TEchniques

Grilling 101

Spring 2007

As I write this, it’s 24 degrees outside. In April. The wind is howling. There’s snow on the ground, for Pete’s sake. What I would really like right now is a perfect steak, hot from the grill, crisp and browned on the outside and tender and pink on the inside. Just the thought of it makes me feel a little warmer.

Grilling is one of my favorite ways to cook, and with grilling season just around the corner, I thought some basic tips might be helpful as you head out to uncover your grill.

Fuel: Charcoal briquettes are what most people use in their charcoal grills. They work just fine, but you might enjoy trying hardwood charcoal. This type of charcoal is almost pure carbon (briquettes are a compressed mixture of low-quality charcoal powder and binders), and will light more easily and burn cleaner and slightly hotter. You can find hardwood charcoal at Custom Fireplace Shop and some hardware stores.

Gas grills do not give food the smoky flavor you get from charcoal, but they offer great convenience and the char that you get from live-fire cooking.

Starting the Fire: I have been using a chimney starter for charcoal for years—it’s simple and very effective. A chimney starter is a wide metal tube, open at both ends with a grate and ventilation holes at one end. You fill the bottom section (with the ventilation holes) with crumpled newspaper, set the starter in the grill bottom, and fill the top section (over the grate) with charcoal. Light the newspaper, and the flames from the newspaper move upward to light the charcoal. When the charcoal is red hot (after 10 minutes or so), dump it into the grill, adding any additional charcoal you need on top. Chimney starters can usually be found at hardware stores or anywhere that grills are sold.

Laying the Fire: One of the best tips I can give you is to build a multilevel fire. When you transfer the lit charcoal into the grill, leave about one quarter of the grill empty and bank the charcoal in the remaining three quarters of the grill so that the coals are about three times as high on one side as they are on the other. This arrangement gives you varying levels heat so you can sear food over high heat and then move it to lower heat to finish cooking, and if there are flare-ups, you can move the food to a cooler portion of the grill until the flare-up subsides. If you’re using a gas grill, preheat it and turn one of the burners to low or off before you start cooking.

Checking the Fire Temperature: When the coals are uniformly gray, hold your hand, palm side down, about 5 inches above the grill grid. If you can hold it there for 5-6 seconds, you have a low fire; if you can hold it there for 3-4 seconds, you have a medium fire; if you can hold it there for only 1-2 seconds, you have a hot fire.

Checking for Doneness: There are basically 3 ways to see if your meat is done. For larger pieces of meat, use an instant-read thermometer. Be sure to take the meat off the grill when it is about 10 degrees below the desired temperature and let it rest for 10 minutes; during this time it will continue cooking and reach the right temperature.

For all other grilling jobs there are two ways to check for doneness: by touch or by cutting into the meat and taking a look. The more cooked any protein is, the firmer it becomes. Each time you grill, prod the meat with your finger to see how firm it is before you make a small cut and look inside to see. You will gradually train your fingers to be able to tell if your meat is done just by touch and can do away with cutting it open to look. Smaller cuts of meat should also rest after grilling for about 5 minutes.

Happy grilling!

Pairing Food and Wine

Fall 2007

Sea scallops seared to a golden brown, lapped in warm lime butter sauce and dusted with minced cilantro and garlic. A chilled Pinot Grigio from northeastern Italy with crisp citrus and mineral flavors and nuances of melon and tropical fruit. Separate they were good, but together they were amazing.

The citrus fruit in the wine accented the lime in the sauce, while the wine’s crisp acidity cut the richness of the butter and highlighted the green high notes of the cilantro. The sweet, caramelized flavors of the scallops found an echo in the subtle melon and tropical fruit of the wine, which, in turn, created a stimulating contrast to the pungency of the garlic. After that dance of flavors, I looked down with true sadness at my empty plate and glass. How could it be over so soon?

In the best pairings of food and wine, like this one, the wine makes the food taste better and the food makes the wine taste better. It’s a classic synergy in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and neither the food nor the wine dominates the other. Creating a great pairing takes a combination of knowledge, creativity, and, often, a little help from our friends.

First, it helps to know some food and wine matching basics. Both foods and wines have their own weights and intensities, and a good pairing usually matches food and wine with similar weight/intensity profiles. For instance, a heavy, intense dish like grilled steak with blue cheese sauce would work well with a heavy, intense wine like Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel. A light, delicate dish like poached sole with lemon and dill would go well with a light, delicate Chablis. A medium-bodied, moderately intense dish like chicken in garlic cream sauce would pair well with a medium-bodied wine like a Chardonnay (without much oak), just as a roast pork tenderloin would go well with a light red, like Pinot Noir.

Next, you consider the most significant flavor feature of a dish and choose to compare or contrast it with the most significant feature of a wine. This is where the creativity comes in. If you choose to compare, you’ll be matching wine and food with similar characteristics, like pairing a spicy, slightly sweet shrimp curry with a spicy, slightly sweet Gerwurztraminer. If you choose to contrast, you’ll choose to play very different characteristics off of one another, as you would in pairing slightly bitter, crunchy walnuts with a smooth, full-flavored Port. Or you could pair an acidic wine like Champagne with a rich oily food, like smoked salmon, to cut through the richness, just like the acidity in my Pinot Grigio cut through the butter sauce.

Depending on how experienced and/or adventurous you are, getting creative in pairing wine and food can seem like a terrifically fun series of experiments or like a completely overwhelming sort of nightmare. No matter which it is for you, a visit to a good wine store will help. (This is the a-little-help-from-our-friends part.)

I visited five area wine stores recently to ask a few questions about wine and food and was impressed, above everything else, with the helpfulness, knowledge, and enthusiasm of the people I talked to. You can walk in to a good wine store and tell them you’re serving a pork roast with cider cream sauce, or grilled shrimp, or sausage pizza, and they will help you find a wine to go with it—and you’ll learn about wine in the process. I have learned much of what I know about wine from talking to wine merchants (If the merchant seems uninterested in helping you or if you’re getting consistently bad suggestions, it’s time to try another shop.)

Anther way to explore wine and food is to take advantage of the inexpensive, informal wine tastings offered by some area wine merchants. Avenue Wine Shop at 1728 Cleveland Avenue NW holds tastings from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Fridays; Oakwood Wine & Spirits at 2658 Easton Street NE holds tastings from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Fridays and 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Saturdays; and Vinoteca at 4921 Hills & Dales Road holds tastings from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

Books can also be helpful as you learn more about pairing food and wine. My two current favorites are Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, and What to Drink with What You Eat by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. Gaiter and Brecher’s book basically takes you through a year of occasions for wine, from Thanksgiving to summer vacation, offering creative and knowledgeable suggestions for choosing wines you’ll enjoy. They also include chapters on visiting wineries, shopping for wine, and ordering wine in restaurants. Dornenburg and Page are journalists who have interviewed “a virtual Who’s Who of the food and beverage world” to create a great reference book in which you can look up pairings, by beverage (not only wine!) or by food, and read about how the experts go about matching good food with something good to drink.

What anyone who is knowledgeable about wine will tell you is that you learn most by drinking and eating. The best way to enjoy yourself and hone your pairing skills is to have wine with meals as often as you can, keep some record of what you liked, and keep trying new wines. Cheers!

Winter Feasting:

Roasts, Braises, & Stews

Winter 2008

“On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it . . .” -–E.B. White

Whether I have been slogging, grim-faced, through the slush on yet another wet and cold errand or hiking a snowy woodland trail, rosy-cheeked and all smiles, with my perpetually happy lab, Callie, nothing sounds better to me on a cold winter day than a hearty roast or stew. The depth of flavor and the savory aromas created by long cooking are especially satisfying and sustaining when the snow is blowing past my windows.

Roasting is a simple dry-heat cooking method—food is cooked in an oven in an uncovered pan, producing a well-browned exterior and a moist and tender interior. Chicken and turkey roast beautifully, but when I think of “A Roast,” I think of beef, pork, or lamb, especially in winter. The best cuts of meat to roast are large, tender ones, such as beef tenderloin, prime rib, beef sirloin or rump roast, pork loin, rack of lamb and leg of lamb.

Meat can be roasted at any temperature between 250 degrees and 500 degrees, but the best way to roast most cuts of meat is to first sear them, either in a skillet or in very hot oven (450 to 500 degrees), and then roast them at a moderate temperature (300 to 350 degrees). Contrary to myth, searing does not “seal in the juices,” but instead develops a savory browned crust that enriches the flavor of the meat. You can insure moist and tender meat by cooking the roast to 5 to 10 degrees below the ideal temperature (see the chart on page 3) and letting it rest before slicing for a short time (5 to 20 minutes—the larger the roast the longer it should rest). During this time the residual heat in the roast will cause it to continue cooking, to reach the ideal temperature, and allow the juices in the meat to be reabsorbed.

Smaller, less tender cuts of meat are best cooked with moist heat—braised or cut into chunks and made into a stew. To braise or stew meat, you brown it first in a little fat to create the same savory crust that searing does for a roast (this step is optional for stews). Then cook it, tightly covered, in a small amount of flavorful liquid at low heat, just at a simmer, for a lengthy period of time. This “low and slow” cooking can be done on the stovetop or in the oven. Braising and stewing tenderize tougher cuts of meat and allow the flavors of the meat, cooking liquid, and other ingredients like herbs, spices, and vegetables to blend into a delicious combination. The best cuts of meat for braising and stewing are beef chuck, beef round, lamb shoulder, and pork shoulder or butt roast.

To add flavor to roasts or braises, try dusting the meat with your favorite spice rub before cooking. Alternatively, for roasts, you can coat the outside of the meat with a blend of chopped garlic and herbs moistened with olive oil, or your favorite mustard blended with some minced shallot or onion.

To make a tasty pan gravy for a roast, spoon off all but a couple of tablespoons of fat from the roasting pan (leave the juices), and whisk in flour a tablespoon at a time, with the pan over medium heat, to make a thin paste. Continue cooking and whisking until the paste browns, then whisk in a cup or so of hot broth or stock and cook, still whisking, until the gravy thickens and comes to a boil. Season it with salt and pepper and maybe a dash of allspice and cayenne. Roasts can also be served with a variety of different sauces like mustard or horseradish, but don’t forget to think outside the box sometimes and consider serving your gorgeous roast with a salsa, savory marmalade or chutney.

To accent the deep flavors of a stew, consider sprinkling each bowl of stew with a little gremolata or picada. To make gremolata, mince one cup of fresh parsley leaves, and mix it with 3 minced garlic cloves, 2 to 3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest, and ½ teaspoon salt. To make picada, fry a slice of bread on both sides in olive oil until it turns golden, then place it in a food processor with ¼ cup toasted almonds, 2 peeled and trimmed cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoons parsley leaves, ¼ teaspoon dried thyme, and a sprinkle of salt. Pulse until the mixture is finely ground.

Finally, don’t forget your vegetables. Hearty winter vegetables like Brussels sprouts can be gently braised in chicken broth with sweet onions, or butternut squash, parsnips, carrots, and shallots can be turned into a delicious stew (topped with a little picada and some grated Parmesan). My favorite winter potatoes are golden, crisp chunks that have been tossed with olive oil, sea salt, and Herbs of Provence and roasted (at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, turning once). I’m getting a little warmer just thinking about it.

Ribs

Summer 2008

I love barbecued ribs. The tantalizing smell of the wood smoke drifting from the grill. The warm, smoky, spicy, tender meat dripping with tangy, savory-sweet sauce. Knawing at the bones like some happy cave dweller. To me, ribs are one of the quintessential summer foods.

Over the years I have tweaked my rib recipe, a little here and a little there, borrowing from various places and adding a few tricks of my own. Although the last batch of ribs I made was, well, incredibly great, actually (not to be too modest), I will probably never be done tinkering and trying new ideas, and that’s part of the fun.

The good news is that incredibly great barbecued ribs can be made by anyone with a little know how and a basic charcoal or gas grill. So, here’s how to do it—or at least the most current version of how I make my Kansas City-style ribs.

Ingredients and Equipment:

⎫2 slabs baby back ribs, 1 1/2 to 2 pounds each

⎫Generous 1/4 cup Paul Kirk’s Dry Rub (see recipe below)

⎫Kansas City Barbecue Sauce (see recipe below)

⎫2 hickory wood chunks, soaked in water for at least 2 hours, or 1 ½ -2 cups wood chips, soaked according to package directions

⎫A charcoal or gas grill

⎫A rectangular foil pan if you’re using a charcoal grill

⎫Heavy aluminum foil

⎫Tongs

⎫A brush for the barbecue sauce

⎫Newspaper

The rub is easy to make and keeps well. The sauce is also easy to make, although in a pinch I substitute K.C. Masterpiece Original barbecue sauce. It’s sweeter and mellower than my made-from-scratch sauce, but it works just fine. I get my hickory chunks at Custom Fireplace Shop (5537 Whipple Ave. NW, 330-499-7341). They also have a good selection of other wood chunks and chips, like apple and mesquite, that you can try. You can also usually find some sort of wood for smoking at some grocery or hardware stores. If you want to smoke more than 2 slabs of ribs, you’ll want a rib rack, which holds slabs perpendicular to the grill surface so you can fit more of them inside the grill. Custom Fireplace Shop carries rib racks, as do some hardware and grocery stores.

Preparing the Ribs the Day before Smoking: First, trim off the silverskin (a thin sheath of cartilage that is tough when cooked) covering the bottom of each slab. Make a shallow cut through just the silverskin with a paring knife. Using the knife, lift a corner of a piece of silverskin, and, grasping it with a paper towel, pull it away from and off of the slab. Repeat with the other piece of silverskin, and then repeat the whole process with the other slab.

Sprinkle both sides of each slab with the rub. Place the slabs on a baking sheet(s), cover lightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. Doing this step the day before allows the flavors from the rub to permeate the meat. Take the ribs out of the refrigerator 1 hour before smoking them.

Preparing the Grill: For a charcoal grill, remove the grill rack and then position a mound of 20-30 lighted briquettes on one side of the grate and open the bottom vent fully. Put a foil pan on the other side and fill it three-quarters full with water. The pan will catch drippings and provide some tenderizing steam heat. If you’re using wood chips, drain them, wrap them in a foil packet, cutting slits in the top of the packet so the smoke can escape, and place the packet on the coals. The wood chunks can be placed directly on the coals. Replace the grill rack.

For a gas grill, remove the grill rack and preheat the grill on high for 10-15 minutes. Then turn off all but one burner. Place the wood chunks on a piece of heavy foil, or use the foil packet for wood chips, and set it on top of the steel grate protecting the burner that is still on. Replace the grill rack.

Smoking the Ribs—Low & Slow: Lay the ribs on the grill rack so that no part of them is directly over the heat. Cover the grill.

For a charcoal grill, leave the lid vent about half open and stick an instant-read thermometer into the top vent hole so the gauge is resting on the grill cover. The temperature should be around 250°, not over 300° and not under 200°. If the temperature is too high, partially close the lower vent; if the temperature is too low, open the lid vent further. If the temperature drops later, you may need to replenish the charcoal with 5-10 briquettes. For a gas grill, just keep your eye on the temperature gauge, adjusting the heat as needed.

Every 30-45 minutes, turn the ribs over and switch their places on the grill. After 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, check to see if your ribs are done. When they are ready, the bone ends will be exposed, the meat will be starting to pull away from the bones, and the surface of the meat will be reddish brown. The meatiest section of the slabs should have an internal temperature of 165 to 175 degrees.

Finishing the Ribs: Place the slabs on a baking sheet(s), cover them tightly with foil, and wrap them in a thick layer of newspaper (10-15 sheets). Let them rest this way for 30-40 minutes. This step insures tender ribs by letting the juices stabilize in the meat.

While the ribs are resting, gently heat your barbecue sauce in a small saucepan. Just before serving, brush the ribs generously with sauce and cut the slabs into sections. Serve with additional sauce and a big stack of napkins. Two slabs will serve four moderately hungry people or two rib hounds.

*Credit for much of my charcoal grill method goes to Aidell and Kelly’s The Complete Meat Cookbook (1998)—a great resource.

Paul Kirk’s Dry Rub

Paul Kirk, known in Kansas City as “The Baron of Barbecue,” is an award-winning BBQ Chef and cookbook author.

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup seasoned salt

1/4 cup garlic salt

1/4 cup celery salt

1/4 cup onion salt

1/2 cup paprika

3 tablespoons chili powder

2 tablespoons ground black pepper

1 tablespoon lemon pepper

2 teaspoons ground sage

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon ground thyme

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Store in an airtight container. When using, sprinkle onto, don’t rub into, the meat. Makes 3 cups.

Kansas City Barbecue Sauce

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground mace

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco

1 cup ketchup

1/3 cup dark molasses

Whisk together the spices in a mixing bowl. Stir in the vinegar, then Tabasco, ketchup, and molasses and mix until well blended. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator 2-3 weeks. Best if made the day before using. Makes about 2 cups.

Easy as Pie

Fall 2008

To me, nothing says Fall and Thanksgiving like a pie. Or maybe I should say “pies,” since I can’t ever end our Thanksgiving meal on a happy note with only one kind of pie--even when the number of people at the meal is not nearly sufficient to consume two (or more) entire pies. We need variety. We need leftovers for breakfast the next day, and maybe the day after that. I have many stories of my personal gluttony involving pies, but I’ll spare you.

The thing about pies is that they’re so good, and so easy to eat. That’s where the expression “easy as pie” comes from. It was coined in 19th century America, and was meant to convey the sense of pleasant ease that came from digging into a slice of a favorite American dessert. However, making a pie can be a whole different story.

Pie crust used to be one of the stars in my Kitchen Frustration Hall of Fame. My pie crust dough always cracked when I rolled it out and came completely apart when I tried to transfer it into the pan. I would end up shoveling the pieces of dough into the pan and pressing them into a lumpy blanket that was tough after baking. Not what I was going for.

What I discovered was that I had paid too much attention to all the warnings in crust recipes that I must NOT add too much liquid to my crust or it would be--guess what--tough. My crusts needed a little more liquid, and I needed to let them sit at room temperature a few minutes before rolling them out because rolling out dough that’s too cold also causes it to crack. Most problems making pies can be easily solved if you understand a few basics about the process.

To digress a moment: you may be wondering why I didn’t just go the the freezer case of my local grocery store and pick up a commercially prepared pie crust or two. I guess it’s because homemade pie crusts taste so good. They have real butter in them, while store-bought crusts contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil instead, not to mention “dough conditioners” and preservatives. If I’m going to indulge, I want the best tasting indulgence I can find.

Back to pie problem solving. Here are a few things you need to know to make a good pie crust:

•Before you make your crust, measure out all the ingredients. Take the butter from the frig, measure it out, dice it, put it on a plate or in a bowl, and place it back in the frig. (If you use lard or shortening, it should also be chilled.) Your water should be ice cold.
•When you blend the butter or other fat with the flour, you can use a food processor or do it by hand with a pastry blender. Stop when the butter is in pea-size pieces. Keeping the fat cold and leaving the pieces this size is the key to a flaky crust.
•Add the smallest amount of water called for in the recipe, then test the dough by squeezing a little between your fingers. It should hold together, but not feel sticky. If it doesn’t hold together, keep adding water, a little at a time, until it does.
•Like us, pie crust needs rest, lots of rest. Mixing and rolling pie dough activates the gluten in the flour, which can make the crust tough and make it shrink when it bakes. Resting relaxes the gluten. Usually recipes say to form the dough into a disk after mixing, wrap it in plastic, and let it rest in the refrigerator for one hour. Yes, you really do have to do this. The dough also needs to rest again after you roll it out and place it in the pan. This is why most good recipes tell you to make the filling after you get the crust dough into the pan--it gives the dough time to rest before baking.
•Use a glass pan for the pie (Pyrex is the most common brand). Glass conducts heat better than most metals used for pie pans, so the bottom crust will have a better chance of baking through in a glass pan. Glass also allows you to see that the bottom crust is browned before you remove it from the oven.
•To roll out your crust, remove the dough from the frig and let it sit for a few minutes. The dough is ready to roll out when you press it lightly with your fingertip and the fingertip leaves an imprint but does not easily sink in. On a lightly floured surface, begin by rolling from the lower third of the dough upward toward the 12 o’clock position, pulling back on the pressure when you reach the edge. Then roll downward toward the 6 o’clock position, using the same strategy with the edge. Rotate the dough one quarter turn and repeat the rolling. Continue rolling and rotating until the crust reaches the size you want. If the dough sticks, use a pastry scraper to loosen it, and sprinkle the surface with a little more flour.
•To transfer the dough to the pan, gently fold it in half, slide your hands underneath, and lift it from the surface, place it gently on one half of the pie pan, and unfold it. Carefully lift up the sides of the dough and press it gently into the bottom and sides of the pan. Use scissors to trim excess dough, leaving one inch of dough around the rim to use for a decorative edge.
•Pie crusts can be stored (in disk form, not after they’re rolled out) up to four days in the refrigerator or frozen, double wrapped, for up to three months. Defrost the dough overnight in the refrigerator. One of my Halloween chores is to make the Thanksgiving pie crusts, plus an extra or two, and freeze them. It’s nice to have the crusts all ready to go when the pie-making frenzy starts.

For more information on pies, take a look at the “Pie Primer” at www.epicurious.com: mouse over “Articles and Guides” and click on “How to Cook” from the menu. On the “How to Cook” page you’ll see a menu on the upper left side; click on “Cooking Primers.” You’ll find a link to “Pie Primer” on this page. The link takes you to a very thorough guide to making pies, including recipes and videos of crucial steps. Nick Malgieri’s cookbook, How to Bake, also has an excellent section on pies and very good recipes. You’ll find my crust recipe, plus recipes for a couple of my favorite pies on pages -----of the this newsletter. Hope your pies are as easy as pie!

Sauté

Spring 2009

One of the first things I learned to make in cooking school, under the watchful eye of my instructor, was sautéed chicken breasts with a pan sauce. When I added the oil and then the chicken to a pan so hot it made me nervous, a loud sizzling, spitting noise filled the air, followed shortly by a wonderful chicken-y aroma. As instructed, I waited patiently until the chicken pieces looked cooked about halfway through and the juices were rising to the surface of uncooked top side. I gingerly turned the pieces over and patiently waited another 3 minutes, until the chicken was firm and browned on the second side. The instructor then had me remove the chicken from the pan and make a sauce--right there--in the very same pan (!).

The chicken was a thing of beauty, crusted golden brown on the outside with a tender, juicy interior. Drizzled with the warm, savory sauce, it was a taste and texture sensation. Incredibly simple--and quick. I was sold!

By definition, sautéing is cooking food quickly in a small amount of fat over medium-high heat. It is a perfect technique for relatively thin, tender cuts of meat, poultry or fish (like steaks, chops, or filets) and crisp vegetables. The whole point of sautéing is to create that gorgeous, golden brown crust, which adds incredible flavor and richness to whatever you’re cooking.

James Peterson, one of my favorite cooking instructors, explains, “What happens is this: Almost all foods release liquid as they cook. This liquid usually contains combinations of sugars and proteins, but is mostly water. Ideally, when you’re sautéing, the liquid evaporates the instant it is released, so that the proteins and sugars caramelize on the outside of the food when it comes in contact with the heat, forming a savory crust.” (from Cooking: 600 Recipes, 1500 Photographs, One Kitchen Education, 2007.)

To sauté well, what you mainly need to do is not get in the way of that beautiful, all-important crust.

The first step is selecting the right pan. Your skillet should be heavy, so it conducts heat evenly and well. The pan should be large enough to hold all the food you want to sauté in a single layer with a little space around each piece. If the pan is too small, the liquid released by cooking won’t evaporate fast enough, and the food ends up steaming in its own juices instead of browning. (Sauté in batches if you have too much food to fit into your pan.) If the pan is too large, the liquid released by the food and the fat in the pan will run into the empty space and burn.

Before sautéing, you should have all your ingredients ready to go into the pan--cut into the size you want, dry (pat dry with a paper towel), and seasoned. If you like, you can lightly coat foods with flour before sautéing. This enhances the texture and flavor of the crust, but also absorbs additional fat. Select a fat to cook with that can withstand the heat of sautéing. Cooking fats all have a “smoke point,” a temperature at which they begin to give off smoke and unpleasant odors and will transfer an unpleasant flavor to the food. Butter and extra-virgin olive oil have relatively low smoke points (350-375 degrees), and corn, grapeseed, canola, and peanut oils have higher smoke points (410-450 degrees).

The next step is preheating the pan. Always heat the pan dry over medium-high heat. Then add your cooking fat, allowing it to get hot before adding the food. To test the heat of the fat, drop in a small piece of the food you’re going to sauté. If its sizzles, the fat is at the right temperature. Red meats will sauté best when the fat is almost at the smoke point, while less intense heat is best for white meats, fish, and vegetables. Adding the fat after preheating the pan helps to prevent food from sticking. If your food seems to be sticking to the pan, wait a bit and it should release.

If you’re cooking meat, chicken, or fish, turn the food in the pan only once. Turning these foods over and over interferes with developing the crust. Smaller pieces of food need to be repeatedly tossed and turned to cook well. You can do this by stirring with a spatula or by flipping the food using a back and forth movement

of the pan. (This requires some practice, but when you master it, you’ll feel like the Iron Chef!)

Meat, chicken, and fish are done cooking when they have that golden brown crust and are firmer to the touch (meat and poultry much more so than fish). Vegetables are done when they are browned and fork tender.

To make a pan sauce, remove the food from the pan and keep it warm. Pour off any excess fat from the pan and add aromatic ingredients of your choice, like onions, garlic, and ginger. Cook them until they’re tender, then add about a cup of wine, stock, or a mixture of the two, stirring to scrape up the brown bits from the pan. Cook the sauce at a rapid simmer until it is about half the original amount of liquid you added. Finish your sauce with seasoning, a small amount of butter or cream if you like, and maybe some chopped fresh herbs. Serve your sauté with warm sauce spooned over the top. Voilá!

Slow Food

Winter 2010

Juicy, fork-tender chunks of chicken and succulent, earthy mushrooms in a thick red wine and garlic sauce accented with fragrant thyme, all ladled over a steaming mound of roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Sound good? It was. One of the best meals I’ve made lately. And the chicken stew came from my slow cooker (a.k.a. Crockpot®), simmering away all afternoon while I was out running errands.

This is one of the reasons I love my slow cooker: it produces amazing food while I am doing something else. I have to admit, though, that some of the early products of my slow cooker were closer to amazingly bad than amazingly good. I remember one sad, gray piece of beef about the size and texture of a paperback novel, swimming in brownish gray, watery juices, accompanied by large, hard, golf-ball-like chunks of root vegetables. Nasty was the only appropriate description for it.

The difference between the rich, aromatic chicken stew and the awful beef is understanding how to work with a slow cooker, taking advantage of what it does best and adjusting to its limitations. That beef came from the “dump it and go” school of slow cooker cuisine: throw any old food into the slow cooker, add a cup or two of water, turn the thing on and let ‘er rip, the longer the better. As I learned the hard way, this method basically turns out nearly inedible food every single time. Trial and (lots of) error, and doing some homework on how to use my slow cooker have vastly improved the food I am able to make in it.

To begin with, choose the right ingredients. The slow cooker works best with tough cuts of meat like any shoulder or chuck cut, bottom round cuts, shanks, short ribs, and brisket. The gentle, moist heat of the slow cooker melts the collagen in the connective tissues of these types of cuts to make them incredibly tender. The proteins you choose for the slow cooker also need a certain amount of internal fat to keep them tender. Chicken thighs or a cut-up whole chicken are much better choices for a slow cooker than delicate proteins like boneless chicken breasts (and fish or beef filets, and pork chops), which usually become tough over time in a slow cooker.

Fresh ingredients are your best choice. Putting frozen meat, poultry, or seafood in a slow cooker is an invitation for food-borne illness: frozen protein does not heat up quickly enough to prevent bacteria from growing. Frozen or canned vegetables usually don’t cook properly or they turn to mush during long cooking at low heat. So take the bit of extra time and cut up some fresh veggies for your slow cooker; you can do the slicing and dicing up to 24 hours in advance and store them in the frig until you’re ready to use them.

If you need to add liquid, use a small amount of broth, beer, wine, cider, or juice to add flavor. Andrew Schloss, author of The Art of the Slow Cooker, one of my favorite slow cooker cookbooks, calls water “the anti-spice” because it “sucks away” flavor from food. Much better to add flavor with a liquid than subtract it. You add only a small amount of liquid because there’s almost no evaporation from a slow cooker. The juices that come from the food you’re cooking become part of the dish and usually about double the amount of liquid in a recipe.

Even the best ingredients won’t make the best dish if they’re not prepared properly for the slow cooker. Trim the exterior fat from meat and poultry, season it well with salt and pepper (or a spice rub of your choice), and brown it with a small amount of oil in a skillet on your stovetop before adding it to the slow cooker. Browning improves the appearance of the meat or poultry and gives it a great flavor boost. Browning your veggies will do the same for them. (Ground meats should always be browned first to avoid food-borne illness.)

When you cut up root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips and rutabagas for the slow cooker, make sure the chunks are 1-inch size or smaller, since they are very slow to cook through. If you’re combining them with meat in the slow cooker, layer them first on the bottom for maximum heat exposure, then add the meat, then the other ingredients. More delicate ingredients like tender vegetables, greens, rice, pasta, and dairy products should be added in the last hour of cooking so they don’t disintegrate, or in the case of the dairy products, separate during long cooking.

The combined ingredients for a dish should never fill the slow cooker more than an inch or two from the top, but it should be at least half-full. Two-thirds to three-fourths full is even better. If the slow cooker is less than half full, it will overcook the dish, resulting in tough meat or poultry.

In general, slow cooking tends to mellow and blend flavors, so after you’ve prepped your ingredients and combined them in the slow cooker, be generous with seasonings. Add some salt and pepper and whatever dried herbs or spices you may be using--whole if possible, since whole herbs and spices, in contrast to ground ones, release their flavors more slowly and fully over the cooking time. (Save fresh herbs to add near the end of the cooking, since their flavors disappear completely if cooked for any length of time.)

NOW you can turn the slow cooker on and go--with a few of caveats:

--Always use the low heat setting for those tough cuts of meat.

--Stay within the time limits on your recipe. You can overcook even the proper quantity of food in a slow cooker. I usually stop cooking at the lower end of the time limit unless I have an especially large batch of a recipe. If you have to be gone longer than the cooking time and don’t have a programmable slow cooker, use a light timer to start the slow cooker at the appropriate hour.

--Don’t remove the lid unless you just have to. Each time you remove the lid, the slow cooker loses heat and needs 15-20 minutes of additional cooking time to make up for the loss.

When the dish has finished cooking, you may have some excess liquid. If so, you can drain the liquid into a saucepan, simmer it on your stovetop until it thickens, and pour it back over the other ingredients to serve. You can also add 1-2 tablespoons of instant mashed potato flakes (Schloss’s trick), or a slurry of tablespoon or so of cornstarch blended with a small amount of cooking liquid, stirring gently until the mixture thickens. This technique can also be used for a soup or stew that is too thin. Finally, taste the dish to recheck the seasonings, adding more if necessary.

Serve your slow-cooked creation like the masterpiece that it is, and smile to yourself as you remember everything you got done while the slow cooker was working for you.

A Flavor Primer

Spring 2010

I love the “aha! moment” in cooking: when I’ve been tasting and seasoning a soup and finally it’s just right, when I bite into a perfectly ripe pear that doesn’t need another thing, when a drizzle of sauce on roasted meat brings out its deep, savory taste. Something just clicks. The flavor is just what I want. That’s what makes good cooking: adding flavor, enhancing flavor, or just bringing out the naturally great flavor of good food. And it’s not that hard to do. A simple step or two during, before, or after cooking can take a dish from OK to amazing.

I sometimes say that the most important thing I learned in cooking school was how to season food. It’s a small thing with big results: the difference between a bland, unsatisfying dish that you eat out of necessity and a delicious, wonderfully nuanced experience is often just salt and pepper. Seasoning is a key way to build flavor. Whether you’re making chicken soup, mashed potatoes, a roasted beef tenderloin, or sautéed snap peas, a sprinkle of salt and pepper early in the cooking process, and then again near the end will make the flavors dance in your mouth.

The seasoning should be to your taste, meaning you taste the food and season it until it tastes right--really delicious--to you. It doesn’t matter how much salt and pepper your recipe says to add. No cookbook author or newspaper food writer (or newsletter writer . . . ) knows how your food should taste. You do. You’re in charge of your kitchen, so season to your own taste.

Another key flavor builder is fat. I know. Fat has a bad reputation--we don’t want to associate with it. But fat is a flavor carrier: it has an amazing ability to pick up flavor compounds from food and seasonings and magnify them by spreading them throughout a dish. That’s why nearly every good soup recipe asks you to begin by sautéing some onion in a little fat: the fat delivers the savory onion flavor to the soup. The good news is that you only need a small quantity of fat to get large flavor benefits. If a properly seasoned soup or sauce tastes flat to you, add a tablespoon or so of butter, cream, or olive oil for more flavor. When you roast vegetables or meat, instead of just spraying the pan with nonstick spray, coat the vegetables or meat with a little olive or canola oil before seasoning them. They’ll taste better.

You can also create great flavors by preparing your food for cooking with a dry rub or marinade. A dry rub is nothing more than a combination of dry seasonings that is used to coat the surface of a cut of meat before cooking. The rub can be applied just before cooking or, for larger cuts, up to a day ahead. A dry rub is simple to make: just stir together the seasonings. One of my favorite rubs for grilled steaks or pork chops is 3 tablespoons of chili powder, plus 1 tablespoon each of cocoa, ground coffee, and kosher salt, which makes enough to add a complex, smoky flavor to 4 to 6 steaks or chops.

Another simple way to add flavor to meat, chicken, fish, and vegetables is to marinate them. Whisk together the marinade ingredients, add the marinade to the food, cover or close the container (I like to use a zipper-lock bag), and refrigerate. The smaller and more delicate the food, the less marination time it needs. In general, seafood, vegetables, and boneless chicken parts only need to marinate 30 to 45 minutes; small cuts of meat and whole or cut-up whole chicken can marinate up to 2 hours; and large cuts of meat can marinate up to 6 hours. (Food safety note: If you want to use some of the marinade as a dipping sauce, set some aside before combining the rest with the food you’re marinating, and throw out the used marinade before cooking unless you’ve marinated vegetables.)

Here’s a great multi-purpose balsamic vinegar marinade from Chef John Ash: 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary, 4 peeled and thinly sliced cloves of garlic, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. This marinade is especially good for grilled vegetables, tuna, swordfish, or beef.

After cooking, you can ramp up the flavor of your food with by adding one of a variety of simple sauces, some of which can be used during cooking, as well:

--Flavored butters: A pat of flavored butter is a great taste addition to all kinds of food. Think of lemon and black pepper butter on grilled halibut, or pasta and roasted tomatoes tossed with basil butter. To make a flavored butter, combine 8 ounces (2 sticks) of room temperature unsalted butter with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chopped fresh herbs, or the finely grated zest of 1-2 lemons, limes, or oranges, plus about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and other seasonings (to taste!). Form the mixture into a log, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate (up to 1 week) or freeze it (up to 3 months). Slice off pats of butter as you need them.

--Purées and Pestos: Have some leftover roasted veggies? Purée them with a little tomato paste or stock (or both) and you have a nice sauce or spread. Roast a head of garlic (trim the top, drizzle with olive oil, roast at 400 degrees until soft, about an hour), squeeze out the cloves, and purée or mash them to make a great spread or a coating for roasted meat or chicken.

Pestos are perfect for adding flavor to rice or pasta, but also for tossing with steamed or roasted veggies, smearing under the skin of a chicken before roasting, or swirling into a bowl of soup. Make a quick pesto by whirling 2 garlic cloves, 3 tablespoons of nuts, 3 ounces (about 3 cups) of herb leaves, about 1/2 cup of olive oil, and 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese in your food processor--garlic and nuts first, them the leaves, then the cheese and oil--and season to taste with salt and pepper. Basil and pine nuts, of course, make wonderful pesto, but think outside the box and try making pesto with parsley and almonds or cilantro and walnuts, with a little lemon zest added. One of my favorite easy dishes is baked tilapia spread with a thin layer of cilantro-lemon pesto.

--Salsas: With a little slicing and dicing, you can liven up nearly anything on a plate: baked potatoes, sandwiches, salads, veggies, plain toasted bread, or chicken, fish, or meat cooked any old way. Make a salsa. To 2-3 cups of your main ingredient (it could be diced tomatoes, fresh corn kernels, or diced cucumber or melon) add about 1/2 cup of any color diced onion (rinsed and drained to keep the onion flavor from taking over), about 1/4 cup of chopped fresh herbs (cilantro, basil, mint, or sage), 1-2 tablespoons of an acid (citrus juice, balsamic or raspberry vinegar), and a little heat (minced jalapeño or chipotle, Asian chile garlic sauce). Season your creation to taste with salt and pepper, and add a drizzle of olive or canola oil, if you like, to spread those flavors around. Let the aha! moments roll!