Cooking and Gadgets

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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beefribs.jpgFor me, shopping isn't fun if I don't get a bargain. My grandmother taught me well, "Never pay retail. If you want to be a good shopper, you have to pay less than other people and still get as good." In our neighborhood, Gelson's is the quality supermarket, carrying a full line of antibiotic-free, naturally raised meats. Which is great, except that they're pricey. The trick is to buy the meat when its been reduced, when a rib steak that was originally priced at $18.99/lb, is discounted to $7.99/lb. Any meat that's been reduced is still fresh, but it needs to be cooked that day or frozen.

Yesterday I stopped by and it was like my birthday. There must have been a dozen packages of prime cuts of meat, all reduced. I couldn't possibly eat all that meat in one day. But no way was I going to walk away from those bargains.

I bought half a dozen packages and prepped them for freezing. Years ago, after much experimentation, I learned a cool trick: if meat is marinated in olive oil seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, wrapped in plastic wrap, and sealed in a Ziploc freezer bag, it will stay fresh for months without any loss of flavor.

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Wands-2I recently received a package in the mail at KCRW.  Opening it up revealed a thin, long package of wood strips of differing thickness held together with a loop of chain called Pastry Wands.  I was immediately intrigued.  

I tend to be a chaotic cook who forgoes attempts at perfection for simply making food that tastes really good, so often my dough is uneven when I roll it out. That never worries me.  

If it did I would have bought one of the few items marketed to bakers who want perfectly even crusts or cookies. There are adjustable rolling pins, thick rubber bands to attach to your pin, even sunken boards with height adjustable edges.

They’ve all seemed a bit gadget driven for me. But the Pastry Wands combine usefulness with beauty.

A well designed package of simple strips with measurements burned into the wood edge.  They have a distinctly tactile appeal.  So I took them home and put them to use.  A great holiday gift idea for your favorite baker.

umamibook.jpg Umami was discovered by a Japanese researcher one hundred years ago. Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University recognized that certain foods like asparagus, tomatoes, meat and cheese all shared a common taste. It's a bit hard to put your finger on, though it's often described as "savory." I think it's easier to think of it as the taste that makes your mouth water. It also has a distinctive mouth feel, it lends a fullness or roundness.

One of the first things I learned at a recent Umami Symposium is that while taste and flavor are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Flavor is determined by taste and smell. There are only five tastes--sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Just as sweetness is imparted by sugar, umami is imparted by glutamate, a type of amino acid, and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods. It is also manufactured in monosodium glutamate. It is added or occurs naturally in products with hydrolyzed soy protein and autolyzed yeast such as Marmite, Vegemite, Maggi, and Kewpie mayonnaise. It also exists in most cheese flavored snack foods.

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chickenbeerWhat? Where?

My personal trainer, Antony, likes two things in life: Picking up girls and cooking.

Re: picking up girls… his technique of choice is to borrow a baby from one of the female trainers and take it to the park. “Babies are chick magnets,” he declares. I suggested using puppies. He said with a sigh, “People are quite willing to give you their babies for the day, but they will not part with their puppies!”

Re: cooking … Antony is, guess what, Italian and Mama’s youngest, so he gets the good stuff. But, being a bachelor he personally confines most of his own cooking to what’s easy – and BEER BUTT CHICKEN is easy. Apparently it is also rather wonderful, and I am going to try it!

Since I got his recipe while doing 3 miles on a stationary bike I went to the net to see what’s what, and clearly the world loves BEER BUTT CHICKEN and not just because people feel like naughty 12 yr olds when they say it, nor because it sounds like an answer to a Newlywed Game question, but because it is friggin’ brilliant!

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