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.
The word "kransky" is derived from the Slovenian words "kranjska klobasa," which is the name for a pork sausage from Kranjska, a former province in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A kransky is a sausage made with pork, beef, bacon and garlic. Other ingredients are not permitted.
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Bavette is the French term for a cut of beef that's known in English by the unappetizing name of flap steak. Bavette is tougher and more fibrous than some of the more popular cuts, but it's full of flavor and cheaper than similar cuts such as flank and skirt.
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The average American eats about 30 pounds of lettuce each year, reports the Agriculture Council of America, and the most popular type in the United States is iceberg lettuce.
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Instead of facing the oh-so-difficult choice between pesto sauce or a creamy sauce for pasta, enrich store-bought pesto from a jar with buttery, cheesy or creamy ingredients. You can then enjoy the flavors and textures of both.
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Bouillon gravy works perfectly well for gravy lovers such as comedian Erma Bombeck who said she came "from a family where gravy is considered a beverage." If you take care when making the gravy, it will also work well for everyone else.
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Boneless chicken breast provides a cost-effective, lower calorie, lower saturated fat alternative to red meats. You can safely cook frozen chicken on the stove or in the oven, but the meat may cook unevenly, and it also takes longer.
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Though fresh, sweet cherries are typically eaten raw, cooking them softens them and mellows their flavor. Cooking sour cherries with sugar sweetens them. One of the most common uses for cooked cherries is as a cherry pie filling or a cherry topping for ice cream or cake.
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The broiler cooks fish as fast as a grill, and just as effectively develops a crisp exterior while maintaining succulent flesh underneath. Broiling is the indoor version of grilling, using the same method of indirect dry heat, only with the heat source located above the fish, rather than below.
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Lasagna is a substantial make-ahead meal that you can pull out of your freezer on a busy night. This classic comfort food freezes wonderfully, is super-filling and is always a crowd pleaser. You can reheat frozen lasagna in the oven or microwave to have a delicious meal on your table with little effort.
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Tofu is basically coagulated and pressed milk of soy. Many varieties of tofu exist, including soft, firm pressed and silken tofu. Silken tofu has less soy and greater water content and is more fragile than either soft or firm tofu, and is usually used in salads and soups.
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Cooking breakfast or brunch on Sunday mornings is a tradition in many homes, and including frozen hash browns in your meal can be a delicious treat for both you and your kids. Along with tasting great, potatoes are a nutritious food, containing potassium, fiber, magnesium, iron, B vitamins and vitamin C.
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Knackwurst, also known as knockwurst, is a preboiled, fully cooked German sausage typically made from ground beef, pork or a combination and heavily seasoned with garlic. When heated, the outer casing of knackwurst becomes crispy, giving it a texture different from other sausages such as bratwurst.
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At its most elemental level, the art of cooking is about chemistry, namely how food components react with one another. Acids and bases are the foundation of these chemical reactions in food preparation.
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Developed in 1940, the Rice Krispies treat traditionally consisted of three ingredients: butter, marshmallows and Rice Krispies cereal. Marshmallow Fluff, a commercial brand of marshmallow crème, is often substituted for the marshmallows in the typical Rice Krispies treats recipe.
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Taro root is present in many Indian and South East Asian dishes. High in starchy carbohydrates, taro roots look similar to small, brown knobbly potatoes. The root works in both savory and sweet dishes, though it's best in main dishes. According to Frederic Couton in "The Cannery Seafood House Cookbook,"
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Collard greens are packed with dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, calcium and iron. A staple in Southern cooking, collard greens can be used in place of other leafy green vegetables like spinach, Swiss chard, kale or mustard greens.
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Truvia is a sweetener extracted from the stevia plant. Because it contains no calories, people often use it as a sugar substitute in everything from coffee to cereal. You can also use Truvia's Baking Blend or Brown Sugar Blend for to help reduce overall calories when baking.
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Atlantic salmon is fatty and high in omega-3s, which is exactly the type of fish the American Heart Association recommends that you eat at least twice weekly. Though wild Atlantic salmon is an endangered species, the Atlantic salmon at your local grocer's is almost certainly sustainably farmed.
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Eating legumes several times each week is recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as beans and lentils are an excellent source of fiber and protein. According to Julie Sahni's excellent resource, "Classic Indian Cooking,"
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You can spend about two hours preparation and cooking time to make scrapple from scratch using pork parts, cornmeal and seasonings or you can purchase a scrapple product like those made by the Rapa company. Rapa’s pork scrapple is made with corn meal, wheat flour, spices and pork stock, livers, fat, hearts and snouts.
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