cooking @ home

©2008 Harry Kenney

It’s definitely not my intent to in any way hide things. Very much the opposite. It’s that sometimes something comes to me and I say, I will make an article out of this. (For my articles just click the category link or the one I just provided for a list of those.) At other times, most times in fact, the topic comes out of doing the specific recipe.

Let me give you a for instance, talking about cooking oils is a big topic in and of itself, so I wrote an article on that. How to get the crispiest skin on poultry while using an oven, that topic however becomes a part of my writing the a recipe on BBQing Chicken Legs in the Oven. It’s not that I am trying to purposely “hide” how to make crispy skin in that recipe, it just went together naturally. And so that’s where the information came out, there where it was the most pertinent.

This does however mean they can be a smidge hidden, a bit “below the obvious surface” even if unintential. Despite the fact that this website has a great search feature on it in and of itself that can find things. Or that Google and the other “true” monster engines do a good job of indexing items on this site. But it dawned on me, maybe it would be helpful to put together a post like this every so often and list some of the “hiddren treasures”, histories or tutorials that lay somewhat obscured in the back story or forewads to my recipes. And as I just hit 51 recipes the other day, now seems as good a time to do this.

Oven BBQing & Crsipy Skin

Besides scoring skin, when trying to emulate a BBQ style in the oven, avoid a deep casserole dish, instead you want it completlly “out there” getting heat hitting all around it. Do this by putting it on a baking sheet with a grill on it. See the photo of this (and of scoring skin) at my recipe for Roasted Orange-BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters

Fruit Sauces

Working with fruit sauces especially those with made from or with jelly or preserves. If you wait too long it will thicken back to a gelatin state. What to use with jelly and what to do when it thickens back up can be found at Ricotta Pancakes with Raspberry Sauce

Giving Tortillas More Authentic Flavor

Ever scorch a totilla on the burner? On purpsose? Give it a try while making my Steak Quesadilla.

Making a Stuffing Pocket

Making a pocket in a piece of meat or poultry is pretty simple. Unless you haven’t done it before. When making Harry’s Stuffed Chicken Florentine I touched upon this complete with a photograph. I also demonstrate how to take a stuffing and turn it into a creamy light sauce as well.

Health Benefits of Fish

Not only do I list a lot of them, I also supply a link to more good info at my recipe for Grilled Rainbow Trout with Dill and Lemon.

Tips on Using Pizza Dough at Home

You can find those tips when I made Pepperoni Pizza & Ham and Pineapple Pizza.

Dry Rubs and BBQ Sauces

One thing that goes with talking about grilling and barbecuing, and that’s dry rubs and BBQ sauces. I don’t use bottled any more. In fact I never did like them. The problem is you never know what you’re going to get. I have same problem when I’m ordering out at a restaurant or a food stand … Is it going to be a BBQ sauce I like or something that’s too sweet or so tomatoey it burns my throat or so vinergary I have to pucker. At home I gave up on that junk long ago and make my own. And of course I’m usually mixing it up so it’s never exactly the same every time. Fortunately this website’s blog system uses a tag system which is another way to make additional categories and makes it a lot easier to group and to find things, so click on these if you want to get a list of my recipes of different dry rubs and different barbecue sauces I’ve done so far.

Kids Food

There’s a lot of good food on here children will enjoy. But I defnitely let my inner child run loose when I made both a Cheeseburger Pizza and a Peach Ricotta Dessert Pizza. Others that stand out in my mind are Pizza Burger Mac and Steak Quesadilla. And naturarlly, kids love deserts. Apple Turnovers with Royal Icing using puff pastry is a nice healhy homemade desert, and if you really want to light up their eyes, make yourself a trifle like Lemon Berry one my where you get to slip in fresh healthy fruit amid pudding and cake and the layers and colors will just knock them out!

Drumsticks on the Grill

With little meat on them, most of it on the outside where the fire is, and filled with bone, drumsticks aren’t the eaisest things to cook on a charcoal grill. See how to do it at Apricot-Glazed Grilled Chicken Drumsticks.

London Broil into Flank Steak

Gotta recipe for flank steak? But you can’t find it at the market or you don’t have any at home? Slice down your London broil (which is actually a type of cooking, not a peice of meat, but your supermarket doesn’t know that) and there you go. Now you can make my recipe for Braciole.

What is Gourmet?

It was when I made my Butternut Squash Soup with Chorizo and Rice that I ended up waxing on about what it gourmet and what isn’t, and how the American taste bud has evolved tremendously in the last couple of decades with people’s willingness to try new flavors and pairings

Best Meatloaf Crust Ever

Seriously, I found a major winner with my Tomato-Balsamic Glaze atop my homemade meatloaf. It’s got the tomato, it’s got just enough and not-too-much sweetness and it has a crunch. I don’t care if it’s a sweet concotion or a savory dish, from lava cake to fried chicken, one thing many dishes have in common is there’s nothing better then when you combine an inner softness with just a bit of outer crunch to it. And this has it

Squashes

Butternut Squash is a tough one to cut open as you know with my first-ever photo tutorial Peeling and Cutting a Butternut Squash I also go in there the difference between winter and summer squashes by the way. But if you have an acorn squash, it’s such a very different thing. Especially with my microwave and broiler technique. We’re talking fast and delicious so give my Broiled Ginger-Apricot Acorn Squash a try.

Turnip, Rutabaga, Swede …

What are those things? Sometimes they’re the same thing. Sometimes they’re not. It’s another fun trip through the English language shared by the US, Canada, Australia and the UK where one language doesn’t mean you know what you’re saying. There’s even a chart here at my White Turnip Mash recipe to help cut through the translations.

Dressing or Stuffing?

What’s the difference? I talk about it in my Cranberry-Chorizo Dressing post.

Brining

What is this whole brining thing about? I finally got a chance and tried it out for myself when I made my Barbecued Turkey Breast with Orange-Herb-Wine Sauce for Thanksgiving last year. In short, the brining technique turned out fantastic, especially for this! Would I use it again elsewhere? Not sure, but doubtful. Yes I became a somewhat of a convert that brining is a wonderful and effective technique for sure. But I think it’s something limited to few times. Grilling a turkey being one of them.

Marinades

I am all for the quick marinade. I really like these two guys, but … every time I watch License to Grill or Emeril Live and they talk about “or you could marinade it for 24 hours” makes me laugh my head off. This and my other thoughts on marinades can be found in my recipe for Pancetta-Wrapped Margarita Shrimp.

Alcohol Burnoff When Cooking?

You would be surprised. Very very surprised. It was when I was making another one of my essentially children’s desserts but with a deciedely adult dessert flair that I looked up and shared with you the full details on when and how much does cooking burn off liquor in a dish. The results were extremely surprising. Take a look at my Hot Apple Topping over Ice Cream recipe for all the info.

Deep-Frying

Although I still am planning to do an article specifically on the subject, meanwhile I do get into some details about the technique of deep frying with cooking oil when I made my Homemade French Fries as well as talking about different kinds of fries, fry toppings, what’s a frite, what’s a British chip and all that other trivia associated with the cooked potato.

Prime or Choice or Select

There was no way possible I could talk about cooking Prime Rib with getting into the whole process of meat grading and selection here in the States. So for a quick lesson on cuts of meat and USDA standards, check out that recipe for some good info that will definitely help you the next time you’re shopping at the butcher or your supermarket’s meat section.

Well, that’s pretty much it. For now. I’m sure in another fifty recipes I’ll be hitting some more cooking points as they come to me. Hope this list helps you find some helpful info you might otherwise have glossed over. Thanks for reading my yakking points. Maybe I yack too much I sometimes think, but just giving a recipe and nothing else to go with it seems so lazy and average, and just not me. I think that’s the same reason we enjoy the cooking shows, we’re not just entertained, we’re educated along with it. Having a sense of history I think rounds out a meal. And learning various techniques along the way only makes us better cooks. See you next time.