Chef Foundation

Archive for the ‘Cooking Techniques’ Category

Kids love to cook, and cooking with them can be a lot of fun, albeit sometimes a bit messy. In addition to having fun, there are some really good reasons to teach your children how to cook, such as:

You’re spending time doing something with them, bonding and giving them the parental attention they need. You’re making memories – and memories that involve food are nurturing memories. What kinds of food memories do you have? Decorating holiday cookies with your Mom? Helping Dad make his special barbeque sauce? You can be intentional about creating food memories with your children. You’re teaching and reinforcing learning, and they don’t even know it. They are reading, doing chemistry and physics and practicing math. You can pass along your family heritage to your children – and cooking with them gives you another opportunity to be intentional about it. You are teaching them the skills they need to be successful adults. You have about 18 years to teach your children the life skills they need – and cooking is one of those skills.

Over the course of those 18 years, your children need to learn:

Kitchen and food safety Cleanliness How to choose ingredients How to use utensils, knives and equipment How to measure liquid and dry ingredients accurately Cooking techniques Nutrition Meal planning Menu planning How to shop for food How to budget for food and stay within the budget Proper table setting and serving Good table manners

It’s really easy and fun to teach your kids to cook if you remember a few simple rules:

Safety first. Adult supervision as needed. Make it fun for everybody. Give lots of positive reinforcement. Keep it age-appropriate.

When you’re teaching young children how to cook, it’s important to establish firm safety rules and to enforce them. Children shouldn’t use the stove or electric appliances until they are tall enough to reach them safely without standing on anything. They shouldn’t use kitchen knives until they have sufficient fine motor coordination to use them safely – usually somewhere around age 10. Make sure your children understand the safety rules and why they are important.

Adult supervision is necessary whenever your child is learning a new kitchen skill. As the child becomes proficient in the skill, you can back off a bit and just check in periodically to see how he or she is doing. Later, you can be available if they need help. Eventually, the child will be able to perform the skill independently.

Children can begin to help in the kitchen at a very young age. Infants want to be wherever you are, but they can get underfoot and the kitchen can be a dangerous place. You can sit the baby out of the way and give him or her some plastic bowls and wooden spoons and he will usually play happily pretending to cook with Daddy or Mommy.

At two or three, the child can stand on a chair and pour ingredients that you’ve measured into a bowl. He or she can also help clear the table by removing placemats and napkins.

Preschoolers can spread peanut butter on bread with a dull knife, tear up lettuce for a salad, mash soft fruit, wash fruits and vegetables and stir things together (unless they are hot). Your preschooler can learn to set the table and can begin to learn basic table manners.

School age children can use the whisk, can opener and hand egg beater. They can measure ingredients and mix them in the right order. This is a good time to invest in a child-friendly cook book with recipes the child can make with minimal supervision. School age children are usually ready for restaurant manners.

By age 10 or so, your child can begin to use the stove, knives and mixer with supervision. He or she can prepare simple recipes and will take a lot of pride in making a dish for dinner. This is a wonderful age to start baking – they will enjoy making cakes and cookies. Preteens can set the table, including crystal and extra forks, and can learn how to serve meals. They are usually ready to participate in formal dinner parties, using correct manners.

Young teens can usually plan and prepare a meal with minimal supervision. They will enjoy planning the menu for a party, shopping for it and helping with the preparation. They can understand about nutrition and food safety and are able to make sure the kitchen is cleaned up when they are done cooking.

Older teens are on the cusp of adulthood, and are ready to learn about budgeting, menu planning and shopping. They will soon be on their own, using the cooking skills you’ve been teaching them for the past 18 years.

Teaching your kids how to cook is fun and rewarding. Watching your child acquire essential life skills and feel good about himself or herself is your first reward. Later, you’ll enjoy the rewards of having your teenager surprise you with a birthday cake she made by herself, having your married daughter show up for Thanksgiving dinner with Dad’s favorite casserole, or having your son call and ask for Grandma’s chocolate chip cookie recipe-because he wants to make them with his kids.

With a range of cutting edge modern equipments available and new variety of cooking techniques becoming popular, kitchen appliances have take a huge leap in time. Gone are the days when the gas heated oven used to be the super cool and highly modern must have. Today a new range of appliances are taking the modern cooking world by storm.

1. Steam Assist Ovens

Steamed food is one of the latest and healthiest trends in the cooking industry. While not a new concept in itself; it is relatively young in the west. Not only is steamed food healthy, but it offers a lot of variety and tastes. A steam assist oven is the best thing that could happen to your kitchen if you intend to dabble in the novel way of cooking. While accomplishing high volume of steaming jobs quickly and efficiently, a steam assist oven also helps the food retain a lot of its nutrients. Since cooking is done in a closed pressurized environment, it prevents valuable health units from escaping, and can even get tough meat like beef to soften and get cooked in very little time. With a wide range of such ovens available on the market, choose one which can fit in what you usually cook quite comfortably and is still not bulky. Bigger ovens cost more, but they may not be what you need for your home kitchen.

2. Microwave Drawers

Smaller kitchen owners often face the problem of having to place their microwaves in such a way that opening them would not obstruct the way. This is not easily accomplished since most microwave designs do not have bottom hinges and can only swing out. Microwave drawers are ideal for a small can congested kitchen, you do not even need to bend down completely to put in what you want to cooks. The drawer slides out smoothly and uses up a lot less free room than the door of a conventional oven. Going for a microwave drawer does not necessarily mean redoing the entire section of the kitchen. Existing space can be easily transformed to accommodate such ovens. While not too costly these come at a higher price than conventional microwaves, but are completely worth their price.

3. Induction Cooking Tops

Cooking has become so much faster with induction cooking tops. These electrically heated units work more efficiently than gas based stoves. These also make your kitchen a lot safer, as they do not have any kind of flames in them. These help you save on gas, and have the potential of completely replacing gas based systems. Switching to electricity is cheaper and you also help conserve the limited reserves of fossil fuels in your own small ways. Induction based heating, only makes sure that you utensils are also safer, and a variety of materials can be used on these safely. For open air cooking, these are the best buddies in your kitchen.

The range of cooking appliances and technology is ever expanding. To make sure your kitchen moves ahead with the times and serves you in the best way, it is important to stay up to speed.

Changing lifestyle of modern age has paved the way for new innovations. The phenomenal technological achievements have significantly boosted the expectations of people from the electronic gadgets.

Along with other household appliances, microwave oven has become one of the familiar names for people who have learned the art of walking with the pace of modern age cooking. A microwave oven is essential equipment in most of the homes; in fact, many people would not like to compromise on their cooking at a speed less than this. It has been successfully proved as the best solution for the working wives.

From the day since microwave oven came to market till date, there have been a lot of changes in the features and functionality of the device. However, the lifestyles that most of the people are leading these days require saving time, no matter whether it is cooking food or anything else. Increasing understanding of using microwave oven has made it adorn many kitchens these days. The multifunction application of the device is the prime basis of its widespread use. You can cook almost everything using a microwave oven.

The basic function of all microwave oven is the same – that is cooking and defrosting. The things that differentiate between different microwave ovens are their features and applications. Some ovens with new technologies have got some advanced features that increase their functionality.

Besides cooking, browning, and crisping these gadgets can reduce cooking time. Uniform defrosting being one of the special qualities of these microwave ovens, they are as well preferred for their convenience of preparing mouth-watering delicacies. Unlike some earlier models of micro ovens, almost all modern models are designed with the features like time controller and temperature regulator. They have got a great use in the process of easy cooking.

Today microwave oven has replaced many gadgets in kitchen. If you have decided to take a microwave oven for your kitchen you can select an excellent one by judging the performance of the same. Apart from that the other criteria that you can consider for your favourite microwave oven are their design quality and easy application. There are different brands of microwave ovens available in the market and every brand too has different models. It is better to have prior knowledge before going to buy the exact device for your kitchen. Choose the model that will best suit to your life style and taste of food. Get educated about the function of each individual feature of the appliance.

Provided some cares that need to be taken microwave oven is the safest gadget to solve most of your kitchen related problems. However, like all other household appliances it has got some degree of cautions which you need to exercise. Just go through the manuals carefully and follow them strictly. It will help you proceed with the adaptable equipment properly taking care of the food provisions of your family.

Apart from providing a cosy cooking environment, a healthy food at any time is not too far with a microwave oven.

Functionality, aesthetics, warranty period and price are four most deciding factors that play a significant role in the mind of a prudent buyer of microwave oven. You can`t afford to sacrifice any one these four factors while buying a microwave oven. Indeed, it is not difficult to find a pricey microwave oven in the market if you are ready to splurge money.

However, the right decision hinges on making a thorough research on different models and brands of microwave oven. Most people find it easier to browse through different online stores to know from the reviews of different microwave oven. You can also visit some buyers` forum sites and educated yourself before buying the right microwave oven for you.

Soul food recipes have appeared back on the radar as a popular cuisine. With one of the few original foods originated and developed in America, many people fall into certain pitfalls.

Many of the pitfalls include obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other possible health ailments. Healthier cooking ingredients and techniques continue grow as more consumers look for better ways to eat healthy and live longer. But we still want to enjoy the comfort food feeling of this southern cuisine.

Here’s ways to fight these pitfalls and enjoy the dishes we all love.

1. Cook In Less High Calorie Fats and Oils.

Traditionally our great-grandmothers cooked everything in lard , that gave the foods a rich taste. But unfortunately people who enjoyed the lard laden foods developed life threatening ailments such as high blood pressure, heart disease and weight problems to name a few. One of the keys to avoid these problems is to cook in lighter oils such as peanut oil, olive oil or sesame seed oil for example.

2. Use More Quick Cooking Methods.

Traditionally we cooked soul food, especially vegetables, for hours in large amounts of water. That made the house smell good all day, in fact it made the whole block smell good, even for passersby. The negative in cooking vegetables in large amounts of water for hours at a time loses the valuable vitamins and nutrients.

The answer is to use more quick cooking techniques such as stir frying or saut

The first use you think of when you hear about woks is almost certainly stir-frying. However, with woks having been around for a very long time and being the mainstay of Chinese and other Asian cooking, they have many uses.

Woks are cooking vessels with a rounded bottom and sloping sides that aids the cooking process. The origination of the wok came out of necessity. The shortage of fuel for longer cooking processes was a problem. The wok cooks at extremely high temperatures for a short time. The secret is intense heat, but controllable heat.

Today woks are made with flat bottoms as well as the ancient rounded bottom types. The flat bottom woks are better on electric stoves or glass type stove tops, while the rounded bottoms are great with gas stoves.

Many materials are also used in wok making and it is largely a personal preference. Determine which material will work best for you.

Many Asian cooks swear by the old family cast iron wok. Modern glass top stoves work well for the iron enamel wok, but this wok does well on the gas stove too. Typically, a carbon steel wok sets costs about

Bengali food is an ancient cuisine dating back to early Buddhism. It is made up of the cooking of West Bengal, which is part of India, and East Bengal, which is part of Bangladesh. In early Buddhist and Bengali writings of the 10th and 11th century, there is mention of the abundance of produce that could be derived from good agriculture.

Although rice is a staple food throughout Bengal, there are two distinct styles of Bengali cooking. In East Bengali food, there is great emphasis on fish and dal (a spicy bean stew that is a mainstay of the area). The food of West Bengal is distinguished by the liberal use of poppy seeds.

Much of the distinctive taste of Bengali food comes from the mustard plant and mustard oil. Mustard is used in three ways: The oil is used to fry foods, the greens are used as a cooked vegetable, and the seeds are crushed to make a hot spice.

Fish and prawns are very common in both cuisines. West Bengalis usually get their fish farm-raised from estuaries, while East Bengalis get the majority of their fish from the big rivers of the region.

This fish stew recipe uses ingredients and cooking techniques common to both West and East Bengal, and is very popular in both cuisines. Many Bengali cooks will add a couple of vegetables to the dish, such as eggplant and potatoes that are diced small. Some ingredients have been changed to accommodate Western availability.

Spicy Bengali Fish Stew

Ingredients:

Salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon hot paprika

1 1/4 pounds cod, sea bass, or halibut steaks, cut into 2-inch cubes

3 tablespoons mustard oil (can be found in Indian or Bengali markets) or vegetable oil

4 medium onions, finely chopped

4 large garlic cloves, crushed

4 fresh green chiles (jalapenos or finger-like chiles), seeded and finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cardamon

1 1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cut in half, seeds squeezed out, and grated through the largest holes of a grater.

1 tablespoon fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup whole plain yogurt

Directions:

On a plate, mix together the salt, 1/4 teaspoon of the turmeric, and the paprika. Dredge the fish steaks on both sides of the mixture.

In a large skillet, heat the mustard oil (or vegetable oil) over medium-high heat. Brown the fish on both sides, turning once, for about 3 minutes total. Remove and set aside.

Add the onions and garlic to the skillet. Cook until soft, or about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the chiles, cumin, mustard seeds, cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring, then add the tomatoes, cilantro, and water. Reduce the heat to low, and cook until the sauce is thick, or about 15 minutes.

Add the yogurt and salt to taste and stir to blend. Return the fish to the skillet and simmer, covered, until the fish flakes, or about 10 minutes. Be careful that the broth never gets too hot, as the yogurt will separate. Serve immediately, over rice if desired.