Apologies

My apologies for the lack of posts this week. It's been quite hectic, and it will continue to be hectic for a few days more. I'll try to get something out over the weekend, but (somewhat) normal posting should resume on Monday.

On Marinading

Not all cuts of meat are created equal. Some are flavorful, some are bland. Some melt in your mouth like butter, some are tough and chewy enough to almost not be worth eating. Fortunately, most meat-based problems can be solved through ample application of a marinade. A good marinade will do three things: tenderize the meat, keep it moist, and impart flavor. Flavor is the easy part - toss ingredients into a bag, and the liquid will more or less taste like a lovely mess of those ingredients... assuming that the meat is moist and properly tenderized. So how does one construct a good marinade? 

Without marinade, I guarantee you this would be awful.

kongsky / freedigitalphotos.net

Spicy Sausage Soup

When I made my last soup, I realized that soup is an outstanding way to make an easy, delicious, healthy meal. I had some stuff laying around this week and decided to see what kind of soup I could make from it. It's simultaneously pseudo-Italian and a little bit Hispanic. Importantly, it's all around delicious. It's nice and hearty. It would be a great thing to come inside to after a cool, crisp fall day. It even has all those lovely fall colors.

Liquid autumn.

On Fermentation

Last night, Abel and I transferred all the lovely beer from our primary fermentation vessel to a secondary fermentation vessel. The primary fermentor was a straight up white plastic bucket with an airlock drilled into the lid; the secondary fermentor is a traditional carboy. Most people who make beer or wine use one of these. Our carboy is plastic instead of glass. The general consensus seems to be that plastic carboys are lighter and safer than glass, and that the difference in material doesn't really affect the taste. In honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to talk a bit about fermentation (with an emphasis on its application to brewing).

The carboy, full of delicious beer.

In Which I Follow Recipes for Indian Food (Sometimes)

Last night, I was having company and decided that I wanted to try making Indian food. I had never made any Indian food before, and I had only ever tried a few dishes, but I wanted to cook something that was both vegetarian and delicious. Chana masala was the first thing that came to mind. I also chose to make saag, an awesome spinach dish that I tasted once before. Given my total lack of experience with Indian food, I decided to follow recipes. For the most part, at least. I wanted to give my guests the option of meat, so I did do a little inventing. I had awesome yogurt-marinated chicken from an Indian restaurant back when I lived in Hoboken, NJ, so I cobbled together a recipe based on that ideal.

No picture, unfortunately. Didn't really end up having time to take one.

On Capsaicin

In my recent post on conceptual cooking, I wrote for a little bit about spicy food. My brother gave me a bottle of crazy hot sauce to play around with for a birthday present, so in honor of that I thought it would be fun to write a bit about hot hot foods in general.

Image: cjansuebsri / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sausage and Broccoli Pasta

What follows may be one of my less inspired dishes, but it's absolutely awesome and it's really easy to make. And fret not, I put at least a little bit of a personal touch to it. I love the way the heat of the sausage works with the almost creamy texture of steamed broccoli. A bit of tang from some lemon goes a long way to round out a great flavor profile for this dish.

Broccoli and sausage make a phenomenal pairing.

Hops in the White House

Folks, this is a major home brewing update. Regardless of political affiliations, my respect for the president just increased about tenfold. Why? It seems that Obama has begun engaging in the wonderful (and somewhat historic) past time of brewing beer.

We Begin! Pale Ale #1 (Bonus: Metapizza)

The delicate and lovely process of brewing beer has begun! My good friend Abel and I are brewing beer together, and we've decided to start out with somewhat standard pale ale. He and I are both what I would consider "beer geeks." We like beer, and we love trying and exploring variants of the basic recipe, but in general we just love beer in all its forms. We recently split the price of some brewing equipment, and tonight we began the actual process of creating our own beer.

Abel and I (right and left respectively) are beered up and ready to get brewing. My new beard looks more red than I expected.

Why Garlic Is Awesome

Garlic just might be my favorite ingredient. There's nothing else that's so capable of giving a dish pop and pow - it's a strong flavor that can either complement other ingredients or stand on its own as the focus of a dish. So what is it that makes garlic so magical?

Pictured: perfection.

Tomato Asparagus Soup

It seems I'm running out of food. My apartment's pantry is getting bare, and my refrigerator is looking more desolate every time I open it. I didn't really have many fresh ingredients sitting around, so I decided to use up as man of them as I could in a single dish. And that dish was a soup!

Can't beat soup for simplicity and taste.

Amateur Mixology: Caribbean Winter

Having completed (and hopefully passed) my first real exam in medical school, I decided that a celebratory drink was in order. Tragically, I came home to find that my fridge was all out of beer. I improvised! Now I've developed a fairly tasty little cocktail to enjoy on those sad, beerless nights. No image, sadly: it's decidedly difficult to take a good picture of a beverage with a non-professional digital camera.

Conceptual Cooking

Apologies for not posting last night; I have a huge exam coming up and my time is getting precious. I couldn't abide the thought of two postless days in a row, though, so I decided to write up a quick one for today. Rather than a recipe, I want to talk about the concepts I try to keep in mind when I'm cooking. This is something that I'm probably going to revisit over and over again over the lifetime of this blog, and it is hand-down the most important thing for someone to realize if they're learning how to cook.

Tasty Bratwurst, and Pasta with Bite

My German ancestors would either be very proud of me or hang their heads in shame. The standard accompaniment to bratwurst is a good hot potato salad and some sauerkraut. Although I adore both of those things, I didn't really have all the necessary ingredients for either one. No cabbage, no bacon, not a lot of potato action... truly a shame. But I really, really wanted bratwurst. So I improvised! Sauerkraut and hot German potato salad together bring three important things to the meal: sour, sweet, and starch. I got the sour and starch from a pasta dish I came up with, and the sweetness came from a lovely topping for the sausage. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty great meal.

Click it. It'll be outrageously satisfying.

Let the Madness Begin

The time has come. My buddy Abel and I have bought our first set of beer ingredients. Nothing huge, nothing creative - just beer.

Science: Asparagus Revisited (With Bonus Urine!)

In my previous recipe, I mentioned my love of asparagus. I was talking to a friend online as I cooked, and he told me that although he loved asparagus, he hated how it made his urine smell. I've heard people mention in the past that asparagus gives their urine a distinctive sulfurous stench, but I personally have always been unaffected. So, why does asparagus make your pee smell? And why does it happen to some people and not others? The answer, it turns out, is more interesting than you might think.

Pseudo-Caribbean Chicken and Crunchy Bananas

So, I wanted to try making something with a bit of a Caribbean feel to it. Note that I don't really know anything about how to actually cook a Caribbean-ish meal, but I had a concept in my mind and had to work towards it. I went for a marinated chicken dish, and had a flash of inspiration and decided to do something interesting with bananas for a side dish. I couldn't figure out what else to do with the meal (No rice! No beans!) so I rounded it off with asparagus because, well... I just like asparagus.

The successful product of utter guesswork.

Update on Vinegar for Eggs

So I looked into exactly why it is that vinegar helps poaching eggs keep their shape.

11:30 Ramen That Doesn't Suck

So, ramen noodles would be pretty good if it weren't for the fact that, well, they kind of suck. That said, you sure as hell can't beat the price or ease of use. When it's late and I'm lazy, a souped-up (heh) ramen soup is my go-to.

Bold Beginnings

As a medical student, it isn't always terribly easy to make wonderful food for yourself. Studies are time consuming, and putting an hour a day to the side in order to have a prepare and eat a good meal isn't always the first thing on someone's mind. For me, cooking has been a way to relax and enjoy myself for years. I first started to dabble while studying abroad at Scotland's University of Dundee. I had to, really - there was no dining hall, and the UK is an expensive enough place to live without eating out every day. When I came back stateside, I tried to keep up the habit and began using cooking as a way to unwind and distract myself from my studies. That half hour or hour of cooking that for some seems so pointless is a pleasant diversion for me. That said, I'll be doing my best in the coming years to make the most of my cooking time. It's a goal of mine to make tasty and (somewhat) healthy food in as quick and easy a way as possible. As I experiment, I'll be posting pictures, recipes, and reviews for whatever it is I happen to concoct.

And speaking of concoctions, there are few things I enjoy more than a well-brewed beer. I'm a bit of a beer geek, and my infatuation with the beverage runs the gamut from doppelbocks and dubbels to pale ales and pilsners. I love trying new things, and I love trying to dissect and analyze them. Perhaps more importantly, today I received a set of homebrewing equipment I ordered online. I'll be developing and brewing beers with a good friend of mine, and I'll try to give you a glimpse into what it is we're doing and why we're doing it.

Of course, nothing I do would be complete without throwing just the least bit of science into the mix. I'll do my best to keep it under control.