Recent content by john_coburg

Good morning all I can't decide what the best approach is when grilling various fish: skin on or off? Is it just down to personal taste or is their an accepted 'norm'? for example, when grilling a brill or dover sole, traditionally i feel the skin should be off, but i often find the skin on a...

Fully agreed on vegetable oil being rubbish...my question was more: why might one use butter over olive oil, or indeed olive oil over butter, in certain circumstances. eg. caramelizing onions: butter or olive oil? gently browning a chicken breast: butter or olive oil...? etc.

Good evening all! A relatively 'junior' question i'm afraid. I often see recipes calling for flaming or flambéing (is there a difference) a fish or cut of meat in a cognac or white wine - which i attempt to do, but am seldom sure i can actually taste the benefit of such an exercise. Are we sure...

Hello there; i'm a relative newbie to cooking and have been reading various cook books on French & Italian cooking. I can't seem to find alternative reasons for sometimes gently cooking chicken breasts (for example) in butter, sometimes in olive oil, and sometimes in (far less healthy) vegetable...

Thank you Rick - that's insightful. I'm generally heating each separately in small pans, and both seem to taste good with the finger-dip test, but are you saying it's the gelatin i should use for stock/gravy, and chuck the 'empty' fat cells? (currently i lob them both in) And might you have any...

Dear all, I am reading a lot about the various health advantages and disadvantages of various oils, which i hope i can more or less summarize in a sentence: those with low 'smoke points' easily oxidize causing free radicals to be released into the food, which contribute to atherosclerosis/heart...

Greetings all, A maiden post, so i hope i will start an interesting discussion. I often roast beef joints, and always aim to make the richest-tasting gravy with the most depth of flavour. I am often left over with sauce from the roasting pan which i leave to cool in a tall clear pot for...