Archive for October, 2011

Sauté 101

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

One of the first things I learned to make in cooking school, under the watchful eye of my instructor, was sautéed chicken breasts with a pan sauce.  When I added the oil and then the chicken to a pan so hot it made me nervous, a loud sizzling, spitting noise filled the air, followed shortly by a wonderful chicken-y aroma.  As instructed, I waited patiently until the chicken pieces looked cooked about halfway through and the juices were rising to the surface of the uncooked top side.  I gingerly turned the pieces over and patiently waited another 3 minutes, until the chicken was firm and browned on the second side.  The instructor then had me set the cooked chicken aside and make a sauce in the same pan with a few pantry ingredients.

The chicken was a thing of beauty, crusted golden brown on the outside with a tender, juicy interior.  Drizzled with the warm, savory sauce, it was a taste and texture sensation.  Incredibly simple and quick—and delicious.

By definition, sautéing is cooking food quickly in a small amount of fat over medium-high heat.  It is a perfect technique for relatively thin, tender cuts of meat, poultry or fish (like steaks, chops, or filets) and crisp vegetables.  The whole point of sautéing is to create that gorgeous, golden brown crust, which adds incredible flavor and richness to whatever you’re cooking.

The first step is selecting the right pan.  Your skillet should be heavy, so it conducts heat evenly and well.  The pan should be large enough to hold all the food you want to sauté in a single layer with a little space around each piece.  If the pan is too small, the liquid released by cooking won’t evaporate fast enough, and the food ends up steaming in its own juices instead of browning. (Sauté in batches if you have too much food to fit into your pan.)  If the pan is too large, the liquid released by the food and the fat in the pan will run into the empty space and burn.

Before sautéing, you should have all your ingredients ready to go into the pan—cut into the size you want, dry (pat dry with a paper towel), and seasoned.  If you like, you can lightly coat foods with flour before sautéing.  This enhances the texture and flavor of the crust, but also absorbs additional fat.   Select a fat to cook with that can withstand the heat of sautéing.  Cooking fats all have a “smoke point,” a temperature at which they begin to give off smoke and unpleasant odors and will transfer an unpleasant flavor to the food.  Butter and extra-virgin olive oil have relatively low smoke points (350-375 degrees), and corn, grapeseed, canola, and peanut oils have higher smoke points (410-450 degrees).

The next step is preheating the pan.  Always heat the pan dry over medium-high heat.  Then add your cooking fat, allowing it to get hot before adding the food.  To test the heat of the fat, drop in a small piece of the food you’re going to sauté.  If it sizzles, the fat is at the right temperature. Red meats will sauté best when the fat is almost at the smoke point, while less intense heat is best for white meats, fish, and vegetables.  Adding the fat after preheating the pan helps to prevent food from sticking.  If your food seems to be sticking to the pan, wait a bit and it should release.

If you’re cooking meat, chicken, or fish, turn the food in the pan only once.  Turning these foods over and over interferes with developing the crust.  Smaller pieces of food need to be repeatedly tossed and turned to cook well.  You can do this by stirring with a spatula or by flipping the food using a back and forth movement of the pan. Meat, chicken, and fish are done cooking when they have that golden brown crust and are firmer to the touch (meat and poultry much more so than fish).  Vegetables are done when they are browned and fork tender.

To make a pan sauce, remove the food from the pan and keep it warm.  Pour off any excess fat from the pan and add aromatic ingredients of your choice, like onions, garlic, and ginger.  Cook them until they’re tender, then add about a cup of wine, stock, or a mixture of the two, stirring to scrape up the brown bits from the pan.  Cook the sauce at a rapid simmer until it is about half the original amount of liquid you added.  Finish your sauce with seasoning, a small amount of butter or cream if you like, and maybe some chopped fresh herbs. Serve your sauté with warm sauce spooned over the top.

Looking for some ideas for dinner tonight?  Our Chicken Marsala is a classic sauté with pan sauce. Or try one of our pan sauce recipes with your sauté: Fresh Citrus Pan Sauce, Maple Mustard Pan Sauce, and Normandy-Style Pan Sauce (apples, brandy, cider, mustard and a little cream . . .)  Bon Appétit!

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

It’s All About the Chili

Friday, October 21st, 2011

Whether we call it a bowl of red, chili con carne, or just plain chili, we’re crazy about the stuff.  This savory mix of meat and chilies can be varied endlessly: different kinds of meat, different kinds of chilies, with beans of many different types or without any beans at all.  There are delicious vegetarian chilies and chilies made with chicken or turkey instead of meat.  It’s all good.

Despite lots of bickering about who invented chili, most agree that it originated in the 1800’s in Texas, probably because the meat stews that everyone from armies to cowboys relied upon were much improved by the addition of native chilies and spices.  Chile powder, a combination of ground dried chilies, garlic, oregano, cumin, and other spices—and a key seasoning in most chilies—made its first appearances in the 1890’s.  Americans have been making chili, improvising and varying it, ever since.

One of the great things about chili is that it can be made ahead—it’s even better a day or two after it’s made, as all the flavors take some time to blend.  Chili also freezes well in individual portions or in larger batches, and it’s nice to have a stash of chili in the freezer to thaw and reheat for an instant, hearty meal.  Leftover chili (if you ever have any) works well in tacos and burritos, as a topping for burgers and, of course, for hot dogs or grilled sausages, as an omelet filling, or spooned over a baked potato and topped with cheese

At MTG, we’re partial to all kinds of chilies, from the more traditional Texas Three-Pepper and Beef Chili to our Chicken and White Bean Chili with Green Chilies, to our vegetarian Spicy Black Bean Chili flavored with a little espresso and cocoa.  We also like Red Pork Chili with Pinto Beans and Spicy Turkey Chili, or, for a little something different, Red Lentil Chili or Cincinnati-Style Chili served over spaghetti with all kinds of crazy toppings on the side.

We’re not purists here—we like to try different versions of and additions to our chilies, and encourage you to do the same.  Try one of our recipes, add your own touches, and let us know how it turns out.

 

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

What’s a “Glace,” Anyway?

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Glace de Viande, Glace de Poulet, Glace de Fruits de Mer, Glace d’ Agneau—the MTG pantry is chockfull of glaces. Almost anywhere you look on our web site you’ll find a glace. Wondering what a glace is, anyway? No worries. It’s a good question and one we get frequently.

A glace is one of a cook’s best secret weapons. It’s simply a stock, like beef, chicken, seafood, or lamb, that has been simmered until it cooked down to a syrupy consistency. (When chilled or at room temperature, it becomes a very firm, opaque gel.) Because it is so concentrated, even a very small amount of glace contains a large amount of flavor and color, and cooks can use it to enhance a variety of different dishes.

Making a glace takes awhile: a meat, poultry, seafood, or vegetable stock is simmered for 8-12 hours, with frequent skimming to remove released fats and impurities, until it reduces to somewhere between a fifth and a twentieth of its original volume. Some recipes call for taking a break about halfway through the cooking time to strain the stock through layers of cheesecloth to remove the impurities that the skimming misses. The result, as described in The Joy of Cooking, is “potent and delectable . . . a convenience and delight . . . if you have the patience to make it.”

At MTG, we have the patience to make it, so you don’t have to. We make 4 meat glaces (beef and veal, veal, venison, and lamb), 3 poultry glaces (roasted chicken, turkey, and duck), a seafood glace, and a veggie glace. All of our glaces are carefully reduced to a twentieth of the original volume of the stock, so their flavors are highly concentrated and potent.

What to do with a glace? Certainly you can add the water that has been cooked out and reconstitute the glace back to a stock. Making a glace is a time-honored way to “store” stock, since a glace, at a twentieth of the original volume, takes up much less space, in addition to having a much longer shelf life than stock. But there’s much more you can do with a glace than make stock.

Try adding a spoonful of glace to a sauce, soup, or stew, or to cooking liquid for rice or other whole grains, or to braising liquid for meat, poultry, veggies, or seafood. We keep glace on hand in the pantry for adding to everyday meals like spaghetti sauce or beef stew or to the red wine sauce we make for a special dinner. The glace will add its deep concentrated flavors and rich color and take a dish from simple to delicious.

You can also dilute our glaces with 3 parts water to 1 part glace to create more liquid glace (that’s about a fifth of the original volume of stock) to use in your cooking. Try brushing this liquid glace on a roast for a flavorful glaze or use it to make a sauce as a gluten-free alternative to demi-glace (in a slightly smaller proportion). Chef and sauce expert James Peterson recommends adding a few spoonfuls of this strength of glace to Bernaise sauce to create a “fuller, meaty flavor” excellent with grilled or sautéed meats. He also recommends liquid glace for making pan sauces and a variety of brown sauces.

For more information on using our glaces, take a look at our Use and Storage page and/or download the Reconstitution Suggestions and Guide from our Literature page. Enjoy cooking with your new secret weapon.

 

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Posted in Market to Table, Tips and Techniques

The Great Pumpkin

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Not everyone would agree with me, but I think one of the best things about fall is pumpkins.  Not the grinning jack-o-lanterns you see plastered on everything from store windows to candy wrappers, but edible pumpkins. Those pumpkins are worth the wait and welcome every autumn as the trees turn and the nights get chilly.  At MTG, we use pumpkins to make things like pork and pumpkin stew, pumpkin risotto, pumpkin sauce for pasta, pumpkin polenta (no kidding, it’s great), or soups like curried pumpkin soup or pumpkin soup with Gruyére cheese—and we’ve learned a few interesting things about pumpkins, too.

In season in most of the U.S. from mid-September to early November, pumpkin is a quintessential fall vegetable (although it is technically, botanically speaking, a fruit).  It belongs to a plant family that includes, melons, cucumbers, gourds, and all the squashes, summer and winter.  In fact, all pumpkins are squash: we just call the round, orange ones pumpkins and the other ones winter squash.

The “pumpkin” the Libby company uses for their canned purée is actually a Dickinson Field Squash.  It looks something like a butternut squash and is not round and orange, although the Libby people call it a “Dickinson pumpkin.”  That’s OK.    Libby’s canned “pumpkin” is almost as good as real homemade pumpkin purée and it’s a nice convenience item.

Making your own pumpkin purée is pretty simple, however, and the pure pumpkin flavor makes it worth the effort.  First, you have to start with the right pumpkin.  The best are the smaller pumpkins, known as  “sugar,” “sweet,” or “pie” pumpkins, which weigh 2 to 3 pounds.  They have dense, smooth, flavorful flesh with relatively low moisture content.  Save the large, jack-o-lantern pumpkins for carving at Halloween: they are pulpy, stringy, and very watery when cooked.

You can find sugar pumpkins now at farmers’ markets and grocery stores.  Look for pumpkins that seem heavy for their size, are free of blemishes or bruises, and have an intact stem (they keep longer).  Store your pumpkins in a cool, dry place for up to a month, or in a refrigerator for up to 3 months.

Once you have the right pumpkin, the next step is to cook it, which is simple.  Cut the pumpkin in half, scrape out all the seeds, and place the halves cut-side down on a baking sheet with sides.  Pour in about 1/4 inch of water and bake the pumpkin in a 400-degree oven for about an hour, until the flesh can easily be pierced with a fork.  After the pumpkin cools a bit, peel the skin off with your fingers or trim it off with a paring knife.

To make purée, break the peeled, cooked pumpkin into chunks, add them to a food processor, and purée until smooth.  Transfer the purée to a large sieve with lined paper towels or cheesecloth, place the sieve over a large bowl, and let the purée drain for a few hours, or overnight in the refrigerator, to get rid of excess moisture.  You now have great-tasting pumpkin to use in sweet or savory recipes.  One pumpkin usually yields 3-4 cups of purée.  It will keep 4-5 days in the refrigerator and up to 8 months in the freezer.  Just let the purée thaw overnight in the refrigerator, and if it seems watery, drain it again as you did after cooking it.

Cooking pumpkin is not just about making purée.  Just like other squash, it’s great roasted or steamed, left in chunks or mashed with butter and spices or butter and a little orange zest or sherry.  I like pumpkin with the flavors of ginger, bay leaves, sage, rosemary, and even molasses.  Consider chunks of roasted pumpkin drizzled with a little honey and balsamic vinegar, or tossed with some minced chipotle pepper and roasted garlic, or combined with apples and chicken in a curry.

And don’t forget the seeds!  Pumpkins were originally cultivated more than 6,000 years ago in Mexico not for their flesh, but for their seeds.  When a recipe calls for seeds, usually they’re hulled seeds, which are green and referred to by their Mexican name, “pepitas.”  They can be used in many ways, in baked goods, granolas, or ground in pestos or sauces like Mexico’s legendary molé sauce, for instance.

Pumpkin seed hulls are edible, and the white, unhulled pumpkin seeds that you scrape out of your pumpkin (even the jack-o-lantern kind) make a great snack.  Just soak them in water for an hour to loosen the pulp fibers, rinse them, drain them and spread them out on a baking sheet.  Toast the seeds at 300 degrees for about 40 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally.  Sprinkle them with salt before serving.

Finally, what wine to drink with your pumpkin creations?  (I know you were wondering.) With savory dishes I like a Viognier best, but a buttery California chardonnay works well, as does a slightly sweet Riesling.  With pumpkin desserts, try a glass of tawny port or sweet sherry, and even those who say they are not pumpkin fans may be persuaded to try a little.  Happy pumpkin season.

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Market to Table, Tips and Techniques