Don't cry!

I'm sure everybody loves to cook.  There's nothing like smelling the aroma that comes off the food when you sear and saute.  But half the fun comes from the prep work.  Peeling, slicing, chopping...it's all essential to cooking something properly.  Most home cooks know they're not professionals so they don't mind that carrots, and celery, and garlic aren't consistent but there's one vegetable that everybody dreads to cut.  Nobody ever wants to cut the ONION.  Did you know that it takes twice as long to cut onions then it should because people spend half the time running to the sink to wash their eyes or wiping their eyes because they've been tearing so much from chopping onions.

Why do we cry from cutting onions?  Well, i'll tell you why!

When you cut into an onion you release sulfur into the air.  Have you ever bit into a raw onion and that raw, bitter taste just turns you off (if you like raw onions, more power to you)?  That's because onions contain a lot of sulfur.  When the sulfur is released into the air, it rises up and it mixes with the moisture in you eyes.  This creates Sulfuric Acid.  Now if you can remember back to high school chemistry you'll remember that high concentrated sulfuric acid can melt through metal.  Of course the sulfur from onions is not that serious but it's enough get your eyes tearing.  So pretty much when you cut an onion you're creating acid in your eyes.

How do you prevent that?  Well, i'll tell you how!

I've never actually googled it but over the years of working in the kitchen i've heard and seen some pretty ridiculous methods of stopping this.  I've seen people wear sunglasses, chew gum, run cold water while your cutting, i've even seen people wrap plastic wrap around their face!!  

NONE OF THESE WORK! (i've tested it myself) From personal experience, I only know of 2 ways of chopping onions without crying.  The first way is having a SHARP knife.  When you cut into an onion with a dull knife you're squeezing the onion rather than cutting so that pushes more sulfur out of the onion.  With the sharp knife you have to chop like lightning!  Because even with a sharp knife you still have to chop the onion before the sulfur rises into your eyes.  But of course we're all not chopping machines.

This is the MOST EFFECTIVE WAY OF PREVENTING YOURSELF FROM CRYING.  One word, ACID.  Anything that contains acid; tomatoes, limes, oranges, kiwis, vinegar.  They all work fine.  But what I must most is Lemon.  It's cheap, has a lot of juice, and has the most mild flavor.  You can use anything that has acid but limes don't have a lot of juice, vinegar and oranges will alter the taste of your onions.  Your best bet is to keep a bottle of lemon juice in your fridge, that works just as well.

All you have to do is splash a little bit of juice on your cutting board before chopping and I promise you will not cry anymore.  BUT if you are cutting a large quantity of onions you will have to reapply the acid on the cutting when you start feeling your eyes tearing again.

I hope this helps everyone!!

bien manger

-cwis

I'll Show You Egg-xactly How...

Have you ever eaten a hard boiled that was green? Or eaten one that was runny?  Well, first of all.  What is a perfectly cooked hard boiled egg?  When the egg is opened the yolk should still be a dark orange, NOT YELLOW.  If the yolk is completely yellow and firm...IT'S OVER COOKED.  But that's what we see on salads and such, slices of hard eggs with the yolk that feels like a sponge. 

I've figured out an idiot proof way of boiling an egg PERFECTLY and no there isn't going to be anything that will change this.  It doesn't matter how big, how small, how many, what color, or even what altitude.  Actually there is really only one that will affect this method different...the temperature of the egg.  But I don't think anybody is going to leave their eggs sitting out at room temperature before cooking.  This method is for taking eggs straight out of the refrigerator and into the pot.  This is IDIOT PROOF!

First place your eggs in a pot.  Doesn't matter what pot just as long as the side are double the height of the eggs when laid down.  Then you want pour in COLD water.  The reason for this is so that as the temperature of the water rises so does the temperature inside the egg giving us even cooking.  If you take the egg and put it into boiling water, the outer part of the egg will cook faster than the inside of the egg because the inside is much colder.  Doing this will over cook the egg white and under cook the yolk making it quite bitter.  You also want to add a splash of vinegar in the water too.  This will make it easier to peel the eggs when they're done.  The fresher the egg the harder it is to peel the shell off.  How do you know how fresh the egg is?  I don't know so just put the vinegar in. 

After you've placed the eggs in cold water in the pot onto the flame, jack the heat all the way up.  Now all you do now is watch and wait and make sure you have a timer on hand (cell phone, watch, it doesn't matter).  Depending on how much water and how many eggs you've put into the pot the water should start to boil in about 5 minutes for about 3-5 eggs.  If you're not sure when the water is boiling...just watch the eggs.  When the eggs start to lift off the bottom because of the bubbles that's pretty much boiling point.  So when you see the water start to boil put your time to 8 minutes and just leave it alone.  Within this 8 minute period of egg perfecting you want to get a bowl that will host about double the amount of eggs that you have.  Fill the bowl about half way with ice and then fill the bowl up with water just to about when the ice starts to float (you've just created an ice bath).  As soon as your 8 minute timer has gone off, shut off the fire and scoop out the eggs and immediately put them into the ice bath (this is when you see why I say get a bowl that will host double the amount of eggs).  Stir the eggs around a little bit and then let them sit in the ice bath for 8-10 min then take them out.  If you like to eat hard boiled eggs warm (my favorite), take them out in 4 minutes.  Peel and enjoy with a little bit of kosher salt.

If you're not going to eat all the eggs soon and you want to store them.  You can do so by keeping the shell on.  With the shell on the egg can last up to 9 days.  This is a great on-the-go snack...especially in the morning!

Oh yeah, from left to right in the picture:
Under cooked egg
Perfectly cooked egg
Over cooked egg

bien manger
-cwis

Quote of the Moment

“If people take the trouble to cook, you should take the trouble to eat.”
-Robert Morley

May I also add "Keep your criticism to yourself if the meal is free."

bien manger
-cwis

Best Meal Ever

Cereal in the morning, a fruit cup in the afternoon, or a protein bar after the gym...is that a meal? NO...those are just merely snacks that hold you over till you can sit down and eat an actual meal.  What do you usually see on a plate when you go out to eat?  Steak, potatoes, broccoli?  Or maybe pasta and chicken with pomodoro (classic Italian tomato sauce) sauce?  Or maybe you just ordered a burger with all the fixings.  Whatever you ordered, all these meals have 3 things in common...A protein, a vegetable, and a starch.  Proteins would be steak, chicken, and the burger.  Vegetable would be the broccoli, pomodoro sauce, and the fixings on the burger.  Starch would be potatoes, pasta, and the bread the burger is served on.  If it's one thing I've learned from culinary school and the food network, it's there's must always be those 3 components on the plate when serving.

"WHY" you ask??  If you remember when we were in elementary school they showed this pyramid of everything we're supposed to eat and how much we're supposed to eat.  Usually the protein is the largest portion of the meal is because we do not "snack" on proteins during the day.  We snack on cereals, fruits, and vegetables all day.  So even though we don't know it we're getting enough servings of everything as long as we eat at least 3 meals a day.  But unfortunately most of us don't because we're always in a rush to get to places.  Nowadays companies have created these "breakfast bars" and such.  FUCK THAT...breakfast is the most important meal of the day and a bowl of cereal is NOT a meal nor is a "breakfast bar".  Eggs, toast, bacon, homefries...now THAT is a meal.  Whatever it is though please try to eat SOMETHING before you step out the door to go to work.  Even just a banana will make you feel better trust me.

Now I know breakfast and dinner are the easiest meals to prepare and eat.  Breakfast can just simply be an egg with toast and dinner is probably the easiest because you can either go out to eat or you can prepare at home because everybody is home during dinner time.  But lunch...lunch is a toughy because you can't exactly cook your own food at work during lunch time (unless you cook for a living).  So you either have to pack your lunch and leave it in the company refrigerator and risk it being eaten because there are some assholes out there who don't care if there's a name on it or not OR you can go out to lunch and sit there and wait for a server and waste time deciding on what to eat and waiting for your food to come out.  By the time your food comes out it's almost time to go back to work and you have to rush to eat your food.  I hate rushing when I eat, you should always enjoy what you're eating...especially if you're paying for it!

So how do you maximize your lunch time and enjoy your lunch at the same time??  Make your lunch at work!! Haha now I know I said you can't exactly make your lunch at work (unless you cook for a living).  Before I was talking about cooking your meal but now I'm talking about making your meal.  What's the best thing ever invented according to Joey Tribbiani from "Friends"??  A sandwich!!  It's a no-brainer!  My favorite is a ham and Genoa salami with provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo on wheat bread.  I have my vegetable, starch, and protein all wrapped up in a sandwich.  You don't need utensils to eat it, you don't need to cook anything, no need for plates, and it's not messy (unless you're a messy eater yourself).  A lot of times when people make sandwiches and bring them to work they open a bag to a soggy nasty sandwich that's not appetizing at all.  What to do to prevent that?  Pack everything separately.  Pack your meats and cheese in a ziplock bag and do the same separating your bread and vegetables.  And if you want mustard or mayo buy the little packets, that's what they're for.  Put everything in a brown paper bag and staple or tape it.  Write DO NOT TOUCH on it and stick it in one of the drawers at the bottom of the refrigerator and no one will touch it. 

Whether you eat at your desk, cafeteria, or if you still want to go out making your sandwich is still the best way to go.  When lunch time rolls around you can pull everything out and make your sandwich in under a minute while your coworkers are jealous because they have to wait in line for their food.  Well I guess you'd have to wait in line too if you want to buy a bag of chips for a dollar.  That's better than spending $10 for a sandwich from Panera or Cosi.

Inspiration for this blog...POTBELLY FTW!  Potbelly is really correct with their food and I love it.  They don't slice their meat too thick, they don't overload their sandwiches with everything, it's toasted, and the prices are reasonable.  Finally got to get out of the house today because the sun is shining and the ice is melting! 

bien manger
-cwis

What am I doing?!

Hello reader(s)!

So i'm not really sure what i'm doing here. I think it start Super Bowl Sunday when I found out that I didn't have any work the next day so I decided we should all start drinking! After a few drinks and a couple games of beer pong (haha) my friend Brett and I start talking about pictures of food then blogs for pictures of food then finally he said "dude, you should start a blog about food." Then I said, "Only if you take the pictures for me." If you haven't clicked on his link Brett's an awesome photographer. It wasn't really a spur of the moment thing, i've been wanting to start a blog because I LOVE food. That's what I do. I cook for a living. I've worked at a lot of places; restaurants, catering halls, hotels, embassies, even for the government! I think i've done a lot for my age but that does NOT mean I know everything. Eventually one day I want to become a teacher/professor. I love to teach therefore I can talk about food for days!

So how is this blog going to stand out from the zillion other food blogs out there?? I don't know and I don't care. I'm doing this for self-satisfaction. That means if I spell word incorrectly or use an article or punctuation mark wrong, I DON'T CARE. But i'm hoping to educate people on food. I want to be your GOOGLE. hahaha. Any questions, any fuck-ups, anything you want ask me I will definitely try to answer at the best of my knowledge without googling it.

Enough with introduction let's get down to business. What do you eat on a day when you're snowed in?? First thing that came to mind when I went shopping for food was BEEF STEW. Making beef stew is SOOO easy, there are only a few key ingredients you need for beef stew. Beef chuck, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, red wine, butter, flour, and beef stock (broth). That's it but if you want to add any other stuff in there go ahead and experiment a little bit. 

Unfortunately in Virginia when it snows everybody starts to freak out! So when I got to the store there was no more milk, bread, eggs, onions, and carrots! So what do chefs best?...IMPROVISE! Luckily the average person doesn't know how to use leeks or what they even are. So I grabbed 3 bunches of the leeks and ripped off the top of the leeks because when you buy produce, you usually pay by weight not by quantity and since I wasn't going to use the green leafy part of the leek I ripped it off to reduce the weight and the price. Next...grab some beef chuck or beef shoulder. Chuck is the best to use for stew because it has just the right amount of meat and fat. Too much meat and no fat equals dry meat as soon as it leaves the liquid. Too much fat equals...well that's just a lot of fat. But since it's the shoulder of the cow it's going to be pretty tough if you try to eat it like steak that means no Rare or Medium rare. When you have tough meat you want to cook for a long period of time at a low temperature in some type of liquid to make the meat tender. In this case we're using beef stock. This method of cooking can be achieved by Braising or Stewing. Also when you're purchasing chuck some butchers will take the bone out or leave it in. If the bone is left in remember to look for the piece that has the smallest bone in it because you won't be using it when you cube up your meat. 

Now for carrots...beef stew is not complete without carrots! i looked EVERYWHERE for carrots, I even looked for canned carrots...yuck! I gave up my search and got my other ingredients such as herbs, tomatoes, etc. As I declared my food shopping finished I decided to look one more time in the produce section for carrot and look what i found! Shoved all the way in the back behind bananas and strawberries were these 3 little 2oz bags of carrot sticks (ones you use for dipping). SUCCESS!!

Now when I tell you that beef stew is so easy to make...it's soooo easy to make. First have everything set and cut up before cooking. Cube your beef, chop your vegetables, tie up your herbs (i'll talk more about that later) and anything else that has nothing to do with cooking in the pot. You want to choose a pot that has high sides and when you put your meat in it should only come up about 1/4 up the sides. I took some butter and melted it over medium high heat. As the butter melts I took my flour and dusted my beef with it, not too much flour just enough to coat all the meat. When the pot is nice and hot toss your meat in. When the meat is in there stir around so that the entire bottom of the pot is covered and then LEAVE IT ALONE! The more stirring you do the less cooking you will do. You'll probably want to stir every 90 seconds or so. Don't worry if you start to see stuff sticking to the bottom of the pot you'll be ok just make sure it's not BLACK. Cook till all the meat is brown (it's ok if the meat isn't fully cooked it'll finish in the liquid TRUST ME). Once the meat is brown, turn off your heat and scoop the meat out into a bowl or something to leave on the side. At the bottom you will still see grease and the brown stuff that stuck to the bottom...PERFECT. 

Put the pot back on high heat and toss your vegetables (carrots, celery, onions, and garlic) in and saute until the onions become soft. Now this is optional, I then add a little tomato paste in for a little flavor. Remember the brown stuff on the bottom? That's all going to come up when you add your red wine. Wine preference? Never cook with something you wouldn't drink. Pour just enough red wine in to cover the bottom of the pot. Take your wooden spoon, oh yeh...you are using a wooden spoon right? Of course you are. Use your wooden spoon to scrape up all that deliciousness. That's ALL flavor right there. After the bottom of the pot is smooth again and the alcohol has cooked off. Add your beef back in along with your beef broth (just enough to cover the beef about 1/2 inch) and your tied up herbs. I normally use parsley, thyme, and rosemary. The reason you want to tie them up is because the leafy part is edible but the stems aren't. So if you want to sit there for an hour picking out wet stems, tie them up. You can also throw a bay leaf in there too...JUST 1. A bay leaf can go a long way. Give it a final stir, bring it up to a boil, and then lower it down to a low simmer and your done!! Now this is when you just let time do it's thing. Want to leave the pot partially covered cooking for about 2-3 hours. The longer you let it cook the more tender the beef will be.

As i've been writing this blog I was actually eating my delectable stew. Beef and vegetables so tender. Thick, velvety liquid coating my mouth...so good. Normally I would grab a nice french bread, lightly toasted so that the outside is nice and crunchy while the inside is still soft. But like I said the store was out of bread so what does every Asian house have?? RICE!! What better way to end a snowy night then with a bowl of hot rice and homemade beef stew...YUM!

bien manger
-cwis