In praise of mayonnaise

After last week’s hollandaise disaster, I approached the challenge of mastering the art of mayo with trepidation. Luckily, the sauce is served cold, which makes it significantly easier to create than its creamy cousin. As with hollandaise, egg yolks are used as emulsifiers, only this time rather than melted butter, the sauce is made with

Jolly hollandaise

Hollandaise and I have a rocky relationship. It’s not that I don’t like the sunshine yellow sauce – I adore it. It’s just that it’s so damn difficult to make. I remember trying to impress a boyfriend once by cooking him eggs Benedict for brunch and nearly weeping in the kitchen from the stress of

Béchamel mucho

One of the mother sauces of French cuisine, béchamel forms the base of a number of classic French sauces and can be made even more marvellous with the addition of butter, egg yolks and cream. While the white sauce has been celebrated in France since the 17th century, its roots like in Renaissance Tuscany, where

Unleashing my inner Child

After watching Nora Ephron’s supremely comforting Julie & Julia on Boxing Day, which sees New York food blogger Julie Powell attempting to work her way through culinary maven Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I felt inspired to unleash my inner Child. While I’ve long been a food lover, my approach to cooking