Chef tips: Master French at home

Culinary Olympian and French food aficionado Shannon Kellam shares his tips to cooking great Gallic food.

A cheesy French classic: soufflé au fromage Source: Benito Martin

Fresh is best

“We need to adjust our thinking around produce – especially fruit and vegetables – in Australia,” says Shannon Kellam, the chef and owner behind Brisbane restaurant Montrachet. “Lot of things we can get all year round, but [they’re] not very good quality.” Instead of buying whatever whenever, Shannon suggests shopping with the seasons, as is the tradition in classical French cookery.

The basics: bread and butter

“With your meal, serve good quality bread, made from good quality flour,” instructs Shannon, who’s in Montrachet’s kitchen at 6am everyday making his own batch for the restaurant.  

The quality of butter is also quite crucial. Shannon says many Australian butters contain high water content, but it’s best to choose out those with a low water content, if possible.

“When we’re making things with butter, we’ll get a lot more usage out of it,” he explains. Shannon adds that a lower water content is “also very important for making pastries, confit-ing and slow-cooking things in butter”.

Spice story

“France is not really known for cooking with a lot of spice as such, but that’s changed a lot over the years,” Shannon tells us.

Thanks to French colonies around the globe, many exotic ingredients have been incorporated into Gallic recipes, particularly in the south.

“They use a lot of curry spices, fennel seeds, [and] espelette pepper in the south of France,” Shannon points out. “Sweet spices, such as cinnamon and speculaas – a spice mix traditionally from Holland – are quite well used.”

For an Amélie-inspired moment, dip your spiced biscuits (spéculoos) into mulled wine (vin chaud).

Know your utensils

“The pots and pans you’re cooking in are very important, especially when braising items. We use very good quality cast iron pots – cocottes.” 

Shannon adds: “It’s different to cooking in other pots, in terms of moisture retention and heat”.

Practice makes perfect

“It’s important to do some research and reading,” says Shannon. “If you’re cooking something for an event, say a dinner party, make sure you’re practicing in the lead up on a smaller scale.” 

“Eggs, butter and flour are different here [from France], so try recipes first, but also keep it very simple at first. Sometimes doing the most simplistic things well can be more impressive than trying to do something out of your comfort zone.”   

 

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