Maison I — 6 pieces
Most French home cooking is assembled from the handful of mechanical events in this house — heat applied dry or wet, fast or slow, open or sealed. Learn what each one actually does, and recipes begin to read as combinations rather than instructions.
A precise explanation of sauté as a mechanical event — high heat, dry pan, food moving — rather than a vague instruction.
What happens physically and chemically during a braise — collagen, steam, aromatics, the closed environment — and why time and low heat are not interchangeable.
Two methods that superficially resemble each other but differ in medium, temperature and result — and what confit’s fat bath does that water cannot.
The starch gelatinisation that gives a roux its thickening power, and why ratio and cooking time both matter.
Poaching is not gentle boiling but a precisely held thermal environment — what a trembling surface signals, and why a rolling boil destroys the point.
Why mirepoix proportions and cut size are not arbitrary, and how the base behaves differently sweated in fat versus added raw to a braise.
The other houses