Monday, January 12, 2009

How To Fillet a Fish

Cooking Basics..

How To Fillet a Fish


Here's How:

1. Hold the fish on the cutting board with the back of the fish toward you. Using a thin flexible knife, cut through the back of the head to the backbone and turn the blade so it's running along the backbone.
2. Hold the fish by placing your non cutting hand over the head. Push the knife along the backbone to the tail using a sawing motion.
3. Pull the fillet away from the body of the fish while making small careful cuts with the knife to retain as much flesh as possible.
4. Using small strokes of the knife, remove the fillet from the rib cage, feeling your way around the bones with the knife.
5. Turn the fish over and repeat steps 1 through 3 on the other side.
6. Using a flat bladed knife, slice a bit of the skin away from the flesh. Cut a hole in the loosened skin so you can fit your finger through it.
7. Hold the skin through the finger hole and pull the skin away from the fillet, using the knife to hold the fillet down. Hold the knife at a 45 degree angle.
8. With your fingers and a clean tweezer, feel for any pin bones and pull them out of the fillets.

Tips:

1. Make sure your knives are very sharp or you will rip and tear the flesh.
2. Go slowly at first. It takes practice to become an expert at filleting a fish.
3. Removing the fillet from the rib cage is the most difficult step. Be very careful and go slowly.

What You Need:

* whole fish
* sharp thin bladed knife
* sharp flat bladed knife
* cutting board
* tweezers

Cooking Basics....

How to Use Gelatin

How to Use Gelatin

Here's How:

1. Sprinkle unflavored gelatin over a small amount of cold water taken from the recipe and let stand. If using sheet gelatin, immerse sheets in cold water for a few minutes (don't use liquid from the recipe for sheet gelatin).
2. Heat half of the remaining liquid used in recipe to boiling and pour over either the softened unflavored gelatin or commercial powdered gelatin in a large bowl. For sheet gelatin, pick up the
soft mass and squeeze excess liquid from it and drop into hot liquid.
3. Stir gently but thoroughly with a metal spoon until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Make sure that you don't see any tiny particles of undissolved gelatin in the liquid.
4. Add the other half of the recipe's liquid to the dissolved gelatin mixture and stir. This half of the recipe's liquid should be cool.
5. You can partially chill the gelatin if you are adding fruit, meats, or vegetables to the salad. Place gelatin mixture in the refrigerator and let chill for about 1 hour, until the gelatin looks
like thick unbeaten egg whites. The added ingredients will then be evenly distributed throughout the finished salad.
6. Rinse the salad mold with cold water. Do not dry. Pour in the gelatin mixture. Cover and refrigerate at least four hours before unmolding.
7. To unmold the salad, run the tip of a knife around the edge of the mold. Invert the mold onto a dampened serving place.
8. Dampen kitchen towels in hot water, wring out, and apply to outside of mold for 30-60 seconds. Gently shake mold until gelatin slides out. Repeat process if necessary.
9. Return mold to refrigerator until serving time.
10. Store the salad, covered, in the refrigerator.

Tips:

1. Never use fresh or frozen pineapple, guava, figs, kiwifruit, or ginger root in molded gelatin salads. They contain bromelin, an enzyme which will destroy the gelatin's protein bonds. Canned
versions of these products are fine - the heat used in the canning process has denatured the bromelin enzyme.
2. You can oil your salad mold with a light, nonflavored oil instead of rinsing it with water.
3. Make sure that the gelatin is thoroughly set before you try to unmold the salad.
4. You can add other ingredients without prechilling the gelatin. They will just settle to the bottom of the mold and be on the top when the salad is unmolded.
5. You can pour gelatin into individual serving cups so you don't have to bother with unmolding a large salad.

HOW TO COOK PASTA

HOW TO COOK PASTA

Here's How:

1. Fill a large stockpot with water. The more the better - pasta only sticks when cooked in too little water.
2. Add salt. Salt makes pasta taste better, and won't increase the sodium level of your recipes. Use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water.
3. Bring the water to a rolling boil. This means a boil you can't stop by stirring.
4. Measure the pasta you need. Pasta generally doubles in size when cooked, so 1 cup uncooked = 2 cups cooked. Refer to the recipe if necessary.
5. Slowly add the pasta to the boiling water. Ideally, the water shouldn't stop boiling, but if that happens, it's ok.
6. Stir and stir some more! Pasta will stick together if it isn't stirred during the crucial first moments of cooking.
7. Start timing when the water returns to a boil. Most pastas cook in 8-12 minutes. Check the package directions!
8. You can regulate the heat so the pasta/water mixture doesn't foam up and over the pot sides. Lower it the tiniest bit, and everything should be under control.
9. Really the only way to tell if the pasta is correctly cooked is to taste it. It should be 'al dente' - firm, yet tender, with a tiny core in the middle.
10. You can also cut into a piece you've fished out of the pot. There shouldn't be any solid white in the center of the pasta - just a shading to more opaque cream.
11. Now drain the pasta into a colander placed into your kitchen sink. Lift the colander and shake off excess water.
12. Don't rinse if you're serving a hot dish. That removes the starch that helps hold the sauce. If you are making a cold salad, rinse so the salad isn't sticky.

Tips:

1. By covering the pot when you bring water to a boil, you are lowering the air pressure directly over the water, making it easier to boil.
2. Never mix pasta types in one pot.
3. Watch the cooking process carefully. Pasta can overcook very quickly.
4. If the pasta is to be used in a casserole, undercook it slightly. It will finish cooking to perfection while in the oven or skillet.

What You Need:

* stock pot
* pasta
* salt
* long handled spoon
* kitchen timer

Saturday, January 10, 2009

How To Plan a Meal

Plan meals to meet your family's nutrition needs. The old way of planning meals was the Basic Four: Meats, Vegetables and Fruit, Grains, and Dairy. After many nutrition studies, the USDA has created an updated Food Pyramid that should be used as a guideline.

Meals used to be planned around a chunk of protein, plus a starch like potatoes or rice, a vegetable like green beans, and a glass of milk. Today, meat is considered more of a condiment or flavoring, and diets should be based more on grains, fruits and vegetables.

That doesn't mean you can't have a steak or fish fillet for dinner! It just means that you should add more whole grain breads, pastas, vegetables, fruits, rice, and cereals, and reduce the amount of meat served. To begin, here are three key words you should remember every time you plan a meal: color, temperature and texture. The meals you plan should be full of color, the recipes should vary in temperature, and include textures from smooth to crunchy.

First, go through your recipe box, files, cookbooks and other favorite sources and choose 10-20 recipes that you know you can make and that your family likes. Then consider texture, temperature, and color when visualizing your full dinner plate. Color is probably the most important consideration to think about in meal planning.

Nutritionists advise making your plate look like a painter's palette. The more different colors on your plate, the more varied and healthy your diet will be. Temperature and texture should be
varied to add interest and make the meal more pleasing to the palate. Choose some cold foods, some served at room temperature, and some hot. Crisp, crunchy, smooth, chunky, and tender are all textures you should think about.

Remember, your meals should be colorful, and include a variety of textures and temperatures.

Chicken with Fruit Salsa

* 1/2 cup chopped peeled mango
* 1 orange, peeled, seeded and chopped
* 1 pear, unpeeled, chopped
* 1 8-oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained
* 2 Tbsp. apple jelly
* 1 Tbsp. minced jalapeno pepper
* 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
* 1/4 cup honey
* 2 Tbsp. apple jelly
* 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
* 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Combine mango, orange, pear, pineapple, 2 Tbsp. apple jelly, jalapeno and cilantro. Mix well and set aside.Combine honey, 2 Tbsp. apple jelly and lemon juice. Microwave on high until melted, 10-20 seconds and stir well. Brush half of glaze on chicken.
Broil or grill chicken 4-6" from heat for 6 minutes. Turn chicken and brush with remaining glaze. Broil or grill 4-6 minutes longer or until chicken is tender, thoroughly cooked, and juices run clearwhen pricked with knife. Spoon salsa over chicken to serve.

This recipe already helps meet your daily nutritional needs because there are lots of fruits in proportion to the chicken. To balance this meal, go back to our key words and think about temperature, texture, and color. I would add a fresh green lettuce salad (cool temperature, crunchy texture, additional different color), some whole grain rolls (crunchy texture, room temperature), and sparkling water or milk.

As long as you make your dinner plate colorful you can generally be assured that you are eating enough fruits and vegetables and your meals are balanced. Vary texture by adding chewy breads, crunchy grains, and smooth, tender pasta and rice to help add the essential servings of grains. And vary temperatures to help stimulate appetite and make your meals more interesting.

When choosing recipes for your everyday meals, pay attention to nutrients listed as percentage of Daily Values. The Daily Values are set by the USDA to meet the nutritional requirements of the average American. These Values are set for protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, sodium and fiber.

Here are a few more things to consider when planning meals.

* Grocery Ads
Check what is on sale in your grocery store and plan meals around those items. You can also stock up on good buys and freeze them, well wrapped with the date marked, to help you plan future meals.
* What's in Your Pantry?
The foods you store are those you know your family likes. Find new recipes that use these ingredients and you will be able to gradually introduce different foods and flavors and expand their tastes.
* Family Favorites
If your family loves meat and potatoes, find ways to get more fruits and vegetables into their diet. Serve a smaller portion of meat and make up the difference with a big salad, toasted rolls, or rice pilaf. Begin with a favorite recipe, serve smaller portions of it, and add other nutritious foods to fill the dinner plate.
* Seasonal Produce
Not only is seasonal produce a better buy, but fruits and vegetables taste better when in season. Local produce may also retain more nutrients because they aren't shipped over long
distances. Patronize farmer's markets and produce stands when possible for great value, taste, and nutrition.
* Shake Things Up
Have fun with meal planning! Have breakfast for dinner, get your children involved, let other family members have turns planning meals, and even make a game out of planning a meal just with what's on hand. Don't be too concerned with perfectly balancing each day's nutrients. Try instead to balance nutrients, calories, and fat intake over several days.
* Use Color as Key
The more color on your plate, the better balanced your meal. Plus a colorful plate is a treat for the eyes!
* Balance Temperature
Hot foods, cold foods, and room temperature foods not only ensure that you are serving a variety of foods, but also make a more interesting meal.
* Balance Texture
No one likes a meal made of all soft foods or all crunchy ones. Thinking about different texture also automatically helps you include different kinds of foods according to the Food Pyramid.
* Variety!
Here's the most important meal planning tip of all: eat a variety of foods. For instance, don't plan meals with chicken four days in a row. The USDA calculates safe limits on pesticide and
herbicide residue consumption based on a certain consumption level of foods. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and dairy products to help reduce your risk of exposure to
chemicals, and to ensure the most balanced diet. Scientists are discovering new chemicals and nutrients in foods every day that are necessary to good health. Eating a good variety of whole foods is the best way to have a healthy diet and a long life.

Drying

COOKING BASICS...

Drying
is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which prevents the growth of microorganisms and decay. Drying food using the sun and wind to prevent spoilage has been known since ancient times. Water is usually removed by evaporation (air drying, sun drying, smoking or wind drying) but, in the case of freeze-drying, food is first frozen and then water is removed by sublimation.

Bacteria and micro-organisms within the food and from the air need the water in the food to grow. Drying effectively prevents them from surviving in the food. It also creates a hard outer-layer, helping to stop micro-organisms from entering the food.

Food types

Many different foods are prepared by dehydration. Good examples are meat such as prosciutto (a.k.a. Parma ham), bresaola, and beef jerky. Fruits change character completely when dried: the plum becomes a prune, the grape a raisin; figs and dates are also transformed. Drying is rarely used for vegetables as it removes the vitamins within them, however bulbs, such as garlic and onion, are often dried. Also chilis are frequently dried.

For centuries, much of the European diet depended on dried cod, known as salt cod or bacalhau (with salt) or stockfish (without). It formed the main protein source for the slaves on the West Indian plantations and was a major economic force within the triangular trade.
Dried and salted reindeer meat is a traditional Sami food. First the meat is soaked / pickled in saltwater for a couple of days to guarantee the conservation of the meat. Then the meat is dried in the sun in spring when the air temperature is below zero. The dried meat can be further processed to make soup.
Dried shark known as Hákarl is a delicacy in Iceland.

Drying Methods

There are many different methods for drying, each with their own advantages for particular applications; these include:

* Bed dryers
* Fluidized bed dryers
* Shelf dryers
* Spray drying
* Sunlight
* Commercial food dehydrators
* Household oven

COOKING BASICS....

Brining

In cooking, brining is a process similar to marination in which meat is soaked in a salt solution (the brine) before cooking.Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its
muscle tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, and by allowing the cells to hold on to the water while they are cooked, via the process of denaturation. The brine surrounding the cells has a higher concentration of salt than the fluid within the cells, but the cell fluid has a higher concentration of other solutes. This leads salt ions to enter the cell via diffusion, whilst the solutes in the cells cannot diffuse through the cell membranes into the brine. The increased salinity of the cell fluid causes the cell to absorb water from the brine via osmosis. The salt introduced into the cell also denatures its proteins. The proteins coagulate, forming a matrix which traps water molecules and holds them during cooking. This prevents the meat from drying out, or dehydrating.

In many foods the additional salt is also desirable as a preservative. Note that kosher meats are salted during the process of koshering so they should not be brined.
Some cheeses are periodically washed in brine during their ripening.
Not only does the brine carry flavors into the cheese (it might be seasoned with spices or wine), but the salty environment may nurture the growth of the Brevibacterium linens bacteria, which can impart a very pronounced odor (Limburger) and interesting flavor. The same bacteria can also have some impact on cheeses that are simply ripened in humid conditions, like Camembert. Large populations of these "smear bacteria" show up as a sticky orange-red layer on some
brine-washed cheeses.

Rotisserie


Rotisserie is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit - a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or roasted in an oven. This method is generally used for cooking large joints of meat or entire animals, such as pigs, turkeys, goats or historically, entire cattle. The rotation cooks the meat evenly in its own juices and allows easy access for continuous basting if desired.

In medieval and early modern kitchens, the spit was the preferred way of cooking meat in a large household. A servant, preferably a boy, sat near the spit turning the metal rod slowly and cooking the food; he was known as the "spit boy" or "spit jack". More mechanical means were later invented, first moved by dog-powered treadmill, and then by steam power and mechanical clockwork mechanisms. Spits are now usually driven by electric motors.

Rotisserie can also refer to a mechanical device used for rotisserie cooking, or to a restaurant specializing in spit-roasted meat and chicken. The word comes from French where it first appeared in Paris shops around 1450. Additionally, in restaurants a rotisseur is the chef responsible for all spit-roasted, oven roasted, grilled and in some cases fried foods.[1]

Horizontal rotisserie

This style of rotisserie mounts the spit horizontally. They are often used to cook whole chickens or roasts of various meats including beef and pork. The design may include a single spit mounted over an open broiler or grill, a single spit mounted within an otherwise-conventional oven, or many spits mounted within a large industrial oven. The latter are commonly used to mass produced roasted meats for sale to consumers.
Chicken cooking on a horizontal rotisserie

In this style of rotisserie, balance is important. If the object to be cooked is far out of balance, it will impose a heavy load on the drive mechanism or cause the mechanism to fail to turn. Loose chicken legs or wings can also cause the mechanism to jam. For these two reasons, some skewering skill is required.
Spitted fowl are rotated by a handcrank and basted with a long-handled spoon in this illustration from the Romance of Alexander, Bruges, 1338-44 (Bodleian Library)

High-end consumer ovens commonly come with a rotisserie (or allow the installation of a rotisserie as an option). In these cases, the motor drive mechanism is usually concealed within the oven. The rotisserie is used by removing the normal cooking racks; a special carrier may be needed to provide one or both bearing points for the spit.

howether in the commercial supermarkets, or even hypermarkets, to mass produce cooked chickens they use the vertical rotiserie using the metal bars to hold the chicken in place through the weakest part of the breast (also which hardly effects the meat itself from the impaling but still holds the chicken firmly in place) and the densest part of the chicken located just below the drumstick of the chicken

Vertical rotisserie

The other common style of rotisserie is the vertical rotisserie; here, the heat is applied directly from the side (as shown in the picture) or, less-commonly, convected up from below. In this style of rotisserie, balance of the load is less important than with a horizontal rotisserie.

Some dishes that are commonly cooked on a vertical rotisserie include:

* Döner kebab from Turkey
* Gyros, from Greece
* Shawarma, from the Middle East and the Arab World
* Taco al pastor, from Mexico