Kitchen Basics | vmac+cheese

MacGyver Me This: Making chicken stock

Posted on June 17, 2010 by vmacandcheese

It hasn’t come in as an official MMT question, but one thing I repeatedly encounter when discussing cookery with friends and family is the reliance on store bought stock. It seems like there’s a lot of mystery (and perhaps fear?) when it comes to making stock, which is funny, because unless you’re being graded on it by a French chef, you pretty much can’t do it wrong!

While I also have used store bought stocks in a pinch, I really, truly, honest to goodness prefer not to. First, some brands are quite suspect in the way that they smell (and of course, taste), and at the end of the day, if you carve out some time for yourself on a weeknight or a Sunday afternoon, making your own stock is the easiest thing in the world.

This post, which ran in March of 2009 (can’t believe it’s been that long already), shows you exactly how to do it. If you wanted to make beef stock, you could use this exact same procedure, but with beef bones. Roasting the bones — whether for chicken or beef or pork or any meat stock — will always increase the depth of flavor and color of your stock. Dark meat stocks (i.e. beef, dark veal, etc.) may also have a little bit of tomato paste added to them, but this is not essential. Vegetable stocks can have mushroom stems added to them for an extra je ne sais quoi umami-ness.

Bottom line: making stock is easy as pie. In fact, it’s easier than making pie. So go forth and skim!

(And for anyone who’s wondering if we were able to keep up with the diet mentioned in this post, the answer is no. Thank god!) (more…)

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How to dice an onion

Posted on November 18, 2009 by vmacandcheese

Dicing an onion is literally THE first knife skill we covered in culinary school, probably because you end up chopping a lot of onions during your time as a student, and also because the technique is applicable to lots of other items — think potatoes, carrots (with a few extra steps), and more.

But, one small confession: I actually learned how to chop an onion by watching Everyday Italian with Giada de Laurentiis when I was still an undergrad student. A little experimenting in the kitchen, a few cut thumbs, and before you knew it, I was an onion chopping fool. Though I love chopping onions (there’s something so zen about it), when you’re first learning, it can seem time consuming as your muscles get the movements down. But I promise you (PROMISE YOU) that the more you do it, the faster you’ll be. Same with anything, right? Practice makes perfect.

This tutorial covers how to medium dice an onion. If you need a larger or smaller dice, just make each of the cuts tighter. Hopefully you’ll see what I mean.

Let’s get started.

First things first. Lay the onion on its side (on its equator), and slice off the stem end. This isn’t the end with all the furry little things sprouting out of it — that’s the root. The stem end is the other end, and might have a dried, papery nub on it.

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The well-stocked kitchen

Posted on November 12, 2009 by vmacandcheese

As promised in Tuesday’s episode, here is a list of things I like to have on hand at all times in both fridge, freezer and pantry. If I’m out of several of these, I know it’s time to get my butt to the store, pronto. See the list: (more…)

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Breakfast for dinner

Posted on November 10, 2009 by vmacandcheese

Has this ever happened to you?

It’s just about dinner time. You open up the fridge, and things look pretty barren. You have a few leftover eggs that have a couple of days left in them, a nubbin of cheese, and some weary looking vegetables. Totally time to call in for takeout, no?

Not even!

One of the dishes I love to make when I need to “Macgyver” something together is a frittata. Quick, simple, and a great dumping ground for all those ingredients that might not be at their peak (but would be a shame to throw out), frittatas are entirely customizable to what you have on hand as well as your own personal preferences.

On Sunday night, I had some wilting spinach (not crisp or fresh enough for a raw salad); a carton of eggs; a stubby, almost forgotten slab of white cheddar; a jar of roasted red peppers; some frozen bacon; and some pine nuts.

Obviously, enough ingredients to make a frittata masterpiece.

Now here’s the thing. You might say to yourself, “Pine nuts? Roasted peppers? Who keeps this stuff on hand and claims an empty pantry?” (more…)

Filed under: Eggs, Kitchen Basics, Main Courses, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Love the salt. Hate the steam.

Posted on October 24, 2009 by vmacandcheese

A quick lesson of the day for you, and a little backstory to give it some context.

I like to roast whole chickens at home. Why?

a) It’s really easy.

b) I can throw it in the oven right when I get home from work, putz around on the Internet and watch back episodes of The Girls Next Door before Joe gets home from the gym, and by the time he is back, showered, and ready to eat, the meat is done-zo.

c) It’s versatile! You can eat the plain roasted chicken, or put it in a soup, or re-purpose it for a sandwich, or even mix it with other fixings to make a chicken salad (a delicious pesto chicken salad comes to mind).

d) You get the bonus of the carcass to make stock. It’s really a win-win situation.

Now for the past year or so, whenever I’ve done anything with a roasted bird, I tried to just salt and pepper it really well, throw it in the oven, and let it be. No herbs or lemons stuffed in the cavity (or “the butt” as Joe likes to say). Nothing lining the bottom of the pan the bird cooks in. I read in both the Bouchon cookbook and in an old issue of Cook’s Illustrated that this only creates steam, and steam is the enemy to crisp skin.

To get super crisp chicken skin — and I mean papery, crackly, seems to shatter when you stick the thermometer through it skin — you need to salt the heck out of the skin, and remove any element in the oven that creates steam. End of story.

I like to wash and dry the entire bird, then pat it really dry with a paper towel. Again, what does residual rinse water, plus a scorching hot oven equal? STEAM.