This section is for any special articles or guides on cooking, food preparation, and food enjoyment.
As many people may know, Coyote is always hungry. And since I have thumbs and a forebrain in this body, I like to take advantage of it in order to enjoy delicious food. I love cooking, and I love eating. Hence, this section.
You should also check out the recipes index, for individual cooking recipes, and please feel free to contribute your own as well!
Many Americans today get all their meals in little boxes that you throw into the oven or microwave, or that you buy from restaurants and fast-food joints. They don't know how to cook, or they don't feel they can cook well, or they don't think they have the time to cook, much less learn how to cook. That makes Coyote sad. People work all day to survive in this society, then they spend extra hours on top of working their day jobs running around paying bills, running errands, washing clothes, and shopping for food and other necessities.
When you think about it, the main work of our hunter-gatherer and other earlier ancestors was usually the work of directly providing their own food, shelter and needs. Nowadays, we work all day at a job, so we can earn money, so that we can afford to run around doing the work of providing for our needs. How crazy is that?
So naturally, the inclination is to use some of that money to let other people do some of our work. One way that happens is that many of us buy prepared foods so that we don't have to cook ourselves. Or we buy already prepared ingredients, even when we do cook at home, so that we'll spend less time and energy cooking, or learning how to cook.
We eat "just-add-water" meals, dump stuff out of cans directly into a microwave oven-safe dish, and even cut pieces of already-seasoned and marinated meat out of plastic heat sealed containers and drop it into baking pans and just set the timer.
I suspect that a lot of people in my country don't even know what food tastes like when prepared with fresh vegetables, spices, and other ingredients. And that makes Coyote sad also.
Don't get me wrong - food preservation has not only made civilization able to sustain much larger numbers of people safely, and has given us protection from famine and a way to make use of surplus, but it's also made it easier to prepare a lot of meals quickly. That can be especially important in a modern age where so much of our time is taken up with work and meta-work related activities that we just don't have time or energy to fiddle around in the kitchen for an extra hour.
Hmm... wow... now that I'm thinking about it, those arguments almost sound like arguments against food preservation! Ha ha!
But basically, what I want to get across here is that for many foods and flavorings, the difference in flavor and ultimate enjoyment of completed dishes can be phenomenal. Having said that, there are benefits to using preserved and packaged foods, that "cooking snobs" should not ignore. Indeed, in some cases, the method of preserving the food imparts a flavor or texture that makes that kind of prepared food the only way to go in order to get a certain result with cooking.
Also... I believe that the further you separate yourself from where food comes from &em; from where the forces that allow you to remain a living creature come from &em;, the more separated you become from the processes of life, and how to experience it, and how to even understand and enjoy your own body and senses.
I urge people to learn how to cook for themselves even if it's just in a rudimentary fashion, and even if they don't do it all the time. You'll learn to appreciate certain things more, and you'll probably enjoy how your meals taste a whole lot more. But even if you don't cook for yourself, find someone who not only can cook for you, but who will make good food.
It is my intention to include in this compilation, not just recipes for individual food items and dishes, but informational articles on the food and ingredients themselves.
And for those who worry that this whole cooking with good ingredients thing is difficult or complicated... please keep in mind... I'm Coyote. I'm lazy. I'd only put forth the effort if it's worth it, and I always aim to put forth as little effort as possible to get a job done right. If I can do it, so can you.
This small article assumes that you are actually cooking for yourself, and preparing a meal more or less from scratch.
Keep in mind though, that even if you are making some pre-prepared or processed food, that the addition of your own flavorings can turn even that boxed, powdered, dried mashed-potato-flake stuff into greedy, mouth-watering goodness. Yes, some things are better when made completely from scratch, but we all know that often we're not going to make certain things from scratch. Adding some fresh ingredients, or even just adding a few dried spices, can improve the flavor of a meal.
A lot of people are only familiar, at best, with dried herbs and spices, or with vegetables that come frozen or from a can. They think potatoes come in a box, that basil and garlic come in little jars of powder or flakes, and that onions come only on fast-food burgers or in packets of soup mix. Carrots and broccoli and other vegetables that don't come in a can filled with strange-smelling liquid come in little frozen bags and boxes.
But remember, those things came from the earth before they went into those packages. Those methods of preserving food are great, and allow us to keep things readily on hand, especially when we can't find fresh, or don't have a lot of time.
But something is always lost or changed when food is dried, frozen, canned, or locked in a dark place with only corn syrup solids to keep it company.
I'll give some examples of foods or ingredients that can taste much different, often phenomenally better, when fresh. Perhaps someday, I'll expand this topic, but for now, I'll just mention a few items to get people started.
The next time a recipe calls for basil, garlic powder, or cilantro, you might want to try getting some of the fresh herb instead of reaching for that jar of dried bits and flakes. I'll make some notes about several staples.
Don't get me wrong... I always try to keep certain dried ingredients on hand in my kitchen. They save time, I don't always have the fresh ingredient on hand, and sometimes, even when I do have fresh, the dried version imparts a different but desirable result.
There's also several dried or otherwise preserved herbs, spices, and flavorings that I consider a staple in my kitchen.
I always keep some form of garlic on hand, even multiple forms of it. I use it in cooking a lot. It's healthy, and imparts delicious and savory flavor to all sorts of foods.
Fresh Garlic
Whenever possible, and when you have the time and energy, fresh cloves of garlic are nearly always preferable to anything else.
Fresh garlic comes in little bunches, called bulbs, surrounded by a thin, papery skin. Each bulb contains several individual cloves, and this is often the unit of measurement called for in cooking... cloves (not to be confused with the spice called clove).
To peel a clove of fresh garlic easily, first seperate it from the rest of the bulb. With the fingers of both hands, grab the clove by the top and bottom, and gently bend and twist the clove - this will cause the skin to peel and crack open a little, and often, you can remove it in one piece.
Some people recommend putting the cloves onto a hard surface and smashing them with something (the bottom of a glass ketchup bottle works), causing the skin to split and peel apart. I don't like that method because it is messier and often you get little flakes of skin stick in the remains of the smashed clove.
If you are going to use fresh garlic, I advise getting a small garlic press (also called a garlic crusher). They only cost a couple of dollars for a decent hand held one, and they not only reduce preparing garlic to a simple task, they actually do so in the way said to bring about the most health benefits. They crush the garlic to a fragrant paste. Some people will put the individual cloves in their garlic press or garlic crusher with the papery skin still on. This saves time, but I prefer to peel it first. Generally, all you do is pop in the clove, squeeze the handle, and smashed garlic is forced out little holes in the bottom of the press with a crunch, and the tougher, fibrous parts of the garlic are left behind in the press.
Some people prefer, and some recipes call for, sliced garlic. To make this, peel the cloves, put them on a cutting board, and then with a very sharp knife, gently slice the garlic as thinly as you can. The way I usually do this is to hold the clove down with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and laying the flat of the knife blade against the forefinger, I use my finger as a guide to make paper-thin slices. Some people are fussy enough to actually use a razor blade for this, to get slices that are thin enough to see through. I'm usually not that obsessive.
Minced Garlic in a Jar
In most grocery stores, you can purchase jars of garlic that have either been minced into teeny-tiny cubes, or crushed into paste, and preserved in oil or water. This is a real labor-saver, and I always try to keep a large jar of this on hand. It's not quite one hundred percent as good as fresh garlic, but it's so close that most of the time I consider it well worth the time and effort saved, and in many dishes, it is indistinguishable from fresh.
Garlic Powder
The first rule of buying garlic powder, for me, is to buy garlic powder, not garlic salt. Garlic salt is salt flavored with garlic, and often, to get the proper amount of garlic flavoring for a meal, you'd end up adding enough salt to give an elephant hypertension. I always add garlic and salt separately.
Now, garlic powder simply does not have the same richness, intensity, and flavor of fresh. Some of the components of flavor are completely missing or changed. For one thing, fresh or jar-preserved garlic impart a sweet flavor to food when cooked, and garlic powder does not.
However, not only is garlic powder convenient to use for quickie dishes, there are some times when it is actually preferable. There are a few dishes where I add garlic powder instead of, or even in addition to, fresh garlic (I love to sprinkle garlic powder on roasts, steaks, and potatoes).
There is simply little contest between fresh basil and dried. Fresh almost always wins hands-down for me. It is fragrant, sweet, and the effect that fresh basil has on a meal, especially in Italian dishes, is incomparable. In Thai, Vietnamese, and other Asian foods where basil is an ingredient, don't even bother to prepare dishes that call for basil, unless you have fresh. Dried simply will not work. Basil is part of the mint family, along with oregano and bergamot (orange mint).
The most common form of basil used in this country is sweet basil. When you just see the word basil applied to the herb, you can be 99.9% sure that it is sweet basil (also called basilico). This is the basil that is a staple in Italian cooking. For Asian cooking, you can substitute sweet basil, but it is better to obtain Thai basil if you can find it. The flavor is slightly different, and it is better in soups.
Some recipes call for entire basil leaves, either added uncooked, after the food is prepared, or cooked into the food. For sauces, it is usually better to mince the basil leaves.
To mince a basil leaf, pluck the leaf or leaves from the stem, removing as much stem as possible. Roll the leaf up tightly, and with a sharp knife, chop it into fine bits, holding it in the rolled-up state as you do so. This is the easiest way to mince many fresh herbs, such as cilantro or mint.
Some recipes call for a whole "bruised" leaf. To bruise a leaf or leaves, roll them up, as before, then twist them gently like you are wringing out a tiny rag, and crush it between your fingers without breaking the leaves into pieces. When you are done, most of the leaf should have turned a darker green, and be much limper. An invigorating aroma should also pour forth.
While I'm on the subject of basil, much of what I've said about it also applies to oregano. When a recipe calls for oregano, try using fresh instead of dried - you won't be sorry.
The next time you are making pasta sauce from a jar, while heating it up on the stove, add a few leaves of fresh, bruised basil (and oregano if you like, although it's not my favorite herb), while it is heating up. You won't be sorry. You can also add minced or bruised leaves to the dish after it has been cooked, and you won't believe how good it tastes!
As far as I'm concerned, don't even bother with using dried cilantro. It tastes nothing like fresh at all. When preparing foods, especially Mexican foods, a little fresh, minced, bruised cilantro adds wonderful, cool, refreshing flavor and perks up the whole meal.
Be careful with cilantro though. Use it sparingly, or it will overpower a food and make it taste a lot like dish soap!
Fresh green onion adds a lot of savory flavor to various dishes. I always try to keep some on hand.
Green onions, also called scallions, are long shoots, about the width of a large pencil, white near the roots, shifting to emerald green at the top. They are normally sold inexpensively in large bunches. They can be added as an extra accent to many recipes, especially those that call for other sorts of onions (I add them in addition to, not usually as a substitute for sweet onions.) They are also good in soups, and as a garnish on top of chicken dishes, or on baked potatoes.
When preparing green onions, cut off the roots at the end and discard them. Normally, they will be cut cross-wise in little rings or tubes. The green part of the shoot also adds attractive color to foods. I normally do not cut very far up onto the green part of the scallion, unless I specifically want the color, or to add them to potatoes, and in any case, when using green onions, the closer you get to the top, the tougher and more fibrous the plant gets. Stop before you get to the part that is tough and papery.
Where possible, in dishes that call for hot spice or chili, I much prefer to use fresh chili peppers. The powdered forms of cayenne and red pepper are nice, but I like to add fresh hot peppers when possible. Not everyone likes spicy foods, but I've found that I enjoy them, and feel healthier and happier when I make them part of my diet. They can cause the body to release endorphins, which gives you a physically happy feeling, and they can make you sweat, possibly allowing your body to shed toxins. My rule of thumb for chilies is to eat them as hot as you like them, no more, and to err on the side of flavor. To me, spicy foods should be enjoyed for their flavor, not to prove something.
Most of these peppers I mince finely, seeds and all, to add to recipes.
Habaneros
These peppers are hot and spicy, while still remaining flavorful.
Scotch Bonnets
Relatives of the Habanero, these chilis are much hotter, but still delicious.
Tabasco Peppers
These are small, sweet peppers that still pack some kick.
Thai Peppers
These are shaped like elongated teardrops, and may be either green or red. These are the ones I use most often in cooking.
One of my favorite dried ingredients, I like to keep this on hand to put on meat, veggies, and poultry. I use small amounts to perk up asparagus or other vegetables, and it is delicious added to salads (and is fantastic on fresh avocado). When cooking meats, I'll add enough of it to make the steak, chop, or chicken breast crusty.
If possible, try to get the unsalted lemon pepper - you can use more of it without salting your food to death. But don't be afraid to use regular (salted) lemon pepper if you have to.
A lot of people think they don't like onions, or don't know that onion adds such wonderful flavor to other foods. This is probably because most of the time, they've been exposed to raw, chopped onions in salads... onions are quite different when cooked. Nearly everyone who has ever told me they "hate" onions and don't eat them has raved about how good the food I make is... and I use onions in nearly everything. And lots of them!
Fresh Sweet Onion
I prefer to cook with fresh sweet onion whenever possible. Many dishes, for me, begin with sauteeing or caramlizine sliced, minced, or chopped fresh onions. I add them to spaghetti sauces, soups, gravy, and meat dishes. When you cook many meats with fresh onion, the meat comes out more tender as well as savory.
Sweet onions are generally yellowish in color. The most commonly sold ones in America are the yellow or brown "spanish," onions, or the more costly Vidalia-type onions, which are also sweeter and tastier. Don't be fooled though... while Vidalia onions are indeed delicious, basically the same variety of onion, with indistinguishable flavor is usually available cheaper all year-round - they're just not called Vidalias. Trust the sweet onions.
Leeks
A lot of people see leeks in the store and never think to use them, or know what to do. Leeks are a relative of the onion, and not only are there specific recipes for cooking them, they can also be used in recipes that call for sweet onions &em; they impart a somewhat different flavor, mild but rich. In taste, they are similar to a mild but starchy onion. Try experimenting with using leeks instead of regular onions in dishes involving cooked onion.
Onion Powder
I like to keep onion powder on hand for those occasions when I want to impart a richer, more savory flavor to foods, but where I don't have onions on hand or where I don't want big pieces of onion. Onion powder is especially good as part of an "herb and spice crust" added to meats and poultry - the dried powder sticks to the cooking meat nicely. I'll also sprinkle it (along with garlic powder) on oven-roasted (not baked) potatoes, or potatoes and carrots I'm cooking along with a pot roast.
Dried minced onions
Once in a while, I'll use dried minced onions to add a little savory flavor to soups or sauces, when I'm pressed for time, or am out of fresh onions. It's not the same, but it still adds tasty goodness to dishes that would otherwise be bland. Normally, you'll want to use these in dishes where the juice or liquid in the cooking dish can rehydrate them. Using them as a garnish is a little like eating onion-flavored fingernail clippings. They need to rehydrate when they cook.
I always like to have fresh bell peppers on hand. Properly cooked, they add a sweet vegetable flavor to other foods. Don't use frozen. Frozen bell peppers have a nasty habit of tasting like grass clippings, except for a couple of lucky brands.
I like to cut the peppers up into medium-sized strips and sautee them just a little to add into italian sauces, stir fry, and other dishes. I usually use them in conjunction with sweet onions, cooked together with them, especially in Italian or Mexican food. One of my favorite things to do is slice them into rings and use them as a topping on lasagna - they roast nicely and caramelize a bit when the lasagna is baked.
Green Bell peppers are easiest to find, and are usually a lot less expensive. Red, yellow, or orange bell peppers are prettier, and can be used to add color to food, and may be a little sweeter in flavor, but they're also a lot more expensive - often three to four times as costly as green bell peppers.
There are a handful of flavorings that I always keep on hand in my kitchen. They're prepared products that I find nearly indispensable.
In many entrees, especially when cooking soups, meat, fish, or poultry, I prefer to add a salty flavoring by using soy sauce, instead of salt. Soy sauce adds more of a savory flavor than salt.
Balsamic vinegar can be used to add tartness to certain dishes. I find it to be especially good when sauteeing vegetables, such as fresh asparagus or zucchini, and when frying tomatoes. It also adds some nice flavor to many poultry dishes.
It's also very tasty when mixed with a little bit of virgin olive oil, and used to dunk fresh bread or garlic bread.
Balsamic vinegar &em; It's not just for salad!
Normally, I don't bother to mention brand names, but this brand is indispensable to me. Huy Fong foods makes Sriracha sauce, a bright red spicy chili sauce, that can be added to many dishes and soups. I even use it on hot dogs or hamburgers. They also make a garlic chili sauce that is delicious. My friends and I often refer to these sauces as "Cock Sauce," because of the logo, which depicts a rooster.
Yep. I keep salt on hand. Some people think that just because a low-salt diet is supposedly healthier, that this means they should have a no-salt diet. You need a little salt, and salt improves the flavor of many foods. Mashed potatoes, french fries, many soups... these things would be bland in the extreme without salt to wake them up.
Already ground black pepper is fine, but if possible, getting peppercorns that you grind yourself gives a superior flavor. Black pepper can be used to add a very mild spiciness to many foods, but for me, it's main benefit comes in how it wakes up the flavor of other ingredients. It especially "wakes up," other peppers, whether chilis, red pepper powder, or green peppers.
I use this to add a medium-low burn to certain dishes, and to perk up the flavor of foods. To a die-hard pepper fan like me, it's hardly hot at all, but for the average American, it's plenty spicy. I almost always combine this with a small amount of black pepper to complement the flavor. I add red pepper to pretty much every red Italian sauce I make. I also add it to ramen and soups.
Some cooking oils are used to provide a medium for frying, or to add fat (or a substitute for fat that provides "mouth feel" to foods. Other oils also add a flavor of their own, or are primarily used as a flavoring.
In my opinion, olive oil is about the most indispensable cooking oil. It is also used to dip bread, on garlic bread, or as a component of dressing on salads.
Virgin Olive Oil
In my opinion, virgin or extra-virgin olive oil is the most desirable for cooking when oil is called on to have flavor. If you are making spaghetti, lasagna, or other italian food, or sauteeing, it's the best. I use it all the time. Virgin olive oils should be darker, even green in color, and it is acceptable, even desirable, for them to have a small amount of cloudy sediment on the bottom. They add a rich "fruity" flavor to foods.
Refined, or "plain" Olive Oil
Olive oil that has been refined and filtered, so that it has a very mild taste. It will be pale yellow in color, rather than dark or green. Some olive oils are so mild and neutral in flavor that they can be used instead of plain vegetable oils. I rarely bother with this kind of olive oil... if a dish calls for vegetable oil that should not have the flavor of virgin olive oil, I just use margarine or butter.
Butter
I like to use real butter, when I can afford it, for frying, or to use in place of oil or margarine in recipes. I hear people say "Oh no! Butter is all fatty and bad for you!" Bull-puckey. It's certainly better for you than the hydrogenated chemical soup that is margarine, or the suspiciously flavorless goo that is in most cooking oils (which are generally a mixture of whatever oil the company could get cheapest that month.)
For pretty much all cooking, I prefer to get unsalted, sweet butter. If a recipe needs salt, I can add it seperately.
Sesame oil can be used to fry foods, (usually, only small amounts are used) or as a flavoring, especially in Asian dishes.
Light Sesame Oil
Light sesame oil, or regular sesame oil has a milder flavor, and can be used as both a flavoring or to dry foods in. It's the general-purpose sesame oil in my kitchen.
Toasted sesame oil
Toasted sesame oil has a much more dramatic flavor. I would never fry or cook in this oil, but I add it frequently as a flavoring. It adds both a fatty mouth feel, an aromatic taste, and it increases the savory factor of foods.
Hot Chili Oil
This oil can be used to fry foods, or as a flavoring. It is generally a sesame oil in which peppers have been steeped, or pepper oil has been added. Use it sparingly, unless you are a spicy-food junkie like myself.
Yep... you heard me right. Peanut butter is great to have on hand. Most people don't believe that it can be a cooking ingredient, but it can be used to make a very rich, flavorful sauce, is useful in several Asian dishes, and can be added in very small amounts to thick soups, gravies, or stews to make them mysteriously richer &em; it also has a thickening effect. When making a large batch of fried rice or stir fry, adding a tiny dollop of peanut butter can wake up the whole meal. It doesn't go with everything, but you'd be surprised at where it comes in handy.
While there's plenty to expand on, I hope I've managed to pique some interest, and share a little of what goes in my kitchen cabinets. Comments welcome!