salmon cooked three ways



November 9th, 2008

Ingredients

  • 3 salmon fillet cuts

Pan Seared With Salt and Pepper

  • Rinse and pat dry the fish
  • Season liberally with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
  • In a pan, sear both sides, about 2 mins per side (depending on thickness)
  • Dress with lemon or yuzu

Oven Roasted Honey Glazed Samon

  • Rinse and pat dry the fish
  • Season with minced shallots, kosher salt, and thyme
  • Create the honey mustard sauce out of honey and dijon mustard
  • In a toaster oven, broil on high, and baste the top side with the honey mustard sauce
  • After 4 minutes (depending on thickness), flip and baste the other side with the honey mustard sauce

Miso Roasted Salmon

  • Rinse and pat dry the fish
  • Cover the fish with shiro miso
  • In a toaster oven, broil on high, put the fish in
  • After 4 minutes (depending on thickness) flip the fish

The cheat
The salmon itself. Fish cooks really fast so its an ideal thing after coming home from school or work.


pan seared tofu with hoisin sauce and bokchoy



October 22nd, 2008

Ingredients

  • 1 package of firm tofu
  • Potato Flour
  • 2 eggs
  • Hoisin Sauce
  • Bok Choy

Directions

  • Drain the tofu and cut it in half
  • Coat in potato flour
  • Beat the 2 eggs
  • Pan fry the tofu in oil
  • Scramble the eggs over heat
  • Boil the bok choy for one minute
  • Glaze the tofu with hoisin sauce and eggs

The cheat
To me it is really the potato flour. Potato flour has this crispier texture when pan fried compared to regular flour.

beef gyozas



September 7th, 2008

Ingredients

  • 1 package of beef gyozas
  • Asparagus
  • Rice
  • Soy sauce

Directions

  • Heat oil in a small stock pan
  • Sear gyozas on both sides for 2 minutes per side
  • Add water and then cap the pan to evaporate it
  • Boil the asparagus for one minute

The cheat
The usage of pre-made gyozas is really the key. The particular brand with beef in the video I found to be the tastiest out of all of them. This is a good meal to have if you literally have nothing at home to eat.

Braised Beef Short Ribs



August 16th, 2008

I decided to try out a recipe I saw from Olive Garden, so check this out first

Now my take on it

Requirements

  • Saute Pan
  • 3 hours

Ingredients

  • 5 pounds chuck beef ribs
  • 2 cups tomato sauce
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • 1 large onion diced5 cloves of garlic minced
  • Saviognese wine (or any nice reds you have

Preparation

  • Debone the beef ribs
  • Season with salt and pepper
  • Dice a large onion
  • Mince 5 cloves of garlic

Cook

  • Head oil in a saute pan
  • Sear beef ribs for 2-3 minutes each side
  • Deglaze pan with onion and garlic
  • Add Saviognese Wine
  • Add 2 cans of beef broth
  • Add tomato sauce
  • Return beef back in pan, simmer for 3 hours

Post

  • Remove beef from pan
  • Reduce sauce by 1/4 or a 1/2 depending on how salty you want it

Key Analysis
Even though this did not fall under another quick recipe, I think its good to understand what it takes to make a really flavorful dish. It really boils down to a couple very simple techniques.

Food Quality
First off, you want to get good meat. If your meat is bad, your dish will turn out bad.

Technique One: Saute
What sauteing does is allows the beef to make a really nice crust creating a nice slightly crispy and salty outside. Remember when you saute, the meat is typically not done yet.

Technique Two: Deglaze
Deglazing is the process of removing those bits of pieces in the pan and creating a sauce out of it. Here you see we are creating a tomato/beef sauce.

Technique 3: Braise
Braising means cooking something in liquid under low heat for a long amount of town. This allows meat to become fork tender under this process. Combining the techniques of saute and braising is perfect for cooking meat.

saute pan



August 15th, 2008

I am sure everyone at home has several pans. But do you know what a saute pan is? Before getting into detail, lets discuss the concept of sauteing.

To saute means to cook something over high heat with a little bit of oil. Cooking food over high heat seals in juices easier and creates a nice browning on meat. Let us examine one of the most common pans in any kitchen.

The frying pan
pan
So technically with the definition of saute, we could use a frying pan to accomplish the task. However there are some major things with a frying pan we cannot do.

  • Add lots of liquid - A frying pan is very shallow. If you pour a lot of liquid in it, you will not be able to do any braising or reductions of any liquid.
  • Deglaze - Since frying pans are non-stick, no residue will stick to the pan. This is bad if you want to create a sauce out of browned pieces.
  • Saute Pan
    saute
    A saute pan really does act like a frying pan, but contains a couple major differences

    • Has 90 degree edges - so why do we care about this? Say you want to create a sauce base. You can pour a lot of liquid in the pan and it won’t overflow
    • Deglazing capability - If you saute chicken, some of the chicken will stick to the pan. What you can do afterwards is stir fry some onion and garlic, and it will clean off the browned pieces which are stuck to your pan
    • Can be put in the oven - Ideally you want a pan where if you need to bake the contents, you can put the entire thing in the oven
    • Lets take a couple simple examples and see what sauteing buys us.

      Chicken Breasts
      Typically many people think chicken breasts are boring, but it really doesn’t have to be so. A technique many people use is to simply pan fry the breast on both sides until it is done.

      So what is wrong with this technique? If you fully cook the breast on the pan, you risk a tougher chicken breast. A sauteing technique will change it as follows.

      Cook on high heat each side of the breast for two minutes. Bake the remaining chicken in the oven for 350 degrees until the temperature reaches 165 degrees. You will the chicken will be much juicer and more tender.

      That is the saute technique. Now which pan do you use? If I used a saute pan I would be able to delgaze the chicken bits and create a sauce out of it. The saute pan basically enables you to leave meat residue behind in the pan. You leverage the meat residue flavor to create a strong smelling and tasty sauce.

      This seems a bit complicated to explain, so the next recipe will be dedicated to the usage of a saute pan and utilizing the saute technique.

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