Archive for November, 2007

Mise en place

Published by Hal on November 30, 2007 in technique. 1 Comment

Mise en place is actually a very helpful cooking technique, as it will keep you organized and likely stop you from missing something critical. It’s a French phrase, literally meaning “set[ting] in place.” The basic concept that is that before you even butter the dish or pre-heat the oven, you have all of your ingredients, tools, and cookware ready to go for the next step in the process. If you watch cooking shows a lot, then you see this all the time–Ina always dumps her ingredients into the mixer, one right after the other, all in pre-measured quantities.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you need to prepare all the little condiment dishes like all the cooking shows, but you should have some kind of system. I usually just pull all my ingredients together on the counter in roughly the order that I’m going to use them. I never take the measuring spoons off their ring (this drives my wife crazy, but it drives me equally so when I have to put them back on after she cooks). And I have my bowls, spatulas, pans, cooking spray, everything possible within reach before I even start to mix.

Of course, this is the ideal and it doesn’t always happen. My wife has been wanting a cake for the last several weeks (I’m not sure about the craving, but, trust me, there’s not a bun in the oven, even if there is a cake there!). In fact, before I left for choir practice tonight, she said I had to bring her home a cake. I did not. So, to make things right, I pulled down one of the boxed cake mixes from the pantry (bad, right? I’m not much of a baker because I’ve just never tried) and dumped it into our mixer. I tried to soften some butter, but melted it instead (Hal’s Hint: microwaving at 10% power for 1 minute is still enough to melt butter). I finally got the butter right, just to realize I didn’t have enough eggs.

About this time, my wife comes downstairs and says, “But we don’t have any frosting!” I said “I’ll make some!” but she insisted that if I was going to make this cake, I needed to go to the store and pick up some eggs. So, I just picked up some frosting, too.

Good thing, because when I got home, I discovered there was not enough powdered sugar to make the frosting.

And do you know what? All this would have been avoided if I had just practiced mise en place. Now you know.

Oh, and my wife wasn’t that serious about the cake, but she has been craving one for a while.

Special thanks to Wolftrouble on flickr for the photo. The image is protected under a creative commons license, which basically means I can use this image without royalty as I see fit, as long as I credit the source. Yay for the internets!

Learning to Cook: “…and so can you!”

Published by Hal on November 29, 2007 in about me, health and technique. 3 Comments

My wife often asks me “where did you learn how to cook so well?” I touched on this very briefly in the post “My inspiration,” but I thought I would revisit the topic for this particular post.

When I was a kid, I was forbidden to touch the stove. I think the logic was that I was too young to learn how to cook, and I would probably just end up hurting myself. That didn’t stop me, because I still tried to cook things, and usually just simple things like mac and cheese or ramen. Sometimes, when I stayed home from school, I would watch TLC (probably the first of the mainstream lifestyle channels) and there would be cooking shows. I remember a cajun cooking show, probably some others, and “Yan Can Cook.”

Yan Can Cook was hosted by Martin Yan, and the premise of the show involved Martin cooking traditional Asian cuisine and goofing off, in an engaging way. I always remember the tag-line of the show: “If Yan can cook, so can you!” I remember being so rapt by this show, and wondering if I could ever cook like that. I never tried Asian cuisine at such a young age, but my passion for it has never waned.

After watching such shows (and there were others, which I’ll discuss later), I would occasionally experiment. Once, I made a tuna salad, and I must have used nearly every spice in the cabinet. From what I remember, it didn’t taste too bad, but it might have been over salted. I’m sure the spice combination was something like basil, oregano, tarragon, rosemary, garlic salt, salt, and pepper. My grandmother said I was turning into quite the little chef when I told her about it later that night.

Knowing that I wasn’t allowed to cook when I was kid (though I still did), I find it really interesting that conventional wisdom says something very different today, nearly 10 to 15 years later. You’ve seen those spots on FoodNetwork about cooking with your kids, right? And there are all kinds of recipe books for children (heck, even a quick Google Search on “cooking with kids” gets nearly 14 million hits, with websites that seem devoted to cooking with your children). Researchers now say that cooking with you children can impart some very beneficial knowledge, such as good food choice and integrating math, science, and language skills. It might even keep your kids from getting fat!

Do you remember when you first learned to cook? What are some of your stories?

Healthy Benefits: A Garlic Lover’s Dream Come True

Published by Hal on November 28, 2007 in cooking in the media and health. 1 Comment

Unlocking the Benefits of Garlic

Good news for you garlic lovers (which means good news for my wife and me)! We’ve heard for a long time that Garlic is supposed to be good for you and the benefits are numerous (this blog post highlights protection against many cancers and heart damage due to a heart attack) but until recently science could not explain why. It turns out that garlic emits a very small amount of a compound that is actually poisonous in large doses. Think of it as botox for the body–in small doses, this poison–hydrogen sulfide–kick starts hydrogen sulfide production in red blood cells, but only just enough to provide some antioxidant and vessel relaxing benefits. Amazing, huh?

These results were achieved using the equivalent of two garlic cloves, but the heaviest garlic eating countries eat upwards of 12 cloves per day! Here are some ways to get your garlic fix:

Rub the cut side of a clove of garlic on warm toast
Mince garlic and include it with your caramelized or sweated onions (add it last, because garlic burns quicker than onions)
Three words: forty clove chicken (from the slow cooker)
Garlic goes great in Italian, Middle Eastern, and Asian cuisine

Worried about the smell? This article has a cure–eat fennel seeds to help neutralize the smell!

Can’t get enough garlic? What are some of your favorite garlic recipes?

Emeril Live To Go Off the Air

Published by Hal on November 27, 2007 in cooking in the media. 0 Comments

From the New York Times TV Decoder blog

Bam! Emeril Live Is Gone - TV Decoder - Media & Television - New York Times Blog

I agree with some of the comments to this post–it’s a shame that Food Network’s one-time flagship show will no longer be in original production. But, all good things must come to an end, I guess. This is funny, because I don’t particularly think that Emeril is a very engaging TV personality when he doesn’t have an audience to interact with.

I wonder what other show will take the flagship spot? Perhaps “Iron Chef: America?”

New Food Video Website

Published by Hal on November 27, 2007 in recipes. 0 Comments

FoodTube.net

Courtesy of lifehacker.com. I haven’t checked it out much, but it looks promising!

The Doneness of Meat

Published by Hal on November 27, 2007 in technique. 1 Comment

One of the problems I’ve run across as a cook is getting the temperature of meat correct. Here is a good guide for what steak should look like during the various levels of doneness:

Cooking It Right.

Basically, this chart says that steak is…
“very rare” at 130 degrees
rare at 140 degrees
medium rare at 145 degrees
medium at 160 degrees
medium well at 170 degrees, and
well done at 180 degrees.

Myself, I prefer my steaks between medium rare and medium. I can eat a steak that is medium rare, and if it’s a good cut, rare.

It took me a really long time to get fish right, too. Most whitefish should be cooked more than red fish, but not to the point that the flesh is dry. About medium well, when the flesh flakes, is right. Red fish, such as salmon or tuna, should be served rare or medium rare. Once, when I was in a really nice restaurant in Cleveland (Ohio), I ordered salmon. I didn’t know that it wasn’t supposed to be done through, so I sent it back twice before they comped the meal. Oops.

Pork is another one of those really kooky items. Overcook it, and it’s dry. We’ve been led to believe that if we under-cook it, we’ll automatically contract trichinosis. However, trichinosis is very rare in the US, and cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 137-144 degrees should kill the Trichinella larvae (based on the chart above, this is the equivalent of rare, and hardly anyone cooks pork that way). Additionally, freezing may also kill the worm. Knowing that it’s not as scary as we’re led to believe in the 7th grade, I still get really weirded out when my pork isn’t done through. Usually I err on the side of caution, to the point where my meat is overdone. Sometimes I don’t, and I can’t finish my dinner.

Are you the same way? Do you have any tips to share about getting the doneness right?

The Art of Roux

Published by Hal on November 27, 2007 in about me, admin, recipes and technique. 1 Comment

A simple roux:

2 tablespoons of fat (I use butter, but I usually only need a blond roux; oil might be better if you need a darker roux)
2 tablespoons of flour

Melt or heat the fat on medium-low heat. Add the flour to hot fat, stirring. The roux should bubble up, then simmer down. Keep stirring, until the roux is the color of a blondie, or a biscuit, and has the viscosity (thickness) of oatmeal. Whisk in the liquid and bring the heat up to medium. After bringing the liquid to a boil, lower the temperature to low and mix in any additional ingredients. This roux will thicken 2 to 4 cups of liquid.

Hal’s Hint: I’ve discovered that if you want to caramelize some onions, garlic, or similar bulb vegetable, add the vegetable to the fat before you add the flour. You might consider changing the ratio to 3:2 fat-to-flour. That is, if you would normally use two tablespoons each of fat and flour, use three tablespoons of fat instead.

Last night I made a simple version of an alfredo sauce, which required that I make a roux. Let me tell you something-it took me three times to get it right! What went wrong:

Attempt 1
Plain and simple, I cooked it too long. I had the right proportions of flour and fat, but I was expecting it to seize up and then go back to a more liquid stage. It never seized up, so I kept stirring.  And stirring.  And stirring.

I was using medium heat and my fat was butter. Eventually, the butter just burned, so I had a brown roux. Also, somewhere in the middle of all this, I decided to test my roux to make sure the flour taste had cooked out. Here’s a hint: don’t use your bare finger to test a hot roux. My left index finger has not been happy for the last 15 hours.

So, attempt 1 down the drain.

Attempt 2
After attempt 1, I thought maybe I didn’t have the proportions right–I knew for certain there wasn’t more fat than flour. Maybe it was two-to-one flour-to-fat? I also reduced the flame to low (knowing on my gas stove, this is more like medium).

Well, it seized up like I expected it to… and never became runny again. No biggie, let’s add the milk anyway. Lump city.

Attempt 2 down the drain, too.

Attempt 3
We went back to what worked–attempt 1 had equal proportions of flour to fat, and that’s what I chose. The heat setting was somewhere between low and medium.

I melted the butter, added the flour, and WOW! I think this was the magic moment–the flour kind of “bloomed,” then went runny again. I stirred for another minute or so to cook the flour, then added my milk.

Success! But, damn you, Alton Brown, and your cooking shows that I can never seem to remember exactly and correctly!

First recipe: Roasted Winter Root Vegetables

Published by Hal on November 26, 2007 in recipes. 0 Comments

My wife and I really enjoy trying new things, and, since we’re on a budget, we like doing so cheaply! A few weeks ago, I wanted to add some variety to our dinner menu and came up with this recipe. The initial inspiration came from reading the mental_floss blogs (see the sidebar)–the folks over at Mental Floss have a feature called “Tuesday Turnip.” The feature has absolutely nothing to do with turnips, incidentally, but that’s neither here nor there.

So, one Tuesday, not too long ago, while reading the Tuesday Turnip, I had a revelation–why not actually use a turnip in cooking? I didn’t start looking for recipes because I wanted to roast the vegetables and I had the basic concepts down–slice up some thing so that it’s in even
slices, coat with a little oil, salt, and other seasonings, and blast
it with heat until it develops a nice color. I also remembered seeing a feature on “Barefoot Contessa” about roasted root vegetables, so I thought that’s what I’d try. What I came up with was:

Roasted Root Vegetables

  • 4 medium carrots
  • 4 medium parsnips
  • 3-4 small turnips
  • 4-6 medium potatoes
  • 1 medium onion
  • olive oil, to coat
  • palm-full of dried or fresh rosemary (coarsely chopped)
  • garlic powder to taste (about 1-2 tsp)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees (F).
  2. Peel all the vegetables.
  3. Slice up the carrots, parsnips, turnips, and potatoes into equal size pieces (about 1 inch cubed).
  4. Slice the top off the onion, and clean up the root end–but don’t slice off the root end!
  5. Cut the onion into 6 wedges, through the root so that each wedge has a bit of root at its end.
  6. Combine all the vegetables into a large (very large) bowl and drizzle just enough oil to coat, about twice or three times around the bowl.
  7. Sprinkle the rosemary, garlic powder, salt, and pepper evenly over the vegetables.
  8. Toss the vegetables in the bowl to coat.
  9. Spread the vegetables in a single layer over a large baking sheet–leave enough room to stir as needed.
  10. Cook the vegetables in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until the vegetables have caramelized, stirring once about half way through

Serves 6.

I just now realized that I need a picture! Alas, I don’t have one, but the next time I make this dish, I’ll take a picture just for this site. This side dish goes great with any sturdy meat–we’ve had it with pork chops and flank steak, and it complemented the main dish perfectly both times. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

My inspiration

Published by Hal on November 25, 2007 in about me. 1 Comment

Okay, no, really…

The Tools

Published by Hal on November 25, 2007 in about me and cookware. 0 Comments

After introducing myself, I thought I would introduce my cooking life. This first post is about my most used kitchen tools.

Primary tools.
Calphalon - Contemporary Nonstick Sets - 10 Piece Set. We later purchased the Calphalon - Contemporary Stainless Basics - Stock Pots with Calphalon - Inserts and Double Boilers Stainless Inserts - 8 qt. Pasta Insert

This cookware is at the center of our (mine and my wife’s) cooking. Like most non-stick cookware, sometimes it does not brown as well as we’d like. This causes us to have to use a little bit of oil to aid in carmelization. Since aerosol oil sprays leave a film on the non-stick surface, we have a pump action spritzer bottom filled with canola oil. We use a combination of silicon spatulas and wooden tools with this cookware.

Cuisinart CA4 20-pc. Knife Block Set with Bonus Cutting Board: Red - Cuisinart Cutlery Sets

This set is a very good set, and we’ve been quite pleased. Really, I’m just excited that we’ve got a block, because trying to organize our knives in such a way that they didn’t dull would be very frustrating. They have the features the professionals say knives should have: forged, stainless blades; tines that extend to the base of the handle; a comfortable grip; and a good center of gravity for control.

KitchenAid Online Store | Professional 5™ Plus Series Mixers - KV25G0XBU

This stand mixer is perhaps the best stand mixer ever. I know it’s my wife’s favorite kitchen appliance, because it makes any kind of mixing so much easier (and she just likes the way it looks on our counter!). We’re hoping to get the ice cream attachment for Christmas so we can experiment with making ice cream!

Read more about our other tools and the cost after the cut…

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