Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Psst!  You in the Toque!

Boy howdy it’s fine to see ya here, rubbing your gnarled piehooks over the cold dead embers of the Chuklehut Recipe Coroner.  The larder is empty, the crockpot is crocked, and here I am picking my fangs and asking you where the hell you were while I’ve been polishing off the leftovers and hangers-on.  Oh, those were the left-onners, weren’t they?  That explains the hangover.  Goes to show there’s always something to be learned.

Shut up, I mean you too.  You want me to think you know everything there is to know about kitchencraft?  Is that so?  Well I never.  Which is to say, I rarely.  Which is, in turn, to say, here are ten things you may not know about making your food more easily, more delectably, and with higher hit-points.  If you already know them all, let me know and I’ll stop pestering you.  Otherwise, hunker down and get receptive cuz here comes:

TEN KITCHEN TIPS THAT WILL AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS AND MAKE YOU INVINCIBLE or at least a better cook:

1) Don’t use heavy plates or bowls in the microwave.  Even if they’re micro-safe they will suck up all the radiation and get superhot, while your food inside barely gets warm.  Use lightweight plastic storage containers, or a paper towel if possible.  Food will heat up INFINITELY faster

2) If you’ve fried something like potatoes or fish that gets all over-oily, the world’s best way to drain off the excess erl is with a paper towel over a paper shopping bag.  To drain both top and bottom, flip it onto a plate by lifting the whole paper bag, and then slide the food gently back onto the bag (with a fresh paper towel on it) other-side up after a few seconds.  That way the erl on the top doesn’t soak back into the food too much. 

3) If you are going to add dry seasoning or any powdered ingredient to a liquid or something that’s mostly liquid, don’t.  You’re likely to get lumps of seasoning that don’t dissolve into the whole mixture.  Instead, put the seasonings into a tiny bowl , add a few drops of the liquid, and stir gently till it’s gotten good and soaked.  Then you can add the highly seasoned tiny bit of liquid to the whole caboodle and it’ll blend through instantly. 

4) Lots of savory recipes call for water to be added.  Use broth instead if you can.  Makes a huge difference. 

5) Gravy!  Who doesn’t like a big boat of thick bubbling primordial gravy?  Evildoers, that’s who!  So suss out evildoers with this handy gravy recipe that works with pretty much any kind of cooking juice exuded from anything you’ve cooked: First, make sure the juices aren’t too fatty - pour it into a glass container and use a spoon to pull off any “excess” fat.  Get a saucepan (ah that’s why they call it that) nice and hot, then add a pat of butter and an equal amount of flour.  I usually use about 1-2 tablespoons of each, depending on how much gravy needs to be made.  Cook the flour in the butter till it’s browned and then add in the juice by dribs and drabs, stirring it thoroughly each time with a whisk.  Eventually you’ll have thickened up some damn fine gravy, and if it’s still too thin, pour it all back into another container and start more flour and butter going so you can do it all over again.  Really, this one is a proven crowd-pleaser.

6) Israeli cous-cous.  I’ve tried to avoid product-specific hints here but this is a product that is shamefully underutilized.  SHAMEFULLY, and I’m looking at you, mr and ms tiny-grain cous-cous.  The Israeli stuff is big-beaded, almost as big as tapioca beads in bubbletea.  It’s delicious, fast and easy to cook, and makes any random array of veggies and meats into a gourmett meal.  (Once again, cook it with broth, brother!)

7) If you are going to cook on a stovetop or in an oven, LET THE DAMN THING GET HOT ENOUGH BEFORE YOU USE IT.  srsly.  Everything cooks faster and comes out less frazzled.  (Exception: if you are cooking frazzles, the candy that turns into gum and then completely falls apart on itself.)

8) If you are cooking anything that’s been cut into pieces, take a little time to make the pieces pretty uniform in size.  They’ll all cook at the same rate, will be easier to manage in the pot or pan, and will look and behave better on the plate.  Knife skills are important, but so’s a good mandoline slicer.  Whatever it takes.  Just, for once in your life, strive for uniformity!

9) If you do any baking or need to add honey, syrup, molasses, or anything thick and gooey to your food, you should expect it to take for-freaking-ever to get it to dribble into a measuring spoon, and then twice as long to dribble out of the spoon into the food.  SAVE YOURSELF THE TIME: First, heat whatever it is just enough to make it nice and runny.  Then squirt your measuring spoon with spray oil before you pour in the goo.  It’ll pour in quickly and pour out just as fast.  Genius!

10) Rinse stuff out right after you’ve used it.  You don’t need to do a full wash-down but it’s so much easier to clean the damn place up if the bits and pieces have not been drying on the knifeblades and bowls for hours on end.  If you can’t manage this, consider filling a big bowl with water and using that as a soaking tub in your sink. 

Feeling edified?  Good then.  I expect supper to be prompt, delicious, and served hot.  Otherwise, I’ll just cook it myself again.  Some things never change.*

Now, got any for me?

*This fails to give credit to Kel who’s been setting up great suppers for me night after night lately since I’ve been getting home late and we need to eat quickly so as to get the boy to bed.  It was a joke, dammit.  Now look what I’ve done.  Well, to make an omelet you’ve got to antagonize your spouse, or something to that effect.

see, i keep telling people i’m an evildoer and they don’t believe me. something about me being nice and sweet and some such nonsense but now it’s official and i can direct them this way as proof. yay!

ha! best thing that I make is reservations. for realsies.

But Frazzles! Ryan bought some gum once that must have been expired or something, because it just disintegrated and he said “man, it’s Razzles all over again”. He then proceeded to tell me how he thought he had Acid Spit because his candy/gum would just turn to blobby, yet powdery, pieces. Kiss that!

Pea, I can confirm your essentially evil nature, but please tell me you’re not anti-gravy.  Open-faced turkey sandwiches?  Gravy fries?  Yorkie pudding?  For gravy’s sake woman, say it isn’t so!

and mia, I feel R’s razzlepain.  If he had eaten anything oily recently it might have contributed to the breakdown (experiment: chew some gum and then chomp some peanut butter up with it - see how long it lasts!) Also, some gum is just lame.  And let’s not forget that Ryan is actually a silicone-based alien.  That might figure in on it too.

These are some very RAD tips which are extremely helpful right now as we are having to cook a lot more because Charlie’s blood sugar is SUPER HIGH and we have to stop eating like a couple of teenagers left home alone for the weekend with a $100.00 and Mom’s car.

i always love your culinary tips, chuckles.  but i must take issue with a couple of your points:

1) microwaving plastics.  isn’t it bad to microwave plastics?  haven’t there been recent studies to show that microwaving tupperware can allow chemicals to leach into foods?  although my glass bowls might soak up some of the caloric energy from the microwave, they’ll still heat up the stuff inside them and they won’t be leachy.  just an attitude thing with me.  i prefer to keep my lab chemicals and my foodstuffs separated.

2) your drying rack leaves a bit to be desired.  i prefer the “alton brown” method, which is a cookie sheet, lined with NEWSPAPER, with an inverted cooling rack on top.  the rack keeps the food off the newspaper, the newspaper soaks up all the oil as it oozes off the item in question, and if you need to de-oilify the top you can either use a tongs to turn stuff, use a paper towel to blot, or use another cooling rack to do a flipperoo.  plus, the cookie sheet keeps all the mess contained.  i love it!

keep cooking up the good stuff...i luffs ya!

My sister is no dummy so I will offer my responses to her thoughtful assertions:

Point 1: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp
http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0706a.shtml
http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/eating/microwave.html - not conclusive, but persuasive.  I feel more likely to injure myself by touching a too-hot glass bowl, cutting myself on shards of shattered glass that’s been overheated while the food inside is still cold, or radiation sickness from needing to use the microwave 2-3 times longer than otherwise.  But reasonable minds can differ.  I respect your opinion, you crazy wackjob. 

Point 2: Alton does not clean his own damn drying racks or cookie sheets; I like being able to fold up my oily paper bags and just drop them in the recycling bin - no muss no mess, as they say.  Also, newspaper is dirty and newsprint is dirty; I don’t like to use it around my food very much if I can help it, british fishnchippage to the contrary.  ALSO, I like to have the food in contact with something that will suck the oil out of it, rather than waiting for gravity’s slow pull to encouage dripping. 

That said, Alton does know what he’s talking about.  I will take it under consideration.

the cooling rack keeps the food off the nasty newspaper (and come on, don’t try to tell me you don’t have a copy of the comical, or the weekly, lying about the kitchen).  and newspaper is WAY more absorbent than paper bag.  ever tried to wipe up a spill or clean a window with a paper bag? ick.  oh, and i use my dishwasher for the racks and cookie sheets.  saves muss and fuss. 

oh, and if you need to wait for gravity, IT AIN’T ERLY ENUF!

I am emphatically anti-gravy.
Does this mean we’re not friends anymore?
Not that I care being evil and all but, you know me, I like things to be clear.

really, patricia?  that’s too bad.  it’s been good knowing you anyway.  I’ll see you on the gravy train, I guess....

really. why would i lie about this.

and any train that is made of gravy, or carries gravy, or even smells like gravy, ain’t a train i’m gonna be riding any time soon so no, i guess you won’t be seeing me . so this is how a friendship ends. it always comes down to the little things, no?

so sad....