Chez Madelaine Recipe Archive

January 1, 2010

This is not as yet a complete archive. Please contact me if you can't find a recipe we've prepared in class. Chances are it's waiting to be added. I spend a spare hour here and there adding them. It's tedious work but worth it.   Why, you ask?

Cooking school recipes shine with a special patina. They're tested and refined by use, sometimes remodeled, almost always streamlined over time.   Each season I test every recipe if I am using it for the first time. And recipes from previous schedules are retested. There are always small changes to be made, whether it's clarifying directions, simplifying the technique or modifying quantities and servings. Some of the recipes have gone through several updates over decades others are virtually unchanged after thirty years.

When asked, I readily admit that I have not authored all of these recipes. I rely on recipes that are in the public domain which means they have been in use for so long that it's impossible to trace their source. More modern recipes come from new cookbooks that interest me. Among my recipe finds in newspapers, those from Wednesday's 'Dining In' section of the New York Times predominate. Over the years I've clipped out recipes from Gourmet,   Bon Appetit, Cooks Illustrated, and Saveur magazines.

When I am adopting a recipe that I've found elsewhere, I test it once or twice and then write it down in my own words. If I have made a negligible number of changes, I credit the source at the end of the recipe. Recipes with no attribution are ones that are in the public domain, those I have modified in an important way and those which are purely my invention. My guiding principle in writing recipes is to teach ones that work.

Enjoy!