Learn How to Follow Directions!

Most of you know how I feel about recipes. I believe cooking is an art through which people may express themselves, so how can you do that by doing the same thing someone else is doing? How often have you followed recipes that asked for an ingredient you've never used before? How many bottles and bags of spices and sauces are hanging in the pantry that you've used once or twice, tops? Recipes are a good foundation if you don't know what you're doing, but don't stress yourself if you don't have that one teaspoon of cardamom. How often have you followed a recipe and it calls for a certain ingredient that you've never used before?...pretty often. And after about 5 different recipes your pantry is full of bottles and bags of sauces and spices you've only used about once or twice in the past 9 months.

That being said, I'm not saying you should never follow recipes, but you should always be open to trying different things.

And with THAT being said, most of you know how I feel about baking. The two things I despise most in the cooking world are 1. measuring and 2. following a recipe to the T(easpoon). #seewhatididthere

The Pastry Arts are a science. Although there is a lot of creativity aesthetically, there is very little you can do with changing a recipe to make it your own (unless you are a pastry chef with 20 years of experience, which you are not). The temperature of the eggs, the softness of butter, clumps in the flour, overbeating, soft peaks, hard peaks, speed of adding sugar...what does this all mean? Science. Mess one of these things up in the recipe and you're failure rate will start to rise even before you put it in the oven.

So where am I going with this? Not really sure, I lost my train of thought for a second.





...Ok. Now I remember. If you're going to follow recipes, at least follow recipes that give you weight measurements. You want to look for recipes that call for grams, ounces, and pounds. These are THE MOST ACCURATE units of measure for cooking/baking. Think about it this way: Space is a pastry chef's worst enemy. How much does air weigh? Nothing. How many air pockets can you have in a cup of flour? Don't know. So does a cup of flour with air pockets weigh the same as 8 ounces? (1 cup = 8oz) NO! Because there is not the same amount of flour! Also, if you're making a pie and it calls for 3 cups of apples. Are you actually going to mash all those apples into the cup until there's no space? Or are you going to slice them up and put it in a cup with a few apples sitting past the 1 cup line? Any change in the recipe could result to disaster. Ever wonder why your cookies were flat or too hard? Probably because you used a tablespoon of baking soda that wasn't leveled. Who knows? Next time you buy a recipe book or look one up online make sure the units of measure are in grams, ounces or pounds. Screw the teaspoons, tablespoons and cups, they're not your friends.

So how am I going to weigh everything out? With a scale duh! Some of you might think it's a little over the top to buy a scale JUST to weigh out some food. I think it's a little over the top to buy a quart of apple cider vinegar because the recipe called for 2 tablespoons. And plus you can buy a little pocket scale for $20.

To all my pastry friends hope I didn't sound like an asshole but...
...you already know I am :)

Bien Manger

- Cwis

Don't Be So Crabby!

Now I'm not a big fan of recipes. In fact, I HATE recipes. This is why I don't BAKE. Baking is all about recipes because if you're missing one item or if you're off by a tablespoon or so, you need to start all over. Cooking is about making the food taste the way you want it to taste. If it tastes too much like this then you add a little bit of this to balance it out.

I've gotten a few complaints from people that I never give them recipes. I always tell them to put a little of this in, and toss in some of this. Well, what is THIS???

So for your enjoyment I will share with you a recipe that I actually measured out and tested myself. 

I call this the  

New Jersey-Asian-Maryland Crabcake

Haha. Just kidding. I don't have a name. But here it is!

2 lb. Jumbo Lump Crab
1 cup Mayo
1/2 cup Dijon Mustard
1.5 T Worcestershire
2.5 T Tabasco
1 Egg
1 T Old Bay
2 Cup Break Crumb
3/4 Cup Sm. Diced Red Pepper (Optional)
1/2 Cup Cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

- If you decide to use the Bell pepper, saute it with a little oil and salt and pepper for 8 min and keep it to the side.
- Make sure the oven or toaster oven is preheated to 400 degrees.
- Combine Mayo, Mustard, Worcestershire, Tabasco and Old Bay.
- Add crab meat to wet ingredients and gently fold with a rubber spatula or spoon.
(Traditionally a Maryland Crabcake is folded so that the Lumps stay nice a big but if you want to break them  up and have little shredded pieces of crab that's fine.)
- Add the egg and chopped cilantro. At this point you can taste the mixture. Check for seasoning, or spice, or too much of this and that etc. It's OK to eat it, the crab meat is already cooked.
- Add the bread crumbs and fold/mix till all is incorporated.
- Make desired crabcake size/shape. But make sure the crabcake is no more than about 3/4 inch thick.
- Put a pan on medium high heat and add some clarified butter. Yes, I said clarified butter.
- Once the pan is hot, sear the crabcakes on one side for about 3-4 minutes. You can life the bottom of it to see how brown it is. Make sure it's nice and golden brown!
- Flip over and sear but only for about half the time (so about 2 min).
- Transfer onto baking sheet and toss into the oven.
- Let cook in the oven for about 7-8 min.
- Take out and enjoy!

If you want a sauce, check out my salmon cake blog and look for the Lime Aioli. Any questions? Shoot me a message! I told you I wasn't quitting!

bien manger

-cwis