Ever wonder why the leftover Idaho bakers that tasted great last night taste awful reheated? Or what potato will make the best hash browns? Here are the answers to your […]
On my 10th Christmas, Santa left a cookbook in my stocking. It was the first cookbook I ever owned, a small, spiral bound thing called Betty Crocker’s Good and Easy […]
Braising is one of the oldest known cooking methods, and one sees plenty of braised dishes on menus about town. Yet few people seem to know exactly what braising is, […]
There’s a good deal of confusion surrounding demi-glace. Many confuse it with the process of de-glazing – which is adding wine or stock to a pan to lift bits of […]
Aïoli, pronounced eye-YO-lee, is most often associated with Provence, the region of southwestern France famous for its lavender fields, the numerous shades of ochre mined from its cliffs, and its […]
Hollandaise sauce has a reputation worthy of Cleopatra: tempting, beguiling, and notoriously hard to handle. The reputation is well-earned – but who’s going to pass up a chance to hang […]
Photo Credit: Venice Gastronaut Béchamel sauce is a key ingredient in hundreds of recipes, from simple dishes like creamed peas to elegant cheese soufflés. At one time considered a sauce […]
Photo Credit: Bamitbach Don’t know a Sauce Velouté from a Sauce Mornay? Me neither. So the other day when I was making a soup recipe that called for “a quart […]
Marinara sauce is one of the world’s great sauces. And, I would venture to guess, the sauce that’s made the most often, found on the most grocery shelves, and served […]
You may have seen Béarnaise on a menu and wanted to ask, just what is Béarnaise sauce? Well, no mysteries here. Sauce Béarnaise, to use the French phrasing, is one […]
What is Clarified Butter? Clarified butter, also known as drawn butter, is butter from which the milk solids have been removed. Milk solids are the white bits that rise to […]
Before explaining the five mother sauces, let’s back up and look at what a sauce itself is. In the most basic sense, a sauce is a liquid that has been […]
Recently, when I told a cousin that I was planning to make bagna càuda for a party, she replied, “What is bagna càuda?” I was surprised because this cousin and […]
Contrary to what its pronunciation suggests, coq au vin is not a new food truck dispensing hot chocolate, although that’s not a bad idea either. The literal translation – “rooster […]
You know it’s delicious. And expensive. And it lays just right across a slice of melon. But have you ever wondered, Exactly what is prosciutto and how did it get […]
Next time you spread mustard on your ham sandwich, consider this: you’re just repeating history, and very ancient history at that. Mustard seeds were chewed with meat to add flavor […]
Their makeup is 90% water. For the first 3,000 years, no one could figure out how to propagate them, and finding them in the wild took more energy than the […]
The commonly accepted history of Beef Stroganoff is that a French chef who worked for a wealthy St. Petersburg family created the dish for a cooking contest in 1891. Following […]
Eggs, Oil, and Dangerous Liaisons Try this for six degrees of separation: what links John Malkovich, Colin Firth, and mayonnaise? Malkovich and Firth both played the seductive, amoral Vicomte de […]
I confess to loving mayonnaise in all its forms, and became an even bigger fan after writing a brief history of it. This recipe is the result of my quest […]
Thousands of years ago, Hindu cooks discovered that spices went well with fruit, and that spices and sugary fruit mixed together slowed food spoilage. And then there were the flavors […]
Chinese cuisine may have been the first example of waste-not-want-not gourmet food. Leftover rice tonight? Fried rice tomorrow! Overcooked rice on the bottom of the pot? Deep fry it and […]
Yes, there really was a General Tso. He lived in the 19th century and is one of Hunan province’s greatest heroes. Contrary to popular myth, however, he never tasted the […]
Sweet or hot, whole grained or smooth, Americans love mustard. Which is why, when I ran out a few months ago, it was a near tragedy. Not about to fling […]
