Corduroy Orange

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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Dear Corduroy:

I am very dependent on my oven for all sorts of cooking and baking. However, the heating element disintegrated overnight while I was cooking a country ham. Do you have any suggestions for making it through the next several weeks while we try to figure out whether to pay the gas company an arm and a leg to put in a gas line so we can have a gas stove or just go buy another electric one? I need to fix quick meals that are going to be healthy. The stove top still works, so I am not completely without cooking equipment.

Do you think the oven might have been objecting to having been used for 14 straight hours yesterday as well as about 6 the day before?

It’s very good that we’re going to be out of town and mooching off our son and his wife for a few days of this emergency.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

It may ease your pain to know that your oven died an honorable death. A real country ham is a delicacy not widely known outside of the South—salt cured, no water injected; it puts the hams commonly found on the mass market to shame.

Fortunately, your oven is the only part of the equipment that is broken and you still have a functioning stovetop. Not only that, but you have full access to all ingredients available in a United Statesian supermarket (I don’t say American because the Americas consist of two continents), and have easy access to produce that you can eat raw. That means that your meal preparation bind is a fair bit less serious than what Derek is up against while working in China. For starters, I’d suggest that you follow the same advice that I gave him: pancakes, hash browns, and eggs if you want a hot breakfast (you could even make waffles—they sure are tasty!); stews, soups, and pan-seared meats for lunches and dinners.

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Jesse–
It seems like every time I open my fridge, I find a mysterious plastic container lurking in the back. Often, I’m not sure how old these leftovers are. How long do leftovers last? How can I tell if they’ve turned? How long are they safe to eat?
–Wary in Pittsburgh

There’s really no hard and fast rule for how long leftovers last. Often, I’ll apply some sort of arbitrary rule (this is a week and a half old, it can’t be good anymore); other times, the symptoms are quite clear (mold and/or a funky smell). In general, if it smells bad, looks bad, tastes bad, or you can’t remember when you first ate it, it’s probably not a good idea to eat it again.

There’s really no reason for you not being able to identify how old a leftover is, though. Keep a roll of masking tape and a permanent marker in the kitchen. Every time you package some food for storage, tear off a piece of tape and label the container with the name of the contents and the date you made them. That way, next time you’re cleaning out the fridge you’ll be able to say for certain, “Beef stroganoff? We ate that two months ago!”

Hello Jesse,

I just stumbled upon your blog today through various clicks and it has been a real treat to read. I am currently living in rural China as part of World Teach, a volunteer program that sends willing participants to developing countries, teaching their little ones Spoken English. I have 23 classes a week, which translates to over 1000 students.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Chinese food is delicious, and I can guarantee you’ve never had real Chinese food (that stuff from the states is not!). I live in southern Hunan which is known for their spicy dishes, and let me you, they ain’t lyin. However, every once in a while you get sick, as a foreigner this is to be expected. Crops are grown wherever they can and are fertilized with the most natural of fertilizers (poop!) amongst other things. Who knows what it was? Either way, it only reinforced my plan to begin cooking more for myself. Stateside I’m an enthusiastic kitchen dweller with my own favorites. Yet, I’m homesick, and I can’t wait for the day when I can make a proper breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So, my question, I’m looking for a little advice in terms of what to cook for myself. As for implements, I have a two burner gas stove, which seems to have 2 settings, afterburner and not-so-afterburner, and a microwave which I haven’t fully learned how to operate. I have a wok and a frying pan, and two pots, both pressure cookers, however, one does not have a lid. They are maybe 3 quarts? It’s possible to find bigger pots, however, most are incredibly thin pounded sheet metal.

As for ingredients: Of course, rice, lots and lots of rice. Rice noodles as well. I have absolutely no cheese to speak of. However, the kids all drink some “milk” that’s never refrigerated. Vegetables include garlic, ginger, tomatoes, potatoes, red onion, pumpkin, white gourd, cucumber, eggplant, carrot, celery, mushrooms, numerous greens, cabbage, some other unidentified root vegetables, and of course, peppers. Fruits include apples, oranges, bananas.

Meats include pork, beef, duck, chicken, dog, rabbit, cat, boar, goat, and a ton of fish, amphibians, snakes, and I’ve even seen a badger for sale. Now, most of these are sold whole, cleaned, but whole. The pork you can buy by the half kilo, and there is no such thing as a cut of meat. You get whatever you point to.

There’s a plethora of other stuff, dried spices, dried meats, eggs, but much I cannot identify.

Peace,
Derek

Derek–

Surprisingly, I have had real Chinese food, though nowhere near as much as you have, and from Beijing, where I spent a few days in 1999. More often than not, I didn’t know what I was eating. Though some of the foods I tried were quite tasty, each sampling of a new dish took a great deal of willpower (I swear one of the foods I sampled was jellyfish, but I have no way of knowing for certain). My main impression of eating in China was that each meal was an adventure. It sounds like you have a more balanced and positive view of the local cuisine than my short stay provided me, but in any case I can understand why you would like to do some more cooking for yourself.

Your available equipment, of course, puts some limitations on what you can make, the most notable being nothing roasted or baked. Still, with some creativity, there’s still a fairly wide range of what you can accomplish with two burners.

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Hey there Corduroy–

I was wondering what exactly happens to maraschino cherries to make them maraschino? I’ve heard rumours that they get bleached so that they can be dyed to uniformity. Is that true? And also, is the ’sch’ in maraschino hard like it is in ’school’ or soft as in ‘Schlitz’?

Thanks!

Schirley Temple

Dear Skirley ,

Truth is, the cherries are bleached, but not with bleach and not in order to be able to dye them uniformly. It happens as a side effect of the preservation process. The cherries are soaked in a brine of sulfur dioxide (to keep them from rotting) and calcium salts to maintain their texture. Though the brine ensures that you won’t get a mushy, rotten cherry, it robs the fruit of not only its color, but also its flavor, thereby leaving the preserved fruit a bland template onto which any flavor and color combination could theoretically be imposed. The most popular, of course, is the bright red maraschino which is dyed with FD&C red #40 and flavored with benzaldehyde, a flavoring derived from almonds. Josh Sens writes for Salon that “Orange, yellow and pink maraschinos have all been produced for niche consumers. And a few years back, the Omni Hotel Group commissioned a cherry of red, white and blue.”

An alternative to artificially dyed cherries has been developed that uses radish skins and black carrots as a source of pigments[1, 2], but cherries of this type are neither well known nor widely available. Most cherries on the market follow the artificial route toward re-infusion.

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I would love if you posted your cast iron seasoning and storage tips!

And I am glad to hear about the dutch oven and popcorn. Not only does the term “dutch oven” crack me up, but I have one and don’t have a popcorn maker and now I feel like the world is my popcorny oyster.

–Kari

Seasoning cast iron pans is about as painless a process as it gets, but taking the little bit of time to do it will ensure that your cast iron lasts not only for your lifetime, but your grandkids’ as well. Here’s how:
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Corduroy–

I’ve read your advice about knives/ what kind to buy, but really I’m more in the market for better cookware. My pots and pans are old and aluminum. I’m well aware that they aren’t an ideal set of pans, but I don’t know what I should be looking for when I go to replace them.

L.

Dear L.:

Acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step towards solving it. Simply by admitting that you have substandard pans, you’ve begun the path toward correcting the situation.

As you’ve suggested, aluminum is not a good food contact surface. Though it is light-weight and conducts heat well, it is a soft metal and corrodes quickly in the presence of acid. These two factors mean that when cooking in aluminum pans, you’re apt to wind up with trace amounts of aluminum in your meals. Some medical studies have suggested that aluminum intake may be a factor contributing toward the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, the aluminum may discolor some foods (especially sauces) and contribute an off-flavor to your cooking. For all of these reasons, I do not cook with aluminum pans.

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Jesse–
We got to a lot of pot-lucks, and I have trouble coming up with a good entree dish to bring that needs to be made the day before.

Ideas?

Really, as far as day-before potluck prep goes, I think it works better with desserts than it does with entrees. Cookies, brownies, and fruit crisps are all easy-to-make desserts that travel easily and keep well overnight.

If you’re sold on the idea of making entrees though, I’d have to recommend quiche as a simple solution. There is an endless variety of what type of quiche you can make because every time you switch the fillings and/or the cheeses, you’ve got a new dish. Not only that, but quiches are ridiculously easy to make. So, with some help from my father-in-law, Rob Luscher, and my wife, Aurora, here’s how you can make a dish to impress for nearly any occason:
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Hola Jesse,

To the untrained cook, breads and flours come in two different types: white bread and not white bread. Here at our house we keep two types of flour around, white flour and whole wheat flour. When baking with the whole wheat flour, the result is much less sweet and a little more firm than with white flour. Why is this? What is the process to take whole wheat and turn it into white flour? What happens to all the stuff that is removed from whole wheat flour to turn it into white flour?
Thanks!

–Patrick

Patrick–

Flour can come from any grain. If you look in the right places, you can find rye flour, barley flour, spelt flour, buckwheat flour, and more. For the most part, the only type of flour most of us use is wheat flour. Whether it’s whole or white depends on how the wheat is handled after it’s been ground into flour.

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Mr. Orange:
Welcome back on line. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
We are planning to fry a turkey on Saturday. I know first hand that you make a very tasty garlic injection sauce.
Is there any chance you could have time to share the details prior to Sat. so that we can recreate it?

Sure can! I’ve got lots of time now to share recipes that I’ve already done (though not quite so much ability to develop new ones). You’re in luck, too, because the garlic-infused hot sauce injection is incredibly easy to make.

Simply smash a few cloves of garlic (6-8 or so) so that they’re basically whole, but broken. That way their natural oils can easily comingle with the hot sauce and lend their flavor to it. Put the garlic in a sauce pan and add 12 ounces of cayenne pepper hot sauce. Put over a medium flame and let simmer for about a half hour or forty-five minutes. Strain the garlic from the hot sauce and let it cool.

Using your turkey-injection needle, inject the infused hot sauce into the breasts, legs, and thighs of your bird (so that pockets of flavor form between the skin and the meat; you’ll be able to see the bubbles) and then fry it according to the directions provided with your turkey fryer. Also, be certain to follow all safety precautions listed in your turkey fryer instruction book, including (but not limited to) only using the turkey fryer outdoors, not overfilling it, and keeping a close eye on the temperature of the oil.

Email me your culinary questions!