Cooking & Food Basics

I’m the type of person who loves tools. Sometimes, I sit and think about my future garage, full of all the finest gadgets for and solutions to all the problems I face. Well, I really don’t have too many problems, but I still love garages. Even if I didn’t ever use the tools I would collect, I would still cherish them and “know they’re there.” That’s what really matters.

Since I don’t yet own this garage, I’ve turned my little obsession for “things” toward the kitchen. I’ve begun acquiring a different type of tools to assist me with a problem I do have – eating.

A while back, I made a decision. I decided that since both Laura and I eat every day and since we both have an insatiable appetite for learning, why not delve into the world of food? And since I’m an extraordinarily prolific blogger, why not share what I learn and eat for dinner online? It wasn’t too far after these types of thoughts traversed my mind that IndustryEats was born. And here we are today, 13 months later and 141 recipes shared. I’m feeling pretty good about things.

I’ve amassed a multitude of kitchen tools. I have a homemade pasta maker, recently acquired stainless steel cooking racks, an incredibly strong colander, a professional chef knife set, cutting boards, skillets and so on. Everything I now own is right up there in regards to quality. I’ve gone down the road of kitchen junk for years and years and realized that if I had just spent a bit of extra money at the outset instead of cheaping out the way I did, I would have actually saved money in the long run. Today, it’s all about stainless steel and cast iron. Real wood and legitimate recipe sources. I don’t skimp these days and I think it’s showing. As a matter of fact, I just mentioned the 141 different meals Laura and I have enjoyed over the past year to someone last night and I mentioned it with pride. The dishes I’ve prepared, in my opinion, have been very good.

I owe much of this “goodness” to my collection of cookbooks. Without them and their shared wisdom, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am. For that, I thank the authors. I have no qualms about mentioning their names in my posts and trying to promote their books. They wrote them and put everything together, so they definitely deserve more credit than I can ever give them.

In today’s post, I thought I’d talk about the cookbooks I’ve picked up over the past year. Laura had one or two of them from before this blog ever arrived, but most of what I work with is new. I know this type of thing is of interest to a lot of people, so I hope you enjoy what I have to say below.

In the sections below, I’m going to give you my thoughts on the cookbooks I use on a daily basis. If you have resources that you feel I, or my readers, can benefit from, please add them in the comment section at the bottom of this post.

What’s For Dinner by Curtis Stone

This cookbook was a steal. I found it down in town at a used bookstore for $7. It was the only cookbook among hundreds that had pictures in it. I guess the older models didn’t believe in this type of thing. Since I’m mega visually oriented, I truly enjoy looking at the photography that accompanies the recipes. They also help tremendously with my own photography. They show where things are supposed to go and how they should be arranged.

Curtis Stone is one of my favorite chefs. He actually wasn’t until I began reading through this book, but after learning about him, I was shown the light. Curtis puts together some very elegant dishes and has an obvious flair for style and taste. He uses his climate (southern California) and interests as inspiration for his dishes. It’s an awesome combination from someone I have very little trouble relating to.

Good Food, Good Life by Curtis Stone

I just received this book in the mail yesterday. Since then, I’ve been devouring it. I already have the first dish in mind that I’ll most likely put up on this blog next week sometime. It’s called “Roasted Beet and Quinoa Salad with Goat Cheese, Fennel and Pecans.” I mean really? Doesn’t that sound divine?

There’s a unique combination of rustic and bold, yet easygoing simplicity to many of Curtis’ recipes. I think that’s what I like about them so much. Instead of iceberg salad wedges with ranch dressing poured over them, he tends to gravitate towards smaller and more tender types of greens and less used types of seafoods and grains. Lots of quinoa, lots of baby spinach and herbs and lots of salmon. I can totally get into it.

The New Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook by Ellen Brown

I’ve already pulled two recipes from this cookbook. They can be found here and here. They were both incredibly incredible. Ellen Brown is a genius in her own right and should be taken seriously in the culinary world.

There’s a funny thing about “cast iron” cookbooks. The funny thing is that every single recipe doesn’t need to be prepared using cast iron. For both of the recipes I took from her book, I could have easily use stainless steel. Of course, using cast iron is a whole lot more fun because you can pretend that you’re living in the 1800s but in all honesty, a variety of skillets will do. They need to be oven safe though. No plastic, that’s for sure.

The recipes in Ellen’s book need to be reviewed before any attempt is made at preparation. You can sort of wing it with some of the resources I’ll share after this one, but here, that’s not the case. You want to be prepared because she injects small fragments of wisdom and technique into every dish. For instance, yesterday’s recipe use meringue as a very large part of what the final result would look like. Have I ever made meringue? No, of course not. Before moving forward with the recipe, I had to study up on exactly what meringue was and how to achieve the best results with it. These are the activities I was looking forward to when I made the decision to learn how to cook.

By the way, when making meringue, the egg whites need to be room temperature. Keep that in mind.

Bread Illustrated by America’s Test Kitchen

This is a relatively new cookbook as well. America’s Test Kitchen just released it a month or two ago and I’m confident that I was one of the first people in the world to by it. At the time of purchase, there were no reviews on Amazon and I had very little idea of what I was getting myself into. The thing is, I’ve already had experience with the Test Kitchen. I took their online “cooking school” course and had already gobbled up many of their recipes. Through much of my learning, I only found one mistake on their part. They suggest that you hard boil eggs starting out with cold water. Don’t ever do that. If you want to learn why, please read this post. I hope they correct his soon so others don’t suffer the same fate as I did.

This “bread bible” offers a full overview of how to cook bread. It talks about what the different ingredients do and how the various techniques assist in making the perfect loaf. I’ve long wanted to make good bread, but one thing was missing – knowledge. With this book, I think I’m on the path of what I was put on this planet for, to bake good bread.

Bread Illustrated offers 100 bread recipes with over 1000 photos and full instructions for how to bake bread like a pro. I’ve been moving through this book, one recipe at a time, starting at the beginning, and I think I’m getting a handle on things. If you’d like to look at the bread I’ve already made, you can find the recipes here, here and here.

Veggie Burgers Every Which Way by Lukas Volger

For a very long time, Laura and I have been trying to make veggie burgers that both taste good and hold together. Our road has been rocky, to say the least. No matter how good someone’s recipe sounds, we’ll generally had trouble in the “holding together” area. That is, until Lukas Volger came onto the scene.

The world of veggie burgers is huge. I’m not sure what you think of when you hear that term, but I used to have images of mashed beans and vegetables crammed into some sort of patty. That’s really not the case. The imagination you can put into the preparation of veggie burgers is equivalent to the imagination you can put into any other recipe. Take the Armenian Lentil & Clove Veggie Burger recipe I put together a what ago as an example. It was awesome. Perhaps even the best veggie burger I’ve ever eaten.

In Lukas’ cookbook, there are dozens of burger recipes that range from white bean burgers to falafel burgers to burgers that take advantage of tofu, carrots and celery root. If you’d like to add to your creative burger repertoire, I encourage you to take a look at this cookbook.

The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook by Lodge

Purchasing this cookbook is sort of a rite of passage upon buying a cast iron skillet. You don’t just pick up a skillet and merely begin cooking with it. You first grab the most popular cast iron related cookbook on the market – and then start using your skillet. It’s just what you do.

Cast iron is a rugged material to work with in the kitchen, but also one that needs to be used to its fullest advantage. It’s the sort of material you can immerse fully into a wood burning stove or place entirely in the oven. Precautions do have to be taken though because if heated or cleaned incorrectly, you can warp the pan and remove the protective non-stick coating that develops over time.

The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook shares all types of information with the reader, including things like what I just mentioned. And on top of that, it shares some pretty great recipes. I’ve used this book extensively in the past for recipes, with some of my favorites being cornbread with shrimp, cauliflower and feta pizza and roasted red potatoes with sweet onion and rosemary.

This cookbook is bold. It’s not for the faint of heart. The recipes, while sometimes slightly complex, require big cuts through big vegetables with big knives. If you’re into smaller, more nuanced types of dishes, you might want to avoid this one. However, if you’re into taking the food and flavor quantity up a notch and already own a cast iron skillet, this book is for you.

Vegetarian Sandwiches by Paulette Mitchell

This one is Laura’s. She’s owned it for a while and I’ll admit, I never gave it much thought. It was only after I launched this site did the marvel of sandwiches affect my life. And marvelous sandwiches they are. I’ve actually made some of my favorite sandwiches ever by using the recipes offered in this book. Would you like to see what I’m referring to? Check out my Italian omelet with roasted peppers recipe. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Paulette’s sandwich cookbook doesn’t actually only include recipes for what you and I would consider traditional sandwiches. She’s got wraps, quesadillas, hogies, wedges and anything else that can be placed on something that was created from cooked wheat. To see all of her recipes that I’ve prepared so far, just follow this link. I simply did a search for “Paulette Mitchell” at the top of this blog.

Making Artisan Pasta by Aliza Green

I’ll admit, I haven’t made anything that’s included in this book yet. It does show promise though and that’s why I bought it. My goal is to build up my recipe library to such an extent that I’ll never need to buy anything again. Yeah right. Like that’s going to happen.

I have a pasta maker and I have already made fresh pasta. I found both the searching for a really great pasta machine and the making of the first few rounds of pasta invigorating enough that I decided to venture forward in the world of fresh pasta. That’s why I began the hunt for a resource that could teach me much of what I needed to know as well as offer a whole bunch of what appear to be incredible recipes.

There’s everything in this book. What I am truly interested in is making colored pasta, such as the green that includes spinach and the orange that includes squash. This book also shares recipes for pasta that integrate a wide variety of ingredients, such as beets, red wine, porcini mushroom and squid ink. After reading through a bit of this book, I knew I couldn’t go wrong. I mean, I already had all the tools I’d need to get things done.

The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen

This is the one. If I had to give up all my cookbooks except for one, I’d keep this one. It includes over 250 vegan and 500 glutin-free recipes. I’ve pulled many a recipe from this book and I have to say, I’ve enjoyed them all. There’s a certain confidence that comes with purchasing a resources that comes from the Test Kitchen and that confidence stems from the fact that their recipes are tested for many things before they’re included in any resources they offer.

If you’ve browsed this blog at all, you’ve surely seen some of the recipes from this book. Think about the vegetarian Philly style sandwich, the black bean and pepper enchilada and the risotto with Parmesan cheese recipes. This truly is an all around perfect book for anybody. Really. With the variety of recipes these people create, it’s no wonder they’re so popular.

Well, there you have it. My growing collection of awesome cookbooks. Again, if you have something to add or if you can suggest something that I haven’t even thought about, I’d be so grateful. Just write your thoughts down in the comment section. Thanks for reading!

Have you ever tried to peel a hard-boiled egg and ended up wanting to throw it through a closed window instead? Really? I know what you mean. There are few things in life more annoying than an egg that turns into something dreadful during the peeling stage. The good news is that I’ve figured out exactly how to remedy the issue. So, if you’re interested, please read on.

The goal of hard boiling, or hard cooking, eggs is to end up with a clear yellow yolk and smooth, tender white, all peeled perfectly. That’s the goal. How often does that happen? Probably not so often. The problem usually has to do with strategy. If you’re hard-boiled eggs that consistently result in dry, chalky yolks with a light green coating that smells like sulphur, you’re most likely over cooking them. If you can’t peel them for the life of you, then you’re most likely adding them to the water at the wrong temperature. These are things that are super simple to fix. Hard-boiled eggs are so easy to cook, it isn’t even funny.

In this post, I tested a few methods of hard-boiling eggs. Actually, I was forced into this. I originally intended to follow the instructions given to me by America’s Test Kitchen and bring you my results. What ended up happening was the scenario I began this post with. I cooked the eggs perfectly, but during the peeling stage, I wanted to whip each and every one of them out the door – fast ball style. There was no way in heck the peels were coming off in a manner that’s worthy of posting on this site. The thing is, after I figured out the problem, I decided to post my entire experience here – both bad and good. Hopefully, what I went through today with my 14 eggs will help you save a few of your own.

I think what I’ll do here is write the post the way I had intended. I’m going to do it following the instructions given to me by the Test Kitchen. At the bottom of that, I’ll show you a few photos of my results. I think those pictures will encourage you to read on below even further. There, I’ll give you the instructions for how to properly cook hard-boiled eggs and actually get them out of the shell so you can eat them like a human. I even have pictures of the good versus the bad. It’s rather remarkable what a slight variation of temperature and time can achieve.

My Eggs

I started off by taking 8 eggs straight from the refrigerator. I tackled this project on January 17 and their “use by” date was February 12. I read that hard-boiling eggs that are older or “aged” are easier to peel, but that you really don’t need to worry about that because any egg you purchase from the market is definitely old enough for regular use. The only concern was with very fresh, straight from the chicken coop, type egg.

I know there are 10 eggs in the photo above. I only used 8 of them.

Place Eggs in Saucepan

I was instructed to place the eggs in a saucepan. Now, typically I bring water to a boil first, but this technique didn’t call for that. It says that the first task to complete was to simply place them in the pot.

Fill Saucepan & Cover

The next step was to fill the saucepan with water an inch above the tops of the eggs. I did that. Then, I covered the pot with the lid. Now, just to let you know, the water I poured into the saucepan was cold. It was from my kitchen faucet, which comes from my well. That well is in Maine. It’s chilly.

Bring Water to a Boil

After that, I brought the water to a boil. This is the controversial step that I’ll discuss down below. Just remember that during this step, the water slowly heats up, along with the eggs. To get the water boiling, it usually takes between 8-10 minutes.

Remove From Heat

Once the water begins boiling, I removed the saucepan from the heat. I let them sit in the hot water for exactly 10 minutes. The idea here is to allow the eggs to cook in water that’s below 212 degrees, thereby creating an environment that’s conducive to not overcooking. The benefits of this lower cooking temperature are allegedly more tender whites, more creamy yolks and shells that don’t crack.

Create an Ice-Bath

While the eggs were cooking, I put a tray of ice cubes into a semi-large bowl and covered them with about a quart of water.

Place Eggs in Ice-Bath

After exactly 10 minutes of sitting in the hot water, I placed my eggs in the ice bath. This step isn’t controversial. I have actually seen this all over the place and used it for the method I’ll describe down below.

Now mind you, by the time this step rolls around, the eggs are already cooked. The point of putting them into this cold water is to shock them, which halts any type of cooking they may be experiencing. It’s also alleged that by doing this, the whites of the eggs shrinks just enough from the shells to allow for easier peeling.

I let them sit in the ice water for 5 minutes.

Crack the Shells

After the eggs cooled down for about 5 minutes, I took them out of the water and cracked the shells. It was recommended that I crack them all over.

Peel the Eggs

At this point, Laura and I were eagerly awaiting our perfectly hard-boiled eggs. We began peeling and ended up with this.

Laura seemed fairly patient as she was trying to peel, but for me, I could feel my blood boiling as the seconds passed. I don’t deal well with things like this. I’m a happy camper when I start to peel an egg and everything comes off in large pieces. This wasn’t good at all. The strangest part was that the inside egg didn’t seem to separate from the membrane, which didn’t separate from the shell. It was like everything was welded together somehow. And when I did manage to separate the egg itself from the membrane, I found the the egg was “sticky” instead of the slippery that I’m used to. The egg felt just like the membrane. It was awful.

I will tell you though, after a while, we did manage to get one egg peeled. Remarkably, it was cooked well. The whites were tender and the yolk was creamy. And as you can see, there is no green enveloping the yolk. So, yes, the egg was cooked perfectly.

The only problem was that it took us an hour to peel the 8 eggs and many of them ended up looking like this, or worse. Imagine serving these as deviled eggs at a party.

New Instructions

Needless to say, I’m abandoning that set of instructions. I mean, really abandoning them. After this ordeal, I vowed not to feel defeated. I poked around online a bit and found a rather long post that described the very situation I had just faced.

The Food Lab: The Hard Truth About Boiled Eggs

I discovered that my failure occurred at the point of egg entry into the saucepan. The fellow who wrote the above post likened allowing eggs to warm up so slowly to allowing a steak to warm up slowly in a skillet. The only thing that would result from that scenario would be a steak that is virtually un-removable from the pan. Much like how the egg shells were un-removable from the eggs.

These are his instructions:

“Lower your eggs straight from the fridge into already-boiling water, or place them in a steamer insert in a covered pot steaming at full blast on the stovetop. If boiling, lower the heat to the barest simmer. Cook the eggs for 11 minutes for hard or 6 minutes for soft. Serve. Or, if serving cold, shock them in ice water immediately. Let them chill in that water for at least 15 minutes, or better yet, in the fridge overnight. Peel under cool running water.”

I followed these instructions precisely and this is what I got.

I cooked 4 eggs and each one peeled wonderfully. I even took a photo of them, along with two of the messed up ones. Can you guess which are which?

So, all-in-all, my success rate with the first method was 0% and my success rate with the second method was 100%. Strange.

The real question was whether or not the eggs were over-cooked. I cut them in half and placed them on a plate to see.

As you can see, the yolks don’t have the sulpher green ring. As I progress, I’m going to adjust the timing slightly to, perhaps, lighten up the cooking just a tad. I’d like to get those yolks a bit more translucent. I’d say I’m on the right path though. I just wish this lesson didn’t take me 12 eggs to learn.

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I would love to run a blog where every recipe I posted was a successfully completed one. Unfortunately, that’s just not the way it’s going to be. Don’t get me wrong – I’m going to do my best to try to show you what things “should” look like. It’s just that I’m still a beginner. Especially when it comes to bread. Bread is a tough customer.

As I watched my dough settle into a pancake in the oven last night, I decided that I wasn’t going to write this post. I asked myself “How could I? How can my screw up help anyone?” Then I thought about it for a second. What was the first thing I did after I realized things weren’t going to go the way I had planned? I’ll tell you – I search online to find out why my bread was so flat. I found the answer and right after I read a few articles, it dawned on me that if I had searched this topic, someone else might too. I had an advantage though – I’ve got the recipe and I’ve also got tons of photos that will help isolate exactly where I ran into problems. None of the articles I read had this much to offer.

I’m going to go over this recipe below as if everything went fine. I’m also going to link out to other similar recipes, so if you’re interested in making a loaf of bread in your Dutch oven, you can certainly do that. You can either follow the recipe I did or choose another one. Just be warned that the reason I followed the recipe I did was because every other one took between 12 and 24 hours to complete. My recipe only called for allowing the dough to rise for 4 hours.

I may attempt this one more time. I believe I’ve found the issue and if I can correct it, I’d like to actually bake a nice loaf of bread. I’m suspicious of that possibility though, because I may have unearthed a flaw. Something that actually needs to be changed.

Ingredients

For starters, I’ll offer a link to the recipe I followed. It’s written by the fine folks over at Le Creuset.

Dutch Oven Bread

You can either click over to that site and use their information or you can continue reading on below. I suggest you continue reading below because I’ve got some valuable information for you.

4 Cups Flour
1 1/2 Cups Water
1 Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
Kosher Salt or Coarse Sea Salt
Vegetable Oil or Vegetable Oil Spray
Olive Oil

If you noticed that there is no indication of how much salt to use, you’re not alone. I had to improvise from another recipe and decided to use 1 and 1/2 teaspoons.

In case you’re interested, here’s a link to another, very similar, recipe:

No Knead Dutch Oven Crusty Bread

Step-by-Step Instructions

Please continue on below. I’ll include photos for every step of the way.

Combine Ingredients

The first thing I did was to combine the flour, water, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl. I used our heavy duty electric mixer.

As I was doing this, I wondered about a few things. First, I thought you had to activate the yeast like other recipes called for. I’ll tell you, the dough had no issues with rising. It rose once, I pounded it down and then it rose again. It wasn’t fast – it probably took the full 4 hours the first time, but it did rise.

The second thing I wondered about was – what in the world was this kosher salt I kept reading about? Was it any different than sea salt or regular table salt? I found a nice article that gave me the answer:

Ask The Food Lab: Do I Need To Use Kosher Salt?

Apparently, the three salts are virtually identical, except for size and shape. You need to be careful when a recipe calls for sea salt or kosher salt, because each grain of that type of salt is much larger than regular table salt. This means that one teaspoon of table salt is the equivalent to two teaspoons of the more coarse salt.

Mix the Dough

Once the ingredients were in the mixing bowl, I ran the mixer for about 5 minutes. The dough had come together nicely and the mixer was no longer doing anything beneficial after that time. The dough had formed into a fairly tight ball and was hanging on to the dough hook. Because of this, I pulled the dough ball out of the bowl and kneaded it by hand.

The goal was to get the dough as elastic as possible. The recipe I used said that I should be able to grab the dough and pull it apart to such a point as it to become transparent. After a few minutes, I got it to that point. This is what I ended up with:

So far, so good.

Let the Dough Rise

The next step is to let the dough rise to twice its original size. This will take between 2 to 4 hours, depending on the ambient temperature. My dough took the entire 4 hours because my house was probably around 68 degrees at the time. To complete this step, I returned the dough to the mixing bowl and covered it with clear plastic wrap.

After 4 hours, this is what I had:

Knead the Dough

After the dough had risen in the bowl, I pulled it back out and kneaded it to release all the gas that had formed inside of it.

This may have been the beginning of my mistake. Later on in this recipe, it calls for a tight ball. I’m not sure I was able to get things as tight as I would have liked because, while I knocked the dough down, I didn’t knead it thoroughly enough.

Let the Dough Rest

The goal with this step is to allow the gluten to relax. I did this by letting it sit for 10 minutes under a towel.

Shape Dough Into a Ball

This is what I was just talking about. Here, I was supposed to shape the dough into a tight ball. “The tighter, the better.” As you can see, the dough doesn’t look very tight, nor does it look like a ball.

Let Dough Rise in Dutch Oven

After the dough was shaped somewhat like a ball, I put it into an oiled and covered Dutch oven to let rise.

After about an hour, this is what I had:

As you can see, I had myself an out of control lump of dough. I believe I had “proofed” the dough too long. Proofing is merely the second rising of the dough. To learn more about this concept, please take a look at this resource:

Breadmaking 101: All About Proofing and Fermentation

From what I can gather, if you over-proof your dough, there’s no coming back from it. It will most certainly collapse. To read more about what others say about failed bread making attempts, take a look at this:

Help! My Bread is Too Flat!

Something obviously had gone wrong with this step. The primary issue was that I didn’t know what to look for. I thought that, while the loaf would have a ring around its base from touching the sides of the Dutch oven, it would at least rise to make a nice dome. Exactly the opposite happened.

Another issue I discovered was that in other recipes, the Dutch oven was supposed to be pre-heated in the regular oven. In this recipe, it didn’t call for that. So while this raw dough that was nicely domed inside the oven, it was being shielded by all that cast iron. It heated up slowly, making the proofing step last even longer. This is where I suspect there’s a flaw with the recipe I followed.

Nevertheless, I pre-heated the oven to 450 like the recipe told me to do.

Oil & Mark the Dough

At this point, I continued to follow the recipe instructions. I didn’t think anything was all that amiss. I brushed some olive oil over the surface of the dough and sliced a nice hash symbol on it as well. Supposedly, this hash is supposed to allow for expansion.

I also sprinkled the entire surface with some sea salt.

Bake the Dough

After everything looked the way I wanted it to, I placed the entire covered Dutch oven in the fully heated oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. After that time, I removed the lid and lowered the temperature to 375 degrees and let the bread bake for another few minutes until the top looked nicely browned.

The Final Product

Like I said, the dough collapsed and I ended up with flat bread. I guess if I was making flatbread, everything would be grand, but I wasn’t.

I did toast and butter a few pieces and they tasted well enough. It appears that the interior didn’t develop well either. It looks sort of like cake instead of bread.

My Conclusion

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I need to learn how to make bread properly. I need to know what to look for and how things operate. There’s a section that covers this type of culinary skill inside my online cooking school course curriculum, so I’ll remain patient until I get to that point.

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Oh boy. If I had only known of these rules years ago, when I began sauteing. Or, should I say what I thought was sauteing. I often wondered why much of what I attempted to cook looked either under or over cooked. Things just never seemed right – as hard as I would try. After screwing up another meal, I’d find myself scouring through articles and videos online, wondering what I had done wrong. And I knew I had done something wrong because what I ended up with never quite looked like what others ended up with. All I needed was some guidance.

I think I found what I was looking for because I’m now picking up certain vocabulary that’s been fairly consistent across the culinary world. Just yesterday, I watched a video put out by the one and only Gordon Ramsay and noticed a few key concepts. “Just wisps of smoke,” “turn only once” and “let it brown” to name a few. Needless to say, it’s all becoming so much more clear.

As I mentioned in my last post, my online courses are now steering towards sauteing. I was recently introduced to the concept via a nice video and right after that, I took a quiz. The folks who run things wanted to see what I already knew. Some of the questions were tricky while others were straightforward. After the quiz, I was offered a few key concepts. These concepts were written in a very brief manner, so I did what only someone with my voracious appetite for knowledge would do – I studied elsewhere as well and came up with a less, shall we say, brief way to explain things. That’s what I’m going to write in this post. My “rules” of sauteing.

For this post, I think I’m going to follow the same format of the questions in the quiz. But as I just mentioned above, my explanations are going to go into more depth. If you’ve got anything to add, I surely would be interested in hearing it, so please, write what you’d like in the comment area below. We’re all here to learn.

A Quick Note

Before I begin, I do want to mention one thing regarding our props for the photography on this site. I can’t say enough good things about three areas Laura and I tackled before we set out on this adventure. Background, setting and lighting. Without the huge butcher’s block, we’d seriously be lost. It’s in almost every single photo we’ve taken so far. The All-Clad skillet is a winner as well. It was used to take the leading photo for this post and I have to say, it’s stunning. Laura is using some of the other photos we captured for other purposes, but honestly, if you’re into food photography, it’s important to set yourself up.

Lastly, lighting is key. I admit, I edit any photos in Camera Raw and Photoshop before I post them on this site, but without the two professional photography lamps we purchased some months ago, none of the pictures would be as vibrant as they are. Such small areas make the difference.

The Rules of Sautéing

This is the section where I actually get into the meat of this post. There are eight areas of sauteing food that I’m going to cover, one at a time.

1. What’s the best type of pan to use for sauteing?

I, like many of you (I’m sure), have almost every type of pan made. They’re sitting in kitchen cabinets somewhere. The one I use the most often are my 12″ cast iron skillet as well as my 10″ stainless steel skillet. Both have sloped sides. Now that I have a similar 12″ stainless steel skillet, I’m sure that will quickly become a favorite.

Now, from what I’m gathering, it’s best to use a skillet (frying pan) with sloped sides for sauteing. The reason for this is two-fold. First, the “open” sides encourage evaporation, which keeps food dryer, giving it that nice brown color. The straight sides of a saute pan (yes, it’s called a saute pan) inhibit that evaporation and can cause food to either steam or boil, which isn’t good, especially when you’re trying to saute. If you’re confused about which pan is which, you can read this nice article that explains both types:

What’s the Difference? Sauté Pan vs. Skillet

Now on to the second reason. If you’ve ever sauteed veggies, you most likely know about the “saute snap.” The snap, in regards to sauteing is when you pick up the pan, push it forward and then pull it back fast, causing the food to jump out of the pan, flip over and land back where it was. Pans with sloped sides are perfect for this while those with straight sides aren’t.

If you take a look at the photo below that we took just last night, you can see the curves sides of our new skillet.

2. What’s the best pan finish? Stainless steel? Cast iron? Non-stick?

This is where things get a bit tricky. If you’re looking for browning and flavor development, then a stainless steel skillet is for you. Stainless steel encourages an ever so slight “stick,” which creates browning. If you’ve ever cooked something and later on tried to scrape up the mess left behind, you were trying to scrape up what’s called “fond.” This fond is what good chefs make sauce out of. They mix wine and broth with it and it’s delicious. I used to get upset when fond would develop and do anything in my power to avoid it. I had no idea that it was supposed to be there and was actually sought after by chefs around the world. For years, I hated stainless steel. Now, I love it. It’s amazing what a little knowledge will do for a guy.

I’ve been seeing cast iron skillets everywhere. They’ve become so popular that almost every picture of food I see online has some sort of cast iron element in it. I actually purchased a cast iron skillet last year and plan on picking up a few more variations in a few months. Cast iron is great for a number of things, including sauteing fish and meat. The one thing you can’t do with cast iron though is the snap. These types of pans are fairly heavy and as far as the one I’ve got, the walls are sloped, but not curved. There’s simply no way in the world I could snap anything with my pan. It’s like ten pounds. It is great for frying eggs though and that’s the real reason I initially purchased it. As time went on and my luck continued to grow, I’ve used it for so much more.

I’m going to be honest with you here when I tell you that I can’t stand non-stick pan finishes. Since I was 22 years old, I’ve been buying non-stick pans that have promised me that their finish was the toughest on the planet. I’m rough with my pans and I swear, I haven’t had one non-stick pan last more than six months. When they are brand new, they’re great, but as they age, even if you use plastic utensils, they dull down and don’t perform.

The real issue with non-stick surfaces, though, is that the don’t create fond. So if you’re looking to saute a piece of meat, fish or vegetables and would like to make a sauce afterwards, you most likely won’t get the flavor development you’re after. In my world, cast iron has replaced non-stick.

3. What’s the best fat for sauteing? Butter? Oil? Which kind?

This is actually very interesting. Forever, I’ve used extra virgin olive oil for all my cooking. Forever, I’ve had horrible luck. I’ve rounded the bend over the past few months though, which is encouraging. I’ve also learned that I’ve been making some pretty grievous errors in regards to the fat I’ve been using in my frying pan.

The primary area of consideration when it comes to which fat to use is smoke point. Extra virgin olive oil, because of its purity and goodness, has a relatively low one (325 degrees). It’s not good for sauteing. A few weeks ago, I found a really great article that talks all about smoke points and oils and even offers a chart that displays the smoke points of many popular types of fats. If you’d like to take a look at that, you can find it here:

Cooking Fats 101: What’s a Smoke Point and Why Does it Matter?

Temperature and sauteing go hand in hand. If your pan isn’t hot enough, you’ll have a really terrible time sauteing. Just about everything will stick and you’ll surely want to throw the entire setup out the window. I know this because I’ve felt this way far too often. The reason my pan wasn’t getting hot enough is because, as my extra virgin olive oil was heating up, it would begin smoking way too soon. The pan wasn’t hot enough, but I dropped my food in anyway. I didn’t want all that smoke in the kitchen. Basically, I was cooking at the wrong temperature, which is a big no-no, especially with stainless steel.

Butter and coconut oil are almost as bad. Their smoke points are 350 degrees – far too low for a nice sear.

Refined vegetable oils have much higher smoke points. It’s the refining that takes out much of the flavor and health benefits, but in return, you get a fat that won’t pollute your working area and that will allow your pan to heat up to the proper temperature before adding your ingredients. I now use light or refined olive oil, which, if you look at the chart I linked to above, has a smoke point of 465 degrees. It’s been much better.

4. What’s the best oil temperature for sauteing?

Obviously, different foods require different temperatures. The way I learned it was if you’re sauteing vegetables, chicken or fish, place your oil in a cool pan and turn the heat onto medium-high. Once the oil heats up to cause some “web-like” movement, it’s hot enough to add your ingredients. If you’re going for a darker brown or a crust on something like steak, wait for the oil to heat up a bit more and to give off a hint of smoke. When that happens, add the ingredient.

I was practicing some sauteing last night. I worked with skin-on salmon fillets and as I was cooking, Laura and I grabbed some photos. One of my goals was to see if I could brown the skin so it was crunchy, but not burnt. I was successful, so I’m going to share a photo with you.

Now, I know one doesn’t traditionally turn salmon with tongs because of the risk of the fillet breaking apart, but I wanted to hold it up as an example.

If you’re looking to learn more about temperatures when sauteing, I found a fairly thorough resource for you:

How Much Heat To Use When Sauteing

5. How should you cut vegetables for sauteing?

I already covered this topic in my many posts on slicing, dicing, chopping and mincing vegetables. To view those posts, please visit them here:

Tips On Peeling & Mincing Garlic

What Does Cutting “On the Bias” Mean in the Culinary World?

Dicing Carrots For Size Consistency

As I mentioned in the posts above, size consistency is the key to even cooking. If you chop an onion or a clove of garlic so you’ve got some large and some small pieces, you may be in for a rude awakening when it comes time to eat what you’ve prepared. No one wants to bite into a raw piece of either of those. That’s why it’s important to take your time during food preparation. I enjoy prepping because it gives me a chance to practice my knife skills. I’m unlearning bad habits and the more I can cut, the more I encourage proper muscle memory when holding my knives.

Remember, the same is true for meat, fish and pork. If you’ve got some extra large pieces and some small, you’ve got to be very careful about how to cook. You may end up with some pieces that don’t exactly look or taste like the others.

6. Should meat and fish be dry or wet when you put them in your skillet?

Dry. The answer is dry. If you pull a fillet or steak straight from its package and toss it into your skillet, it’s going to pop and crackle like crazy (water and oil don’t mix well). This, in turn, is going to make a serious mess all over your stove. I’ve done this so many times I can’t count them all. Also, by using an ingredient directly from its package, you’re introducing all of its juices to the skillet, which will need to be steamed off. Remember what I talked about above? You want to brown your food while sauteing, not steam or boil it.

The best thing to do is to wash your ingredients and then to blot them with paper towels before placing them in your skillet. This will ensure that they’re as dry as possible. Just be sure to take your time with this. Moisture likes to hide.

7. Crowded or evenly spaced? How should you arrange your food in a skillet when sauteing?

I can remember attempting to saute some cod fish I purchased a few months ago. I had a huge fillet that I cut into strips that I wanted to use in fish tacos. I jammed all of them into the same pan and after a few minutes, each and every strip was swimming in its own juice. I was basically boiling them, which wasn’t good at all.

The answer to this question goes hand in hand with the previous. To encourage evaporation of moisture and to keep things as dry as possible, it’s important to keep enough distance between every item in the pan. Without even spacing, moisture will have no place to go and you’ll have a situation like I did.

Also, when food touches each other in a skillet, some parts are bound to lift off the pan, causing uneven cooking. Even spacing and some distance is important in this respect.

8. When sauteing, when should you turn your food?

If you don’t get this answer correct and you happen to be on the TV show “Hell’s Kitchen,” you’re sure to get a verbal lashing from the show’s host, Gordon Ramsay. And actually, this is the one single mistake most new home cooks and chefs make when sauteing food.

To maximize browning and flavor, you need to let your food sit still long enough to create a specific condition. If you continuously flip food over, it’ll never have enough time to brown correctly. Also, as I’ve found out far too often, by playing with food while attempting to cook it, it’s much more likely to fall apart. Have patience and let the food cook. That’s the best route to take. Only turn it once.

Additional Resources

If you’re interested in learning more about sauteing food or if you’re just in search of some great tips, please feel free to check out the resources below.

10 Sautéing Tips – Cooking Light

The 5 Commandments of Sautéing Food | Serious Eats

Sautéed Vegetables – Crisp, Healthy, And Delicious

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Every great blog deserves a great first post. Even though there’s not all too much to write about yet, I’ll use this time to simply welcome you to the site. My name is Jay Gaulard and I’m not what you’d call a chef, a cook or even a hobbyist. I’m merely someone who has recently taken an interest in cooking and the culinary arts. I’m also someone who would enjoy learning what there is to know about how to make my way through a kitchen.

The purpose of this website is to track my milestones during this exploration. By profession, I’m a blogger and a digital entrepreneur. Over the span of my lifetime, I’ve written over 3,000 blog posts on a wide variety of topics. I’m diligent and I absolutely love to research. For the past few weeks, I’ve been unearthing resources that will assist me along this journey. I plan on bringing much of what I learn to you, via this very website.

Before I engage in any further writing on this blog, I’d like to inform you of my method. Before I write any posts, I consume myself with what it takes in order to bring you something of value. I rarely write for the sake of writing. One of my primary proficiencies is to gather and filter through enough data to make anything I post worthwhile. I also bring professional level photography to the table. My lady, Laura, takes care of that end. She’s an avid photographer and is rarely seen without a camera attached to her hip. As a matter of fact, the leading photo for this post was taken and edited by her.

Once again, welcome to the website and if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me here. I always enjoy reading email from those who have similar interests.

Would you like to learn how to cook? If so, I think I’ve got a few sites you may be interested in. They’re inspirational and packed with some great information that just may help you take the leap!

Kitchen Confidante

Baking Bites

For the Love of the South

She’s Got Flavor

Green Kitchen Stories

If you decide to visit the above website, please let me know which is your favorite and why, down in the comment section below. Thanks!