Sorry for the lack of updates!~ I got super sick last week, and trust me, I LOOK FABULOUS! :D And this week is just full of holiday and finals and stuff and blah! So I'm going to do something... odd.
COMMENT IN THIS POST AND I WILL WRITE A BLOGPOST TO ANYTHING IN IT!
I do not care if it's about charcuterie or Charlie Chaplin! I will write in it!
But I do want to put a plug into a book I started rereading for the 10th time. It's by Michael Ruhlman and it's just written so well for home cooks and even professionals like me to go "You know, that's a good thought!" and I think anyone who puts fire to a pot or steel to an onion should read this book!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Tools of the Trade PART 1
KNIVES KINVES EVERY BODY KNIVES!
If I were to look in a drawer would I find a knife? If I did you already failed. Why? KNIVES DO NOT BELONG IN DRAWERS! But to continue, what would this knife be made of? Do you know? FAIL AGAIN Can you tell me what degree your blade is? FAIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Can you EVEN tell me if you have sharpened it or honed it before?
Okay so let's get down to it.
The only knife you need...
Is really a Chef or French knife. It really does EVERY but having a few others helps, but more on that later. The first thing when you look for a knife isn't how pretty it is or if it has a guarantee to never dull, which they all will, or any Bologna like that. You want to HOLD the knife. If you do not HOLD a knife before buying it, you might as well play the lottery. Because if you hold a knife and you can't hold it right or comfortably, you WILL cut yourself and YOU WILL damage your knife.
Knives also are an investment. So think about having your buddy with you a while.
With your Chef knife, always always always buy forged. You should be able to see a bulge between the blade and the handle, and a noticeable thickness opposite the blade. This basically means that this blade was not punched from a massive sheet of metal. You want to have mass and weight, and enough metal to hold an edge and reshape the edge for many many years.
Now the second biggest factor when buying your knife is the metal. Metal is not metal in every knife. Your higher knives will contain carbon and usually be labed as high carbon steel. Carbon steel is NOTORIOUS for rusting and getting nasty, but we can now create a metal with the carbon that allows the blade to be reshaped easily, but also hold it's shape, and NOT GET RUSTY! Old style carbon steel knives would get rusty if the humidity was too high.
And the angle, I prefer the Asian 16 degree, it's much sharper, but can easily be broken or chipped compared to a European 22 degree angle. If you are new and feel you want GERMAN STRENGHT go with a 22 degree.
These three brands are my top fav, and these are my favorite blades.
The Shun is my personal knife because I enjoy the blade and the handle
is a perfect fit for me. Some people realllllly love the Global weight and
balance, but others can't stand it. The Henckles are probably the best over all blade and handle, and easy to learn from.
What else do I get?
While still talking knives, the 3 knives you EVER need are your Chef, a serrated blade, and a paring knife. A serrated blade has teeth that cut and grip hard or super soft foods. Cutting up a pumpkin with a Chef's knife is brutal, and so is cutting cake, that's where your serrated blade comes in. A paring knife does everything from peeling, to small knife work, to trimming of large cuts. It does almost as much as your Chef knife does.
Oh you DO care about me!
There are TWO things you MUST have to care for your knives. ONE is a honing steel. A honing steel will help straighten your edge of your knife, it will not create a new one, and for that you must have professionally done unless you currently sharpen other sharp things. Which... please continue. But if you do not or are not a scout, please find a local store to sharpen them. Most Whole Foods do accept knife drop offs for sharpening! With your honing steel, use it every time you take out your knife and when you put it away. And if you are marathoning it, hone every half hour. the SECOND thing is A CUTTING BOARD(S) Please dear diety in diety space, DO NOT EVER EVER USE A HARD CUTTING BOARD MADE OF GLASS MARBLE OR METAL. I will fucking stab you if you do! If you currently have these as boards, surrender them as platters or as baking tools, NEVER touch a blade to these. And now that I have your attention... INVEST IN A SET OF PLASTIC BOARDS! They will NOT last forever and should be replaced periodically, but they are the safest on your knife.
I prefer the Shun steel for two reasons. The grooves on the steel are very very precise and smooth, second I totally dig the wood Handel. If you are super nerdy like me, you will LABEL your cutting boards for: Poultry, Meat, Vegetables/cooked food.
Washing Up For Bed
Knives never and will never after this go into the dishwasher. Run your knife under hot water and with A SPONGE ON A STICK soap up and clean it off. Then if you are SUPER ULTRA GERMAPHOBIC, you can dip them in a small tub of bleach spiked water, then a quick rinse and DRY OFF RIGHT AWAY. Even though it's not as stainy as carbon steel is, it WILL MARK.
And after you've done this DO NOT PUT THEM BACK IN THE DRAWER!!! do what professional chefs do, put them in a magnet block on the wall, and IT IS VERY STRONG, or put a clasp around the blades to protect them and THEN put them in the drawer
These beauties snap on your blade and have small rubbers inside to suspend it. These not only will save your blades, they will help you keep your blood inside your body!
THIS WEEK I WILL PRODUCE A KNIFE CUTTING VIDEO SO STAY TUNED! SAME FURRY COOKING SITE SAME FURRY COOKING TIME!
If I were to look in a drawer would I find a knife? If I did you already failed. Why? KNIVES DO NOT BELONG IN DRAWERS! But to continue, what would this knife be made of? Do you know? FAIL AGAIN Can you tell me what degree your blade is? FAIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Can you EVEN tell me if you have sharpened it or honed it before?
Okay so let's get down to it.
The only knife you need...
Is really a Chef or French knife. It really does EVERY but having a few others helps, but more on that later. The first thing when you look for a knife isn't how pretty it is or if it has a guarantee to never dull, which they all will, or any Bologna like that. You want to HOLD the knife. If you do not HOLD a knife before buying it, you might as well play the lottery. Because if you hold a knife and you can't hold it right or comfortably, you WILL cut yourself and YOU WILL damage your knife.
Knives also are an investment. So think about having your buddy with you a while.
With your Chef knife, always always always buy forged. You should be able to see a bulge between the blade and the handle, and a noticeable thickness opposite the blade. This basically means that this blade was not punched from a massive sheet of metal. You want to have mass and weight, and enough metal to hold an edge and reshape the edge for many many years.
Now the second biggest factor when buying your knife is the metal. Metal is not metal in every knife. Your higher knives will contain carbon and usually be labed as high carbon steel. Carbon steel is NOTORIOUS for rusting and getting nasty, but we can now create a metal with the carbon that allows the blade to be reshaped easily, but also hold it's shape, and NOT GET RUSTY! Old style carbon steel knives would get rusty if the humidity was too high.
And the angle, I prefer the Asian 16 degree, it's much sharper, but can easily be broken or chipped compared to a European 22 degree angle. If you are new and feel you want GERMAN STRENGHT go with a 22 degree.
These three brands are my top fav, and these are my favorite blades.
The Shun is my personal knife because I enjoy the blade and the handle
is a perfect fit for me. Some people realllllly love the Global weight and
balance, but others can't stand it. The Henckles are probably the best over all blade and handle, and easy to learn from.
What else do I get?
While still talking knives, the 3 knives you EVER need are your Chef, a serrated blade, and a paring knife. A serrated blade has teeth that cut and grip hard or super soft foods. Cutting up a pumpkin with a Chef's knife is brutal, and so is cutting cake, that's where your serrated blade comes in. A paring knife does everything from peeling, to small knife work, to trimming of large cuts. It does almost as much as your Chef knife does.
Oh you DO care about me!
There are TWO things you MUST have to care for your knives. ONE is a honing steel. A honing steel will help straighten your edge of your knife, it will not create a new one, and for that you must have professionally done unless you currently sharpen other sharp things. Which... please continue. But if you do not or are not a scout, please find a local store to sharpen them. Most Whole Foods do accept knife drop offs for sharpening! With your honing steel, use it every time you take out your knife and when you put it away. And if you are marathoning it, hone every half hour. the SECOND thing is A CUTTING BOARD(S) Please dear diety in diety space, DO NOT EVER EVER USE A HARD CUTTING BOARD MADE OF GLASS MARBLE OR METAL. I will fucking stab you if you do! If you currently have these as boards, surrender them as platters or as baking tools, NEVER touch a blade to these. And now that I have your attention... INVEST IN A SET OF PLASTIC BOARDS! They will NOT last forever and should be replaced periodically, but they are the safest on your knife.
I prefer the Shun steel for two reasons. The grooves on the steel are very very precise and smooth, second I totally dig the wood Handel. If you are super nerdy like me, you will LABEL your cutting boards for: Poultry, Meat, Vegetables/cooked food.
Washing Up For Bed
Knives never and will never after this go into the dishwasher. Run your knife under hot water and with A SPONGE ON A STICK soap up and clean it off. Then if you are SUPER ULTRA GERMAPHOBIC, you can dip them in a small tub of bleach spiked water, then a quick rinse and DRY OFF RIGHT AWAY. Even though it's not as stainy as carbon steel is, it WILL MARK.
And after you've done this DO NOT PUT THEM BACK IN THE DRAWER!!! do what professional chefs do, put them in a magnet block on the wall, and IT IS VERY STRONG, or put a clasp around the blades to protect them and THEN put them in the drawer
These beauties snap on your blade and have small rubbers inside to suspend it. These not only will save your blades, they will help you keep your blood inside your body!
THIS WEEK I WILL PRODUCE A KNIFE CUTTING VIDEO SO STAY TUNED! SAME FURRY COOKING SITE SAME FURRY COOKING TIME!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Serenade me a marinate!
First I must say I Googled marinate just too get some ideas and the GOOGLE INSTANT SEARCH WAS MARINATED CAT... WTF GOOGLE?!
Anyways...
Marinate
So if brine is salt based, marinated is what? Acid... but it's not what you think it does. A marinate does not decompose meat to a gooey mess and makes it tender, that's heat and moisture's job. A marinate does inject a lot of flavor and makes a better texture of meat, and vegetables more color and better cooked texture. Brine is more understood than marinate and you can Google marinate and find 100 different opinions. But if you understand why you would USE marinate, then you're better off.
Marinate it baby~
A basic marinate contains mostly the same ingredients. Acid with the citrus in this one, oil, with our olive oil and this is a GREAT time to break out the extra virgin! flavorings and spices, and of course... SALT! Nothing is cooking without some kind of salt! :D
The proportions should be mostly acid, and acid can be fruit or vinegar, or BOTH! I used for my marinate 1 and a half cups total of acid with 1 cup OJ and 1/2 lime.
Why oil? Well, oil is a lubricant and when cooked will help what your making it less sticky but it will still stick if you aren't doing it right! But more on that later, also, I feel the BEST marinate is thickened slightly with a small emulsion. Emulsions are two opposite molecules held together at opposite ends. So in this case our oil and water/acid will be held together with a bridge in the middle. Also fat is flavor, so let's add more flavor!
I am making fajitas so I am going to add Southwest Tex-Mex flavors. I have cumin which I toasted then ground, and please folks, if you are cooking use whole spices and toast until fragment! Powdered and ground spices are useless. This photo has the ground kind only as a stage hand, I had a packet of seeds that didn't photo well. To add to the heat, CHIPOTLES and adobo sauce. This is my favorite Mexican item. Adobo sauce is so hot but doesn't feel like it because of the strong earth flavors, and the smoked jalapeños add a sweet and smokey flavor I haven't tasted anywhere else! Since this is South of the border, I'm hitting this with cilantro yo! Garlic goes in EVERY marinate I make. Garlic is culturally universal. From Europe, to Asia, to South America and the Moon, garlic is all used. And a nice sea salt to season this up! :D I skipped the pepper since we had enough POW!
A special treat
Who has had GREAT AMAZING HOMG Mexican food? And who has made it at home and just felt robbed? This is why!!!
The AMAZING power of flavor that comes from CHARRED PEPPERS! This technique is applied to ANY pepper or rather capsicum and add a whole dimension of flavor. I start with a whole poblano this time, fresh, and this can be done with ANY pepper. I spritz mine with a bit of pam oil and put it straight on the flame! And just let it burn baby burn! Once every possible green/red/yellow is charred black, put it in a bowl and cover and let sit for a half our.
Then the next step is simple, the seed pod will want to come out all its own, and then with your fingers sweep any small seeds left and lay it flat, take your knife at a 45 degree angle and scrap towards you with the blade away from you. Get off ALL the skin because that is now too bitter to taste good. DO NOT RUN UNDER WATER or you'll wash away all your flavor!
Back to our original program
Now combine all our stuff and we get this
Now TASTE! :D Why? well, if it doesn't taste good now, it won't taste good at the end! So expect it to be strong, flavorful, and acidic. If you think it's NASTY HOMG well maybe rethink, but if you think it tastes good but way to strong, then you're good!
Here is a trick I developed on my own when it comes to marinating meat. PLACE THE MEAT IN ITS PACKAGE IN YOUR CONTAINER! Because now you are POSITIVE it'll all fit!
If at this point you are worried, GOOD FOR YOU! Yes I am using an acid and a metal. BUT this is non reactive stainless steal, which will not reach, ALUMINUM IS BAD NEWS with acid. So make sure you are using SS or non metal containers when acid baths.
I like to cook my fajitas on the grill, but it's 20 degrees outside so I'm using a cast iron grill pan over high heat and it does a bang up job!
So remember make your marinate with acid, add a bit of oil, flavor it, season it, and blend it! AND TASTE IT! Make sure it's good before you cook it!
Anyways...
Marinate
So if brine is salt based, marinated is what? Acid... but it's not what you think it does. A marinate does not decompose meat to a gooey mess and makes it tender, that's heat and moisture's job. A marinate does inject a lot of flavor and makes a better texture of meat, and vegetables more color and better cooked texture. Brine is more understood than marinate and you can Google marinate and find 100 different opinions. But if you understand why you would USE marinate, then you're better off.
Marinate it baby~
The proportions should be mostly acid, and acid can be fruit or vinegar, or BOTH! I used for my marinate 1 and a half cups total of acid with 1 cup OJ and 1/2 lime.
Why oil? Well, oil is a lubricant and when cooked will help what your making it less sticky but it will still stick if you aren't doing it right! But more on that later, also, I feel the BEST marinate is thickened slightly with a small emulsion. Emulsions are two opposite molecules held together at opposite ends. So in this case our oil and water/acid will be held together with a bridge in the middle. Also fat is flavor, so let's add more flavor!
I am making fajitas so I am going to add Southwest Tex-Mex flavors. I have cumin which I toasted then ground, and please folks, if you are cooking use whole spices and toast until fragment! Powdered and ground spices are useless. This photo has the ground kind only as a stage hand, I had a packet of seeds that didn't photo well. To add to the heat, CHIPOTLES and adobo sauce. This is my favorite Mexican item. Adobo sauce is so hot but doesn't feel like it because of the strong earth flavors, and the smoked jalapeños add a sweet and smokey flavor I haven't tasted anywhere else! Since this is South of the border, I'm hitting this with cilantro yo! Garlic goes in EVERY marinate I make. Garlic is culturally universal. From Europe, to Asia, to South America and the Moon, garlic is all used. And a nice sea salt to season this up! :D I skipped the pepper since we had enough POW!
A special treat
Who has had GREAT AMAZING HOMG Mexican food? And who has made it at home and just felt robbed? This is why!!!
Back to our original program
Now combine all our stuff and we get this
Blend
Now TASTE! :D Why? well, if it doesn't taste good now, it won't taste good at the end! So expect it to be strong, flavorful, and acidic. If you think it's NASTY HOMG well maybe rethink, but if you think it tastes good but way to strong, then you're good!
Here is a trick I developed on my own when it comes to marinating meat. PLACE THE MEAT IN ITS PACKAGE IN YOUR CONTAINER! Because now you are POSITIVE it'll all fit!
Cover and place in the MOST BOTTOM PART OF THE FRIDGE! and the tin foil isn't touching the meat
AND COOK!
So remember make your marinate with acid, add a bit of oil, flavor it, season it, and blend it! AND TASTE IT! Make sure it's good before you cook it!
Mission Statement
I was driving home and I realized I did not express this blog the best way I should have. And it comes to one simple idea.
I HATE RECIPES!!!
I really do! Recipes are like putting together a bike, but if you had to make a bike, you wouldn't know what to do! I want to teach techniques and methods, and a few ideas, but I want my readers to think... "mmm I want braised short ribs with a port reduction sauce" and just DO IT! Because the title alone in a dish IS THE "RECIPE"
I want people to read this blog and take away a method and remember how simple cooking really is. Once you understand how and why, there isn't any reason to say "There is nothing to make in my kitchen" Just the other day my Mom was making meat loaf and I decided to make a sauce. So I understand what kind of sauce goes best of meatloaf. So I made a tomato base sauce, since the acid and beef are awesome, I made it spicy, because we had chiptole, and through the method of reducing down the tomato sauce, controlling the heat with acid and sweetness, I created a sauce from method and idea rather than dictating some gospel from a book.
So
Learn
Understand
And
COOK!
I know of a few books that make this principle clearer and if you want to read here are my top three...
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Official Follow the Blog Giveaway!
Okay, so I am holding... something... in my hand. And it can be yours completely FREE! The way to win is to follow this blog. Simple click the follow button on the main page and when I reach 25 followers I will randomly select a follower from the FIRST 25 and send them THIS FABULOUS MYSTERY PRIZE!
So again, be one of the first 25 followers and you can WIN A PRIZE! So follow me and comment in this post and let's have fun!
NOW WHAT IS IT?
I'll give you a few hints...
So again, be one of the first 25 followers and you can WIN A PRIZE! So follow me and comment in this post and let's have fun!
NOW WHAT IS IT?
I'll give you a few hints...
- I always tell the truth, but I may not be correct.
- I am the most needed and used tool in a kitchen, but most people don't have me.
- I am fixed with two methods and both are opposite.
As of RIGHT NOW I have two followers, so let's see how quickly I can get to 25!~
Contest Time
To create a small base of followers I am going to be announcing later today the official rules of a GIVEAWAY!
The jist of it right now is the FIRST 25 followers will have a chance to be randomly selected for a prize! I will give away later the value of the prize and a few hints, but it will be a secret!
The rules are very simple... just click the follow button so I can see that you are following this blog. And in the blog title "Official Follow the Blog Giveaway" comment that you are EAGER for some fun and learning! After 25 followers are put up, I will then select, at random, one of those followers and contact you. I will then send the prize to your house and voila!
easy? you bet your tushy it is!
The jist of it right now is the FIRST 25 followers will have a chance to be randomly selected for a prize! I will give away later the value of the prize and a few hints, but it will be a secret!
The rules are very simple... just click the follow button so I can see that you are following this blog. And in the blog title "Official Follow the Blog Giveaway" comment that you are EAGER for some fun and learning! After 25 followers are put up, I will then select, at random, one of those followers and contact you. I will then send the prize to your house and voila!
easy? you bet your tushy it is!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Book
Yeah I should mention I'm writing a book, and I just need help with illustrations. So in the next few months I'll have more details.
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