Cook’s Notes

All are made from dried corn. Cornmeal and cornflour are ground whole corn kernels. Corn starch is made from the endorsperm (starchy center) of the kernel.Yellow Cornmeal …

A crêpe is a thin pancake. A very thin pancake. Almost as thin as spring roll wrappers. A crêpe, like the thicker breakfast pancake, is made of flour, eggs, milk — and sugar …

The fruit of the olive tree has culinary uses other than as a source of oil. You find olives on pizza, pasta, canapes and even in cocktail drinks. They are sour and salty and …

The better way to cook bacon is to arrange the strips on a rack set on a tray, stick in the oven and allow the bacon fat to collect in the tray. The result is non-greasy …

Texture, mouth feel, flavor. And regional origin, of course. Mascarpone is from Italy; cream cheese, from America. Can one be substituted for the other? Not when you’re making …

It’s pasta Alfredo, not carbonara. The bacon is just a little extra for the carnivores in the family.You’re still thinking it’s carbonara? I know, they look so …

Can you imagine life without chicken meals? I can’t. Chicken meals are both comfort food and special occasion fare for us, depending on how elaborate the chicken dish …

Dressed chicken can be bought whole or cut up. Learn the different cuts of chicken. Know too that the weight stated on the label is false because the meat is injected with …

Salmonella and Campylobacter are two bacteria that can be passed on from animal to humans by the ingestion of infected meat, especially chicken. The scientific literature is …

A creamy Italian rice dish, risotto derives its texture from rice starch that gets coaxed by constant stirring during cooking. Risotto is a versatile dish as it can include …

Real corned beef is not some mystery meat that comes out of a can. I discovered that way back in high school. We were staying at my uncle’s house once, my uncle was not a …

Long before we came across the term dulce de leche, my husband and I had been boiling unopened cans of sweetened condensed milk to make thick caramel.We’d spoon the …

It’s simultaneously amusing and annoying how some “old sayings” are still taken as literally true to this day. Take “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy …

I can be a sucker for “buy one, take one” items in the supermarket, especially when the item is cheese. One time many years ago, it was Arla Food’s apetina cheese.I …

It was the first French anything I ever cooked. I poured Béchamel sauce over pasta and vegetables before baking and my daughters, then little girls, loved the creamy topping …

Alex has made pecan pie several times. She made them in different sizes — large, medium, small. The largest she ever baked we brought to a family get-together.The …

Eruca vesicaria is rocket in some regions but is widely known as arugula in North America. Boldy flavored, peppery with slight bitterness, arugula (rocket) is my favorite …

Among the five mother sauces in French cuisine, Bechamel sauce is most often used in our home cooking. But Hollandaise sauce is my favorite.Drizzling Hollandaise sauce and …

Ahhh, saffron. The first time I wanted to make paella, I went to the grocery in search of saffron, found a small pouch, stared at the price and put it back on the shelf. Too …

A scene from my childhood: My father comes home from his early morning trip to the market with a whole head of pig, cleans it then takes it to the neighborhood bakery where he …

We’ve had our love affair with the stovetop percolator, the electric coffee maker and the French press. But we discovered that the most low tech brewing method yields the best …