Handy Hints and Tips
Pizza
To ovoid having cheese and tomato sauce
dripping in the oven, place the pizza on a sheet
of baking parchment directly on the shelf.
Flans / Quiches
Metal trays are better than glass or porcelain,
which are often too thick and food takes longer to
cook. Metal also gives a crisper finish to the
pastry.
When cooking fruit tarts, to prevent the juice
soaking into the pastry and leaving it soggy,
sprinkle the base with some semolina, crushed
biscuits, grounds almonds or tapioca to absorb
the excess.
When cooking savoury flans with vegetables
containing a high-water content (leaks, spinch
broccoli or tomatoes) or frozen, sprinkle with a
tablespoon of cornflour.
Fish
Check when buying that the fish has a pleasant
smell and if it is a sea fish, with a faint salty tang.
The fish should be firm and solid and the scales
well attached to the skin. The eyes should be
shiny and raised and the gills bright and moist.
Beef / Pork / Lamb
Always remove meat from the fridge well in
advance of cooking. The sudden change in
temperature from cold to hot can toughen meat.
Ideally beef should be well browned on the
outside, red in the middle but hot throu ghout. Do
not sprinkle with salt before cooking as this draws
out the blood and dries out the meat. Try to turn
meat using spoons rather than a fork to keep the
juice in the meat. Always leave the cooked roast
for 5 to 15 minutes after cooking to recover. Wrap
it in kitchen foil and leave in the open warm oven.
During this time, the juices can soak back into the
meat.
Use earthenware dishes to roast joints; glass ones
tend to make the meat spit. Do not use the enamel
grill tray for roasting.
Do not pierce the leg of lamb with garlic cloves or
else it will lose its blood. Instead, slide the garlic
in between the flesh and the bone or cook the
cloves of garlic next to the leg of lamb and crush
them at the end of cooking to flavour the sauce.
This should be sieved and serve hot in a sauce
boat.
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Using the various cooking modes
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