Chef Foundation

Archive for November, 2010

If you have decided to follow a diet plan to lose weight, you then need to decide how best to prepare your meals. Even though you may be having fresh fruit and vegetables, you won’t want to eat everything raw. There are several ways of cooking healthy food and you will be able to do so without having to make great changes from your usual cooking methods.

Baking is a good option for many foods in a diet plan. Wrap the food in foil to keep it moist and prevent drying out. The food will be tastier when you do that.

Boiling is fine for fish. Don’t use butter or oil for marinades and make sauces using water as a base. If you are boiling vegetables, do them in cook bags to prevent contact with the water, which would remove a certain amount of the nutrients from the veges. As an alternative use a steamer which holds the food above the boiling water.

Grilling is satisfactory. Again wrap food in foil to retain the juices.

Microwaving works well for a number of foods. There are many utensils suitable for use in a microwave oven. A microwave proof lidded container with a table spoonful of water in the bottom is great for cooking vegetables.

Frying is not generally recommended for cooking healthy food, though if done using a small amount of olive oil or canola oil it will not disrupt the diet plan.

Some tips for cooking healthy food from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver;

Learn some quick, good-for-you recipes Shop properly. Bypass the processed foods and go for fresh vegetables. He suggests making a salad with different lettuces and adding radish or carrot to give it crunch. Make your own dressing. His recipe; combine 3 parts olive oil with 1 part lemon juice or red wine vinegar, add a little salt and pepper, shake the mixture in a jar – and that’s it.
A recipe for healthier French Fries

Slice potatoes thin and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper

Bake on a foil-covered cookie sheet at 425

Octopus is an integral part of Mediterranean cuisine. It is also widely eaten in Asia.

However, the popularity of this strange looking creature has still to reach countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. It seems that although most think it’s fascinating to look at, few actually want to taste it.

While you will find it served in many restaurants across the globe, many people feel that cooking octopus at home requires a lot of skill.

Octopus can be cooked and eaten in various ways. Asian countries use it mainly as sushi, while Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Greece and Malta cook it for salads, stews, pasta and also as a stand-alone appetizer.

The most important thing that you need to keep in mind when cooking octopus is that its meat is extremely tough when raw. It may not look like it, but it definitely is!

So in order to get a tasty octopus meal, you need to tenderize the meat before you cook it.

Freezing the octopus for a few days before cooking it, is one way of doing this. Another way is to boil the meat for a couple of hours before you proceed to cook it.

Some resort to beating the octopus against a very hard surface such as a table. In some Mediterranean fishing villages, you will actually see fishermen beat the octopus against the rocks as soon as they catch it. Others prefer to cook the octopus slowly for many hours until it becomes tender.

To see whether the octopus has become tender, you need to pierce it. If the utensil that you’re using penetrates the meat with little resistance, then it means that the octopus is tender enough.

In order to give it a more palatable flavor, the octopus can be simmered in wine or olive oil.

Once the octopus meat is tenderized then there are various octopus recipes that you can choose from. And whats more, most of them are quite easy to prepare.

There are several different methods for cooking a whole hog… smokers, pits, even La Caja boxes. Whatever you want to cook on is your decision…

Here are a few tips that you need to follow to have a hog that not only tastes good, but looks good enough for your presentation too.

1: Stay about 12″ away from your heat source.
Your cooking time is going to vary depending on the size of your hog and the method you are using to smoke it… but if you are using an 80lb hog (which is what I would recommend to get started with) then it should take you approx. 8-10 hours at about 250 degrees if you stay about 12″ away from the heat source. You don’t want to be too close – and you don’t want to be too far away.

2: Keep Your Sweet Stuff On The Inside
I would avoid putting anything sweet on the outside of the pig until an hour before it is finished. If you use a glaze with a high sugar content any longer than an hour, it will burn. I make an injection that is sweet and put as much of this sweetness inside the meat as possible. This is exactly what we do for the 150-200 lb hogs that we smoke.

3: Always Inject
A good injection is 64oz Apple Juice mixed with 1 cup Sugar, 1 cup Corn Syrup or Molasses, and 1 cup Finely Ground Dry Rub ( the rub has to be a fine powder or it will clog your injector). I make up 4 batches of this and inject it into the Shoulders, Hams, Loins, and along the sides (where the bacon is located).

4: Keep your Pig Belly-Up
If you have the option – smoke your pig belly-up. The body of the pig will act like a bowl and self-marinate with the injections and the rendered fat. If you you’re your pig running-style, all your liquid is going to drip out.

5: Make A Little Appetizer For Your Friends
Some people recommend packing the cavity with is fresh sausage. I usually pack it around the loins and ribs to keep these areas from drying out. I’ve seen people use chickens, pork butts, or slab bacon in the cavity. I’d be a little scared of the chicken though just because of possible cross contamination and improper cooking temps… but these are all ideas you can experiment with. I’m not sure how much flavor the sausage imparts to the hog – but the flavor of the sausage after being smoked inside of a hog is the best you will ever taste. For that reason alone, I recommend doing it… I promise you will impress some people with it.

6: Always Dry Rub
Make sure to apply your dry rub to any exposed meat. I also rub on a thin coat of regular yellow mustard before applying the dry rub. It helps it to stick to the meat really well and give the meat a great flavor.

7: Presentation Is The Most Important Part
You want to spray the outer skin with cooking spray or rub it down with a vegetable oil. This will make it have a really nice “tan” color instead of a dark burnt look. You can even wrap the ears, snout, and tail in aluminum foil to keep them from turning to dark. It’s basically an appearance thing but you want the end result to look good as well as taste great.

We all know that in this economy, cash is hard to come by, especially during the holiday season. However, you can throw a great sushi-themed party no matter the occasion, and it’s more affordable than you think!

Why not host a sushi themed holiday dinner?! Trade that dry turkey and stuffing in for some great tasting and healthy sushi, and start a tradition of your own! For any occasion, sushi is a yummy and popular way to go…you can just throw a “We Love Sushi” party, too!

You will really impress your guests with your exotic menu and they will appreciate your unique theme. You can host a Sushi Party that your relatives and guests will be wowed by. Just don’t blame me when they beg you to throw a Sushi Party over and over again!

Hosting a party at home can be a very stressful and daunting task, especially if are cooking a full course meal for your guests. When planning any get together, you must do the leg work regardless of what is being prepared. However, these tips can eliminate your stress, while keeping more of your hard earned money in your bank account.

Planning Phase (can be done on the internet, from the comfort of your own home)

o Determine your budget. Having a limited budget, you need to get the most bang for your buck. This means you will have to find great deals and do a lot of the leg work yourself.

o Send out RSVP’s to determine how many people will attend. By knowing who will be attending, you will have a better idea if you should cater towards vegetarian sushi recipes, fish recipes or both. If the majority of people attending don’t feel comfortable with raw fish, you can prepare “cooked” sushi recipes (i.e. tempura roll, Philadelphia roll with smoked salmon, cooked shrimp nigiri, California roll, and etc.) and not as much sashimi or spicy raw tuna roll. You get the idea and besides, if you stay away from the sushi grade ingredients needed for sashimi, you will save money there, as well.

o Depending on your guests, if they are close friends or family and want to bring something, you can have them bring a side dish such as edamame (soybeans) or sake (rice wine) or even dessert, maybe a green tea ice cream. Many of these items can be found at major grocery stores and this could help to minimize your costs.

o Research various sushi recipes online, both hot and cold, cooked and raw, to start developing your menu. When developing your menu, select ingredients that are in season and grown or produced locally. By doing this, you will save on cost and ensure the freshest ingredients.

o Make a few calls to your local grocery chain or seafood market to see what fish is in season. Ask if they have any sushi grade fish and the price. Sushi grade fish normally has been frozen for a specific period of time to kill any parasites that might have been in the fish, i.e. according to minimum health standards -4 degrees Fahrenheit or lower for at least 7 days). Ask if they have any seafood on sale…you may even ask who their fish suppliers are to purchase wholesale, if you are buying a large quantity of fish.

o To learn how to make sushi, you can either learn via the internet, which is full of resources (YouTube is a great source!) or purchase a sushi book if you feel adventurous and don’t mind the mess. It will take some trial and error, and also practice, but you’ll get it sooner than you think!

o If you don’t feel comfortable making the sushi, you have another alternative. Ask family members of friends if they know of a Sushi chef that you can hire on a per hour basis to prepare sushi “live” at your event. Another great idea is to visit your favorite sushi restaurant and ask the sushi chef if he works private parties. In this economy, you won’t have difficulty finding a sushi chef at a decent price and since they are already in the industry, they may be able to get the ingredients at wholesale price for you!

By doing most of the leg work above, you can save between 30 to 50% of the cost of Japanese sushi restaurant. The savings can be put towards a couple of good bottles of Sake to toast with your friends.

We’ve all marveled at wedding blogs long enough to crave that 100% personalized look that some brides pull off at their weddings.

You know the type: she’s a genius at translating her individual personality into material things, like pocketfold invites or table signs. You want to be that bride!

So, let’s say all that browsing’s put you in a detail frame of mind. You’ve got perfectly fine wedding favor boxes for those Amorini hearts, but they just look a teensy bit blah. Of course, adding ribbon and maybe a personalized tag or label would add pizazz, but maybe you want your own twist on it. Well, read on for ideas!



Close Up-Ready Favor Box Designs



1) Ribbon à Deux. A popular high-end look for favor boxes involves two ribbons: a thicker one on the bottom, and a thinner contrasting ribbon on top. Here, you don’t need to stick to solids: try knocking together two subtle patterns, or choose one ribbon with another interesting detail, like saddle stitched edges. Experiment with sheers versus solids. Upgrade: thread a small rhinestone buckle over your ribbons so it graces the front or top of your box.



2) Never Too Thin … Typical favor box ribbon is about half-inch thick, or little less. But a wonderfully upscale alternative is super-thin ribbon (a.k.a. “dainty” double-faced satin ribbon). Wrap this twice around your box, like a Christmas present, and tie off in a bow. Très elegant! Again, work with more than one color to maximize visual interest. You can even layer two separate colors back to back, one color showing on each side, so that the bow displays them both.