Essential cooking basics include safe defrosting methods for steak and chicken, along with precision slicing techniques. Discover healthy substitutes for common ingredients like cayenne powder or beer to enhance your home-cooked meals.
Mustard is a seed that shows up on grocers' shelves as whole seeds, as dry mustard powder, and as a prepared condiment. Among its many uses, it can spice pickles, emulsify salad dressings, and flavor hot dogs. Two main varieties of mustard seed are available.
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Rib-eye and New York steaks are both considered premium cuts of meat and cook well on the grill or under the broiler. Both cuts sell for approximately the same price in markets, and both result in flavorful meals. When determining which is the better cut of meat, it all comes down to personal preference.
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A tamarind is the brown, pod-shaped fruit of the native African tamarind tree. Also known as a tamarindo or an Indian date, tamarinds can be used fresh or dried, but are most often available in the United States as a canned concentrated pulp or processed into tamarind concentrate.
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Ground bison is a good alternative to regular ground beef, says The Kitchn food writer Regina Yunghans. While a 3-ounce patty prepared from 70-percent lean ground beef has 183 total calories, 12 grams of fat and 4.
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Sea scallops are high in protein, low in both saturated fat and cholesterol and rich in nutrients like vitamin B-12 and selenium. They are also a good source of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids while containing little mercury contamination. According to "How to Cook Everything"
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Sherry is a brandy-fortified wine used in cooking to add acidity and depth of flavor. While an appropriate replacement for sherry in cooking depends upon the specific recipe, chicken broth or plain water are often acceptable substitutes.
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Home-fried foods offer the crisp and gorgeous golden crust so appealing in commercially fried products -- but often without unnecessary salt, sugar and additives added in industrial kitchens.
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Acidic cooking and baking ingredients, such as vinegar and lemon juice, give dishes a sour or tart taste. Certain fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, release acid when they are exposed to heat.
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Cold lunch meat is just one more thing on a long list of things you’re told to avoid during pregnancy. Processed meats such as hot dogs and lunchmeat pose the threat of introducing harmful bacteria to your already compromised system and can possibly result in an infection known as Listeriosis.
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Chilean sea bass feeds on shellfish, squid and small fish in sub-Antarctic waters, and lives to be almost 50 years old. Also known as Patagonian toothfish, some Chilean sea bass weigh nearly 200 pounds.
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Large Asian pearl tapioca is used in desserts, like old-fashioned tapioca pudding and in Taiwanese bubble, or boba, tea. Cooking methods vary, but cooking completely is essential to achieve a desirable texture, rather than a starchy and unappealing dish.
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Keoki's is a brand of Hawaiian lau lau, the state dish made of ti leaf-wrapped pork or chicken with rice or vegetables. Keoki's is available through major Hawaiian food distributors and supermarkets. It is sold in packages of three, with 240 calories per pork lau lau, 20 g of fat and 15 g of protein.
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Though boiled chicken is safe to eat as long as it's cooked thoroughly, frying the chicken before you serve it will add flavor and a crunchy texture. Because the chicken is already cooked, it's a fast process to fry it, making it easy to get a quick meal on the table.
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Grilling food imparts it with a flavor that's hard to mimic with other cooking methods. Because the flavor of grilled food is so bold, you don't need to add a lot of butter or oil to enhance the taste, which means grilling can also be a nutritious way to cook food, including shrimp and vegetables.
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Spinach is often defined as a super-food, and rightfully so. The leafy green vegetable is packed with vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin C, folate, magnesium, iron, manganese, calcium and fiber. Spinach also contains loads of phytochemicals, which are substances found in plants that help off disease.
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Gnocchi are small Italian dumplings made from potatoes, cheese and eggs. The Roman version, made with flour, were so hearty and convenient that it was believed they made the Romans invincible. By the Renaissance, potato gnocchi became the norm, and they haven’t changed much since then.
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Make a glaze by thickening your sauce or drippings with something already glaze like, such as syrup or preserves, and you save yourself effort and time. But you also add sugar and possibly additives. Avoid that by reducing the liquid you already have.
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In India, “dal” is the word for lentils, and “moong dal” is the general term for mung lentils, also known as split yellow mung beans. Moong dal is native to India, but has also been cultivated in southeast Asia and China since the late Neolithic era, according to “The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods.
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Flax seed provides an abundance of nutritional benefits. It is high in fiber, which helps improve your digestive system. Flax seed is also full of alpha-linolenic acid, which is an omega-3 fatty acid that can help combat arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and heart disease.
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Shrimp are highly perishable and require cautious handling when purchasing, storing and cooking to prevent foodborne illness. Store shrimp immediately in the freezer when you return from the supermarket unless you plan to cook them within 24 hours.
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