Sometimes you want pancakes for breakfast, and nothing but a stack of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttermilk-pancakes buttermilk pancakes] will do. Other times, you want those ultra-fluffy, souffléd, jiggly Japanese-style pancakes you’ve seen on your IG feed. This recipe is for those other times. Unlike “normal” pancakes, this towering masterpiece of fluff isn’t straightforward; you aren’t just mixing wet into dry and puddling the batter in a pan. This pancake recipe is all about technique—mixing, whipping, folding, cooking temperature, portioning, steaming, flipping. It’s a cha ..read more

Flapjacks, slapjacks, hotcakes, silver dollars, crêpes, blini ... whatever you call ’em, pancakes are delicious. A pancake is a deceptively simple preparation: Mix flour with some kind of liquid and leavening agent and puddle the mixture into a greased pan, and you’ll get a light cake-like foam that serves as a perfect canvas for everything from maple syrup and honey to caviar and sour cream. But, as we all know, there’s a lot of pancake varieties. Depending on the ingredient ratios and methods, you can make a filigree-thin crêpe, a stack of fat flapjacks, or a soufflé-like cushion that’s clos ..read more

Good schnitzel is all about the “puff.” Unlike other breaded and fried cutlets, like our updated take on [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-chicken-kiev chicken Kyiv], the crust on schnitzel should separate from the cutlet during cooking, which encourages it to become crispier. Since the cutlets are quite thin and the focus on cooking is the crust, they’re easy to overcook. By dialing in the precise temperature of the frying oil (like the chicken Kyiv, we use [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/clarified-butter-ghee clarified butter] for extra flavor) to [f 335], you ca ..read more

It’s hard to beat a well-made duck confit. Rich, fork-tender meat encased in crisp, mahogany-hued skin, it’s in the running for the bistro classic G.O.A.T. race; for our money, it might even rival [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-steak-frites steak frites]. The process for making duck confit is super simple: Lightly cure duck legs with salt; gently cook them in fat until tender; and crisp the skin. Getting these steps just right requires precision. Go too heavy on the seasoning and you’re left with hammy, salty confit. Confit the legs at too high a temperature and they turn ..read more

Pan searing is a fundamental cooking technique that is perfected with practice. Line cooks can turn out steaks, chops, crispy-skinned fish, and chicken breasts cooked to specific serving temperatures all day, because they’ve cooked thousands of them before. Cook 50 steaks a night, and you’ll get pretty good at temping them by touch. But if you’re not working the meat station at a bustling brasserie, what’s the best way to nail seared steaks consistently? By having complete control over cooking temperature, of course! No, we’re not talking about cooking meat [link https://www.chefsteps.com/sous ..read more

There are few things that are as delicious as properly pan-seared scallops. Crispy and browned on the serving side, silky, tender, and luscious within. With the right technique, you can sear scallops like a pro, dialing in the exact texture you want, while achieving an even, beautifully browned sear. The key to searing scallops properly is to cook them mostly on one side, a technique known as unilateral cooking, which allows you to build a deeply browned crust. To prevent the scallops from scorching around the edges, the pan temperature needs to be just right ([f 385] if you want to be exact ..read more

The perfect pan-seared chicken breast is tender and juicy on the inside, with an actually crispy golden skin on top. Our method relies on a two-stage cooking process similar to how you would cook duck breast. Start the breasts skin-side down over medium-high heat to render fat and slowly crisp the skin while gently cooking the meat. Once the skin is golden brown and crisp, add a knob of butter, flip the breasts, and finish them over low heat, gradually cooking them to your preferred doneness. The heat on the finishing step is so gentle that you don’t even need to account for [link https://www ..read more

There’s nothing like a perfectly pan-seared steak: a burnished crust giving away to a rosy interior that extends from edge to edge.   The challenge pan-searing presents is all the heat is coming from the pan’s surface, instead of being applied evenly (with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-steak sous vide]) or not-as-evenly (in an oven) through [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/types-of-heat convection]. You also have two goals that exist in tension: creating that browned crust, which requires intense heat; and gradually bringing up the internal te ..read more

If there’s one dish that captures the spirit and finesse of Cantonese cooking, it’s whole steamed sizzling fish: a whole fish steamed with aromatics, topped with julienned green onion, anointed with smoking hot oil, then doused in a slightly sweetened soy sauce. It’s a simple but dramatic preparation, but it’s tricky to get just right. The sauce is minimalist, ditto the aromatics, so there’s not a lot to mask the quality of the fish or how it’s been prepared. The key (after [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/selecting-fish-for-purchase selecting the right fish]) is all in the steaming ..read more

A nicely seared pork chop, with a deeply browned crust and a rosy and juicy interior with a minimal temperature gradient, is a deceptively simple preparation. Unlike [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-guide-to-steak well-marbled steak cuts], pork loin chops are lean, which means they’re easy to overcook, especially with a high-heat method like searing. The challenge searing presents is you’re juggling two goals with only one source of direct heat: getting the deeply browned crust and gently bringing the inside of the chop to the perfect serving temperature. Focus too much on t ..read more