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A Word on Stock & Broth

July 28, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Chicken Stock
Stock & broth are very similar in taste, but they aren’t entirely the same. Broth is made from bits of meat and vegetables, stock always includes bones in the recipe. In both though you cook the ingredients a long time to get their essence out.

I like to make turkey stock after Thanksgiving, you end up with a very protein rich and extremely tasty liquid by boiling all the left over bones and bits all day. But that is another post.

Many recipes call for stock or broth as a component, and while you can make your own, you’ll almost always buy it at the store. Making it yourself is special occasions only in my book. So… when at the store, which type do you buy?

I recommend the stock in the cartons. Where I shop there is the pictured brand, but also an Emeril brand, they’re roughly the same. The kicker is the ingredient list.

Grab a can of broth, and grab the box of stock, then look at the ingredients. The stock will say things like vegetables, spices, herbs, chicken. The broth will say things best suited for a chemistry class. The stock also I think tastes better. Additionally the stock has more protein (good) and less salt (also good).

The stock is more expensive though, and it only comes in 1 quart cartons (where I shop). But the cartons are resealable and last a good week once opened & refridgerated.

So, when I mention stock in a recipe, always assume I mean this type of stock, it it just better for you.

Of course, if you have the time, making your own is best, and you can freeze it for long term storage. You’ll especially get more protein if you make it yourself, but most of us just don’t have the time.

Filed Under: Produce, Products, & Ingredients

How to Make Gravy with a Roux

July 27, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Gravy is great, and it doesn’t have to be bad for you. Here is a quick and easy way to make relatively healthy gravy.

Start with your meat drippings, this can be from any type of meat, and make sure you run it through a fat seperator to get rid of the fat and keep the protein. If you don’t have enough drippings, add water, it’s okay, the dripping are concentrated anyways. You could also add a broth or stock product if you have one.

Decide how much finished gravy you want, and compare that to how much drippings you have. If you need to add more liquid (as mentioned above) do so.

For each cup of gravy you want to have add 1-2 TBSP of butter (more for thicker gravy, less for thinner gravy), per cup of gravy, to a saucepan and let it melt. Once it is melted add an equivalent amount of stone ground whole wheat flour (stone ground whole wheat flour is just about as healthy a wheat flour as you’ll get, so I recommend you use it). Stir while adding the flour and keep stirring (use a whisk). Until the mixture is a nice light golden brown. You could continue cooking it on low heat and eventually it’d darker, turn reddish, and the flavor would change. We’re not using it for flavor though so much as for thickening. So stop at light golden brown.

What you’ve just done is made a roux, a combination of equal parts fat & starch that is used for thickening. Starches like flour are great for thickening because when exposed to heat they burst and all their insides come out and thicken what they are in. However when adding them directly to water they clump and then must be stirred like crazy. If you add them to a fat instead they do not clump and by stirring you surround each starch molecule with fat, which will prevent them from clumping when they reach the liquid. So the cooked flour & butter combination is called a roux, and it is great for thickening anything that needs it.

Once your roux looks nice, add the meat drippings & water or broth or whatever you are using as filler liquid and bring it all to a boil while stirring. You’ll notice it thicken really quickly. Now you can add any seasonings you like, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, whatever you like. I usually toss in a dash of balsamic vinegar no matter what kind of gravy it is. Worcestershire is a good idea for dark gravies as well.

When making a roux, remember dark ones have more flavor but less thickening power. If you cook it so long you see black specs you’ve burnt it, start over. When making a large batch try roasting it in the over ofer 300 degree heat until it reaches the color you like (less likely to burn it in the oven, trust me, although you aren’t likely to burn it when just making gravy, usually thats a soup thing where you want it to get dark).

In the end your gravy will be mostly protein (from the meat drippings) a little starch from the flour, and yes fat from the butter. You could use another form of fat such as olive oil or whatever you like, but butter makes the best gravy I think, and only a tablespoon or two in an entire pot isn’t a whole lot.

Filed Under: Recipes

Buy a V-Slicer

July 27, 2007 by Leave a Comment

v-slicer
So… who is impressed when you see professional cooks on TV go bananas on some vegetables, cutting them really thin with rapid precision? I know I am, I’ve tried, I just can’t compare. But screw it, I don’t have to.

V-slicers and mandolins are two easy to use tools that make cutting thin, uniform, slices of vegetables a snap. You can shred an onion or pepper in seconds. They also have attachments for doing other cuts, such as a french fry or julienne cut.

They aren’t that expensive really, especially when you consider how much use you will get out of it. I use mine all the time. So that means of course that I’ll be referencing it a lot on recipes on this site.

In many ways owning a v-slicer is enabling in that it takes the fear factor away from making a dish that involves precisely sliced vegetables. There is also a serious wow factor involved. Have a girl over for dinner and prepare here a dish with thinly sliced vegetables, she might just think you’re a professional.

Filed Under: Cooking Gadgets

Fat Seperator

July 27, 2007 by 1 Comment

Fat Seperator
Do you like gravy? I like gravy, meat juice gravy, Thanksgiving gravy. Gravy is awesome! But we’ve been told time and again that gravy is unhealthy. So can we still eat it? You bet!

So what is gravy? Well normally it is meat drippings combined with a thickening agent such as flour or another starch, or sometimes dairy (dairy is another post). You don’t really need much flour to thicken up a gravy so you don’t get a lot of calories there. In the end your calories will come from fat in the meat drippings. But isn’t the meat drippings all fat? No, they’re mostly protein. Collagen is a protein that makes much much of the flesh & bones of mammals, it is water soluble and when heated can join the moisture leaking out of a roast and end up as drippings (a non-soluble protein, elastin, stays in the meat and is what creates all those chewy tough bits). You can usually tell it is protein because if you put it in the fridge it turns into something that looks like jello (probably because it is gelatin, literally).

All the protein aside, there is fat in those drippings, and it adds calories & cholesterol to the equation. The solution is to use a fat seperator. This ingenious little device is just like a measuring cup except with the spout at the bottom. Since fat floats you can pour all your drippings into this pitcher and then slowly poor them back out until only fat is left inside. Nifty huh?

So now you have a delicious, finger licking, protein infused, fat free gravy. Cue Borat, “Very Niiiice.” Sure, there are still calories in it, but mostly they’re protein calories, and protein is good for you. Most people do not get enough protein daily.

Filed Under: Cooking Gadgets

Infrared Thermometer

July 27, 2007 by 3 Comments

IR ThermometerTemperature is extremely important in cooking, but most thermometers suck. How many do you need too? There are so many different types.

They are just so ungainly, for many that you’d stick in a pot (such as a pot of oil for deep frying) they get in the way of any lids or splatter screens. Also…how do you take the temperature of a millimeter of oil in the bottom of a frying pan? Often when I’m making up a recipe on this site I’ll tell you to put a little oil in a frying pan and wait for it to reach 350, but how do you know when it is 350? It is too shallow to stick a normal thermometer in. There are visual clues if you are an experienced cook, but those are hard to pick up on for the novice. And even for the experienced, nothing beats scientific accuracy.

The solution is to buy an infrared thermometer. It is a flipping laser! That has to appeal to the geek in you right? Also, it is a point and shoot instant read thermometer. Any surface you can point it at it’ll read, instantly. You can use it for far more than cooking (use that to justify the price).

Get one of these and you can throw all your other thermometers away, except for a good probe thermometer since afterall this laser one can’t read inside of meats, only the surface.

Filed Under: Cooking Gadgets