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What to do with Chicken: Indian Style
Feb 21 - 6-8pm
Crazy for Corned Beef
March 6 - 6-8pm
Cake Pops
March 10 - 6-8pm
Mostly Meatless Meals
March 13 - 6-8pm
What to do with Chicken: Asian Style
March 24 - 6-8pm
Italian Cooking: Pizza
April 14 - 6-8pm
What to do with Chicken:
Fried Chicken
April 17 - 6-8pm
Mexican Fiesta with Mama Dida
April 28 - 6-8pm
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How Do I?
The place to go for tips and tricks
How do I... Boil An Egg?
1. Remove desired number of eggs from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
2. Gently place the eggs in a saucepan and add enough water into the saucepan until the water is about 1 inch above the eggs.
3. Put the saucepan on a stove and cook over medium heat until the water starts to boil. Then reduce the heat to low
4. The amount of time the eggs are allowed to simmer will determine how cooked the yolk. Soft-cooked runny yolk: 5 minutes. Medium-cooked creamy partially-firm yolk: 7 minutes Hard-cooked 10 minutes.
5. Carefully remove the pan from the stove top and place beneath the kitchen faucet. Run cool water into the pan for a minute until the water is cool to the touch.
Do not over cook your eggs because it can cause a green ring to appear around the egg yolk, due to the iron and sulfur in the egg. Even
though this will not affect the taste of the egg, it can hurt the egg’s protein quality. Enjoy your boiled eggs!
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How do I...Peel an Apple?
There are many recipes that call for peeled apples, including apple crisp and apple pie. To learn how to peel apples, follow the instructions below.
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
1. Choose your tool. You can peel an apple with a sharp paring knife or a vegetable peeler. Although some prefer to use a paring knife, you may be more likely to cut yourself.
2. Select a good, sharp blade. Simply hold the apple in one hand and the paring knife in the other. Starting at the top of the apple, gently cut into the apple until you're below the skin. Slowly move the apple around in a circle, keeping the knife just under the skin. Twirl the apple until you've cut away all the skin from the top to the bottom.
3. Use a vegetable peeler to peel apples if you have any safety concerns. Before using the peeler, you core the apple with an apple corer. This allows you to insert a finger into the apple as you hold it. Your grip will be more secure.
4. Hold the apple in one hand, with your finger inside, and the vegetable peeler in the other hand. Start at the middle of the apple and peel the skin away, moving from the middle to the bottom. Continue around the apple until you've peeled the entire bottom half.
5. Flip the apple over and insert your finger into the cored center. Now, the half that still has the peel is on the bottom. Move around the apple again, peeling from the middle to the bottom. After you've gone all the way around, the apple will be completely peeled.
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How do I... Avoid tears from onions?
Slicing onions got you down? Well, you can stop the tears now. Here's how to avoid crying when chopping onions!
Step 1: Go hands-off
Chop onions in your food processor. Be sure not to over-process the onions, and to wait a few seconds before opening to give the tiny gas droplets produced by cutting the onion a chance to settle.
Step 2: Just chill
Keep onions in the fridge, or put one in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting. (Although onions don't have to be refrigerated, chilled onions produce fewer tears.)
Step 3: Wash it away
Cut the onion under cold running water to wash away the irritants before they can make it up to your eyes.
Step 4: Avoid the root
The National Onion Association says that you can reduce tearing when cutting onions by first cutting off the top, then peeling off the outer layers, leaving the root area intact. Why? The root end of the onion has the largest concentration of sulphuric compounds that make your eyes tear.
Step 5: Use eye protection
Wear goggles -- such as swim goggles or woodworking goggles -- to protect your eyes from the vapor.
Step 6: TRY The bread trick
As if the goggles tip wasn't strange enough... Try holding a slice of bread (well, or any food) between your teeth while chopping. How could that help? The theory is that doing so tends to force you to breathe through your mouth, making you less likely to get the irritants up your nose, thereby being less likely to tear up.
Step 7: Consolidate cutting tasks
If you use onions frequently, chop up several at once and store them in an airtight container in your refrigerator. Use them as as needed, which will save you time and tears!
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How Do I... Make the Perfect Coffee?
Few people can really start their morning without a hot cup of Joe. And while there are about a million varieties of coffee and even more ways to serve it (iced, with milk, etc.), you have to start with the basics before you get fancy with flavors. Here's how to brew the best beans.
Step 1: Purchase the right beans
There's no beans about it — you can't get a great cup of coffee without first starting with the finest freshly roasted beans. If you buy pre-ground beans, they are going to be less flavorful because coffee begins to lose its flavor soon after it is roasted. You can get fresh roasted beans from your local coffee house and have them ground for you, or your grocery store may even sell/grind fresh beans. If you prefer, you can purchase a coffee grinder and do it yourself at home.
Step 2: Store with care
Be sure to store the coffee in an airtight container in a dry, cool place. Do not store it in the fridge or freezer, however.
Step 3: Begin the brew
Time to brew! As a general rule, one generous tablespoon makes eight ounces of coffee. You may need to adjust the amount of water you put in since every coffeemaker is different. Speaking of coffeemakers: there are a million ways to brew a cup of coffee. French press, single cup, drip, percolators … the list goes on. French press coffeemakers tend to allow the most flavor from the grinds to seep into the finished product. Follow your coffeemaker's directions to ensure the best results.
Step 4: Add extras
Once you've got your coffee, experiment with adding layers of flavor with milk, sweeteners and flavored syrups.
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How do I... Brown Butter?
from chow.com
From pale to perfect to burnt in seconds
Brown butter is butter that’s heated until its milk solids turn brown. Use a stainless-steel pan; the butter sticks to aluminum. Whatever you do, don’t use a black-bottomed pan, because you won’t be able see what’s happening to the butter. Any heat will work, but medium is what we recommend. Some people like to strain out the specks, but we don’t; that’s what makes brown butter brown butter.
Three Shades of Butter
Watch the butter closely. When you’ve got the shade you’re looking for, pull the pan from the heat and dip the bottom into a waiting bowl or sink filled with water to arrest the cooking. Otherwise, make sure you pull the pan before the butter achieves the right color, because it will continue to brown for another minute or so in a hot pan.
If you think you went too far and made your butter too brown, don’t throw it away; now you’ve got beurre noir, another sauce—not the one you were aiming for, of course, but good nonetheless. With lemon juice, capers, and parsley, it’s perfect on fish.
NOT BROWN ENOUGH
JUST RIGHT
TOO BROWN
While You’re at It
Brown butter (called beurre noisette in French) is a versatile ingredient:
- With lemon and parsley, you’ve got a variation on beurre meuniere, a fine sauce for fish.
- Instead of vegetable oil, use brown butter as the emulsifying fat in a vinaigrette; with balsamic vinegar, it makes a nice sauce for fish, chicken, or vegetables.
Photographs by Maren Caruso
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BELL PEPPER
Prep: Stem, quarter, seed. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cook for about: 6 to 10 minutes
Done when: Skin is charred or blackened and blistered
Also great for: Pizza topping, sandwiches, scrambled eggs
ZUCCHINI
Prep: Trim; cut 1/3 inch thick lengthwise. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cook for about: 5 to 6 minutes
Done when: Slightly charred and tender
Also great for: Quesadillas, pasta with pesto and goat cheese
EGGPLANT
Prep: Slice 1/2 inch thick crosswise (globe) or lengthwise (Japanese). Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cook for about: 5 to 6 minutes
Done when: Slightly charred and tender
Also great for: A meatless burger, baked mozzarella and tomato sauce, a quick dip (mashed with fresh lemon juice, cumin, and chopped garlic)
TOMATO, PLUM
Prep: None
Cook for about: 5 minutes
Done when: Skin is blistered and charred
Also great for: Polenta with basil and balsamic vinegar, burgers
TOMATO, VINE-RIPENED
Prep: None
Cook for about: 12 minutes
Done when: Skin is charred and split
Also great for: A gratin with breadcrumbs, salsa
CORN
Prep: Remove husk. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cook for about: 15 minutes
Done when: Slightly charred and tender
Also great for: A sauté of lima beans and green beans, pureed corn soup
RED ONION
Prep: Peel; halve through root end. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cook for about: 15 minutes
Done when: Slightly charred and tender
Also great for: Tuna salad, grilled cheese sandwiches
GRILLING TIPS FROM THE TEST KITCHEN
- Foil-lined rimmed baking sheets are great for prepping vegetables—and transporting them out to the grill, too.
- To oil the grill, use an oil-soaked, crumpled paper towel.
- Want distinct grill marks? Resist turning the veggies during the first few minutes. To prevent burning, move to spots with less heat; turn as needed.
- Our favorite grill tool? Sturdy, long-handled stainless steel tongs for moving veggies on, off, and around the grill.
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How do I...Organize a refrigerator?
Professional kitchens organize their fridges with food safety in mind, storing cold foods according to their cooking temperature.
From top to bottom, you'll find prepared foods that will be served cold or re-heated; then whole cuts of meat and fish; then ground meat; and finally, chicken and other poultry on the very bottom. Since each shelf of food is cooked to a progressively higher temperature, any cross contamination through dripping from above is taken care of during cooking.
We can adopt a similar strategy in our own fridges. Leftovers, drinks, and ready-to-eat foods (like yogurt, cheese, and deli meats) can be stored on the upper shelves of the fridge, with raw ingredients slated for cooked dishes below. Condiments can go back in the door shelves.
Drawers can be tricky. Since they're designed to hold produce at specific humidities, it makes sense to store fruits and veggies there. But they're usually at the bottom of the fridge, and we risk contaminating our fresh veggies if we put meat on the shelf above,
If you have two drawers, make one of them exclusively for veggies and the other exclusively for raw meat. If one drawer is above the other, use the lowest drawer for meat. If they're side-by-side, either drawer would be fine. Clean the drawer you're using for meat often.
If it's unavoidable to put raw meat above other foods, be sure to put the package on a rimmed plate to catch drips and be extra careful with spills when removing the plate from the fridge.
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How do I...Tell when a steak is done?
Folks can get pretty particular about how they like their steaks. Some of us like it well-done while others say the more red and rare the better! When we're cooking steaks at home, it can be hard to get it just the way we like it, especially if we have guests with different preferences.
Cutting into the steak to see how things are coming along works well, but this also lets out juices and moisture that we'd rather keep for ourselves. We can also use an instant-read thermometer to take the temperature, but with a thin cut of meat, it's difficult and awkward to get an accurate temperature read. Here's a little trick to help you gauge how well-cooked your steak is without a lot of hassle...
Touch your thumb and your index finger together in the "OK" sign, and then press the fleshy part of your palm right below the thumb with your other hand. Feel how soft and malleable that is? That's the way rare steak feels when you press it!
Now touch your other fingers to your thumb, one at a time. As you move from your index finger to your pinky, the pad of your thumb will get progressively more firm and resistant. This feels similar to steak as it cooks, moving from rare (index finger) to medium-rare (middle finger) to medium (ring finger) to well-done (pinky).
As your steak is cooking, occasionally press its center and then compare it against this finger test, taking the steak off the heat as soon as it feels as done as you like it. Try it for yourself!
How Do I...Store cheese?
The best way to store cheese is with cheese paper. The next best thing is to wrap first in parchment paper or wax paper, and then in plastic wrap, eliminating contact of cheese and plastic, but still preventing the piece from drying out. If you buy a piece of cheese that's pre-cut and wrapped in plastic, just rewrap it when you get it home.
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How Do I...Keep my favorite iron skillet from rusting?
Season your pans. Wash and dry thoroughly. Use your oven or stovetop to speed the drying. Lather generously with Crisco (vegetable shortening). Let set for 5 minutes, or longer, then wipe well with a clean dry cloth. DO NOT Wash before putting away. ‘Season’ after every use. No more Rust!
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How do I....Get the white ring off of my good dining room table?
Generously spread mayonnaise on the spot. Remember finger painting? Use your fingers to thoroughly work it into the offended area. Rub and wipe off with a clean soft cloth. Repeat if necessary. Ring gone!
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How Do I...Clean a glass top stove??
Step 1 - Verify that the cooking surface has cooled down before attempting to clean it. Monitor the “hot surface” light feature on your stove.
Step 2 - Wipe and clean the glass top with hot soapy water or a mild, non-abrasive cleanser with a damp cloth or sponge as soon as possible once the cook top has cooled down.
Step 3 - Clean the glass top cooking surface after every meal so food does not become baked on and stuck on the next time you cook. You’ll really regret cooking with a dirty stove.
Step 4 - Soak heavy, sticky spills such as candy, jellies, syrup and sauces, as soon as possible. Hot water will help soften the spill.
Step 5 - Use a scraper made specifically for glass top stoves to help lift and scrape away stubborn spills, being careful to not scratch the surface. Continue to clean the entire cooking surface using a mild, non abrasive cleaner and a damp cloth or sponge.
Step 6 - Invest in cleansers and polishing creams made specifically for glass top stoves. Check your manufacturer’s suggested cleaning product. This bottle will become your best friend for cleaning white film, metal specks from the bottom of your pots, heavy soils marks, dark streaks and any other strange discolorations that may appear.
Step 7 - Remember that your glass top stove is not a new countertop. Avoid placing objects on it,such as plastic bags, that may accidentally melt or adhere to the surface if it is still hot. Be sure to monitor the “hot surface” light before setting anything on it.
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