Cooking times

When I was in culinary school in France, my classmates and I would constantly ask how long items should cook. My instructors would invariably answer, “When the ingredient starts singing ‘Cuit, cuit, cuit!’”—or “Cooked, cooked, cooked!” In other words, you cannot cook by the clock; you must use your senses to ascertain whether the item is ready or not. Cooking times can vary greatly depending on the calibration of your oven, the BTUs (British thermal units, a measure of the power of your heating element) of your range, the size and/or thickness of your pan, and so on. In this book, when I cannot provide a cooking time, I will try to provide a clear description of what the end result should be.