FF Cuisine Amateur — French home cooking, technique by technique

Every entry says what a technique is for before it says how it is done.

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05techniques they
all rest on

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Kitchens, caves, and counters we cook beside.

A stock is an extraction, not a dish: bones and aromatics held below a simmer for hours so the collagen converts and nothing emulsifies.

Fat suspended in water, held there by something that likes both.

Long wet heat converts connective tissue to gelatine.

Flour cooked in fat thickens and thickens less the longer you cook it.

Butter that stays in pieces makes layers; butter that melts makes a biscuit.

All five techniques on one page, each with what it changes about the food, what decides it, and how it fails.

Not restaurant cooking and not a school. Every entry says what a technique is for — what it changes about the food — before it says how it is done.

Arguments →

The question	One house says	The other says
Garlic ▲	In — pounded raw into the sauce, where the south expects to taste it.	Out — or blanched to nothing, so the dish keeps a northern restraint.
The lid ▲	On — steam kept in, the liquid stays put and the meat cooks wet.	Off or ajar — the sauce reduces and the surface browns; a different dish.
Salting ▲	Early — overnight, so the brine draws in and seasons the interior.	Late — at the pan, for the crust; the middle window is the worst of both.