According to the famous TV chef, a simple gesture would allow you to successfully cook your meats and grilled meats to perfection.
It’s summer, the barbecues and the plancha are out! How to impress the gallery if your merguez sausages are charred and your skewers are as tender as a sole? Quite simply by respecting a small gesture prized by chefs, who use it for all their cooking, in the oven and on the barbecue. “I do it all the time now,” says French chef, pastry chef and TV host Cyril Lignac.
Why is this small gesture so important? To ensure a chemical phenomenon that is commonly called in the kitchen “the Maillard reaction”! This is a series of chemical reactions that lead to browning of the material and new aromas caused by cooking at high temperature (130°C) from the start of cooking. The surface of your meat is thus crispy while its heart is still tender.
An extremely simple gesture for meat cooked to perfection, in the oven or on the barbecue
To obtain it, according to Cyril Lignac who delivered this secret during a press conference reported by scullion, just mark (or sear) the meat. “This allows you to have a very good caramelization of the meat. It’s not like a chicken which caramelizes naturally when you put it in the oven. When you cook a meat, you always mark it (or you sear it) in order to to get the crispy side that we appreciate so much” he explained.
From rib steak to duck breast via meat skewers, this method can be applied to all types of meat, before continuing to cook. And this tip applies as much to the barbecue – by scoring the meat on both sides before closing the hood and continuing to cook – as it does to cooking in the oven: “I always start my cooking with a pan in order to obtain a crispy side on both sides of the meat, and then I put it in the oven”, explains Cyril Lignac. It was so easy…