Corduroy Orange

In May, I put up a few musings about what makes a good cook.  The original post prompted a flurry of activity on the site (1 comment), which in turn prompted my other reader (thanks, Mom!) to draft a formal response on what she believes makes someone to be a good cook:

Jesse:

A few weeks ago, you answered the question, “What Makes a Good Cook?”  I consider myself to be a good cook and at least partially responsible for your interest in cooking and your enthusiasm for food and fresh ingredients.  I have been thinking about this and mulling over my response and have finally come up with several ideas on the subject.

(more…)

I must admit, I don’t remember ever not liking vegetables.  Even when I was really young, I never understood why Dennis the Menace didn’t want to eat his peas or his broccoli (maybe his mom’s just a bad cook.)  I loved when I was assigned the task of picking cherry tomatoes before dinner—because that meant I could eat a few as I plucked the ripe ones off their vine.  I always wanted to take as much asparagus as I could get away with (”Can I have 8 pieces?”).  The only vegetable I can remember not enjoying were beets—I had to get to be quite a bit older before I could appreciate them.

That having been said, I understand that not all children get excited about eating fresh vegetables.  Researchers at Penn State have determined with empirical evidence that a common-sense solution works: feed kids fresh veggies before the meal, when they are at their hungriest.

[The researchers] found that when preschool children received no first course of carrots, they consumed about 23 grams (nearly 1 ounce) of broccoli from the main course.

When the children received 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of carrots at the start of the meal, their vegetable intake rose by nearly 50 percent compared to having no carrots as a first course. But when the first course was increased to 60 grams (about 2 ounces) of carrots, average vegetable consumption nearly tripled to about 63 grams — or a third of the recommended vegetable intake for preschool children.

Putting the team’s findings to use should be quite easy.  As researcher Maureen Spill notes, “The great thing about this study is the very clear and easy message for parents and care-givers that while you are preparing dinner, put some vegetables out for your children to snack on while they’re hungry.”

The first step toward getting anyone to enjoy a new flavor is getting them to taste it.  While no one will necessarily enjoy every new food that they try, they will not enjoy every food that they don’t try.  Or, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.”  Simply getting kids to taste something different could help them to realize that they actually enjoy the flavor, crunch, and finger-food nature of fresh vegetables.

One other strategy parents might use?  Maureen Spill suggests (and I heartily concur) that “Parents also need to set an example by eating vegetables while children are young and impressionable.”

For more information on the Penn State study, click here.

Hey Jesse—

In your opinion, what separates a good cook from a bad cook?

Thanks,

Gary

Gary—

Whoo, tough question.  I’ve been letting this one simmer in my mind for a few days trying to sort it out.  My first instinct was knife skills, but I had to rethink that one pretty quickly, as you asked about good from bad.  And, whereas knife skills can separate a great cook from a good cook, they are far from necessary to avoid being a bad cook.  One can be a quite good cook with only functional knife skills.

Next, I thought about respect for ingredients: their quality and their integrity.  And whereas I do believe that such respect is crucial for someone who aspires to cook as well as possible, there are plenty of cooks who do just fine without a great deal of consideration going into the provenance of their ingredients.

So, perhaps a passion for the results?  A love for flavors and how they combine?  Again, helpful, but not necessary.  While these can provide one with the motivation to persevere through kitchen mishaps and produce a better result on one’s next attempt, misguided enthusiasm has been responsible for many a kitchen error, from the novice’s tendency to throw the entire spice rack into the pan, to the combination of dissonant flavors (just to see what they would taste like).

Eventually, though, I decided that there is but one quality that truly separates a good cook from a bad:

(more…)

hey, corduroy–
Did you really say that you bought six pounds of asparagus? What on earth can you do with that much asparagus? Don’t you get sick of hollandaise sauce after a while?

Yes, I did buy 6 pound of spare grass, but I only kept 4 of them; I shared 2 with a friend. But, with the remaining 4 pounds, some of which still remains, I have not had hollandaise once. Here is a quick list off the top of my head of other ways to use this tasty spear:
(more…)

Hey Corduroy–

I really like fresh salsa but fresh tomatoes suck in winter.  Any suggestions for a wintertime fresh salsa?

You can make a salsa with all kinds of stuff (think mango/pineapple; black bean and corn, etc.), but this time of year, around here, apples are probably your best bet.

This apple salsa goes great on a cheddar quesadilla.  It might also be good with some bacon, grilled chicken, and/or black beans in a ‘dilla or a wrap if you wanted to make it more of a dinner instead of a lunch.  As presented, it’s about a 0.5 (or less) on a scale of 10 in terms of heat, which I think is about right: but if you wanted it spicer, it’s easy to add more jalapeno or use a different kind of chili pepper.

Apple Salsa

• 1/2 red onion, cut to small dice
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut to small dice
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• 1 jalapeno pepper (meat of pepper only, no seeds or pith), minced
• 2 apples cut to a small dice
• juice of 1.5 limes (about 3 tablespoons
• Salt, pepper, cinnamon, allspice: to taste

Saute onions, bell pepper, garlic, and jalapeno in a small amount of oil, with salt and spices.

When vegetables are soft and the onions have started to turn a bit brown at the edges, remove to a mixing bowl and combine with apples and lime juice.  Stir together to mix thouroughly.  Taste, and adjust seasonings as necessary.  Serve immediately or within about 3 days (kept refrigerated).

I have a competition BBQ team and would like to come up with a really good smoked turkey recipe. I am going to brine my fresh natural turkey for about 12-16 hours with basic brine (no flavoring, just salt and sugar). I found your garlic hot sauce injection recipe which is similar to what I pull off with my Frank’s Hot Sauce Garlic Chicken.  Do you think if I use Frank’s for the sauce in your garlic injection recipe it will be good? 

 Lance

I imagine Frank’s will do fine—I’ve used a variety of hot sauces for this recipe through the years, and I think Frank’s may have been in the rotation at some point in time.  my personal preference for hot sauces seems to be a cayenne pepper sauce, which, if I’m not mistaken, Frank’s is. 

Just be sure to strain the garlic out of the sauce after you’ve simmered its flavor into the Franks if you’ll be injecting it into the poultry—I remember one time when I was doing a fried turkey on-site for a private party and I’d forgotten to strain the sauce.  The garlic clogged the injection needle and nothing would go through.  I wasn’t in a  well-equipped kitchen, and I didn’t have my strainer with me.  I couldn’t even find any aluminum foil.  Eventually, I discovered an unopened jar of coffee that had a foil seal on it.  I poked holes in that foil and fitted it into a styrofoam cup that I tore the bottom out of, used that as a makeshift strainer, and got the garlic out of the garlic-flavored sauce. The fried turkey was saved and they lived happily ever after.

Best of luck with your competition, and please let me know how the smoked turkey turns out.

For the record–most people need amounts in order to duplicate a recipe. We tried this after watching you and messed up on proportions and it didn’t come out the same as when you did it. Please be a little more specific.

—Mom

Thinking back about 14 years ago, I remember wanting to know how to make tuna salad. You gave me a list of ingredients, and I asked how much of each. “I don’t know,” you replied. “As much as you need.”  If those directions worked for tuna salad, why can’t they work for a spice mix, too?  You mix it up, taste it, evaluate the proportions, and correct it as need be.

Oh well, I’m not going to argue with you.  Instead, I went down into the kitchen and made a batch of the spice mix and measured how much of everything went into it.  I hope you enjoy the spice mix as presented here, but feel free to taste and adjust according to your own palate: too bitter?  Add a bit of sugar.  Too spicy?  Add a bit of everything but the pepper.  You get the idea.

Spicy-Sweet Spice Mix (great as a seasoning for grilled pineapple!)

• Cinnamon: .3 oz by weight (approx 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons)
• Salt: .2 oz by weight (approx. 1 teaspoon)
• Crushed red pepper: .2 oz by weight (approx. 1 tablespoon)
• Sugar [optional---not necessary for pineapple but useful when the spice mix is being used on something less naturally sweet]: .2 oz by weight (approx. 1 teaspoon)
• Allspice: .1 oz by weight (approx. 1 teaspoon)

Yield: 1 ounce by weight (3 tablespoons by volume)

Hope this helps!

In text and video, I have recommended peeling garlic by first crushing it with the flat side of your chef’s knife.  I wish to revise my suggestion to indicate that crushing it with your bench scraper is a safer way to handle things.

Over the weekend, distracted by several things going on at once, using a wet knife, and exhibiting an overall carelessness and complacency while wielding a sharp knife, my hand slipped as I pressed down on a garlic clove and my wrist met the blade of my knife.  It sounds worse than it was: it was a very shallow cut and I was never in any sort of danger, but the placement of the wound was disconcerting in that had it been worse and had it been deep, I would have been in rough shape.

So, please, be safe.  Use your bench scraper to crush your garlic.

Dear Sir:
  I am a beginner cook. When I go for a job, they want me to have good knife skills. On a recent interview where I showed my doing julienne, my julienne of ginger was poor. It was slightly larger than fine julienne because I cut a slightly larger section of the small piece of ginger. Even though I thought the interviewer was jerking me off by giving me such a small piece of ginger, I would like to know how I can improve my knife skills to a level of professionalism that won’t impede me from being hired. I bought 1 book by Norman Weinstein. I will try practicing some cuts he does in book. Is there anything else I can do?
—Leonard

Leonard—

I wasn’t there, so i can’t comment on the size of the sous chef’s ginger—though once you’re comfortable with a knife, you ought to be able to cut things of any size into smaller, regularly sized pieces. 

If your knife isn’t extremely sharp, get it sharpened.  From there, practice is the most important thing.   I have found that seeing the knife in motion can be very instructional, so here are a couple of video posts to get you started: how to hold the knife properly and how to dice (potatoes). 

I’ll have more videos up within the next several days.  In the meantime, check out some of my text-and-picture instructions, and see if they might be helpful for you as well.

hey - I picked up a free bag of chips on my way through the Pitt move-in madness.  I was bored while I ate them, so was reading the back of the package.  The 2nd ingredient was vegetable oil (after potatoes, which was nice), and then in parentheses, it said “(contains one or more of the following: corn, peanut, cottonseed, soybean, and/or sunflower oil)”.  None of those struck me as a vegetable.  I count a grain, 2 legumes, a fiber and, what - a flower?  Does the “vegetable” in “vegetable oil” have anything to do with the source of the oil, or is it taking advantage of the perception that corn is a vegetable?

–Joe

Joe:

All toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads. I count a grain, 2 legumes, a fiber, a flower—and 5 vegetables.

Whereas some botanical categories are neatly defined (fruit, legume, conifer, etc.), vegetable is a looser term meaning edible vegetation; and, as such, there are many different botanical classifications that all figure into the vegetable category.

Take broccoli, for instance: a vegetable, but also a brassica–along with turnips, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, mustard greens, and more.  Or tomatoes: a vegetable, but also a fruit.  Or corn: a grain but also a vegetable.

Hope this helps!