Cooking

Cooking is not reading directions on boxes and preparing the contents. Recipes are not cooking in the same sense that sheet music is not actually music. The art of cooking does not involve secret recipes or grandma’s wisdom (although grandma probably has a lot to teach you). The difference between food you enjoy and food you survive on is the difference between cooking and simple preparation.

By no means can the complicated art of cooking be explain in short terms, but there are a few basic principles that will help every one enjoy more fulfilling food, even the kind that comes out of a box.

Principle Number One: Fat Equals Flavor.

Nobody likes to hear it, but if you plan to lose some weight you’re going to have to work out. Draining the liquid fat out of your daily hamburger and French-fry diet, and switching to diet cola, isn’t going to trim off any pounds by itself. It will make you a lot more miserable at the dinner table by turning your already-grim food options into tasteless-and-grim options.

There is a good chance that, every Thanksgiving (for the Americans, that is) you put a turkey in the oven, set it on top of some sort of metal shelf, cook it for several hours until the little button thing pops up. After you pull it out it carries approximately the texture of chalk, and you vow to do better next year. The reason is that, no matter how slow or fast you cook a piece of meat, especially poultry, if you drain the fat you are draining the flavor and moisture. If you are having a problem with dry cooking, cook in a fluid. Be it water or the natural oils of your main dish, the flavor is in the fat and should not be wasted. This applies to vegetables too, but to a lesser extent.

Principle Number Two: Know About Seasoning

There is a reason that every restaurant table in every restaurant has salt and pepper on the table. Every recipe has a secret last step: Adjust Seasonings. Skilled eaters already know this, and they add salt or pepper in moderate amounts to everything they eat.

A seasoning is an herb or spice that accentuates the flavor of a food. Generally speaking, seasoning does not actually change the flavor, just enhances it. For example, adding salt to a baked potato does not make the potato taste salty, it makes it taste more buttery. If anyone has ever made the grim mistake of tasting soy sauce straight they will know that it does not lend its own flavor to food it is added to.

A secret for you: Cayenne Pepper, used in very small quantity, will enhance the flavor of almost any food without making it any spicier.

Principle Three: Stop Overcooking Things.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I declare to thee, pink chicken is not necessarily dangerous. You can eat red beef, and even (gasp) pink pork.

I know, it’s heresy, but hear me out. According to the USDA, pork should be cooked to 160 °F. Pork does not turn white at 160°. Safely cooked pork will have turned white on the outside, but may still be slightly pink in the middle. Chicken can be slightly less pink, and beef can be considerably red, so long is it reaches that same 160°.

Why the magic number? E. Coli is destroyed at 160°F. Be glad you know that, and stop being such a princess about the color of your meat. If you’re scared, get a meat thermometer and remember the magic number.

Oh, and I’ll not let you vegetarians off the hook here. Stop overcooking pasta too. You don’t have E. Coli to contend with here, and mushy pasta is ruined pasta. The Italian “Al Dente” means “To the Tooth” and implies a slightly chewy texture. Overcooked pasta falls apart, does not properly absorb sauce, and sucks overall.

Principle Number Four: Know Thy Sauce

When cooking meat, you only need to know one thing: Au Jus. Au Jus is a fancy French term meaning “With Juice.” Here is the procedure. Cook your meat, take it out of the pan and put in on the plate for serving. Take all that grease left in the pan, add a pinch or two of flour and stir it in. Then add just a little bit of water. Pour a little of this over the meat and serve. The flour thickens it, and the water activates the oils (like when you add water to absinthe to open up the wormwood oil). This is the perfect topping for any meat because it is actually made from that particular cut and will compliment it perfectly.

If you add significantly more flour to said sauce and let it cool slightly, you have gravy.

On another note, just add a pinch of parsley and black pepper to all your canned sauces to make them much less totally pathetic.

Principle Number Five: Presentation Matters

You may not be a restaurant chef, but color and presentation always matter. Add some bell peppers to rice dishes to vary the color, serve meat on top of rice or potatoes, instead of next to it. Add parsley to sauces just for the visual complexity. Add a little pepper or parsley to your macaroni and cheese both for flavor and to add a little variation in color. Pretty food magically tastes better, because it puts the eater in a good mood.

Photo by avlxyz