Paris (AFP)

Confined in the middle of a pandemic, their restaurants closed, the great French cooks savor the pleasure of "home-made" with closet funds, sharing their recipes during a TV show or on social networks.

"Today it's not Chef Lignac speaking, it's Cyril, who, like all French people, goes downstairs to do his shopping downstairs.

In a t-shirt, the beloved media chief of the French, Cyril Lignac, prepares a dinner live and in prime-time from his home with duplexes of personalities and anonymous in their kitchens across France, in the program "Tous in the kitchen "on M6 launched on Tuesday.

Quinoa and vegetable wok, tuna toast mixed with cream cheese and mimosa eggs, carrot soup, ham shell risotto: anyone can do it, even if they replace missing ingredients with what is in the cupboards or save a dough of pancakes in extremis thanks to the advice of Cyril Lignac.

This exceptional situation allows the chefs to "play another part of the kitchen, it is very interesting to improve people's daily lives with the kitchen in the cupboard and the fridge," explains Cyril Lignac to AFP.

- "Anti-headache" kitchen -

Deprived of the sophisticated products with which he cooks in his restaurant, Cyril Lignac like the other chefs interviewed by AFP, finds this new exercise "brilliant".

With this program which will last the time of confinement, he hopes to bring the French to cook at home by showing them that it can be simple, good and not expensive.

"I don't cheat, I have a micro-kitchen, if I can do it, you can do it too": in a tutorial, Parisian chef Amandine Chaignot learns how to prepare asparagus.

No need to bother with an easy to miss homemade mayo or hollandaise sauce or having too many dishes to do.

Here, the chef, who had concocted the meal for the last edition of the very prestigious Sidaction fashion dinner in January, cooks the asparagus and the eggs in the same pan, mix the flowing yolks with butter and add the chopped whites .

This video is recorded for his friends who "are used to eating out". "It can be paralyzing to say" I don't know how to do the simplest things "," she told AFP. "It has to be easy, fast, without using equipment or ingredients that cannot be found."

- "Fathers of families" -

In Marseille, the current project of Alexandre Mazzia, 2 Michelin stars and chef of the year 2019 of the Gault and Millau guide, is that of a "father of a family" who does homework, sport and eat.

In rare moments of respite, he publishes on Facebook some recipes adapted to quarantine time that are a hit.

Like this chocolate cake "that you beat like an omelet, simple and delicious" that you can make without "bleaching the eggs or sifting the flour".

In its Puy green lentil salad, you can replace the cashew nut with another nut and the kumquat with a tangy apple, the secret is the broth where you add coffee and a honey vinaigrette and curry.

"I received 350 text messages asking me what to do with Puy lentils," he told AFP.

Three-star chef and member of the Culinary College of France who promotes the French gastronomic heritage, Christophe Bacquié based in Castellet, in Provence, brings Mediterranean flavors to our plates.

Endives with orange, honey and rosemary, lemon and olive oil cake. "It was my wife who convinced me to post on Instagram what I do when I am with my family," says Christophe Bacquié.

If with the closing of the markets you can't find Saint-Pierre to make a dish with asparagus, you can try his mother's recipe: potato pancake without eggs or flour. The trick is not to rinse them to keep the starch.

Coming soon: chicken breasts that anyone can buy in supermarkets or polenta twisted with citrus fruits.

"We do with what we have, confinement is for everyone, we have a duty to lead by example", summarizes for AFP Christophe Bacquié.

© 2020 AFP