They make cooking easier and, once you master them, more fun. So that’s why techniques are your friends. It’s a technique that might’ve been homework at first, but it didn’t feel like homework because I really wanted to conquer it and now that I’ve conquered it, I’m my generation’s Doug Henning. I practiced this trick over and over and over again and now, today, if you hand me a deck of cards, I can flip through it and when you yell “stop” I can tell you exactly what card is there.
#Jacques pepin apple tart recipe how to
For example, I once bought a magic kit as a kid with a deck of cards and detailed instructions on how to force a card. And it employed “proper” techniques which I will describe below.īecause (a) I really like desserts–a fact which proves a theory I’ve long ascribed to: to make cooking pleasurable, cook food that you like!Īnd (b) the techniques involved in making a French Apple Tart are challenging at first, but once you get the hang of them they’re like any technique that gives you pleasure as you master it. Yes, believe it or not, that perfectly caramelized confection with its floral patterns and concentric circles was assembled (pre-baking) in approximately 20 minutes. The answer lies in the picture at the top of this post: a French Apple Tart which I literally whipped together last night while roasting a chicken for dinner. In fact, those words “easy” and “fun” are often in their show titles.īut why can’t using proper technique, cooking on the level of a Tom Colicchio, be easy and fun? Why does Jacques Pepin’s “Technique” book feel so much like a text book? Why does writing this column sometimes feel like homework? Why does this paragraph have so many questions?
#Jacques pepin apple tart recipe tv
And that’s why TV hosts like Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentis are so popular. Most people, I’d conjecture, just want to make dinner. At home, however, does it matter if you have a perfectly clear consomme? Not unless a perfectly clear consomme is something to which you aspire. In a cooking school environment, in a restaurant kitchen, forceful drilling of proper technique produces top-quality chefs. “You don’t know how to cut an onion?” “You don’t know that proper paella has a crust?” “You kissed Padma on the left cheek and not the right?” It implies a “right-wrong” dynamic, something hammered home by Tom Colicchio on “Top Chef” when he criticizes improper technique. I would like to begin this week’s “Tuesday Techniques” column–a column which appears regularly on Wednesdays–with a discussion of the word “technique.” I think people are intimidated by the word.
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