Cooking tips for the complete idiot.

[Dirx]

I can cook some stuff. Meatloaf, roasts, pasta. Good stuff. But those are all really simple. There's other stuff out there that's also pretty simple, but for one who hasn't tried it yet, can sound mildly daunting. While I'm starting this thread off with a question of my own, I want this to be a place were other beginner cooks come to ask questions no matter how "stupid" they may sound, as well as for more experienced cooks to chime in with tips, tricks, and whatnot that help explain the more "complicated" recipes.

My question: help me with stir-fry. I found some good-looking chinese and thai spices the other day, and I'd love to try them out in stir-fry or something. Then I noticed that, apparently, you need cooking oil for stir-frying. And then I got complicated advice about the order to put things into my pan, and it was largely over my head (I can't just toss it all in together?). Remember that my cooking involves putting together the obvious ingredients, then boiling/baking, then eating. Like I said, very simple stuff. So, in stupid-simple words, wok me through it (HaHA! ..ahem, sorry..). How do I cook with oil? I know it can be dangerous to use--any tips to keep it safer? Alternatives to make it easier? I have boneless chicken breasts that I'll cut into little chunks, as well as frozen veggies perfect for a stir-fry. The oil I have is vegetable oil--I don't know the functional differences between the various kinds I saw at the market; do they make a difference?

I await your expert advice.

[Metallic Squink]

I wouldn't say I am an expert but I think I can help a little. The main differences in the different types of oils is taste. Some do burn more easily than others but you should be fine with vegetable oil. If you are doing a chicken stir-fry, heat the oil for a minute or two and then add the chicken. This is really only dangerous if you let the oil get too hot and then it would splatter on you and most likely ruin your chicken. Once the chicken cooks, take it out of the oil and add the vegetables. I don't usually work with frozen vegetables so I don't know if you'll need to thaw them before you stir-fry. Once the vegetables are mostly cooked (don't over do it, though - they will taste better if they are a little crunchy), add the chicken back in and heat everything through for another minute or so. I'm not good with dry spices but if you were going to add a sauce, this is probably when you would do that (towards the end - you don't want the sauce to burn).

Good luck!

[Darmund]

I make a pretty good stir-fry sauce with sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar.

[Joey P]

I'm not a stir fry person, so I don't know if you typically would add garlic to that, but here's a tip if you do. In fact this goes for anytime you add garlic to something you are pan frying or sauteing. I don't care what the directions say. The garlic goes in last, and it really should only cook for like a minute, at the most. It goes from raw to burned very very very quickly and burned garlic is gross, really gross, hard and crunchy and bitter and ewww.

Also, a hot pan and a cold pan look exactly the same.

[LordVor]

The different oils also "burn" at different temperatures, you can cook hotter (better for stir fry) with peanut oil, which I tend to use for stir-fry. If water hits oil, it'll evaporate immediately and "splatter", so I tend to avoid frozen veggies (they usually end up mushy in stir fry anyway) and pat the chicken dry before putting it in the pan.

You want to season your meat and cook it first, because it takes longer than veggies and you (food safety wise) don't usually want raw veggies touching raw meat. When it's practically done (cut a sample piece in half with the spatula and see that it's done in the middle), take it out and add the veggies (spice the veggies, too). Just give them a couple-minutes, you don't want them mushy. Then reduce the heat, add the meat back in, and add any sauce you want to use, and spice to taste.

[Solfy]

I've stir fried with vegetable oil and frozen veggies. I only use enough oil to keep the chicken from sticking - maybe a tablespoon. You definitely do want to cook your chicken first. You can take it out to cook the veggies, but what I do is cook the chicken cubes until they're mostly (but not completely) done, then throw in the frozen veggies. If you're mixing raw and frozen veggies, you'll either want to put the raw ones in a few minutes before the frozen ones, or pre-cook them. (when using fresh carrots I nuke them for a couple minutes so they're halfway cooked, then they go in with the frozen veggies)

If you've got a lid, it's handy when the frozen veggies go in. It keeps the steam in and steams everything together. If not, that's okay. You'll still need to turn everything a few times. When the veggies are uniformly hot, add your sauce, give a little stir to mix everything, and pull it from the heat. Any longer and you'll have mushy veggies.

[Jenny Haniver]

Oil: The difference between different oils is smoke point. If you use an oil with too low a smoke point, it will smoke, spatter, and make your food taste nasty. This is why you don't deep fry in olive oil. Stir fry is also a very high heat cooking method so you will need an oil with a high smoke point.

Usually vegetable oil has a pretty high smoke point, although you don't know for sure what the mix is so it can vary. Generally, you can deep fry or stir fry in it. Canola is also good. Lots of people swear by peanut oil for frying as well, but don't waste your money buying any of the other fancy oils for this unless you are making something that specifically calls for cooking in walnut oil (and even then I'd give it a think before following that direction.)

Addition of Ingredients: You have to add in items separately for two reasons. If you put it all in together, there will be too much stuff in the wok to heat all at once and it will take forever for the heat to penetrate, and you won't get a nice sear. Also, different items have different cooking times, so the addition is based on how long it's going to take to cook.

And in general, when dealing with hot oil, remember not to add wet things as this will make the oil spatter, and if the oil catches fire, Do not dump water in it! Leave it where it is, turn off the heat, and if you can, cover the fire to rob it of oxygen.

[Asian Bastard]

These are the rules of thumb I use when stir-frying. YMMV.

1. Stir-fried vegetables should be cooked hot and fast. Meaning a real hot pan and short cooking time, so the vegetables still have some crispness and aren't soggy. If you see cooks stir-frying in Asian restaurants, they use super-hot woks -- much hotter than most of us can safely do at home.

2. As a couple of people have mentioned, cook the meat first, remove and set aside while you cook the vegetables, then combine the meat back in and heat through.

3. If you use a sauce, add it at the last possible minute and just heat through. Otherwise the stir-fry gets soggy and soupy.

4. Add the vegetables in stages, depending on how crisp/fresh you want them to be in the final dish. I like onions to be more cooked and mushrooms less cooked, so I add onions first and let them cook a while before I put in mushrooms. If I use scallions, I add them last. As Joey P pointed out, don't put in the garlic too early, because it scorches quickly.

5. I don't use a lot of oil -- no more than 2-3 tablespoons. I like to use peanut oil -- the flavorless refined kind -- because it can take a lot of heat without burning, and sometimes I add a splash of unrefined peanut oil (the more expensive kind, that has a strong peanut flavor).

6. It is essential to have all your meat and veg and sauce prepped before you start cooking! I cut everything up and divide it up in bowls according to when I want it to go into the pan. Makes things much less crazy.

Edited to add: I don't recommend frozen vegetables, because they tend to get limp and soggy when stir-frying, and add too much water to the mix. Of course, all of my rules of thumb are based on the premise that you want a relatively crisp stir-fry, whereas some people prefer more of a steamed consistency, so take this as you will!

[KidVermicious]

Yeah, frozen veggies = mush, try for fresh. If you must use frozen, get a screen for the top of your wok, because they will spatter your oil as the water in them melts, no matter what you do.

I dump all my veggies in at the same time, but I've had stir fry purists/experts tell me that for proper consistency, the order you cook the veggies is critical (because of different cookies times, etc).

[Rebo]

Fresh ginger chopped fine is a great addition, but like garlic, will burn if added too early. I like to make shrimp stir-fry because the shrimp cooks so fast. I use a little canola oil in a cast iron wok. Add the shrimp to the hot oil, and when it's almost done add finely minced garlic and ginger, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Remove all the shrimp and as much of the minced garlic and ginger as you can. Then add long cooking veggies like fresh broccoli florets, sliced onions, bok choy and slivered carrots. Add mushrooms, bok choy leaves, and bean sprouts later. When everything is done, add the shrimp back in.

An easy sauce is just soy sauce, chicken broth and a little corn starch mixed into it. Add it at the last minute, stir and remove everything from the hot pan to a serving dish.

[Falcon]

I also wouldn't use frozen veggies, and I too put my veggies in at different times. Onions go in first until they start looking a little translucent (often referred to as "glassy"). Then the mushrooms. Then everything else. If you like crisp veggies, the green ones turn a very bright green when they're crisp, and that's how you know when they're done. Any longer, and they become a duller green and start becoming soggy.

The main thing about learning to cook is realizing you're doing experiments, and that it takes practice. So if your first attempts don't turn out well, don't give up. You'll learn from each attempt. Even once you become good at it, though, know that everyone screws up now and then and creates a disaster. That's what peanut butter sandwiches are for.

[dactylic hexameter]

Honestly, my #1 piece of advice: buy a good cookbook. Joy of Cooking would be perfect. They not only have recipes, they have instructions. It makes the whole thing a bit less daunting. Also, reading the cookbook should give you a base from which you can experiment/tweak things to your liking. For example, you read their recipe on chicken stirfry. You can say, "you know what, I don't like red pepper, I'll add carrots instead, and I'll use extra ginger and no garlic. But they're probably right about heating the oil over medium heat and adding the chicken first" or whatever.

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by dactylic hexameter

Honestly, my #1 piece of advice: buy a good cookbook. Joy of Cooking would be perfect. They not only have recipes, they have instructions. It makes the whole thing a bit less daunting. Also, reading the cookbook should give you a base from which you can experiment/tweak things to your liking. For example, you read their recipe on chicken stirfry. You can say, "you know what, I don't like red pepper, I'll add carrots instead, and I'll use extra ginger and no garlic. But they're probably right about heating the oil over medium heat and adding the chicken first" or whatever.

I thought I'd like Joy of Cooking more than I have. I think it would intimidate a newbie cook by flooding them with information. For basic technique info it's a great reference, but I think of it as the Frasier Crane of cookbooks. Interesting, but frequently fussy.
The book I tend to reach for more often is the Better Homes and Gardens cook book. For baking, I've been loving the Taste of Home's baking book.
Perhaps others have good must-have cook book suggestions?

[Breineach1]

I HATE cooking, so I use my slow cooker a lot. Dump everything in, and it's ready when you get home from work. It's like magic! I've got a few slow cooker cookbooks, but many of the recipes take multiple steps (brown the beef first; cook the potatoes first; etc) or take a bunch of ingredients. I end up making the same few dishes all the time. What are some of your favorite lazy-person recipes?

[LordVor]

Originally Posted by Breineach1

your favorite lazy-person recipes?

Lazy Person's Chicken Noodle Soup
2 Cartons Chicken Stock from Costco
1 Rotisserie Chicken from Costco
Egg Noodles
Those really little baby carrots

Dump stock and carrots in pot, heat to boiling and pull the chicken off the bones (I even usually just do the breast and pitch the rest). When boiling, cook noodles. Add chicken. Tastes better than you could imagine.

[Biggie]

Take it from someone who actually studied food science in college - for stir fry, you want to use peanut oil.

[Fish]

I'm going to echo what many others have said here.

Oil. Cooking in oil is somewhat paradoxically a dry cooking method. Think of it like this: water evaporates at 212°F (100C) so generally you can't get food any hotter than that using water (unless you have a pressure cooker, never mind about that for now). Oil, on the other hand, can get much hotter — therefore, it transfers heat into the food more quickly.

How much hotter than boiling water can oil get? That depends on the smoke point of the oil. Butter burns at 350°F, olive oil at 375°F, refined peanut oil at 450°F, and refined canola oil at 475°F. If you're going to cook anything at a very hot temperature, like on your barbecue grill or in a sizzling hot stir-fry, I'd go with a higher smoke point. Canola oil is my choice here.

Oil and water. They don't mix, at least not very willingly. Putting wet stuff — like frozen vegetables — into a hot pan with sizzling oil, probably a bad move. If you're going to use frozen veggies, drain them thoroughly!

Vegetables. I know it sounds easier to dump all the veggies in at once, but trust me, you'll get better results if you put vegetables into the pan in reverse order of cooking speed. Basically, the softer or more watery the vegetable is, the less time it needs.

First: Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower.
Second: Celery, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers.
Third: Snap peas, water chestnuts, baby corn.

The intent here is NOT to wait until the first stage is done. You just want carrots to have more time in the heat, because they're gonna take longer to cook.

Also: if you cut the veggies yourself, try to make the pieces a nice even size. If you have BIG and little pieces in the same pan, the little pieces will be overdone by the time the big ones are close to edible. The more evenly sized they are, the closer together they'll all be done.

Wok. I don't use one. I can't give you any advice here, except that your home stovetop probably doesn't get hot enough for true wok cooking.

Cast iron. I prefer a cast-iron skillet for my stir fry, but a cast-iron dutch oven does the same job too. Cast iron cookware is simply wonderful (in my opinion) because it gets hot and stays hot.

Why? Mass. A tiny, thin aluminum or copper-bottomed pan will absorb heat very quickly. However, it will lose heat just as quickly. Get an aluminum pan up to temperature and then drop a pork tenderloin into it, and the pan temperature will crash. It'll take a while to get that heat back.

Cast iron, though? It's heavy, absorbs and releases heat slowly, and it's got a lot of mass to it. If you wanna cook hot, as for searing a steak or cooking burgers or doing stir-fry, go cast iron. (They're not as hard to take care of as you might think.)

Cooking veggies. I gotta admit, I get lazy when it comes to my stir-fry veggies. I don't actually fry the vegetables in the cast-iron skillet right away, I steam them a bit in a separate pan (in stages, as above) while the chicken is cooking in the cast-iron pan. When the veggies are close to done, I add them into the stir-fry.

Spices. When I cook stir fry, I usually add the following:

• salt
• Sichuan peppercorn
• Chinese five-spice
• White sesame seeds
• Chinese chile flakes
• Soy sauce

Chinese five-spice can sometimes be had in the spice aisle of the mega-mart, but it might also be hiding in the Ethnic Foods section. The five spices are usually stuff like ginger, star anise, Sichuan peppercorn, fennel and cassia (what we commonly call cinnamon). It can sometimes have cloves, or black pepper instead of the Sichuan peppercorn (and you know, I think that's just cheating, but it ... it tastes okay). Me, I made my own five-spice in a grinder because ... well, because I could. Sichuan peppercorn isn't the easiest stuff in the world to find at the supermarket, and if you're keen on trying it you may have to try a mail-order spice shop with a good selection. Sichuan peppercorn is unique; it tingles and makes your tongue numb. Fun!

There are a number of different oils and fats that you can cook in, from sesame oil to avocado oil to peanut oil, bacon fat, butter, olive oil, and so on.

Not an expert, but I hope that helps.

P.S. Also, I cannot strongly enough recommend Alton Brown for cooking knowledge. He's SUCH an adorable geek and he knows his food. You'd be amazed. He makes cooking look easy, makes the science of food understandable. Give him a try!

[Hot Cross Buns]

Originally Posted by Solfy

The book I tend to reach for more often is the Better Homes and Gardens cook book. For baking, I've been loving the Taste of Home's baking book.
Perhaps others have good must-have cook book suggestions?

I think those are great recommendations for beginners. I started off with those and Betty Crocker's Cookbook and the information is clear and the recipes are good, standard fare.

I rarely use cookbooks now, nowadays I mainly use allrecipes.com. In addition to a ton of recipes to choose from, the feedback about the recipes can be helpful.

Finally, I also agree, Alton Brown gives valuable information. I especially liked I'm Just Here for the Food.

[Euryphaessa]

My cookbook recommendation is the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. It has everything. It shows you how to do all of the techniques that you're unsure about (julienne, chiffonade, etc.) and also tells you cool stuff like where your cut of meat comes from (using an illustration of a cow) and what kind of meat you get from that cut and the best ways to cook it. It has a huge table of equivalencies (like what's a pound of flour in cups) and cooking times. In short, if I'm ever at a loss about how to cook something, I turn to Good Housekeeping.

[The Superhero]

There's lots of great advice in this thread, Dirx. Read it and consider it carefully. It's also important not to be intimidated by all of it, and remember this: stir-fry can be very, very simple to do.

Prep your veggies and protein. Put your pan (I use a steel wok, but a good, ordinary large nonstick skillet will work just fine, too) on a the hottest burner you can manage and pour in enough oil to give the bottom and sides a good thin coating. Watch it carefully, and when the oil is just hitting the smoke point (that is, just barely starting to smoke), shove your stuff in there. Keep it moving, either by tossing it or turning it. Season with whatever sounds good to you, throw in some soy sauce and some rice vinegar, and cook it all for five to seven minutes.

Yes, chicken, beef or pork should be cooked first. But if you're using shrimp or tofu (both of which make a great stir-fry), feel free to put it all in at once. If you're really concerned about doing it "the right way," feel free to carefully divide up the veggies by cooking time. But I've always gotten great results just throwing it all in at once - with the possible exception of anything that'll cook really fast or you don't want cooked much at all, like baby bok choy or snow peas.

Is it the "proper" way to do it? No. But I don't think stir-fry is really high art as cooking goes. It's grub.

Don't forget to cook some rice or noodles to serve it on, too.

[DogMom]

For Crock Pot recipes, I highly recommend the "Fix It And Forget It" series.
We have almost all of them, and if you're looking for easy-to-do recipes in your crockpot, that's the series to have.
The FiaFi for Entertaining book even has an entire chapter on making cakes in the crockpot.
Cake. Seriously. The crock-pot apple cake recipe is a huge hit at all our church potluck dinners, and it's way easy.
They have a chocolate-and-peanut-butter cake that I think could also be adapted to make a crock pot Chocolate Volcano Cake. Mmmmm.

Anyway, I totally suggest you check those out.

[DogMom]

Stuff I've also learned about SUBSTITUTIONS:

You can directly substitute apple sauce for oil in baking recipes. This does NOT work if your recipe calls for butter, shortening, or another "solid" fat, though, because usually the applesauce is too watery to substitute.

If a recipe calls for a specific "cream" soup, such as "Cream of Chicken", you can generally substitute any random "cream-of-whatever" soup you've got lying around and it'll still work. YMMV, obviously.

Using Tobasco sauce instead of Chili Powder (or, godforbid, those disgusting premixed chili-flavored kidney beans) in Chili gives you a nice heat and a good flavor without the bitter taste that can come from Chili Powder.

Oh yeah, and if you're cooking for a person with gluten intolerance, and you figure that Worcestershire sauce is OK to use - read the label first. Lea & Perrins (US formulation only) is the only one I know of that's for certain sure safe.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Biggie

Take it from someone who actually studied food science in college - for stir fry, you want to use peanut oil.

It's weird--everyone says this but to me, it makes everything taste "peanutty".

I prefer grapeseed, even if it's twice as expensive--not that much is needed and it has no taste at all.

[duckster]

Rule #1 - Pay attention when cooking.
Rule #2 - You can burn when cooking water. (No, I don't mean boiling a pot of water dry.)
Rule #3 - When in doubt, refer to Rule #1.

[Breineach1]

Originally Posted by DogMom

For Crock Pot recipes, I highly recommend the "Fix It And Forget It" series.
We have almost all of them, and if you're looking for easy-to-do recipes in your crockpot, that's the series to have.
The FiaFi for Entertaining book even has an entire chapter on making cakes in the crockpot.
Cake. Seriously. The crock-pot apple cake recipe is a huge hit at all our church potluck dinners, and it's way easy.
They have a chocolate-and-peanut-butter cake that I think could also be adapted to make a crock pot Chocolate Volcano Cake. Mmmmm.

Anyway, I totally suggest you check those out.

Thanks, DogMom, I'll check those books out. Mmmm, cake!

Now, does anyone have any fail-safe cake-in-a-jar recipes? They are awesome gifts to give, but Forge Mountain gets expensive & sells out quickly around the holidays.

[Jenny Haniver]

What is cake in a jar? Is it actually baked in the jar, or is it like getting a homemade cake mix?

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by Jenny Haniver

What is cake in a jar? Is it actually baked in the jar, or is it like getting a homemade cake mix?

The cakes are baked and served in a jar

[KidVermicious]

Cake in a crockpot?

I do a mean dutch-oven pineappleupsidedowncake. I bet that'd work in a crockpot.