Your Culinary Nemesis in the Kitchen

[lala]

Now, who can tell me why my Asian dishes are awful? I have a good palate, I know what I enjoy in restaurants, but I can't make a damn thing at home! I know why my caramel doesn't behave, but knowledge doesn't help. And Roasting large hunks of meat gives me nightmares. Hate it.

There's an article in today's New York Times which discusses how a chef cooks a particular Asian dish. In it - you will see why your kitchen - no matter how high-end - is no match for wok cooking in an Asian restaurant (although I have read of home kitchens - particularly in high end housing developments with lots of Asian buyers - which almost duplicate restaurant conditions).

In addition - you probably don't use enough salt (have you ever noticed that you gain 2 pounds in water weight after eating most Asian food?).

By the way - I love a rice cooker (or the microwave) for rice. And a digital thermometer takes the fear out of roasting large hunks of meat. Robyn

Excellent points, thank you. I do blame a lot of my current cooking problems on my shitty stove in my rental apartment. Both burners and oven are wonky, so I think my landlord needs to get me a new stove! I'll tell him eGullet says so

Edited April 22, 2004 by lala (log)

[chezlamere]

cinnamon buns, anything with yeast makes my anxious. If coarse I make really good wine though from a kit.

my mother usually makes a huge batch of buns and sends them to me for my birthday, hey that's coming up soon too, geez i should make room for them in the freezer

[naguere]

Don't have a clue how to deal with a whole fish...

You mean a whole fish that you just caught? Or a whole meal ready fish you buy at the market? If the latter - it's usually the timing that's daunting (you can't just stick a meat thermometer in anything smaller than a whale ). Therefore I'd start with small fish - to get a feel for it - like those small farm raised trout that are about big enough for 1. Sauteed - in the oven - experiment. Once you get the little fish right - you can start working your way up to bigger fish. For what it's worth - I find that most older cookbook recipes call for too much cooking time - and trendier magazine recipes call for too little (I like my fish cooked - not overdone - and not raw).

By the way - if it's the former - it's more complicated and involves really sharp knives. Make sure you buy a Kevlar glove . Robyn

Advice from the Canadian Fish Instiute, or something like that is:

'On cooking fish, ten minutes per inch thickness, not matter what method is used.'

It serves me well.

[suzilightning]

jello...not gelatin which i can work with fine but jello.  

What goes wrong? I don't make jello that often - just when my husband or I have to prep for a colonoscopy - but I find that following the directions on the box usually does the trick. Robyn

robyn-

i follow the directions on the package to the letter but i invented jigglers before the company did. i even had johnnybird - the obsessive-compulsive past the border on neurotic teetering on psychotic engineer watch me fix it and it still came out wrong. now this is from someone who used to make lemon charlotte at work all the time so go figure....

What's a jiggler? (I thought all Jello was supposed to jiggle - at least that's what the commercials say.). Robyn

couple years ago jello was advertising jigglers and at easter had jiggler molds in the shape of eggs. they seem to be about half the size of properly prepared jello, are quite hard -er-firm - kinda like rubber

[foodobsessed]

Most baked goods, but especially cookies. I can't bake!!!!!

[Wholemeal Crank]

Pie crust trick: don't cut the butter in. Start with frozen butter, and grate it into the flour. Stop every tbsp or so to stir it around a bit with your hand so the strands of butter get coated with flour and don't just mat up in the flour.

Much easier, and the bits are already the size you want if you use a nice large-hole on the grater.

I came up with this trick when baking a pie at the house of a friend who didn't cook much--and have been doing it ever since.

[cjs]

  . o O (Rice.)

Mine always comes out like glue.  Bleah.  The only rice I can make is risotto.  And rice pudding.  But that's it.

Good God!, you should have seen the rice pudding I made at work last week for a seniors function. I don't think you should be able to stand a spoon up in it , should you?? It was a tad firm to say the least.

I have never had any luck with plain desserts. Cookies,cakes etc. But I can make a mean Brulee or chocolate ganache....... go figure. My daughter laughs at me when ever I try,yet again,to make a batch of cookies. sigh.....

Edited April 28, 2004 by cjs (log)

[plunk]

Pie crust trick: don't cut the butter in. Start with frozen butter, and grate it into the flour. Stop every tbsp or so to stir it around a bit with your hand so the strands of butter get coated with flour and don't just mat up in the flour.

Much easier, and the bits are already the size you want if you use a nice large-hole on the grater.

I came up with this trick when baking a pie at the house of a friend who didn't cook much--and have been doing it ever since.

Oh wow, I've got to try that! Not sure if I have the right grater hole shape though. Can the flakes be too thin? I have a grater that on cheddar and mozza cheese, makes shreds like you would put on pizza. I also have another grater that I use on parmesan, to make the thin shavings, the same thickness and shape as if you took a veggie peeler to the parmesan. Which would be better?

[NeroW]

I AM NOT GOOD AT POACHING EGGS.

[cjsadler]

Crispy polenta is my all-time nemesis. We have fought many battles. It does not even seem like a worthy adversary, yet it defeats me every time. Most recipes say "Pour polenta into pan and chill 2 hours. Slice into triangles or cut into rounds and saute". Bull****!! This never works. I've tried making the polenta with much less liquid, chilling it overnight, coating it in flour, panko and raw polenta... grilling it, and frying it... high heat, low heat... It never gets very crispy and it usually just melts. Sometimes I'll get a very thin layer of crust that slips off as soon as you try to eat it. Maybe I'm just expecting too much-- I want like the crispness of a good potato galette, but with polenta.

Tart dough is a close second (I do alright with basic pie dough). I've been trying a bunch of recipes. Seems to be alot of different methods... some cream the butter and sugar, some use confectioner's sugar, some barely use any sugar, some have no water, etc... It's never the crisp, tender, flaky dough I want. And it usually shrinks like hell (even after I've chilled or frozen the dough in the pan in addition to letting it rest before rolling). I figured Jeffrey Steingarden's "Gold Standard Tart Dough" from 'It Must Have Been Something I Ate' was finally going to be the one that worked. Nope- it produced a super-brittle dough that disintegrated in your mouth (not in a pleasant way). I assume this was because the butter was worked too well into the flour, but I barely worked it in! (or so I thought!).

[robyn]

I AM NOT GOOD AT POACHING EGGS.

Two easy things which might improve your poached eggs. Put a little bit of vinegar in the poaching water. And use only the very freshest eggs (as opposed to hard cooked eggs - which should be made with old eggs). Robyn

[Toasted]

Crispy polenta is my all-time nemesis. We have fought many battles. It does not even seem like a worthy adversary, yet it defeats me every time.

I too, have had my own polenta battles. What works for me is to almost deep fry it in a hot pan with about 3 to 4 Tbsp. of oil. Patience is key, flip it over too early and you'll lose the crust.

[SKinCA]

Caramel is my bete noir of the kitchen. Too light or burned every single freakin' time.

[plunk]

Another crispy polenta casualty here, can't seem to get that nice crispy crust either. I can get the polenta firm enough but the crust is never thick enough to be crispy for long. Argh..

[browniebaker]

Fudge. Nearly always gets grainy on me. Have made it successfully only once, and that was 25 years ago. Now I make microwave fudge using sweetened condensed milk and don't care that it's cheating.

Rolled cookies. Large batches of cookie dough to roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Near the end, I get so sick of the fiddly rolling and cutting that I shape the dough into balls and press them flat with the bottom of a glass.

Uno's pizza crust: copycat recipe. Still trying to crack the code. Have tried all the on-line copycats, none of which are quite right. Contemplating getting a job at the original Uno's in Chicago.

[katzenjammy]

Caramel for me too. Mine always seizes.

[ElfWorks]

i cannot do jams and preserves. it makes me crazy!!! my goal is to move into a lovely place where my kitchen wont embarass me and then have tyler florence and his food 911 crew come teach me how!

xo

[AndrewK]

Anyone have expereince making Hollandaise Sauce? Can it be done with a hand-held immersion blender? My right fore-arm thanks you in advance, because I'm getting completely worn-out from making it at work every day.

Andrew

[Bicycle Lee]

my cuilnary nemesis is a severely busy restaurant. When I get in the weeds I find that not only am I not having a good time, but also that I cannot give the attention that is needed to every item.

[Bicycle Lee]

Anyone have expereince making Hollandaise Sauce? Can it be done with a hand-held immersion blender? My right fore-arm thanks you in advance, because I'm getting completely worn-out from making it at work every day.

Andrew

I bet it could....

my best success with hollandaise has been with a blender. Yolks blended, add the boiling water and then slowly add the butter....return it to a bain marie and whisk with the lemon juice and s+p.... this has worked well for me....

[maggiethecat]

Pie crust trick: don't cut the butter in. Start with frozen butter, and grate it into the flour.

I do this too, but unlike you, I didn't invent it myself. Delia Smith showed me how in her Christmas cookbook --her dynamite sausage roll recipe.

It's a truly grate (er, sorry,) trick.

[bainesy]

I've always considered myself a lucky/confident cook - if I make a mistake I'll find a way around the problem, or, at worst, get it right the next time, but spaghetti carbonara beat me every time. I use the past tense because I gave up years ago trying - without exception and despite all variations I would scramble the eggs.

A chap can only withstand so many humiliations.

O! were mine eye-balls into bullets turn'd.

[andiesenji]

Mention of the Ove Glove reminded me that I had coveted it when it first came out; following the link reminded me that I hadn't indulged because I thought it over-priced. But on poking around further I found that you can get - on eBay and from various other discount-y places - knit Kevlar gloves, which are really the same thing, for a fraction of the price, and that's per pair. (Yes, there's another component to the OG, some other Dupont thing which starts with N or M and whose name I disremember and won't bother to look up right now, and it too is available a lot cheaper; but as I understand it it's the Kevlar that really matters.) Makes sense - they're used in all sorts of commercial and military applications - welding, firefighting, flying, etc. I was toying with the idea of trying a pair; only hesitating because of the mixed reviews people gave the Ove, but at the price, what the hell. Anyway, I'm wondering if this wouldn't solve your problem too. If it keeps heat out, it should be equally good at keeping it in. Not to mention that being knit it must breathe at least a little, so it might be easier on your hands in hot weather.

'Course, you'd be giving up the fetishy look for something a little more... dorky... but it might just be worth it.

Long before the advent of the "Ove" glove here in the U.S. I was ordering the "Coolskin" gloves from the U.K. http://www.coolskin.com/shtml/home.shtml

They are made of Nomex which is the fireproof material, Kevlar=bulletproof.

The ones I buy are sized and also come in a longer version and I was always getting burns on the backs of my wrists or forearms when reaching deep into my oven to turn a pan, or on the sides of the oven when grasping a very wide pan.

I don't care how much they cost, they are worth every penny. If I am going to be handling anything that is wet or steamy, these are roomy enough that I can wear a rubber glove under the Coolskins. I bought one of the new silicone mitts and it is not as easy as the gloves. It is difficult to grasp a pan that is on a sheet pan without putting the tip of the mitt into whatever is in the pan. Major damage to a layer.

I checked out the "Ove" gloves when they were first available and the material was not as thick and they were too short - I have large hands.

Regarding the hot hands problem when using a pastry tube, you can order kneading gloves from King Arthur flour - they are available also from a commercial supplier buy only by the gross.

http://www.coolskin.com/shtml/home.shtml

They were developed to keep dough from sticking to hands. They actually do keep the heat of your hands from the dough - I don't use them for regular bread dough. (I use latex food-handler gloves). However I do use them when I am working with puff pastry or a very short pastry dough. I keep them in the freezer between uses, in a ziploc bag.

[andiesenji]

Fi - where do you live? Climate can affect meringues. I live near the ocean, and I don't even try them during the summer - too humid.

Balmagowry, I've tried them in London (various postcodes); Glasgow; Edinburgh; and (most recent attempt) Herefordshire (perilously close to Wales). And yes, I know that nowhere in the UK are you more from 60 miles from the coastline but...

I think it's just me. Egg whites despise me as a weakling. They can smell the fear.

Fi

Too, too true. I prepare meringues, including large ones for schaum torte, for a friend who lives in Malibu. The humidity here is less than 20% most of the year (11% today because the wind is blowing). One advantage of living in the desert.

Another thing that is impossible in high humidity is a lot of sugar work. Spun sugar starts to weep minutes after it is finished. Pulled sugar slumps and deforms, enough to make one take to the bottle.

[andiesenji]

I've tried them in London (various postcodes); Glasgow; Edinburgh; and (most recent attempt) Herefordshire (perilously close to Wales). And yes, I know that nowhere in the UK are you more from 60 miles from the coastline but...

I think it's just me. Egg whites despise me as a weakling. They can smell the fear.

However, there is a product that can produce pretty good results.

It is a meringue powder that contains a stabilizer and is for use when one is in conditions that are inhospitable to natural egg white use.

You can find the powder in small containers in shops that supply cake decorating and candymaking supplies. Usually it comes in 10 pound containers. PastryWiz may have it, they have just about everything else. I order sugarpaste and marzipan in bulk from them when I don't feel like making my own.