Let’s be clear about one thing. I’m writing these things for those of us who do not cook, for what ever assortment of reasons. How do I reach you, these people? I don’t know. Current events and changing financial conditions, it seems to me, would make essential cooking skills more than a little useful. Cooking the meal reinforces the social fabric (darns?). It saves a lot of money. Let’s move on.
There is a funny skill that cooks possess. It concerns the timing required to get a whole meal on the table, at the same time, hot and lookin’ goooood. Now, if you ever worked in a busy restaurant, you know, or would figure out right quick, that, if you can handle a rockin’ breakfast service, you can do anything else. Breakfast is fast and the allowable margin of error at 9a.m. is much tighter say, then at 8:30p.m. Folks got something to do and places to go after breakfast, but eating dinner, is all about eating dinner. No one alters how they drink their coffee. The fried egg yolk is too runny or not runny enough, home fries cold, bacon burnt, wrong bread for toast, on and on. I might also add, waiters are tending to tables too much for small tabs producing too small tips.
The cooks skill in handling breakfast, whether at a turnpike diner or your little kitchen, is, the reconfiguration of linear time. How does this concern scrambled eggs?
You know you have the ingredients you need to execute this simple fare ( eggs and toast ). So what is the first thing, FIRST THING, you do? You put your small pan on a small fire. If you are not a cook, you would do this later in the process. As a rule, nothing goes in a warm pan. About your small pan. Forget Teflon or non-stick. It should have a thick bottom. Thin sauté pans can scorch things easily and are for specific tasks. The pan I have in mind will be your friend forever. 2-5 eggs do not need more than a 6 inch pan. I like stainless steel, avoid cheap aluminum. O K.
Put your bread in the toaster but don’t turn it on. It waits in the tall grass, ready to pounce.
Eggs. You know, you don’t have to buy a dozen eggs. You can buy half a dozen eggs. If you can’t remember when you bought those eggs, throw them out, in fact, crack them down the drain and turn the water on. Eggs can get famously smelly ya know. You can buy eggs in a range of sizes, med to jumbo. For baking, it makes a difference but for our purposes, 3med = 2 jumbos. Nuf’ said.
Another cooks skill, is doing your thing and not leaving a wake in the form of a mess that will require a lot or any clean up time and effort after. There are many ways and places where this presumed drudge can be eliminated. Learn to work in the sink, period. Breaking eggs, peeling potatoes, flouring chicken or fish, mixing any batter or liquid. Not on the table or over the garbage, in the sink! Cleanup in the sink requires turning on the water for a few seconds and the floor doesn’t have to know you were ever cooking at all.
Breaking eggs. I learned to break eggs from an Audrey Hepurn/Humphrey Bogart film, Sabrina. If you break your egg on a dull object like the side of the sink or bowl or a baseball bat you will shatter the shell and then be picking shell either from your eggs or your mouth. The back of a knife provides a clean unshattered break. I like the front of the knife but my middle name is “Danger“. You will learn. You hold the egg, point to point with thumb and pinky and tap, roughly at the equator, with gentle authority.
A small bowl, or even a coffee mug for 2 or 3 eggs. Add a pinch of salt to your eggs and mix with a fork, you don’t need a whisk or an electric ergonomic hand held blender, just a fork. Try kosher salt. Cooking with table salt makes things too salty. I can’t explain it. NaCl is NaCl but the difference is huge. A kitchen needs kosher salt for almost everything we will and might discuss in the future. When you beat these eggs, use vertical circles, going around the bowl is stirring . Don’t stir eggs, beat the eggs.
Oils. Here’s what I think. A combo of a little butter and a little vegetable oil works best. A small amount of butter will express it’s flavor the same as if you were using more butter exclusively, if, you treat it right. Forget olive or corn oil. Both have too strong a flavor and the olive ‘smokes’ at too low a temperature. Really, don’t saute’ anything in good olive oil. Another day. Forget spray/aerosole oil. It has great applications but not here and if you think that ’stuff won’t kill you, might I sell you a bridge? Your pan is waiting on a very low flame. Get your plate on the table or close to the stove. Carefully, pour some oil into your pan, a small puddle about the size of a quarter or a lil more. A small amount of butter next, about the same as the oil or say half a pat of butter. Hit the toaster now! Raise your flame to about half now. Rebeat the eggs. Add a little black pepper to the pan now. The pepper will ’blossom’ in the butter/oil requiring less of it for more flavor. The butter will now begin to burn a little, turning brownish. Pick up the pan and gently swish around the oil so that the bottom of the pan is coated and the sides are coated a little ways up. O K! Cool. Pour, SLOWLY, the eggs into the middle of the pan with one hand while, with the other hand, holding your fork, stirring the eggs, ( which should be cooking on contact, in fact, you should hear it ) . The cook will take about 30 seconds. If your pan was not hot enough, your eggs will be rubbery. DING! Toast is ready. Do you like your eggs moist or dry. The difference in cooking could be as little as 15 seconds. When you get them where you want them, get them out of the pan immediately. The residual heat of the pan will continue to cook them. Grab a paper towel now, while the pan is hot. If you did it right, you should be able to wipe that pan clean, no charred bits of egg requiring scowering or sandblasting. Toast on the plate. Everything is hot.
Eat.
Conclusion : Popular opinion is nowadays, you don’t want to eat eggs all too much. I’m not sure how much is too much but I would be amiss not to raise that concern since I have just facilitated your access to eggs. When eggs dry, whether raw in your mixing bowl or cooked on your plate, they can get mighty hard. Hence the ole diner joke, ‘may I have some toast for the egg on my fork’. When you leave that bowl or plate in the sink, leave a little water in there, especially if you are not going to ‘do’ them immediately. Again, if you are sautéing right, you only need wipe that pan clean, and it is referred to as a ’seasoned’ pan. If you want to know about bacon, I’ll tell you another day but please consider having an orange or a grapefruit with breakfast. Sliced tomatoes or cantaloupe. Things you don’t have to cook.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Apple sauce!
What has become of Food in our America? Why did we turn her into an industry? An entertainment?
I want a safe stool in a warm kitchen where the simple joy of your company might be rewarded with a bowl to finger lick or roasting pan to scrape with a spoon. Holy, Holy, forever and ever.
Folks, parents and children, generations united singing the song of frying onions and peas in a pod.
I reject the ads that encourage us to gluttony and I condemn the notion that cooking is a competition for make-believe baby shark people.
Dinner parties, picnics, holidays [Holy Day], a kitchen table that hums with delight and the people you love a “pass the salt” away.
It ain’t a summit with a restaurant on top, which, if you made the climb, you would discover unaffordable. It is a soft green valley and all are welcome and the only invitation required is the smell of cinnamon and apples that can lift entranced children and chained souls from the couch of blue glow.
This is not a chore. I made this because I love you. Help me do this and we will sit down together and then Grace can be heard unspoken.
Let’s begin.
Apple sauce. Why apple sauce? Because you can feed apple sauce to a baby when they begin to eat food food. Because my Dad liked apple sauce for dessert. Because apples occupy an enormous place in our collective mythologies, and, as luck would have it, in our groceries.
As I encourage and want you to cook, I need, must and will stop to discuss the hardware. 3 things come to the fore at this juncture; 1- a peeler, 2 - a pot, 3- a Foley mill.
Old fashion metal peelers arranged like a knife with a swiveling blade are fine. Modern ergonomic peelers with fancy handles and a blade mounted perpendicular to the handle are also fine. The way to peel an apple is thus; first you make 2 single circular peels at both ends of the patient - as if you were removing both the north and south poles [ a metaphor to dwell on], then, 8 or 10 vertical passes from pole to pole will finish the job. Have a bowl of cold water on hand to drop your peeled apples into. If just left on the counter they will begin to blacken with exposure to air. Bananas and Avocados for instance do this too. If you like a pink apple sauce, you can skip the peeling, though wash your apples well.
Your pot, for the sake of this conversation, has 3 issues; size, material and the thickness of the bottom. If your pot seems too small and wont fit all the apples on hand, it might be alright since the cooked apple breaks down to a fraction of its raw volume. I don’t like aluminum unless it’s a very expensive [which I also don’t like] treated aluminum. I like stainless steel. Pyrex is good too. I read somewhere that they find aluminum in the autopsied brains of Alzheimer victims. Not good. Stainless and Pyrex are referred to as “non-reactive”, having no chemical exchange with what is being cooked in them. This is a really big deal when making tomato sauce[ another day]. If you are boiling water for pasta then a thin bottom pot is okay but for sauces and or soups, you want a thick bottom. If you ping the bottom with your finger nail and it will make a sound that reveals the thickness of the bottom. If you are hesitant to buy this thing, know that it will last, roughly, the rest of your life, and then some. You will also find that you don’t burn things so easily in a proper thick bottom pot.
There are so many kinds of apples and they all can render excellent apple sauce with the exception of those lil’ Lady apples which would require much too much peeling or, a cadre of elves [with little elf peelers] more suited to the job. You can get those 5 lb. bags of apples at a very good price and they work fine or, buy what’s on sale.
Foley mill, I almost forgot. It is a strainer with an attached circular rotating blade. It’s kind of antique but very useful and you don’t plug it in. I’m sure Robin and Howard at Bowery Kitchen in Chelsea Market have a good 2 candidates.
Let’s cook!
Your apples are peeled ( or not ) and waiting. If you have a Foley mill you can just go straight to the pot because the mill will remove the seeds and cores later. If you don’t have the mill, then you will have to cut away the meat of the apple, away from the cores. The lost bits of apple meat on the core can be accessed with your or some one else’s teeth.
Low flame, really. The apple contains sugar even if you have not added any. When the moisture has evaporated that sugar is going to start to burn and this is what we endeavor to avoid, generally. Apples or pieces in the pot, a cup or so of water [this will ultimately evaporate back out], a shake or 2 of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, a dash of orange juice and an amount of sugar. The amount varies with the application of the sauce. If cooking for a baby, you may want none, or very little, say , a teaspoon for that 5 lb. bag. If your thinking about a condiment for pork chops, a ½ cup might be the ticket. White or brown? The difference is molasses, the processed white having none. The brown sugar will impart it’s flavor however, depending on the amount, it might effect your color. You decide. Tasting is a part of cooking. Know that a hot sweet substance will be sweeter when cooled so temper your mid-cook evaluation. When, after some intermittent stirring, your apples are all broken down and saucy, maybe, a ½ hour or so, that’s it. If you have that mill thing, this is when you would use it to get the seeds and or skins out, subsequently producing a lump-less sauce. Me, I like lumps.
You did it! This is a simple foundational recipe upon which you can elaborate to suit your purpose or taste. There is no right or wrong to speak of.
Once cooled, you can freeze it in divided practical amounts.
No fats, no chemicals. Quiet time and union. Cook like a wish, eat like a prayer.
I want a safe stool in a warm kitchen where the simple joy of your company might be rewarded with a bowl to finger lick or roasting pan to scrape with a spoon. Holy, Holy, forever and ever.
Folks, parents and children, generations united singing the song of frying onions and peas in a pod.
I reject the ads that encourage us to gluttony and I condemn the notion that cooking is a competition for make-believe baby shark people.
Dinner parties, picnics, holidays [Holy Day], a kitchen table that hums with delight and the people you love a “pass the salt” away.
It ain’t a summit with a restaurant on top, which, if you made the climb, you would discover unaffordable. It is a soft green valley and all are welcome and the only invitation required is the smell of cinnamon and apples that can lift entranced children and chained souls from the couch of blue glow.
This is not a chore. I made this because I love you. Help me do this and we will sit down together and then Grace can be heard unspoken.
Let’s begin.
Apple sauce. Why apple sauce? Because you can feed apple sauce to a baby when they begin to eat food food. Because my Dad liked apple sauce for dessert. Because apples occupy an enormous place in our collective mythologies, and, as luck would have it, in our groceries.
As I encourage and want you to cook, I need, must and will stop to discuss the hardware. 3 things come to the fore at this juncture; 1- a peeler, 2 - a pot, 3- a Foley mill.
Old fashion metal peelers arranged like a knife with a swiveling blade are fine. Modern ergonomic peelers with fancy handles and a blade mounted perpendicular to the handle are also fine. The way to peel an apple is thus; first you make 2 single circular peels at both ends of the patient - as if you were removing both the north and south poles [ a metaphor to dwell on], then, 8 or 10 vertical passes from pole to pole will finish the job. Have a bowl of cold water on hand to drop your peeled apples into. If just left on the counter they will begin to blacken with exposure to air. Bananas and Avocados for instance do this too. If you like a pink apple sauce, you can skip the peeling, though wash your apples well.
Your pot, for the sake of this conversation, has 3 issues; size, material and the thickness of the bottom. If your pot seems too small and wont fit all the apples on hand, it might be alright since the cooked apple breaks down to a fraction of its raw volume. I don’t like aluminum unless it’s a very expensive [which I also don’t like] treated aluminum. I like stainless steel. Pyrex is good too. I read somewhere that they find aluminum in the autopsied brains of Alzheimer victims. Not good. Stainless and Pyrex are referred to as “non-reactive”, having no chemical exchange with what is being cooked in them. This is a really big deal when making tomato sauce[ another day]. If you are boiling water for pasta then a thin bottom pot is okay but for sauces and or soups, you want a thick bottom. If you ping the bottom with your finger nail and it will make a sound that reveals the thickness of the bottom. If you are hesitant to buy this thing, know that it will last, roughly, the rest of your life, and then some. You will also find that you don’t burn things so easily in a proper thick bottom pot.
There are so many kinds of apples and they all can render excellent apple sauce with the exception of those lil’ Lady apples which would require much too much peeling or, a cadre of elves [with little elf peelers] more suited to the job. You can get those 5 lb. bags of apples at a very good price and they work fine or, buy what’s on sale.
Foley mill, I almost forgot. It is a strainer with an attached circular rotating blade. It’s kind of antique but very useful and you don’t plug it in. I’m sure Robin and Howard at Bowery Kitchen in Chelsea Market have a good 2 candidates.
Let’s cook!
Your apples are peeled ( or not ) and waiting. If you have a Foley mill you can just go straight to the pot because the mill will remove the seeds and cores later. If you don’t have the mill, then you will have to cut away the meat of the apple, away from the cores. The lost bits of apple meat on the core can be accessed with your or some one else’s teeth.
Low flame, really. The apple contains sugar even if you have not added any. When the moisture has evaporated that sugar is going to start to burn and this is what we endeavor to avoid, generally. Apples or pieces in the pot, a cup or so of water [this will ultimately evaporate back out], a shake or 2 of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, a dash of orange juice and an amount of sugar. The amount varies with the application of the sauce. If cooking for a baby, you may want none, or very little, say , a teaspoon for that 5 lb. bag. If your thinking about a condiment for pork chops, a ½ cup might be the ticket. White or brown? The difference is molasses, the processed white having none. The brown sugar will impart it’s flavor however, depending on the amount, it might effect your color. You decide. Tasting is a part of cooking. Know that a hot sweet substance will be sweeter when cooled so temper your mid-cook evaluation. When, after some intermittent stirring, your apples are all broken down and saucy, maybe, a ½ hour or so, that’s it. If you have that mill thing, this is when you would use it to get the seeds and or skins out, subsequently producing a lump-less sauce. Me, I like lumps.
You did it! This is a simple foundational recipe upon which you can elaborate to suit your purpose or taste. There is no right or wrong to speak of.
Once cooled, you can freeze it in divided practical amounts.
No fats, no chemicals. Quiet time and union. Cook like a wish, eat like a prayer.
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