Flavors of Kentucky

Cooking School emphasizes freshly made meals

Trend predictors across the country are saying that 2009 will bring families back to the dinner table.
When you’re trying to save money, one cost-cutting method is to eat more meals at home. “Dining at home is less costly than dining out,” said registered dietitian Tami Ross of Lexington. “Just one fast-food value meal costs more than an entire day’s worth of healthy meals prepared at home.”
Ross, who has a 13-year-old son, works part-time for Internal Medicine Associates and is a diabetes and nutrition consultant to several food and pharmaceutical companies. She understands the “temptation to ‘drive through’ for a quick meal on the go when you have children who are involved in sports and extracurricular activities,” she said.
Ross sees cooking at home as an opportunity for parents to plan healthy meals. “Planning five dinner meals truly only takes about five minutes,” she said.
Studies show that consumers who shop without a list spend twice as much and are likely to make more impulse buys, which are often low-nutrient foods, Ross said.
Ross, who is co-author with Patti Geil of Diabetes Meals on $7 a Day – or Less!, created recipes, cost-wise menus and money-saving grocery tips for an article that is to appear in USA Today on Monday. Their tips will work for anyone who is trying to eat healthy in a cost-effective fashion.
For the first time in decades, more families are cooking together and eating at home, and if people are going to spend more time in the kitchen, then it should be an enjoyable experience.
Sure, you can take the easy way out and open boxes of instant this and that, but freshly prepared foods will be better for the family all the way around.

The menu we’ve selected for my “Sharon’s Cooking School” series includes an Italian romaine salad with lemon vinaigrette; a simple stir-fry dish with fresh vegetables, served over pasta; garlic bread with fresh roasted garlic; and apple crisp.
Once you’ve learned a few simple techniques, you can take any recipe to the next level. If you know how to stir-fry or saute chicken pieces, then next time, stir-fry slices of beef or pork. Change around the vegetables, and you’ve got another tasty meal. Instead of pasta, serve the dish with rice. Fresh-roasted garlic can add tremendous flavor to a variety of dishes, so it’s nice to have that in the refrigerator. And once you learn to make a crisp for dessert, you can vary the fruit and instantly change the menu.

Great cookbooks

One of the best ways to learn to cook, we think, is to watch Mom or Grandma. But since that’s not possible for many people, a good book or Web site will work.
Here are some suggestions:

• Betty Crocker Cooking Basics: Recipes and Tips to Cook With Confidence (Betty Crocker, $25.95) offers how-to photos, ingredients and cooking terms glossaries, illustrated preparation techniques, advice on selecting knives, and understanding cooking thermometers.
• How to Boil Water: Life Beyond Takeout ($24.95) from the Food Network Kitchens includes what to look for in ingredients and how to store them at home; substitutions that work, and how to embellish a recipe once you’ve mastered it.
• The New Kitchen Science: A Guide to Know the Hows and Whys for Fun and Success in the Kitchen by Howard Hillman (Mariner Books, $15) answers such questions as: How can I save an oversalted soup? Why does overcooking toughen meat? Why does cheese sometimes refuse to melt in a sauce? When and why must you scald milk to use in a recipe?
• How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman (Wiley, $35), in its 10th edition, tackles the fundamentals of cooking ingredients, equipment and techniques – in depth.
• CooksIllustrated.com. No matter what you’re looking for, America’s Test Kitchen has probably tested or tasted it.

Talk to us

If you’re interested in learning to cook or become an accomplished cook, we’d like to hear from you.
Tell us why you want to learn to cook and how we can help. E-mail suggestions to swthompson@herald-leader.com or write to Sharon Thompson, Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Ky. 40508.

How to prep the kitchen

Before getting started, you must do prep work.
“You can’t cook chopped mushrooms until you’ve chopped them,” says Elaine Corn, author of Now You’re Cooking and Now You’re Cooking for Company.
Here are some basic prep rules:

• Read the entire recipe.
• Get the ingredients ready to use in the recipe.
• Arrange your prepared ingredients in an orderly way. You can place them in small prep bowls, or in piles on a dinner plate. When you’re ready to use them, simply push them off the plate into the pan or bowl with a knife or spoon.
• Combine chores. If you are making more than one recipe and both call for chopped onion, chop them all in one step. Chopped onion will keep in the refrigerator as long as three days. Garlic can be prepared the same way and can be stored with a little olive oil in the refrigerator for a week.

Follow these tips for food safety

Before heading to the kitchen to begin your cooking lesson, there are two cardinal rules of safe food preparation: Keep everything clean, and keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.
Here’s a reminder of the safety guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

• Wash hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds before starting to prepare a meal and after handling raw meat or poultry.
• Keep the work area clean and uncluttered. Wash counter tops with a solution of 1 teaspoon of chlorine bleach to 1 quart of water. Also, be sure to keep dish cloths clean because, when wet, they can harbor bacteria and can promote their growth.
• Sanitize the kitchen sink drain periodically by pouring down the sink a solution of 1 teaspoon of bleach to 1 quart of water. Food particles get trapped in the drain and disposal and, along with the moistness, create an ideal environment for bacterial growth.
• Use smooth cutting boards made of hard maple or a non-porous material such as plastic, and make sure it is free of cracks. Avoid boards made of soft, porous materials. Wash cutting boards with hot water and soap, using a scrub brush, then wash them in an automatic dishwasher or rinse in a solution of 1 teaspoon of chlorine bleach to 1 quart of water.
• Always wash and sanitize cutting boards after using them for raw foods, such as seafood or chicken, and before using them for ready-to-eat foods. Consider using one cutting board only for foods that will be cooked, such as raw fish, and another only for ready-to-eat foods, such as bread, fresh fruit, and cooked fish.
• Always use clean utensils, and wash them between cutting different foods.
• Wash the lids of canned foods before opening to keep dirt from getting into the food. Also, clean the blade of the can opener after each use. Take apart and clean food processors and meat grinders as soon as possible after use.
• Do not put cooked meat on an unwashed plate or platter that has held raw meat.
• Wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly, rinsing under running water. Don’t use soap or other detergent. If necessary and appropriate, use a small scrub brush to remove surface dirt.
• Use a digital or dial food thermometer to ensure that meats are completely cooked. Insert the thermometer into the center of the food and wait 30 seconds to ensure an accurate measurement. Beef, lamb, and veal should be cooked to at least 145 degrees; pork and ground beef to 160 degrees; ground chicken or turkey to 165 degrees; poultry breasts to 170 degrees; and whole poultry and thighs to 180 degrees.
• Cook eggs until the white and yolk are firm. Avoid foods containing raw eggs, such as homemade ice cream, mayonnaise, eggnog, cookie dough and cake batter, because they carry the risk of salmonella. Cooking the egg-containing product to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees will kill the bacteria. Commercial foods usually don’t carry salmonella because they are made with pasteurized eggs.
• Seafood should be thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees. Fish that’s ground or flaked, such as a fish cake, should be cooked to at least 155 degrees, and stuffed fish to at least 165 degrees.
• Protect food from cross-contamination after cooking, and eat it promptly.
• Don’t leave cooked food on the table or kitchen counter for more than two hours. Disease-causing bacteria grow in temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. Cooked foods that have been in this temperature range for more than two hours should not be eaten.
• If a dish is to be served hot, get it from the stove to the table as quickly as possible. Reheated foods should be brought to a temperature of at least 165 degrees. Keep cold foods in the refrigerator or on a bed of ice until serving. This rule is particularly important to remember in the summer months.
• Refrigerate leftovers as soon as possible. Cut meats in slices of three inches or less, and store all foods in shallow containers to hasten cooling. Use leftovers within three days.
• Don’t thaw meat and other frozen foods at room temperature. Instead, move them from the freezer to the refrigerator for a day or two, or defrost them submerged in cold water. You also can defrost in the microwave oven or during the cooking process. If you defrost foods in the microwave or in cold water, cook them immediately.

For consistent success, it’s crucial to get the proportions right

A few months ago, a reader in Paris asked me to help her write a recipe to enter in a national corn bread contest.
She had been making corn bread in a cast-iron griddle for decades, the way her mother and grandmother did it. But sending a recipe into a contest meant the ingredients had to be accurately measured and the instructions precise.
When I arrived at her home, she had all the ingredients ready. As she began to make the cornmeal batter, I measured her scoops and pinches, and remarkably, they were accurate. As she placed salt into the palm of her hand, she said, “Oh, I’ll need about 2 teaspoons.” She placed the salt in a bowl and I measured with a teaspoon. Sure enough, it was 2 teaspoons.
She didn’t win the competition, possibly because the recipe testers simply couldn’t replicate her corn bread recipe – accurate ingredients or not.
It takes years of practice to cook like our mothers and grandmothers, who often didn’t measure. But when it comes to baking cakes and cookies, it’s important to measure accurately. Here are some tips from Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis about measuring that will make your cooking much more successful.
Measuring spoons work well for liquid and dry measurements. For dry, dip the spoon into whatever you are measuring and level it off with the back of a knife. For liquid, simply pour until it’s about to overflow. For thick pastes such as mustard, use the dip-and-level technique.
Individual measuring cups, the kind with ¼, 1/3 and 1/2 gradations, are intended for dry ingredients and pastes. Small clear pitchers with markings on the side are intended for liquid ingredients. To measure dry ingredients, spoon them into the cups until they are overflowing and then level them off with the back of a knife. Do the same for pastes. For liquids, you have to hold the cup up to eye level (or bend down to meet it). Pour in the liquid until it is even with the marking you need. One type of liquid measuring cup, with the gradations marked on an angled plane inside the cup, is even easier to use because you can look down into the cup and see how much you have.
Here are some tricks to measuring: If you are measuring honey, a drop of oil or a thin film of non-stick cooking spray in the cup before you pour it in will make the honey slide out without fuss.
Measurements for brown sugar always mean to pack it down tightly. When reading a recipe, try to measure the ingredients in an order that will allow you to use the same spoons and cups without having to clean them between  measurements. That usually means dry ingredients first.

Home cooking starts in the pantry

Make sure yours is stocked with items that allow for basic meals

Stocking your pantry with staples that can be used for a variety of meals will help you avoid pantry meltdown at 5 o’clock each evening.
Registered dietitian Maggie Green of Fort Wright, who was an editor of the latest edition of Joy of Cooking, said she has mixed feelings about stocking a pantry.
“Sometimes the lists we give people for items to stock with are ingredients they may have never used in a recipe – olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes.
“The best-stocked pantry contains ingredients for meals that are part of our basic repertoire, the recipes that we can make quickly and without a recipe,” Green said. “For me, that includes many skillet meals (beans and rice, pilafs, frittatas), pasta dishes, and soups, using fresh produce, canned beans, pasta and canned tomatoes.
“For the beginner cook, I always recommend that they think of a few recipes that they know, and to choose a few recipes that they would like to learn and to keep the ingredients for those meals on hand. To me, that’s the secret – keeping ingredients on hand for recipes you know or are learning.”
With these ingredients available, a cook can put together a meal in a hurry if necessary, she said. Then you can build the pantry from there. Pick only one new recipe a week, and if you like it, add that to your meal rotation. Within a few months, you will have stocked the pantry with items you use on a regular basis, Green said.
Here’s Green’s list of items that she stocks in her pantry, refrigerator and freezer.

Pantry essentials

• Olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil, chili oil.
• Herbs (thyme, basil, rosemary).
• Spices (cinnamon, sweet curry powder, cumin, chili powder).
• Assorted canned beans.
• Assorted canned tomatoes.
• Boxed chicken stock.
• Assorted dried pasta.
• Assorted grains (rice, quinoa, couscous, bulgar, barley, kasha).
• Artichoke hearts.
• Diced green chilies.
• Olives.
• Nuts.
• Baking ingredients (flours, sugars, yeast, baking powder/soda).
• Salt (fine sea and kosher).
• Peppercorns.
• Red pepper flakes.
• Anchovy paste.
• Soy/tamari sauce.
• Ground sirloin.
• Split chicken.
• Frozen peas, green beans, corn, carrots, turnip greens, spinach.

;Beyond the basic equipment

Having the right equipment makes cooking easier. You can cook with just a few gadgets and a couple of pots and pans, but here are some items that are nice to have:

• Baking pan, 8-inch square: Use it for lasagna, main dishes, meatloaf, roasting small pieces of meat, and for desserts and bars.
• Can opener: Buy one that fits comfortably in your hand and is easy to wash after each use.
• Cutting boards: Hard plastic or glass cutting boards are best for cutting raw poultry, meat, fish and seafood. Wooden ones are best for cutting fruits, breads and vegetables.
• Chef’s knife: It’s the most versatile of kitchen knives.
• Paring knife: It has a short blade for peeling and cutting small amounts of food.
• Mixing bowls: Choose two or three deep bowls in various sizes. A large mixing bowl can double as a salad bowl.
• Rubber spatulas: These are for scraping the sides of a mixing bowl, blender or food processor, and for scraping out measuring cups and spoons.
• Saucepan, 2-quart: Use it for cooking vegetables and small amounts of food. A tightly fitting lid is needed to keep the moisture during cooking.
• Skillet, 10-inch: Use it for sautéing vegetables, and for stir-frying and pan-frying meats, chicken and fish.
• Strainer, wire mesh: Use it to drain liquid off cooked foods, drain liquid from canned fruits and vegetables, and drain fruits or vegetables after washing.
• Tongs: These are for lifting or turning food without piercing it. Cooking tongs should be made of metal. Salad tongs usually have a larger end for tossing a salad.
• Turner: Use it to turn foods over during cooking as well as for serving lasagna and pizza.
• Wire whisk: Use it for mixing sauces, dressing, gravy and beating eggs as well as for all-purpose mixing.
• Wooden spoons: These are for all-purpose mixing and stirring hot foods. Do not use for stirring raw meat, poultry, fish or seafood.

Source: Betty Crocker Cooking Basics

Ingredient substitutions

Before you get out the mixing bowls or measuring spoons, read your recipe and make sure you have all the ingredients and the right amounts.
If you find that there’s no baking powder in the pantry and no buttermilk in the refrigerator, here are some substitutions that will work. Ingredients are followed by substitutions.

• 1 teaspoon baking powder: 1/3 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar.
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda: 2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder (also must replace the acidic liquid in recipe with a non-acidic liquid).
• 1 cup buttermilk: 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar (white or cider) plus enough milk to make 1 cup (let stand 5 to 10 minutes).
• 1 cup sifted cake flour: 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour.
• 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate: 3 tablespoons cocoa plus 1 tablespoon butter or margarine.
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar: 1 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch (processed together in food processor).
• 1 cup light corn syrup: 1 cup sugar plus 1/4 cup water.
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch: 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour or 4 teaspoons quick-cooking tapioca.
• 1 cup self-rising flour: 1 cup all-purpose flour plus 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
• 1 cup honey: 11/4 cups sugar plus 1/4 cup water.
• 1 cup pecans: 1 cup regular oats, toasted.
• 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk: 1 cup instant non-fat dry milk plus 2â „3 cup granulated white sugar plus 1/2 cup boiling water plus 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter (process in blender or food processor until smooth).
• 1 square unsweetened chocolate: 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon butter.

SOURCE: www.JOYOFBAKING.COM

Cooking terms

Al dente: Italian for “to the tooth.” It describes pasta that is cooked until it offers a slight resistance when bitten into, rather than cooked until soft.
Bake: To cook food, covered or uncovered, using the direct, dry heat of an oven. The term is usually used to describe the cooking of cakes, other desserts, casseroles and breads.
Baste: To moisten foods during cooking or grilling with fats or seasoned liquids to add flavor and prevent drying.
Beat: To make a mixture smooth by briskly whipping or stirring with a spoon, fork, wire whisk, rotary beater or electric mixer.
Bias-slice: To slice a food crosswise at a 45-degree angle.
Blackened: A popular Cajun cooking method in which seasoned fish or other foods are cooked over high heat in a super-heated heavy skillet until charred, resulting in a crisp, spicy crust. At home, this is best done outdoors because of the large amount of smoke produced.
Blanch: To partially cook fruits, vegetables or nuts in boiling water or steam to intensify and set color and flavor. This is an important step in preparing fruits and vegetables for freezing. Blanching also helps loosen skins from tomatoes, peaches and almonds.
Blend: To combine two or more ingredients by hand, or with an electric mixer or blender, until smooth and uniform in texture, flavor and color.
Boil: To cook food in liquid at a temperature that causes bubbles to form in the liquid and rise in a steady pattern, breaking at the surface. A rolling boil occurs when liquid is boiling so vigorously that the bubbles can’t be stirred down.
Braise: To cook food slowly in a small amount of liquid in a tightly covered pan on the range top or in the oven. Braising is recommended for less-tender cuts of meat.
Breading: A coating of crumbs, sometimes seasoned, on meat, fish, poultry and vegetables. Breading is often made with soft or dry bread crumbs.
Brine: Heavily salted water used to pickle or cure vegetables, meats, fish and seafood.
Broil: To cook food a measured distance below direct, dry heat. When broiling, position the broiler pan and its rack so the surface of the food (not the rack) is the specified distance from the heat source. Use a ruler to measure this distance.
Brown: To cook a food in a skillet, broiler or oven to add flavor and aroma, and develop a rich, desirable color on the outside and moistness on the inside.
Butterfly: To split food, such as shrimp or pork chops, through the middle without completely separating the halves. Opened flat, the split halves resemble a butterfly.
Candied: A food, usually a fruit, nut or citrus peel, that has been cooked or dipped in sugar syrup.
Caramelize: To brown sugar, whether it is granulated sugar or the naturally occurring sugars in vegetables. Granulated sugar is cooked in a saucepan or skillet over low heat until melted and golden. Vegetables are cooked slowly over low heat in a small amount of fat until browned and smooth.
Carve: To cut or slice cooked meat, poultry, fish or game into serving-size pieces.
Chiffonade: In cooking, this French word, meaning “made of rags,” refers to thin strips of fresh herbs or lettuce.
Chill: To cool food to below room temperature in the refrigerator or over ice. When recipes call for chilling foods, it should be done in the refrigerator.
Chop: To cut foods with a knife, cleaver or food processor into smaller pieces. If a recipe says to cut into chunks, that means irregularly shaped pieces, about 11/2 inches to 2 inches in size. Cubes are about 1-inch square pieces of food. Dice means to cut up something into small cubes, between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch.
Coat: To evenly cover food with crumbs, flour or a batter. Often done to meat, fish and poultry before cooking.
Cream: To beat a fat, such as butter or shortening either alone or with sugar, to a light, fluffy consistency. Can be done by hand with a wooden spoon or with an electric mixer. This process incorporates air into the fat so baked products have a lighter texture and a better volume.
Crimp: To pinch or press pastry or dough together using your fingers, a fork or another utensil. Usually done for a pie crust edge.
Crisp-tender: A term that describes the state of vegetables that have been cooked until just tender but still somewhat crunchy. At this stage, a fork can be inserted with a little pressure.
Crush: To smash food into smaller pieces, generally using hands, a mortar and pestle or a rolling pin. Crushing dried herbs releases their flavor and aroma.
Curdle: To cause semisolid pieces of coagulated protein to develop in a dairy product. This can occur when foods such as milk or sour cream are heated to too high a temperature or are combined with an acidic food, such as lemon juice or tomatoes.
Cut in: To work a solid fat, such as shortening, butter or margarine, into dry ingredients. This is usually done with a pastry blender, two knives in a crisscross fashion, your fingertips or a food processor.
Dash: Refers to a small amount of seasoning that is added to food. It is generally between 1â „16 and 1â „8 teaspoon. The term is often used for liquid ingredients, such as bottled hot pepper sauce.
Deep-fry: To cook food by completely covering with hot fat. Deep-frying is usually done at 375 degrees.
Deglaze: Adding a liquid such as water, wine or broth to a skillet that has been used to cook meat. After the meat has been removed, the liquid is poured into the pan to help loosen the browned bits and make a flavorful sauce.
Dip: To immerse food for a short time in a liquid or dry mixture to coat, cool or moisten it.
Direct grilling: Method of quickly cooking food by placing it on a grill rack directly over the heat source. A charcoal grill is often left uncovered, and a gas grill is generally covered.
Dissolve: To stir a solid food and a liquid food together to form a mixture in which none of the solid remains. In some cases, heat might be needed for the solid to dissolve.
Dredge: To coat a food, either before or after cooking, with a dry ingredient, such as flour, cornmeal or sugar.
Drizzle: To randomly pour a liquid, such as powdered sugar icing, in a thin stream over food.
Dust: To lightly coat or sprinkle a food with a dry ingredient, such as flour or powdered sugar, either before or after cooking.
Emulsify: To combine two liquid or semi-liquid ingredients, such as oil and vinegar, that don’t naturally dissolve into each other. One way to do this is to gradually add one ingredient to the other while e_SDHpwhisking rapidly with a fork or wire whisk.
Fillet: A piece of meat or fish that has no bones. As a verb, fillet refers to the process of cutting meat or fish into fillets.
Flake: To gently break food into small, flat pieces.
Flour (verb): To coat or dust a food or utensil with flour. Food can be floured before cooking to add texture and improve browning. Baking utensils sometimes are floured to prevent sticking.
Flute: To make a decorative impression in food, usually a pie crust.
Fold: A method of gently mixing ingredients without decreasing their volume. To fold, use a rubber spatula to cut down vertically through the mixture from the back of the bowl. Move the spatula across the bottom of the bowl, then bring it back up the other side, carrying some of the mixture from the bottom up over the surface. Repeat these steps, rotating the bowl one-fourth of a turn each time you complete the process.
French: To cut meat away from the end of a rib or chop to expose the bone, as with a lamb rib roast.
Frost: To apply a cooked or uncooked topping, which is soft enough to spread but stiff enough to hold its shape, to cakes, cupcakes or cookies.
Fry: To cook food in a hot cooking oil or fat, usually until a crisp brown crust forms. To pan-fry is to cook food, which might have a very light breading or coating, in a skillet in a small amount of hot fat or oil. To deep fat-fry (or french fry) is to cook a food until it is crisp in enough hot fat or oil to cover the food. To shallow-fry is to cook a food, usually breaded or coated with batter, in about an inch of hot fat or oil. To oven-fry is to cook food in a hot oven, using a small amount of fat to produce a healthier product.
Garnish: To add visual appeal to a finished dish.
Glaze: A thin, glossy coating. Savory glazes are made with reduced sauces or gelatin; sweet glazes can be made with melted jelly or chocolate.
Grate: To rub food, such as hard cheeses, vegetables, or whole nutmeg or ginger, across a grating surface to make very fine pieces. A food processor also can be used.
Grease: To coat a utensil, such as a baking pan or skillet, with a thin layer of fat or oil. A pastry brush works well to grease pans. Also refers to fat released from meat and poultry during cooking.
Grind: To mechanically cut a food into smaller pieces, usually with a food grinder or a food processor.
Ice: To drizzle or spread baked goods with a thin frosting.
Juice: The process of extracting juice from foods.
Knead: To work dough with the heels of your hands in a pressing and folding motion until it becomes smooth and elastic. This is an essential step in developing the gluten in many yeast breads.
Marble: To gently swirl one food into another. Marbling is usually done with light and dark batters for cakes or cookies.
Marinate: To soak food in a marinade. When marinating foods, do not use a metal container, as it can react with acidic ingredients to give foods an off flavor. Always marinate foods in the refrigerator, never on the kitchen counter. To reduce cleanup, use a plastic bag set in a bowl or dish to hold the food you are marinating. Discard leftover marinade that has come in contact with raw meat. Or if it’s to be used on cooked meat, bring leftover marinade to a rolling boil before using to destroy any bacteria that might be present.
Mash: To press or beat a food to remove lumps and make a smooth mixture. This can be done with a fork, potato masher, food mill, food ricer or electric mixer.
Measure: To determine the quantity or size of a food or utensil.
Melt: To heat a solid food, such as chocolate, margarine or butter, over very low heat until it becomes liquid or semi-liquid.
Mince: To chop food into very fine pieces, as with minced garlic.
Mix: To stir or beat two or more foods together until they are thoroughly combined. Can be done with an electric mixer, a rotary beater, or by hand with a wooden spoon.
Moisten: To add enough liquid to a dry ingredient or mixture to make it damp but not runny.
Pan-broil: To cook a food, especially meat, in a skillet without added fat, removing any fat as it accumulates.
Parboil: To boil a food, such as vegetables, until it is partially cooked.
Pare: To cut off the skin or outer covering of a fruit or vegetable, using a small knife or a vegetable peeler.
Peel: The skin or outer covering of a vegetable or fruit (also called the rind). Peel also refers to the process of removing this covering.
Pinch: A small amount of a dry ingredient (the amount that can be pinched between a finger and the thumb).
Pipe: To force a semisoft food, such as whipped cream or frosting, through a pastry bag to decorate food.
Pit: To remove the seed from fruit.
Plump: To allow a food, such as raisins, to soak in a liquid, which generally increases its volume.
Poach: To cook a food by partially or completely submerging it in a simmering liquid.
Pound: To strike a food with a heavy utensil to crush it. Or, in the case of meat or poultry, to break up connective tissue in order to tenderize or flatten it.
Precook: To partially or completely cook a food before using it in a recipe.
Preheat: To heat an oven or a utensil to a specific temperature before using it.
Process: To preserve food at home by canning, or to prepare food in a food processor.
Proof: To allow a yeast dough to rise before baking. Also a term that indicates the amount of alcohol in a distilled liquor.
Purée: To process or mash a food until it is as smooth as possible. This can be done using a blender, food processor, sieve or food mill; also refers to the resulting mixture.
Reduce: To decrease the volume of a liquid by boiling it rapidly to cause evaporation. As the liquid evaporates, it thickens and intensifies in flavor. The resulting richly flavored liquid, called a reduction, can be used as a sauce or as the base of a sauce. When reducing liquids, use the pan size specified in the recipe, as the surface area of the pan affects how quickly the liquid will evaporate.
Rice: To force cooked food through a perforated utensil known as a ricer, giving the food a somewhat ricelike shape.
Roast, roasting: A large piece of meat or poultry that’s usually cooked by roasting. Roasting refers to a dry-heat cooking method used to cook foods, uncovered, in an oven. Tender pieces of meat work best for roasting.
Roll, roll out: To form a food into a shape. Dough, for instance, can be rolled into ropes or balls. The phrase “roll out” refers to mechanically flattening a food, usually a dough or pastry, with a rolling pin.
Saute: From the French word sauter, meaning “to jump.” Sautéed food is cooked and stirred in a small amount of fat over fairly high heat in an open, shallow pan. Food cut into uniform size sautés the best. Ingredients being sautéed shouldn’t brown.
Scald: To heat a liquid, often milk, to a temperature just below the boiling point, when tiny bubbles just begin to appear around the edge of the liquid.
Score: To cut narrow slits, often in a diamond pattern, through the outer surface of a food to decorate it, tenderize it, help it absorb flavor or allow fat to drain as it cooks.
Scrape: To use a sharp or blunt instrument to rub the outer coating from a food, such as carrots.
Sear: To brown a food, usually meat, quickly on all sides using high heat. This helps seal in the juices and can be done in the oven, under a broiler or on top of the range.
Season to taste: Taste what you are seasoning. Salting a dish as it cooks has a different effect than salting at the end.
Section: To separate and remove the membrane of segments of citrus fruits. To section oranges, use a paring knife to remove the peel and white rind. Working over a bowl to catch the juice, cut between one orange section and the membrane, slicing to the center of the fruit. Turn the knife and slide it up the other side of the section along the membrane, cutting outward. Repeat with remaining sections.
Shred, finely shred: To push food across a shredding surface to make long, narrow strips. Finely shred means to make long thin strips. A food processor also can be used. You can shred lettuce and cabbage by thinly slicing them.
Shuck: To remove the shells from seafood, such as oysters and clams, or the husks from corn.
Sieve: To separate liquids from solids, usually using a sieve.
Sift: To put one or more dry ingredients, especially flour or powdered sugar, through a sifter or sieve to remove lumps and incorporate air.
Simmer: To cook food in a liquid that is kept just below the boiling point; a liquid is simmering when a few bubbles form slowly and burst just before reaching the surface.
Skewer: A long, narrow metal or wooden stick that can be inserted through pieces of meat or vegetables for grilling. If using bamboo or wooden skewers, soak them in cold water for 30 minutes before you thread them to prevent burning.
Skim: To remove a substance, such as fat or foam, from the surface of a liquid.
Slice: A flat, usually thin, piece of food cut from a larger piece. Also the process of cutting flat, thin pieces
Snip: To cut food, often fresh herbs or dried fruit, with kitchen shears or scissors into very small, uniform pieces using short, quick strokes.
Steam: To cook a food in the vapor given off by boiling water.
Steep: To allow a food, such as tea, to stand in water that is just below the boiling point in order to extract flavor or color.
Stew: To cook food in liquid for a long time until tender, usually in a covered pot. The term also refers to a mixture prepared this way.
Stir: To mix ingredients with a spoon or other utensil to combine them, to prevent ingredients from sticking during cooking, or to cool them after cooking.
Stir-fry: A method of quickly cooking small pieces of food in a little hot oil in a wok or skillet over medium-high heat while stirring constantly.
Toast: The process of browning, crisping, or drying a food by exposing it to heat. Toasting coconut, nuts and seeds helps develop their flavor. Toasting also is the process of exposing bread to heat so it becomes browner, crisper and drier.
Toss: To mix ingredients lightly by lifting and dropping them using two utensils.
Whip: To beat a food lightly and rapidly using a wire whisk, rotary beater or electric mixer to incorporate air into the mixture and increase its volume.
Zest: The colored outer portion of citrus fruit peel. It is rich in fruit oils and often is used as a e_SDHpseasoning. To remove the zest, scrape a grater or fruit zester across the peel; avoid the white membrane beneath the peel because it is bitter.
Source: Better Homes & Gardens and Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis

Equivalent measures and abbreviations

Liquid measures
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 128 fluid ounces
1/2 gallon = 2 quarts = 4 pints = 8 cups = 64 fluid ounces
1/4 gallon = 1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 fluid ounces
1/2 quart = 1 pint = 2 cups = 16 fluid ounces
¼ quart = 1/2 pint = 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces
Dry measures
1 cup = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons
¾ cup = 12 tablespoons = 36 teaspoons
2/3 cup = 10 2/3 tablespoons = 32 teaspoons
1/2 cup = 8 tablespoons = 24 teaspoons
1/3 cup = 5 1/3 tablespoons = 16 teaspoons
¼ cup = 4 tablespoons = 12 teaspoons
1/8 cup = 2 tablespoons = 6 teaspoons
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
Measuring guide
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon = 1â „3 cup
8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup
1 cup = 1/2 pint
2 cups = 1 pint
4 cups (2 pints) = 1 quart
4 quarts = 1 gallon
16 ounces = 1 pound
Dash or pinch = less than 1â „8 teaspoon
Common abbreviations
t = teaspoon
tsp = teaspoon
T = tablespoon
Tbsp = tablespoon
c = cup
oz = ounce
pt = pint
qt = quart
gal = gallon
lb = pound
# = pounds

Source: Betty Crocker

Friends, family will ask when dressing is homemade

Anyone can make a salad, you say.
But can they make a great salad?
There can be so much more to a salad than opening a bag of gourmet greens and tossing them with a store-bought dressing.
The components for a successful salad are as varied as the cooks who prepare them. For today’s lesson, we’re giving you the basics for building an awesome salad and making homemade dressing.
The best way to dress those delicate greens is with a vinaigrette. Making your own is more economical than buying bottled dressing. It costs less than $1 to make a pint of vinaigrette compared with $2 to $4 for a bottle at the supermarket.
According to the Canned Food Alliance, 2 tablespoons of a bottled vinaigrette contains 150 calories, 16 grams of fat and 150 milligrams of sodium. A homemade lemon vinaigrette has 25 calories, 2.4 grams of fat and 93 milligrams of sodium in 2 tablespoons.
A vinaigrette is the simplest of salad dressings, but it can be as complex as you want to make it. it’s a mixture of wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh green herbs in season. Even simpler is one part juice to one part oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.
To take the recipe to an even higher level, use a different oil or vinegar, but always good quality. Extra-virgin olive oil is the first choice for most vinaigrettes, although many recipes call for vegetable oils. They’re best for strong-flavored dressings. “Pure” olive oil adds a fruity flavor, and walnut oil adds a nutty taste. If you would like to dress your salad to accompany an Asian meal, choose toasted sesame oil or Asian sesame oil. It has a potent flavor and is highly perishable, so store in the refrigerator.
Vinegar also comes in a variation of flavors: red wine, white wine, cider, rice and balsamic. They also come in gourmet varieties.
The proper way to blend the vinegar and oil is to use a whisk and a rubber-bottomed bowl, although a pint jar with a screw lid works well. You’ll need both hands – one to pour in the oil and the other to whisk, so make sure the bowl is steady. If you don’t have a rubber-bottomed bowl, you can shape a towel in a ring around the bottom of the bowl for proper traction.
To begin, dissolve a little bit of salt in the vinegar. Some cooks like to add a small amount of Dijon mustard, which acts as an emulsifying agent. Whisk in the mustard until well combined, then slowly pour the oil in a steady stream, whisking constantly, until the oil is worked in and does not separate from other ingredients.
Experiment with this basic vinaigrette by adding ingredients such as herbs, garlic, shallots, citrus zest, pesto, fruit jelly, honey or a pinch of brown sugar.
For the salad, use a big bowl at least twice as big as the amount of ingredients. Toss the salad with a small amount of dressing; you can always add more. You don’t want a soggy salad.

It starts with lettuce, but which kind?

Dozens of items can make up a salad, but a basic dinner salad begins with lettuce. Some people buy ready-to-use mixed salad greens that are washed and torn into bite-size pieces, but if you prefer to wash and chop your own, here’s a guide for buying popular types of lettuce.
Head lettuce

• Bibb: This lettuce has tender, pliable leaves similar to Boston lettuce but is smaller and has the same delicate, mild flavor. (Bibb lettuce was developed in Frankfort in the late 19th century, by a man named Jack Bibb.)
• Boston: A lettuce with small rounded heads of soft, buttery leaves and a delicate flavor. Also known as butterhead lettuce.
• Iceberg: Also known as crisphead, iceberg comes in large, round, tightly packed heads with tight leaves that range in color from medium green outer leaves to pale green inner ones. It has a bland, mild flavor, making it the most popular salad green.
• How to buy: Look for solid, compact heads with tight leaves.
• How to store: Clean head lettuce before storing. Remove core by striking the core end of the head against a flat surface, then twisting and lifting it out. To rinse, hold the head, cored end up, under cold running water. Turn right-side up to drain. Refrigerate in a plastic bag for as long as 2 weeks.

Leaf lettuce
Any of several varieties of lettuce (green leaf, red leaf, oakleaf) with leaves that don’t form tight heads. These leafy bunches have a mild flavor that’s more full-bodied than iceberg lettuce. Leaf lettuce can range in color from medium to dark green; some have red-tipped leaves.

• How to buy: Look for bunches with crisp, evenly colored leaves that aren’t wilting or yellowing.
• How to store: Wash and either drain completely or blot dry with a paper towel, then refrigerate in a plastic bag up to about 3 days.

The best ways to measure salad greens
The staff at America’s Test Kitchens get questions about how to accurately measure greens for salads, which is why they always give an ounce measure and a cup measure in recipes.
But when they tried their usual formula of 2 ounces (or 2 cups) of lightly packed greens per serving for arugula salads, it was too much. That’s because the calculation was based on head lettuce, which is heavier (because of its higher water content) than arugula or, for that matter, baby spinach or mesclun. For these greens, 1 ounce of lightly packed baby greens will yield roughly 11/2 cups, just enough for one serving.
But if you don’t have a scale and are using the cup measurement, what exactly does “lightly” packed mean? The reason recipe testers don’t just call for a more accurate measure of “tightly” packed greens, pressed firmly into the cup, as is done with brown sugar, is that this would bruise delicate leafy greens.
To lightly pack greens, simply drop them by the handful into a measuring cup, then gently pat down, using your fingertips rather than the palm of your hand.
Source: Cook’s Illustrated

Here are the techniques and tools that go into making a salad

Chop: Cut into coarse or fine irregular pieces with knife, food chopper, blender or food processor.
Chopping garlic: Hit garlic clove with the flat side of a heavy knife to crack the skin, which will then slip off easily. Finely chop the garlic with the knife.
Dice: Cut food into squares smaller than 1/2 inch, using knife.
Grate: Rub a hard-textured food, such as chocolate, citrus peel or Parmesan cheese, against the small, rough, sharp-edged holes of a grater to reduce it to tiny particles. For citrus peel, grate only the skin, not the bitter white membrane.
Julienne: Cut into thin, matchlike strips with knife or food processor, as for fruits, vegetables and meats.
Peel: Cut off outer covering with knife or vegetable peeler, as for apples and potatoes, or strip off outer covering with fingers, as for bananas and oranges.
Shred: Cut into long, thin pieces with either the round, smooth holes of a shredder, a knife or a food processor, as for cabbage, carrots and cheese.
Slice diagonally: Place knife at 45- degree angle to food, and cut into slices of equal width.
Toss: Tumble ingredients lightly with a lifting motion, as for salads.

A few cooking how-tos:

How to cut bell peppers: Cut pepper lengthwise in half. Cut out seeds and membrane.
How to squeeze lemons: Squeeze and measure juice from lemon halves by placing the juicer over a measuring cup. The juicer also strains out most of the seeds and pulp.
How to chop onions: Wash onions; remove any loose layers of skin. Cut green onions into thin slices, using some of the green part and the white part. Discard the tip with the stringy end.
How to prepare mushrooms: Rinse mushrooms and cut off stem ends. Leave mushrooms whole or cut into slices.
How to prepare fresh tomatoes: Wash tomatoes. Cut into 8 wedges or slice 1/2-inch thick. Peel tomatoes before cutting if desired. To remove skin easily, dip tomato into boiling water 30 seconds, then into cold water. Or scrape surface of tomato with blade of knife to loosen; peel.
Tools for salad preparation
Salad spinner: After rinsing salad greens, using a salad spinner is a quick and easy way to dry them. It’s a plastic bowl containing a basket that holds greens. The lid contains a mechanism that spins the basket and forces moisture out into the bowl.
Salad tongs: They may be wooden or plastic, usually have a larger end for tossing a salad.
Scissors or shears: Good for snipping fresh herbs, cutting and trimming of ingredients.
Chef’s knife: This knife has a heavy, triangular blade 6 to 12 inches long. A medium-size blade, about 8 to 10 inches, is the most versatile size. It is used for chopping, slicing and dicing as well as for crushing a clove of garlic. This knife also is called a cook’s knife.
Paring knife: It has a small blade, about 21/2 to 3 inches long, and a rounded or pointed tip. If you plan to have only one paring knife, choose one with a pointed tip. You’ll need it to cut up fruits and vegetables.
Vegetable brush: Use to clean vegetables.
Vegetable peeler: Use to remove a thin peel from apples, potatoes and carrots. Is much easier to use than a knife.
Zester: A cousin to the vegetable peeler, a zester is a kitchen tool made to remove strips of peel from citrus fruit. The cutting end has 5 little bladed holes.
Sources: Cook’s Illustrated, Betty Crocker, Myrecipes.com.

Recipes

The Internet offers easy-to-follow cooking videos that teach the proper ways to peel and slice garlic and onions, sharpen knives, and even how to boil water. To hone your salad-making skills, go to these sites:
www.cooksillustrated.com/video/default.asp?docid=11922&newVideo=y.
www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/techniques/cooking-class-fundamental-techniquesi-ndex-main-00400000032930.

Here’s a simple salad you can make for the first recipe of our cooking series. It’s ready in 20 minutes.

Italian romaine salad
Vinaigrette:
1 to 2 medium lemons
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
Salad:
1 large bunch or 2 small bunches romaine lettuce
1 small red onion
1 cup pitted kalamata olives or pitted jumbo ripe olives
6-ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts, undrained
1/2 cup seasoned croutons
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Roll each lemon on the countertop with the palm of your hand, using gentle pressure (this will help release the juices). Cut lemon in half; squeeze juice. Peel and finely chop garlic. In a tightly covered jar or container, shake lemon juice, garlic, oil, salt and pepper.
Remove any limp outer leaves from romaine and discard. Break remaining leaves off core; rinse with cool water. Shake off excess water and blot to dry, or roll up leaves in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel to dry. Tear leaves into bite-size pieces. You will need about 10 cups of romaine pieces.
Peel onion; slice onion and separate into rings. In a large glass or plastic bowl, place romaine, onion, olives and artichoke hearts (with liquid). Shake vinaigrette again to mix ingredients. Pour vinaigrette over salad ingredients, and toss with 2 large spoons or salad tongs until evenly coated.
Sprinkle croutons and cheese over salad. Serve immediately. Makes 8 servings.
Note: You can toss the salad in a large, resealable food-safe plastic bag. Place all ingredients in the bag, seal and shake until evenly distributed. Pour salad into the serving bowl.
Nutritional information per serving: 140 calories, 10 g. fat, 0 mg. cholesterol, 410 mg. sodium, 8 g. carbohydrate, 2 g. dietary fiber, 3 g. protein.
From Betty Crocker Cooking Basics

A nice thing about making your own salad dressings is that you can control the ingredients and have something a little different from what the supermarket offers. This recipe has no fat yet offers rich flavor.
Creamy harvest dressing
1 can (about 15 ounces) yams or sweet potatoes in light syrup, drained
1 slice yellow onion, 1/2-inch thick
3/4 cup apple juice
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1â „8 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley

Puree all ingredients, except for parsley, in a blender or food processor until smooth; stir in parsley. Makes 12 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: 50 calories, 0 g. fat, 0 mg. cholesterol, 95 mg. sodium, 12 g. carbohydrate, 1 g. fiber, 1 g. protein.
From www.Mealtime.org.

This dressing delivers protein and fiber.
Creamy cilantro-lime vinaigrette
1 can (about 15 ounces) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 clove garlic, halved
1/4 cup canned, diced green chilies
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt, to taste
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Makes 6 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: 80 calories, 2.5 g. fat, 0 mg. cholesterol, 125 mg. sodium, 11 g. carbohydrate, 3 g. fiber.
From www.Mealtime.org.

Green empress dressing
8 1/2-ounce can sweet peas, drained
2 scallions, trimmed and coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 cup fresh herb leaves (parsley, chive, basil and/or mint)
2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Makes 6 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: 39 calories, 2.5 g. fat, 0 mg. cholesterol, 79 mg. sodium, 6. carbohydrate, 1.6 g. fiber, 2.2 g. protein.
From www.Mealtime.org.

Just grab a pan, a little oil, fresh ingredients — but beware of smoking

Stir-frying is one of the easiest cooking methods for getting a delicious meal on the table in a hurry. Stir-frying is simply stirring and frying food at the same time.
Professional cooks have differing opinions on whether a wok or a skillet gives the best results. The testers at America’s Test Kitchen prefer a skillet, while Lexington cooking instructor Phil Dunn and restaurateur Suda Veerasethakul like to use a wok.
“I think the best pan to use is a wok because, basically, stir-frying and wok cooking are the same,” Dunn said.
“Any pan with sloping sides would work. I always suggest that people work with small amounts of food in the pan at the beginning; sometimes they put way too much in a pan and make a big mess trying to stir it without having the food splattering out. And then there are those who graduate from stir-frying to sauteing, which requires more skill in keeping the ingredients contained in the pan.”
Cooking authority Shirley Corriher classifies sauteing and stir-frying together because “both require rapid movement and turning of the food in a hot pan containing a small amount of fat.”
Because stir-frying is done over very high heat, smoking can occur if you’re not careful. If that happens, you have to clean out the pan and start all over.
The best oils to use are ones that can be heated to a high temperature without smoking: canola, peanut or grapeseed. These oils also have neutral flavors that work well with stir-fry sauces and ingredients, according to Bon Appetit.
Veerasethakul, one of the owners of Thai Orchid Cafe on South Broadway, said it’s also good to make sure your veggies are dry before they hit the hot oil.
“If there is a lot of excess moisture, it’s going to spatter,” she said. “Ouch!”

It’s important to have all of the ingredients ready to go before you begin stir-frying. You’ll find that once you start, cooking goes too quickly to prepare ingredients between cooking steps.
Start by slicing all of the ingredients, combining the sauce ingredients, and cooking the rice or pasta. Arrange all ingredients in dishes near the skillet or wok so you can reach them easily.
When everything is ready, add the cooking oil to the large skillet. Lift and tilt the skillet to evenly distribute the oil over the bottom. Preheat the skillet over medium-high heat about 1 minute. To test the hotness of the oil, add a single piece of vegetable to the hot skillet. If it sizzles, proceed with cooking the seasonings, vegetables and meats as directed in the recipe.
You might need to add oil during stir-frying to prevent the food from sticking. The amount of oil needed for stir-frying depends on the skillet’s surface. A skillet with a non-stick surface probably will need less oil than a wok with a steel surface. If you need to add more cooking oil, add a small amount at a time, and bring the oil to frying temperature before proceeding.
Seasonings, such as minced garlic and grated ginger root, generally are stir-fried first for 15 seconds so their distinctive flavors season the oil. Just stir the seasoning into the hot oil, keeping it in constant motion. Because the amount you will be stir-frying at one time is so small, it’s important to keep the seasonings moving the entire time so they don’t burn.
Now you’re ready to stir-fry the vegetables. Begin with the vegetables that take the longest to cook, then follow with those that cook more quickly. Use a long-handled spatula or wooden spoon to gently lift and turn the pieces of food with a folding motion. This ensures that the food will cook evenly. To prevent scorching, remember to keep the food moving at all times. Remove the vegetables from the skillet after stir-frying.
Stir-fry the meat, poultry or fish. Since overloading the skillet or wok with food will slow cooking, stir-fry no more than 12 ounces of protein at one time. This means that for most recipes, you’ll begin by stir-frying only half of the protein until it is done, then remove it from the skillet. Then you’ll stir-fry the remaining half. Return all of the cooked protein to the skillet.
To thicken the sauce, push the cooked meat from the center of the skillet. If the sauce ingredients you’ve already mixed contain cornstarch, you’ll need to restir first. Then pour the sauce into the center of the skillet and cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens and bubbles over the entire surface.
The final step of stir-frying is to return all of the stir-fried ingredients to the center of the skillet. Stir everything together to coat with the sauce. Then, cook and stir the mixture as directed in the recipe until heated through. To assure that your stir-fry is piping hot, serve immediately.
It pays to be quick
Cooking food fast is the key to good stir-frying.
Cutting the food into small, thin pieces and cooking small amounts at one time make the quick cooking possible.
When cooked quickly, vegetables keep their crispness and color, and meats stay tender and juicy.
Source: Better Homes and Gardens

The right skillet

You don’t have to own a wok to make a terrific stir-fry. But you do need a good 12-inch skillet.
At America’s Test Kitchen, the professional testers prefer a skillet with a traditional rather than non-stick surface, precisely because they want the food to adhere slightly, to create the caramelized, browned bits, called fond, that are the foundation for great flavor.
What’s more, while even the best non-stick surface will wear off eventually, a well-made traditional skillet should last a lifetime.
Skillets are simply frying pans with low, flared sides. Their shape encourages evaporation, which is why skillets excel at searing, browning and sauce reduction. Traditional versions come in three main materials: stainless steel, anodized aluminum and cast iron. The test kitchen is not a big fan of the dark surface of anodized aluminum, because it makes it hard to judge the color of fond. And while cast-iron skillets have their uses, they are cumbersome and can react with acidic sauces.
A great skillet will transmit heat evenly across its cooking surface; has a steady, moderate saute speed and will not require endless fiddling with the temperature dial to balance any shortcomings. It also will have a generous cooking surface.
To learn how to buy a top-notch skillet go to: www.cooksillustrated.com/equipment/overview.asp?docid=18250.
Source: Cook’s Illustrated

You can boil water, so you can make rice, pasta water

Stir-fried dishes often are accompanied by pasta or rice, and both begin with boiling water.
Hot or cold water?
When boiling water, is it faster to start with hot water? And what is a true boil?
A full boil makes the water as hot as possible – 212 degrees at sea level, with many large bubbles constantly breaking the surface. To speed up the process, many cooks start with water that is hot from the tap, but a few still insist on cold tap water, claiming that it makes a difference to the flavor of food like pasta. To see whether this is really the case, America’s Test Kitchen set up a taste test.
The testers brought 4 quarts each of hot and cold tap water to a boil and then added 1 tablespoon salt and 1 pound pasta to each. When the pasta was done, it was drained and tasted plain (no oil, no sauce). Tasters could not discern any difference in flavor. In fact, the only difference was in the time it took the pots to reach a boil – 131/2 minutes for the hot tap water, 15 minutes for the cold.
Before you turn on the hot tap, though, you might want to consider what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has to say about cooking with hot tap water. According to the EPA, water hot from the tap can contain much higher levels of lead than cold tap water. In addition, even cold tap water should be run for a while (until the water is as cold as it can get) to ensure that any lead deposits are flushed out of the system.
Tips for cooking rice
In stir-fry dishes, long-grain white and brown rice work well. Short- and medium-grain rice are good choices for dishes that have a creamier characteristic.
American-grown rice does not need washing or rinsing before or after cooking. Rinsing rice, or cooking rice in excess water and draining, results in loss of water-soluble vitamins and minerals.
It’s best to follow the directions on the package, and here are some tips that will help you make perfect rice to go with any dish.
Accurately measure rice and liquid.
Set timer to prevent undercooking or overcooking.
Keep the lid on the pot during cooking to prevent steam from escaping.
Rice triples in volume. Use cookware appropriate for the amount of rice you are preparing.
Do not stir. Stirring releases the starch, resulting in rice that is sticky.
At the end of cooking time, remove lid and test for doneness. If rice is not tender or liquid is not absorbed, cook 2 to 4 minutes longer.
When rice is cooked, fluff with fork or slotted spoon to allow steam to escape and keep the grains separate.
If rice is crunchy, add additional liquid, cover tightly and cook until grains are tender.
If more separate grains are desirable, saute rice in small amount of butter or margarine before adding liquid.
Tips for cooking pasta

• Boil 4 to 6 quarts of water for one pound of dry pasta. (You can divide this recipe depending on how much pasta you are cooking.)
• Add the pasta with a stir and return the water to a boil.
• Stir pasta occasionally during cooking.
• Follow the package directions for cooking times. If the pasta is to be used as part of a dish that requires further cooking, undercook the pasta by 1â „3 of the cooking time specified on the package.
• Taste the pasta to determine whether it is done. Perfectly cooked pasta should be al dente, or firm to the bite, yet cooked through.
• Drain pasta immediately and follow the rest of the recipe.

Sources: Cook’s Illustrated, USA Rice and National Pasta Association

Good ingredients make dish better

A stir-fry is only as good as its ingredients. Use fresh vegetables, preferably ones with contrasting colors, flavors and textures. If pressed for time, you may use packages of pre-sliced vegetables and meat.
Pick a protein
Choose a lean, tender cut, such as:
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenders.
Pork tenderloin or center-cut loin.
Steak, such as flank or boneless sirloin.
Thick, firm white-fleshed fish, such as catfish, halibut or sea bass, and shellfish, such as shrimp or sea scallops.
Firm or extra-firm tofu.
Chopping and slicing
All the ingredients – meat, seafood, vegetables – should be sliced thinly and uniformly to ensure that everything cooks quickly and evenly.
Bell peppers: Cut into thin strips.
Bok choy, asparagus, green beans, scallion greens: Cut into 11/2-inch pieces.
Broccoli, cauliflower: Cut into small florets.
Carrots, sweet potatoes: Cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
Meat, fish: Cut across the grain into strips 1/4 inch thick and 2 inches long.
Seafood (shrimp, scallops): Leave whole.
Snow peas, sugar snap peas: Leave whole, with ends trimmed.
Make a sauce
Prepare the sauce in the same pan you’ll be using to stir-fry the protein and vegetables. Heat the seasonings, such as garlic and ginger, to bring out their fragrance and flavor. Then add the remaining ingredients and cook until sauce thickens to the consistency of heavy cream. You can prepare sauces in advance, or make a double batch and refrigerate half for another time. (But don’t double the cornstarch – that will make the sauce too thick. Instead, use 11/2 times the specified amount.)
Cook the vegetables
Because some vegetables take longer than others, add them to the pan in stages, beginning with those that require the most time.

• Green beans: 9 minutes.
• Cauliflower: 8 minutes.
• Sweet potatoes: 8 minutes.
• Asparagus: 4 minutes.
• Carrots: 4 minutes.
• Bok choy: 2-3 minutes.
• Broccoli: 2-3 minutes.
• Snow and sugar snap peas: 1 minute.

Source: Real Simple

Recipes

You can use your stir-fry skills on these recipes. This lemon chicken dish is ready, from start to finish, in 30 minutes.
Lemon chicken stir-fry
1 pound uncooked chicken breast tenders (not breaded)
1 medium onion
1/2 cup sugar snap pea pods
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt (for cooking pasta)
8 ounces uncooked angel hair pasta
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon-pepper seasoning
Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces. Peel onion and cut into 8 wedges. Snap-off the stem end of each pea pod, then pull string across pea pod to remove it. Cut tomatoes in half.
Fill a 4-quart Dutch oven about half full of water. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover with lid; heat over high heat until water is boiling rapidly. Add pasta. Heat to boiling again. Boil uncovered 3 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until pasta is tender but still firm to the bite.
While pasta is cooking, in a 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and onion; stir-fry 5 to 6 minutes or until chicken is brown.
Add broccoli and pea pods to chicken mixture. Cook over medium-high heat 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until vegetables are crisp-tender.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together broth, thyme, lemon peel, cornstarch and lemon-pepper seasoning; stir into chicken mixture. Cook over medium-high heat 1 to 2 minutes, or until sauce is thickened and vegetables are coated.
Stir in tomatoes; cook until thoroughly heated. Place a strainer or colander in the sink. Pour pasta in the strainer to drain. Serve chicken mixture over pasta. Makes 4 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: 440 calories, 6 g. fat, 50 mg. cholesterol, 530 mg. sodium, 61 g. carbohydrate, 5 g. dietary fiber, 37 g. protein.
From Betty Crocker Cooking Basics

Almost any tender beef cut – sirloin, top sirloin, tri-tip, rib-eye, top loin, tenderloin – can be trimmed, cut into uniform strips and used for stir-fry. Even some less tender cuts, such as flank, top round and round tip steaks, are suitable for stir-frying when cut into thin strips.
Total preparation and cooking time for this beef stir-fry is 15 minutes.
Szechuan beef stir-fry
10-ounce package fresh vegetable stir-fry blend
3 tablespoons water
2 beef shoulder center steaks (ranch steaks), cut ¾ inch thick (about 8 ounces each)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup prepared sesame-ginger stir-fry sauce
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 cups hot cooked rice or brown rice, prepared without butter or salt
¼ cup dry-roasted peanuts
Combine vegetables and water in large non-stick skillet; cover and cook over medium-high heat 4 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove and drain vegetables. Set aside. Meanwhile cut beef steaks into ¼-inch thick strips.
Heat same skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add half the beef and half the garlic; stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes or until outside surface of beef is no longer pink. Remove from skillet; keep warm. Repeat with remaining beef and garlic.
Return all beef and vegetables to skillet. Add stir-fry sauce and red pepper; cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes or until heated through. Spoon over rice. Sprinkle with peanuts. Makes 4 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: 351 calories, 11 g. fat, 64 mg. cholesterol, 1,147 mg. sodium, 29 g. carbohydrate, 3 g. fiber, 32 g. protein.
From Cattlemen’s Beef Board

It’s easy to make a sauce

Here are sauce recipes that you can make at the last minute and use immediately or store in the refrigerator.
When creating a stir-fry, dry ­ingredients are added to hot oil in a skillet and stirred over high heat. Liquid in­gredients, often the same ingredients used to marinate meat or seafood, are then added. Last, the thickener, usually corn starch dissolved in a small amount of liquid, is stirred in to coat the ingredients.
A basic stir-fry sauce is made with 1 cup broth (beef, chicken or vegetable), 2 teaspoons soy sauce and 2 ­tablespoons corn starch. Then you can add other­ ingredients, including ginger, five spice powder, garlic, black bean sauce, hoisin sauce or curry powder.

Lemon stir-fry sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice plus 1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
Combine all in 1-cup measuring cup.

Soy-sesame stir-fry sauce
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon sugar
Combine all in 1-cup measuring cup.

Fresh herb stir-fry sauce
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup shredded basil or minced cilantro
Combine all in 1-cup measuring cup.

Sweet & sour stir-fry sauce
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons cider, balsamic or rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
Combine all in 1-cup measuring cup.

Start with trusted apple for flavor and aroma

The cooking skills required for making apple crisp are minimal. If you know how to slice an apple, measure flour, brown sugar and oats, you can make a delicious dessert.
While a fruit crisp is an easy dessert to make, the aroma of fresh baked fruit and cinnamon will wow everyone who comes into your kitchen.

Simply place fruit in a baking pan and cover it with a streusel-type topping. The hardest part is preparing the fruit.

You can use apples, pears, stone fruits, tart cherries, berries or a combination, and even if you don’t have fresh fruit, you can use canned or frozen.

An apple crisp is a good choice for the novice cook. Apples are available all year, although they’re usually better and cheaper in the fall. When baking and making pies, choose a firm apple. According to the Washington Apple Commission, you can always increase the sweetness or acidity of the product by adding sugar or a few drops of lemon juice to the recipe.

The best apple crisp is made with a blend of sweet and tart apples such as Golden Delicious, Braeburn and Jonagold (sweet); and Granny Smith, Empire and Cortland (tart).

Other ingredients are brown sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon and butter. You can jazz it up with nuts if you like.

Here are some cooking tips for these ingredients.
Brown sugar
Brown sugar, whether light or dark, is simply white sugar with molasses added. Dark brown sugar has more molasses and thus a stronger flavor than light brown. If brown sugar is exposed to air, moisture in the molasses can evaporate, causing the brown sugar to dry out. To revive hard brown sugar, spread it on a pie plate (or square of aluminum foil) and place in a 250-degree oven for 3 to 7 minutes, checking often. Cool the softened sugar before using.
If you don’t have dark brown sugar, add 2 tablespoons molasses to 1 cup granulated sugar and pulse three or four times in a food processor; to approximate light brown sugar, add 1 tablespoon molasses to 1 cup granulated sugar, and pulse.
Pouring brown sugar out of its narrow box into a measuring cup can be a messy chore. Transfer the brown sugar to a large, heavy-duty zip-top bag, which allows the sugar to remain moist during storage. Also, a measuring cup fits inside the bag easily and can be filled by pressing the sugar into it through the plastic.
Flour
If you are going to have only one flour in the house, Cook’s Illustrated recommends King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour or Pillsbury unbleached enriched all-purpose flour.
Oats
At the supermarket you’ll find a variety of oats: instant, quick, rolled (old-fashioned), steel-cut and oat groats. Choose steel-cut oats because they make the best oatmeal.
Butter
For a crisp topping, most recipes call for softened or chilled butter, depending on the method you use for cutting the butter into the flour mixture. The easiest way to soften butter is to put sticks on the countertop and forget about them for an hour or two. But most of us don’t want to wait. Microwaving it is the next option, but that can be tricky.
Here’s a foolproof method: Place a stick of butter on a small microwave-safe plate. Place the plate in the microwave and heat for 1 minute at 10 percent power. Press on the butter with your finger to see whether it is sufficiently softened; if not, heat for an additional 40 seconds at 10 percent power.
Cinnamon
A dash of cinnamon is not only pleasing to our senses, it also has one of the highest anti-oxidant levels of any spice. You’ll find as many anti- oxidants in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon as a full cup of pomegranate juice or 1/2 cup of blueberries, according to McCormick Spices. Nutmeg and mace also can be used.

Give your valentine the gift of a homemade meal

Home cooking, it’s been said, is the way to a man’s heart. And what woman wouldn’t be pleased by a homemade meal prepared by the man in her life?

If the economy has put a chill on your Valentine’s Day plans, you can opt for a lovely meal at home, with money left for a dozen roses.

Men and women who aren’t accomplished cooks can make an Italian dinner easily. There are so many choices in pastas and tomato sauces that you can mix and match and come up with your own creations.

Choices for the main dish include beef, sausage, chicken, seafood and vegetables. The shape of the pasta can change the look of a dish, and the store-bought tomato sauce can make or break the flavor.

Most cooks buy a jarred sauce when making an Italian dish, and they have a favorite brand. But if you’re not pleased with the one you buy most often, go by what the experts at America’s Test Kitchen recommend. They rated Bertolli tomato and basil sauce tops because it had “a good balance of flavors,” “a nice chunky texture” and tasted “the most like fresh-cooked tomatoes.”

It’s fun to take a chance on some unfamiliar brands. Recently, Home Goods in Woodhill Shopping Center had a variety of Napa Valley Harvest pasta sauces. The artichoke and sweet red pepper pasta sauce, at $4.99 for a 24-ounce jar (suggested retail is $7.69), is one of the best sauces I’ve found.

When making pasta dishes, be sure to choose a pasta shape and sauce that complement each other. Thin, delicate pastas like angel hair or thin spaghetti should be served with light, thin sauces. Thicker pasta shapes, like fettuccine, work well with heavier sauces. Pasta shapes with holes or ridges, like mostaccioli or radiatore, are perfect for chunkier sauces, according to the National Pasta Association.

We’ve selected a Valentine’s Day menu that is easy to prepare and affordable. Set the table with your best dinnerware, nicest linens, flowers and candles. Play your sweetheart’s favorite music, and start cooking together.

Here’s a simple menu: hearts of romaine salad, easy lasagna, garlic bread and rustic red tart or raspberry sorbet.

The salad calls for a gorgonzola dressing, but you can use a store-bought one if you prefer. The easy lasagna is made with refrigerated ravioli layered with fresh spinach, pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese. The tart can be made a day ahead, and if there’s not enough time for a homemade dessert, simply spoon raspberry sorbet into a fancy goblet or dessert dish and jazz it up with a couple of rolled wafer cookies.

Garlic bread adds a nice touch to any Italian meal.
Garlic is a strong-flavored cousin to onions, shallots, leeks and chives. It grows underground and releases most of its flavor once it has been crushed, chopped, pressed or pureed. Here are tips for buying and storing fresh garlic from Bon Appetit.

• How to buy: Look for firm, plump bulbs with dry skin. Avoid bulbs with shriveled skins, sprouting or skins that cover the cloves loosely (an indication that the garlic has dried out and shrunk).
• How to store: You do not need to store garlic in the refrigerator. Keep it in an open container in a cool, dark spot. Unbroken bulbs can last 2 months, but cloves broken from the bulb keep for only a few days. If your garlic starts to sprout a little, it’s OK to use it, but cut out the green sprout because it has a bitter taste.
• How to prepare garlic: To separate a whole head of garlic quickly, wrap it in a dish towel and give it a good thwack with a heavy frying pan. The cloves will fall away from each other easily, and the dish towel will keep them together and prevent them from getting bruised.
• To remove the skin from a clove, place the clove on a cutting board and hit it with the flat side of a chef’s knife just enough to bruise it. After that, the peel will come off easily.
• Some recipes will ask you to mash garlic to a paste in a bowl or mortar. Try mashing the garlic with a chef’s knife. Put a chopped clove and coarse salt on a cutting board. With the blade at a 45-degree angle to the work surface, bear down on the garlic and salt. Use the same motion you would to butter bread, twisting your wrist and using the top half of the knife blade. Mash on, and soon you’ll have a creamy paste.
• To roast cloves: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place unpeeled cloves in a single layer in a small ovenproof dish. Drizzle some olive oil and a tablespoon of water over the garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Cover the dish with foil. Bake garlic until it is tender, about 50 minutes. Peel cloves and mash as needed, or, for a puree, put them in a food processor and through a sieve.

Roasted garlic
6 heads garlic
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove any loose skin from garlic heads and cut a 1/4-inch slice off tops, exposing tips of cloves. Set garlic heads cut side up on sheet of aluminum foil and sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Wrap heads in foil and roast until tender, about 45 minutes. Let cool before peeling.
From Every Day With Rachael Ray

Garlic bread
1 to 2 teaspoons roasted garlic puree, or more if desired
1 stick butter, melted
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt
1 loaf (1 pound) French bread
4 ounces Parmesan cheese, cut in chunks and grated
Parsley, fresh or dried, optional

Combine garlic puree with melted butter, olive oil and pinch of salt. Slice bread in half lengthwise. Spread cut halves with garlic mixture. Bake bread in preheated 400 degree oven about 10 minutes, or until topping is bubbly and edges of the bread start to brown. Remove bread from oven; sprinkle immediately with the grated Parmesan and parsley.

Hearts of romaine salad
8 strips good-quality bacon
1 large egg
2 hearts romaine lettuce
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Gorgonzola dressing (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lay bacon strips on roasting rack and bake until crisp, about 20 minutes. (To make bacon curls: Wrap each slice of raw bacon around a metal skewer in a barber-pole fashion and lay the skewers on the roasting rack.) Pat dry with a paper towel. When cool enough to handle, break into pieces or in half, if using curls.
Put egg in a small saucepan with enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and remove from heat. Set aside for 10 minutes. Drain egg and roll it between your palm and the counter to crack the shell, then peel under cool running water. Rub egg through a fine-mesh strainer and set aside.

Remove large outer leaves from romaine hearts and rinse. Chop these leaves into bite-size pieces and spin dry. (Use an extremely sharp knife to minimize bruising the edges.) Halve hearts through cores to make 4 wedges. Rinse under cold running water and shake to air dry.

Divide wedges among 4 plates. Mound some of the chopped romaine on top and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Spoon about 1/4 cup gorgonzola cheese dressing over each salad and top with some of the sieved egg and bacon. Pass remaining dressing at the table.

Gorgonzola dressing
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
8 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup canola oil

In a blender or food processor, combine vinegar, sugar, 1 cup Gorgonzola, onion, mustard, garlic and salt. Cover and process until smooth. While processing, gradually add oil in a steady stream until dressing is thickened. Stir in remaining Gorgonzola. Serve over salad. Cover and refrigerate leftover dressing. Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Easy valentine lasagna
24-ounce jar pasta sauce
18- or 20-ounce bag refrigerated large cheese ravioli
10 ounces fresh spinach
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan

Combine remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon; sprinkle over tart. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender. Let stand 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 6 servings.
Source: Cherry Marketing Institute

Popular dish of uncertain origin takes time but not technique to make

Several months ago, Sally Arias called to ask whether I was interested in looking at an old cookbook collection that belonged to her late mother. Arias gave me her mother’s box of handwritten recipes and newspaper clippings.
The box’s contents were better than any cookbook.
Arias’ mother, Kathryn Rogers of Evanston, Ill., must have loved crabmeat dishes and chicken tetrazzini. She had dozens of recipes for both.
When the January issue of Southern Living featured comfort food, I was reminded of those recipes for chicken tetrazzini.
Even though a few of the recipes had been streamlined by using cream of mushroom soup instead of making a sauce from scratch, the dish still takes a while to make.
Dozens of Rogers’ recipes were clipped from The Chicago Tribune and women’s magazines, but the majority were typed or hand written by her friends. The recipes for chicken tetrazzini were similar – cooked chicken (or turkey) combined with mushrooms, a cream sauce and spaghetti. Some had a touch of sherry added, others called for pimientos instead of peas, and the cheese was American, Cheddar or Parmesan. Those that called for a cream soup used mushroom or celery, with sour cream added.
Just like fashions, cooking styles come and go.
Chicken tetrazzini was one of the first dishes chef Susan Licholat learned to cook.
“It’s an older recipe, but I was surprised when I looked at it again. It’s valid for today’s cooking,” she said. The chef at Natural Bridge State Resort Park, Licholat said she would rate the dish as moderately easy.
“It’s not super easy, but it doesn’t require any technique,” she said.
Like many recipes, chicken tetrazzini has a rich history. In Guidelines, a newsletter for San Francisco City Guides, Susan Saperstein said chicken tetrazzini was named for famed Italian opera soprano Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1941). She was a world-renowned star who was a favorite of San Francisco audiences.
Chefs often named dishes for prestigious patrons of their restaurants, and one theory is that the chef at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York created the dish to honor Tetrazzini’s January 1908 New York debut singing Violetta in La Traviata.
A few historians claim that master French chef George Auguste Escoffier invented chicken tetrazzini, but it is not mentioned in his cookbooks, Saperstein said.
James Beard supported San Francisco’s claim to the recipe. He thought the dish was created at the Palace by chef Ernest Arbogast. It is possible, Saperstein wrote, that Arbogast created chicken tetrazzini in 1904 when Tetrazzini sang in San Francisco and was featured in daily articles in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Decades later, the dish makes an interesting story as well as a great home-cooked meal.

On the whole, cooking a chicken is easy and quick

from the supermarket makes a quick meal and often is cheaper than cooking one at home. But when raw whole chickens are on sale at the supermarket, buy several to put in the freezer. Then you can use the meat for a variety of dishes, including chicken tetrazzini.
Here are roasting tips from Bon Appetit.
Roasting a whole chicken takes at least 50 minutes. If you are cooking with a specific recipe, follow the time and temperature specifications.
It’s a good idea to have a roasting pan and rack so heat circulates evenly. If you don’t have these, you can use a heavy rimmed baking sheet, also called a baker’s half-sheet.
Rinse the chicken and dry it thoroughly, inside and out, with paper towels.
You can do a number of things to add flavor. Try rubbing herbs and olive oil in the cavity and on the outside. To add flavor under the skin, find an area on the side of the breast where the skin can be lifted easily to create a space. Slide two to three fingertips between the chicken breast skin and meat, and move from side to side to loosen the skin (it stretches easily, but be careful to move slowly to prevent tears); put butter, herbs or lemon slices under the skin. Or you can stuff the cavity with any combination of spices, herb sprigs, garlic cloves (slightly smashed to release flavor), and lemon quarters.
Some cooks prefer to truss a raw chicken before cooking. Tie it with kitchen twine to bring the legs together and secure a compact shape and even cooking. Trussing makes the chicken look neater, but it isn’t necessary.
Chicken breasts cook faster than the dark meat of the thighs. To slow them down, try this trick: Make a 2-layer sheet of foil into the shape of a trapezoid (like a triangle but with the top point cut off). Butter one side of the foil and use it to cover the breasts for the first 15 minutes of cooking.
When the meat is pierced with a fork, the juices should run clear. The best way to know when the chicken is finished is with an instant-read thermometer; it should read 170 degrees when stuck into the thickest part of the thigh.
Ideally, you want to carve on a cutting board with a channel to catch juices.
Put a long fork into the cavity to hold the chicken steady. Slice through the skin that connects the thigh and breast, then cut down as far as you can, pushing the thigh away with the side of the knife. Look for the joint where the thigh connects to the backbone. The key is to cut through the place where those joints meet, not through the bone. Once you have cut the thigh away from the body, you can cut the drumstick away from the thigh. Again, try to cut where the joints meet. Repeat on the other side.
To remove a wing, lift it away from the body and slice where the wing naturally pulls away from the body. Once you have found the joint, try to cut where it meats the backbone. Poultry shears can sometimes be useful. Repeat on the other wing.
To cut breast meat away from the bone, slide your knife along the side of the breast bone as close as possible to the bone, and push the meat away with the side of your knife. Repeat on the other side.
Safe handling tips
These tips for handling chicken safely are from the National Chicken Council.
Refrigerate raw chicken promptly. Never leave it on the countertop at room temperature.
Packaged fresh chicken can be refrigerated in original wrappings in the coldest part of the refrigerator.
Freeze uncooked chicken if it is not to be used within two days.
If properly packaged, frozen chicken will maintain top quality in a home freezer for as long as one year.
Thaw chicken in the refrigerator – not on the countertop – or in cold water. It takes about 24 hours to thaw a 4-pound chicken in the refrigerator. Cut-up parts take three to nine hours. To thaw in cold water, place the chicken in its original wrap or watertight plastic bag in cold water. Change water often. It takes about 2 hours to thaw a whole chicken.
For quick thawing of raw or cooked chicken, use the microwave. Thawing time will vary.
Always wash hands, countertops, cutting boards, knives and other utensils used in preparing raw chicken with soapy water before they come in contact with other raw or cooked foods.
Refrigerate chicken immediately upon arriving home.
Never leave cooked chicken at room temperature for more than 2 hours. If not eaten immediately, cooked chicken should be kept hot or refrigerated.
Cooked, cut-up chicken is at its best refrigerated for no longer than two days – whole cooked chicken, an additional day.
If leftovers are to be reheated, cover to retain moisture and to ensure that chicken is heated all the way through.
If you’re transporting cooked chicken, put it in an insulated container or ice chest until ready to eat. Keep below 40 degrees or above 140 degrees.

Cooks tell us their favorite things — some new, some old

No doubt about it, cooking at home saves money. In these tough economic times, many of us are sharpening our knives and our cooking skills, and eating the food prepared in our kitchens.
If you haven’t cooked in your kitchen for a while – or are just learning – you might need to update your cooking gear. We asked a couple of knowledgeable home cooks which kitchen items they can’t live without and why. They’ve learned that a few good tools can make dinner preparation much quicker and easier.

Elaine Hiatt, Lexington
Onion chopper: One of the most useful and time-saving items in Hiatt’s kitchen is a Vidalia onion chopper. “I purchased it from Good Housekeeping years ago, but now they have them at local stores. In minutes, you can prepare fresh vegetables, pecans, fruits, boiled eggs or anything that can be chopped. When I make potato salad, I can use it to chop all the ingredients in the recipe.”
KitchenAid stand mixer: “I bake a lot and am always trying new recipes. I like having my hands free while mixing.”
Pressure cooker: “Besides saving time, it tenderizes meat. My mother-in-law gave me a Mirro Matic pressure cooker 50 years ago, and I am still using it. I will admit I need a new one and have been shopping to find one, but so far none pleases me.”
Cast-iron skillets: “I couldn’t make corn bread or cook breakfast foods without my cast-iron skillets. They are hand-me-downs from my mother and are in good ‘seasoned’ condition.”
Paring knife: “Having a good knife to work with is important to me. I even carry my paring knife on vacation to Hilton Head, (S.C.) because I cook there for my family.”

Bill McAtee, Lexington
Easy Twist by Farley: “It’s almost impossible for me to twist the cap off the apple juice bottle without my Easy Twist by Farley,” the retired minister said.
Cast-iron muffin pan: “My cast-iron corn bread muffin ‘tin,’ with 11 individual cups all welded together, came from a Civil War plantation in Louisiana, where the wife of one of my seminary professors grew up, and was given to me by her years ago.”
Wooden spoon: “My 111/2-inch wooden spoon … has worn down on one side from years of stirring soup, grits, oatmeal, lactose-free pimento cheese and no telling what else that was sticking to the bottom of pans and cast-iron skillets.”
Butcher knife: “My 8-inch Victorinox butcher knife we got in Switzerland in 1990. I use it to cut up everything. Always stays on the counter top.”
Crock: “My mother-in-law’s Wesson Oil Crock – “For Making Good Things to Eat” – that sits by the stove and holds wooden spoons, spatulas, whisks and all sorts of cooking utensils at the ready.”

Susan Lambert, Anderson County
Jar opener: “I am on the high side of 50 years old and have a touch of arthritis in my hands. I sometimes need help popping the seal so I can turn the top and open the jar. A very inexpensive tool that I found is a ‘vacuum popper jar opener.’ The little plastic tool fits under the lip of the jar lid and also on top, and it levers the edge of the jar lid away from the jar and breaks the seal.”
Knife sharpener: “I like for my knives to be really sharp. I have not invested in really high-end knives, but instead, buy the ones recommended by Cook’s Illustrated magazine as the best buys. When I pull them out of the knife block, I turn them upside down on the counter and run an Accusharp knife sharpener down them 4 or 5 times. This little tool will put a very fine edge on a knife.”
Flexible cutting mats: “I have four or five of them in the kitchen. I have one section of my counter that is butcher block and a lot of counter space that is not. These are great for throwing down and chopping food up anywhere on the counter. The really cool thing about them is when you’ve got the food chopped, you pick the mat up by the edges, roll the edges up kind of like a funnel and dump the chopped ingredients into whatever you’re preparing.”
Microplane grater: “This grater makes very short work of turning hard cheeses into piles of feathery cheese that just melts on top of my marinara. It also does a fine job of zesting citrus.”
Garlic peeler: “You put the garlic cloves inside the sleeve, put it down on the counter and roll the sleeve under your palm with a little pressure like you would a rolling pin. You dump the garlic out of the sleeve and the skins have come off.”
On-the-counter olive oil dispenser: “I use a lot of extra-virgin olive oil when I cook. I’ve begun to substitute it for butter. Rather than going to the pantry and hauling out a bottle of olive oil, uncapping, opening, pouring, recapping and taking it back to the pantry, I keep a dark-green glass bottle with a dispenser cap on it right on the counter with the salt and pepper.”
Virginia Long, Lexington
Iron skillet: “My mother, a great cook, owned no small appliances,” Long said. “She relied heavily on her well- seasoned iron skillet. Mine is over 50 years old, indestructible and indispensable.”
Cutting boards and clever: “For simplicity and usefulness,” she said, “I value my various cutting boards and my favorite cleaver.”
Spoon holder: Long’s newest kitchen gadget is a spoon holder that clamps to the side of the pot.
Slow cooker and bread machine: “I am partial to my many time-saving electrical appliances, and when I have house guests, I can prepare a savory stew in my slow-cooker and I fill the bread-making machine, and enjoy my company. Oh, the aroma in my house.”
Betsy Lowe, Lexington
“I have a lot of kitchen items that I love,” Lowe said. “They’re all Pampered Chef, but basically that is all I use anymore.”
Food chopper: “Very versatile. I can chop (anything from) onions to chocolate bars.”
Stainless steel bowls: Rubber bottoms prevent them from sliding on the counter, and there’s a thumb hole in the handle for easy mixing and lids for storage.
Batter bowl: For mixing and measuring.
Tool turnabout: “Keeps all of my handy tools on the counter top for easy access.”
Sondra Holt, Lexington
Mixer: “A must for cakes,” Holt said.
Food processor: for grinding pretzels for pretzel salad; chopping or grinding pecans for cookies, cakes; and especially for softening cheese for pimiento cheese.
Jonell Tobin, West Liberty
Food processor: Tobin uses her Cuisinart food processor more than she does a mixer.
Antique utensil: Tobin has an “antique utensil that I use to fold egg whites, particularly into a sour cream cake. It was my mother’s, and it is special, but very useful. I have not seen anything like this in the stores. I don’t think I could replace it.”
Microwave: “I don’t really cook in the microwave, but I use it for something every day.”
Iron skillet: Tobin said one simply can’t make good corn bread without a seasoned iron skillet.
Baking stone: The Pampered Chef baking stone is great for baking. Also, “if I could add one more item, it would be the stand mixer. “In my community and church, I am known for making sour cream cakes. … I could not make them without the mixer.”
Pat Reed, Winchester
Serrated knife: Every day, Reed uses her Miracle serrated knife, which was part of a set given to her several years ago by her son Mike. “The handle is curved upward so that when you slice food, your knuckles do not hit the counter. It is especially wonderful for slicing homemade bread.”
Bosch mixer: “Second would have to be my Bosch mixer. I can make 10 French loaves of bread at one time and freeze for later use. It will hold 15 to 16 cups of flour and not walk all over the counter and does all the kneading for me,” she said.
Potato masher: “An old-fashioned potato masher from Stanley Home Products that they used to give as hostess gifts for home parties,” she said. “It has small round holes instead of the traditional zig zag wire style and is great for mashing potatoes before using an electric mixer to finish.
Food Saver: From her son Clay. “We buy whole rib-eye steaks and freeze individual steaks with the Food Saver bags to last longer without freezer burn.”
Helen Morgan, Nicholasville
Townecraft cookware: Morgan said one of the mainstays in her kitchen is “a set of Townecraft cookware purchased in the 1960s at an in-home cooking party. The stainless steel pans cost between $300 and $400 for about 10 pieces counting the lids, and that was a lot of money at that time. I value them for their strength, endurance and versatility, and even at their age, they are still beautiful.”
KitchenAid stand mixer: “It is essential, especially in making wedding cakes. I make a lot of cakes and do a great deal of baking.”
Pampered Chef cookie dough scoops: “I use them frequently. I have all three sizes of their scoops, which are wonderful for producing uniform-sized cookies to be baked and enjoyed fresh from the oven, and I also use them for putting muffin batter in the pans.”
Biscuit cutter: “I don’t use it often, but its sentimental value outweighs any functional value. It is an old biscuit cutter which my mother made from a food can; she cut off one end and somehow left a smooth edge, and then poked three holes in the other end. She started her married life about the time of the Depression, and although I am sure she had many unmet needs in the kitchen, she was an excellent cook … and good at improvising and operating on a shoestring.”
Rosemary Sackleh, Lexington
Bench scraper: Can be used as a pizza cutter, bagel slicer or for scooping up chopped items (it even gets up dried candle wax).
Kitchen shears: For opening packages and cutting meats, fruits and vegetables.
Three-quart Pyrex mixing bowl: For mixing, microwaving, storing and serving.
Crock-Pot: For mulled cider, barbecue, roasts and spiced fruit.
Cookbooks: “Especially the old ones.”
Linda Huff, Lexington
Zojirushi bread machine and KitchenAid mixer: “I would have to say that the bread machine is my overall favorite,” said Huff. “We haven’t bought bread for years. I used to make bread by hand or knead it with my KitchenAid mixer. The bread machine makes this much easier.”
Canning funnel: “Of course, we have to have homemade jams and jellies to go with the bread. I use my mother’s old aluminum canning funnel to fill the jars.”
Cast iron: Huff said she prefers to use a set of old iron skillets and muffin pans, rather than any modern cookware. “I have an iron skillet that belonged to my grandmother, who died 90 years ago.”
Whisk: “It’s an excellent utensil for making sauces, especially chocolate sauce, and chocolate cream pie.
Wayne Greer, Danville
Mixing cups and spoons: “When trying a new recipe, I will make it to the exact measurements of the author,” said Greer, who’s a baker. “If it measures up to my taste, I will continue with the original, or if not, I will change to suit my taste.”
Wooden spoon: “This is my most-used item in the kitchen. I like to use the wooden spoon and enjoy the aroma that evolves as you are mixing the ingredients.”
Coffee cup, knife and fork: “Sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee, a slice of cake or pie, and the fork is the ultimate test of what you expected or what you received. I have several ‘taste testers’ in the neighborhood that will sample and provide feedback.”
Hope Arnold, Georgetown
KitchenAid mixer: Arnold uses her mixer for many things: cake mix, mashed potatoes or a hard stick of cream cheese. “And it looks good on the counter,” she said.
Bamboo cutting board: It doesn’t dull knives like glass, and it doesn’t harbor bacteria like wood, she said.
Bamboo spoons: The bamboo spoons from Pampered Chef are a cross between a spoon and a spatula, so you need only one utensil.
Chef’s knife: “A 5-inch chef’s knife is just the right size. You can chop an onion or use it to spread peanut butter on a sandwich, then cut off the crust.”
Hand-held can opener: “A hand-held can opener fits in the drawer next to the stove, so you can open the can, pour it in the pot, and it doesn’t clutter up the counter.”