4 posts tagged “chef”
Portions: 4 servings
Preparation time: 35 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of butter
1 small yellow onion, peeled and diced
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and quartered
1 pound of Yukon
gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 pound of turnips, peeled and quartered
6 cups of chicken broth or vegetable broth
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt, adjust if broth is salted
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Preparation:
Place butter in a 3-1/2 quart soup pot and melt over medium heat; add onions and sweat until translucent. Add apples, potatoes, turnips, chicken broth/vegetable broth, water salt and white pepper. Cover and bring to a boil; turn down to a simmer and continue to cook for 45 minutes. Puree with immersion blender; taste and adjust. Garnish with chopped parsley.
I’ve cooked a lot of broccoli over the years. Personally I think its best served bright green, still firm in texture with a bit of crunch left in it. I prefer steaming over water rather than blanching in water for two reasons. You get the most nutrition out of your veggies when they're raw or steamed AND it takes less time, energy, & water to cook them in.
At home I use a steamer pan. Put 2 inches of water in the pan, put the lid on, and heat over high heat. While the water comes to a full boil, wash the broccoli, cut it into florets then place it directly in the steamer insert. Place the pan over the boiling water and put the lid on the steamer insert. At an average altitude it takes from 6 to 7 minutes. Once cooked, run it under cold water to stop the cooking, or even better, use ice water to shock it. This process prevents carry over cooking. If I want to serve it hot, I place it in a dish, sprinkle with salt or a squeeze of lemon,then serve it immediately. Carry over cooking is what happens after you take food off or out of the heating source. The internal heat in hot food continues cooking the meat or vegetables. What this means is that carry over cooking can cause your food to overcook even after you’ve removed it from the heat source. When you account for this and stop the cooking by shocking vegetables in cold water you’ll notice a big differene. How? You’ll know when to pull your vegetables from the heat, cued by both color and texture. That's the precise time to cool them down quickly. So give it a try and...EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!
Heat, Bill Buford, 2006, Alfred A. Knopf. Random House, 315 pages.
Heat (An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-maker, and Apprentice to A Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany) spins out as Buford relates his exploration of the business of professional cooking from an amateur-home cook's viewpoint.The author begins the adventure by first apprenticing himself at New York's Babbo under Chef Mario Batali. There he captures the essence and drama of the pleasures of preparing a perfect meal that others will enjoy while trying to keep up with the exuberant antics of Chef Mario Batali. Most people while dining out do not know or want to know of the frenetic "back of the house" kitchen dance of people, food, and heat that changes raw food into satisfying food for the body.
From Babbo to a hillside restaurant in Chianti to learn pasta making, to an egocentric famous butcher who prepares meat for the soul, to England's notorious Chef Marco Pierre White for instruction in wild game preparation, the reader is lead on the food journey by the well written author's reflections on the history of food as the shaper of world cultures and the what and why of the foods we eat today. The exuberant presentation keeps the reader wondering what will be next and laughing over the hilarious antics of the "larger that life" Food Artists called Chefs.
and a really bad childhood picture of me doing what I do for a living now, cook, but without the chair....Oh! And the fancy pants! My mom made some of my clothes, and believe it of not, there was a matching vest to match. UGGGG! What was she thinking letting me wear stripes at the same time! In 1970 wild fabric prints were groovatious, i guess. You can tell by my shape that I loved food and cooking. Mom used to say, "Kid, you were born hungry!"
My family worked together in the kitchen for the most part. In the background
you can see my sister in, her fancy pants, washing dishes. I'm blocking your view of my
brother drying the dishes. It must have been before he developed the syndrome
we called "dish pan diarrhea". Defined as: having to go to the
bathroom EXACTLY when it's time to do the dishes!
You are invited to visit my website at www.isimmer.com for more of my recipes and stories.
