In the kitchen with Patrick: operating manual

After “In bed with Madonna”, here comes “In the kitchen with Patrick”. After years of procrastination, I finally decided to put my recipe blog online. My purpose is to share with you my passion: cooking, and making it taste. Cooking is essentially about sharing. These recipes are therefore intended to be tested, tasted, replicated and distributed, modified to your taste. I put them online so that you can appropriate them and share them with others, as I do myself from cookbooks or other culinary blogs. Feel free to comment on this blog on each recipe you are testing, to make suggestions, to criticize, to propose alternatives.

I wrote this blog in two languages, so that my English-speaking friends can enjoy it too, all the way to the other side of the world.

In the twenty years I have been cooking as a simple amateur, I have of course developed my own taste, and my own paw, and that is what I will highlight. You will find recipes labelled "basic". These are the main dishes of the meal, which have the merit of being easy to prepare. Success depends only on the quality of the product, and on the most perfect cooking possible for each product. As there is little to do for these dishes, it gives you time to work on the accompaniment, to surprise your taste buds and your guests or your family. I will therefore offer you many recipes to accompany it, mainly vegetables, regardless of the main dishes. All you have to do is choose what you want to marry.

I was fortunate enough to live in the Middle East many years ago. I was dazzled by this seemingly endless amount of different dishes that appeared on the table in small quantities in successive waves. I keep a strong taste for juxtapositions: colours, flavours, smells, juices. It's my paw, and I'll propose it to you regularly. Each recipe will be presented to you individually, I will make suggestions for juxtapositions, but you can juggle at your ease with the ones you want to put on your table.

Each recipe of course indicates the necessary ingredients. I advise you to prepare all of them before starting work. I will also tell you what equipment you need. Most of the time, you already have what you need in your kitchen. However, if you cook often, I will suggest that you acquire some tools that will make your life much easier.

I indicate the required skill from 

to

The recipes stamped with 1 knife do not require any technical gesture and take little time to make. 2 knives, there is little or no technical gesture, but the preparation can be longer. 3 knives indicate one or more technical gestures and a preparation either longer or more delicate. 4 knives... there will be very few, because it requires more skill than I have. Anyway, I advise you to choose recipes that you have already tested and succeeded when you receive guests. Honestly, it is sometimes only after three or four attempts (some of which have been completely unsuccessful) that I end up mastering a recipe. Don't get discouraged if you miss one. You'll know why, and next time it'll be better.

After the estimated time – preparation will often take most of the time - I will give you the average price per person. By the way, in all the cooking shows, blogs and cookbooks, we are continuously told to choose the best product, organic, healthy, French, local, seasonal, etc. And that's perfectly true. But this can sometimes exceed the budgets available in some families. So yes, a Spanish strawberry or Polish chicken should be avoided. Provided one can afford it. But you don't have to give up the pleasure of cooking, sharing it with family and friends, if the yellow farm chicken exceeds your budget for example. I am well placed to know, it has often happened to me. In this case, buy a tray of white chicken legs at your supermarket and enjoy cooking, creating this wellness bubble for you and those around you. Anyhow, it will be better to taste and healthier, and cheaper, than an industrial prepared dish.

Finally I show you the recipe step by step, with pictures. By the way, I hope you won't mind me too much for the poor quality of the pictures. I simply take them with my iPhone at the same time as I cook, on the fly. But at least you see how it really looks like, step by step. And you can be sure that what you see in the pictures, I eat it myself a few minutes later. It is not the completely artificial pictures that we too often see in books, taken on cold ingredients, painted, lacquered, reconstituted, and which have nothing to do with the dish they are supposed to show.

On that go ahead, help yourself, enjoy it, and come talk to me about it!