Corduroy Orange

So, I got this link in my email yesterday: cheese-filled, bacon-wrapped, deep-fried hot dogs.

I must point out, though, that calling them cheese-filled is something of a stretch: they are hollowed out and injected with easy cheese (from a can), a substance classified as “pasteurized process cheese food product”—it doesn’t even qualify as food and quite likely has more in common with silly putty than it does with cheese.

That’s why I recommend that instead of following the plans outlined in the link, you enjoy a somewhat more wholesome version of the same snack containing real cheese and skipping the step of deep frying.

Simply slit the hot dog lengthwise (not completely in half: just enough to open up a pocket).  Stuff the hot dog with small pieces of your favorite real cheese.  I like a hot pepper cheese for this purpose, but any will work.  Wrap the dog with a slice of bacon and secure each end with a toothpick.  Cook in a hot cast iron skillet until the bacon is done.  By this point, the hot dog will be hot, and the cheese will be melted.  The bacon will have constricted around the dog as the fat cooks off and the protein coagulates.  Remove the toothpicks, put the dog in a bun, and dress it according to your preference.

Personally, I think that hot dogs require mustard equal in size to the hot dog itself; I’ll also add sauerkraut and onions if they’re available.  Never ketchup nor relish (ick!—too sweet!)

Over the past few years, I’ve grown tired of the sickeningly-sweet, aspartame-laced yogurt concoctions available on the general market. My reaction has been to get quarts of plain yogurt, which I think tastes great, especially if you get whole milk yogurt (fat is flavor). It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized I could flavor my own yogurt to my own non-sweet specifications. The process was beyond simple and the results were fantastic.

We’ve got a bag of onions in our kitchen that we really ought to have done something with about a week ago; all of the onions in it have begun to sprout. I cut off a bunch of these sprouts and sliced them thinly, thinking that I could add some green onions to my cheese sandwiches. Come lunchtime, I looked at my little half-full shot glass-sized tupperware container of green onions and my 1/2-pint container of plain yogurt and took the not too complicated mental leap of mixing the two together. The result? Another successful savory conversion: savory yogurt featuring thinly sliced green onions!

I tried to make your King Cake and I may have rolled my dough too thin. It fell apart when I tried to move it. I just sort of scooped it up and plopped it on the baking sheet and hoped the filling would hold everything together. It doesn’t look too bad but we’ll see what happens when I try to take it off the sheet.

Hopefully it will taste better than it looks.

That may be something that a bench scraper would help you with. Use its wide blade to scoop the first part of the dough off the counter. That way, you don’t have to tug at the dough, thus you’ll be less apt to lose its form. I’m sure it will be fine, though—the braided top is really just a way to make it look good; it’s not necessary to the success of the recipe.

In fact, for an easier and still attractive presentation, you could spread the filling over most of the dough (not just the middle 1/3) and roll it up into a long tube. Then, bake it the same way as you would if you braided the top.

You probably could have used that advice before you started the process; mea culpa.

PS—Update to the recipe!  I way-overestimated how long I rolled out my dough (like, by a foot!).  I should have written to roll the dough out to 2 1/2–3 feet in length!!  I have changed the recipe accordingly.

Caramelizing onions is something I do almost every day in the kitchen. Whether I’m making soup, stew, or stir fry, there’s a good chance that onions are in it and they’re caramelized. The technique is something I’ve touched upon at least a few times in various recipes for Corduroy Orange, but because it’s something that’s of such widespread use, I think it’s worth devoting one post entirely to it.

Caramelized onions are cooked to golden brown. The process involves toasting the onions’ natural sugars, and it brings out a sweetness that isn’t noticeable in a raw onion. Done correctly, they add a beautiful flavor base to almost any dish.

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Hey, Jesse.

I cook something fairly elaborate for myself pretty much every night, either trying something out of a cookbook or ad libbing with veggie combinations that sound good. But the key word there is myself, so I usually cut those cookbook recipes in half. A girl eventually gets tired of beet and lentil leftovers.

But I’m wondering if there are some ingredients that shouldn’t be halved (like olive oil? my sautéed onions end up a bit cajun sometimes), or cooking times that I should adjust when there are fewer ingredients. Any techniques for the solo cook?

Cheers,
Halfsies

Halfsies–

When you’re sauteeing something like onions, the amount of oil you need is in large part dependent upon the size of the pan you’re using. You need enough fat to cover the bottom of the pan or else the vegetables are liable to stick and burn. You’ll also want to keep the vegetables moving in the pan so that the same surface isn’t in constant contact with the heat source (another condition that will lead to blackened ingredients).

A good (if somewhat vague) rule of thumb if you’re ad libbing vegetable combinations is to lay out as much as you think you’ll eat and cook it until it’s done. Soups, stews, and stir-frys should be simmered or sauteed for as long as the recipe calls for or until the ingredients are done: the ingredients don’t cook any faster just because there’s fewer of them. This crib sheet provides general guidelines on the order in which you should add vegetables to a dish of your own creation, based on relative cooking times.

If you’re baking a half recipe of something (like brownies, etc.), adjust the size of the container you’re putting the batter in to one that has approximately half the surface area of what’s called for in the recipe; keep the baking time the same. If you spread the batter out too thinly, cooking time will be fairly unpredictable.

If you make yeast breads in smaller portions than your recipes call for, you’ll have to figure out the timing by trial and error. Start by checking them at the recipe’s halfway point; if they’re not done, give them a few minutes longer. Make note of how long they took so that next time you shrink the recipe, you’ll have a guideline to go by.

Do you have a question about something related to the world of food? Email me and I’ll try to respond in a future post.

When you’re roasting a hunk of beef or lamb, it’s sometimes tough to know the best time to pull it from the oven. You don’t want to open the door every five minutes to check its progress—that drops the oven temperature and delays the roast’s finish. On the other hand, you don’t want to ignore it for too long—especially because it will continue to cook a bit once you pull it from the oven; you can usually expect the internal tempurature to rise another ten degrees once you pull it out. So, how then to plan the timing (and the rest of the meal) so that the roast reaches perfection when everything else is ready to go?

Many recipes and meat packages offer approximate cooking times. These are helpful hints, but shouldn’t be relied upon as gospel, especially because they can vary widely (e.g., 15-30 minutes per pound, as one recipe I just read recommends—that’s a big spread!). Other factors play a large role in how long your roast will take to cook.

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I’ve been keeping up with my commitment to make my bread instead of buying it. Since Christmas, that has involved making sourdough. I’d never really understood how sourdough works until my mom showed up for her Christmas visit with a plastic tub containing sourdough starter. Since then, I’ve come to embrace the joys of sourdough: its chewy texture, its unique flavor (which, according to everything I’ve read will develop over time based on the natural bacteria that live in your home), and—best of all—its elimination of purchased yeast. Not because I have anything against yeast per se, but if I can make delicious bread without spending those few extra pennies, why bother spending those few extra pennies?

Once a week, at minimum, I have to pull it out and feed it some water and some flour so that it has a continual source of food. When I do, I pull some of the starter out and make a sponge by adding even more flour and water to that portion; then, I let the sponge sit overnight and turn it into dough the next morning by adding flour and salt, but no more water. After that, it just needs to rise and bake, same as any other dough.

There is an added time component to making this bread, and a need to plan ahead, though if you want to speed the time frame up, you can make a bread using sourdough starter and a little bit of commercial yeast to get things moving more quickly. The extra time spent—and the fact that the process is easily performed entirely by hand—helps give you a better sense of the bread making process and how little changes affect the outcome.

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I plan to make a pork “roast” that cooks in wine in the oven when my inlaws are over for dinner soon. If I wanted to use the wine and pork drippings to make a white wine sauce do I need to let it reduce anymore, or would the time in the oven be enough? I have loved the mother sauces tutorials thus far!

I fear I may have dragged my feet too long to be of assistance with your pork roast question and your in-laws may have already visited. If so, I’m sorry about that. I was hoping to try a pork roast out in my kitchen along the same lines so I could have more specific advice to give you, but sadly this hasn’t worked out; and since I’m going to be getting (in conjunction with several friends) 1/4 of a cow in the next couple days, I doubt I’ll be having pork roast anytime in the immediate future. A general (and I hope somewhat helpful) answer to your question would be that it depends on how much wine you’re using.

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Dear Corduroy,

I’m getting ready to move into a new apartment and (of course) I’m not looking forward to the process of packing and unpacking. One of the worst parts as far as I’m concerned is arriving at the new place hungry and tired. I won’t want to do much but curl up in the corner—and after the expense of moving, I’d like to avoid ordering in if I can. Do you have any suggestions of easy and quick meals I can actually make after the ordeal of transporting my life to a new city?

Harried and Hungry

Harried–

This is one of the few times when I think that convenience foods make a lot of sense. Really, who wants to go through tthe ordeal of making an elaborate meal when most of your kitchen is still packed in boxes? If you can get to the basics, though, you can have a decent meal without much trouble with a couple packs of ramen noodles and some tuna helper.

There’s no need to limit yourself to what comes straight out of the packages, though, if you don’t have to. Make an effort to get a potato or two, a couple of carrots, and a head of broccoli. These are all vegetables that travel well and can withstand a bit of abuse along the way. Cut them up to fairly small pieces so that they’ll cook quickly. Boil the potato and carrot in the water for your ramen noodles until they’re soft (probably about 5-10 minutes, depending on how small you cut them) and start your tuna helper by sauteeing the broccoli briefly in the pan before following the directions on the box. The end result should be a fairly easy meal at a fairly low price, and only two pans to wash.

Have a question about cooking or food? Email me, and I’ll try to answer your question in a future post.

I have recently started making my own salsa, but am disappointed by the amount of heat that regular jalepenos add to it. Until recently I had an aversion to peppers (I trace it back to my grandfather chasing me around with one saying “It’ll put hair on chest”. Not exactly what a girl wants). Now I know bell peppers are the mildest, with jalepenos close after and habaneros are the hottest. I want something that I would classify as “medium” heat. Could you maybe list what peppers are suitable for salsa, and their varying degress of heat? I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Courtney

Bell peppers are indeed the mildest form of pepper grown, and are a sweet vegetable, as opposed to a hot one. There are varying degrees of heat between them and jalapenos, though, and then several levels between jalapenos and habaneros. Something else to consider is that individual peppers have varying degrees of spice—one jalapeno is not necessarily of the same heat as another. Unfortunately, for the modern jalapeno, that sentiment is doubly true. The food industry is seeking to capitalize on its recognizable name while simultaneously trying to appeal to non-heat loving individuals, and there is a section of growers that is working to breed less hot jalapenos. It’s possible that your disappointing pepper is a result of this effort.

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