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10 techniques every cook should know

10 techniques every cook should know
Breading This easy, three-step technique ensures an even crumb coating. It's commonly used on thin cuts of chicken, pork or veal that will be fried or baked. To begin, set up your breading station. Fill the first of three shallow dishes with flour. Start by dredging a piece of meat in the flour. The second step is to dip the meat into the egg wash, again letting the extra drip off. Try to work with one hand as you complete the process, so as not to bread your fingers on both hands - that can lead to a sticky mess. Proceed with the recipe as directed. Browning/Searing Myths abound about the benefits of searing, most notably that it seals in the juices. The most important factor in this technique is to start with a very hot pan. Although you can use nonstick pans for delicate fish, pans without a nonstick finish do a better job of browning, and leave lovely browned flavorful bits to use in a pan sauce (see "Making pan sauce.") Place your ingredient directly into the pan. Dicing an onion Folding

Cheese Pinwheel Rolls Sooner or later, all my conversations inevitably turn to food. Don’t believe me? Call me up sometime and try to, say, sell me some insurance. Perfect example: I was in a meeting a few weeks ago at the office. What was the best way to make them? Ah, the Frankenroll This recipe borrows heavily from two fairly unrelated things. To make these rolls, spread pizza dough liberally with melted butter, sprinkle it with cheese and spices, roll it up like a stromboli—then slice and bake like a pan of cinnamon buns. The result? Fill them however you like The best part about these rolls? This is what I always refer to as a Sliding-Scale Recipe. You can toss it together with a ball of pre-made dough and a bag of shredded cheese from the grocery store—or you can go all out and make the dough from scratch and grate your favorite cheeses by hand. I like to throw these rolls together on a weeknight. So, this one’s for you, Scott. Cheese Pinwheel Rolls Makes about a dozen rolls Roll out the pizza dough

10 Cosmetic Uses for Everyday Foods - The Ten The folds in a chef’s hat are supposed to symbolize the number of ways that chef knows how to prepare an egg, but we’re sure there’s at least one missing: as a facial mask. Many common foods can be used as cosmetics with surprisingly good results. So no matter your motivation (you want to save a few dollars, up your green quotient, or just find a novel way to pass the time), here are 10 cosmetic uses for food that are just as good, if not better, than their store-bought counterparts. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 100 Healthy Recipes for Lazy People June 10th, 2010 You've heard the hype about eating less fast food, but working in the kitchen may not be your favorite way to spend your time. Whether you are finishing up a long day at nursing school or would like a reference for clients who need to change the way they eat, hang on to this list of 100 healthy recipes that just about anyone can make. Not only do these dishes promise delicious food that can be prepared relatively easily, they are actually good for you, too. Appetizers These appetizers are full of healthy ingredients and take almost no time to make. Easy Guacamole. Meal Salads These salads make a healthy meal on their own or paired with bread and soup. Spring Chicken Salad. Vegetarian Vegetarian cooking doesn't have to be difficult, as these recipes demonstrate. Carrot-Mushroom-Barley Stew. Poultry Chicken and turkey are the stars of these simple, yet healthy, meals. Chicken Burritos. Fish and Seafood Tilapia with Green Beans. Lean Red Meat Chili-Rubbed Pork Chops. Side Dishes

50 Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen You know all of those helpful kitchen-related suggestions that old-timers are so willing to share with the younger generations? These little tips and tricks might be called “kitchen hacks” these days, but they’re still the same good old nuggets of wisdom that they always were. As with any old wives’ tale, hack, or tip, your mileage may vary. Some of these gems have been around for several lifetimes - and according to most grandmas, they really work. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

Technique 101: Learn Easy Pâte à Choux Dough a... Once you know how to make this easy Pâte à Choux dough, you can use it to make a number of different things. Pâte à Choux is cream puff pastry and is used to make cream puffs, gougeres, and even beignets. I love it because it is simple, fast and I can make it ahead of time. Don't be intimidated about making these. One of the fun things to do with this recipe is to make a dessert bar. Now let's make some. Cream Puffs/Pâte à Choux Dough for a printable recipe, click here Makes 12 - 13 medium sized cream puffs Ingredients: 1 cup milk4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces1/8 teaspoon salt2 teaspoon sugar1 cup flour5 eggs (4 for the dough and one for an egg wash) If you are not sure about your egg size (especially if you get eggs from a farm) I weighed my eggs after I broke them into a cup and they weighed a little over 5 ounces. Instructions: Heat the first four ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium high heat just until the milk starts to boil. Homemade Chocolate Sauce:

How To Make Japanese Rice on the Stove Rice is rice, right? Not quite. Short-grain Japanese rice is quite different from long-grain basmati or jasmine rice, so achieving the right texture — glossy and tender but not sticky — calls for a particular cooking method. A fancy rice cooker makes the process easy, but it isn't a necessity. Making perfect Japanese rice on the stove is simple, requiring only a good pot and careful listening skills.Rice can be tricky, as stove strength varies, so cooking times in recipes are really just approximations. Stovetop Japanese Rice What You Need Ingredients Japanese short-grain riceWater Equipment Heavy pot with a tight-fitting lidStrainerDry measuring cupLiquid measuring cup Instructions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Additional Notes: • For best results, start with at least one cup of dry rice, as smaller amounts of rice and water are difficult to cook properly. • You can save the rice rinsing water instead of dumping it down the drain.

Top 10 Best Novels of the Last 20 Years Books The ten novels on this list all substantiate the belief that books are the most elastic, introspective, human and entertaining form of media that exist. Not movies, not music, not art, not the theatre. A famous author once said that novels are the best way for two human beings to connect with each other. Music for Torching by A.M. First Sentence: ”It is after midnight on one of those Friday nights when the guests have all gone home and the host and hostess are left in their drunkenness to try and put things right again.” As the only woman on the list, A. Homes makes this common enough theme of suburban ennui feel real with her shining prose, a secondary cast of interesting plots and characters, and lack of a fairy-tale ending. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (1996) First Sentence: “Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.” Of course, Palahniuk had to be on this list. House of Leaves The Road

25 Free Sites for Reading Books Online | AceOnlineSchools.com - Online Education Do you love to read but hate to walk or drive or rise from a prone position on your hammock? Well, if you have Internet access, you don’t have to! (Granted, if you only have a desktop computer, you’ll probably have to sit up.) Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts: Collects several thousand texts, mostly from Project Gutenberg (see below). Bartleby.com: Several hundred titles, featuring iconic texts like the Bible, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and Gray’s Anatomy. Bibliomania: Over 5,000 books, poems, articles, short stories and plays. Biodiversity Heritage Library: Over 10,000 titles from ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries and research institutions in an effort to digitize the “literature of biodiversity” held in their collections. Bored.com: More than 10,000 e-books divided into a variety of subjects. British Library Online Gallery: This virtual museum includes scanned versions of important literary and religious works, plus historical texts and more.

40 Belief-Shaking Remarks From a Ruthless Nonconformist | Raptitude.com If there’s one thing Friedrich Nietzsche did well, it’s obliterate feel-good beliefs people have about themselves. He has been criticized for being a misanthrope, a subvert, a cynic and a pessimist, but I think these assessments are off the mark. I believe he only wanted human beings to be more honest with themselves. He did have a remarkable gift for aphorism — he once declared, “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” Even today his words remain controversial. Here are 40 unsympathetic statements from the man himself. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. More of Nietzsche’s genius here. Have a lot on your mind? Everyday mindfulness has transformed my life, and the lives of many others.

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