Friday fundamentals: meat rest

Cooked meat has been through a lot. Exposure to heat excites cells, alters secondary and tertiary peptide bonds (science!) and denatures proteins. Makes them contract. It can be messy business and is why a freshly cooked, cut steak spills so much juice on your cutting board. To make sure that juice ends up where it's supposed to--your stomach--let cooked meat rest.

By cooked I mean seared, grilled or roasted. By meat I mean beef, pork or whole-roasted poultry. By rest I mean leaving it alone. When you pull the meat out from under the broiler, off the grill or out of the pan, just let it sit for a while. A pan seared flat-iron steak does best with about five to ten minutes of resting. A whole roasted turkey will benefit most from a thirty minute break. She needs her space; she's probably been through a lot.

If you're baking a sad, skinless chicken breast then don't even bother with the resting. It's bland food and won't benefit. Just wrap it in a pita and take it to your punishment corner.

What does resting do?
Resting enables the meat's juices to redistribute into the cells. Cooked meat suffers trauma. The heat denatures proteins in the cells and fundamentally changes the secondary and tertiary bonds between protein molecules. The most common, immediate change is tightening. The bonds tighten, the molecules contract, and the juice is squeezed out around the newly formed protein core. Once the protein molecules begin to cool however, they let some of those juices back in. Also, as the temperature throughout the meat begins to reach equilibrium, the juices are redistributed through most cells.

What about fish?
Most fish shouldn't be rested. After meat is cooked, it retains residual heat, which will continue warming the meat's center mass. This warming is, in essence, a continuation of the cooking process, and if you've ever had overcooked fish, you know you don't want to risk it. Pan to plate to stomach. Fast as possible.

Resting meat is one of those small tricks they never used to tell us but one that is absolutely essential to enjoying an excellent meal. Now you know why.

Mark Bittman: what's wrong with the food we eat

A sobering talk from 2007:

It makes me wonder how long a single cow could feed my family and whether or not that option is even open to me. I bet the answers are a long time and no.

Thanks to Cooking up a Story

Food photography lessons from Vegan Yum-Yum

A commenter asked me to a do a food photography tutorial. I'm honored by the request and still plan to put together a short film detailing some of my techniques. Until then, I'd like to direct you to a comprehensive food photography tutorial courtesy of Vegan Yum-Yum. An excerpt:

Plan Ahead

Do as much as you possibly can ahead of time.  Food should be photographed as soon as possible after preparing, which means you’ll need a space for photographing ready to go, an uncluttered kitchen, etc.  Here’s what I do before I start cooking:

1. Clean up, do all the dishes, clear countertops
2. Pick out dishes
3. Set camera up on tripod, pick out background
4. Clear your photography space
5. Think about the dish: do you need a garnish? Special utensils? Placemat?

Mise en Place

Prepping all your ingredients neatly will keep your kitchen more organized, cut down on cooking time, and allow you to focus on the task at hand.  And mise en place photographs make for killer filler photos, as well!

There are a few key take-aways from Lolo's post. First, do a little prep work. Being organized and having a clear idea of what you want to accomplish will do much for your photography. Also, use natural light if you can get it.

I have neither time, resources, nor the inclination to purchase a lot of festive dishes. I have white plates and some dark plates and those mostly suit my needs. The one thing I might recommend, if you're really pressed and want to take one step towards a prop closet is a rustic, earthy bowl. I'm thinking of purchasing one--wide and shallow--for soup photos this coming winter.

Let kids farm

Beautiful sentiment from Honest Meat:

I think it is dangerous for kids to live in sterilized worlds thinking that food comes from Safeway. I say, let kids ride pigs, let them jump up and down on hay trailers, let them gingerly collect warm eggs right out from under the hens rump, let them know how our food is produced and where it comes from. Let them know the people who produce the food, let them understand the cycles of life from birth to death of plants and animals. Let them swell with self-confidence as they explain to their friends how to gently collect eggs, how to plant seeds, or why compost simply happens.

I couldn't agree more. When I was young, I spent many summers at my grandparents' farm in Kansas. While much of the culture didn't agree with me, I am only now beginning to realize how valuable it was to see my grandmother's garden, to understand that cattle raised were going to end up as food, to catch catfish, to run through hay fields. To see seasons change and the land crack with drought. All those things combined to form the beginnings of my food understanding, and as I've gotten older, they've stayed with me, informed my recent decisions, and enabled me to be more conscientious of my surroundings and even, I'd argue, a better parent and person.

Be mindful and plan your menu

A brief, lovely post at The Kitchn offers the following:

Speaking on a panel about the philosophy of Slow Food, [Carlo] Petrini, the movement's founder, exhorted us to "try every day to consume a little bit less." Hand in hand with over-consumption is waste, and we can start to tackle the problem by examining the contents of our own refrigerators. Dig out the "Jurassic Park rabbit" and stash of old parsley (if there's a rotten leaf, just cut that part off), he urged. Cook it, eat it, and share the leftovers with the homeless. Regardless of one's opinion on Petrini and the Slow Food movement, I think waste is something that many of us can pay closer attention to.

Every weekend, I clean out the refrigerator. And every few months I take a look in the pantry to see what's spoiling back there. I'm guilty of over-buying groceries and am guilty of tossing things that look slightly off, or worse, are perfectly good but have passed some kind of internal expiration date in my head.

I'm vowing now to stop. Or try to be better about it.

Teaching myself to cook has involved reading a lot, and a lot of that reading has focused on professional chefs. A well-run restaurant wastes little. A whole chicken might be used for some kind of leg-and-thigh dish (bistro style), a fettuccine alfredo with blackened chicken breast, the wings appetizer, chicken tacos for family meal, and the carcass used for stock (Lifehacker.com provided an excellent link to The Simple Dollar's article detailing just such a process--I'd go with my wife's favorite chicken recipe, however, which involves lemons and garlic in the cavity and an oven roasting to get the skin nice and crispy).

The problem usually isn't with proteins, though. We (my family) use those up (broiled flank steak day one, steak sandwiches with grilled onions on day two). The major problem is vegetables. Our local supermarket chain tends to wrap vegetables in plastic and styrofoam and packages them in portions for...six? Eight? They urge customers to ask for smaller portions, but let's be serious for a second: Who's going to track down the produce guy to ask him for half the packaged asparagus? And he'll just use more packing material re-wrapping the unsold portion.

So I suppose the solution must be two-fold.

First, let's ask for unwrapped vegetables. Supermarkets often claim the wrapped vegetables stay fresher longer as they're not exposed to the open air. This may be the case, but after seeing some of the carrots I've unwrapped, I know they also wrap vegetables to disguise their age. So no more plastic where it's not necessary. If if the only parsnips available are in the little plastic bag? I guess I'm going without.

Second, let's be more mindful in our cooking. The ingredients unused today may (and should) be used tomorrow. This moment, for example, we have green beans, asparagus (yes, the whole package), and zucchini jammed in the crisper. The green beans are being used tonight as a side item for the roasted chicken. The asparagus? The zucchini? I'm not sure. But if I take a moment to plan, to think about the week unfolding before me, I can see the asparagus tossed with pasta on Thursday, the zucchini sauteed and served with steak on Friday, and the remainders of each coupled with ham and eggs in a big, brilliant frittata Saturday morning.

So yes, buy less. Consume less. But also be mindful. Use a menu plan. Part of cooking is figuring out what to do with all the things you think don't belong or what you think you can't use. I might even argue that singular trait is the mark of the best cooks--the most conscientious, the most deserving of our praise.

The cupcake's reign must come to an end

photo credit: jek in the box

While boozing recently in celebration of a friend's birthday party, the birthday girl reveled there would be cupcakes later.  As I'm sometimes wont to do, I tiraded on the cupcake's criminality for about five, maybe ten minutes before a well-tuned waiter asked whether or not I needed another heffeweissen.  "Yes, please," the party said in unison.  

I can get pretty riled up.

However, in this case I think it's with good reason.  The cupcake assumes much of what's wrong with urban America.  At its heart it's a selfish food, a sad food.  The cupcake is lonely.

When we're kids, the cupcake is wonderful.  For Timmy's second-grade birthday party, cupcakes are the perfect solution.  Each child has something uniquely his own.  Little Suzy can grab one, rush off to some dirty corner and return, eyes glazed and wild, lips stained blue-violet from the plume of sugar icing.  And the teacher doesn't have to spend 20 minutes fighting the tide of seven-year-olds as they ebb and flow impatiently, waiting for him to parse pieces of a larger cake.  But at some point we must grow up and engage the world around us.

The cupcake is a lonely food, its single-serving size just the thing for someone on her way home from work. His way home from the gym.  It's designed to reward, to comfort the singular human.  But doesn't it then serve as a reminder of loneliness to the person it's comforting?  The individually sized dome of icing and cake, whether it is simple chocolate or some strawberry-banana-walnut-kiwi monstrosity, stands by itself, separated from the rest of its batter, sheltered in that little paper container.  Each cupcake consumed on a park bench serves as a hat-tip to the isolation we experience even when surrounded by eight million people.

The cupcake is also a selfish food.  It eliminates the need for compromise and communication.  You get your chocolate, I get my vanilla, and the woman behind us gets her cherry-mango-coconut swirl-top kittycake with an extra helping of "You go, girl!" Each of us is happy, but for what reason?  Because we get what we want?  Getting what you want isn't always the best thing, and it doesn't serve as a way to think about the world around you.  First it's the cupcake, then it's the Escalade.  At some point we have to ask whether or not orange-raspberry-mocha right now is the best thing we can do for ourselves and each other.

I'm not saying cupcakes should be eliminated.  I'm not saying they're inherently bad (though I'm kind of saying they're inherently bad).  I am saying they tell us a lot about ourselves, as all food does--imagine a bakery creating amazing cakes portioned for three people--and that we should pay attention to that kind of thing.  And next time you're with a group of friends, see if you can make a cake.  Together.  And if you're alone and headed home from work, make a friend.  Then split something.  Breaking bread is wonderful, even when that bread is sweet and topped with icing.

Wednesday news bites for July 16, 2008

HFCS is now 'natural'
New labeling reveals corn lobby's power.

As food costs soar, it's back to basics for meal planners
From growing their own to soups and stews, Americans battle the rising cost of food.

Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms
Skipping grocery stores and markets, consumers are going straight to the source.

Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks, Cookbook of the Day
Tools, tips and techniques for the home cook, from "meez" to mirepoix.

The shocking truth about many "healthy" diets
Just because it's labeled organic doesn't mean it's good for you.

Wednesday news bites for July 2, 2008

Massive food news this week. These headlines are seriously just the tip of the ice berg.

The Magic of Old World Wine
An excellent article on the wonders of European wine, growers and the benefit of people fussy about microclimates.

Record corn prices raise other food costs
The economy, like the environment, is all interconnected. Get used to it.

The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating
Well, probably aren't eating.

Weekend Meditation: The Comfort Zone
Wake up, get out of your normal routine.

New Green Milk Jug Designs Cuts Costs But Is Difficult to Pour
We're all adults here, and we can't pour milk? This shouldn't be a concern after spill #1. Pay attention, and don't spill the next time.

Fishing with Rick Moonen: The chef and author talks about sustainable seafood

Perfect wines for sipping on the back porch
There's a big difference between food wines and drinking wines. Enjoy these wines all by themselves.

Harriet's list
Better than a personal shopper

Hydration and health
Drink until you're no longer thirsty

Happy chickens?
Another label for humanely raised animal products

Travel the World (one cuisine at a time)

Satellite Magazine's June food column

America has its burger and fries, Germany its schnitzel, Russia its borscht and vodka. Regions, too have their assocaited dishes. The American south has its okra, corn bread and ribs. New England has its clam chowder, and Texas and the American Southwest their Mexican-influenced cuisines. This is how we can travel--through food--and expand our horizons. Feel like crossing the Atlantic? Avail yourself of some traditional bangers and mash, French cassoulet, or Spanish paella. The Pacific? Traditional Japanese sashimi might be the way to go.

This summer, we're going to travel through food, and we'll begin our jouney with a small hop to South America. Peru, specifically, and we'll get there via ceviche.

Ceviche is considered Peru's national dish, though a traveler can find variations up and down the pacific coast of South and Central America, from the trailing tip of Chile all the way to Baja, Mexico. Each variation comes with subtle regional differences in ingredients and preparation. What I bring you this month is a fairly traditional preparation (except for the pita chips), but don't be afraid to experiment with various citrus juices, different types of fish and your favorite vegetables. Just keep in mind that ceviche should be light, bright and refreshing, so steer clear of the broccoli and cauliflower.

Ceviche with pita chips (appetizer, serves 2)

Ingredients

• 10 Shrimp
• 2 palm-sized portion of sweet white fish (halibut, tilapia, whittig or the like)
• Juice from 6 limes or more (you need enough to cover the fish)
• 1/2 medium red pepper, diced small
• 1/2 medium green pepper, diced small
• 1/4 cup diced red onion (start with this amount and adjust to suit taste)
• 2 teaspoons fresh chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon kosher slat
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (increase for more heat)
• black pepper (to taste)
• 2 pieces of pita bread

Cut the fish into bite-sized pieces, and peel and devein the shrimp. You might want to remove the tails, but that's a personal preference. Place the fish, shrimp, salt and red pepper flakes in a glass or ceramic bowl and cover with lime juice. Give it a good shake, and then let it marinate for 2 - 3 hours. When the fish has turned opaque, you’re ready to continue.

A note about cooking with acid: the process the fish goes through during the marinade (check spelling) is called denaturation. In essence, the acids in the lime juice "cook" the proteins in the firsh and shrimp It's a technique similar in many ways to pickling.

To make the pita chips, tear or cut the pita bread in half, and separate the pockets, top from bottom. Each piece of pita bread will yield four pieces of the eventual hard toast. Line the pita pieces on a baking dish, brush them with olive oil, and bake at 400 for about five minutes. You want them to be toasted and slightly crispy. Bring them out of the oven and cut them into triangles. You can also serve the ceviche on lettuce leaves or as a simple seafood salad.

Once your fish has finished soaking, stir in the the remaining ingredients and give it a taste. Add salt or red pepper as necessary to bring up the flavor or heat. If you'd like it be a little more savory, you can add a dash of cumin or garlic. Remember, however, the flavor of ceviche should be bright and refeshing, just the thing on a hot summer day in Gainesville.

Wednesday news bites for June 11, 2008

Summer Reading For the Food Obsessed
I'd like to add On Food and Cooking, and Starting With Ingredients. What are some food books you all have liked?

Salmonella scare halts tomato sales
Again, the problem with singular sourcing

Sustainable on a budget? Order starts with a clean kitchen
Well, of course it does. You can't do anything if you're mired in clutter. For more on this topic, see my post, Cleanliness is next to...

Notes on the urban chicken movement
Urban farm-to-table ranching. This time with chickens.

Boosting health with local food.
Scientists earn grant to study the possible health benefits of local food.

As costs keep rising, restauranteurs find creative ways to cope
Perhaps they can be used and appropriated by the home cook.

Big Fat Lie
Carbs (namely, sugar) and genetic predisposition cause American obesity. I agree. America has figured a way to put sugar (or worse, high fructose corn syrup) in everything.

Bon Apetit Y'All
Mixing French techniques with traditional southern recipes.

Jamie Oliver's Latest Bloody Brilliant Idea
Jamie Oliver decides to pay-it-forward, on television. I like the idea of recipe's evolution--one of the hallmarks of food creation.

Recipe tweak: an update on earthy, crunchy granola bars

Some readers wrote to me with questions about the granola bar recipe, concerned there wasn't enough binding material to hold the mixture together. They were right, and I thank each one from the bottom of my heart for showing up, reading, and being an active participant in this food blog.

I'm not a cook. Not really. I'm just a dad who likes making food and eating it with my wife and daughter. I'm still learning, experimenting. And sometimes failing (I'm working on a post about chicken stock. Epic FAIL). Luckily, the lack of binding material didn't ruin the ingredients and readers were able to mix the resulting granola (kind of moist, kind of chewy) with yogurt or serve it for breakfast with milk (that's actually one of the best things about cooking, I think. When you can take something that's not quite working and adapt it to suit a different set of needs? Awesome).

Anyway, I had some time this weekend to think about the recipe, mess with the ratio of sugar to honey, and I think I came up with a suitable fix:

1/2 cup honey to 1/3 cup sugar

I'll say right now this might need some tweaking, but it seems to work rather well. If anything, I would advise adding a little more honey. Too much sugar, and the bars end up too hard and brittle for my taste.

So that's the recipe tweak. If you try a recipe here and have suggestions for improvements, tweaks, or just want to tell me it didn't work at all, I'd love to hear from you! And for those who have written, left comments or given me words of encouragement? I thank you, thank you, thank you.

Best,
GT

Michael Pollan lectures on food vs. nutrition

Another in the wonderful At Google lecture series.

Michael Pollan is one of the preeminent thinkers on food today and has earned accolades for his books, including The Omnivore's Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food.

From Culinate: Rules for the home kitchen

An excellent article and 8-item list (though I tend to hate n-item blog lists) from Eric Gower. Of note? Number 5:

5. Be fearless. Courage is crucial to cooking well. As in many areas of life, fear of doing things incorrectly induces paralysis; this is devastating in the kitchen, because we wind up being too hungry to deal and just go out, order in, or pull out the TJ’s quasimeal.

But how is fearlessness learned? By not caring. It sounds paradoxical, but think about it: What’s the absolute worst thing that could happen by taking risks with your cooking? That it ruins the dish? Well, yes, but you will have learned something valuable in the process. And if you’re anything like me, you abhor wasting food, and will do everything in your power to bring it back from the brink.

Too salty? Add some sliced potatoes, which will absorb the extra salt. Too bitter? Consider adding a sweetener like jam or maple syrup. Learn to “repair” mistakes you make. So much about cooking is about salvaging things that go wrong. Along the way, you learn. But you have to be bold and take some risks. It’s just food, after all. [ more... ]

Fearlessness is one thing I've tried to incorporate into my own cooking. There's nothing wrong with messing up. In fact, messing up should be expected and even welcomed. Those mistakes can be the greatest learning opportunities. Remember my potato cakes? Though it took over 12 hours of thinking about it, I was able to solve the problem and came up with a delicious snack I could be proud of. I was also ridiculously proud of myself and tromped around the kitchen clapping like someone enfeebled. So go on. Take risks. Put fennel in your lentils (actually, don't). Just stop being afraid of the kitchen and get to it.

Spicy ginger shrimp and grits

Shrimp and grits has long been a staple meal in the American south, marrying West Africa cooking methods with ingredients introduced by the American Indians. From the port town of Charleston it spread down the coast and rimmed the Gulf of Mexico. And if you’re not familiar with grits, you’re missing out.

This recipe turns the traditional meal on its head, opting for a tempura-like ginger shrimp, based on Michael Symon’s fried calamari recipe, coupled with a little heat in the form of cayenne pepper. The final result is a dish that is at once familiar but definitely leans towards the exotic.

Ingredients

• 12 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 medium ginger lobes
• Equal parts all purpose flour and panko bread crumbs (1.5 cups, total)
• 1 egg
• 16 oz. high-quality ginger ale
• Canola or peanut oil
• 1 cup grits (traditional stone ground, if you can find them. Here, I used quick grits. Instant grits are totally unacceptable)
• 3 cups water
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Salt
• Srirache (sp) sauce (in a pinch, a good buffalo sauce will do nicely)

Optional

• Maple sugar
• Additional ginger ale

Peel and devein the shrimp, and peel and slice the ginger. (When peeling ginger, it's best to use a spoon, scraping the peel from the flesh. It works very well and enables you to get into the roots' nooks and crannies.) Place the shrimp in a non-reactive container, pour in enough ginger ale to cover the shrimp and add the sliced ginger. Let this sit for at least six hours.

Before you begin, you’ll want to make sure you have everything set for frying the shrimp. Beat the egg and leave in a bowl large enough to fit most of the shrimp. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and panko and add a dash of salt. Pour about two inches of oil into the bottom of a sturdy pot.

Remove the shrimp from the ginger ale and pat dry.

Make the grits as per the directions on the package, though shy away from butter and cream for this recipe. For quick grits, whisk 1 cup (dry) grits into 3 cups of rapidly boiling water. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pot. Simmer for five to seven minutes, then mix in the cayenne pepper.

Note: To add a little sweetness to your grits, you might want to try adding a touch of maple syrup. Or, if you’re feeling especially adventurous, you could use the ginger ale instead of a water portion—one-third cup, for example. I haven’t tried either of these variations yet, so you’re on your own. If you do try them, however, I’d love to hear about the results.

As the grist finish cooking, heat the oil you poured earlier to 350F. Toss the shrimp in the egg mixture to coat them, then dredge in the flour and panko mixture. When the grits have finished cooking, remove them from the heat. Then, begin frying the shrimp. Work in batches and drain on paper towels or a wire cooling rack. They fry up very quickly--about a minute per batch, so you’ll want to stay on top of things. To plate, spoon a dollop of grits onto the center of a plate, place several shrimp on top of the grits and hit the whole thing with a couple squirts of the srirache. The mixture of sweetness from the ginger ale and spice from the hot sauce is wonderful, complex, and just the thing for a breezy spring evening on the patio.

Wednesday news bites for April 9, 2008

Grains Gone Wild - Paul Krugman (NYT) on the policies and practices that sent food prices through the roof.

U.S. food shoppers hit the highway to save a buck - Reuters on what some are doing about it. Sadly, buying local isn't among the implemented strategies.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear - Monsanto makes even the smallest farmers pay a heavy price for disobedience.

New food safety label introduced to certify your meat is safe - We'll just have to assume the labelers aren't lying

Study: Food additives impact hyperactivity - Totally unsurprising. Can we have a study like this conducted in the United States? Please? Like, yesterday?

News bites: Kentucky Grilled Chicken? It'll never fly

• Will KFC grilled chicken be as successful as fried? (from Reuters) -- in a word? No.
• Skipping Cereal and Eggs, and Packing on Pounds (from NYT) -- Teens who skip breakfast gain weight (as if we didn't already know this)
• Bourdain's thoughts on the Food Network (from Food Network) -- looks to be a bit in the sauce, but still entertaining
• Smart Eating at Work - Part 3 (from NYT) -- top-10 snacks to have on hand at work. The thing I notice? A shit-ton of brand names. Product placement!