Cooking smart
In previous entry titled "Cooking with fresh ingredients ", I wrote about some of my personal rules for cooking such as cooking with fresh ingredients not processed food, using extra virgin olive oil as everyday oil, planning a weekly menu based on what I already have in my pantry,refrigerator, and freezer.
Then, in previous entry titled "Japanese diet Part III ", I wrote about my mother's cooking tips on order of adding seasoning to the dishes; add seasoning in order " sa-shi-su-se-so"(sugar-salt-vinegar-soy sauce-miso).
Here, I like to write more personal rules for cooking along with things I have learned from my mother to cook efficiently.
1. Don't drink/smoke while cooking
** I usually don't drink coffee,tea,coco, whatever drinks at least 30 minutes before cooking and during the cooking. I never smoke but I think drinking and smoking can effect your palate, and you could be off on seasoning especially salt.
** The rule above was just from personal ideas, and I was curious if there were any relationship on drinking/smoking with off palate. I googled and found one article on relationship on taste buds and smoking. You can read the full article at post-gazette.com here .
2. Read the recipe before actual cooking
** Reading an entire recipe makes you easy to follow recipes and, make plan on what dishes to cook first if you cook more than one recipes, and also you can back plan the meal time
3. Make sure to taste the dish before serving
4. Turn on the stove or oven before start cooking
** I usually go through recipes to plan what to cook in what order first, and then, I place the pan on stove top,pour a bit of Extra virgin olive oil and start preparing vegetable from the one that require long cooking time. For example, if I use onion,pepper, carrots, I will cut the carrots first and as I cut them, I put the carrots into skillet.
5. Add ingredients that require long time to skillet/sauce pan first.
6. Start from dish that require long cooking time.
** For example, if you cook rice and stir fry. Start with rice. While it is simmered, you can work on stir fry.
7. If you cook steak, use meat thermometer. That way, you will serve no under cooked/over cooked steak or chicken. I know there is finger test for steak, but I think using thermometer is sure way to serve perfect steak/chicken all the time.My favorite thermometer is called Thermapen via Thermoworks. This tool read temperature very accurate and read fast.
8. Have a couple of timers.
** I have 2 timers. Having more than 1 timer comes handy when you need to time more than one dish. By setting the timer one for each let you concentrate on other things you need to work on stove.
9. Pull out ingredients from refrigerator except dairy before start cooking, and put those close to you
** This prevent you to make trips between refrigerator and kitchen counter for each ingredients
10.If you needed butter the baking dish, you can use the wrapper of the butter,not slice of butter. You can wipe the baking dish around with butter stick wrap. That will be enough to butter to prevent sticking to the dish.
11. When you have leftover, try use your creativity and you can make ordinal dish with left over with twist.
12. Leftover plain rice, especially long grain rice such as Jasmine rice dry out when kept in refrigerator. Add a little bit of water over rice in the microwave safe container and cover the top loosely to get steam out, and microwave them. Water rehydrate the dry out rice. You can also use dry out rice in fried rice and while cooking fried rice, add splash of water to rehydrate the rice.
** If you made too much rice, you can portion out and put them in zip bag and freeze them. Whenever you need rice, you can put the frozen rice into microwave safe container and add a little bit of water and microwave them. I do not thaw the frozen rice.
** Other than rice, I have some occasion I made too much meatball. If you made too much meatball, I usually cook them all and cool it down, freeze them. Next time I need the quick dish, I wrap the cooked meatballs with foil and put them in the oven at 350F till heated through.
There are some more, but I will stop here for today.
What are your personal rules for cooking?
Then, in previous entry titled "Japanese diet Part III ", I wrote about my mother's cooking tips on order of adding seasoning to the dishes; add seasoning in order " sa-shi-su-se-so"(sugar-salt-vinegar-soy sauce-miso).
Here, I like to write more personal rules for cooking along with things I have learned from my mother to cook efficiently.
1. Don't drink/smoke while cooking
** I usually don't drink coffee,tea,coco, whatever drinks at least 30 minutes before cooking and during the cooking. I never smoke but I think drinking and smoking can effect your palate, and you could be off on seasoning especially salt.
** The rule above was just from personal ideas, and I was curious if there were any relationship on drinking/smoking with off palate. I googled and found one article on relationship on taste buds and smoking. You can read the full article at post-gazette.com here .
2. Read the recipe before actual cooking
** Reading an entire recipe makes you easy to follow recipes and, make plan on what dishes to cook first if you cook more than one recipes, and also you can back plan the meal time
3. Make sure to taste the dish before serving
4. Turn on the stove or oven before start cooking
** I usually go through recipes to plan what to cook in what order first, and then, I place the pan on stove top,pour a bit of Extra virgin olive oil and start preparing vegetable from the one that require long cooking time. For example, if I use onion,pepper, carrots, I will cut the carrots first and as I cut them, I put the carrots into skillet.
5. Add ingredients that require long time to skillet/sauce pan first.
6. Start from dish that require long cooking time.
** For example, if you cook rice and stir fry. Start with rice. While it is simmered, you can work on stir fry.
7. If you cook steak, use meat thermometer. That way, you will serve no under cooked/over cooked steak or chicken. I know there is finger test for steak, but I think using thermometer is sure way to serve perfect steak/chicken all the time.My favorite thermometer is called Thermapen via Thermoworks. This tool read temperature very accurate and read fast.
8. Have a couple of timers.
** I have 2 timers. Having more than 1 timer comes handy when you need to time more than one dish. By setting the timer one for each let you concentrate on other things you need to work on stove.
9. Pull out ingredients from refrigerator except dairy before start cooking, and put those close to you
** This prevent you to make trips between refrigerator and kitchen counter for each ingredients
10.If you needed butter the baking dish, you can use the wrapper of the butter,not slice of butter. You can wipe the baking dish around with butter stick wrap. That will be enough to butter to prevent sticking to the dish.
11. When you have leftover, try use your creativity and you can make ordinal dish with left over with twist.
12. Leftover plain rice, especially long grain rice such as Jasmine rice dry out when kept in refrigerator. Add a little bit of water over rice in the microwave safe container and cover the top loosely to get steam out, and microwave them. Water rehydrate the dry out rice. You can also use dry out rice in fried rice and while cooking fried rice, add splash of water to rehydrate the rice.
** If you made too much rice, you can portion out and put them in zip bag and freeze them. Whenever you need rice, you can put the frozen rice into microwave safe container and add a little bit of water and microwave them. I do not thaw the frozen rice.
** Other than rice, I have some occasion I made too much meatball. If you made too much meatball, I usually cook them all and cool it down, freeze them. Next time I need the quick dish, I wrap the cooked meatballs with foil and put them in the oven at 350F till heated through.
There are some more, but I will stop here for today.
What are your personal rules for cooking?
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