Methods on Bruce loves to cook

Foil packets

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A foil packet is a small, sealed pan that steams on top and fries on the bottom. The food sitting on the foil browns in fat; everything above it cooks in the steam from its own juices, which baste the whole pouch in one shared flavour. The catch is that potatoes, meat, and soft vegetables cook at very different speeds, and once the packet is sealed you can’t add things in stages. So you stage them with the knife instead: cut the slow things small and the fast things big, and they all finish at once.

Stock

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Stock is a savoury tea: flavour and gelatin pulled from bones and vegetables into water, then concentrated.

Every stock on this site follows the same five steps: roast, extract, lift out the solids, reduce, strain. The roast sets the colour, the reduction sets the strength, and only the extraction time changes. Bigger, denser bones take longer to give up their gelatin. No bones, no wait.

Reverse cooking: reverse sear and water frying

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most recipes brown first and cook through second. Reverse methods swap the order: cook gently first, then brown at the end. The gentle phase controls doneness; the hot phase is only for crust. Doing them in this order gives more even results and fewer burnt bits.