Rouxbe Online Cooking School Blog

From the entire team at Rouxbe, we would like to wish all of you a warm and cozy holiday season filled with lots of love, laughter and delicious food. Daniela, our multi-talented editor and camera operator, put this cute “Holiday Snow” video together on the fly and thought we would share it with you.

Please note that during the holidays, our hardworking staff will be enjoying this time with their families. Chef Support will be offline from December 23rd to January 1st and our Customer Support will also be offline December 25 & 26 and January 1st.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and most of all Happy Cooking!

The Rouxbe Cooking School Team

This new lesson, which has been requested by many of you, is a lesson on crêpes. While we normally don’t take requests (not because we don’t want to, it’s just that we are focused on a particular culinary path), this time we made an exception. What can we say…it’s the holidays and we are feeling all warm and fuzzy :-)

Crêpes are thin, unleavened pancakes that are made from a very basic and pourable batter. They can be filled with an endless array of sweet or savory fillings, which makes them an extremely versatile menu item. Crêpes are quick to prepare and can be served at any time of the day. They can be served as a delicious breakfast or brunch, as an afternoon treat, or as a fancy appetizer or main course. Crêpes also make for show-stopping desserts.

In this Rouxbe Cooking School lesson on How to Make Crêpes, you will learn about the basic equipment required for making crêpes and how to prepare, flavor and tweak a basic batter in order to create ultra-thin crêpes. You will learn the key steps for properly cooking crêpes and a variety of ways in which to fill, shape and serve them. Finally, you will learn how to make and store crêpes in advance so you can have quick and easy access to them.

A properly-made crêpe is well-received and much appreciated. From very simple to quite elegant, crêpes can make an appearance on your table just by following just a few basic steps.

You may also be interested to know that crêpe, is pronounced “krepp” in French, and since that is where the crêpe originated that is how we have pronounced it as well. If you try to order a “kraype” in France they may wonder what it is you are talking about. Regardless of how they are pronounced, crêpes are magical. And since the holidays are upon us, we thought this was the perfect time to share this lesson with you, so you can make delicious crêpes for your family and friends. We also thought you might just want to put a crêpe pan on your wish list. ;-)

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and most of all Happy Cooking!

The Rouxbe Cooking School Team

Frying is a dry heat cooking method in which foods are cooked in hot fat. It is a very versatile cooking technique since almost any type of food can be fried. When properly cooked, fried foods are appreciated for having a wonderfully crunchy crust on the outside, while still being moist and tender on the inside. Frying, however, has a bad reputation of being a very greasy and unhealthy cooking method and this is true, if it is done improperly.

In this Rouxbe Cooking School lesson on How to Shallow Fry and Deep Fry, you will learn how to minimize the negative aspects of fried food by understanding what happens to food during frying. You will learn how to choose the proper fat for frying and the proper cooking temperatures required to produce results with least amount of fat absorption. You will also learn the difference between shallow frying and deep frying and what types of foods are better suited for each technique. Finally, you will learn how to properly handle and finish fried foods prior to serving them.

Fried foods, when cooked properly, can definitely be enjoyed from time to time and still be part of a balanced diet. As Michael Pollan says, “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.”

Happy Cooking!

The Rouxbe Cooking School Team

If you’ve read the book The Sharper Your Knife, The Harder You Cry, then you know about author Kathleen Flinn, the former software executive who left the high-tech world, enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and then wrote her best-selling book about the experience.

Yesterday Kathleen launched her second book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, in which she gives cooking lessons to nine novice home cooks. Kathleen essentially does in person what Rouxbe does online: teaches fundamental cooking techniques so that her students can develop the confidence to cook anything they want, with or without a recipe.

It’s an excellent book — educational, informative,  and engaging — with some keen insights into why so many people choose to buy unhealthy, processed food rather than cook a delicious and healthy meal for themselves and their families. When I read the book it re-enforced for me the idea that learning to cook well is within the reach of anyone — it just requires motivation and a little bit of time to learn the fundamentals. And then it can truly change your life.

Kathleen’s book is already garnering great reviews and widespread media attention, and will hopefully have an impact on the many people who have thought about cooking more but believed — incorrectly — that it is beyond them. You can learn more about it at Kathleen’s web site.

When I met with Kathleen and her husband, Mike, in Seattle six months ago, it was immediately clear that we had the same mission in life: to teach the world how to cook. One conversation led to another, and we decided to try something that would enable her readers to act upon their desire to learn to cook (and that didn’t require Kathleen to actually visit their homes in person). Kathleen identified Rouxbe lessons that covered the same topics she taught in The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, and we put them together into a single collection –  an online learning companion to the book –  that can be purchased directly from Rouxbe. Here is the press release announcing our partnership, which you can learn more about here.

If you’re looking for a great cooking-related read for yourself or as a gift, definitely pick up a copy of The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.