A simmer means that bubbles will occasionally break the surface of the liquid in the dish.
This is important when making stock, since a boil will cause any fat in the stock to emulsify into the liquid. What this translates to is a greasy “mouth feel” when you use it to make soup.
By simmering the stock, you are able to periodically skim off any fat that collects on top of the liquid and discard it.
I have a tip here and there to add, not as a professional, but as someone who has been cooking since she had to drag the kitchen chair over to the stove and stand in it to reach the knobs.
I think I’ll start with tools:
Wooden spoons. You can never have too many.
I’ll third the vote for a meat thermometer.
Apple corer! This is on my top ten cooking tools I own.
I’ll back up whoever stated “Good Knives” Razor sharp.
And somewhat out of the ordinary, maybe, but if you cook any sort of East Asian food… I have two pair of giant “cooking” chopsticks. I love working with them, and they are very handy. Also, after years of knicking my knuckles on a nutmeg grater with the ginger, I broke down and bought an actual ginger grater. Mine is a little blue ceramic fish with sharpy-sharpy teeth in the bottom of the dish to grate the tough root. This is another one of my top ten kitchen tools.
Happy Cooking, Lib!
FB
Anyone got any tips around fishcakes- the sort that are made with mashed potato, salmon or tuna and other stuff like onions etc. They are then fried.
Whenever I make and cook them they usually fall to pieces during cooking.
:smack:
FaerieBeth - You have to help me grate ginger. When I’ve tried it, the ginger is too juicy, and I wind up with this mush that I can’t get off the grater. Is it the grater? The ginger? Me? Help!
Cicero - I actually just made salmon cakes tonight, but I used matzo meal instead of mashed potatoes. They stayed together just fine.
Have you tried using a binder? Common binders include eggs, milk, flour, cornflower, water etc.
It’s not you. It’s a combination of the ginger and the grater. Ginger is always a little pulpy when I get it grated, but fortunately, most times I’m using it in a sauce or marinade, so I just rinse it off the grated with a little water (or soy, etc) down into the mixture I’m making. Usually about a half teaspoon of liquid will rinse it all out of the grater.
If I need dry ginger, I usually just fall back to the powdered.
FB
Shalmanese- yes I do use eggs. Perhaps not enough- and look!ninjas- I’m sure your salmon rissoles were lovely. If I could work out hwat the ingredient you used is, I’ll try and get some!
FYI, my mom sez to use a 1:1:1 ratio–1 tablespoon fat, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 cup liquid. Increase volumes as necessary to whatever amount of gravy you need.
You should also try reading a couple of books by Edouard de Pomiane–“French Cooking in 10 Minutes” and “Cooking With Pomiane”. They’re informative and very entertaining; he’s got a great writing style.
Oh, and has anybody recommended getting at least one or two sets of kitchen tongs if you don’t already have them? (My latest tong-usefulness discovery: use them as big tweezers to remove blood spots from eggs.)
A binder is really useful, usually a beaten egg. The other trick is to handle them just as little as possible. They’re snittier than bisquits that way. (Our fluffy, scone-like things.) Also, have the pan and oil heated beforehand. Plop 'em in and don’t touch 'em until the underside coheres. Actually fairly low heat works well for this, just have patience. You want 'em to brown and hang together without burning first. Do a little edge-nudge test before flipping. If they don’t come up easily, they aren’t ready. Slow and steady does it, and it always takes longer than you expect.
I’m a huge fan of crab cakes, made with medium lumps of (usually fake) fish-masquerading-as-crab. (Gimme a break; I live 2000 mi. inland; the real stuff is impossibly expensive and the canned stuff is dismal.) But it works with canned salmon, chunk tuna, etc. too. It’ll be very loose in the mixing bowl and I don’t bother with the dip-in-flour routine because 1. it’s impossibly messy and 2. the binders provide enough crust with gentle heat. Actually I rarely try the pat into patties by hand thing either. Just plop a generous spoonful straight into the pan and gently squoosh and moosh from there.
And if it breaks apart just call it hash.
Veb
As noted above, buy a Microplane grater. You’ll still get some pulpiness (it’s the nature of the beast), but it will do the best job of anything you’ve ever used.
I’ve never heard of using mashed potato in these, but to each his own. One technique is to use two spatulas when turning. Fry in butter on low heat (I’m assuming the fish in the cake is already cooked ); when side A is browned, slide one spatula underneath and hold it in place with the other. Gently turn the whole thing over and slide spatula #2 out from under, helping it off with spatula #1.
Never stir cooking rice. All stirring does is release the glutin. This makes the rice a sticky,lumpy mess. To add a little extra flavor use chicken stock instead of water. You can also add flavor by putting a whole,Uncut, jalapeno into the rice just before you cover the pot. The pepper will add a smoky flavor, and as long as it is uncut it won’t make the rice hot.
Abolutely the easiest way to grate ginger:
Freeze it.
When you keep it in the freezer, when you need it, just pull it out, grate it using the small holes on a box grater, then put it back in the freezer. You don’t need to peel it, and there’s no mush.
Around here, most good dinners start with sauteeing garlic and onions. Sometimes I don’t actually use it, but it sets the mood nicely!
I use shallots more than onions because they come in smaller sizes and the outer shells aren’t as damaged as onions.
You can add carrots, yellow squash, and zuccini (as well as with chicken broth) when cooking rice to increase the veggie content of most plainer meals, and it looks nice, too.
Zuccini and yellow squash are diving when sautedd in butter with onions or shallots and a dash of sugar.
We prefer sticky rice here, and buy it in 10 pound bags from the asian grocery.
I prefer concentrated chicken and beef base to canned or dry. It’s like a paste that you add to hot water.
I never could make gravy well. I mix the fat and flour like most here have described, but I add more liquid early and boil it down rather than brown it up (does that make sense?)
Unless using short grain rice to make risotto. Releasing the gluten is desirable in that case, although excessive stirring is not good.
You’re basically making a reduction sauce by doing it this way. The result is somewhat the same, although gravy flavor benefits from browning the flour. I would suspect that your gravy is somewhat bland; you can help it out by using a good hearty stock for the liquid, rather than water.
A simmer is basically when the liquid just sorta shimmers on the surface, gives off wisps of steam and doesn’t release anything beyond tiny, occassional bubbles. Just turn down the heat until that happens. FWIW that’s a lot easier to do on a gas range than an electric, since the electric heating elements are much slower to cool down. As soon as you reduce the heat the bubbling should settle down.
Think of it kinda of like the gas pedal of a car. You’re just taking your foot off the gas until you coast down to the speed you want to go.
Don’t worry about the markings on the knobs for the stovetop burners, Lib. They’re just general guidelines. Just fiddle around with how your stove works and let the food tell you when the temperature is right.
If it helps, a medium boil is when fairly large bubbles pop up constantly around the edge of the pan. A rolling (high) boil is when the whole surface roils with bubbles breaking and popping.
Veb
Who’s a bit awed and intimidated by all these professional trained chefs.
Manischewitz brand Matzo Meal, found in your Kosher cooking section. After reading some of the other replies in this, though, I think the two beaten eggs I used might have had more to do with my cake cohesion.
Oh, and a great big thankee-sai to Chefguy, JavaMaven1, and FaerieBeth for the ginger grating tips. I’ve tried to mince it really fine, but it’s just not the same.
The salmon in the cake comes from a can marked “John West”.
The ginger reminded me of some cheats…
You can often find glass jars of pre-minced ginger and preminced garlic, these keep for a very long time in the fridge and are a very good substitute for the fresh stuff.
A good quality pesto can be kept in the fridge and used as a substitute for fresh basil at a pinch.
Tomatoe paste in ‘toothpaste’ type containers is great for adding flavor and thickening up pasta sauces.
Dried mushrooms of many varieties are great for sauces. Reconstitute them in hot water for 15 mins before using, and save the hot water as added liquid for the sauce if it needs thinning.
Buy two vanilla pods. Put one in an airtight container with a pound of good white sugar and keep in a cool place. Put the other in a half bottle of smoothe vodka and keep in the fridge. Forget about both for at least three months, then use the vanilla sugar for cakes and baking, and drink the vanilla vodka neat or on the rocks. Both can have the vodka or sugar topped up almost indeffinately.