August 5, 2008
As I have been cooking more, I’ve realized that different doesn’t mean worse. For most foods there is a range of things you can do that will alter the flavor, but not necessarily change how good it tastes.
For example, one of my favorite foods is pasta with fresh tomato sauce. I’ve made it many different ways, but there isn’t one that I keep coming back to as the best. Last night I made an arrabiata (literally meaning ‘angry’ in Italian, but it means it is spicy) sauce with crushed tomatoes, garlic, parsley, and red pepper flakes. It was delicious. Could I have used onion instead of garlic? Or both? Of course, and it would have changed the flavor, but it probably would not have made it better or worse.
Sometimes I just use onions and thyme. Other times basil and garlic. Or sometimes I’ll mix them all. There isn’t a perfect tomato sauce and making it different from a recipe doesn’t mean it is better or worse - just simply different.
Right now I don’t feel this sort of confidence when cooking other foods, but it is fun to try new combinations in my tomato sauces and see how they taste, without the pressure of trying to make the best one.
Posted in Other | 
7 Comments » |
Related Posts:
No related posts
August 1, 2008
Basil pesto is a great pasta sauce and versatile enough to go on an array of various foods. The only trouble is finding enough fresh basil to make it. Luckily for me, out basil plants have been going crazy this summer, so I made a batch last night. Instead of specific amounts for this recipe, I am going for easy approximations. It is also pretty easy to alter on the fly if you have too little of any one thing.
You’ll need a couple handfuls of fresh basil leaves, one or two cloves of garlic, a small handful of toasted pine nuts, about 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil (sorry, I couldn’t do this in handfuls), salt to taste, and one handful of grated Parmesan or some other hard Italian cheese like Pecorino or Grana Padano.
Now here is the tricky part - toss everything (except for half of your olive oil) into a food processor, and turn it on. Then drizzle in the remaining olive oil or as much as you want until you get your preferred consistency.
When your pesto is ready, pour it over some pasta, on some fresh pizza dough, or on anything else you think it might go well with it.
Preferences and Tips
- You can really adjust any of the ingredients until you get a flavor you prefer.
- I ate some pesto in Greece (made by an American, it wasn’t a Greek pesto or anything) that was thick and chunky, and it was really good. I am going to try doing everything by knife (or pounding the pine nuts) next time to see if I can get a thick consistency like that.
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
- Fresh basil, two handfuls, washed and dried
- Garlic, one or two cloves (preferably crushed before going in the food processor)
- Toasted pine nuts, small handful (toast them in a small skillet if necessary)
- Extra-virgin olive oil, about 1/2 cup, but add until desired consistency
- Parmesan cheese, handful grated
- Salt to taste
Recipe:
- Add all of the ingredients to a food processor (except for half of your olive oil) and turn it on. Pour in the remaining oil until it reaches the desired consistency. Adjust salt to taste.
Posted in Recipes | 3 Comments » |
July 31, 2008
This post is part of a series called Cooking 101, which introduces the basics of cooking. The series follows the book Culinary Fundamentals, with supplements from The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America. Check out the previous posts here.
Editor’s Note: I have added The Professional Chef (recommended by ntsc) as one of the books that I’ll be using in this series. In some areas it seems more thorough, which will be helpful on complicated subjects. On other subjects Culinary Fundamentals has better explanations for the beginner, so I’ll use both. I will stick with the layout and order of Culinary Fundamentals, but The Professional Chef will help round out the information I have.
Unit 4: Food Science Basics
Food science is an interesting topic for me, and I imagine that the more science I understand behind cooking, the greater freedom I’ll having when creating and adapting dishes without recipes. Can you learn to cook without knowing the science behind everything? Sure, but learning it can only help.
Food science is a complex and massive subject. If you’ve ever taken a look at Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, you’ll find it absolutely packed with information on the science behind cooking. I’ve done plenty of science posts in the past and intend to continue them, so this will be an overview on the basics of foods, heat transfer and its effects, and emulsions.
Foods
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates come in two forms: sugars and starches. Simple sugars are soluble and sweeten foods. They also attract water, which means sugar can be used to help preserve things like fruit. Starches are complex carbohydrates and are not soluble. When cooked in water, though, starches loosen and will take it in, softening their texture. Carbohydrates are found abundantly in breads, pasta, fruits, vegetables and grains.
Proteins
Proteins, as described in the book, start out shaped like long coils. But when heat, salt or acid is applied, they uncoil, or denature, and form new bonds. These bonds can be loose or tight, but the tighter bonds are what you see when you cook a piece of meat to well done. Other proteins can behave differently, although I think they all follow the same basic principles. Bread protein, or gluten, forms long strands when kneaded and egg proteins solidify when cooked.
One interesting fact about proteins is that they give off water as tighter bonds form, even when cooked in a liquid. This is the reason books tell you to let meat rest for a few minutes when its done cooking - the proteins will reabsorb some liquid, resulting in a moister product. Proteins are found in meat, eggs, dairy, legumes and nuts.
Fats
Fats have all sorts of uses in cooking. They can keep foods from sticking in pans, dry them out to create a crunchy crust, or dissolve and create various flavors. The book also says that it can tenderize foods by spreading through them and preventing large groups of proteins or carbohydrates from coming together.
Water
I don’t normally think of how important a role water plays in cooking, but it is everywhere and knowing its properties can be useful. As far as cooking techniques that use water, you have boiling, poaching, simmering and steaming. In addition, dehydrating foods can help preserve them (like curing with salt), while rehydrating foods is sometimes needed to make them edible (like dry pasta). Finally, remember that it boils at 212° F (100° C) and freezes at 32° F (0° C).
Acids and Bases
Adding acids and bases can have significant effects on how food cooks. The book gives an example of green beans, where salting the water will keep them green and the pH stays close to neutral. Add an acid though, and the color leaches out and you’ll have dull beans. Add a base and you get bright green beans, but a mushy texture. Sound familiar? Of course, I wrote about this effect earlier here. Documenting all the effects is not possible here, but I’ll try to point out how acids and bases affect cooking as we come across it in the future.
Heat Transfer
There are numerous ways to transfer heat to foods and each will have different effects. Conduction is direct contact between molecules that transfers heat. Think cooking in a pan or the molecules of air around a loaf of bread in the oven - direct contact.
Convection is “the transfer of heat through moving gases or liquids.” This happens when you cook something in boiling water or use a convection oven, which keeps the air moving. With convection, the liquid or gas that is close to the heat source heats up quickly and rises, while the cooler liquid away from the heat falls, creating a current of movement. Convection can be useful when making something like a stock because the moving liquid brings impurities to the surface.
Radiation uses electromagnetic energy to heat the outside of foods. Infrared radiation comes out of all sorts of heat sources, including grills and your broiler. The infrared radiation will heat the cookware or outside of the food, then conduction will carry the heat inward and cook it through.
Microwave radiation comes from your microwave. Shocking, I know. I didn’t know this, but apparently foods high in moisture, sugar or fats are the best for a microwave. Just remember not to use metal in it.
Finally, induction cook tops use magnetic currents to heat up pans, but leave the food surface dry and respond to temperature changes very quickly. I don’t really know much about these sorts of stoves, but they sound pretty cool. Does anyone have one?
Cooking
There are six basic principles for food science: caramelization (here), Maillard reaction (here), gelatinization (below), denaturation (above), coagulation (no one mentions this further), and emulsification (below).
Culinary Fundamentals lists three main affects that cooking can have on food. First, cooking can either dehydrate or rehydrate a food. Second, heat can create caramelization or the Maillard reaction, also known as browning and discussed previously here. Browning is very important in a lot of cooking and the science behind it is pretty interesting.
Gelatinization is something that I have not covered. Gelatinization occurs when starchy foods are cooked with water. The starch loosens, absorbs some water, and eventually can soften enough to lose its shape. Then, these starch molecules mix with whatever else you are cooking but trap water molecules, thickening the sauce/dish. Apparently root-based starches thicken at lower temperatures than cereal based starches.
Emulsions
An emulsion is the suspension of one ingredient evenly throughout another. A common emulsion is a vinaigrette, where oil and water are combined. Usually one ingredient is broken up into very small pieces so it can be mixed with the other. Interestingly, both mayonnaise and forcemeat (like sausage) are emulsions.
Posted in Cooking 101, Food Science, Recipes | 1 Comment » |
July 29, 2008
I always had assumed that my first book review on The New Cook would be a cookbook. It makes sense, right? Because I am just starting to cook, however, and therefore haven’t delved deeply into the few cookbooks I own, I thus far have held off on any cookbook reviews.
Since I began blogging, though, I have seen Michael Ruhlman’s books mentioned a few times. Ruhlman, a writer, has written The Making of a Chef and The Soul of a Chef, which usually are talked about with great praise. A few weeks ago I requested both from the library, and I just finished reading The Making of a Chef last night.
I loved it. It was a fun, enjoyable, and interesting read. Michael Ruhlman, a journalist by trade, asked the Culinary Institute of America if he could attend, participate, and observe different parts of their curriculum in order to see how they teach students to cook. He starts off the book as a student in the CIA’s six week ‘Skills’ classes, learning the basics of cooking. He then moves around to the various kitchens (fish, bread, forcemeat, etc.) observing and participating, before winding up in two of the CIA’s restaurants, both serving and cooking.
My favorite part about the book was his characterizations of the various instructors/chefs. Each one really comes alive in the book. To focus a bit more on cooking, though, I want to discuss some of the observations and thoughts I had while reading it.
Fundamentals
Throughout the book in their conversations with Ruhlman, multiple chefs stressed the importance of fundamentals in cooking. They explained that everything came back to the fundamentals and performing these fundamentals perfectly is what makes a great cook. Ruhlman explained that what made a chef really great was when the fundamentals became so second nature that the green beans are cooked perfectly every time, or the soup is seasoned just right. It isn’t crazy, creative dishes using liquid nitrogen that make a great chef, but rather his or her attention to and perfection of the fundamentals.
I found this stress on fundamentals surprising, but at the same time logical. It doesn’t matter how creative your dish is if the sauce breaks or the french fries are overcooked. By doing my Cooking 101 series, I hope to learn these fundamentals.
Tasting
The second aspect that was stressed, mainly from a memorable scene with Chef Ron DeSantis, is the importance of tasting your food. This is vital to getting it seasoned correctly, tasting good, and preventing bad food from getting served. It is also one area that I want to improve on. I don’t generally taste my food much while cooking because I don’t know when something is properly seasoned or cooked just right. I have trouble telling the good from the not-so-good. But after reading this, I think the only way to learn is to start tasting my food all the time as it cooks. Then I can see how the taste changes as I alter things and learn what proper seasoning is.
Learning to Cook from Books
I stressed in a previous post that I most cookbooks are not good for learning to cook. I was looking for a textbook on teaching cooking in a logical way. Thankfully, I actually found one (Cooking 101). On the downside, I’ve realized a more general flaw in learning to cook from any book, even the kind I was looking for. It is difficult to tell when things are right. Going back to the green bean example, I could be boiling a pot and taste one every 30 seconds, but how can I know when it is just right? The most effective way must be having someone next to you tasting too, then when he or she says, “That’s a perfectly cooked green bean,” I could taste it and know.
Now, before you jump on me, I realize that when cooking at home for yourself, family and friends, ‘done’ is how you like it! I know I should eat my green beans the way I like them, not the way the CIA tells me to. But still, at least personally, I would like to know what that “objective” “right” is, so at least if I am deviating I will do it on purpose.
Anyway, I realized that there is much about learning to cook that is difficult to convey through the written word. (Ah, the irony! Proclaiming the written word is insufficient for teaching one how to cook while doing that very thing myself!)
Professional vs. Home Cooking
The last observation I took from the book is how different it is to cook at home versus cooking professionally (especially at a place like the CIA). If I want to make veal stock I’ll need to hunt around to find veal bones at a grocery store, while a restaurant or school will have them in bulk, since that’s the way they cook. Reconciling whether its worth it to make your own stock, or bake your own bread, or even make your own tomato sauce is a difficult task for the home cook when juggling time, money, and space constraints. I haven’t had much experience with these tradeoffs and they are something that I intend to explore in the future.
Summary
Overall, The Making of a Chef is a fun and interesting read. I highly recommend that you pick it up and give it a shot if you’ve never read it before.
Has anyone read it? Any thoughts?
Posted in Other | 1 Comment » |
July 27, 2008
I was moving furniture last Saturday, so we get an extra large breakfast links again this weekend. There are just too many good things to link to…
Recipe of the Week:
Fried Squash Blossoms - Anne from Cooking with Anne gives us a recipe for fried squash blossoms. When I was in Italy two summers ago on an archaeological dig, an old Italian couple, Bruno and Bepina, cooked for us most nights. One of the many delicious treats they made was ‘Fiore di Zucco’ - or fried zucchini flowers. Delicious.
Comment of the Week:
I’m not entering the contest as we have more than we can use, however interesting Pyrex fact.
The 200? mirror of the Palomar telescope was made of Pyrex and when cooled was shipped cross country via railway. Because of problems it was the second one cast and the first can be seen at the Corning museum in NY. ntsc
Links:
Enjoy your Sunday.
Posted in Links | 7 Comments » |
July 25, 2008
Christine, comment #20, has been chosen as the winner of the Pyrex Baking Dish giveaway. Congratualtions!
Sorry to everyone to who did not win, but maybe next time. (I didn’t realize my comments aren’t numbered, but Christine is the 20th comment.)
Thank you to everyone who participated and everyone who is reading the blog!
Posted in Other | No Comments » |
content rss
