Rice

        Rice is a versatile food that can be a side or main course. Rice can be prepared in a number of ways and be made to taste like almost anything. Here are a few ways I like to make it.

Rice-
What you need:
Medium sized pot with at least a thick bottom, and a cover.
2-3 cups uncooked rice
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon oil
Water
1 Tbsp rice vinegar (optional)
2 tsp sugar (optional)
Process: Put the uncooked rice into the pot, fill with COLD water and then rinse the rice by swishing it around in the pot with your fingers, you will start to seethe water get white with starch. Then you drain the water out to get rid of some of the starch. (You may repeat this process of rinsing about three times for less sticky rice, or if you plan on rolling sushi, you may not want to rinse the rice at all.)

Once the rice is rinsed, fill up the pot again with cold water until it is about one inch above the level or the ice. I test this by resting my index finger at the top of the rice and making sure that the water level is just above the first knuckle.

Stir in the salt, oil, and optional ingredients if using, and put on the stove, covered, on high. Once you see the water just barely start to boil, turn the burner down to low, keep the cover on the whole time or you will lose water and the rice will become dry or won't cook properly. Keep the rice on the stove for 12-15 minutes, and then test  it. Take out a few grains and try them they should be soft all the way through yet firm and not mushy.

Rice, Variation-
What you need-
2 medium-large pots, wooden spoon and a ladle.
2-3 cups uncooked rice
2 Tablespoons butter
6 cups chicken stock

Process-
Heat your chicken stock in a  pot until boiling, reduce heat and let simmer. (if you make your own, great, otherwise you can use store-bought stock or bullion cubes)
In a separate pot, melt butter over medium high heat, and stir in rice, cook for a few minutes, you will see the rice turn slightly opaque. Next pour a few ladle-fulls into the rice and let the rice absorb most of the water. As this happens, Slowly ladle in more stock, stirring it in each time until the rice is done. since this takes a bit more hands-on time, I usually get creative and add different spices or herbs, like marjoram or a cajun mix or chipotle powder, while I am at this stage.
(This variation is similar to how I cook couscous)

*Note- If you do not intend to eat all of the rice at once, remember to keep it covered, because rice likes to dry out quickly.
And when cooking pastas and grains like rice, or when adding water to make stock, it is always important to start with COLD water. This ensures that things like rice cook evenly. Also, when you use hot water you get the minerals and sediments that have been building up in your hot water tank, and while this is only a small amount, there is a slight difference in the end result.

The Pantry

There is nothing more frustrating than getting half way through a recipe and realizing "Damn, I really DO need green onion!"

A friend recently expressed that one of his frustrations with cooking is that he never knows what to buy or have in his house that would help him cook a variety of things. Staples, essentials, things that everyone even remotely serious about cooking should have to make cooking easier.

Many people only go out to get certain ingredients when they are following a recipe, you see them walking through the isles in the grocery store with a list, trying to figure out if the 6oz package of walnuts will be enough for the "cup of chopped nuts" their recipe calls for. For many the staples of the house could consist of a few or most of the following: Frozen pizzas, lunch meat and bread, microwave dinners, Doritos, ranch, and boxes of easy mac. Sound familiar? If you are nodding your head then this section is for you.

These are the things in my pantry that I consider essential for everyday cooking. Most are relatively inexpensive, and do wonders for me.

Oil- Vegetable oil is all you really need for most cooking at this level. But, olive oil is more expensive and should be better right? Not necessarily, good olive oils are like fine wines, and unless you really know what to do with them, save yourself the money, because you wouldn't be able to  appreciate the difference anyway. Oil makes a huge difference in cooking, and learning how to work with it and what it can do is key. I like to buy as big of a container of vegetable oil as I can find. It doesn't go bad, so there is no such thing as too much oil.

Butter- Butter is fantastic, there is no limit to the things you can do with butter. From whipping clarified butter in with egg yolks to make a hollandaise to adding a nutty, richness of a dark roux to a cajun dish, to spreading it on toast, butter is delicious. I usually have at least a pound or two in my fridge. *tip- when buying butter, if you get the 1lb block of butter it is less expensive than getting the 1lb of butter that is divided into sticks.

Flour- Another great staple. Even if you are not making your own bread or pasta, it is still useful to have flour on hand. You can thicken a soup or sauce, or make a tasty breading for fried chicken or fish. Some are specific to higher levels of baking or with more gluten to make different pastas, but for general use, just buy all-purpose flour.

Eggs- Well, without eggs, the world of food would be sad and boring. You need eggs, or parts or eggs, for, sauces, cakes, breading, bread, mayonnaise, frostings, and some soups, as well as the standard breakfast food. Poached, fried, scrambled, or boiled, eggs are a beautiful thing. I go through over a dozen by myself in a week, so I buy them in bulk 5 1/2 dozen flats. You need eggs.

Onions- Onions might be my favorite vegetable. some people are happy when someone buys them chocolate, for me, it's onions. Onions can bring so much to a dish, from the strong and intense flavor of raw slices on a burger (as well as the crunchy texture), to the sugar-sweet caramelized onion. They can bring out subtle flavors and go well with almost everything. Onions keep for quite awhile, so don't be afraid to buy them in bulk.

Celery and Carrots- These go great when mixed with onions, as well as root vegetables, but by themselves can be used in a variety of ways. From "ants on a log" to a nice stock, having these basic vegetables in your fridge is a must.

Potatoes- A great staple that can be cooked for any meal. They can be roasted, baked, boiled, and fried, mashed and mixed with egg and flour to make pasta or dough. From breakfast hash-browns to broiled puffs. Buy potatoes.

Rice- I buy rice 50 lb bags at a time. Thai Jasmine is generally what I buy. I also really like basmati. I went through a fried rice phase last year and went through one of those in a matter of months. Rice is versatile, and can be cooked and flavored in countless ways. Don't buy rice from Wal-Mart or other big grocery stores, find your closest asian food market and check it out. You can get 3-4 times the amount of (good) rice at an asian market for what you pay elsewhere. There are a number of ways to make rice, from plain rice to a risotto with a pistachio pesto and summer squash. Rice is delicious, and you cant learn to cook with it unless you have some in your pantry.

Spices- While I have an extensive collection that grows by the day, from very specific types of paprika I brought home from Hungary, to baked and ground Baltic grey salt, to seasoning blends I put together myself. I love spices and learning what combines well with different foods and other spices is one the things I love most about cooking. If you are just starting out, here are some basics: Salt & pepper, crushed red pepper, bay leaves, and thyme. Find a good seasoning mix that you like. Some great ones are Forward- by Penzeys,  Adobo, Creole, and Mrs Dash. Buy a few, and try them with different foods.

Hot Sauces- Even if you can't eat spicy food, it is always a good idea to have a good sauce to bring a more rounded flavor to your dishes. Add a little to a soup or sauce you are making, it makes a huge difference. My favorites are Sriracha (with the green top) and Cholula. Tabasco and Franks are too vinegary and generic. If you like Tobasco, try Cholula and you will see what I am talking about.

Other kitchen terms

Terms for Cutting

Julienne- Cutting vegetables to make them the size of match-sticks.

Dice- Cutting vegetables and meats into small squares. Usually 1/2" by 1/2"

Mince- Cutting things so small that they become very small, and are no longer recognizable shapes, often times done with garlic.

Burnoise- Vegetables cut into tiny cubes, done by turning julienned vegetables sideways and cutting again, into even cubes.

Butterfly- Usually done with meats, it is done by cutting thicker meats sideways almost all the ways through so that it opens like a book. It resembles a butterfly when done properly. The purpose of this cut is to shorten the cooking time of a steak or chicken breast while still keeping it in one piece.

Quarter- Often done with potatoes before boiling, this cut simply means to cut in half, and then cut the newly-made smaller pieces in half again.

Chiffonade- Usually done with fresh herbs, this technique is the process of finely slicing the herbs into very small strips without bruising them too much. This requires a very sharp knife and some skill with a blade.

Other Useful Terms

Mirepoix- This is the term for the base vegetables in most soups, stocks and bases for roasting. Carrots, onions, and celery are considered "the holy trinity" when it comes to a mirepoix, however these three veggies can be complimented by many other root vegetables to enhance the flavor, such as rutabagas, parsnips, kohlrabi, fennel stems and celery root.

Mise En Place- You Mise En Place, or simply "mise" is you set up, it is every thing you could need to prepare a dish, or work an entire service on the line. From pots and pans and serving spoons to chopped parsley, and easily accessible seasonings and vinegars. Having your mise set up properly makes the actual process of cooking go by much easier and more efficiently. 

Thickening (to tighten)- Can be done in a number of ways, by reducing liquids, or adding a thickener, such as a:
           Roux- a thickener made from the combination of equal parts flour and butter (the French way) or oil. One of my favorite ways to make a roux (depending on the dish) is with bacon grease. Rouxes can be made (regardless of the type of fat used) in different stages. There is a blonde, medium and darker stage, each one will thicken your sauce or liquid, but each stages brings a different depth to the dish. The longer you cook your roux changes the flavor from a light creamy flavor to a rich nutty flavor. To make it, whisk the flour and butter together over a medium-low heat and cook the roux until it reaches the stage you want. remember to keep moving it around so that it does not burn or get black specks in it. Once it is made, slowly add it to your sauce, stock, or soup and whisk it in. bring the liquid to a boil and it will thicken. 
           Slurry- While also used to thicken a sauce or soup, slurries are used more simply and are a good way to thicken soups or sauces for people with gluten allergies. A slurry is a mixture of cornstarch and water, usually 1Tbsp of cornstarch to 2 a cup of water. Add the slurry to a soup or sauce and bring to boil. Usually this is done at the very end of making your dish, but remember to cook the thickened liquid for a few minutes after to get rid of any pasty texture.

Stock- A stock is a broth made from bringing flavors out of vegetables and meats. Generally, you take your mirepoix, and sweat the veggies on medium to low heat for 10-15 minutes with a bay leaf and some olive oil. Next, you fill the pot most of the way with cold water. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer to reduce. Proper stocks take hours to do, but the result is well worth the wait. Other variations involve roasting bones and adding them to the stock as it is reducing, this breaks down the bones and marrow, adding even more layers of rich flavor to the stock. Once the liquid has reduced and more water is needed, remember to skim off the top layer of fat and impurities, these have a less desirable taste, and if they are not skimmed off, you would be reducing and concentrating these flavors as well.

Cooking Terminology

Terms Involving Heat

Sweat-To cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes, sometimes longer. The point of sweating veggies is to soften them and get their juices and flavors to release into the pan without adding color to them (brown or burn marks). This method is used at the beginning step in making soups and stocks.

Braise- This is a technique to tenderize meats my slow-coooking them for extended periods of time. Braising is done covered, and usually with just enough liquid to cover the meat. This is what is being done in a crock pot.

Bake- To be cooked in an oven. It sounds basic but essentially whatever is being baked is being heated by the hot air around it. Convection ovens have a fan in them that blows heated air on the food, causing it to cook faster.

Sauté- To cook in a pan on a high heat. To sauté, you need a really hot pan, what happens is the water in the ingredients nearest to the pan gets turned to steam, you can hear the sizzle of the process happening. The steam makes a sort of air pocket under the food causing it slide freely over the pan, making it possible to easily flip it into the air and back onto the pan.

Steam- Steaming works like the hot air in an oven, but faster. Wet heat is instant, its the reason you can stick your hand in a 500 degree oven of a few seconds to grab things out of the oven, but get burned by the 212 degree steam coming off your pasta water. Steaming is very popular in high-volume kitchen such as food courts, With steam, you can cook things in less than half of the time, the setback however, is that when you steam something, you can't add any seasoning beforehand, losing you many opportunities for flavor.

Basting-Works off of the same principle of wet heat, when you baste something, you are applying melted butter or liquid to something roasting in an oven or spooning oil or butter over something in a pan. This is not only done with butter, but also with stocks or in the case of meats, you could pour its  own juices over it.

Caramelize-This term is more of the end result and not itself a cooking method, because it can be done in a variety of ways. What happens is the sugars in the food are brought out. When caramelizing onions, you cook them on a very low heat with a little oil and bay leaves for a few hours, until they are very sweet and brown. Meats caramelize when the fats render and become crispy and golden brown from very high heats. An example of this is the tasty skin on turkey or chicken that comes out of the oven.

Boil-Boiling happens when water reaches its hottest point, the water nearest the heat source turns to steam and bubbles out of the pot.

Simmer-The simmer is the point just before a boil. The water is making a lot of noise, it is moving with  convection currents and there is steam coming off the top. Usually when you simmer something, you bring your liquid to a boil and then you turn down the heat. 

Reduce- A reduction can be done by either boiling the liquid quickly or simmering for a longer time. The water evaporates, concentrating the flavors and bringing them together. Sugars and spices become more prominent.

Sear- This is done with very high heat. Searing meats forms a crust, locking in the juices and flavors, while giving you a nice caramelization on the outside. If you want to get a really good sear, you want your pan to be smoking hot before you put your meat on it. When you sear, you want to leave the meat on the pan until you can see that is cooking about a quarter of the way through. Many times searing is followed by putting the whole pan into the oven just after you turn the meat over the first time.

Frying- Also works off the principle of wet heat, but with oil. Oils are more stable can be heated well beyond the 212 degrees that water can. Frying is usually done at 350-400 degrees.

Starting Simple.

      I want this blog to start off simple, give basic background knowledge, and then build into more complicated recipes that use a variety of combinations or variations of the more simple recipes. Up first,  simple syrup.

Simple Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Combine equal parts sugar and water, whisk together and heat over low until it simmers.

       Big deal, its just syrup you may say, but the possibilities with simple syrup are endless. Add in a few drops of maple and vanilla flavoring, and substitute half of the regular sugar with brown sugar and you have pancake syrup. Take the basic syrup and whisk in sone sriracha sauce and you have a tasty sweet-and-spicy sauce that goes great on anything fried, from cheese curds, to egg rolls, to frog legs. Substitute the water for orange juice and add a teaspoon of cinnamon, ground ginger and white pepper and you have a great glaze for roasting pork. The outcomes are totally different, but the method is the same. The equal parts sugar and water give you the consistency, the flavoring is up to you.

Kitchen Fundamentals

         In order to have good results in your own kitchen, you need to have the right tools. You may already, but I am just covering bases here. First off, you need good pans, not cheap flimsy ones, but heavy, thick pans. Anthony Bourdain couldn’t have said it better when he said something like: imagine taking your pan, and bringing it down hard against someone’s skull, if you are not sure which will bend or break, the pan or the skull, then you need a thicker pan.
         A thick pan is important for many reasons, a thick pan takes time to heat up, and when it is hot, it cooks evenly, even on electric burners. You will have a much harder time burning things on a thick pan. When you are searing meats, a thick pan is important because it keeps its own heat better, there is more metal with its own residual heat to stay hot when you drop your meat on in.
         Next, you need a decent cutting board. None of those ceramic or glass ones, or flimsy, paper thin ones. You want wood, or plastic. The glass ones are for people who don’t understand how knives work. Unless you enjoy dulling your knives quickly, throw the glass cutting boards out, preferably not where children play.
         Knives, knives to a cook are like shoes to girls. Your knife is your best friend, if you take care of your knife, your knife will take care of you. They come in all shapes and sizes, you see sets on TV, all kinds of goofy shaped specialty knives, these are all crap. For all intents and purposes, all you need is a chef knife, a decent one. You don’t need to go out and drop a few hundred dollars on one, but you want quality. Personally, I love Japanese knives, the styles, how they are made, their sharpening stones that use water, not oil. Japanese knifes to me just look and feel so much better than German and other leading countries when it comes to knives.
         My first chef knife was a 10” Victorinox by Forschner, and I still use it today. They are great starter knives and are relatively inexpensive. It is good to have a bigger knife, 10” instrad of 8” for example. Especially if you are learning, a big knife forces you to learn better knife control, and once you can manage a big knife and develop your own knife skills, you can manage any other knife.  Only then should you move to a smaller knife.