This page has various notes on cooking methods and other miscellany. It's meant to help me remember things about cooking that I don't do often or want to share with others.
Beat the eggs gently, not vigorously, and only until they're just mixed.
If you're going to add salt to the eggs before cooking, do it immediately before adding the eggs to the pan, and not before. Otherwise, the salt will break down the structure of the eggs and wreck the texture.
Fill the pot 3/4 full of water, bring to a boil. Add aromatics, salt, and acid. White wine, lemon juice, or orange juice all work. Also add a ton of Old Bay seasoning.
Potatoes: 1/4 to 1/2 lb. per person. 20-25 minutes, depending on size.
Lobster: 1/2 to 1 lobster per person. 12-15 minutes.
Sausage: 1/8 to 1/4 lb. per person. 10-15 minutes. Prefer kielbasa or andouille.
Corn on the Cob: 1/2 to 1 cob per person. 10 minutes.
Clams: 3-6 per person. 10 minutes. Prefer littleneck, Manila, or steamer clams. Scrub before cooking.
Blue Crabs: 2-4 crabs per person. 10 minutes.
Crawfish: 3-6 per person. 8 minutes.
Mussels: 3-6 per person. 5 minutes. Wash and de-beard before cooking.
Shrimp: 4-6 per person. 3 minutes. The bigger, the better.
These are some principles of cooking vegetarian food. Since switching to the Mediterranean diet in an effort to be healthier, this has become very important to me.
Combine protein and fiber in each meal.
Slow roasting intensifies flavor and alters the texture of food.
This makes foods more filling and can mimic the meat-eating experience.
Savory flavor profiles have a pleasant rounding-out effect.
This is more of a general cooking principle than a vegetarian one. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
These are seasoning blends that are meant to typify a particular region or culture's cuisine.
The following are traditional roles in a French-style restaurant kitchen. This is referred to as the brigade de cuisine.
Then we have the chefs de partie - the station chefs.
After this, there's a few others.
Sharpen your knives. By all the gods, sharpen your knives. Daily.
1a) believing the baking times on the recipe. Every oven is different, every time you use that oven is different, etc. Timers are useful for reminding you that you have something in the oven, but beyond that you have to know what done looks/feels like. Probe thermometers are your friend.
1b) believing your oven is the temperature it says it is. It probably isn't. It certainly isn't that temperature everywhere.
1c) Trusting the recipe. Sometimes recipes are wrong about things, even from otherwise solid bakers. Baking intuition takes time to develop, but if something seems wrong, it very well might be. It's okay to throw in an extra handful of flour or a couple tablespoons of water if it seems like you need it.
Underkneading and overworking. Can you overknead the bread dough? Probably not. You will melt your muscles or your mixer before that happens. But after the bulk ferment and now it's time to shape? People screw things up here all the time. Do not make it into a shape that you don't want it to stay. Don't make the dough into a ball and then try to roll it out into a pretzel or a baguette. Only touch the dough to make clear, specific progress towards the shape you want.
Underbaking things. Home bakers (and particularly Americans) are so terrified of overbaking things that they wildly, tragically underbake them. Some things (brownies, snicker doodles) are best if you just barely bake them, but a lot of things (particularly breads, viennoiserie, some cookies, etc) need to get properly, richly browned. Color is flavor! Raw flour doesn't taste good! Gelatinize your starches, caramelize some sugars, and crisp up that crust, people!s