Hey, the peas! I tested the “Bocal en live” cooking class

“If I go a little too fast, don’t panic, the video will be broadcast. “ It is with a certain relief that we welcome these words from Maxime Bertrand, the paring knife in one hand, the laptop in the other. It is 2 pm on a Saturday when the chef of the Presqu’île restaurant in Paris inaugurates the very first “Bocal en live”. A series of workshops totally dedicated to conservation techniques, online and live, organized by the French brand Le Parfait. After the Zoom meeting, the Zoom aperitif, it’s time for the Zoom cooking class, so we’ll never get out!

This phenomenon has greatly increased with the health crisis, the French having spent more time in the kitchen (42% of them, according to an IFOP study for the Darwin Nutrition site), while 29% make more homemade preparations, such as bread and yogurt. In this context, the jar – once considered obsolete and unrefined – has assets that we are surprised to rediscover. Although many restaurateurs have also adopted it for their deliveries during the pandemic, its hype comeback does not date from the Covid era. Home-made enthusiasts and other gourmets converted to bulk have done a lot for its rehabilitation for a handful of years.

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But back to our work plan. The goal of this first cooking workshop? “Put the spring in a jar. ” Concretely: make five canned seasonal recipes. Namely: a broth of young spring vegetables, a peas soup with mint, pickled radishes and rhubarb with spices, strawberries in syrup and sweet / salty rhubarb. A priori, it is completely cooked, including for the beginner that we are. Though. Small detail, and not the least: all this must be done in 1 hour 15. Timing worthy of a Top Chef event! In other words, it was better to have sterilized slices and jars beforehand, and washed your vegetables.

List of ingredients, required jar size, necessary utensils… Everything was specified to the 480 workshop participants. Phew, nothing inaccessible except perhaps the sterilizer, which can easily be replaced by a pot of boiling water. We start quietly with the cutting of the new onions, of which we keep the green for the velouté of peas. Hey, the peas! Barely two minutes in the workshop and we realize that it will be mission impossible to overcome these five recipes by seeing that the chef has already shelled them. No big deal. We just cross our fingers so that the replay of the video is quickly available on Perfect YouTube channel, before the kids tumble into the kitchen.

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