Yevgeny Klopotenko: the secrets of cooking delicious and healthy dishes

The issue of proper storage and preparation of food is becoming more relevant every day. This is due to the fact that the quality of food products is inexorably declining, because food technologies are closely intertwined with chemistry. Therefore, to get the most out of food, it is important to know how to choose, store and prepare it.

How to Properly Store Products, "for" and "against" heat treatment, the secrets of preparing a dish with a balanced taste, exclusively for estet-portal.com, were told by a well-known culinary expert, gastronomic experimenter and founder of the gastronomic workshop «Confiture» Evgeny Klopotenko.

Heat treatment of food: pros and cons

Eternal choice. And how is it better? There are several pitfalls here. Let's take vegetables for example. On the one hand, during heat treatment, vegetables lose some of their vitamins. On the other hand, if vegetables are not cooked, they are less digestible.

Follow us on Instagram

But there is such a cooking method as sous vide. This is when products are processed at a temperature of 60 – 80°C. These terms – sparing for vitamins, but the fibers are softened so that the products are well absorbed. Perfect. The next way – steam cooking. It's also good if your main goal – get the most out of your food. And the last way – baking at 160 °C.

What can not be left for tomorrow

You can't leave for tomorrow all the products that were made on the basis of eggs and butter, because there are all the conditions for bacteria to multiply rapidly. The same goes for raw meats and fish. Conducted heat treatment and put in the refrigerator.

I don't like reheating food. This is my personal approach. Because I find that reheated food has a different flavor and loses its original flavor combination.

Often I just cook for once. But I understand perfectly well that such an approach is impossible in a large family, so here everyone is free to do as he pleases. True, I don’t care about being cooked, eaten, forgotten. It is important to cook tasty and with minimal time.

Which products do we often store incorrectly • It is wrong to store a cut onion on a shelf, because some of it has been used, and the rest is a pity to throw away. • No need to store perishable food outside the refrigerator. I always wrap everything in cling film and keep it in the fridge.

It is important to follow the logic in the storage of products. To have dairy products on top, below – meat, and they did not intersect. 

But here it is impossible to develop a rule that people will adhere to en masse. Because refrigerators are small, everyone buys the maximum amount of food and distributes it as best they can.

Cooking secrets:  basic principles

When I cook, I adhere to one simple rule: it is important that the dish is simple, tasty and quickly prepared. When you cook for a long time – you spend a lot of time and then you don’t get much pleasure from food.

I also have a scheme that I always stick to: I choose one staple (banana, apple, milk, fish – whatever). There should be a lot of the main product. To intensify the taste. Next, I select the products that I want to add to the main one.

It is important that their flavor does not overpower the flavor of the main ingredient. Otherwise, the main product will no longer be the main product, and the whole idea will be spoiled.

And the last step – a choice of aroma elements that will make the dish better and tastier: spices, leaves, herbs. This is my cooking secrets.

Sometimes the secret of a dish lies in its simplicity and the right combination of ingredients. In this salad, I combined the delicate taste of savoy cabbage with a bit of sharp radish and sweet and sour apple. The final note was the vinaigrette sauce, which gave the dish a balanced taste.They know how to burn fat: a list of products for weight loss

Ingredients (for 2 servings)
Savoy cabbage &ndash ; 200 g
Apple – 2 pcs.Turnip black or red – 1 PC. For vinaigrette sauce:
Olive oil – 50 ml
Wine Vinegar – 15 ml
Dijon mustard – 1 tsp
Salt and pepper – to taste


Cooking method

Coarsely chop the cabbage, peel the apples, remove the core and cut into small slices. Peel the turnip and also cut into slices. Mix all the ingredients in a salad bowl.

Sauce. In a small bowl, combine vinegar with olive oil, beat with a whisk until a homogeneous emulsion is obtained. Then add mustard, salt and pepper, mix again. 

Dorado with ginger and lemon in the oven

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Clean the fish, gut, remove the gills. Grate with salt, chopped thyme, grated ginger root, grated garlic and lemon juice. Leave for 10 minutes to marinate the fish a little.

Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes.

Read also:

The perfect dinner for lovers: recipes from Evgeny Klopotenko