So, I’m back. Up till now I have remained anonymous. A voice with no face, no name, identity. But no more. I’m out of the fridge. My name is Robert Block. I live in Manhattan, U.S.A. I went to cooking school here. I’ve always showed some talent in the kitchen. People who have worked with me sometimes described me as a ‘natural’. I still work pro kitchen and would love to only, just and simply, write and teach.
Is that asking too much, Now I ask you.
Now, I would like to discuss Salmon. If not the most popular fish, currently, it is a very popular fish. As it is migratory, it naturally stores nutrition as fat. Eels, also migratory, have this high fat content too, making them the 2 highest calorie fish selections. Fear not. Their oil is the good sort of oil your physician wants in your diet. OK, now you can forget about eels. “I don’t mind eels, except for meals. And the way they feels.”
Salmon farming is big biz now, here and internationally. Like everything, this is good and bad. Good that we are not going to fish salmon to near or complete extinction, bad that salmon suffers similar adulterations and mistreatment as do most industrially managed agriculture and livestock. So, don’t eat it everyday. There are plenty of information sources about this. Do a little research and, in all things, moderation.
Whether you are shopping at a super market fish counter or, in a fish store, the moderately priced salmon, say, 8-11$ dollars per/lb., is, farm-raised. The 15-22$ per/lb. selections, are wild caught. Don’t be mislead by their names or titles.
As farming technology improves, we see more varieties of farmed salmon. Try them all.
Since the expensive salmon does not sell as well ( ‘turn over’ ) as the cheaper salmon, the cheaper ‘might’ be a better piece of fish on ‘that day’. I could write a great deal about how to buy fresh fish but know this; your first line of defense is to have an old fashion trusting relationship with a-your fish man who values your business. Maybe tonight is for scrod, or, mahi mahi, or eels.
Walk down the avenue in NYC and pretty much every other business here is food. Often more. Every menu in the window of a table-waiter restaurant, has salmon on it. Of course, there is a vast variety of salmon. You’ve got your 12.95$ salmon, 17.95$ salmon, and, the ever popular, 23.95$ salmon. The next big price jump goes to wild salmon starting around maybe 28$ or so and up. If the ‘chef’ has been on TV, fasten your seat belts.
All of the salmon in the first group are the same farmed salmon and a 5-6 oz. portion should cost you about 4 dollars American in the fish store. An 8 oz. piece and you have your lunch tomorrow.
We are getting closer to cooking.
Something about cooking fish, pretty much all fish. Fish cooking happens quickly. Fry, saute, grill, broil or bake, fishes cooks quick. Example. If you were cooking pasta to accompany your salmon, you would not put your fish in the toaster oven until your pasta was nearly ready. I’m telling you this because I want you to see and think about salmon for dinner as quick, easy and cheap.
There is a cooking vessel which we call in pro kitchen, a sizzle pan, a sizzle. Usually metal, sometimes ceramic, sort of oval shaped and about 1 inch deep and 8-10 inches long. This is the thing you need to cook 1 piece of fish or chicken or 3 or 4 sausages. Get one. It should last the rest of your life, then leave it in your will.
Back to the fish counter. By the way, in any recipe or any cook (job),
there is shopping, cooking and cleaning. Like love, honor and death in Tristan or, running, throwing and catching in baseball. Chances are, if you do not know how to cook, you don’t know how to shop. Avoid buying the supermarket cellophane wrapped packages of salmon and, fish in general. The airless cellophane wrap accelerates spoilage. It looks clean and neat but it’s affect is a negative. Don’t believe me, ask a fish man. Also, if you buy fish on Wednesday, cook it on
Wednesday. It will not be food on Friday.
Anyway, so you’re buying a portion, or 2 of this salmon ‘filet‘, not ‘steak’ (steak will have bones but, some folks prefer it like that). Ask the nice man to skin it for you. You will be able to do this yourself when your knife skills come around.
In addition to the salmon, you will need a few things. These are things I would have in the house any and always. In time, so will you. They are as follows; a lemon, some fresh garlic, olive oil, kosher salt (cook with kosher salt, not table salt), a small bottle of Worsteshire, a pepper mill, some nice paprika and a bottle of Italian dressing.
Ooooooookay, we are in the kitchen and getting ready to cook, yeah. First, take your sizzle and pour a little olive oil in it, less than a teaspoon, a spot as big as a quarter. Coat the entire sizzle, inside and out. This will make it’s clean up effortless. You would not fry in a dry pan so why would you roast in a dry sizzle or other vessel. The oil on your hands now feels good because it is good, good for your dry hands. Time to turn on your oven, 375-425 is a good range for a roasting temperature.
For now, assuming you are preparing 1 or 2 portions of salmon, get out a cereal size bowl or a plate would do too. On your small cutting board, chop 1 or 2 cloves of garlic;
Separate 1 or 2 cloves from the head. Put them under the cutting board and apply downward pressure on said board or, smack it, once. This should facilitate removing the skin from the cloves. Don’t worry, you’ll get it, give it time.
My daughter always cuts off the little darker stem end. I heard Child once say that these were bitter.
Now, here, you are not working with a steak knife or a butter knife but a knife for cooking. Know this, a third of cooking is fire and a third is knife. To possess the skill, first possess the tool and the skill will come. It doesn’t have to be a big chef’s machete thing. It can be a 6 inch affair that you can control and befriend.
Close to the edge of your board, close to the handle of your blade, lay the flat of the knife on the garlic and put enough weight on them to crush the garlic fairly flat. Now give them a little chopping, placing your hand on the back of the knife and rocking. It needn’t be super fine, just chopped a little. Note; nothing replaces fresh garlic. Not garlic salt or powder and nothing in a jar that says ‘fresh’. Put the chopped garlic in the little bowl. Now, a pinch of kosher salt, a few turns of black pepper, a pinch o’ paprika, a couple of shakes of Worsteshire, a couple of shakes of Italian dressing and a few drops of olive oil.
Please don’t consider what I just told you to be an iron clad recipe. The very notion gives me a wedgy. You could enhance this with whatever you like. Mustard, horseradish, soy sauce, fresh or dry herbs, more garlic, a little marinara or parmesan. Anything really only avoid a marinade constituent with much sugar as it will burn in the cook and darken what you are cooking. I wish to convey to you a method, not a recipe.
Okay. Get your salmon, which, I hope, is wrapped in paper. Open it up and keep the paper so your fish does not touch your cutting board. Cut the fish into cubes, about as big as ice cubes. They don’t have to be perfect though a uniformity of size is good to provide a uniformity of cooking time. The darker flesh is fine, you don’t have to trim it away. Put the cubes in the bowl with the marinade and stir it around.
Grab your lemon. Cut it in half from pole to pole, not along the equator. Take 1 of those halves and, flat side down, slice thinly. Hopefully your knife is sharp, if not, you might want to go to a serrated knife.
A discussion of knife sharpening technique is another day.
Fling a pinch of salt on the bottom of the sizzle and then cover it with the lemon slices. Distribute your coated salmon cubes over the lemons Put it in the oven for about 10 minutes. That is it. If you prefer to leave ,the portion of salmon whole, which is fine, it will need about 15 or 20 minutes. Eureka, kismet, touchdown !
So, not including shopping, that entire operation should not have taken you 20 minutes, really. If you repeat it once a week, it will take less time and you will get it better. Try the same procedure with a different fish. With what will you accompany your salmon. A salad, rice, maybe some steamed veggies, maybe mash potatoes. If you need help with any of these, respond somehow and I will provide. So, good night unto you all.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Guacamole
In the world of chips and dips, safe to say, guacamole rules. It differs from past posts in that it involves no cooking other than chopping and smushing. My guac is not original nor is it a composite of various regional guacs, if such things exist. Just straight ahead guacamole, fresh, crowd pleasing and right.
At different points in the production, one could, if one choose, substitute ingredients. You could buy frozen avocado mash or bottled lime juice etc. Now if you were making guac for 175 pp., you'd be a caterer and probably would not have time or peace to read my blog, so, let's do it the hard way. The guacamole gods will reward you and you'll be a better person.
It starts with avocados. As a child, all I knew from avocados was that elementary school teachers would poke their large pits with tooth picks and suspend them over a vessel of water like a severed head kept alive in a bad sci-fi movie. For this reason and others, I did not eat avocado as a child.
The stores offer 2 types of avocado. First, the large, bright green, less expensive Florida type. They're alright but the Hass type are better, certainly for a salad. The Hass are more expensive and smaller. In NYC now, the Hass are going for 1.50$, give or take. Try both.
Ripeness: If not ripe, green, if ripe, black. Also, soft. If over ripe, too soft, almost feels sorta hollow. These will reveal nasty blackened interior that you will not be able to use. If you can get a deal on avocados, but they're all hard and you need to use them tomorrow say, store them in a paper bag in a warm spot like a high shelf or the laboratory with the severed, talking, staring heads. 3 - 5 avocados will produce roughly 1 quart of guac.
While we are shopping, let's get the rest of it. Tomatoes. Forget those tasteless non-descript pseudo-tomatoes. Usually the least expensive, they're not even good enough for bad theatre let alone a tuna sandwich. Abominations I tell ya!! Plum tomatoes are okay, deep red and ripe, 5-8 for the 3-5 avos. Scallions. One bunch should do it. You can go onions if you prefer, 1 onions, I suggest, red or Bermuda or vidalia. Spanish or white could get overpowering. Jalapenos(squiggle over the n). These are critical as they provide the heat. If you want it really hot, you add the pepper's seeds. Having said that, just buy 2 or 3. Limes. 2 or 3. Cilantro, sometimes called coriander. It looks like flat parsley but smells entirely different.
In addition, you will need salt and pepper and ground cumin(cumino). Now we can begin, kinda. I'd like to tender an insincere apology for unloading this novel length guacamole procedure on you that would be barely half a page in the Joy of Cooking or, Celine Dion's Fiesta Canada Cook Book. I, want you to know guacamole, so shoot me why dontcha'.
Okay, get a bowl, a good size mixing bowl, big enough to put your head in( not suspended ). There is another dip, call it salsa, call it pico de gallo(guy-o) or, with some alteration, bruschetta. The progression is going to be; first we make the salsa, then we add the avocado, thus, guacamole. The reason for taking this route is this, or thus. Avocado meat turns black when exposed to air due to it's alkaline pH. If your first step in the process was to scoop out the avos, by the time you finished, it would all be gray-black. The acidity of the salsa step will keep the whole thing bright happy green. Movin' on. Salsa.
First, cut the little stem plug things out or off of the tomatoes. Then, cut the tomatoes in half along the equator, not, end to removed end. Take each half and with a lil' squeeze, lose the seeds in the sink. The seeds would become bitter and the gelatin around the seeds would throw too much water into the mix. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to. chop these. If you think I can spend all day talkin bout anything, believe me I can spend all day all night talkin bout chopping, but not today and not tonight. If you opt to use a food processor, which is legit, slice the tomatoes up a little bit for even results. Short bursts, don't puree it. Better let it drain in a sieve now to lose that tomato water you just created, a disadvantage of the processor. If you go the knife route, on a cutting board, first slice the tomatoes then chop the tomatoes. A butter knife or a steak knife wont work. At some point, you'll need to take the plunge and buy a real knife. Let's save that for another day too.
The scallions or onions. Option scallions. Scallions need to be washed but you are going to chop them first. 2-4 stalks from a bunch of 8-10 might be enough for you. Cut off their little root ends first-discard (Save the unused scallions with the roots on). Chop these down fairly small and rinse in the sieve you used for the tomatoes. The tomatoes are in the bowl and once the scallions have dripped dry, they go in the bowl.
Option onions. I regret to announce I'm going to discuss chopping onions. You cannot cut or chop onions with a serrated knife and expect to not tear up. A french or chef''s knife is the right iron for this routine. You could use a paring knife though not a serrated one. Cut off each end of your onion and then carefully cut one line from end to end(pole to pole), roughly, 1 skin layer deep. This should allow you to peel off that 1 outer layer skin-discard. Now you have a naked onion which you will now cut in half from end to end-top to bottom. Now you have 2 onion halves, look at the exposed interiors. You can see which is the stem end and which is the flower end. The trick here is to get a fine dice using the knife as little as possible. Lay down the onion half on it's flat side remembering which end is which. Now make parallel cuts from the stem end to the flower end all the way through to the cutting board but leave yourself a little distance from the stem so the whole thing sort of remains intact. Okay, now, you can make cuts perpendicular to your first set of cuts and neat little diced onion should just fall away. Minimal cuts, minimal tears. If you need a visual on this there must be a shmillion books and videos that show you this technique just as I try to describe it. The better you get at this, the finer a dice you will be able to produce. Add your expertly diced onions to the bowl with the tomatoes.
In pro kitchens nowadays, we have an endless supply of plastic disposable gloves. I can't tell you how many times a day I change gloves. I've come to appreciate this now legal requirement in kitchens. I see these gloves available in supermarkets and pharmacies now. In the pharmacy, you might find them with the hair coloring products. This brings us to the jalapenos(squiggle). During the jalapeno chopping phase of the process, do not rub your eyes or 'scratch' your nose and be really mindful going to the bathroom. One time, with a much hotter pepper, in my youth, I was forced to pour a quart of milk down my pants. I don't mean to exaggerate the need for precaution, and, look out. Cut off the top(stem end) of the pepper. Next cut the pepper from end to end but, a little to one side. This will keep the seed cluster in one bunch and it's easier to remove them like that. Again, if you want multi-alarm guac, leave the seeds. Like with the onions, use a geometric progression when dicing. Cut the long way, then the short, minimize use of the knife. Add the diced 'chilis' to the mix and discard your gloves or, wash your hands.
Cilantro is a very sandy herb and needs to be washed not just well but effectively. The way
to achieve grit-less cilantro is to float it. Grab any pot and fill it with cold water. Tear off however much cilantro you want to use and throw it in the pot-water. Tear where the stems start to get leafy. Remember, this stuff is full of sand, like a beach towel so don't shake it carelessly or you will have sand all over creation. Agitate the floating cilantro so the contained sand sinks and the herb floats. Then, by hand, remove the floating, clean cilantro. Look to the bottom of the pot and see what you lost. Running it under cold water does not work. This process is how you clean loose leaf lettuce or spinach or leaks etc. Just rinse the pot and put it back. This, as with other herbs, you will chop by rocking your knife on it. Practice.
We are getting close now !!
All you have done so far is in the bowl. Mix it up and now is the time season. Kosher salt. Don't cook with table salt, it's so hard to control. Since I don't right recipes I'm not going to tell you how many grains of salt to use. Start with a little, stir, wait, evaluate and adjust. Similarly, add black pepper, preferably from a mill. They sell these great little disposable pepper mills now, so clever. Add a little cumin to this and now we go to the limes. Roll the limes on a surface with your weight on it. This mushes up the lime inside, before you cut it, so it juices easier. Cut them(equator) and squeeze into the bowl. Don't worry about the last drop and save the squeezed limes for later. Stir up what you got now, which is fresh salsa. You should have a delicious and satisfying product.
By the way, just to settle an argument, or start one, there is, NO garlic in guacamole. Thank you. Now, back to our show.
The avocados. Take one and cut all the way around, from end to end so you can feel the pit in the middle. Now, you should be able to gently twist 2 halves apart, one containing the pit. You can get the pit out by carefully hacking into it with your knife and twisting it out. Be careful. There is NO blood in guac either. With a nice dull tablespoon scoop out the avo meat and add directly to your salsa thing, stirring and, smushing as you go, coating the precious avocado meat in preservative acidity. Save the pits, discard the skins. Smush this all up. Eureka !! You've done it. Evaluate and adjust.
If you are not going to eat this immediately, you are now faced with the challenge of keeping it this color for say, 24 hours or, until your guests arrive. There are 2 solutions. Best you employ both. First, throw the pits back in and remove them just before service. How or why this works is a total mystery to me but if you must know, consult the guacamole gods. Secondly, and more scientifically, smooth down the surface of the guac in the bowl and cover-contact with a paper towel. Get those limes you did not exhaust and squeeze out the rest so the paper towel is saturated. You have now cut off the air and created a surface of acidity. Cover that, again, surface contact, with cellophane and again to cover the bowl. This will buy you time with the understanding that guacamole is, if nothing else, exceedingly ephemeral.
Folks will tell you what they put in their guacamole beyond what I have prescribed. Everybody is right. There are no rules, except about garlic and anyone transgressing this edict will be punished eternally by the you know who's. This is how you make guacamole. Enjoy.
At different points in the production, one could, if one choose, substitute ingredients. You could buy frozen avocado mash or bottled lime juice etc. Now if you were making guac for 175 pp., you'd be a caterer and probably would not have time or peace to read my blog, so, let's do it the hard way. The guacamole gods will reward you and you'll be a better person.
It starts with avocados. As a child, all I knew from avocados was that elementary school teachers would poke their large pits with tooth picks and suspend them over a vessel of water like a severed head kept alive in a bad sci-fi movie. For this reason and others, I did not eat avocado as a child.
The stores offer 2 types of avocado. First, the large, bright green, less expensive Florida type. They're alright but the Hass type are better, certainly for a salad. The Hass are more expensive and smaller. In NYC now, the Hass are going for 1.50$, give or take. Try both.
Ripeness: If not ripe, green, if ripe, black. Also, soft. If over ripe, too soft, almost feels sorta hollow. These will reveal nasty blackened interior that you will not be able to use. If you can get a deal on avocados, but they're all hard and you need to use them tomorrow say, store them in a paper bag in a warm spot like a high shelf or the laboratory with the severed, talking, staring heads. 3 - 5 avocados will produce roughly 1 quart of guac.
While we are shopping, let's get the rest of it. Tomatoes. Forget those tasteless non-descript pseudo-tomatoes. Usually the least expensive, they're not even good enough for bad theatre let alone a tuna sandwich. Abominations I tell ya!! Plum tomatoes are okay, deep red and ripe, 5-8 for the 3-5 avos. Scallions. One bunch should do it. You can go onions if you prefer, 1 onions, I suggest, red or Bermuda or vidalia. Spanish or white could get overpowering. Jalapenos(squiggle over the n). These are critical as they provide the heat. If you want it really hot, you add the pepper's seeds. Having said that, just buy 2 or 3. Limes. 2 or 3. Cilantro, sometimes called coriander. It looks like flat parsley but smells entirely different.
In addition, you will need salt and pepper and ground cumin(cumino). Now we can begin, kinda. I'd like to tender an insincere apology for unloading this novel length guacamole procedure on you that would be barely half a page in the Joy of Cooking or, Celine Dion's Fiesta Canada Cook Book. I, want you to know guacamole, so shoot me why dontcha'.
Okay, get a bowl, a good size mixing bowl, big enough to put your head in( not suspended ). There is another dip, call it salsa, call it pico de gallo(guy-o) or, with some alteration, bruschetta. The progression is going to be; first we make the salsa, then we add the avocado, thus, guacamole. The reason for taking this route is this, or thus. Avocado meat turns black when exposed to air due to it's alkaline pH. If your first step in the process was to scoop out the avos, by the time you finished, it would all be gray-black. The acidity of the salsa step will keep the whole thing bright happy green. Movin' on. Salsa.
First, cut the little stem plug things out or off of the tomatoes. Then, cut the tomatoes in half along the equator, not, end to removed end. Take each half and with a lil' squeeze, lose the seeds in the sink. The seeds would become bitter and the gelatin around the seeds would throw too much water into the mix. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to. chop these. If you think I can spend all day talkin bout anything, believe me I can spend all day all night talkin bout chopping, but not today and not tonight. If you opt to use a food processor, which is legit, slice the tomatoes up a little bit for even results. Short bursts, don't puree it. Better let it drain in a sieve now to lose that tomato water you just created, a disadvantage of the processor. If you go the knife route, on a cutting board, first slice the tomatoes then chop the tomatoes. A butter knife or a steak knife wont work. At some point, you'll need to take the plunge and buy a real knife. Let's save that for another day too.
The scallions or onions. Option scallions. Scallions need to be washed but you are going to chop them first. 2-4 stalks from a bunch of 8-10 might be enough for you. Cut off their little root ends first-discard (Save the unused scallions with the roots on). Chop these down fairly small and rinse in the sieve you used for the tomatoes. The tomatoes are in the bowl and once the scallions have dripped dry, they go in the bowl.
Option onions. I regret to announce I'm going to discuss chopping onions. You cannot cut or chop onions with a serrated knife and expect to not tear up. A french or chef''s knife is the right iron for this routine. You could use a paring knife though not a serrated one. Cut off each end of your onion and then carefully cut one line from end to end(pole to pole), roughly, 1 skin layer deep. This should allow you to peel off that 1 outer layer skin-discard. Now you have a naked onion which you will now cut in half from end to end-top to bottom. Now you have 2 onion halves, look at the exposed interiors. You can see which is the stem end and which is the flower end. The trick here is to get a fine dice using the knife as little as possible. Lay down the onion half on it's flat side remembering which end is which. Now make parallel cuts from the stem end to the flower end all the way through to the cutting board but leave yourself a little distance from the stem so the whole thing sort of remains intact. Okay, now, you can make cuts perpendicular to your first set of cuts and neat little diced onion should just fall away. Minimal cuts, minimal tears. If you need a visual on this there must be a shmillion books and videos that show you this technique just as I try to describe it. The better you get at this, the finer a dice you will be able to produce. Add your expertly diced onions to the bowl with the tomatoes.
In pro kitchens nowadays, we have an endless supply of plastic disposable gloves. I can't tell you how many times a day I change gloves. I've come to appreciate this now legal requirement in kitchens. I see these gloves available in supermarkets and pharmacies now. In the pharmacy, you might find them with the hair coloring products. This brings us to the jalapenos(squiggle). During the jalapeno chopping phase of the process, do not rub your eyes or 'scratch' your nose and be really mindful going to the bathroom. One time, with a much hotter pepper, in my youth, I was forced to pour a quart of milk down my pants. I don't mean to exaggerate the need for precaution, and, look out. Cut off the top(stem end) of the pepper. Next cut the pepper from end to end but, a little to one side. This will keep the seed cluster in one bunch and it's easier to remove them like that. Again, if you want multi-alarm guac, leave the seeds. Like with the onions, use a geometric progression when dicing. Cut the long way, then the short, minimize use of the knife. Add the diced 'chilis' to the mix and discard your gloves or, wash your hands.
Cilantro is a very sandy herb and needs to be washed not just well but effectively. The way
to achieve grit-less cilantro is to float it. Grab any pot and fill it with cold water. Tear off however much cilantro you want to use and throw it in the pot-water. Tear where the stems start to get leafy. Remember, this stuff is full of sand, like a beach towel so don't shake it carelessly or you will have sand all over creation. Agitate the floating cilantro so the contained sand sinks and the herb floats. Then, by hand, remove the floating, clean cilantro. Look to the bottom of the pot and see what you lost. Running it under cold water does not work. This process is how you clean loose leaf lettuce or spinach or leaks etc. Just rinse the pot and put it back. This, as with other herbs, you will chop by rocking your knife on it. Practice.
We are getting close now !!
All you have done so far is in the bowl. Mix it up and now is the time season. Kosher salt. Don't cook with table salt, it's so hard to control. Since I don't right recipes I'm not going to tell you how many grains of salt to use. Start with a little, stir, wait, evaluate and adjust. Similarly, add black pepper, preferably from a mill. They sell these great little disposable pepper mills now, so clever. Add a little cumin to this and now we go to the limes. Roll the limes on a surface with your weight on it. This mushes up the lime inside, before you cut it, so it juices easier. Cut them(equator) and squeeze into the bowl. Don't worry about the last drop and save the squeezed limes for later. Stir up what you got now, which is fresh salsa. You should have a delicious and satisfying product.
By the way, just to settle an argument, or start one, there is, NO garlic in guacamole. Thank you. Now, back to our show.
The avocados. Take one and cut all the way around, from end to end so you can feel the pit in the middle. Now, you should be able to gently twist 2 halves apart, one containing the pit. You can get the pit out by carefully hacking into it with your knife and twisting it out. Be careful. There is NO blood in guac either. With a nice dull tablespoon scoop out the avo meat and add directly to your salsa thing, stirring and, smushing as you go, coating the precious avocado meat in preservative acidity. Save the pits, discard the skins. Smush this all up. Eureka !! You've done it. Evaluate and adjust.
If you are not going to eat this immediately, you are now faced with the challenge of keeping it this color for say, 24 hours or, until your guests arrive. There are 2 solutions. Best you employ both. First, throw the pits back in and remove them just before service. How or why this works is a total mystery to me but if you must know, consult the guacamole gods. Secondly, and more scientifically, smooth down the surface of the guac in the bowl and cover-contact with a paper towel. Get those limes you did not exhaust and squeeze out the rest so the paper towel is saturated. You have now cut off the air and created a surface of acidity. Cover that, again, surface contact, with cellophane and again to cover the bowl. This will buy you time with the understanding that guacamole is, if nothing else, exceedingly ephemeral.
Folks will tell you what they put in their guacamole beyond what I have prescribed. Everybody is right. There are no rules, except about garlic and anyone transgressing this edict will be punished eternally by the you know who's. This is how you make guacamole. Enjoy.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Mashes Potatoes
Oooooooh, Mashed Potaaaaaatooooooes!! This would be a typical response to the alpha dog of
what we now classify as ‘’Comfort Food’’. I’m not sure what comfort food means, not entirely.
That they preserve the familiar safety of some past environment long gone and that the trade
off of calories for blue blanket peace of mind is well worth it. Faulkner said, kinda, ‘The past is
always with us, it is not dead, it isn’t even past’. I think in a big way, comfort food can be
anything. I once worked for a guy who would come into the kitchen when lettuce processing was
going on so to eat romaine hearts(cores?) with salt and lemon. This, returned him to his
grandmothers kitchen in Greece. Now I eat those cores and it returns me to his kitchen that no longer exists.
America loves potatoes. If you consider potatoes, pasta and rice as the 3 primary accompanying starches or carbs on the American repertoire/menu, hands down, the potato is #1 if for no other reason than it may appear in all 3 of our squares. And so many kinds of potatoes. Mashed, fries, home fries, salads, baked, stuffed, pancakes, chips, croquettes on and on plus as ingredients in pot pies, stews, and soups. Etcetera etcetera. We like potatoes, I’d say.
Mashed potatoes have some range. Basically you have 4 ‘areas’ of ingredients; potatoes, shortening or fat, milk product and lastly but very significantly, the character generating ‘also’s’.
There are increasingly more potatoes being made available to us. The very high end sort of potatoes are just not the ticket for mashed, and I’m sure your Aunt Rhoda would not have considered them at all. Idaho or Chef’s are fine and, these you will want to peel. Lil’ red potatoes are fine and their lil’ white counterparts are fine. As these are thin skinned, you do not need peel them. I would add, there is much nutrition in potato’s skin. You will have to check this smaller type of potato for black spots and eyes. Just cut away what you find unappealing, no big deal. Soft spots must be removed and rinsed(no big deal).
If you need to buy a pot for this project, a 4 quart thick bottom pot will easily accommodate mashed for 4-6 people. Have your pot on the ready, half full of cold water. Once you have peeled a spud, spud, drop them directly into water, or else, they will start to turn black, same as apples and avocados. This is due to their alkaline PH. As I have also said before, peel in the sink, not over the garbage, not on your table or counter. ZERO accumulated mess is the goal, always.
Next comes the fat thing. I’ll tell you a story. I once had a bird. A Hornbill, from Africa. These are omnivores which means it will eat almost any garbage you can think of, much like ourselves, generally. I used to let it out after dinners and it would clean up scraps on plates on the table. One night, dissatisfied with the available fare, it went for the ivory soap in the soap dish, how bizarre. What did that mean? It meant the animal could instinctually identify fat. It just knew. We do the same. This is much of the charm of rich mash potatoes. In fact, this instinct and this gift of evolution manipulates much of our food decisions. You should have those vegetables steamed - plain, but, you will want those vegetables(steamed) with melted butter and grated cheese. Comfort Ye. You could use olive oil but the thing will taste like olive oil, not mashed potatoes. There is a great Greek dip called skortaya which is garlic and olive oil with mashed potatoes-no dairy. You will get a seat on the bus. The other oils just don’t work. Butter, that’s what it is !
Milk. There is a range of milk, it goes from heavy cream to no-fat or skim milk. There is also evaporated milk, sour cream and buttermilk. I don’t recommend half & half, you’ll run into problems. Moderate amounts of regular milk and butter will produce fine mash potatoes. Cream, better. Blind fold tested, the richest potatoes will win the most friends, no doubt. This brings us to the wild card 4th element, the alsos.
The alsos are the also ingredients that endow the masheds with flavors beyond, potato, dairy, fat, salt and pepper.
First on this list is garlic. Not granulated or powdered garlic or chopped garlic in a jar that says fresh on the label. Garlic, it looks like a plant, it is a plant and it grows in a bulb. You pop out 2 or 3 of those lil cloves, put them on the table, cover them with a paper towel and smash them, once. This should get the peels off easily. Drop them(the cloves) into the water with the potatoes, they will disintegrate in the cook.
Second is onion. I need to write a page solely about onions. For now, just a few slices of onion, (not red which will turn everything pinkish brown), thin as you can, will make your spuds get up and go to school. They too will dissolve with out having to chop them.
My favorite also(and third) is parsnip or turnip. Parsnip is that thing that looks like a white carrot. Peel it, cut of the stalk butt end and cook it with the potatoes and the other alsos, and, it too will dissolve. Turnips are either pink and white which would be a white turnip or, the larger yellowish and very waxy yellow turnip or rutabaga, which, is fun to say. I like the rutabaga more but since it’s a pretty big thing and even half is more than you’ll need,(for now), use the white and finish it one shot. After peeling this turnip thing, slice it up a little as it will not dissolve in the time the other elements will, if left whole.
O.K. Peeled potatoes (or unpeeled small potatoes), garlic, onion, and maybe turnip or parsnip, in a pot of water with enough water to submerge everything. I hesitate to specify amounts of anything. I feel this would be unforgivably uninteresting. You will need to add salt to this boil. Again , kosher salt is the best, it’s hard…harder to control table salt, when you are cooking with it. A small amount in the middle of your palm, about the size of a quarter, is about right. This dose of salt is for the cooking. Ultimately, it will not be enough and you will be adding more at the finish. Add black pepper to the cook now. You will not need much as it will blossom in the boil. A pepper mill is better than pre-ground table pepper.
After about, a half hour or so, on a medium flame, the potatoes should fall apart easily if you molest them with a fork or knife. End of cook. You will need to pour off most of the water, not all. The bottom of the water contains this kind of potato sludge that you want. You also want to stay in this pot so don’t go looking for a colander or strainer. Just use a fork or knife or the lid of your pot to help pour of the water without your spuds going in the sink.
O.K. If you have cooked 4 or 6 large potatoes or 10 or15 small ones throw in about 2 fingers of butter. I assume you have a stick of butter so I say 2 fingers same as if you were pouring bourbon. Mash that up. You can use a potato masher or a whisk or a fork, no infomercial miracle kitchen aid needed. Start adding your milk of choice. You can mix them. A little heavy cream, a little milk. Pour a little, mash a little, wait, repeat and start tasting. Now is when you will have to decide if you need a little more salt, go slowly, you can’t get it out if you add too much. When you think you have it just right, walk away for 2 minutes, and then re-evaluate. Potatoes can miraculously absorb salt or liquids, therefore, taste as you progress.
This end process is called ’the finish’. Most of what comes before is mechanical. The finish is what will earn you those guttural moans of joy and approbation or, the polite though negative "interesting’’.
You have done it again. You are very talented and able. Your pot should not need scrubbing and your small kitchen area should not be a wreck. You are the crest of evolution, you’re the wisdom of the ages.
Mashed potatoes will make fine leftovers. Be sure not to seal them in an air-tight container if they are still even warm. Doing this would accelerate spoilage due to bacterial factors. We share the planet with them you know.
Some will say, mashed are better the next day. There’s reasons for that too.
what we now classify as ‘’Comfort Food’’. I’m not sure what comfort food means, not entirely.
That they preserve the familiar safety of some past environment long gone and that the trade
off of calories for blue blanket peace of mind is well worth it. Faulkner said, kinda, ‘The past is
always with us, it is not dead, it isn’t even past’. I think in a big way, comfort food can be
anything. I once worked for a guy who would come into the kitchen when lettuce processing was
going on so to eat romaine hearts(cores?) with salt and lemon. This, returned him to his
grandmothers kitchen in Greece. Now I eat those cores and it returns me to his kitchen that no longer exists.
America loves potatoes. If you consider potatoes, pasta and rice as the 3 primary accompanying starches or carbs on the American repertoire/menu, hands down, the potato is #1 if for no other reason than it may appear in all 3 of our squares. And so many kinds of potatoes. Mashed, fries, home fries, salads, baked, stuffed, pancakes, chips, croquettes on and on plus as ingredients in pot pies, stews, and soups. Etcetera etcetera. We like potatoes, I’d say.
Mashed potatoes have some range. Basically you have 4 ‘areas’ of ingredients; potatoes, shortening or fat, milk product and lastly but very significantly, the character generating ‘also’s’.
There are increasingly more potatoes being made available to us. The very high end sort of potatoes are just not the ticket for mashed, and I’m sure your Aunt Rhoda would not have considered them at all. Idaho or Chef’s are fine and, these you will want to peel. Lil’ red potatoes are fine and their lil’ white counterparts are fine. As these are thin skinned, you do not need peel them. I would add, there is much nutrition in potato’s skin. You will have to check this smaller type of potato for black spots and eyes. Just cut away what you find unappealing, no big deal. Soft spots must be removed and rinsed(no big deal).
If you need to buy a pot for this project, a 4 quart thick bottom pot will easily accommodate mashed for 4-6 people. Have your pot on the ready, half full of cold water. Once you have peeled a spud, spud, drop them directly into water, or else, they will start to turn black, same as apples and avocados. This is due to their alkaline PH. As I have also said before, peel in the sink, not over the garbage, not on your table or counter. ZERO accumulated mess is the goal, always.
Next comes the fat thing. I’ll tell you a story. I once had a bird. A Hornbill, from Africa. These are omnivores which means it will eat almost any garbage you can think of, much like ourselves, generally. I used to let it out after dinners and it would clean up scraps on plates on the table. One night, dissatisfied with the available fare, it went for the ivory soap in the soap dish, how bizarre. What did that mean? It meant the animal could instinctually identify fat. It just knew. We do the same. This is much of the charm of rich mash potatoes. In fact, this instinct and this gift of evolution manipulates much of our food decisions. You should have those vegetables steamed - plain, but, you will want those vegetables(steamed) with melted butter and grated cheese. Comfort Ye. You could use olive oil but the thing will taste like olive oil, not mashed potatoes. There is a great Greek dip called skortaya which is garlic and olive oil with mashed potatoes-no dairy. You will get a seat on the bus. The other oils just don’t work. Butter, that’s what it is !
Milk. There is a range of milk, it goes from heavy cream to no-fat or skim milk. There is also evaporated milk, sour cream and buttermilk. I don’t recommend half & half, you’ll run into problems. Moderate amounts of regular milk and butter will produce fine mash potatoes. Cream, better. Blind fold tested, the richest potatoes will win the most friends, no doubt. This brings us to the wild card 4th element, the alsos.
The alsos are the also ingredients that endow the masheds with flavors beyond, potato, dairy, fat, salt and pepper.
First on this list is garlic. Not granulated or powdered garlic or chopped garlic in a jar that says fresh on the label. Garlic, it looks like a plant, it is a plant and it grows in a bulb. You pop out 2 or 3 of those lil cloves, put them on the table, cover them with a paper towel and smash them, once. This should get the peels off easily. Drop them(the cloves) into the water with the potatoes, they will disintegrate in the cook.
Second is onion. I need to write a page solely about onions. For now, just a few slices of onion, (not red which will turn everything pinkish brown), thin as you can, will make your spuds get up and go to school. They too will dissolve with out having to chop them.
My favorite also(and third) is parsnip or turnip. Parsnip is that thing that looks like a white carrot. Peel it, cut of the stalk butt end and cook it with the potatoes and the other alsos, and, it too will dissolve. Turnips are either pink and white which would be a white turnip or, the larger yellowish and very waxy yellow turnip or rutabaga, which, is fun to say. I like the rutabaga more but since it’s a pretty big thing and even half is more than you’ll need,(for now), use the white and finish it one shot. After peeling this turnip thing, slice it up a little as it will not dissolve in the time the other elements will, if left whole.
O.K. Peeled potatoes (or unpeeled small potatoes), garlic, onion, and maybe turnip or parsnip, in a pot of water with enough water to submerge everything. I hesitate to specify amounts of anything. I feel this would be unforgivably uninteresting. You will need to add salt to this boil. Again , kosher salt is the best, it’s hard…harder to control table salt, when you are cooking with it. A small amount in the middle of your palm, about the size of a quarter, is about right. This dose of salt is for the cooking. Ultimately, it will not be enough and you will be adding more at the finish. Add black pepper to the cook now. You will not need much as it will blossom in the boil. A pepper mill is better than pre-ground table pepper.
After about, a half hour or so, on a medium flame, the potatoes should fall apart easily if you molest them with a fork or knife. End of cook. You will need to pour off most of the water, not all. The bottom of the water contains this kind of potato sludge that you want. You also want to stay in this pot so don’t go looking for a colander or strainer. Just use a fork or knife or the lid of your pot to help pour of the water without your spuds going in the sink.
O.K. If you have cooked 4 or 6 large potatoes or 10 or15 small ones throw in about 2 fingers of butter. I assume you have a stick of butter so I say 2 fingers same as if you were pouring bourbon. Mash that up. You can use a potato masher or a whisk or a fork, no infomercial miracle kitchen aid needed. Start adding your milk of choice. You can mix them. A little heavy cream, a little milk. Pour a little, mash a little, wait, repeat and start tasting. Now is when you will have to decide if you need a little more salt, go slowly, you can’t get it out if you add too much. When you think you have it just right, walk away for 2 minutes, and then re-evaluate. Potatoes can miraculously absorb salt or liquids, therefore, taste as you progress.
This end process is called ’the finish’. Most of what comes before is mechanical. The finish is what will earn you those guttural moans of joy and approbation or, the polite though negative "interesting’’.
You have done it again. You are very talented and able. Your pot should not need scrubbing and your small kitchen area should not be a wreck. You are the crest of evolution, you’re the wisdom of the ages.
Mashed potatoes will make fine leftovers. Be sure not to seal them in an air-tight container if they are still even warm. Doing this would accelerate spoilage due to bacterial factors. We share the planet with them you know.
Some will say, mashed are better the next day. There’s reasons for that too.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Scrambled Eggs
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.
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.
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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