Cooking and Gadgets

grilledpizzaI love making pizza, not just because it's fun, but also because I think mine can rival any pizza parlor's. I have the entire set-up, including a pizza stone and peel. But this time I put all that aside to try something new. Instead of the typical way of baking pizza, have you ever tried grilling it? For years I've been told that grilled pizza is the best, but I haven't actually done it myself until now. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the outcome.

Grilling lends pizza a smoky, charry flavor and makes the crust crispier than baking. This is pizza grilled directly on the grates, not on a stone. With this method you grill the dough on one side, then flip it over and top the just-grilled side with toppings. My recipe takes on the flavors of Caprese salad with slices of fresh mozzarella and tomato. Instead of tomato sauce, the base is pesto—it's a much more fresh flavor especially if you make the pesto yourself, which I do.

Recently Fleischmann's sent me packets of their new yeast, Pizza Crust Yeast. I was intrigued to say the least. Thinking it might just be a gimmick, I gave it a go anyway. Usually when you make pizza, the process of waiting for the dough to rise takes up a lot of time—it's almost as involved as making bread! But with this new yeast, all you have to do is mix together the ingredients, knead it a little, and you are ready to make pizza. Try it!

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We asked our regular contributors what's the one cooking utensil or gadget they just couldn't or wouldn't want to live without. We were suprised to find there was one clear winner...

microplanezester.jpgMy favorite kitchen tool is our Microplane Grater/Zester. Peter and I took a basic cooking class right before we got married, and on the first day we both accidentally sliced our hands open and had to wear giant Band-aids. At the end of the class series, we got a little gift certificate to Surfas restaurant supply, and we bought the lemon zester, and now when I use it I think about how hard we laughed when we both sustained consecutive ridiculous kitchen injuries on Day One of cooking school. It was pretty embarrassing; no one else in the class shed a drop of blood the whole time. — Emily Fox

Okay, don't laugh. For several years I've had a Microplane Grater/Zester that I just would never be without. Can't be beat for grating chocolate, parmesan, citrus. I was shopping at Target recently and noticed this foot buffer (made for TV commercials) that looked a lot like a food grater. So, I went home and tried my Microplane on my calloused feet. Yep – worked great. So, now I have two of my favorite graters – one in the kitchen drawer and one in the bathroom drawer. I'm not sure what the people at Microplane would think of this!
Sue Doeden

microplane.jpgMy favorite kitchen tool is the Microplane grater, it works for cheese, chocolate, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, etc. I recommend all the different size graters that the company makes. I use it daily. — Brenda Athanus

This is the desert island question: what kitchen tool I can't live without.  Without a doubt, that would have to be a freshly sharpened chef's knife.  Beyond that it would be a Microplane Grater/Zester, possibly one of the smartest, coolest tools ever adapted to the kitchen.  Mine makes fluffy grated cheese for pasta and fantasy-small shavings of chocolate to top ice cream and cakes. — David Latt

My favorite kitchen utensil is the oft ignored chef's knife. It is essential to have a very sharp and versatile knife in the kitchen in order to ensure efficient and in fact safer preparation. It has been proven that a sharper knife minimizes the risk of cutting hands and fingers because of the sureness of the blade which reduces the risk of overexertion, slippage, etc. The chef's knife is hands down my favorite kitchen tool. — Jackson Malle

cleaver.jpgMy Kyocera Ceramic Nakiri Vegetable Cleaver, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how you never ever get dull - never and when you do (about 1 or 2 times a year) I send you off  to some strange little shop in Irvine along with $10 and you come back resharpened with all the nicks honed out. I love how you can slice a garlic clove as thin as Ray Liotta was able to in that great jail cell scene in Goodfellas. I love how I can cut perfect geometric squares out of diamond hard celeriac. But most of all I love how easy you make every single cutting job known to man. You, my black Kyocera vegetable cleaver, are even more dear to me than my 33-year-old ginsu knife. — Paul Mones

oxocup.jpgI would personally like to kiss the ring of the genius who thought of the
Oxo Angled Measuring Cup. No longer do I have to execute a Grand Plié every time I need an exact 2/3 - cup liquid. Now, you just pour, look down into the cup from a standing position and watch the liquid rise to the desired line. A revelation. — Katherine Reback

peanut-butter-mixer.jpgI have to call this a thingamajig. It is a device that has a jar lid on it, a crank and hook on the bottom. Can you guess what it's for?  Peanut Butter. You know how the oil is separated on the top and how much work it is to mix it together. It's messy, too. Well, with my  thingamajig, I simply replace the jar top with my thingy, screw it on, turn the crank and voila....less of a mess.  I used to have one of  those apple peelers that gives you perfect round slices in an  accordion, along with the peel in a single strip, but it broke, and  THAT was my favorite.
Laraine Newman

cookbookholder.jpgI have a countertop book stand that keeps my cookbooks clean... and open to the right page.  It makes me feel like a professor with a lectern, which is a good way to feel when you're cooking.
Agatha French

An antique herbal appetite stimulator  grinder. The one that looks like a metal pill box. Perfect for chopping basil, tarragon, and other legal substances. — Michael Elias 

My favorite kitchen tool is my phone because I can order in, tell Len what to pick up, find out what Emily wants to eat for dinner after she is done playing soccer and seek out recipes from friends all over. — Betsy Sherman

I cannot live without a salad spinner.  There is nothing worse than watery, wilted lettuce and since I eat salads nearly every day it is essential to my well-being. — Nancy Mehagian

kitchenaidmixer.jpgMy favorite kitchen gadget is my red KitchenAid stand mixer. My husband bought her for me for Christmas several years ago, and her name is Mildred, after the woman who “did for” my grandmother. I love Mildred more than words can say; she kneads my bread dough, whips my cream and looks impossibly cheerful on the coldest, darkest days. I also love my chef’s knife, but it’s hard to get all sentimental and cozy about a knife.
Ann Nichols

winepull.jpgThough it has nothing to do with cooking – unless you consider wine essential to food – my favorite and most used "kitchen gadget" is my Legacy Corkscrew. Sure, it takes up some counter space and seems a bit over the top, but it looks fancy, can pull the cork out through the foil (which is cool, but not classy and not recommended) and also allows you to re-cork the bottle as well. All it takes is one simple pull. Receiving this item as a "gift" from someone who didn't want it cluttering their kitchen, only made me cherish it more. In fact, when I broke it (a dark day and not easy to do), I loved it so much I spent the money to get another one. I could certainly live without it – though my regular corkscrew skills have dulled over the years since its arrival – but I'm glad I don't have to.
Lisa Dinsmore 

 

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fish.jpgDuring my first fall as a single person, I started eating fried fish for dinner a few nights a week. I cooked it with ingredients I bought at M2M, a Korean bodega across the street from my apartment building in the East Village. M2M sold three types of fish: salmon, sole, and basa. The salmon was bright orange and fat, the sole was thin and yellow with odd raised bumps like pores, and the basa was light pink and smooth-fleshed. I have a bourgeois distaste for salmon stemming from a childhood vacation to France where it had was served at nearly every meal, and I feared the wan, pebbly sole. So I always bought the basa, despite the fact that before moving across the street from M2M I had never heard of this fish.

Each package of basa contained two fillets; when I cooked dinner for myself, I used only one, leaving the other piece in its yellow Styrofoam tray and covering it with cellophane wrap to spend another night in the refrigerator. I rinsed the basa fillet under the water, sometimes squeezing the juice of half of a lemon onto the slippery flesh. Then I traced the seam that ran down the center of the fillet with my small ceramic knife and divided the fillet in two parts. There were no bones. I cut each of the twin pieces into smaller chunks, then broke an egg into a bowls and beat it. In another bowl I mixed together equal parts flour and cornmeal with half-teaspoons of black pepper and oregano and a pinch of salt. I dropped the pieces of fish into the beaten egg, rinsed them around with the fingers of my left hand, and then dropped them into the flour mixture. I tossed them in the flour with the fingers of my right hand.

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thermometer-illustration1.jpgAll my knowledge of cooking comes from a lifetime in the kitchen with family. My grandmother, my mother, my father, my chef friends, my farmer friends, you name it – if I can glean something from them I will.

Many lessons have been learned through trial and error which I suppose is a good way to learn. I’ve made many mistakes and continue to make many mistakes (you should have seen my Korean song pyeon I tried to make the other day, I don’t even wanna talk about it). I thought I’d begin a series of things I’ve learned along the way and subject you to some bad illustrations I painted. Sometimes you just have to step away from the camera and change things up a bit. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Matt's Kitchen Wisdom Volume 1.

Kitchen Thermometers Are Your Friends.

There was a time when I tried to wing everything. The result? Soggy fried foods, destroyed melted sugar gloop, burnt butter (which isn’t a bad thing exactly but you know what I’m saying). And since deep frying plays a big part of On a Stick!, it’s important to know your temperatures and know when you’re where you want to be.

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From the LA Times

cookingfortwoMeghan and Carter are getting married. Like so many friends of my daughter, they are bright, funny and, sometimes, almost preternaturally serious. A couple of weeks ago, they asked my wife if we would talk to them about how to stay married — and about how to cook.

The first, I'll leave to Kathy; after almost 34 years, it's still a mystery to me. But the cooking part is right up my alley, and, even better, I figured it would give me a chance to try out some of the ideas I've been on a soapbox about for the last couple of years.

A basic knowledge of cooking — not the intricacies of fancy restaurant dishes or the parsing of various ethnic cuisines — seems to me to be fundamental to a happy life, whatever your relationship status. A good meal gives such great joy, why would you want to leave it to the hands of a stranger?

So Sunday night, Meghan and Carter came to the house for a cooking class. But instead of doing the usual thing and walking them through a couple of recipes, I wanted to try something different. I love recipes as much as the next guy, but it does seem to me that they are an imperfect way to learn to cook. Sure, a well-written recipe can teach you how to re-create a specific dish, but that's a different thing from actually knowing how to cook, isn't it?

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