cooking basics – In Good Taste

Kitchen Tip: Mise en Place

Maris Callahan — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:30:00 +0000

I’m going to be up front with you here. Most of the time, when I’m finished cooking, my kitchen looks slightly as though it’s been ransacked. When I try to clean as I go, I get distracted from the actual cooking and when that happens, things get burned, abandoned, forgotten or neglected. The majority of my culinary mistakes happened because I just wasn’t paying a bit of attention. Enter, the mise en place. Mis en place is a French phrase defined by the Culinary Institute of America as “everything in place,” or set up. Think of your favorite food show: you’ve never seen Paula Deen scrambling to find the pepper while her onions sizzle away on the stove. She has her ingredients organized, measured and prepared before she gets started. Now, let’s ignore the fact that an intern probably does it for her and concentrate on the task at hand. Having your mis en place before cooking means that your ingredients are measured out, washed, chopped, and placed in individual bowls. You have all of the equipment you need, such as spatulas and bowls, within arm’s reach. Your ovens are preheated and your trash receptacle is at the ready. Preparing […]

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Kitchen Tip: Knife Skills

Maris Callahan — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Every budding chef needs a chef’s knife, which has a broad, tapered shape and a fine sharp edge. Every chef also needs to learn a few basic knife skills (are you thinking about the scene in Julie & Julia where Julia Child was chopping piles of onions?). Chefs knives are designed so they rock on a cutting board as they cut food. A dull knife is more likely to slip during cutting, putting your hands and fingers at risk of accidental injury. A razor-sharp knives make cooking a far easier, quicker task and can help make your food look more visually appealing. You can cut perfect cubes, ribbon-thin julienne vegetables and perfect minces; no more unwieldy chunks of onion in your favorite marinara sauce. Here are a few knife skills basics to get you started. Use sharp knives If you’re sharpening your own knives at home, you can use whetsone or a steel rod to refresh your blades. Also, most kitchen stores offer knife sharpening services that will do it for you for a small cost. No matter how you decide to sharpen your knife, it’s important to start with the right blade. According to our friends at Fine Cooking, one size does not […]

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Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Maris Callahan — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Growing up, the only sweet potatoes I knew were served with Thanksgiving dinner, smothered in marshmallows and brown sugar. Then I learned about baked sweet potato fries. Now I’ll take a sweet potato over its whiter, starchier counterpart just about any day of the week. Since we all have to begrudgingly admit that yes, it is still winter (stupid groundhog!), now is the time to pay homage to root vegetables. Sweet potatoes can be served mashed, blended into soups, breads, stews or in lieu of a traditional baked potato. They also make great oven fries for moments when you’re craving something that tastes a little bit more indulgent. A lot of us confuse sweet potatoes with yams, when in actuality there are some subtle differences between the two. Even though we use the terms interchangeably, in actuality the sweet potatoes and yams that we find here in the US are actually all sweet potatoes. Yams, of which there are about 200 varieties do not grow in the States but were first identified by African slaves as “nayami.” Pretty cool, right? Neither sweet potatoes nor yams are actually even included in the “potato” family: they are considered tubers and the sweet potato […]

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