Kitchen Preparation Techniques | Stella Culinary (2024)

Blanching can mean a few different things depending on who’s using the word and what application you’re talking about. In the most basic use of the term, blanching refers to very briefly par cooking an item for later use, usually using boiling water or hot fat as a cooking medium.

Blanching and peeling fava beans is a spring "right of passage" for many cooks. Labor intensive and somewhat time consuming, when prepped properly you're rewarded with meaty little green morsels that are well worth the work.

This video will teach you how to properly prepare baby carrots.

Learn how to prepare broccoli stem and florets.

This video will teach you the best method for properly washing and storing salad greens.

Fruit trays are a great way to welcome guests to a party or event and can add a festive, visual "pop" when done correctly. Demonstrated in this video is an easy and efficient method for laying our a fruit platter or mirror. I chose to make the above video part of the "Kitchen Prep Series" because as a prep cook, your value will be greatly increased if you can properly prep and compose a fruit tray.

Learn how to make a stuffed chicken roulade using a pounded out chicken breast.

This video will demonstrate three different techniques for roasting garlic. Also, a brief lecture on the science behind roasting garlic, and why its strong, pungent flavor will become mild and sweet when heat is applied over a long period of time.

Frenching frog legs is a right of passage in many French kitchens. This video will teach you how to prep and french frog legs, allowing for a cleaner presentation and easier consumption.

In this video we go over basic pan terminology used in a professional kitchen including the definitions of a hotel pan, third pan, ninth pan, sixth pan, and more. These are important terms to learn if you plan on working in a professional kitchen.

This video will teach you how to quickly seed a pomegranate.

Beets are one of my favorite food products to work with during fall and winter. They are extremely versatile, come in all different shapes and sizes, and have an earthiness that just screams “winter comfort food.” Although there are many different ways to prepare and serve beets, one of my favorites, and most classical methods, is roasting.

This video will demonstrate how to prep tomato concasse, a technique that can be utilized anytime you want to serve just the tomato flesh without the skin (which can be tough and catch in your teeth) and the seeds, which contain a high amount of water content.

Here's a quick video demonstrating how to clean and blanch green beans. After the green beans are prepared, their ready to be finished using a high-heat, secondary cooking technique such as sauteing, frying and roasting.

Here's a quick video that will teach you how to properly clean a kitchen work surface. No, it's not the sexiest food video I've ever released, but if you ever wanted to work in a professional kitchen, this is the technique they would want you to use. Not to mention, this will make your kitchen clean-up at home much more efficient.

This video demonstrates the prep process for making oil poached and pressed potatoes. Fingerling potatoes are first slowly poached in flavored oil until tender, slightly cooled and then pressed with the skin still on. These potatoes can then be fried in olive oil or clarified butter until the exterior is crispy, finished with fresh herbs and sea salt and served as is or as an accompaniment to a meat course.

In this video I will be demonstrating how to make fresh pasta from scratch. Once this technique is mastered, there is literally no end to the infinite variations you create upon this simple theme.

Here's a quick video that will teach you how to peel and blanch pearl onions. Once prepped, pearl onions make a great accompaniment to many saute dishes.

It's spring time which means English Peas are now available. This quick video will show you how to prep and blanch English Peas which is a necessary step before adding them to salads, sautes or applying a secondary cooking technique.

Flavor infused oils are a great way to add colorful contrasts and interesting tastes to a dish, especially as a last minute garnish. When making your own oils infused with the essence of a fresh green herb, you'll be walking a fine line between extracting the most flavor and color, and completely breaking down the chlorophyll molecules which will give an off taste and appearance.

A quick video that will demonstrate how to roast and peel a bell pepper.

In a previous rebuttal video to a Slate.com article, we went over how to caramelize onions in 10 minutes. This shortened version of the video was uploaded so you don't have to sit through my 14 minute rant every time you'd like to review this technique.

In a previous video, I demonstrated how to peel and slice watermelon for use on a fruit platter or salad. In this video we’ll take the left-over rind and turn into a versatile condiment by using a fairly straight forward pickling process.

Tapioca Maltodextrin is a light weight bulking agent derived from tapioca starch that has no perceptible flavor. When mixed with fat, it has the ability to absorb it, transforming the fat into a powder like substance. Further adding to the "dehydrated fat illusion," the maltodextrin disappears almost immediately when it comes into contact with a small amount of moisture. This sensation most notably occurs when a dehydrated fat is placed in one's mouth; the saliva dissolves the maltodextrin leaving behind only the fat, which gives the impression that it's "rehydrating" back to its original form.

In a previous video, I demonstrated how to remove the thigh bone of a chicken hindquarter and while "Frenching" down the leg bone, which results in a semi boneless leg that you can then stuff. In this video, we'll go through a simple stuffing process and I'll demonstrate two different ways to actually cook the finished product.

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.

I've seen a lot of cooking videos lately, including some starring really talented chefs, zesting lemons and other citrus in a less than effective manner. In this short video, I demonstrate what I believe to be the best way to zest a lemon and other citrus fruits.