Nutritional health is achieved through the therapeutic use of whole foods, safe culinary preparation, and understanding the metabolic impacts of specific dietary frameworks and ingredients.
Fried chicken is a comfort food staple, especially in the South. When it's properly prepared, the outside is crispy and golden, and the inside is moist and juicy. Occasionally, the golden appearance can be marred by trickles of blood or other red juices from inside the meat.
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Some treasured family recipes prepare a quantity of cake or cookies that made perfect sense in the age of large families. For modern households of two or three, however, heating your oven and preparing massive quantities of baked goods can be overkill.
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Most Americans grow up thinking of milk as a healthy and wholesome beverage, one that's central to a balanced diet. In recent decades, some have challenged that view, but milk's high protein level and richness in vitamins and minerals are not arguable.
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There are many milk-like substances made from nuts and other foods, each with different characteristics. One of the most versatile is coconut milk, a staple in the cuisine of most tropical countries around the world. Like true milk it separates into thinner "milk" and thicker "cream,"
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The striped pangasius, also known as "iridescent shark," is a variety of catfish native to Southeast Asia's Mekong River. Like the American channel catfish, it is well suited to aquaculture and widely grown for both the domestic and export markets. It can't be marketed in the U.S.
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A properly baked or roasted chicken is a highly satisfying dish for the cook. It will have a beautifully crisp, golden skin, savory aroma and tender, moist flesh. The trick is to cook the chicken so that it's done all the way through without allowing any portion of the bird to become overcooked.
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Savoy cabbages are immediately recognizable on the shelves of your supermarket. They're shaped into a tight, round head, like conventional green or red cabbages, but the leaves have the distinctively wrinkled appearance of Napa cabbage leaves.
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Doughnuts are not the healthiest of snacks, by any measure. They start with a rich, sweet, dough, then they're deep-fried, and finally they're tossed in sugar, filled with jam or topped with a sugary glaze.
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The sear burner included on many higher-end gas grills is a powerful cooking tool. It uses a large number of small flames to heat a ceramic plate to very high temperatures. The superheated ceramic element emits infrared radiation, which rapidly sears and browns the food -- usually meats -- cooked over it.
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There's no substitute for cooking ribs outdoors over charcoal, but when that isn't an option, your indoor convection oven can be a viable alternative.
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Romaine lettuce is an unusually versatile salad ingredient. It combines the dark color and nutritional value of leafy lettuces with the crisp, juicy texture of head-type lettuces such as iceberg, giving it the best attributes of each type of lettuce. Romaine hearts are especially popular with home salad makers.
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Jackfish are a large family of sleek predators, native to warm and temperate waters around the world. Several varieties are found along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Nova Scotia, though they become less common as you move away from warmer Southern waters.
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When you're grilling meat on your Weber barbecue, you're typically exposing it to intense, direct heat. This cooks the meat very quickly and browns it well, but it doesn't allow a lot of time for heat to penetrate into the interior of the meat. With a steak or a chops, direct heat isn't a problem.
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Roasting and grilling are closely related cooking methods, each using indirect dry heat to cook the food. Both methods are widely used by health-conscious diners because they render fat from foods as they cook and don't require any to be added.
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Old-fashioned oatmeal, slow-cooked for 20 minutes or longer to a smooth and creamy consistency, is a significant upgrade over a pouch of flavored instant oats. Unfortunately, many cooks can't afford to stand at the stove, stirring, for 20 minutes.
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Few varieties of seafood can rival shrimp as an ingredient in fast, convenient meals. High in protein and low in fat, shrimp lend themselves to almost any healthful preparation method, from steaming to grilling.
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Cooking vegetables on a grill is a quick and healthful technique. It requires little or no fat, depending on the vegetable, and won't leach away water-soluble vitamins as boiling can. However, there are times when a true grill isn't available. For those occasions, a grill pan can be a useful substitute.
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You can find countless variations on meat pies made around the world. Some are baked, some are fried, some are prepared in deep dishes and others are intended to be eaten by hand. The only thing they have in common, from empanadas to Jamaican "patties"
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Balancing a busy schedule with healthful, home-cooked meals is no easy feat. It usually requires a degree of organization and planning, and preparing foods ahead of time whenever possible. Some ingredients, such as fresh vegetables, can be partially cooked ahead of time. Others, such as chicken, can not.
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Most chickens sold in American supermarkets are slaughtered when very young and tender, to provide the greatest possible versatility in cooking. The only problem with this practice is that the birds are rather bland, because they haven't lived long enough to develop a strong chicken flavor.
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