Martha Stewart's Cooking School

If you have rice in your pantry, you’re well on your way to a great meal—something you have in common with home cooks around the globe. Martha offers a lesson on the world’s most common grain, starting with a perfect pot of fluffy white rice, which you can incorporate into a main course or serve as an accompaniment to a host of other dishes.

Steaming is one of the fastest and healthiest ways to cook—and it’s not just for vegetables. In this lesson, Martha demonstrates a variety of steaming techniques and tools that allow you to make complete meals in just minutes. She’ll show you how to cook chicken breasts in parchment paper for moist, flavorful meat, as well as how to clean and steam mussels.

This episode is devoted to roasting, a straightforward and adaptable technique that also works well for meat, fish, and chicken. Martha’s roast chicken showcases the benefits of this method,with a crisp exterior and moist interior.

Braising is a busy cook’s best friend, and here’s why: With little hands-on time and no special equipment, this “low-and-slow” method produces hearty, consistently flavorful main courses and side dishes that belie their ease.

Because poached meats are moist and tender yet still mild in flavor, they work well as the basis for numerous salads, soups, and light suppers. They’re also famously low in fat.

[Season Finale] In this episode, Martha demonstrates how to pan-sear, a technique that produces consistently satisfying—and quick—meats and fish. Pan searing involves browning food quickly over high heat so it develops a nice crust and locks in the flavor and juiciness.