Macaroni and cheese - black pepper, fresh diced tomato, green onions, heavy whipping cream + some starch water (emulsify away, baby!)
Taco sauce topping optional.
TIL the reason cream with macaroni sits well with me even better than without, but with butter it's worse, it's because cream is already naturally emulsified (wow?!) and cream if straight up fats which makes it even more separated.
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Random Personal Cooking Lessons From Not Terribly Distant History (might remove later idk lol)
cooking lessons for myself, not saying not obvious to everyone else) over time
Emulsify the mac and cheese - starch water, 35% cream (not butter!) - cream is already emulsified
Pay attention to water release. Pay attention to water release. Pay attention to water release
A stir fry where you want the vegetables crispy still kind of crispy and not floppy and soggy, do not add the salt until the very end. Otherwise, it will release the water and it will be both floppy, and create a stew on the bottom of the vegetables.
Add a splash of lemon juice at the end of a soup (sometimes) or stew to enhance the flavor.
Learn to use cornstarch. You won't regret it. - I need to get bolder with it though. I don't know why I struggle with this so much.
Take note of how your stomach feels when you eat foods that are too basic, not just too acidic. I've noticed that my mouth, and my stomach, tend to not love foods that are highly basic. I love ginger, but if there's too much ginger and dish, I probably won't really like it or feel terribly good eating it. (I have noticed when making ramen soups there is something different that happens; find out what that is.)
Back to cream versus butter. Cream is already emulsified! If cream has so much fat, why wouldn't you leave it? It doesn't separate between the oil and water? It's because it's already almost died. This is actually quite wondrous that mammals do this as well right from the mammette, otherwise it wouldn't work.
I have noticed that when I like to fry tofu it just goes over better if I fry it in a cooking oil that is just a little oil, and lots of margarine, then anything else. It crisps the outside of the tofu or the other oils. Just don't do it as much. I would probably need to use cornstarch to get the effect others to, and I'm still bad at that.
High heat for vegetables and things you want crispy on the outside. Soft on the inside!
For me, putting more water on the bottom of a baked food, whether I'm baking potatoes, or chicken, tends to make things go over better. They cook more evenly, and there's this really great sauciness and the food is more moist. I tend to underestimate how much it will evaporate. This not only influences the cooking in the food, but as well as the cleanup car tickets stuck to the pan.
Learning to parboil, or even in more cases lately pre-boil, vegetables before I cook them has been a complete game changer. Especially for okra. It is a whole new world now, okra Cooks more evenly, it's more tender, takes us time, and doesn't end up over seasoned over the fact that I have to cook it so long and I keep after adding water and it feels like it's either washing the flavor away or adding too much if I add more soy sauce. - a secondary thing that this has been a game changer for now, are potatoes. When making lemon potatoes I diced the potatoes and actually boiled them to to the early cooked through stage. We could have actually been eaten that way in theory probably, before I baked them at 425 ° f with that that well-seasoned stock at the bottom, too.
I tend to use black pepper, paprika, garlic, and salt in everything. (Not literally)
Black pepper and almost perfect though. Even in white pepper eggs, I add black pepper to cut the egginess.
Learning that egginess gets cut with black pepper, especially if I added in during the cooking stage has changed my eating habits entirely. - Also, see my entire procedure for cooking the perfect over easy eggs for what might have been the first time when I realized how much technique, and chemistry, influences whether food turns out the way I like and what feels good, or not. (cooking low heat at the beginning, adding black pepper especially and any other seasoning like paprika or garlic powder early, then flipping the egg and turning it on high heat all the way. Cook, to cook literally for just a couple seconds to simply “seal” over the uncooked egg, than serving. This only works though given it was cooked on low at the beginning. Otherwise, it would still be white jelly in the middle. It is important that it is basically cooked through to the point you need it cooked before the flip, because you're only going to be keeping it on for another 2 and 2 and a 1/2 seconds or something.)
Margarine agrees with my stomach. Much better than better. I don't know why. So does ghee- jono explained that this is actually what movie theater popcorn butter is. I totally taste and feel the difference.
Salt the water before boiling noodles. Always.
And instead to soak it in water, there's probably a good reason. If you boil it, the outside will likely become mushy while the inside stays undercooked.
Chop the thick stems of leafy Chinese vegetables separately from the leaves for a more even cook. Duh 😃 I don't know why it took me so long to think of this 😃
Adding lemon – I realized, back to the very basic food thing, that both for digestion and for taste, I really don't like food that is too basic. I haven't checked the chemistry for this, but it also just makes it feel less sulfuric. Hence lemon on fried fish (something taught to me when younger already)
Pay attention to the sequence if you're feeling picky of whether you put oil or soy sauce or vinegar or dry seasonings first on top of a salad, or baked foods. Remember that oil and water do not mix, like dissolves like, And this is quite obvious. But yes, dry seasonings get washed off if you add liquids on top. A practice that has become more common for me is seasoning the liquid at the bottom of a baked dish more than I used to. You don't just want the seasoning to be on top of the food; in fact, for things like black pepper, if you just pile it on there and you're cooking on high heat, it might even burn.
You can actually put onions in, green onions, closer to the end of the recipe. Recipe not only without compromising The taste, but actually making it better, then I anticipated. This effect is quite dramatic with cilantro. I noticed. If I'm making a soup with cilantro, it tastes less like cilantro if I put the cilantro to be actually boiled with the broth.. I suspect basil is similar to this.
Bruise basil. I love basil but never understood how people make it tasteable in cooking. Still working on this to be honest, I don't really understand. - huge tip: Grandma got from the internet the idea of freezing basil in olive oil. It turned out so fantastically; that that oil and herb after it came from the freezer tasted more fresh and more basil-like than any other basil I have ever had. Fantastic.
In my own cooking, this is merely preferential, but I am not above powdered garlic and onions. In fact, especially for soups. I find the flavor releases slower, in a more mucky for a very poor lack of better term, than fresh garlic. It gets in between the bits of every bite, cooking throughout the entire meal, differently ; maybe it's chemical composition transforming less than the juices of and garlic pieces. (Though not discouraging the use of actual garlic and onion, at all. I will say though that for the Chinese soy sauce sesame chili pepper, onion, cucumber salad, tend I do favor now onion powder instead of the fresh onions for most of it or even all of it when I'm on my own, because it feels less stuck in the back of my throat, staying in my breath, and affecting my stomach all day.
For me, boiling mushrooms before frying them or putting them in food like an omelette makes it so much better... And definitely save that mushroom water. Use it for the water that thins and is beat in with the eggs. Before you pour it into the pan. You won't regret it! It puts that delicious smell frame all throughout the egg, and prevents the mushroom pieces from feeling shriveled and hard, or from locking in uncooked egg. - the key aspect that got me to do this was because I was very tired of how mushrooms were basically oil sponges. I love mushrooms so much, but there came a time where I cooked some Portobello mushrooms as a steak. I was so, so excited to eat, and I could barely take a second bite. It was an oil sponge and that was neither healthy nor tasty nor something my stomach could handle. But on the basis of like dissolves like and oil and water do not mix because of polar versus nonpolar molecules, if I were to boil the mushroom first, it prevents it from taking in all the oil, including taking it away from the rest of the dish if the mushrooms go in earlier. Otherwise, I'd find myself having to add three times the amount of butter or other fats that I was planning on using. Just because the mushroom is mopping it all up and I would have to add more oil, and/ore more water to stop everything from sticking. But if it was water, it would indeed make everything else less tasty and cooked differently because now it is being steamed or broiled, not fried.
Going to be captain freaking obvious here, Mel, but he's heat speeds up chemical reactions. So if you find you put something in at the wrong time, no, keeping it on. The heat does not help. You go back in time as if because you're not done cooking because it's still on the heat, that means you have more time than you do. It's probably doing the opposite.
^ acids May speed up reactions too, such as tomato in an emulsification situation. This is why when I made the macaroni and cheese, not only where starch, water and heavy cream important for emulsification, the feeling that I noted that it wasn't a good thing when I added the green onions earlier rather than later, is valid. Same goes with adding the tomatoes. I still have to Google more about the onions, but I am more convinced of that than the tomatoes. I think I was over conservative this last time. I made it because of fearing overstopping the ulcification process and then I put the tomatoes in. If anything maybe a little too late and they more fresh than I'd have liked. (But it's okay; just a learning opportunity).
Onion and garlic are not interchangeable. I knew that already, but listen to my gut. Adding the bit of garlic powder to the other night's mac and cheese was definitely a mistake. It's okay, that was intentional experimentation. I did have the feeling wasn't going to be something I loved, but I'm glad I explored it.
^ When you make the soy sauce okra that also comes into play. Fresh or roasted garlic. All the way; maybe a dash of the powdered could be good too, but for this one I do quite prefer only the fresh real deal.
Adding a bit of butter and/ or margarine at the “bottom” / when frying the fragrant ingredients before boiling vegetarian soup broth. (Or any, I suspect. Though I don't know her from tasting it because I am a vegetarian lol.) It gives it a deeper flavor, enhances the umami of any mushrooms there and acts almost like MSG to me. Instead of adding MSG to soup. When I did get it, I just added the butter and/ or margarine and it did it instead in a way that I enjoyed and like more.** This is a big one though with vegetarian brothy stuff for me. A dollop of margarine (margarine for me, I prefer that over butter or increasing dairy consumption. Generally, the butter is freshly because my stomach is indeed sensitive to it- eggs cooked in butter versus eggs cooked in margarine can make all the difference for me depending on how it was cooked, health in the egg, possibly, etc.)
Remember, salt releases water.
^I said that already before, but it deserves to be said twice. It it genuinely changes the cooking experience, the bubbling of ingredients in the textures that are formed, flavors mixed, created, watered down, caramelized or not... So many levels. Pudding salt at the time that feels intuitive; the time that feels beneficial to change the way the bubbling happens, the temperature of the food even (ALSO: remember that salt melts ice - relevant for Frozen ingredients that you did not defrost - and takes water down a notch from boiling. Take that into consideration with your timing, not only flavor, Also, remembering that salt and water, continues to begin to more salt into the vegetables or ingredients in your food.
Remember to be diligent though it is hard to do so without anxiety or worry worry for an overthinker- it is true that if you mess up the chemical reaction in your cooking, This does enter into your ingredients very fast, especially on heat though not limited to it (as early as the first touch of soy sauce, or vinegar atop a salad of fresh or merely blanched vegetables though especially fresh).
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