

That little extra patience in the kitchen will also be rewarded if you wish to please your guests by preparing your own sauce tomate, sauce mayonnaise, sauce hollandaise (according to the easy recipes given here) instead of buying tasteless, commercial “concentrated” substitutes.

Whenever possible, use dry white wine, wine vinegar, and fresh, unsweetened cream in cooking. And when you need to use butter, use pure butter and not a substitute. Butter can make or break a French dish. This is an area where you should not cut corners.

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French Cooking In The Back Room - By Jimmy Cox

By Jimmy Cox

If you’re serious about learning how to cook French food, ask the experts. Go into kitchens, bakeries and any other professional food spots and ask the cooks what they’re up to. This is called back room cooking and it’s one of the most effective ways to get advice on how to cook like a chef.

When I recently stepped into our local grocer’s shop, in the Rue Dauphine, I instantly smelt something delicious being cooked in the kitchen, in the back room. Knowing the grocer and his wife to be natives of Auvergne, I asked if they were preparing a “plat du pays.”

“Yes,” they said, with contented smiles, “and it’s a Foie de Veau a l’Auvergnate.” I had heard of this dish before and was, naturally, curious to know how it was cooked. A day or two later, I obtained the detailed recipe for it, in addition to an intriguing vegetable dish, Chou Rouge aux Marrons.

This inspired me to set out in search of other recipes from the back-room cooks of the Latin Quarter. I next went round the corner, to the Rue de Seine, to see my friends from whom I regularly buy their freshly made pasta (spaghetti, macaroni, tagliatelli, canelloni, ravioli, etc.). They are a very friendly couple from Antibes. La patronne loves cooking and enjoys talking about it on every occasion with her enchanting accent of the Midi. From her, I managed to obtain the “home” recipes for Tagliatelli a l’Antiboise and the Tomates du Midi.

One Sunday, when we were expecting friends in for lunch, I went to the Marche Saint-Germain to buy some turbot for my filet de turbot a Undienne dish. But Louise, the buxom, good-humored fish vendor from Marseilles, had no turbot that day and I saw nothing on her usually very well stocked stall that could replace the dish I had intended to serve.

“Take a look at those mackerel,” she said. “They’re superb and so fresh. They’re line-caught, not net-fished.”

When Louise saw me retreat from the idea of offering our guests mackerel, she then divulged her own and ever-so-easy way of preparing Maquereaux en Papillote. We tried it out, with great success. Among other recipes that Louise has since given me are her Oeufs Farcis au Thon.

Francois, our butcher, wasn’t quite so co-operative, at first, when I asked him to give me a few original ideas for preparing different cuts of meat.

“The fact is,” he said, “I get tired at looking at all this meat that I have to cut up and sell day in day out. Fortunately, my wife realizes this and she has recently been experimenting in our little back-room kitchen in dishes other than meat. A day or two ago she cooked an excellent Gibelotte de Lapin. I’ll ask her to give you the details; also for the Escalopes de Lapin.”

Nothing daunted, I next asked the proprietress of one of my favorite cafes - Le Lutetia, on the Quai de Bourbon - where light luncheons are served, what she could contribute by way of recipes for simple desserts. Her answer was to explain how easy it is to prepare bananes flambees and the amusing Martinique egg dish.

And that is the way it goes in France today, world center of gastronomy. If you express a genuine interest in cooking, you can collect a mine of exciting and entertaining gastronomic information with which you can experiment in your own kitchen.

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