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How to Use a Pressure Cooker By Olive Oil

October 6th, 2008

While they are not as fast as a microwave oven, pressure cookers drastically reduce the amount of cooking time required for many foods. Pressure Cookers also cook meat and chicken to a tender perfection without losing any of their flavor (and with a shorter cooking time, foods also retain more of their vitamins and minerals). Recipes that could take 8 hours or more to cook in a slow cooker take only about an hour to cook in a pressure cooker.

In general, a pressure cooker takes about one-third the time of the conventional cooking method, but more precise time charts for pressure cooking various foods can be found online with a simple search – and there are many good pressure cooker recipe sites, too, where the pressure cooker novice can go for ideas and tips.

As useful and easy to use as they are, however, pressure cookers can be dangerous if not used with caution and maintained with care. Remember to follow these tips when choosing and using your pressure cooker:

• Do not buy a used pressure cooker or attempt to resuscitate your grandmother’s old one. Sensitive parts like the rubber gasket may need replacing, the steam vent tube may be blocked, or the pressure cooker may not seal well enough to use. It’s best to start fresh with a new cooker.

• If you must use an old pressure cooker, make sure that the rubber gasket is clean and free of tears or other defects. Clean out the vent tube with a pipe cleaner and make sure there is no blockage. Pressure cookers older than 5 years old lack the safety features of the modern pressure cookers, so familiarize yourself with how to use it safely. For instance, learn how to let your pressure cooker cool down before opening – let it sit on the stove until the pressure indicator on top no longer hisses when you tilt it, or put the cooker in the sink and run cool water over it to help the pressure go down. Even with a new pressure cooker that has safety features, never attempt to force the top open.

• Never let children or pets play around the pressure cooker (of course, this also applies to any pots and pans on the stove – the back burners are the safest places for cooking when kids are around, and handles should always be turned toward the back of the stove so that they are not easy to reach or accidentally bump).

• Make sure you have enough water in the pot to be able to convert to steam – otherwise the cooker will be unable to build up pressure, and the food will simply burn. Conversely, make sure not to put too much water in – there should be a “fill line” marked on the inside of the pot that you can use as your guide.

• Be aware that certain foods, primarily dried beans, tend to foam excessively when they are cooking and may block the steam vent.

How to Use a Wok Properly By erwin

October 6th, 2008

Cooking with a wok is a great healthy and quick method of cooking

Before you use your wok it is essential to wipe the pan inside and out with oiled kitchen paper and heat to a high heat in the oven or on the hob. Remove the wok from the heat allow it to cool and repeat the process several times to give a good coating – this will make it easier to clean and give it a non-stick coating.

Using the wok

When cooking with a wok the pan needs to be of a very high temperature before the food is placed in the pan. Once the pan is hot enough and the food is placed inside the wok you kneed to keep turning the ingredients to ensure that they are kept hot. Using a wok is a good, healthy and quick way to cook vegetables in stir-fried. Cooking for too long will make the ingredients either burn or be saturated with their own juices and become limp and soggy. Vegetables cooked in a wok should be crispy, not wet.

Stir-frying

This cooking method originated in China, and remains the more recognised form of Chinese cooking. In China it is called Ch’au which means that a number of ingredients are sliced and cooked in 1-2 tablespoons of fat.

Stir-frying is usually done in stages, this allows foods that have different cooking times to be removed and then returned at a later stage. The dish is then brought together at the end and sauces/apices are added and then the dish is served as a whole.

There are two different types of stir-frying: Liu is wet frying with slow stirring and more turning of the individual foods. A stock is then added at the end of the cooking time for a coating sauce.

Pao requires foods to be fried at the highest possible heat. This is a quick method lasting for usually only a minute.

Eggs Essential Facts By erwin

August 31st, 2008

Cooking time for boiled eggs

Soft Boiled Eggs: 3-4 minutes

Medium Boiled Eggs: 5-7 minutes

Hard Boiled Eggs: 12-15 minutes

Guidelines for cooking eggs

1. Avoid using high heat
2. Avoid color
3. Do not OVERCOOK

Tempering By bearic

July 25th, 2008

The act of tempering is done by gradually increasing the temperature of one recipe component by the addition of another.

To achieve this gradual increase of temperature, you drizzle the hot component into the cooler component while constantly mixing the cooler ingredient. If your container is sufficiently large, you may continue adding the hot component to this container, else you should bring the temperatures as close as you can, then whisk/mix the cooler components into the hotter.

Tempering is often done where eggs are used as a thickening agent (i.e. in custards and sauces), since a sharp increase of temperature will cause the eggs to cook prematurely resulting in a lumpy texture.

The same principle might be used when the addition of one recipe component might rapidly change the other, such as adding a large quantity of something acidic to something containing milk products.

Stir Fry By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Stir-frying involves frying food quickly over very high heat in an oiled pan. While stir-frying, you generally stir continually. A special slope-sided pan called a wok is designed for stir-frying.

Stir-frying Tips

• Make sure all ingredients are prepared before you begin stir-frying.
• Heat the wok on medium-high or high heat at least one minute before adding oil. Do not pre-heat the wok if it has non-stick coating, as the heat can damage the coating.
• Drizzle the oil down the sides of the wok to maximize oil coverage as well as to heat the oil more quickly.
• Cook meat on high heat in order to keep it juicy. Remove the meat before stir-frying the vegetables. Add the meat back into the mix once the vegetables are almost cooked.

Steaming By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Steaming is the cooking of food by the application of steam. In this cooking process, the food is put into a steamer, which is a cooking utensil that consists of a vessel with a perforated bottom placed over one containing water. As the water boils, steam rises and cooks the food in the upper, or perforated, vessel. Steamers are sometimes arranged with a number of perforated vessels, one on top of the other. Such a steamer permits of the cooking of several foods at the same time without the need of additional fuel, because a different food may be placed in each vessel.

Steaming is preferable to boiling in some cases, because there is no loss of mineral salts nor food substances. The flavour is not so likely to be lost as when food is boiled. Some delicate fish is best cooked by steaming as it does not break up as it might in boiling water. Vegetables prepared in this way prove very palatable, and very often variety is added to the diet by steaming bread, cake, and pudding mixtures and then, provided a crisp outside is desired, placing them in a hot oven to dry out the moist surface.

Smoking By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Smoking is a slow form of cooking that can pack in more flavor than probably any other form. It involves soaking the ingredient, whether it be fish, meat or vegetables, in the smoke of an aromatic wood.

An optional method of smoking food is through the cooking of the food in a covered grill. In a sense, all grilled or barbequed food have some aspect of smoking involved, usually through drippings on hot fire causing smoke, or by the fire smoke itself.

To cook, just pick the leaves and wood chips from an aromatic tree (Bay leavess are good) and put it on the metal mesh. Put the meat in the smoker like you would if you were barbequing it. Turn on the light and wait 6 hours. After this you can refrigerate it and cook it on a grill later.

Smoking food is time-consuming, and can be expensive and a bit tricky, but the results can be superb.

Simmering By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Simmering, or stewing, is a modification of boiling. By this method, food is cooked in liquid at a temperature below the boiling point, or anywhere from 185 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit (85-95 Celsius). Water at the simmering point always moves gently–never rapidly as it does in boiling. Less heat and consequently less fuel are required to cook foods in this way, unless, of course, the time consumed in cooking the food at a low temperature is much greater than that consumed in cooking it more rapidly.

Aside from permitting economy in the use of fuel, simmering, or stewing, cooks deliciously certain foods that could not be selected for the more rapid methods. For example, tough cuts of meat and old fowl can be made tender and tasty by long cooking at a low temperature, for this method tends to soften the fiber and to develop an excellent flavor. Tough vegetables, too, can be cooked tender by the simmering process without using so much fuel as would be used if they were boiled, for whatever method is used they require long cooking. Beets, turnips, and other winter vegetables should be stewed rather than boiled, as it is somewhat difficult to cook them tender, especially in the late winter and early spring. If dry beans and peas are brought to the simmering point and then allowed to cook, they can be prepared for the table in practically the same length of time and without so much fuel as if they boiled continuously.

Scalding By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Scalding is a technique used in many recipes containing milk.

To scald milk, you use a heavy bottomed pan or double boiler and bring the temperature of the milk to 85-100°C (185-212°F). At sea level, the milk should just start showing small bubbles and releasing steam at the lower end of this temperature range.

Care must be taken to not allow the pan to heat too quickly, or the solids in the milk will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn or scorch. Scorched milk has a very distinctive taste, and can ruin the whole pot of milk. Frequent stirring and scraping of the pan bottom will help keep the solids in suspension.

A lid will help keep the “skin” caused by surface evaporation off the surface from forming.

The purposes of scalding in any given recipe can be many, as several chemical and biological changes happen during the process.

Many pathogens are killed at these temperatures and natural enzymes are neutralized. Pasteurization often achieves the same effect, but can take place at lower temperatures (about 63°C (145°F)) so one must be sure that scalding is not required for other reasons before assuming that the step can be skipped.

Some milk proteins unfold at scalding temperatures. In yogurt making, this allows for a tighter matrix to form as the proteins refold in the acidic environment, resulting in less whey separation and a firmer end product. This unfolding of protein also seems to help in bread making, resulting in a finer crumb and better rise.

The higher temperature could also be utilized as an essential element of cooking, e.g. helping sugar dissolve or cooking eggs in custards,and to better incorporate flavors.

Sautéing By bearic

July 25th, 2008

Sautéing is browning food first on one side and then on the other in a small quantity of fat or oil. When sautéing, which is a type of frying, the fat is placed in a shallow pan, and when it is sufficiently hot, the food is put into it. When cooking, the fat should not come up the sides of the food being cooked, the food basically cooking on a thin layer of fat. Foods that are to be sautéed are usually sliced thin or cut into small pieces, and they are turned frequently during the process of cooking. Sauté is French for “jumping”, used to describe the action of the food in the pan as it is tossed around to prevent burning.

Foods prepared in this way can be difficult to digest, because they become more or less hard and can become soaked with fat if too much is used. Chops and thin cuts of meat, which are intended to be pan-broiled, are really sautéed if they are allowed to cook in the fat that renders out of them.

The term pan-frying is the English equivalent of sautéing (which is a French word). Some people consider it a different technique, which uses more fat and takes longer. Stir-frying uses higher temperatures and continual stirring.

Tips for Sauté

Mise en place

The first rule is be prepared. If your recipe calls for chopped ingredients in step 12, make sure you have them now. While experienced cooks will successfully chop the next ingredient while the rest are cooking, this is not a path to follow for the inexperienced. For one thing, chopping times for the experienced cook are generally much shorter, so the cooking food doesn’t have a chance to burn. For another, the experienced cook can quickly assess whether food is done. A less experienced cook should be much more attentive to the pan to become more familiar with the stages of doneness.

Heat the pan

Feel free to put a cold pan onto a cold burner before turning it on, but do not put cold oil into a cold pan and then try to heat. The reason is subtle: heat will eventually break down the chemical bonds of the oil and it will lose its lubricating properties. If that happens, your ingredients will stick to the hot surface and one side will blacken and burn, and the other side will remain raw or underdone.

The pan is hot enough if a few small drops of water flicked from your fingertips vaporise immediately, or if a larger drop of water hisses and floats across the surface of the pan on a cushion of its own steam. Do NOT add oil to the pan if there is hot water still there, as it may spatter vigorously. Clouds of oil droplets can be lit by open flame, and a fireball is never necessary for this particular cooking technique!

Heat the oil

Only after the dry pan is hot should you add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. The oil should begin to ripple, and spread quite quickly over the pan. If your pan was hot enough, this process should only take a few seconds. If your pan was too hot or if you wait too long, the oil will start to smoke, then turn brown, then burst into flame. Along the way you will have ruined a perfectly good pan, and possibly burned down your house.

Add the food

After your food item has been added, do not crowd the pan. If necessary, you should cook food in batches, removing each batch and reheating the pan and adding more oil as required. Also, unless the recipe specifically calls for it, do not cover the pan while cooking. Trapped steam from the cooking side of the food will soften the top side. Ideally sautéed item have a crispy outside, although this depends heavily on the food item (sautéed steak: crispy; sautéed carrots: not crispy)

Stir the food

Stir the food, don’t shake the pan. Some cooks like the ostentatious technique of lifting the pan off the range and shaking it in the air, sometimes using the rounded edge of the sauté pan to flip the food over. Practice this to impress your uneducated friends (outside, with a cold pan, using dried split peas) but you should expect that the cooking time of your dish will be extended if you continually remove the pan from the heat source. Also, if the temperature drops too much, the oil will begin to soak into your food, and your dish will become greasy. If you feel the need to shake the pan, keep the pan close to your heating element if it is safe to do so.

The amount of attention required will depend on the recipe. For some recipes, constant stirring is required. Other times, especially when sautéing single cuts of meat, it is best to cook one side, then the other side, with no stirring or movement of the food item in the pan at all. In that case, plan to put the “skin” side or presentation side (the side facing up on the plate when served) down into the clean hot oil first.

Use the fond

When sautéing cuts of meat, many recipes will call for you to deglaze the pan with a flavorful liquid (e.g. stock, wine, spirits, or even fruit juices). The dark brown bits of meat left behind from the high heat cooking are called “fond” and are as intensely flavoured as pan drippings from roasted meats. These should generally be scraped off the bottom of the pan and dissolved into the deglazing liquid. In especially elegant preparations, the pan sauce created is strained to remove the solid bits, leaving only the dissolved flavourings in a smooth sauce.

When using garlic and onion

When sautéing with both onions and garlic, be sure to sauté the onions first until they are clear, then add the garlic, and continue to sauté until it is pale gold. The onion takes longer to cook, thus if both are added at the same time, the garlic will be browned by the time the onion is done, which results in an undesirable dominant pungency. Garlic will add its flavour much more harmoniously when only sautéed to a pale gold.