Corduroy Orange

Hi Jesse:

I really enjoy your blog! I like your writing a good deal - I’m a member of the Co-op and get the newsletter so I’ve read your articles. It’s nice to see some food blogs out there that are local to me. I have kind of a silly question: I tried to get Bourdain tickets just over a month ago and they were sold out then. Drue Heinz never sells out. This makes me think that there is some food culture here in Pittsburgh that I’m totally unaware of. I just wanted to ask, am I living under a rock?

Thank you,

Darcy

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Martha says

I forgot to pick up my pies from the PTA fundraiser and now they’re at the food bank. What am I going to do for Easter dessert?

Hmmm…. that is a bit of a quandary, especially if you were counting on that course having been taken care of for you already. You can’t really get away with serving a plate of cookies at a formal meal; and you probably have a fairly extensive menu of savory dishes that you’ll need to make. Which means, you’re looking for a tasty, attractive dessert that can hold its own at a formal table but can be made with minimal time and effort.  Lucky for you, I’ve got a couple of ideas.
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Knife Guy asked:

What type of Chef’s knife do you recommend?

I mainly recommend the knife that feels right to you.  Definitely high carbon stainless steel, and I advocate spending at least $85-$100, assuming that you’ll treat the knife well and get it professionally sharpened 3-4 times a year.

The knife should be sized appropriately to your hand and have a weight balance that you are happy with—so hold at least 4 or 5 different knifes before you decide on the one you want.

For my full guide to shopping for a knife, read this article and for more tips on the best way to use your knives, follow the links in my knife skills table of contents.

When a recipe calls for cooking something at ‘high heat’, does that mean that I should turn the knob on my gas stove as far as it can go?  Does ‘high heat’ equate to ‘maximum heat’?  And is ‘low’ the point at which I can first see the gas flame?  I always seem to have a very difficult time regulating the temperature, mainly for cooking things at ‘medium-high’ or ‘medium-low’, but I’m not sure if it’s my gas stove or if I’m just an idiot!

Cheers,
Heather

Heather—

No need to feel embarrassed or inept; while it seems like a simple question, it really is one that has so many shades of gray, depending on what equipment you’re working with.  If you’ve got a Vulcan or a Blue Star Range, for instance, you’ll have the possibility of much higher heat in your kitchen than I have with my 20-year old Kenmore stove.  And, really, with most average stoves, you’ll have a bit more control over the flame than I’ve got with mine because for some inscrutable region, though the knobs are round, I’ve only got about 90 degrees worth of the circle to control my flame with, so I wind up spending a few minutes whenever I turn it on bent down looking under the pot and tapping the knob with my finger trying to get it to move just a nudge in one direction or the other.

I know you didn’t ask me about the shortcomings of my home kitchen, but I mention them to underscore the point that what one person’s stove says is “high” might be another’s “medium-high” and you can’t really go by the markings on your dial.  Instead, bring all of your senses into the cooking process.  If you’re sauteeing over high heat, for instance, listen to how loudly the stuff in the pan is sizzling.  If it’s so loud that you can’t hear yourself speak over it, your heat is too high.  If it’s barely sizzling at a whisper, your heat is too low.  Instead, seek a conversational tone to the sizzle.

Where your dial points for that will depend on a number of factors, including how long your pan has been heating up on the range, how big the pan is, what the pan is made out of, how much stuff you have in the pan, and how cold the stuff was before you added it.  Every time you put something new into the pan, you cool it down just a bit, and will likely have to nudge the heat slightly higher, at least briefly, to make up for that.

I also trust my senses of sight and smell.  Golden brown=good; black=bad.  If the stuff on the bottom of the pan starts looking too dark, I’ll add a bit of water to the pan and deglaze the fond from the bottom so that nothing gets burnt.  If I smell something starting to burn, I remove the pan from the heat immediately so that it cools down as quickly as possible, and often add a bit of water to the pan at that point, too.
If you’re cooking rice, on the other hand, high heat sort of means as high as it will go.  I mean sort of in a general, kind of fuzzy, and far from definitive sense.  On the one hand, you want to bring the water to a boil relatively quickly.  On the other, you don’t want to scorch the rice to the bottom of the pan.  So, what I wind up doing is starting with the heat at its maximum, and then nudging it down slightly as the water shows signs of approaching a boil.  When the water really does boil, I stir the rice once or twice with a wooden spoon to make sure nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pan, turn the heat down quite low (approaching the lowest) and put the lid on the pan.  To make absolutely certain, i set the timer for 5-10 minutes less than the instructions on cooking the rice tell me to and turn the heat off when the timer goes off, but leave the lid on the pan so that the steam continues cooking the rice but avoiding the application of gross amounts of heat to the bottom of the pan as the last of the water evaporates.

I wish I could give you more specific instructions, but adjusting the height of the flame is one of the key areas where the art comes into the culinary arts.  Nothing ever really cooks the exact same way twice on top of the stove because there are so many factors that contribute to the progression of the dish—not only the height of the flame, but the exact amount of ingredients used, the stage at which additional ingredients are added to the pan, the percentage of water in the specific ingredient you’re using (no two turnips/ carrots/ onions/ etc. are exactly the same), how much attention you’re paying to it, and so on.  One pf the most difficult aspects of cookery to master is knowing when a pan of food needs your attention, and when prodding at it with a spoon or a spatula is unnecessary “tickling” that will disrupt the process of its cooking.

In short, if it’s burning, turn the heat down; but if it’s starting to simmer in its own juices, turn the heat up.  I hope that’s at least some help.  If not, feel free to fly me (first class) to your home and house me for the weekend for some private cooking and knife skills lessons….

Jesse,
I don’t understand the difference between all the different types of
eggs…free range, cage free, happy chicken, organic, Omega 3, etc…..Help!
Ida

Free range doesn’t actually mean much of anything. It’s unfortunate, but hens housed in a warehouse, not kept in cages, and given access to the outside through a door at the end of the warehouse that they never travel through are free range. The only difference between cage free eggs and free range eggs is that the cage free hens don’t have the door at the end of the warehouse, but since none of the hens in the other warehouse really take advantage of the door, it’s not a big deal.

Vegetarian diet eggs are preferable to eggs from hens fed chicken meal and fish meal and beef byproducts, though a naturally-raised hen is omnivorous and can get a decent percentage of her diet from bugs and grubs in the ground. So, if you get your eggs from a farm where the hens really are cage free and free range, don’t expect that they will have led a vegetarian life (but do expect that they haven’t been fed industrial byproducts).

Organic eggs may also be raised in a warehouse. The feed may contain some industrial byproducts including fish meal, so long as it is certified organic feed.

With so many shady labeling schemes by large egg distributors, that’s why I recommend that, if possible, you get eggs that are identified by the farm where the chickens were raised. Even better would be to know about the farm and the conditions that the hens are raised in, but at the very least if you are getting farm-fresh eggs from a store, you have indication that a) the eggs are being raised in a fairly small operation and b) the product is good enough for the store to stock it. Not only that, but you have the farm’s contact information so that you can, if you desire, call them up and ask them about where their birds are kept.

In Pittsburgh, eggs from several individual farms are available on a regular basis at the East End Food Co-Op, though the selection of farms they stock tends to vary. Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, Whole Foods, and other locations have eggs from Champion Chicks in Donegal, PA, where the eggs come from a flock of 500 and are gathered by hand. Also, if you ever go on drives outside of Pittsburgh into the rural areas of PA, WV, and OH, it is fairly common to see signs advertising eggs at individual farms. If you happen to pass by such a location and you have the time to stop, I highly recommend that you do.

The Omega-3 eggs are shown to have higher concentrations of Omega-3 fatty acids than a standard egg does. These fatty acids have been shown to perhaps reduce the risk of some types of heart disease. If you are seeking to reduce your risk of heart disease, though, it seems to me that eggs should be at the periphery of a wider range of dietary choices.

Re: the Mashed Potato Bar, Gloria asks:

Any suggestions of other items to serve in beside Martini Glasses? Would like something different and cool.
What about parfait glasses (ie the deep, narrow dishes sundaes are often served in)? It’s kind of a twist on the ice cream cone idea listed in the mashed potato bar comments section, but it would work, visually—scoops of spuds mixed with your choice of toppings, topped with a drizzle of gravy. Of course, you’d need enough iced tea spoons for everyone to get to the bottom of their glass.

Or perhaps you could get some long, rectangular plates, such as sushi might be served on. That would give people a chance to make 3 or 4 variations on the mashed potatoes and keep them separated, whilst still appearing somewhat more sophisticated than the army-style three-compartment plate.

Last suggestion I’ve got is to make parmesan cheese dishes by sprinkling a thin layer of parmesan into a hot pan. When it crisps up and releases from the pan, drape the pancake over an upturned bowl to form it. When it cools, it will hold its shape.  It will be a bit fragile, and so you’ll need to serve each of them on a plate, but they wind up fluted and they’re edible, and the cheese flavor should mesh well with the potatoes.
If anyone else has any more ideas for Gloria, please let her know!

I’m visiting my wife’s family for the holidays and we went out today for a look-see at the town where they live, including a stop at a local Kansas City-style barbecue joint for lunch. I’ve written before about my qualm with KC barbecue:

when I go to a restaurant, I like when they prepare my food for me, and that includes tossing the shredded meat with the sauce to evenly coat it. They’ve got the advantage of having large bowls in which they can toss the meat, whereas when they give it to you to dress yourself, you’re stuck having to pour it over the top–whereby half the meat gets loads of sauce and the other half is still nude.

Faced with the same dilemma today, I sprung into action, removing the barbecue from the bun onto the plate and setting the bun aside. Then, using my knife and spoon I tossed my pulled pork with the sauce of my choosing until it was evenly coated and reddish in hue, then returned it to the bun and covered it with an even layer of cole slaw. While I’d still prefer that barbecue places ask you which sauce you’d like and then coat your order with it, at least now I’m equipped with an adequate solution to the dilemma of the undressed meat.

Jesse—Can you please try to help me identify a squash I recently got? It never occured to me to take a picture of it before I cooked it, and now it’s just a frozen flat light orange hunk labled “George P’s mystery squash,” but it is wonderful: very sweet and smooth textured after a run through the biggest holed disk in my food mill. It was smaller than a butternut, oval shaped, kinda yellow in color and with green stripes. I’ve seen similar looking stuff in the grocery store but the sign says that is a varient of spaghetti squash, which I know I don’t have.

I know exactly what kind of squash you had, it was a delicata!  I’m 99% sure, anyway.  You can verify by going to the article I wrote about squash for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and seeing if it looked like the squash at the bottom of the top photo.

I am having a cocktail party and will be featuring a whipped potato bar. I know that it is considered proper etiquette to eat mashed potatoes with a fork, but in this case (serving the potatoes in a martini glass) would you go with a dinner fork, salad fork, or teaspoon?

In this case, the martini glass serves as a de facto bowl, thus I say you should use a spoon. Whether Emily Post would agree with me, I’m not sure. My basic thought on the subject is: if you’re eating it out of a bowl, you probably want a spoon; whereas if you’re eating it from a plate, you probably want a fork. While there are exceptions to the rule, it answers the conundrum correctly 19 times out of 20.

My daughter is in Africa with the Peace Corps and is looking for recipes that she can cook over an open fire (no ovens, electricity, running water etc..) Right now she is looking for a recipe for butternut squash. Can anyone help?

Not knowing what other resources she has available apart from butternut squash and an open fire, it’s tough for me to give any sort of recipe advice. However, I can recommend that the easiest way to cook a butternut squash with an open flame would be to submerge the whole squash in hot coals (how I usually get coals are by building a fire up and then letting it die down so that the coals are hot but there’s not a flame) and letting it roast inside its own skin. Turn it occasionally, and when it’s easily pierced, it’s done and can be easily broken open and eaten. The seeds and skin are also edible and may also be eaten, or discarded if she so desires.

Depending on what else she has available, the squash is quite tasty mashed with butter, sugar, and or sweet spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. But, like I said, not knowing what the sum total of her available resources is, it’s tough to give specific recommendations beyond cooking method.