It's spring time which means English Peas are now available. This quick video will show you how to prep and blanch English Peas which is a necessary step before adding them to salads, sautes or applying a secondary cooking technique.
Here's a quick video that will teach you how to peel and blanch pearl onions. Once prepped, pearl onions make a great accompaniment to many saute dishes.
I'm really proud to present this video because it's a long time in the making; not necessarily the completed dish itself, but all the fundamental cooking techniques required to actually execute this dish properly. When the thought struck to start a cooking "blog" (back before I even created FCS), I originally intended to chronicle advanced cooking techniques from a working chef's perspective.
Pancetta in its simplest form is salted and cured pork belly that is native to Italian Cuisine and loved throughout the world. Commonly referred to as "Italian Bacon," pancetta's major difference from it's American counterpart is its lack of smoke. Pancetta is commonly flavored with different seasonings and spices, with each region of Italy, (and chef for that matter), having their own preferential spice blend.
This video demonstrates the prep process for making oil poached and pressed potatoes. Fingerling potatoes are first slowly poached in flavored oil until tender, slightly cooled and then pressed with the skin still on. These potatoes can then be fried in olive oil or clarified butter until the exterior is crispy, finished with fresh herbs and sea salt and served as is or as an accompaniment to a meat course.
Here's a quick video demonstrating how to clean and blanch green beans. After the green beans are prepared, their ready to be finished using a high-heat, secondary cooking technique such as sauteing, frying and roasting.
This video will demonstrate how to prep tomato concasse, a technique that can be utilized anytime you want to serve just the tomato flesh without the skin (which can be tough and catch in your teeth) and the seeds, which contain a high amount of water content.
This video will teach you how to make a cauliflower soup base that can be served as is or doctored with different components and garnishes. I will also release a completed dish video that will demonstrate how we plate and serve this soup at Stella.
In a previous video I demonstrated how to make what I called a "semi-classic" bechamel sauce, which is the version most commonly taught in culinary schools today. However, sauce bechamel has gone through a few evolutions since it's debated creation.
Bechamel is a classic French sauce made with milk. It is one of the Five French Mother Sauces and is used to make derivatives such as Mornay (a simple cheese sauce).
Beets are one of my favorite food products to work with during fall and winter. They are extremely versatile, come in all different shapes and sizes, and have an earthiness that just screams “winter comfort food.” Although there are many different ways to prepare and serve beets, one of my favorites, and most classical methods, is roasting.
A traditional beurre blanc is a finicky sauce that can easily break, especially if it's not made to order and served immediately. This video will teach you how to stabalize a beurre blanc by using a blender and xanthan gum. This approach will allow you to make the beurre blanc in advance and hold it warm until you're ready to serve.
This video will demonstrate three different techniques for roasting garlic. Also, a brief lecture on the science behind roasting garlic, and why its strong, pungent flavor will become mild and sweet when heat is applied over a long period of time.
This video demonstrates one technique for finishing our sous vide chicken roulade that we made in a previous video.
Learn how to make a stuffed chicken roulade using a pounded out chicken breast.
Although restaurants love to tempt you with some of their more creative appetizers, sometimes you just want to start your meal with a good, green salad. When I want a great salad, this is the one I crave above all others.
This video will teach you the best method for properly washing and storing salad greens.
I first fell in love with salsify when working at a French Restaurant in San Francisco. The edible root portion most commonly served in restaurants, looks like a dirty tree branch but when properly prepared, has an extremely unique flavor and texture that closely resembles a cross between parsnip and potato. A member of the sunflower family, salsify is a tuber that can be used just like any other common root vegetable.
Learn how to prepare broccoli stem and florets.
The video above will take you through the process of creating and plating our ahi sashimi dish that we are currently serving at Stella. If you've already watched the video and just need a quick refresher, you can refer to the step by step pictures below. For more information on acquiring specific ingredients or supporting recipes, please see the notes section at the bottom of this post.
