Myths about food come from a variety of sources, and American cooks (myself included) have swallowed many of them. Some of them were once true, such as the idea that you should only eat oysters during the “R” months. (Before they were stored in the refrigerator, shellfish were safer to eat in the winter.) Some came from restaurant kitchens, like the rule not to wash mushrooms. (When you're ready to use it, it's perfectly fine to wash the dirt off. Just don't store it after washing; it will spoil if it gets wet.) There are some things that are simply superstitions. than the white one. (They are the same inside the shell; the color is usually determined by the chicken's feathers.)
The following five concepts are the ones I have believed the longest and the ones that have puzzled me the most. I consulted the latest research, called an expert, bought two additional rice cookers, and tracked down farmers to find out truth or myth.
Truth or Myth: Never use soap to clean cast iron pans.
Aside from the best way to cook rice, nothing pisses off culinary science types more than cast iron pots. If you've never cooked in the kitchen, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about both cooking and cleaning.
In cooking, cast iron is great for grilling because it is very heavy and has a slightly rougher, porous surface compared to smooth stainless steel or non-stick coatings. The surface absorbs oil and hardens with heat and time to a shiny, nearly non-stick patina. This process is called seasoning, but not in the sense of adding salt for flavor, but in the sense of developing a commonly used and reliable tool.
I've heard that you can cook omelets without sticking in a really well-seasoned iron pan, but since I'm a chicken, I can't try that. I was also told that the best way to clean a frying pan was to boil it and bury it in sand, never wash it. None of these seem like realistic options.
The ban on soap comes from a time when all soap was made with lye, which could eat away at the patina in minutes. And it's also true that soap is not necessary in most cases. Most of the cleaning power comes from hot water and gentle scrubbing and brushing, the traditional method of cleaning cast iron pots such as woks and Indian kadais.
Use a well-seasoned skillet for cooking recipes from the New York Times. skillet spanakopita | Spicy black bean bake with cheese flavor | Skillet chicken with mushrooms and caramelized onions | bacon and egg skillet pasta | mixed rice | cheese frittata | miso mustard salmon | Shrimp saganaki | strawberry pudding cake | skillet chocolate chip cookies | one pot turkey chili and biscuits
However, cooking large quantities of bacon or tough steaks can leave more residue in the pan than the hot water can handle. A few drops of dish soap and a plastic scrubber will remove just enough of the grease from the pan to remove the cooked bits and move on to the final cleaning step. You need to dry the frying pan over low heat so that it remains glossy even when the latest layer of oil adheres to the surface.
Also, if you use too much soap or scrub a little too hard (or if your guests put your prized vintage Wagner in the dishwasher), you might remove some of the patina. But just as you can build patina, you can also rebuild it. Soap comes in handy in times like this. A metal pad allows you to scrape rust down to the surface of the cast iron and then start the seasoning process again.
Verdict: False. A little soap won't damage your cast iron pan unless you use scouring powder or drain cleaner.
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Truth or Myth: The water you boil your pasta in should taste as salty as the ocean.
Where did this myth come from? In Italy, “brining'' is probably understood to mean adding a palmful of salt to a standard 5-liter pasta pot. (The superstition that Italian cooks debate is not whether to add salt, but when.)
And more importantly, what does the ocean taste like in the first place? According to NASA, the average salinity of Earth's oceans is 3.5 percent by weight. This equates to 35 grams of salt per liter of water, or half a cup per gallon for home cooks.
To test the myth, we cooked eight batches of spaghetti with salinity levels ranging from zero to Pacific (3%) to Mediterranean (4%). It was confirmed that the sea water was salty. When I increased the kosher salt from 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon per gallon, the pasta became severely undersalted and the finished dish lost its flavor. I liked water best as salty as light chicken stock, or 2 tablespoons per gallon of water.
Use the NYT Cooking recipe below to make properly salted pasta and noodles. creamy turmeric pasta | Mushroom with honey udon noodles | Pasta con parta (creamy avocado pasta) | caramel zucchini pasta | Pasta alla Norma | Baked spinach and artichoke pasta | Gochujang butter noodles | Chili oil noodles with coriander | Spaghetti and drop meatballs with tomato sauce | Mapo tofu spaghetti
Of course, the brine rule doesn't apply to all types of noodles. Italian pasta does not contain salt. Salt prevents gluten development, so the pasta can be rolled into sheets (for fresh pasta) or extruded through a machine (for dried pasta). Salt is added to the boiling water to add flavor and reduce the stickiness of the noodles.
Asian wheat noodles such as udon and lo mein have alkaline salt added to the dough and are traditionally cooked in unsalted water. Rice noodles are unsalted. Like rice, it is usually cooked in unsalted water because its flavor is said to be natural and fresh.
Verdict: False. Add salt to taste.
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Truth or Myth: Always wash rice before cooking until the water runs clear.
For centuries, the process of milling white, brown, sticky, and sweet rice produced bran, chaff, and dust that, when stored, attracted pests, fungi, and rot. Therefore, for reasons of hygiene, safety, and general disease control, rice absolutely needed to be washed. This is done by changing the water many times until the initially cloudy water becomes clear.
Now, milled rice is sealed in oxygen-free tanks and stored for decades, and the latest research shows that washing has no effect on how well the rice cooks. Modern growers claim that cleaning is not necessary. So, is that necessary? If so, will a simple rinse be enough or will I need to change the water multiple times?
The answer depends on what kind of rice you're cooking.
New York Times Cooking rice recipes: coriander rice | dirty rice | coconut rice | Tuna mayo bowl | Arroz Chaufa (chicken and pepper fried rice) | sticky coconut chicken and rice | Arroz con pollo | Arroz con pollo verde | One pot chicken and ginger rice | Vegetable paella with chorizo | jollof rice
Instead of measuring short, medium, and long grains, it makes more sense to think about the world's two main rice varieties: indica and japonica. Most rice is indica rice. It is long-grained or medium-grained and includes Indian basmati, Thai jasmine, carolina, and parkok rice like golden sera, which is used in West African jollof rice. Japonica rice includes Spanish Bomba, Italian Arborio, and Japanese rices such as Koshihikari and Nishiki. Most are short grains. However, not all are short grains.
Now they all arrive in our kitchens milled, washed and lightly dusted with our own starch. However, at the molecular level, starch behaves a little differently. When the microscopic granules expand in hot water and burst during cooking, japonica releases a more sticky starch. This is (part of the reason) why indica is cooked lighter and drier, and japonica is denser and has a pearly sheen. Both types are sticky enough to stick together when cooked, but the starch won't stick to your teeth.
I've always wondered if I could tell the difference between wash-free rice and wash-free rice, so I bought a rice cooker and cooked three types of wash-free rice and wash-free rice side by side: Koshihikari, jasmine, and basmati.
In the case of indica rice (jasmine and basmati), there was almost no difference between washed and washed rice. As for the japonica, to my taste, the washed rice had only a trace amount of starch, taking it from what was already excellent to perfect.
Verdict: False. Short-grain and medium-grain (japonica) rice can be washed to reduce stickiness, but it is not necessary. Long grain rice (indica) only needs to be washed.
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Truth or Myth: Before you start cooking, prepare all the ingredients and heat the cooking oil.
So many dishes around the world are made from boiling aromatic ingredients (garlic, ginger, chili peppers, lemongrass) and vegetables (onions, celery, carrots) in hot oil, such as soffritto, mirepoix, recite, and guinisa. to start. And most published recipes, including those from New York Times Cooking, tell you to prepare all the ingredients separately and heat the oil (or butter or lard) until it “shimmers” before you begin cooking. is instructed.
But a few years ago, I started speeding up the process by adding ingredients directly from the cutting board to a pot of oil. Then put the pot on low heat and warm the ingredients as you work, adding each new ingredient and stirring as it's ready. It only heats up once everything is chopped, chopped, diced, and evenly coated with oil.
Slow soups and stews from the New York Times: italian wedding soup | tortellini soup | cabbage soup with parmesan cheese | potato soup | gyoza noodle soup | harira soup | split pea soup | won-ton soup | butternut squash soup | miso soup | egusi soup | Kale soup with potatoes and sausage | chickpea harissa soup | Ticha (barley and tomato soup) | Pickle soup (Ogorkova Zupa) | tomato and parmesan soup | Gochujang potato stew
This may not be a happy moment at all for most cooks, but it goes against the instructions of almost every published recipe. The common belief that you need to have all your ingredients ready before you start cooking comes from restaurant kitchens, where the concept of “mise en place” is based, which is French for “arrangement.”
From outdoor food stalls to high-end kitchens, professional chefs start with prepared ingredients and cook to order. He concentrates on one frying pan (or wok or tadka) at a time. This is perfect for stir-fries, where the cook is constantly moving ingredients around in the pot. Also, when frying or pan-frying, starting with an empty skillet and super-hot oil is essential to the cooking process.
However, for slow dishes like soups and stews, it's perfectly fine to start the pot on low heat and turn it up to high heat once everything is in it. Diced vegetables like onions and celery take longer to cook than chopped savory vegetables like ginger and garlic. , So add the vegetables first. They soften, then turn golden brown, then caramelized quite a while later. (Speaking of which, another persistent myth in American cooking is that it takes 8 to 10 minutes to caramelize onions. Unless it's work, it's almost impossible.)
Verdict: False. If you want to cook something quickly, preheated oil and pre-prepared ingredients are essential. However, for other recipes, it's best to start low and slow.
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Truth or Myth: Always brown the meat at the beginning of the cooking process to “lock in” the juices.
Historians prefer to debate when humans discovered cooking (2 million to 70,000 years ago), but they agree on this: meat (or poultry, fish, reptiles, amphibians) Grilling over an open fire was the first step toward home cooking.
