Techniques

Cooking techniques

Preparing fruit and vegetables

1. Chopping chillies

   Skill level: Easy

2. De-seeding tomatoes

   Skill level: Easy

3. Learning to chop: dicing an onion

   Skill level: Intermediate

4. Learning to chop: finely chopping celery

   Skill level: Easy

5. Learning to chop: slicing an onion

   Skill level: Easy

6. Learning to chop: the 'chiffonade' or shredding technique

   Skill level: Intermediate

7. Learning to chop: the 'julienne' technique

   Skill level: Intermediate

8. Preparing artichoke hearts

   Skill level: Intermediate

9. Segmenting citrus fruit

   Skill level: Intermediate

10. Skinning peppers

    Skill level: Easy

11. Skinning tomatoes

    Skill level: Easy

12. Toasting and skinning hazelnuts

    Skill level: Easy

13. Zesting citrus fruit

    Skill level: Easy

Meat, poultry and eggs

1. Browning meat

   Skill level: Easy

2. Carving a cooked chicken into serving portions

   Skill level: Easy

3. Carving pork

   Skill level: Easy

4. De-boning and butterflying a leg of lamb

   Skill level: Advanced

5. Jointing chicken

   Skill level: Advanced

6. Poaching eggs

   Skill level: Intermediate

7. Preparing and cleaning chicken livers

   Skill level: Easy

8. Scoring skin

   Skill level: Easy

9. Searing meat

   Skill level: Easy

10. Separating eggs

    Skill level: Easy

11. Spatchcocking chicken and poultry

    Skill level: Intermediate

12. Testing whether turkey, chicken and poultry are cooked

    Skill level: Easy

13. Whisking egg whites

    Skill level: Easy

Fish and shellfish

1. Butterflying prawns

   Skill level: Intermediate

2. Choosing cooked lobster

   Skill level: Easy

3. Cleaning and de-bearding mussels

   Skill level: Easy

4. Cleaning and preparing squid

   Skill level: Intermediate

5. Filleting and skinning flatfish

   Skill level: Intermediate

6. Filleting round fish

   Skill level: Intermediate

7. Peeling prawns

   Skill level: Easy

8. Removing the meat from cooked lobster

   Skill level: Advanced

9. Scaling, gutting and cleaning a round fish

   Skill level: Intermediate

Pasta

1. Making pasta dough by hand

   Skill level: Intermediate

2. Rolling pasta using a pasta machine

   Skill level: Intermediate

Desserts, baking and pastry

1. Breaking chocolate

   Skill level: Easy

2. Caramelising sugar with a blow torch

   Skill level: Intermediate

3. Covering a pie with a pastry lid

   Skill level: Easy

4. Creaming butter by hand

   Skill level: Easy

5. Folding

   Skill level: Easy

6. Greasing and lining cake tins

   Skill level: Easy

7. Kneading bread

   Skill level: Easy

8. Knocking back

   Skill level: Easy

9. Lining a tart tin with pastry

   Skill level: Intermediate

10. Lining a tart tin: preparing the pastry case for shrinkage

    Skill level: Easy

11. Lining a tart tin: trimming the pastry

    Skill level: Easy

12. Lining a tart with a cartouche (baking blind)

    Skill level: Intermediate

13. Making choux pastry

    Skill level: Intermediate

14. Melting chocolate

    Skill level: Easy

15. Removing vanilla seeds from pod

    Skill level: Easy

16. Rubbing in

    Skill level: Easy

17. Steaming a pudding

    Skill level: Intermediate

18. Using a food processor to pulse ingredients

    Skill level: Easy

19. Using fresh yeast

    Skill level: Easy

20. Using piping bags

    Skill level: Intermediate

21. Whipping cream by hand

    Skill level: Easy

22. Working with filo pastry

    Skill level: Easy

23. Wrapping a pudding for steaming

    Skill level: Intermediate

Sauces, pastes and condiments

1. De-glazing pan gravy

   Skill level: Easy

2. Making herb butter

   Skill level: Easy

3. Skimming stock

   Skill level: Easy

4. Thickening a roux to make béchamel sauce

   Skill level: Easy

5. Thickening gravy using beurre manié

   Skill level: Easy