Stir-frying is nothing more than sautéing with a Chinese passport; it involves dry-heat cooking with fat. Everything you have already learned about sautéing can be brought to bear on stir-frying in this lesson. French chef Fernand Point said that success in the kitchen is really the result of a lot of small things properly done, and that’s the mindset that you need to have when you stir-fry. The process of stir-frying unfolds quickly, but if you pay attention to the details and focus on your technique, you will create a wonderful stir-fry dish.

Unless you are really careful, you can quickly become overwhelmed with too many esoteric tools, pots, and pans in the kitchen. The trick is that you don’t need a lot of tools—you just need the right tools. This lesson will help you select the tools that you need so that your kitchen becomes a friendlier, safer, more enjoyable place. The goal of this lesson is to move you toward a kitchen that works for you and for the food that you would like to cook in that kitchen.

Panna cotta and chocolate mousse are both easy to make yet offer lots of possibilities for elegant presentations. Panna cotta has the rich, luxurious quality of a custard, but in fact, it’s a cream-based dessert that’s thickened with gelatin. Mousse can also be based on cream, but some recipes start off with a sabayon base, similar to the buttercream we made in an earlier lesson. In other recipes, a meringue is folded into the mousse. Panna cotta, in particular, is a great recipe to have in your repertoire because it can be made a day ahead for a party. For a unique approach, try serving either of these desserts in wine or martini glasses and spooning a delicious sauce on top.

Seafood is one of the last wild crops. It is pulled from a dark and watery world and seems somehow unfamiliar and a little bit challenging. Even if you have never eaten seafood, you probably know that it is good for you and think that you should be eating more of it. Many people have eaten seafood that is expensive but, quite frankly, tastes fishy. This lesson will help you understand what to look for when buying seafood.