Tag Archives: cooking

Why I Like Cooking Better than Baking

by stuporglue Posted on November 19, 2010

It was Caroline’s birthday this week, and I baked a boxed angel food cake. It reminded me once again that I don’t really like baking. The thing is, I love cooking. As I thought about this seemingly odd discrepancy more, I think I figured out why.

The Cooking Process

Cooking is an ongoing process. You can change directions mid-recipe pretty easily. You taste the sauce, add something else, brown the chicken a little more, decide to chop it up and use it as a salad instead. If you cook like me, you don’t even always have to know what you’re making when you start — just start cooking the core ingredient and add whatever spices and extras you find as you pillage the cupboards.

I might see a pork roast and some apples in the kitchen, and know that somewhere between the two lies a delicious roast. I’ll then go see what spices and sauces we have to make a glaze and just start mixing. I won’t know where I’m going with it, I’ll just keep tasting and adding things till I get there — and I almost always arrive somewhere acceptable, if not delicious.

Balking at Baking

With baking, you need to get everything together and correctly proportioned at the beginning. If you add too little salt or too much yeast, your bread isn’t going to turn out correctly. Baking requires planning and understanding of how yeast, flour, sugar and water interact in different proportions and what happens internally when the ingredients are left to rise, kneaded, baked quickly or slowly, etc.

The planning ahead requirement makes it so I can’t easily experiment and adjust as the baked good is forming.

A Sports Metaphor

If I had to make a sports metaphor, Baking is like bowling. You line everything up at the beginning, then let it go. Once it’s started, there’s no pulling back. Cooking is more like curling. You start in a direction, but along the way you can add and remove things to adjust your destination.

Now that I think I know why I don’t care much for baking, I’ll be watching for baking vs. cooking type feelings towards other activities in my life.

Posted in Moore's Ramblings, Something Interesting | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Cooking Brazilian Rice

by stuporglue Posted on July 17, 2010

This is part 2 of a series on Brazilian cooking. Several more articles are scheduled for the next two weeks. Part 1 of the series was Cooking Brazilian Beans.

Brazilian Rice

Before going to Brazil I don’t think I would have paired rice and beans together. I mean, sure there was often Spanish rice and re-fried beans on taco night at home, but beans ON rice wouldn’t have crossed my mind. One of the great things about traveling is that you get to experience new things. Beans and rice is one of those experiences you will want to bring back home.

I was taught visually without measurements but these are approximations should turn out well. Modify them to suit your tastes if it doesn’t turn out how you want.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Long grain rice
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tbsp oil (soy oil is typical in Brazil, canola or other vegetable oil works fine)
  • 1/4 onion, chopped
  • 2 teeth of garlic, crushed or chopped

Instructions

Add the rice, onion, garlic and oil to a wide saucepan and turn the stove to medium heat. Simmer and fry it, stirring frequently until the rice turns white and shiny. At about the same time the onion should be wilted and just barely starting to brown, and the garlic smell should be making you hungry.

Add the water, stir it up once quickly and put a lid on the pan.

Simmer on medium-low until the water is gone. The rice should be soft but not sticky. If it’s too hard add a few tablespoons of water and DO NOT STIR.

Fluff it with a big wooden spoon and serve.

Variations

A popular change is to add vegetables that steam well to the rice while it is cooking (green beans, zucchini, broccoli, chopped carrots, peas). Other changes include adding chicken broth instead of water (or bullion cubes with the water), adding cooked chicken or meat to the rice before or after cooking, or using the rice in fried rice or stir-fry. Enjoy!

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Cooking Brazilian Beans

by stuporglue Posted on July 14, 2010

This is part 1 of a series on Brazilian cooking. Several more articles are scheduled for the next two weeks.

Brazilian Beans

Lunch in Brazil is typically centered around a plate of delicious rice and beans. A pile of white non-sticky rick with a s generous helping of soft beans in their own sauce (their starch thickens up the cooking water forming something like a gravy). Next week’s article will explore lunch more fully — for today, let’s focus on the beans.

Beans for lunch every day may sound monotonous, but it grows on you. I grew to love them so much when I was an exchange student that the first thing I bought when I returned to Brazil two years later the first thing I bought was a pressure cooker. I still consider that pressure cooker to be one of my best purchases ever.

There is some disagreement amongst Brazilians about which type of beans should be used for rice and beans. In Minas and São Paulo it was mainly brown beans with the occasional appearance of black or red beans. Here in the USA I use dried pinto beans or black beans. I am growing some Italian Rose and Purple King beans in my garden this year to use as well.

With my first host family, my host father and mother would sit at the kitchen table each evening to pick the rocks out of the beans while talking about the day and drinking. Most people I knew didn’t pick out rocks, I think they are screened better today than they used to be.

Ingredients

  • Pressure Cooker
  • 2 cups dried beans
  • 4 cups water
  • Spices to taste
    • Oregano
    • Garlic
    • Other (?) — less common options include cumin and rosemary
  • Salt
  • Meat (optional)

Instructions

Throw everything into the pressure cooker. The best tasting beans will have a piece of salty flavorful meat cooked with them. Bacon is a good choice, as is good sausage or a piece of fatty pork. I’m somewhat partial to pork products it seems. Beef works well too, but chicken will need a little bit of chicken bullion added to make up for the weak flavor.

Close the pressure cooker and put it on high until it reaches pressure, then turn it down so that it just keeps the pressure up. After 45 minutes (35 for black beans) cool the pan so you can open it then see how soft the beans are.

Bean Doneness

Bean doneness is mostly a matter of personal preference. If you are making soup or salad with them, stop cooking when you can press them with a fork, but they are still firm and pasty.

For refried beans, stop when they mash easily with a fork and have a creamy texture.

For Rice and Beans, you need to stop somewhere in the middle. Ideally you will still have liquid in with the beans. Press several spoonfulls of beans against the side of the pressure cooker and then simmer to help thicken the liquid. You should end up with beans that are extremely soft and creamy but not falling apart in a tasty bean gravy.

Two Day Beans

Some of my most successful times cooking beans have been leftovers.

I stop cooking them when they were still more firm then you want them. They should still be edible and soft enough that you can mash them, but firm enough that you have to do so intentionally.

I let the beans cool down on the stove instead of putting them right in the refrigerator. The next day the liquid had thickened up, the beans had continued to cook as the pan cooled down, and the flavor from the sausage had permeated the beans more thoroughly.

Unfortunately this requires more planning than making beans the same day you want to eat them.

Variations

Once you can cook beans in a pressure cooker a world of options opens up. Add cumin, stewed tomatoes, onions and ground beef for chili. Drain the beans while firm for use in salads and soups. Keep cooking them till they’re mushy, add sour cream, chives and cilantro for a fantastic bean dip. Cook your pork or chicken in with the beans and get juicy fall-apart mean with great tasting beans. Enjoy!

Posted in Brazil, Rotary Youth Exchange | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments