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Notation







Produce and ingredients

 

 

On this page you will find information about some products used in the recipes on this website.

 

Agar-agar

Agar-agar is a natural gelling agent, of vegetable origin, made from seaweed. It is sold as a beige powder, and has no taste or smell.

If you intend to buy:

You can find it in asian or organic groceries, sold in small sachets.

If you want to use it:

To activate agar-agar it should be heated to 95°C or 203°F. It starts is action as a gelling agent when its temperature drops to about 30°C or 86°F.

Recipes which use it: 3

Of which: Quick bramble jelly - Apricot blancmange - Pears in red wine with blackcurrant
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Amaretto

Amaretto is an Italian sweet almond-flavoured liqueur. It is made from a base of almonds or apricot stones

If you intend to buy:

The most famous brand is "Disaronno" with its square stopper.

Recipes which use it: 2

Of which: New tiramisu - Tiramisu
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Apricot glaze

Apricot glaze is an apricot jelly (strained jam), used to coat tarts, to protect them from the air and give them a glossy appearance.

If you intend to buy:

You will find it in supermarket, or in specialized stores, where it's cheaper. See about that my best addresses page.

If you want to use it:

Apricoting glaze looks like a fruit jelly, and should be melted with 10% water or sugar syrup, in a bain-marie or microwave oven before use.

Recipes which use it: 5

Of which: Exotic fruit tart - Apricot and almond cream tart - Cherry and pistachio tarts - Pear tart with almond cream - How to glaze a tart
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Baking powder

Baking powder (also called "Alsatian yeast" or "chemical yeast" in France) is a chemical raising agent, mainly bicarbonate of soda (or sodium bicarbonate), which acts with heat to make cakes rise.

It is used in most cakes, like for example chestnut cake, added to the mixture, and put in the oven without delay.

It should not be confused with yeast, which is more usually used in breads and viennoiseries.

Note: French baking powder is not the same formula as British and is about twice the strength, so if you are using French baking powder in a British recipe, use half the quantity. If using British baking powder in a French recipe, double the quantity.

If you intend to buy:

In France baking powder is sold in packets of 10 famous small pink sachets of 10 g. Always keep some in stock, in an airtight tin or box, as it keeps for several months. [Translator's note: British cooks are more used to buying baking powder in tubs, and measuring by the teaspoonful. French recipes often specify it by the sachet.1 sachet = 2 level teaspoonsful, but because it it stronger, this is the equivalent of 4 teaspoonsful of British baking powder!]

If you want to use it:

Baking powder is straightforward to use. The only thing it doesn't like is to be kept waiting, once mixed, before being cooked.

Recipes which use it: 5

Of which: Arizona cupcakes - Chestnut cake - Muffin dough - Toasted almond cake - Gingerbread
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Chestnut flour

Made from dried chestnuts, this is a light brown flour without gluten. Not suitable for making bread (unless mixed with a proportion of wheat flour), but it's excellent for cakes, biscuits, pancakes,...

If you intend to buy:

You can sometimes find it in supermarkets, but more usually in organic stores.

If you want to use it:

Chestnut flour must be sieved before use to prevent lumps in your recipe.

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Coarse sugar crystals

Coarse sugar crystals are usually white and have much larger grains than caster or granulated sugar.

They are used for decorating cakes and pastries, such as chouquettes, for example.

If you intend to buy:

If you can't find any, it's quite easy to make something similar by wrapping sugar cubes in a cloth, then hitting them with a hammer.

Recipes which use it: 1

Of which: Chouquettes
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Comté cheese

Comté is a cow's milk cheese, made in the Jura's mountains, in eastern France. It looks a bit like Gruyère and Emmenthal (without holes), but that's just the appearence, its flavour is much stronger.

You can find more information about it on Wikipédia or on the Comté official website.

If you intend to buy:

Because Comté is protected by AOC certification, you can be sure of getting a quality product when you buy it. Furthermore, Comté ages well, and some remarkable cheeses can be found 18 months old, or older.

If you want to use it:

Comté is used in many recipes on this site. If unfortunately you're unable to find any, you can use other cheeses of similar type instead, like Gruyère, Emmenthal, etc. (but they will not be as good).

Recipes which use it: 7

Of which: Fougasse with bacon and Comté - Small cheese and bacon rolls - Potato gratin - Cocotte eggs with Comté - Salmon and spinach quiche - ...
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Courgette

Courgette (Zuchini) is a summer vegetable, full of fibre and vitamins.

If you intend to buy:

Contrary to a popular idea, the smaller the courgette, the better it is. As they grow, courgettes become full of water and lose both taste and crunch. The famous chef Alain Dutournier says that "Over 15 cm (6 inches) a courgette is no longer of any interest".

So big or even huge courgettes are not better than small ones, but are only good for being stuffed .

If you want to use it:

Courgettes (zuchinis) do not need to be be peeled, just scrubbed with a brush or a scouring pad, and the ends cut off.

If they are too big, the white part inside (with seeds) should be removed by cutting the courgette in four from lengthways, then cutting out the central part of each quarter.

Recipes which use it: 14

Of which: Couscous - Tagliatelle and courgette spaghetti, carbonara style - Fish fillet in express cooking envelope - Scallops with crunchy vegetables and wine sabayon - Tomato and courgette tart - ...
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Cream

If you leave milk to stand (real milk that is, full-fat, coming straight from the cow), after a while small droplets of fat float to the top, they come together and create the fat part of the milk: cream.

This cream, naturally liquid but which thickens over time, is drawn off the milk and sold as cream. From this basic cream, other kinds are developed:

  • Pouring cream, ("fleurette" in French): this is the classic cream from the top of the milk.
  • Crème fraiche: a cream which has undergone a brief lactic fermentation, which makes it thicker and slightly sour.
To these two kinds can be added UHT cream, which has been sterilised at high temperature.

If you intend to buy:

Crème fraiche (sold in pots) and fresh liquid cream (sold in small bottles or cartons) should be stored in the fridge, for a limited time.

If they are UHT, these creams (sold in cartons) can be stored out of the fridge until they are opened, .

"Full" cream means without any fat removed, so it's real cream. Beware of all the "light", "reduced fat" or other creams of this type. In order to produce them, manufacturers need to replace the fat they remove with something else to keep the creamy texture, and this other additive is not necessarily good for your health.

If you want to use it:

Crèame fraiche is the cream of choise for sauces, but this is not an obligation. Fresh pouring cream is perfect for everything like whipped cream or chantilly.

You will surely notice that UHT creams have less flavour than fresh ones, because the sterilisation leaves them bland.

Recipes which use it: 57

Of which: Fish petals, vegetables julienne, and beurre blanc - Apricot fool - Stock-pot fish - Panna cotta - Potimarron (chestnut pumpkin) "au gratin" - ...
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Filo pastry

Filo pastry (or phyllo - fillo) is a flour-based product from Greece or Turkey. The very thin sheets are often used to wrap fillings and produce a very crisp roll or parcel.

Filo pastry is used for some famous Middle Eastern sweet pastries like baklava.

If you intend to buy:

You can find it in packs of 8-10 square sheets.

If you want to use it:

Once the pack is opened, be sure to seal it well after use, otherwise remaining sheets will dry out and be unusable.

Recipes which use it: 3

Of which: Filo leeks and cheese tart - Crispy rolls with chicken and leek - Red rice pannequets
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Fondant icing

Fondant icing is a mixture of sugars and water, in the form of a white paste, fairly hard when cold, but which softens when warmed.
It's used for icing the tops of cakes and pastries such as millefeuilles or eclairs. It can be used white or coloured.

If you intend to buy:

Use a professional supplier if possible (look in Yellow Pages); you'll find it at a better price. You could also ask your baker. If he's kind, he might agree to sell you a little (or even give you some).

If you want to use it:

Fondant is used softened, which occurs at a temperature of 035°C (90°F), generally done in a bain-marie.

If you don't have any, you can replace it with a quick glacé icing, made by mixing icing sugar thoroughly with a little water until very thick and syrupy.

Recipes which use it: 2

Of which: Arizona cupcakes - Chinois
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Gelatin

Gelatin is a gelling agent, of animal origin, which is used in cooking to thicken or set preparations. It dissolves when heated (at about 60°C), and then acts as a gelling agent when the temperature drops again.

If you intend to buy:

Gelatin can be found in supermarkets in 2 gram sheets or as a powder.

Be aware that sometimes you can find it in smaller sheet of 1 gram instead of 2, so you should note that recipes here use full size sheets of 2 grams.

If you want to use it:

See this page.

Recipes which use it: 7

Of which: Apricot blancmange - Individual charlottes with morello cherries - Coconut-vanilla cream for Elsa - Panna cotta - Frozen Nougat - ...
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Japanese chestnut pumpkin (Potimarron)

The potimarron is a kind of pumpkin which originated in Asia. It's shaped like a very large pear, with a hard reddish-orange skin.

It is different from the classic pumpkin, especially in 2 respects: the skin is edible, and its flavour - which is rather like chestnut - is stronger.

If you intend to buy:

Voyez le calendrier de saison à ce sujet.

Les potimarrons pèsent de 2 à 3 kg pièces, ils se conservent assez longtemps tant qu'il ne sont pas ouverts ou coupés.

If you want to use it:

Voyez cette page.

Recipes which use it: 3

Of which: Pumpkin (or potimarron) soup - How to prepare a pumpkin (or potimarron) - Potimarron (Japanese chestnut pumpkin) purée
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Malibu rum

Malibu Rum is a liquor made from rum and coconut extract. The alcohol content by volume is 21% (42 proof).

If you intend to buy:

Usually in opaque white bottle.

Recipes which use it: 1

Of which: Coconut-vanilla cream for Elsa
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Mont-d'Or cheese

Mont-d'Or is a cheese made from whole raw cow's milk in Franche-Comté (an area of eastern France).

It's a soft and full-flavoured cheese, sold in a characteristic wood box.

Mont-d'Or in Wikipedia.

If you intend to buy:

Mont-d'Or is a seasonal cheese wich can only be made during certain periods of the year, when cow eat hay instead of grass.

You can see this on the calendar of seasons.

If you want to use it:

Mont-d'Or can be eaten cold or hot.

Recipes which use it: 2

Of which: Hot box cheese - Quick courgette soup with cheese
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Morteau sausage

Morteau sausage is a delicious sausage, smoked for at least 48 hours with conifer sawdust in the highlands of the French region of Franche-Comté. Unfortunately it does not yet benefit from A.O.C. status (French culinary heritage protection) and it's a real shame! but only a geographic protected identity.

When eating a Morteau sausage, you are sure to enjoy a true quality product, made with traditionally produced pork from pigs raised on sub-alpine slopes. In my humble opinion, the best smoked sausage there is...

If you intend to buy:

Always choose a sausage that has small slivers of wood along the sides and a green metal label which guarantees you a true product from Franche-Comté.

Each pork butcher has his own way of making sausages, so you will probably find small differences in taste (more or less smoked, salted, spiced) and texture (more or less fat) between different producers.

It is not easy to find good sausages, by good I mean, not too much fat and smoked enough. If your feet ever carry you to Franche-Comté, let me advise you to check this page of good addresses.

You can also find sausages with caraway, a stupid trendy sausage flavour, in complete conflict with the smoked taste...

If you want to use it:

Please look at the sausage cooking page.

Recipes which use it: 6

Of which: How to cook Morteau sausage well - Hotpot my grandmother's way - Morteau sausage - Express sauerkraut - Sausage mushroom and cheese crumble - ...
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Pepper

Pepper is a spice obtained from the berries of two kinds of tree. The berries (peppercorns once dried), yield three kinds of pepper, depending of harvest period and processing:
  • Green pepper (immature berries)
  • Black pepper (mature)
  • White pepper (black pepper without skin)
White and black pepper are the most commonly used in the kitchen, their tastes are similar, and it's mostly for aesthetic reasons that one is used rather than the other. It's worth using white pepper when you don't want to see small black grains in your dish.

If you intend to buy:

Have 2 pepper mills if possible: one with white pepper and the other with black pepper. In this way you can be sure that you add pepper and only pepper to your recipe (with commercially ground pepper, who knows?). Your pepper will always be fresh; once ground it soon loses its flavour.

If you want to use it:

To add pepper to a dish to be served raw (salad, vinaigrette,...) no problem, just grind with the mill when needed.

For cooking with pepper, it's a bit different because pepper eventually gives a bitter taste during cooking, due to its tannin. Auguste Escoffier (confirmed by Hervé This) says that this happens after about 8 minutes of cooking, so you should so try to avoid cooking pepper more than this, and add it "at the right time...".

Recipes which use it: 121

Of which: Moussaka - African style chicken - Tartiflette - Tomato tart - Filo leeks and cheese tart - ...
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Quatre-épices (four spices)

Quatre-épices (4 spices) is a mix of: black pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Sometimes a fifth spice is added, ginger or chilli.

[Translator's note: this mix is rather hotter and less sweet than British "mixed spice", and in France is often used in savoury dishes. If using British style mixed spice as a substitute in French recipes, you will need to add extra pepper to get the same effect. I use quatre épices in cakes, fruit puddings and mincemeat, and I've got used to it - give it a try, but use with caution at first. The French "mélange sweet" is based on the British mix, but only normally available from professional bakery suppliers.]

If you intend to buy:

Quatre-épices can be bought ground in supermarkets or from specialist grocers.

Recipes which use it: 3

Of which: Foie gras cured in salt - Pâté de campagne - Home-made terrine of foie gras
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Red rice

Red rice is a whole-grain rice with a strong and delicious flavour. Originally from Asia, it's now produced in several places in the world.

If you intend to buy:

You can find it in organics stores and in fair trade.

If you want to use it:

As all complete rice, red rice is much more longer to cook than white rice.

Recipes which use it: 1

Of which: Red rice pannequets
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Salt

Salt is more than just a condiment, it plays an important role in bringing out flavours in recipes.

There are two main types of salt:

  • Sea salt: made by evaporation of sea water
  • Rock salt: extracted from mines
These two kinds are then factory refined to produce the very fine white powder that we know as table salt. Unfortunately, this refining results in the loss of most of the minerals and its characteristic flavour. That's why if you don't particulary need fine salt, it's better to use unrefined coarse grey salt.

If you intend to buy:

I advise you to keep at least two kinds of salt: coarse grey sea salt (like "Sel de Guérande"), and a finer salt for the times when coarse salt is unsuitable.

Please note that in all bread recipes on this site, salt quantity is given for coarse salt.

If you want to use it:

Don't forget that for an equal weight, white refined salt adds more salty taste than coarse salt, so you should add less of it.

You can make yourself a special salt with a particular flavour, as you make vanilla sugar. It's possible to make salt with herbs, citrus fruits or chili.

Recipes which use it: 153

Of which: Tagliatelle and courgette spaghetti, carbonara style - Leek and potato soup - Chestnut cake - Tomato tart - Salmon "en papillote" with small vegetables - ...
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Vanilla

Vanilla is a spice produced by a kind of orchid, originally from South America. After harvesting and treatment it is sold in the form of black pods about 4 inches long.

Vanilla can be found in different forms: beans (pods) - the best kind, and in liquid essence or powder extract.

The best vanilla (it is said) comes from the islands of Madagascar and Réunion in the Indian ocean, so called "Bourbon Vanilla " (on the right in the photo), but many other places in the world produce vanilla.

In particular Tahiti produces a special kind with large and very fragrant beans (on the left in the photo).

If you intend to buy:

Buy pods as thick as possible and supple to the touch, as this is a sign of freshness and quality. See my best addresses on this subject.

If you want to use it:

See this page

Recipes which use it: 15

Of which: Chocolate cream with a crunch, irish coffeemousse - Vanilla sugar - Crème caramel - Confectioner's custard (Crème pâtissière, or French pastry cream ) - Coconut-vanilla cream for Elsa - ...
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Vitamin C

Vitamin C is an antioxidant, which means that it prevents vegetables and fruits from browning, like a peeled pear for example.

Vitamine C is in several fruits and vegetables like blackcurrant and lemon, but it can be bought in powder form for use in cooking.

If you intend to buy:

You can find it in drugstores or chemist's as "ascorbic acid". Ask for vitamin C for cooking use, and it will be sold to you as a white powder.

If you want to use it:

Vitamin C is ideal for keeping the attractive appearance of fruits and vegetables which need to be peeled, cut and/or blended. You need only use a pinch each time.

Recipes which use it: 5

Of which: Pear sorbet - Fruit coulis (fruit purée) - Peach and mint salad - How to prevent peeled fruit or vegetables turning brown - Guacamole
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Yeast

Yeast (also called "brewer's yeast" or "baker's yeast") is a living product, made up of microscopic fungi which grow slowly when they are in a warm place.

Baker's yeast is for use in breads and viennoiseries. It it is incorporated gently into the dough, then you need to wait for it to work.

It should not be confused with baking powder, which is used for raising cakes.

If you intend to buy:

Yeast is available in two basic kinds: fresh yeast (ask your baker to sell or give you some, it looks like a greyish paste, which kept in a sealed box in the fridge and should be used within a few days), or dried yeast in 5 g sachets. Dried yeast will kep for several months without any problem. It can be used like fresh yeast, but only half the quantity is needed (it's a very effective yeast).

Personally, I frequently practice: 1 dried yeast sachet = 20g fresh yeast, and vice versa.

Note: For each recipe you can use either fresh or dried yeast, use whichever you have to hand.

If you want to use it:

Yeast is a delicate product, it doesn't like cold (which stops or slows its action), direct contact with salt (which can kill the yeast by "burning" it), and excessive heat. Usually fresh baker's yeast is added to a little warm water or milk to "start" it before adding to a recipe.

Recipes which use it: 18

Of which: Ciabatta - Brioche dough - Leavened bread - Pizza dough - Pitta bread - ...
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