Category Archives: tutorials

Feb 06 3 comments
roasted meats and veggies, tutorials

A Perfectly Cooked Steak

Oftentimes I begin to compose posts for this site in my head, far from my computer screen.  Whether I’m driving through suburban Maryland trying to avoid 495 or laying in bed trying to fall asleep, stories will begin to form in my head.  Incidentally this is also how I wrote my wedding vows, over the course of many a late night.  This week I was thinking about this post, how when I was learning to cook meat I would have loved a detailed, in depth post.  In my head, this post began “now that grilling season is upon us.”  Which immediately reminded me that grilling season is not upon us.  That if you listened to that groundhog this week, grilling season will never be upon us.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter that it’s not the appropriate time to grill things.  It doesn’t matter that it is CURRENTLY SNOWING (like, three feet on the ground snowing).  Mostly those things don’t matter because I don’t have a balcony or a backyard and therefore do not have a grill, which means that grilling season doesn’t exist for me.  What does exist is “pan roasting” season, which, in my opinion, is a great way to cook steak.  First of all, let me just say that it took me a really long time to learn how to cook a steak perfectly.  Maybe it had something to do with my being a vegetarian, the fact that my father prefers everything still bleeding, or maybe learning to cook meat is something that just takes time.

In my opinion, a “perfectly” cooked steak is salty and crunchy on the outside with a medium rare center.  Medium rare means pinkish red but warm.  Less cooked alternatives are rare, which is red and warmish and bloody, which is  a cool center.  More cooked alternatives are medium, a solid pink and warm center, medium well (very light pink center), or well done, which is a waste of your money (in my opinion.  Though we do have friends who order their steaks done and dip them in ketchup).  Pan roasting is exactly what it sounds like, cooking over medium heat for a longer period of time on the stove top.  The reason I like pan roasting steaks is partially because, as I mentioned, I don’t have a grill and partially because it creates a delicious crust on the steak, which I think is vital.

As for measuring doneness, I rely on three separate methods (because I have served grossly undercooked meat before and don’t care to repeat it.)  First, there is temperature.  I  use a meat thermometer to take the temperature of the center of the steak, which should be 145 for medium rare.  Secondly, there is the hand test.  With this test you compare the firmness of your hand in various positions to the firmness of the meat.  An open hand has the same firmness as rare meat, thumb to pointer is medium rare, thumb middle finger is medium, thumb to ring finger is medium well, and thumb to pinky is well done.  Finally, there is simply the test of time.  I’ve heard that you don’t want to flip a steak on the grill/in the pan more than once.  I’m not sure why but that always sticks with me while I’m cooking steak.  So, I try and decide on a time per side based on the thickness of the steak.  If the steak is 1/2″ thick I’ll cook it 8-10 minutes per side.  For a steak that’s 1″ thick I’ll go 10-12 minutes.  Usually I combine a general time forecast with a meat thermometer and frequent firmness tests.  It’s obsessive, yes, but the payoff (a perfectly good steak) is large.

Finally, lets discuss seasoning.  Kosher salt and pepper.  That’s it. I use my cast iron pan to pan roast, sprayed with canola oil.  I sprinkle a generous portion of kosher salt and pepper on each side and voila.  Actually, lets also discuss what kind of steak you’re buying.  For this method, eating it with only salt and pepper to bring out the flavor, I buy grass fed, organic strip steak.  Because the flavor is so amazing that it’s an almost otherworldly experience.  It’s just… perfect.  You could also use filet mignon, porterhouse, sirloin, or t-bone.  The key is cooking it over low to medium heat for a longer amount of time so the flavor has the opportunity to really blossom.  Also, after you’ve cooked it, you must let it rest.  ”Resting” the meat is just what it sounds like, letting it sit.  You do this so the juices can redistribute, which is vital to having a juicy, delicious steak.  Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to doing what I’ve been doing best lately, being sick in the snow.  Hello Gilmore Girls marathon!

dan measuring the snow outside our window. how much? too much.

Pan Roasted Strip Steak

1 lb strip steak (enough for 2)

1 tbsp kosher salt

1 tbsp black pepper

Heat a cast iron pan over medium low heat (3 or 4 or a gas stove).  Spray with cooking oil and let the pan warm.

Pull out your steak and pat it down with a paper towel.  Meat won’t get that crisp edge that is essential for the perfect steak unless it is dry when it touches the pan, so dabbing it down is essential.  Sprinkle half your salt & pepper on each side.

When your pan is hot, place the steak on the pan and set a timer for 12 minutes (for a steak about 1″ thick).  When the 12 minutes is up, flip the steak and reset the timer for another 12 minutes.  During this time you can also take the temperature and check the firmness.  At the end of the final 12 minutes, or when the inner temperature is 145 for medium rare, remove the steak from heat.  Set aside and let rest 10 minutes.

Carve and serve.

Jan 24 2 comments
tutorials

Cutting an Onion

The Finer Points.

So in my life list I pledged to start creating one video a month for b&s. This was in lieu of an attempted foray into video tutorials last year that went nowhere. Later I regretted not being more active so today I bring you this month’s video installment.

I took advantage of a brief moment of clarity in Ulysses’ final days and edited and uploaded a video I made last week of how to chop an onion with minimal assault to your tear ducts.  I am constantly a victim of onion induced tears, so when I learned the proper way to cut an onion I was super excited.  I’m probably still not doing it right but it works for me and I hope it works for you too.

The video walks you through cutting an onion, but I’ll do it here too just to be redundant.  First, slice the onion down the middle, leaving half of the root on each half.  The root is going to be what holds the onion together while you slice it.  Cut off the end opposite the root and peel the papery layers off.  Now make vertical slices across the onion, keeping your knife short of the root.  You want to make sure the root stays connected to the onion as long as possible so that it can hold it all together.  Turn your knife and cut into the onion, towards the root (parallel to the original cut, when you cut the onion in half).  Finally, turn your knife again and slice the onion off in rows.  The cuts you made earlier will mean that what falls off is cut almost completely uniformly.

Enjoy!

 

Cutting an Onion from elena rosemond-hoerr on Vimeo.

Jul 26 0 comments
tutorials

Baking with Flax Seed

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I’m the first person to stand up and protest when my favorite foods are butchered in the name of diets.  When I’m trying to be health-conscious, I opt to have a larger salad and a lean piece of meat.  I’d rather have a smaller piece of pie with no ice cream than a large piece of pie whose integrity has been degraded by whole wheat crusts or sugar substitutes.  There are certain foods, however, that I think work really well once they’ve been healthed-up.

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When Dan and I travel to visit people, we try and tailor the food we bring with us to their tastes.  I always try and remember who would prefer the banana cream pie and who would rather the pumpkin muffins.  When we’re going to be in a mixed crowd, we like to bring a variety of foods that all can enjoy, no matter their taste or health requirements.  This week we visited West Virginia (and parts of western Maryland) with Dan’s parents, his sister, her husband, and their daughter.  I brought my bourbon white peach pie and an array of bagels.  I decided to make our personal favorite, jalapeño.  I also decided to make flax seed bagels.

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image courtesy of wikipedia

Adding flax seed to baked goods does a few things.  For one, the health benefits of flax seeds are incredible.  Flax seeds benefit the heart, fight cancer, and for all the good press they get, they probably fight crime.  Flax is also a good substitute for shortening, eggs, and other oils.  According to some of the research I did, adding flax requires a little extra water, the ratio being 1:3, so for each tablespoon of flax seed you add three tablespoons of water.  When you add flax to a baked good, you should lower the baking time and potentially increase the proofing process.  Everything I read suggested that the changes will vary depending on what you’re making, and that you really just have to experiment.  For the bagels, the one notable difference was that the dough became really sticky, which was a little harder to handle.  However, they tasted great and everyone appreciated the heart-healthy breakfast option.

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Dan and I tandem biking on the Rails to Bike Trail in Hanover, Maryland.

Here are some great reference articles:

ameriflax

fresh food perspectives

ehow

Mar 28 0 comments
muffins, breads, biscuits, and sweet breads, tutorials

Bagels, Revisited

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While I hate to bog you down with any one kind of food (except, of course, for pie), I also really hate to publish recipes that I don’t think are up to par.  And while last weekend’s Jalapeño Bagels were tasty and the perfect food for our massive hangovers, they were not the perfect bagel.  And the round two of bagels that we cooked up on Sunday were also good (especially the cinnamon sugar- worth the mess), but they were dense and still not right.  And I want everything I put out there to be right.  Good.  Recipes that I am proud of.

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Lucky for me, Dan is an internet addict and a compulsive researcher.  So, when the second batch of bagels turned out not so wonderfully, we both hit the worldwide web in search of better recipes.  We came up with a collection, recipes calling for everything from barley malt syrup to egg whites.  The one thing that we noticed time and time again was that our dough looked too dry.  Both of the first two recipes we looked at told us that the dough should be dryer than normal bread dough, that it was okay if it was a little flaky.  But I don’t think it was okay.  What we took to mean “stiff” was not, what we have now decided, what we were supposed to take to mean “stiff.”  

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So today I present to you round three of the great bagel experiment.  The recipe we ended up using as our primary source was one from the L.A. Times.  While we added more water than the recipe called for, and used the hole-punch method of forming the bagels instead of the roll-out method, we stuck to the recipe for the most part.  We made three varieties- jalapeño, blueberry, and cinnamon sugar.  And while I hate to brag.  These are the perfect bagels.

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The last time we attempted cinnamon sugar we made the awful mistake of putting on the cinnamon/sugar mixture before we baked them, which lead to a caramelized mess that I will be taking heat for from now until eternity.  I just didn’t believe that applying the mix after you baked it would be sufficient, but it turned out that it is.  We learned that if you brush the bagels with butter and coat them with the mix as soon as the come out of the oven, the mix will get embedded as the bagels cool.  I know, I wouldn’t believe it either.  My advice- pretend like it’s french toast.  Have two bowls sitting side by side, one with melted butter and the other with the mix.  Dip, dip, and then on to the drying rack.  

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Unlike the first recipe we published, this round calls for allowing the bagels to proof over night.  Proofing is the process of yeast converting the glucose to carbon dioxide, essentially what makes the bagel “rise.”  Not all bagel recipes call for a retardation process, which is when the bagel is allowed to rise in the refrigerator for an extended period of time.  Rumor has it that bagels that have been allowed to retard have more flavor, and I am always one to ere on the side of flavor.

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I will leave you with my advice on making blueberry bagels.  Because we took a batch of bagels that was big enough for 12-16 bagels and divided it into three flavors, there was some debate about when to add the distinguishing ingredients.  We decided to add in the flavor makers after the dough had proofed for an hour in the fridge, but before we rolled them out.  This worked BEAUTIFULLY with the peppers.  It did not, however, work so well with the blueberries.  I learned that the lovely “bursting” quality the the blueberry exhibits adds unwanted moisture to your proofed dough.  We ended up adding extra flour and letting them retard an extra hour, but my recommendation would be to add the blueberries in the original mixture, so as to allow the blueberry-induced moisture to factor into how much water you use ultimately.

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Bagels
Source: Adapted from the L.A. Times

For bagels:

7 cups unbleached bread flour

3 cups water (add the last cup as needed)

1 1/2 tsp dry active yeast

6 tsp salt

3 tbsp barley malt syrup (easily found at a natural foods store- or use honey)

2 tsp baking soda

Flavor maker (jalapeño, blueberries, chocolate chips, etc)

Extra:

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp olive oil

Using a stand mixer or by hand (but not a hand mixer), combine all ingredients (except the last cup of water).  If you’re mixing it by hand, use a wooden spoon to combine initially, and then knead with your hands.  Add the last cup of water as you need it.  You want the texture to be satiny and kind of tacky.  Knead for three minutes.  Allow to rest for five.

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough an additional five minutes.  The dough should be stiff, slightly tacky, and smooth.  If it is crumbling and falling apart, you need to add more water.  

Lightly oil a mixing bowl and place in the ball of dough.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let retard in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  The dough will need to be formed before it goes in over night.

On a completely dry, clean surface, divide the dough into 12-16 pieces.  Form each piece into a loose, round ball by rolling it out on the counter.  If the dough is sticking to the surface, add a little water, which will make it tense up.  Once you’ve formed balls, poke your thumb through the center to create a hole.  Work out from the whole to make an evenly shaped ring.  Repeat for each ball, placing them on a wax paper lined baking pan.  When done, brush them with olive oil and cover them tightly with plastic wrap.  Place them in the refrigerator overnight.

90 minutes before you’re ready to boil your bagels, take them out of the fridge and let them return to room temperature.  It takes about 40 minutes for 2 gallons of water to come to a rolling boil, so keep that in mind when you put the water on.  Once the water is boiling adding the remaining salt and baking soda.  Set the oven to 500 degrees fahrenheit (which will take 30 minutes to preheat).  

One by one, drop your bagels into the boiling water.  Boil for one minute, flip, and boil an additional 30 seconds.  Return to wax paper lined sheet.  Place the sheet into the oven and reduce the heat to 450.  Bake for 8 minutes, and then rotate.  Bake until golden brown- an additional 8 to 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven onto a rack.  

Cool, and serve.

Feb 22 0 comments
roasted meats and veggies, tutorials, vegetables

Roasting Garlic

roasted-garlic4

Since we’re on a bit of a hummus bender, I decided to branch out this weekend and make both roasted garlic hummus and spinach and feta hummus.  I had never roasted garlic before, and I thought it was a good skill to have (think of how many delicious dishes include roasted garlic).  I did some research, and although there seemed to be some technique variations, I followed the trends, and this weekend I roasted my first garlic.

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I decided to roast an entire head of garlic, because with hummus, you need a strong flavor to overtake the garbanzo beans.  I learned that while roasting garlic you can either roast an entire head, or, you can just roast cloves.  Either way, it is very important that the skin (the papery layers that surround the “meat” of the garlic) stay in tact.  The skin functions as a high-temperature barrier for the meat.

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Like roasting other vegetables, when roasting garlic you  need high temperatures and a fatty lubricant, in this case olive oil.  It is also important that you cut off the top of the head, so that some of the garlic is exposed.  I found that cutting off the top, drizzling oil over the head, and then roasting for 30 minutes at 400* worked perfectly.  I also covered the pan in aluminum foil, so that the garlic would also get a nice steam.  

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The best thing by far about cooking with roasted garlic is getting the garlic out of the skin.  You know that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ursula picks up one of those plant things and squeezes it to put on her lips as lipstick?  The very visceral quality of the popping coral or anemone or whatever it is has stuck with me my whole life.  And the experience of squeezing roasted garlic out of its skin into my food processor was as close as I am ever going to get to squeezing underwater plants onto my lips.