Welcome to Stella Culinary's How to Cook Video Index. To get started, select one of the video categories from above, or browse by most recent below.
To get the most from these videos, it is highly recommended you listen to the Stella Culinary School Podcast, which many of these videos are produced to supplement. If you have any questions while working your way through the Stella Culinary content, you can Ask Chef Jacob or post it to our friendly community forum.
In this video I answer a common question about the difference between sodium nitrite, nitrate and pink curing salt. Understanding the difference will give you much more control when creating your own Charcuterie products.
This video demonstrates how to pan roast a fillet of salmon.
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I will be hosting a live Culinary Q&A at 5pm PST. The broadcast will be streamed live in the above embedded video. If you would like to ask a question, either shoot it to me through e-mail, jacob@stellaculinary.com, with the subject "Live Q&A," or you can join the hangout and ask the question live via your webcam.
Before you start to cut anything, you need to make sure you have a secure work surface. A cutting board that isn’t secured can easily move around, making it extremely dangerous and almost impossible to cut quickly and accurately.
If you're serious about being a great cook and producing a consistent product, brining is a technique you should not only use, but need to understand in intimate detail. Brining can be a complex subject, which is why this extensive resource page was created.
It may seem silly to ask "what is mayonnaise" since it's common place in most of our lives. People use mayonnaise on sandwiches, as a dressing for salads such as chicken, potato and macaroni, in cakes, and some even put it in their hair to use as a conditioner. Yet some don't actually know that mayonnaise is simply made from emulsifying egg yolks with a neutral flavored oil like vegetable, canola or grape seed.
In this video, I demonstrate a classic mayonnaise recipe that uses egg yolks, canola oil, mustard powder, lemon juice, kosher salt and white pepper. The mayonnaise is made using a simple mixing bowl and whisk but if you have a good blender or food processor, I recommend you use that instead, unless you're trying to bulk up your fore-arms.
Rillettes are a great introduction into charcuterie because they're fairly easy to make and absolutely delicious. These salty-meat spreads are best described as a cross between confit and pate, and our one of my favorite ways to start a casual gathering or a multi-course tasting menu.
In a previous video, I demonstrated how to bond two chicken breasts together using Activa RM. In this video I demonstrate how to bond two chicken leg and thigh portions together using an Activa GS slurry. This form of slurry allows for a tighter bond, making it ideal for large pieces of meat.
My preferred method of finishing is to cook the legs sous vide at 60C for four hours, which makes them extremely tender and juicy. After the fours, I'll ice bath to cool and then portion. For service, both sides of the leg and thigh are pan fried and then finished in the oven until the core temperature is warm.
In this video I demonstrate how to bind together two boneless, skinless chicken breasts using the transglutaminase enzyme. The resulting piece of meat is cohesive, easy to portion and will cook more evenly then a traditional chicken breast.
In this video, I demonstrate the technique of covered saute and glazing that can be universally applied to most produce, especially root vegetables such as carrots, onions, parsnips and radishes. To demonstrate the glazing technique, we take a trip down "Classic Flavor Lane," using minced ginger, carrots and turmeric as our main flavor profiles.
