Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
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I add _____ to macaroni & cheese
Bleu cheese. Any kind, the stinkier, the better. I love the tang of bleu mixed with smooth cheddar. MMmmmm. And then, since there's bleu cheese, crumbled bacon. And veggies, if I must.
Responses to Comments by laurenbpgh
I add _____ to macaroni & cheese
@kristyandjamey...wow...thanks for posting a comment on my post from over a year ago :) Gorgonzola is one of my favorite cheeses.
SE's....any other new additions to you mac & cheese since talked about it last year?
I add _____ to macaroni & cheese
I like Gorgonzola cheese and diced granny smith apples. I got this idea when a friend took me to a restaurant in San Francisco called Solstice. They do it there and let me tell you...Oh My Gosh! It's the best ever!!!
Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
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Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
The single most important ingredient is shopping -- or sourcing. Finding really great quality... or unusual ... spices or condiments or whatever you want to put together. Eventually. So for me, I have a pantry of exotica... that I use to augment the freshest basic ingredients I can find.
You can't improvise if there are no ingredients to improvise from. And if the ingredients are second rate, the results show up on the plate.
You can have great technique, but if a box of instant oatmeal is all that's in your pantry, you're not making anything much more exotic or interesting than oatmeal.
Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
The single most important element in cooking:
Fresh and high-quality ingredients. Even the simplest recipe or technique benefits and is enhanced by what you put in as much as what you do to it.
Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
I feel the most important element, other than that quality of the food you purchase, is your attitude towards it. If you love food and love to cook, it shows. If you are having a bad day and you are frustrated, that frustration will turn up in your finished dish.
Techniques mean nothing if there is no love.
Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
To me the most important element of cooking is never giving up on yourself and what you are capable of. Not even the top chefs in world succeed everytime. Sometimes it may take multiples failures (I like to call them carry out nights) to get the dish where you want it to be.
Through each of those failures is a chance to step back, mentally replay the dish, and learn something that will carry you forward.
That lesson could be something as simple as create a slurry instead of throwing the cornstarch into the sauce you want to thicken to write down your entire step process before starting the dish to avoid missing a crucial step.
Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Elements of Cooking'
It's about balance, contrast and composition within each dish, and of the dishes in an entire meal.
A balance and contrast of:
1) taste - sweet, sour, savory, spicy, etc;
2) cooking techniques - sauteed, poached, broiled, fried
3) texture - crispy, tender, chewy
4) rich/light
5) temperature - cold, room, hot
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