Mastering main dishes requires techniques for moisture retention, safe reheating of seafood, and adapting recipes for Keto or low-sodium dietary needs.
Turning out a perfect roast involves a number of tradeoffs for the cook. High-temperature roasting produces lots of browning, which means lots of flavor, but it tends to toughen and dry out your roast. That's especially true of small and lean cuts, such as a pork loin.
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Turkey wings are just about the only part of the bird that's tough, which means they're not ideally suited to quick meal preparation. However, they are ideal for long cooking in a crock pot or other slow cooker.
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Many cooks have difficulty finding just the right degree of doneness with chicken legs. If you're going to bake or roast them in the oven, grill them or broil them, it's all too easy to end up with chicken that's blackened on the outside, but still raw or undercooked near the bone.
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Patience and low temperatures are the keys to making delectable, oven-cooked brisket. In its original condition, it's as tough and chewy as a slab of old leather, yet when properly cooked, it's tender and delicious. Getting your piece of brisket from one stage to the other requires slow, careful cooking.
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Many retail cuts can be found on a beef steer, some tough and some tender. The tough cuts are usually ground or slow-cooked, while the premium cuts of tender beef are grilled or broiled. The top sirloin is the lowest priced of the tender cuts for grilling.
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Like eggs and raw chicken, ground beef -- and ground meat in general -- is a food that knowledgeable cooks treat with extra caution. It can easily become contaminated with bacteria, either at the processing facility or after you bring it home, and has a limited storage life in your refrigerator.
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Pressure cookers are able to produce full meals in a much shorter time than conventional pots and pans. They do this by artificially creating a high atmospheric pressure in the pot, which allows the trapped water and steam to reach temperatures well above the normal boiling point of water.
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Until refrigeration became cheap and widespread in the 20th century, our forebears kept leftovers covered at room temperature in their pantries. Not surprisingly, sudden illnesses were also common in those days.
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Fresh crabs and other shellfish are among the most perishable of all foods. They die quickly once they've left the water, and spoil just as quickly once they've died. For that reason, crabs are often cooked and blast-frozen on large shipping boats immediately after the catch, in the interest of freshness.
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Defining the "best" of anything is a tricky proposition. When it comes to roast beef, for example, the most common cuts are very different. The one that's best for you at any given meal is the one that meets your needs.
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Farm-raised venison is an easy meat to like, a lean and flavorful alternative to beef that can be cooked in much the same way. Wild venison is more problematic, in part because it's often tough and can have a strong, gamy flavor.
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Cooking fish in a sealed, airtight pouch is one of the easiest and healthiest preparation methods. Referred to as cooking "en papillote" -- the French term for the technique -- it usually calls for wrapping the fish in a parchment parcel and baking it in the oven.
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A well-roasted duck breast offers your palate a remarkably appealing combination of flavors and textures. The meat itself is dark, lean and flavorful, while the golden skin provides a crisp and richer complement.
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A thick slice of center-cut beef shank looks remarkably like a well-marbled steak, and is often labeled as shank steak in retail stores. They're too tough for grilling, but like chuck steaks, they're ideal for braising.
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Cooking very tough meats, such as lamb shank, involves some compromises. You'll earn the richest mouthfeel and tenderest texture by slow-cooking them at very low temperatures, either dry or in a flavorful liquid. Yet, the most savory flavors come from high-temperature cooking methods such as grilling.
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Countertop slow-cookers are an unusually convenient way to prepare meals. Their slow, gentle cooking can tame even the toughest cuts of meat, and allow aromatic sausages and cured meats to infuse their flavors into the rest of the dish.
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Pigs are among the most adaptable and self-reliant of domesticated animals, and native or feral wild pigs are correspondingly common in much of the world. In the U.S. most wild pigs are feral descendants of escaped domestic animals, though European wild boar is farmed for sale to pork enthusiasts.
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Although purists might argue that barbecued ribs are best cooked over charcoal, a propane grill is easier for novices to handle. Keeping charcoal at the low temperature required for ribs is a challenge, requiring skilled manipulation of the vent and draft.
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Cooking seafood on a regular basis is an appealingly low-stress way to eat healthier. Fish is a good source of high-quality protein, and even relatively fatty fish are low in saturated fats and high in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Of course, your choice of preparation methods matters as well.
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Tender white-fleshed fish are the seafood equivalent of chicken, a mild and tasty ingredient that lends itself to a remarkable range of preparation methods. The best of them, such as catfish, have a moist and delicate texture that's equally at home in the finest of restaurant meals or the simplest homestyle fish fry.
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