Cooking Techniques and How to Tips

There are many useful techniques and 'how to tips' to make cooking easier and more enjoyable resulting in a more tasty meal. In my opinion, the

single most important technique is learning to deglaze a pan. Sound like some mysterious chef secret? It's not and it's actually a very simple cooking technique used by professional chefs the world over. Most novice cooks are not aware of how to do this or dismiss it out-of-hand; but as I stated earlier: it can make the difference between a good tasting meal and a great tasting meal.

When you fry or sautee some ingredient there is a brown residue left sticking to the bottom of the pan. Normally this is discarded when the pan is washed which is really too bad because it is a caramelization of the natural sugars from what you were frying and contains a lot of concentrated flavor.

To deglaze a pan after sauteeing some type of food, put the empty pan back on the heat and add just a bit of water or soup stock if you are making soup to the pan. This will immediately start to bubble so take a spatula and scrape off the brown caramelized residue and dump it back into the main dish.

You would not believe how much flavor this will add to a dish. So is it a chef secret? Not really but few people besides chefs seem to know about it.

When a food item is sauteed it is fried until it 'jumps' in the pan which is what 'sautee' translates to. When the sauteed item becomes somewhat transparent it is done. If you would like more flavor in your dish, keep sauteeing to the point where the food item starts to turn brown. This is a common technique in Italian cuisine and does not mean to 'burn' the item, the brown is a caramelization of sugars (as discussed in deglazing) and adds tons more flavor to your dish.

Now that we have the two most important points out of the way we can talk about actual 'how to tips' and food trivia which may help you cook just a little better (originally this list of 'how to tips' was a lot shorter but more and more occured to me so now the list is rather long). So...here they are:

• If you wish to convert any of these recipes to metric or imperial format you can do so at this site: Cooking Conversion
  
  
• Did you know that adding salt to dried beans at the beginning of soaking or baking will result in a chemical reaction causing the bean shell to harden? When cooking dried beans do not add salt until serving.


• Tofu, made from soybeans in a process similar to making cheese, is a complete protein and easily made at home.


• Fresh garlic can be peeled much faster and easier if you first smash the clove with the flat blade of a knife.


• A pinch of baking soda, an alkaline, when added to an acidic tomato sauce will cause a chemical foaming reaction and reduce the sauce's acidity.


• When cooking meat such as steak, pork, poultry, etc., adding salt at the beginning of the cooking process will draw meat juices out and result in a dehydrated, dry product so do not salt until serving.


• Salt in sauce will do the same and make the sauce watery. If this is not what you wish, don't salt until serving time.


• Spices added to a dish at the start of cooking will most likely 'boil out' all flavor by the time cooking has completed. Spices are best added just before serving.


• When serving pasta and sauce, you will get 10 times the flavor in your dish by putting some sauce with the cooked pasta and heating it up for a minute or so. This is called 'marrying' the pasta with the sauce (this is one of the most important of the 'how to tips').


• Boil pasta the minimum time printed on the package. It is better when slightly chewy and it will keep on cooking anyway until it has cooled down.


• When baking in your oven, keep in mind that heat rises so the bottom of your oven will be cooler than your desired temperature and the top will be much warmer so always bake on an oven rack in the middle to lower middle of your oven for best results (this may seem like one of the more obvious of the 'how to tips' and not worth mentioning but it is important and who would ever think of this at cooking time - I wouldn't)


• Quality soy sauce is made from fermented soybeans, sea salt and wheat. When purchasing soy sauce, shake the bottle and look to see if the sauce bubbles for a couple seconds and stops. This is a cheap imitation - real soy sauce will bubble much longer.


• Don't know what spices to add to a dish? Smell the dish and smell different spices looking for a match - you'll find one.


• Fat is an essential ingredient of any dish and required by our bodies as a nutritional supplement and has the most concentrated flavor of any other ingredient. Just keep it to small amounts and use unsaturated oils when possible. Extra virgin olive oil is the best.


• Get yourself a cast iron pan - even a cheap one. They heat up and cook evenly and are easy to care for. I simply wash mine out, heat it up to evaporate all water and rub on a light coating of olive oil for protection. As an added benefit, they probably leech off iron into cooked foods. Just think of what teflon pans leech off...


• Cooking an entire chicken or turkey is not easy; cooking it too long will dry it out and cooking it not long enough may give you a case of salmonella. So make sure you cook it thoroughly and if you flip the bird upside down halfway through cooking then the settled fat and juices will drain down and you will get a juicier finished bird (this is one of the more important of the 'how to tips').


• Preprocessed foods are loaded with chemicals and sugar - enough where the actual taste of the food item is altered. I stay away from preprocessed food when possible.


• Use fresh produce and meats when cooking for a better flavor and only use real foods. For instance, a processed cheese food is not real cheese, it is made from the cast off by-products when making real cheese - please don't use it... to me it resembles melted highway cones and tastes just as delightful.


• Grocery store vegetables, especially tomatoes, are bred to look 'perfect' and travel well with a thick skin - taste has been pretty much bred out.


• Tomatoes can be frozen whole, just wash them first. When rethawing the skin will come off much easier if desired.


• A pot of liquid, uncovered, at a low boil will lose approximately 1 gallon of liquid per hour through evaporation. Keep this in mind if you desire a thicker sauce or if not then cover the pot to reduce evaporation.


• When serving a dinner, presentation makes a huge difference in whether someone likes or dislikes a food.

That is it for the 'how to tips' and cooking techniques. I urge you to give these a try, especially deglazing and caramelization.