Hola, Welcome to my first blog Post. Here I am going to discuss about Some Kitchen Basics, So let's get started.
Ingredients, equipment, and techniques—these are
really the fundamentals of cooking. Here I will tackle these
building blocks one at a time, in sections that include
basic terminology, lots of illustrations, and some guidance about what’s really important and what’s not.
So coming upon the most important part of any dish, is the ingredients. The ingredients of a dish play a very important role in its overall development, be it the taste or the appearance.
So,What Ingredients Should I Buy?
Local, farm-raised food has become a luxury for most of us. Almost everything in the supermarket is grown or raised for its hardiness, profitability, shelf life, and ability to withstand the rigors of transit, rather than for its flavor and nutritional value. Most of it comes to us from thousands of miles away, little of it is truly fresh, and it is sold to us not by the individuals who raised it or even selected it but by anonymous corporations. Nevertheless, supermarket food is of reasonably high quality, inexpensive, and almost uniformly safe to eat. (Don’t get me wrong; it should be better, and I hope it soon will be.) With one shopping trip, you can have the makings of many meals on hand at all times, just by maintaining the right mix of staples. To me, the ingredients that follow are the true convenience foods. Different people like to eat different ways, obviously, but certain items belong in every kitchen all the time and keep nearly indefinitely. To stock your pantry and refrigerator, make sure you have these on hand. (Note that almost every one of these ingredients is described in detail somewhere in the book; just see the index to find where.) Extra virgin olive oil, and some decent neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn Vinegar Soy sauce Rice, long-grain and short-grain Pasta Beans, dried and canned (frozen if you can find them) Spices and dried herbs Flours and cornmeal Canned tomatoes Canned—or packaged—stock Aromatic vegetables, like onions, garlic, shallots, celery, and carrots Baking soda, baking powder, and cornstarch Dried mushrooms Eggs Parmesan cheese, Nuts and seeds Lemons and limes Butter Sugar, honey, and maybe maple syrup Long-lasting vegetables and fruits, like potatoes, apples, and oranges Standard condiments like ketchup, mustard, salsa, and mayonnaise
You would not be going overboard to stock capers, miso, dark sesame oil, bread crumbs, fresh scallions, chiles, and ginger, coconut milk, hot sauce, dried fruit, frozen vegetables (definitely better than nothing), parsley (especially) and other fresh herbs, and red and white wine (yes, you can cook without them, but if you drink wine you should cook with it). Thus stocked, you’ll be able to make scores of different meals, from pancakes to pasta. When you add the fresh ingredients that you’ll likely have in the refrigerator as a result of normal shopping—vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, milk, cheese, and other perishables—you’ll be able to prepare most of the recipes in this book without going out for special ingredients. Some people become obsessed by ingredients, and this is understandable (but no, you do not need Himalayan salt in your pantry). In general, the better the ingredients you have, the simpler your cooking can be. An omelet made with farm-fresh eggs, a locally raised chicken roasted with wonderful olive oil, sliced tomatoes straight from the garden—these experiences cannot be duplicated with supermarket ingredients. Of course, if you had perfect ingredients all the time, you would hardly need a cookbook. But the story of cooking is often the story of compromise; you buy the best ingredients you can lay your hands on and combine them in ways that make sense. That’s the thinking behind my recipes.
What About Organic?
This is a political question, not a cooking question, and it’s complicated. I can only tell you that I don’t routinely buy organic food, and I rarely go out of my way to buy organic food. It’s not that I’m against it; when I had a large garden, it was mostly organic. But that’s small time, and that’s my point: I would rather buy local vegetables from a conscientious farmer than so-called organic vegetables from a multinational corporation. But even that is largely impractical: I don’t have the time or energy to seek out local produce on a regular basis; I do most of my shopping at a supermarket, just like almost everyone else in this country. And at supermarkets, organic food doesn’t have much of an advantage over conventional food. For the most part, they’re both industrially produced in faraway places. And I’m not convinced that industrially produced “organic” food is any healthier or more sustainable than industrially produced “conventional” food. It’s an evolving issue. My quick advice, for what it’s worth, is: Buy local when you can. Buy the best food you can find when you can’t find local. Be flexible; there may be times when the best vegetable you can find is not only not local and not organic but might even be frozen.
Hope you enjoyed reading my first blog post. I will be posting more regular blogs. Share this with your close ones and make them aware.
Ingredients, equipment, and techniques—these are
really the fundamentals of cooking. Here I will tackle these
building blocks one at a time, in sections that include
basic terminology, lots of illustrations, and some guidance about what’s really important and what’s not.
So,What Ingredients Should I Buy?
Local, farm-raised food has become a luxury for most of us. Almost everything in the supermarket is grown or raised for its hardiness, profitability, shelf life, and ability to withstand the rigors of transit, rather than for its flavor and nutritional value. Most of it comes to us from thousands of miles away, little of it is truly fresh, and it is sold to us not by the individuals who raised it or even selected it but by anonymous corporations. Nevertheless, supermarket food is of reasonably high quality, inexpensive, and almost uniformly safe to eat. (Don’t get me wrong; it should be better, and I hope it soon will be.) With one shopping trip, you can have the makings of many meals on hand at all times, just by maintaining the right mix of staples. To me, the ingredients that follow are the true convenience foods. Different people like to eat different ways, obviously, but certain items belong in every kitchen all the time and keep nearly indefinitely. To stock your pantry and refrigerator, make sure you have these on hand. (Note that almost every one of these ingredients is described in detail somewhere in the book; just see the index to find where.) Extra virgin olive oil, and some decent neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn Vinegar Soy sauce Rice, long-grain and short-grain Pasta Beans, dried and canned (frozen if you can find them) Spices and dried herbs Flours and cornmeal Canned tomatoes Canned—or packaged—stock Aromatic vegetables, like onions, garlic, shallots, celery, and carrots Baking soda, baking powder, and cornstarch Dried mushrooms Eggs Parmesan cheese, Nuts and seeds Lemons and limes Butter Sugar, honey, and maybe maple syrup Long-lasting vegetables and fruits, like potatoes, apples, and oranges Standard condiments like ketchup, mustard, salsa, and mayonnaise
You would not be going overboard to stock capers, miso, dark sesame oil, bread crumbs, fresh scallions, chiles, and ginger, coconut milk, hot sauce, dried fruit, frozen vegetables (definitely better than nothing), parsley (especially) and other fresh herbs, and red and white wine (yes, you can cook without them, but if you drink wine you should cook with it). Thus stocked, you’ll be able to make scores of different meals, from pancakes to pasta. When you add the fresh ingredients that you’ll likely have in the refrigerator as a result of normal shopping—vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, milk, cheese, and other perishables—you’ll be able to prepare most of the recipes in this book without going out for special ingredients. Some people become obsessed by ingredients, and this is understandable (but no, you do not need Himalayan salt in your pantry). In general, the better the ingredients you have, the simpler your cooking can be. An omelet made with farm-fresh eggs, a locally raised chicken roasted with wonderful olive oil, sliced tomatoes straight from the garden—these experiences cannot be duplicated with supermarket ingredients. Of course, if you had perfect ingredients all the time, you would hardly need a cookbook. But the story of cooking is often the story of compromise; you buy the best ingredients you can lay your hands on and combine them in ways that make sense. That’s the thinking behind my recipes.
What About Organic?
This is a political question, not a cooking question, and it’s complicated. I can only tell you that I don’t routinely buy organic food, and I rarely go out of my way to buy organic food. It’s not that I’m against it; when I had a large garden, it was mostly organic. But that’s small time, and that’s my point: I would rather buy local vegetables from a conscientious farmer than so-called organic vegetables from a multinational corporation. But even that is largely impractical: I don’t have the time or energy to seek out local produce on a regular basis; I do most of my shopping at a supermarket, just like almost everyone else in this country. And at supermarkets, organic food doesn’t have much of an advantage over conventional food. For the most part, they’re both industrially produced in faraway places. And I’m not convinced that industrially produced “organic” food is any healthier or more sustainable than industrially produced “conventional” food. It’s an evolving issue. My quick advice, for what it’s worth, is: Buy local when you can. Buy the best food you can find when you can’t find local. Be flexible; there may be times when the best vegetable you can find is not only not local and not organic but might even be frozen.
Hope you enjoyed reading my first blog post. I will be posting more regular blogs. Share this with your close ones and make them aware.
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