Things I learned in six months of cooking

[oyceter]

I am feeling insanely guilty on the increasing number of manga-focused posts, so I am actually trying to write non-manga posts and spamming everyone as a result.

Anyhow, random things I have learned from cooking...

I've really only been cooking since December, and last month I didn't cook anything because I was moving and my kitchen was in boxes. So this is going to have a lot of stupid epiphanies in it.

Ingredients

1. If you don't know what to do with it, sprinkle on salt and pepper and shove it under the broiler. Though if you're cooking Chinese food, dash on oyster sauce and soy sauce and stir fry the thing.



2. Cumin and cinnamon together are wonderful!



3. Chocolate and cinnamon and cayenne pepper also go together! (ok, I learned this more by eating than by cooking)



4. Fresh is almost always better, unless it's cheese. I have no idea how I lived off Safeway produce before, and prior to that, how I ate so much frozen stuff.



5. Whole grains are the best thing ever. Second to fresh fruits and vegetables. Maybe third to fresh seafood.



6. Onions, carrots and celery go together like... uh... onions, carrots and celery. Also, if you don't have one, you can usually stick in the other.



7. Despite my love of fresh produce, I relentlessly stockpile diced unsalted canned tomatoes and canned chickpeas. You may not go for the chickpeas if you're not as addicted to hummus and/or Middle Eastern food as I am, but the tomatoes are a lifesaver.



8. Apparently, commonly required ingredients for baking are: all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa powder, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, butter (I use vegetable oil instead because it doesn't spoil as quickly), milk (I use water instead because it doesn't spoil as quickly), and dark or semi-sweet chocolate. Once I figured this out and stocked up, life was much easier.



9. I have found that I will almost invariably need the following: yams (I tend to substitute them for potatoes to get more vitamins), tomatoes, onions, carrots, celery, and garlic (add ginger and scallions if I'm making Chinese food). Add beans or tofu for protein. I've also found that even if I don't know what I'm going to do with them, I can generally toss them together in something and it'll end up working.



10. In general, you can substitute oil for butter, water for milk, soy milk for milk, brown sugar for sugar and vice versa, onions and carrots and celery for onions and carrots and celery (interchange at will!), and assorted other things that I have yet to discover. Obviously, if you're supposed to be cutting the butter into dough, oil won't substitute as well as it would for melted butter, and if you're supposed to make whipped cream, obviously water is not a good bet. And since I learned from Good Eats that the hydroscopic nature of brown sugar and sugar are different, you should either add water to sugar if you use it as a substitute for brown sugar and vice versa. Or something. Also, be prepared for very wonky outcomes.



11. Spices and herbs are really freaking expensive. Whole spices are somewhat cheaper and stay fresher for longer; the only downside is waking up the neighbors or your roommate or your rats by attempting to hammer allspice in a plastic baggie without cracking your kitchen counters. I have now decided I need to move into the stone age and get a mortar and pestle.



12. On the other hand, once I stocked up, I could make anything! Or so it felt. Spice and herb staples in my kitchen are: cumin cumin cumin (I had no idea I used so much until I found out yesterday that I'm nearly out already), cinnamon, dried parsley (I know fresh is better, but it was a free dried herb set), cayenne pepper, paprika, cloves/allspice/mace (for granola! And much baking), and did I mention cumin? And, of course, salt and pepper.



13. I need to get actual peppercorns and an actual peppercorn grinder.



14. I succumbed to Alton Brown's wiles and switched over to kosher salt, which for some reason tastes less salty and is easier to sprinkle on things because it's in flakes instead of grains.

Hardware

1. You'll always need a larger soup pot than you're using (usually, this is discovered when your soup/beans/whatnot boils over and makes a mess).



2. I love silicone spatulas! I would get them in every color if I could to make my kitchen happy, but I suspect I don't need ten spatulas. I discovered the joys of silicone after melting my Rubbermaid spatula.



3. My favorite kitchen tools are my knife, my flexible cutting boards (easier to dump veggies in soup pots), and my cheap plastic and metal bowls that hold ingredients. And my pots. And my blender. And my food processor. Um, obviously I should never be allowed into any sort of kitchen-ware store by myself.



4. Apparently, commonly required hardware for cooking includes: a gigantic stock pot, a not-so-gigantic soup pot, a good frying pan/wok, a flippy thing (spatula? uh... I forgot what they're called, but you use them when you fry things and I have four because I get them dirty so quickly), chopsticks (for me... I like them better than a whisk or tongs), assorted random metal and plastic bowls for holding ingredients, a good cutting board (flexible! Cheap and color-coded!), a ladle, measuring cups, measuring spoons, the really nifty Oxo measuring cup that is awesome for measuring liquid things, little containers with flippy tops for salt (and corn starch and sugar for Chinese food), ziploc bags to freeze things in and keep that half an onion you didn't use, and a chef's knife. A tomato knife is also a great double for a bread knife. When in doubt, buy something larger than you need, because while you can cook for one in a huge pot, you can't cook for eight in a small one.



5. Other commonly required but not absolutely necessary hardware for cooking seems to include: a blender (ok, you can't really get around this, but usually you can not blend things), a food processor (knife skills! Unless you're making hummus, in which case...), a mixer (can generally be gotten around, though it means your hand might fall off from all the stirring and whisking), a rice cooker (I personally think this is a necessity, but I think that's only if you eat insane amounts of rice), a hot water thing (saves time, yay), a mortar and pestle for spices (I am about to give in and get one, since the hammer method is getting old), parchment paper (saves on clean up!), and probably a lot of other stuff I can't think of. Oh, and a laptop, since I get all my recipes online, heh.



6. Things that I desperately want but don't really, absolutely need: a pink KitchenAid stand mixer (I want to make bread!), souffle dishes, lots of colorful silicone spatulas, a real, non-dinky food processor, a blowtorch (what? Creme brulee! No, this has nothing to do with my desire for a chainsaw or a nailgun, really!), an electric skillet, a digital kitchen scale, a waffle iron, a stick blender, and assorted other specialized things that will probably just clog up my kitchen.



7. On the other hand, I can never have too many containers! Ziploc baggies, metal cannisters with airtight seals for grains, assorted random tupperware for leftovers and ingredients and anything else that fits when the sugar bag starts leaking, and all that good stuff.

Recipes and techniques

1. Alton Brown and Cook's Illustrated seem to agree on many things. I bow down to them.



2. I don't know how things work unless I futz around with them. Aka, recipes are a guideline, not a rule.



3. On the other hand, baking recipes are a rule unto themselves. But I futz around anyway.



4. Soups are great because they're not so much recipes as chucking in a lot of stuff with some seasoning and stirring.



5. Amazingly, things actually change colors when they cook, and this change is often a better guide to doneness than the recipe's recommended time. Ditto with texture.



6. Also, if you actually follow the recipe's suggestion for heat levels, things tend to work out better. (aka, sometimes when I get impatient, things go terribly wrong)



7. Measuring out vegetable oil in your measuring cup before measuring out molasses or honey or some other sticky thing saves a whole lot of time. Also, it's just satisfying to watch the sticky substance pour out at a pace faster than Heinz ketchup.



8. Always read recipes the entire way through so you don't discover halfway through the cooking process that you need a double boiler or an egg or something the recipe writer assumes you have and that you invariably are missing.



9. Necessity is the mother of invention. In other words: since I discovered the above about recipes the hard way, I had to make do with some very random substitutions, since giving up halfway through the recipe would have made me tear out my hair.



10. No one ever cooks anything the same way, so really, all recipes should be heavily annotated. Since most of mine are off the internet, I copy them down into a binder and do the annotating myself.



11. If you start cooking one type of cuisine, there's a great incentive to keep cooking it, since you'll have most of the basics in your kitchen already (aka, I need to cook more Chinese, and then it'll be a snowball effect!).



12. Sometimes my favorite recipes aren't really cooking at all (aka, yogurt sauce, which largely involves mixing garlic, yogurt, dill and cucumber and letting it chill, or caprese salad).

Random

1. I eat what my flist eats.



2. Cooking makes me think about things like texture and color and plating, not just flavor.



3. I still need to cook more Asian food.



4. I seem to gravitate toward Middle Eastern recipes, for some odd reason.



5. Having homemade whipped cream is sufficient reason to buy a hand mixer. Actually, it's sufficient reason to buy a stand mixer as well, it's that good.



6. I now no longer trust anything with an ingredient that I can't pronounce, but that's because I'm snobby and would rather make it myself.



7. Now when I eat out, I keep trying to figure out if I can backwards engineer something or not. I think it's somewhat related to staring at assorted knitted items and lying to myself and saying, "I could do that!"



8. Washing dishes apparently sparks my desire to cook, as does the magic time of ten at night.



9. When in doubt, freeze. Nowadays, I buy a loaf of bread, tear it into chunks and freeze all but one immediately. It doesn't take long to defrost, and it still tastes pretty good! I also freeze beans, egg whites, and chipotle peppers.

Comments

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Things that I desperately want but don't really, absolutely need: a pink KitchenAid stand mixer (I want to make bread!), souffle dishes, lots of colorful silicone spatulas, a real, non-dinky food processor, a blowtorch (what? Creme brulee! No, this has nothing to do with my desire for a chainsaw or a nailgun, really!), an electric skillet, a digital kitchen scale, a waffle iron, a stick blender, and assorted other specialized things that will probably just clog up my kitchen.

No wonder my kitchen is overstuffed - I have all of those things, plus a panini maker, an electric griddle, various attachments for my stand mixer, and way more specialized baking things than I probably really need. My stand mixer is black, but only because I needed one of the really powerful ones for making bread, and Kitchenaid doesn't do the powerful ones in interesting colors. I love my digital kitchen scale and wonder how I ever did without it, and it really doesn't take up much room. :)

Measuring out vegetable oil in your measuring cup before measuring out molasses or honey or some other sticky thing saves a whole lot of time. Also, it's just satisfying to watch the sticky substance pour out at a pace faster than Heinz ketchup.

The other thing that works well for this is the Wonder Cup. I own a one-cup one and a two-cup one and use them all the time.

Now when I eat out, I keep trying to figure out if I can backwards engineer something or not. I think it's somewhat related to staring at assorted knitted items and lying to myself and saying, "I could do that!"

I do this all the time. We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant on Maui, and I think my parents-in-law thought I was a little weird, because I kept taking teeny bits of the ricotta-gorgonzola sauce on my pasta and trying to figure out what was in it. :)

[oyceter]

*snork* Yay kitchen gadgetry! I am desperately attempting to quash the desire to stock up on tons of things, now that my kitchen space has increased, largely because I have just suffered through an attempt to pack up everything I own. That always makes me feel like I own too much!

Also, sadly, one reason I want a digital scale is so I can weigh my rats -_-;;. Obviously I would do this in a separate rat container though!

I so want the WonderCup! I want that and Alton Brown's salt cellar! I keep seeing it on his show, and oh, covet!

I do this all the time

Whoo! Definitely not weird. Not at all ;). Do you do that with knitted items too? I've totally caught myself staring at someone's sweater and had to quickly say that I was trying to figure out the pattern, not stare at their bust or something embarrassing like that.

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

I don't do it as often with knitted things, but I've definitely noticed myself doing it more and more as I get better at knitting. :)

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Yay for learning! Now I'm hungry, but will be eating Trader Joe's veggie gyoza for dinner instead because I have too much to work to do to cook tonight. :)

And get a stick blender. Someone gave me one for xmas and I thought I'd never use it, but not only is it great for blending soups right in the pot, but it also has a tiny food processor attachment I use to make pesto in batches.

[oyceter]

Mmmmm gyoza....

I really, really want a stick blender, especially because I make so much soup. Le sigh. But first, my stand mixer!

[hysteriachan.livejournal.com]

I have now decided I need to move into the stone age and get a mortar and pestle.

We have a mortar and pestle because Chris and an ex-roommate both fell in love with them. Ours hasn't been used very often, sadly, but it does get frequent comments as a display piece. ^_^

A waffle iron was my very favorite thing we were given when we got married! *loves* We have far more useful kitcheny things than we use (although some of the less-common ones *do* get used), including things like a springform cake pan, a crock pot, and an electric frying pan. And we recently we acquired a rice cooker, so I hope we can learn to make onigiri. Yum. *_*

And the husband says he can't help but like someone who cooks with a blow torch.

[oyceter]

Dude, I so want a waffle iron. I love waffles! And for some reason, the Bay Area breakfast joints I've been to don't seem to have waffles, which completely baffles me. Waffles and honey, mmmmm (I picked that up in Taiwan, I like it better than syrup).

I got a springform cake pan for cheesecake! It is lovely!

[hysteriachan.livejournal.com]

Happily, waffle irons can be reasonably cheap. Ours is nothing fancy, but it turns out some yummy waffles indeed. *^^* (I eat mine with chocolate and banana. And whipped cream. Decadence!) I should try them with honey sometime. ^^

Ack, foodtalk while the husband cooks and the house smells yummy . . . *wants supper*

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to restrict my salt intake. Substitute: lemon pepper or Florida Seasoned Pepper: ingredients include citrus crystals and citrus peel.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

"hydroscopic" should actually be "hygroscopic". It's weird. (Has to do with atmosphere more than water, I think is why.)

You need a microplane rasp, too.

[oyceter]

Oh oops, thanks! I keep mishearing it!

I really want a microplane rasp, especially since I make lemon curd a lot. Zesting the things on my grater is incredibly, incredibly annoying.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

milk (I use water instead because it doesn't spoil as quickly),

Lactose-free milk. No kidding. The stuff has an expiration date of weeks in the future, and it doesn't go bad for weeks afterward. I'm lactose intolerant so I have it in the house usually, but I hate the taste of milk, so I use it only for cooking. If you keep milk just to drink, it tastes slightly sweeter than normal because the lactose has already been broken down into glucose and galactase* but for all other intents and purposes, it's indistinguishable from regular milk. Well, I suppose maybe if you were one of those bread-makin' mavens who know how to judge the exact amount of water and flour by the humidity and temperature of the air and who are sensitive to microscopic changes in taste, you'd adjust the sugar in any given recipe ever-so-slightly downward, but...

At any rate, I wouldn't bake with water instead of milk because it changes the flavor and texture of the final product. :D


* This is what I lack the enzyme to do.

[oyceter]

Yeah, generally I try not to do too many substituions in baking, but that time, I was in the midst of scone making before I remembered I needed milk. And given my baking tendencies, it was 10 at night. Wargh.

I may do lactose-free milk... I never drink it, so it always feels like such a waste getting a carton and letting it rot in the fridge.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee. :D If you can get your hands on an older copy of The Joy of Cooking, before Ethan Becker (the original author's grandson) got his hands on it and turned it into the exact opposite of what the joy is supposed to be*, there's a section on substitutions in the middle that comes in handy for those "Ack, forgot [-----]!" moments. Sometimes. Sometimes it calls for an ingredient you're really not likely to have. XD


* Which isn't to say it's not a good cookbook, but it's not the Joy. The original Joy was basically a cookbook for the average housewife, with lots of instructions on how to skimp and save - it was originally published in the Depression. It has everything you're likely to meet ad even things you're not (it has a recipe for whale steaks, even) and stayed much the same theough many revisions. Ethan, however, is a Big! Fancy! Chef! who decided to completely redo it from the start and got rid of all those icky dated recipes and substituted them with new recipes that he and his chef buddies cooked up. So it's still dated, but in a completely different way, and the old standbys are mostly gone (and he got rid of the substitutions section!). I hear that he's overhauling it again to bring it back in line with the older version, but I do not hold out much hope.

[oyceter]

Hrm, I need to scrounge for another copy then. I've got the new version of Joy, which I do like and have found to be immensely helpful, but it'd be interesting to see how it compares to the old Joy.

The cool thing about new Joy is that it has more ethnic food in it, which I find really, really helpful.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yup. I've got a copy of the new Joy and use it a lot, but I also have a copy of the old one, and use it too. Or I would if Mom didn't have her hands on it. I shall have to liberate it next time I'm down there - Mom's got her old 1964 edition that she got as a wedding present; she doens't need mine!

Ethen

[(Anonymous)]

Actually telophase I know Ethen, and he did not screw it up Maria Guarnaschelli did, long story but years ago his family signed, as, Ethen puts it one of the worst contracts ever, it's a 50 50 contract with the publisher, so no one has any leverage, bad situation, read this
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6335915.html

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Food porn is great, but I am thrilled when you write about manga! Never feel guilty over writing about manga!

[oyceter]

Hee, gotcha!

Btw, have you read till ch. 126 in Furuba?! Or the latest of Reload? OMG I finished Reload 6 and it is so good! When you're back, I will kidnap you and give you a blow-by-blow summary if you want because I desperately need to talk about it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Neither yet-- could you send me Reload scans when I return? I can't download them now.

[oyceter]

Yes, definitely! I've only got a few on my computer, because I read vol. 5 in Chinese and bought vol. 6 from Kinokuniya.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Do you have a store nearby where you can buy spices in bulk? (Usually a hippie co-op type place, but I think Whole Foods might carry them, too.) It is *so* much cheaper than buying them in jars, and your spices will always be fresh, because you can buy as little or as much as you need.

Or, if you decide to be super-gourmet and stick with whole spices, you can buy a small coffee bean grinder and dedicate it to grinding spices.

[oyceter]

Do you have a store nearby where you can buy spices in bulk?

Um, you know, that's a really good idea! I bet there is, given that this is the Bay Area (oh, California, I love you!). And I may end up buying them whole and in bulk, just because apparently the whole ones keep the flavor for much, much longer.

Currently, I just grind them when I need them for recipes, so I haven't needed enough for a grinder, but I'm definitely moving on from the hammer ;).

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Kitchenware stores? I call them "porn stores."

I have a stick mixer! Nyah! You may commence jealousy.

[oyceter]

Kitchenware stores? I call them "porn stores."

Oh totally! I told my friend we were going to look at kitchen porn when we went into Sur La Table, and she looked at me in confusion. But seriously. Kitchen porn!

I am extremely envious of your stick blender!

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Oh, a small cheap coffee grinder is great for spices, unless you like the pounding of a pestle.

[canandagirl.livejournal.com]

I should send you my bag of allspice. I hardly use the stuff. I just have one receipe which I mix spinach, ground meat (beef, chicken, pork, it doesn't matter), tomato paste, chopped green onions, cinnamon, allspice, salt, pepper, coriander (or orange peel -- I use both). I brown the meat first, then mix everything else together. Once done, I scoop the stuff onto couscous and viola! Dinner is served.

I always have on hand paprika, thyme, basil, some sort of poultry spice and my new favorite is coriander. But I seem to have a ton of spices lurking in my cabinet. You'll have to come and check out my kitchen if you're staring at my bookshelves. :)

[oyceter]

Oooo! I don't use a lot of it, but I use it fairly consistently for granola. Your recipe sounds really good!

It's funny, I don't seem to use herbs quite as often, with the exception of rosemary. But I want my own little herb garden, so maybe I'll use more then. Plus, fresh basil. Mmmmm.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Hey, I signed up for the manga, so don't feel guilty on my account. Not that I expect you do, I'm new here.

Food squee is also fun to read. I meant to comment that I followed the link to that recipe for Spinach Soup that you posted earlier in the week and printed it off to try it myself someday soon (as in, whenever I can haul my butt out for groceries, which really needs to be tonight).

You might like this recipe:

Afghan Chili

1 cup dried kidney beans, picked over and rinsed.
1 cup dried green mung beans, "
1 cup dried split peas (yellow or green), "

2-3 medium cooking onions, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
3+ large cloves of fresh garlic (I love garlic and often use about half the head, though), minced
about an inch of fresh ginger, finally minced or grated.

1 medium (10? 12? oz) can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp dried dill (or about 2 tbsp fresh chopped)
1 tsp cinnamon (or more to taste)
salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

Serve with dollops of plain yogurt.

Directions:
Use large soup/stock pot (5-6 liters). Cover kidney and mung beans with water (about two inches above beans) and soak in fridge overnight OR if in a hurry, bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes and then cool to room temperature on top of stove (about an hour). After soaking, drain and rinse again. Add split peas to beans in pot. Cover with about two inches of water, bring to a gentle simmer for about 1-2 hours, stirring occassionally. (A fiercer boil explodes the beans but it will still taste good.) Add more water if needed to keep beans from drying out -- they should swell to surface of the water but remain covered.

Use a large frying pan or even a stirfry pan. Add olive oil and heat until shimmery over medium-low, then add onions, garlic, and ginger, stirring to coat. Saute until transparent and deep golden. Stir in tomato sauce, dill, cinnamon, and any other seasonings. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Add sauce mixture to beans when kidney beans are soft and not starchy, and the split peas have gone to mush to make a pea-soup-like consistancy instead of beans-in-water. Simmer for about 15 minutes or so to blend flavours (or simmer on very low heat for up to a few hours if you do like me and make it too early because you didn't trust the beans wouldn't take forever this time, or turn off heat and let sit for 15 minutes if you HAD been waiting on the beans and you're going to serve immediately because you're starving), stirring occasionally. Laddle into bowls and put a spoonful of plain yogurt in the center.

Makes 8+ servings. Great as leftovers and freezes well.

Options: Add chili powder, cumin, and other spices at the onion-tomato stage if you want a more chili-like-chili. I like it with dill and cinnamon as the dominant spice flavours, though.

Sometimes I soak the beans one day, cook them the next day, then put in the fridge overnight and reheat the third day (slowly, this takes about half an hour) while working on the onion and sauce mixture, so it's only a little bit of work each day, and I can be sure it will be ready for suppertime on day three.

I've been making this regularly for years now after getting the recipe for a friend, and lost the original recipe a couple moves back so I hope I've remembered everything here. *^_^*

[oyceter]

Oh thank you for the recipe! That looks great, and I have most of the things already! Well, I don't have the beans, which I suspect are the key ingredient ;). But since I was going to experiment with mung bean soup (sweet) and split pea soup, it sounds like a good investment.

And the spinach soup is quite lovely! Though I realized while I was eating my green glop at the office that other people might look askance as it. But... it's so green and pretty!

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Agh, I forgot a very important ingredient, and I didn't think of it again until I was considering making a batch for myself:

1 can of sliced black olives

Drain and add to chili at the same time that the onion and tomato sauce mixture is added to the beans.

[oyceter]

Oh thank you! That's so nice of you to hunt down the comment and let me know!

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Foodsquee!

(I made stir-fry last night -- pork with green peas and yellow pepper in basil sauce. I am so proud of myself.)

[oyceter]

Stir-fry! Basil sauce, wow!

You do realize it was your scones that sent me down this long, forsaken path? ;)

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

The stir-frying is easy. The sauce is the part that's a pain.