Category: Cooking

One of the most difficult things for a cook at home to make is a flavorful sauce. A great sauce will cover some of the worst cooking mistakes, enhance most of the best cooking successes and make you appear to be a home cooking genius.

Cooking a sauce means adding flavor, texture, and appearance to your home cooking dishes. A sauce or gravy is made of three simple ingredients: liquid, thickener, and flavorings. When you need easy cooking ideas for cooking sauces at home, you need only think of these three things.

Liquid for Your Sauce

If youre making a chicken dish, youll probably want to add something like chicken broth. If youre making a tropical dish, you might add a fruit juice or add soy sauce to an Asian dish. Add the liquid that makes sense for the protein that youve cooked and once youre comfortable making sauces, be open to experimenting with new and different flavor combinations. Next, you will need to be able to thicken your liquid so that it sticks to your food for some great home cooking.

Thickener for Your Sauce

A sauce needs to be thick enough to cling to food and not wind up as a puddle on the bottom of the plate. The easiest way to thicken a liquid is with a cornstarch slurry. This is the same method that most of our grandmothers used to make gravy from the pan drippings of the holiday turkey. When you dissolve cornstarch in a cold liquid, then add it to a hot liquid (your sauce), it will gelatinize, and thicken the sauce.

While slurry is the easiest way to cooking sauce success, roux is the most widely used and most flavorful because of the fat needed to separate starch molecules. If youve ever noticed lumps in your gravy, its because groups of starch molecules have stuck together and only thickened on the outside of the group. Butter, oil, or solid fats in a roux help to “line up” the starch molecules for the introduction of hot liquid and their opportunity to individually absorb the liquid and swell, this thickening the sauce.

Flavoring for Your Sauce

The liquid that you used to create your sauce may give you enough of a flavor profile that you dont need to add any additional flavors. However, if there isnt enough flavor, add some! You could add garlic, onions, ginger or any number of different ingredients while you are cooking your sauce to help to liven up your home cooking.

No matter what the liquid, thickening agent or flavor profile you choose, you can find that cooking sauce is a skill youll enjoy and will lead to more easy cooking ideas without recipes. Before you know it, everyone will be begging you to have them over to your house for some great home cooking.

I have a bone to pick about cinnamon. How many of you really know what spice you have in your cupboards. Are you sure it really is cinnamon.

We in the U.S. are having the wool pulled over our eyes about cinnamon. What we commonly know in the U.S. as cinnamon is actually Cassia (cinnamomum aromaticum). It is a relative of true cinnamon, but not the real thing. The rest of the world uses true cinnamon (cinnamomum verum), in their cooking or baking, yet here we are sold something completely different.

As background, I first found out how much difference there was between these two spices when I lived in Guatemala. The cinnamon there tasted very different from what I knew growing up in Ohio; making things like an apple pie or apple crisp just tasted different. They were very good, but didnt taste like what had known. I chalked it up to differences in quality of product, or maybe my baking skill was inadequate. Any typical Guatemalan foods I ate or made with cinnamon tasted just fine of course, with nothing to compare.

That was back in the 1970s, and it wasnt until much later, when once again living in the U.S., I tried making a Guatemalan dish, Platanos en Mole (Plantains in Mole Sauce), using the cassia available. The dish just tasted wrong. I couldnt understand it. I had made this dish many times in Guatemala. I had a lot more cooking and baking skill by this time. What was wrong? I started checking into spices in general, with an eye to those things I knew were different, and discovered that we in the U.S. are being marketed a completely different product.

Cassia cinnamon is a very good spice, of course. I do not for a second propose we do away with it! What would our apple pies taste like without it. It is a wonderful spice, worthy of the space in our cupboards. However, I propose that true cinnamon have an equal place.

Cinnamon of either kind is the bark of the tree. The bark is peeled off and dried, curling into what are known as quills or ground into powder. This is where the similarity ends. Cassia quills are very thick curls, strong and sometimes even hard to break. It has a stronger taste, warmer and more potent. There is some very good quality cassia to be found these days, such as Korintje AA. A lovely spice to perk up anything you commonly make with cinnamon here.

For my cooking classes I always take both types of cinnamon: a high quality cassia quill and ground Korintje AA cassia, alongside true cinnamon quills and ground cinnamon. True cinnamon quills are curled and layered together in a tight roll, are very thin and easily crushed. The flavor is lighter and more delicate, with a somewhat lemony quality. I set the quills side by side and demonstrate the differences, first breaking a cassia quill, with the ensuing loud snap when it breaks. Then I show the cinnamon quill, layered together, and how very easily it breaks and crumbles. With the ground version of each side by side, I ask the class members to smell the two; first the cassia that is the most familiar, and then the cinnamon. The startled reactions when they realize exactly how big a difference exists between these two spices, is quite rewarding.

I would liken this before the U.S woke up and smelled really good Arabica coffee. Once we found out about good coffee, the tide turned. I believe this country is in the process of bringing true cinnamon into the light. It is found in most any Mexican grocery section these days. Good quality spice shops carry excellent quality cinnamon and also excellent quality cassia. If you want to make any ethnic food from anywhere else in the world, or just become familiar with a new flavor go for true cinnamon. Its worth the effort.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. I hope it was informative and helped you along your own culinary journey. You will find many more recipes and helpful tips on my web site. I am on Facebook at A Harmony of Flavors and share a recipe or tip each day to the fans that have liked my site. I hope to see you there soon.

In this day and age, one is not surprised to learn that silicone, which used to be a component for computers, microchips and breast implants is now a common material used for cooking utensils. A silicone cooking utensil can actually have a competitive price with cooking utensils made from metal and nylon. There are a variety of cooking utensils that utilize silicone. One common structure for a silicone cooking utensil is to have a wooden handle. This is especially true for spatulas, spoons and others.

There are also many bake ware that are made from silicone. These silicone bake ware needs a firm surface to be laid on if you wish for the cake or to maintain the square or rectangular form you put it in.

Why Use A Silicone Cooking Utensil?

Kitchenware is usually exposed to constant heat and even cold. This is one of the main reasons why a silicone cooking utensil is great for the job. Silicone can withstand heat which can be more than the average stove temperature or oven temperature. It does not lose its form when exposed to heat or cold and silicone also does not retain any smells or colors from the previous foods it has been exposed to. A silicone cooking utensil is also resilient when it comes to being cleaned or washed.

Silicone cooking utensils also have the distinct advantage of not being corrosive to ordinary pr common kitchen substances. It also does not corrode or react negatively to exposure to heat and then cold or vice versa. This means that your silicon cooking utensil will probably last longer than the other kitchen utensils you have with the right care and attention.

One advantage of using a silicone cooking utensil is its gentleness when it comes to dealing with non-stick surfaces. Silicone is softer than wood and can not scratch or damage the surface of non stick pots and pans. Bake ware made from nonstick materials are also exposed to less risk of damage and scratches when the baker uses silicone cooking utensils. Some people may not be aware of it but scratched and damaged nonstick cooking utensils need to be disposed of because exposure to the substances of the scratched surface can lead to cancer and other serious conditions.

These are just several of the advantages of using a silicone cooking utensil. The price of a silicone cooking utensils may seem high but the longevity and sturdiness of the product make sit worthwhile.

Barbecues can be made easily, but not all people can cook good barbecues. To people that don’t like to make barbecues or have the drive in making one, probably what’s on your mind is barbecues are just incorporating all uncooked meat on the barbeque grill and setting up a fire. In fact there are more to it than the things you imagined. In order to get the finest barbeque experience, you have to combine excellent recipes about barbecues and using the best barbecue tools.

We all know that using the best tools in cooking will make a job much easier. The idea applies the same in grilling barbecues, you possibly don’t know this but there are tons of tools in grilling barbecue in the market that you can use to help you in your grilling needs. With the huge number of tools available, it’s very easy to confuse one tool from the other. So, offered below are the lists of basic tools you will need to get the finest barbecue experience you want.

In preparing the barbecue, the first basic tool you will need is the tool needed in preparing the barbecue meat. Much of the result of your barbecue starts before actually getting placing it to barbecue grill. The tenderizer, the tenderizer is a best tool for tenderizing the raw meat and getting the marinade to sink in. In finding the best tenderizer, make sure to find a tool that has long spikes that will permit you to stab holes deep into your meat. Sharp knifes are also helpful to cut away the fat off you meat.

Next tool needed are the tools needed for barbecuing. Try to buy a set of lengthy handled tongs for yourself and also lengthy handled spatula. It’s also a great idea to have a lengthy handled brush to keep the moist of the meat during the cooking process. If kebabs are included in your menu, then you should purchase metal skewers. Compared to wooden skewers, Metal skewers can be used longer than the wooden skewers. In grilling, thermometers are also essential in managing its temperature. It reduces the need to stab holes on the meats just to know if it’s done. In general, interior smoker thermometers are also needed when you are smoking your meats.

And lastly are the special tools for barbecue. These tools are the tools you will need when cooking something on your grill aside from meats. An example is in case of grilling vegetables; vegetables mostly fall through the grates of the grill. A great solution to that are the grill baskets. A grill basket will aid you to keep the food in one place and away from fire, while it gives good access to smoky flame that gives flavor to our barbecue. The baskets are also good for cooking small items like shrimps. The basket holds the pieces inside a net so that you don’t have to be troubled about the food falling onto the coals. You can also find grill baskets designed for grilling fishes.

The key idea here is not limiting yourself in grilling or smoking meats. As stated earlier, there are lots of different types of tools in grilling that you can choose in the market. Shown above are only the basic tools that will help you in keeping good shape in grilling and also to keep the satisfaction to your family at the table.

There are several keys to remember when preparing barbecue pork spare ribs.

Key one to making actual professional bbq smoked taste : quality of the spare ribs. Spend the extra time or money on a good pack of spare ribs. Do not buy prepackaged spare ribs because you will be surely unsuccessful with the resulting product. Request fresh butcher cut spare ribs. If you must go with prepackaged meat, then make sure to look at the date on the label. The prime key to making actual professional bbq smoked taste is in two chief things: the quality of the spare ribs and the way of preparation. Also place the spare ribs as far away from the burning wood as possible because you want to slowly smoke the spare ribs instead of charring them. This is the single most important to making
actual expert rib smoker smoked taste.

Next, the prime key to making actual professional bbq smoked taste is in the preparation method. Be sure to removing the spare ribs membrane that is on the back side of the meat. Do not put too much seasoning as you do not want to drown out the taste of the spare ribs. Let the rub cure into the meat for at least 18 hours prior to cooking them. Also soak the wood prior to smoking the meat. This will ensure the wood to only burn slowly, while still producing plenty smoke.

Also place the spare ribs as far away from the burning wood as possible because you want to slowly smoke the spare ribs instead of charring them. This is the single most important to making
actual expert rib smoker smoked taste. And most of the barbecue
competitive folks will tell you this. The spare ribs must be made very slowly in order to make the
ideal amount of tenderness.

Use quality equipment too. For charcoal smokers, you will really need to make sure that it has proper air valves so that you can vary the amount of air that feeds the fire power. Also, make sure that the equipment of your water smoker or whatever you use to smoke ribs, has readily adjustable parts. Make sure that the water smoker or whatever you use to smoke ribs is made of metal, and not wood or pliable metals. Wood will lose adhesion and burn and cheaply made screws will also warp and break over time. Your water smoker or whatever you use to smoke ribs will be outdoors and will need to be tough.

Also, remember to use genuine wood when cooking
ribs or whatever you are cooking. Do not substitute liquid smoke for the real taste of real wood. Smoke the pork ribs for at least 6 hours. There are more chef’s tips to grilling pork ribs at our smoked ribs home site, including how we produce the ideal of moistness at our bbq cookouts.