How to Cook Everything Project: Chili Con Carne

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How to Cook Everything Project: Bread Pudding

I may not be the best at baking bread, but I sure can cook with it.

How to Cook Everything Project: Oatmeal Cookies

I don’t believe I’ve made oatmeal cookies from scratch before. But then again, I’ve never really been a fan of oatmeal cookies. Sure, I’d eat them if they were there, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them.

Okay… I have bought the Soft Batch ones. But they were on sale. And I had a coupon.

How to Cook Everything Project: Pan-Grilled Steak

Well now… it’s been a while since I did something for the HtCE Project!

Let me tell you a story.

How to Cook Everything Project: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Grilled cheese sandwiches are still new to me. I only started eating them when I was in college, and even then I wasn't that impressed. But it requires few ingredients (bread, cheese, butter) and can be cooked up in a flash. I used a sandwich maker when I lived in the dorms, and that machine stayed with me for a few years after that (in fact, it might be somewhere in the basement) making a variety of snacky things to get me by. Over time I moved to making grilled cheese sandwiches in a pan, and from time to time I'll whip some up.

I don't think there's a wrong way to make grilled cheese. What I've done in the past was to butter up one side on two slices of bread throw the buttered side down, slap on the cheese, and top it off with the second slice, butter up. Never on high, because it would burn. When the bottom is nice and golden, flip. Wait for some more golden activity and eat it up. And it was almost always butter... every now and then I would use margarine if I had no other option.

The HTCE recipe calls for butter or oil added to the pan, and when it's hot enough, throw on the sandwich. The results for either method comes out the same. The deal breaker is the cheese you use. For the grilled cheese in the pictures above, I used those individually wrapped American cheese slices, and it was low fat to boot. They were not good. And what's worse, there was Provolone in the fridge, yet I still used that orange stuff.

Last time I was upstate, M made grilled cheese while I worked on the French onion soup. He makes these more than I do, and they always come out fantastic. We used Italian bread and provolone, and instead of butter we used olive oil.

Yum.

How to Cook Everything Project: French Onion Soup

How to Cook Everything Project: French Onion Soup from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

How did M want to celebrate his birthday? By cooking. I should have been happy about that, but I really wanted to get out of the apartment (it had been raining all day).

I wanted to use red onions, or maybe Spanish onions, but M insisted on Vidalia (they were on sale). I thought it would be too sweet for the soup, but it turned out to be just right. The sweetness and creaminess of the onions really came out in the soup. Perhaps the use of vegetable broth played into that. I wonder if that pairing would work with a beef broth.

For as long as you have to cook the onions, this recipe is pretty easy. You don't really have to keep that careful an eye on the onions until it's been cooking for about 40 minutes or so. At that point the liquid from the onions has reduced substantially, and there is greater risk of burning.

How to Cook Everything Project: Hot & Sour Soup

When you go to a Chinese restaurant, what soup do you choose? I almost always choose hot & sour, and when I come across a really great tasting version of it, I walk out of that restaurant with the resolve to make something just as good... if not better.

What ends up happening is my finding a recipe, whether it be from some random site online or a book that claims their method is "fool proof," and it disappointing me. So much so that I revert to using the soup mix and dealing with it... if I don't end up just ordering from the local take out.

Can the project save me? The answer to that is yes... yes I think it can.

The recipe calls for chicken stock or water. Water seemed flavorless so I opted for stock broth bouillon. Always good to have this in the pantry for those times when you need a flavored something. The directions for the bouillon I used calls for 1 teaspoon powder and 1 cup water. I still find that to be a bit too salty for my taste so I add an additional half cup or so. At the same time I was bringing the broth to a boil, I cooked the chicken breast that I would later shred. I think the next time I make this I'll try without mix/stock and see how much flavor the boiled chicken imparts on the water.

I'm pretty sure this is tree ear fungus on the left. Lily buds on the right. Both were soaked in hot water and drained. I overlooked the part where I was supposed to mince the fungus and shred the buds and just added to the soup as is. Mincing the fungus would have been good, especially now that I remember I'm not too fond of big chunks of it. As for the buds, I think next time I'll rinse them out at least one more time.

 

The recipe called for dried shiitake mushrooms, which I couldn't find a small package of in the Asian store. I considered fresh ones, but what they had didn't look that appealing either. Button mushrooms it is. Cleaned, sliced, added to the end of the cooking.

Keeping true to the minimalist title, Bittman only adds a few of the ingredients that I normally see in my hot & sour soup. It just didn't seem right, so I went ahead and added bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts to the soup. This may have played a factor in the corn starch issue, which I'll discuss later.

The chicken took a little over twenty minutes to cook, and was promptly removed from the liquid and allowed to cool. I gave it a Glee episode to cool down. Shredding was a pain in the neck, but I got through it. What I ended up with seemed a bit too much for all of it to go in the soup, so I set some aside to make chicken salad the next day.

 

Because I added additional water (and those extra ingredients), the amount of cornstarch the recipe calls for was not enough to thicken the soup. Sure, I could have added more to fix that, but it was getting late and I was getting hungry. Also, I have a bit of a problem anytime corn starch is needed as a thickener- is it just me, or do you have to use a whole lot before it starts to thicken up? I get worried that I'll mess up what I'm cooking and all that work will have been for nothing.

 

The eggs are added at the end since they don't take long to cook. I'm still working on the timing on when to stir the soup after adding the eggs so I end up with various sizes of cooked egg... instead of the scrambled mess usually end up with.

EDIT: Turns out it's not the timing, it's all about the tools and drizzle pattern. A search on Youtube resulted in this video from expertvillage and the cook's method of creating "a very nice pattern of egg drops."

The end result?

 

While not exactly what I order when I go out, it definitely hit the spot. I tinkered around with the amounts of soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame seed oil until it was just right. Definitely something I would make again.

 

In cooking this recipe, I came to the realization that you can hot & sour any broth-based soup, as long as you use five key ingredients. Can you guess what they are?

The five must have ingredients to achieve hot & sourdom: soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame seed oil, pepper, and eggs. It is only after these five ingredients are added to the soup that the H&S transformation occurs.

The soy sauce lends to the color that you normally associate with H&S, along with earthiness and saltiness that round out the flavors. The rice wine vinegar is the sour aspect of the soup- I haven't tried making it with other vinegars, but in keeping with the Asian-ness of the dish, rice wine fits. The egg is pretty much the standard in what we expect from H&S soup (I'm referring to Americanized Chinese food... I'm not sure how it goes in an authentic Chinese version, and I'm definitely not talking about other Asian versions of H&S... like Tom Yum). The pepper covers the hot in the H&S, and last but not least... the sesame seed oil. If these five ingredients are key to hot & sourdom, then sesame seed oil is the leader of the bunch. For me, it's only after I add the oil that my taste buds send the message to my brain that I've got it.

To test this out, I took chicken noodle soup mix and added the five key ingredients. And it worked! To be really scientific, I should probably try it again, use another type of soup, have someone other than me attempt it, etc. And I have no problem doing that.

How to Cook Everything Project: Raw Tomato Sauce

I went a little crazy with the tomato buying recently. To use them up, I decided to make a sauce. A raw sauce. Perfect for when the weather goes muggy and turning on the stove is just not an option.

I deviated from the recipe by roasting the garlic instead of crushing it and taking out (I like garlic way too much). I also roasted a shallot and mashed the two together before adding to the tomatoes. I didn't have any basil, so I used parsley instead.

I deviated some more by not mashing with a fork like suggested- I went the quick route and used the stick blender. It was not at all smooth, I tried my best to keep it somewhat chunky. I used some pasta water to warm it up a bit, and ladled on top of my bowl of pasta.

End results? It's pretty good! The first thing that came to mind after having a bite was bruschetta. Possibly not what Bittman was going for with this recipe, but spread it on some crusty bread and you will not go wrong. And it's not too far away from gazpacho, so if raw tomato sauce isn't your thing, you can progress it along to that.

Either way, perfect for summer meals.

Repeater

This HTCE recipe is on standard rotation. I seem to be making tabbouleh at least once a week now, and I am not even close to tiring from it.

How to Cook Everything Project: Tabbouleh & Cold Sesame Noodles

Sometimes I wonder if anyone is paying attention to my little project. I know I've put it aside, but I have my reasons. And if I were like my classmates, I would go on some joyous spiel about how there are three weeks left before we're done.

Sorry guys, but I am not feeling like them at all. Because yes, in three weeks the 11.25 months of "hell" will be over... only to be replaced with ~3 months of anxiety and self-imposed states of insanity. Should anxiety and insanity be used in the same sentence? Whatever, but for three months I'll be experiencing a different kind of "hell" than the one I find myself in right now.

And I will keep using the quotation marks because in all honesty, right now isn't very "hellish." I'm in my last class and I'm not feeling at all stressed like my previous ones. Yes, I do have my presentation to work on and my paper to finish and somehow convince myself not to freak out when I present in front of my class, school, and clinical site.

Ack. I'm starting to feel a little freaked out. Let's move on to other things.

This week I have been feeling like crap. Mostly due to the fact that I could not hear for a good portion of the week. Let me tell you, trying to hide the fact that I couldn't hear in one ear while slyly turning my head so my good ear could catch the conversation and trying to read lips is tiring. Which might explain why I was falling asleep early all week.

By Wednesday I was going nuts. The pain was wasn't killer, but more annoying. So as a distraction, I decided to cook out of the Bittman book. Some things I've been wanting to make for a while now- tabbouleh and cold sesame noodles.

Tabbouleh isn't new to me. In fact, I've made it plenty of times. Both from a mix and from scratch. And to be honest, I was never pleased with the results. It never tasted right, and when presented to my "expert" uncle, he told me I make it wrong.

I changed it up a little bit, substituting cucumbers for the red onion. Both the cukes and tomatoes were de-seeded and diced small. I went ballistic on the parsley and mint, and whisked the olive oil and lemon juice like a madwoman.

The end results? Not too bad. I think the mint is what really makes it. I was worried that the 1/2 cup of bulgur was not enough for the dish, but why would I doubt Bittman? He would not lead me astray. At least I hope not.

The first time I came across cold sesame noodles I liked was back when Zen Palate was still around in Union Square. Since then, I've been disappointed in what restaurants were serving up as cold sesame noodles. So I can do better... right?

Eh.

The sauce is easy enough- mix up sesame oil, soy sauce, tahini or peanut butter and rice wine vinegar. Add a little bit of hot water to thin it out, but not too much or you'll have something too watery.

The sauce was good. It was good enough to top some grilled chicken and make a nice Asian style salad. But this was for noodles, and this is where I went wrong.

The recipe calls for an egg noodle, but I figured an Asian noodle would be more appropriate. I just happened to have some whole wheat udon noodles in the pantry and thought this would hit the spot. I cooked the noodles, drained and rinsed under cold water. Poured the sauce and tossed to evenly coat.

Well... I tried to toss. They kinda clumped into this big, noodley, peanuty blob.

But it was still good. Perhaps next time I'll follow the directions and use spaghetti.

How to Cook Everything Project: Rice Pudding

Rice pudding never appealed to me. Look at the stuff they sell at the grocery store- it looks like cottage cheese with some rice thrown in. But I decided to give it a go, and it's not that bad. If I do make this again, I'll have to keep on my eye on it better- the recipe calls for it to cook for 20 minutes, but the rice sopped up that water in no time. And instead of adding more water and letting it coon longer, I went ahead with the recipe.

I ended up using more than 2 cups of milk. Way more.

And next time, I am measuring the amount of cinnamon that goes in. Eyeballing is not the best bet.


How to Cook Everything Project: Rice Pudding from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

How to Cook Everything Project: Cinnamon Rolls

How to Cook Everything Project: Cinnamon Rolls from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

I cannot bake.

I take that back. I can bake cookies and cakes just fine. However, I can't bake anything that uses yeast. Yeast baffles me. This creature of sorts in a freeze dried state always finds a way to not cooperate, leaving me with tough, hardly risen dough and cursing anything (and anyone) in my sight.

This never used to be the case. Back in the day, I used a bread machine. This machine knew how to tackle the yeast beast and always produced loaf after loaf of wonderful baked bread. But as all non-essential kitchen appliances go, it became forgotten and shoved in the back of a cabinet in the kitchen. Four years ago I got myself reacquainted with the bread machine and once again I was in bread delights.

Until it broke.

Machineless, I have since tried my hand at baking bread the old-fashioned way... by hand. And each and every time has been a failure. Even no-knead bread, the supposed easiest of the bread making techniques lost out to my bread baking curse.

Bittman could save me, right? Well so far, HTCE has not. Twice now. The last two weeks (since I seem to be behind by that much) I have tried to make Cinnamon rolls using the Basic Sweet Rolls recipe.

On the first attempt, things were going well. I tested the yeast before hand to make sure it was still working and yes... with some warm water and sugar, it did its bubbly magic. So I followed the recipe to a t (tee? T?)- adding all the dry ingredients to the food processor and pulsing a few times to get it all incorporated. I added the butter and egg and hit the button again to get it all mixed together. And then came the milk. Now the recipe did not say warm the milk up, so I added the straight from the fridge milk through the feeding tube and allowed it to mix until it formed a ball. I dumped it onto a waiting cutting board and kneaded the dough until it was "silky and elastic." It looked silky enough to me... as for elastic, I pulled and it sorta sprung back. Sounds elastic to me. I dropped the dough ball into a greased bowl and wrapped it with cling. I let it rest in the warmest room in the house and waited two hours for it to double in size. I even took a picture so I could compare and see if it indeed doubled.

Two hours later, I took a peek. It did rise, but it didn't really look like it doubled. Maybe it was 1.5 bigger. But if you round up... that's 2. So I rolled out the dough into a large rectangle, slathered on quite a bit of butter and a generous portion of cinnamon and sugar. I rolled it up and sliced it up into one-inch cuts. I arranged the rolls on the baking sheet and allowed it to rise a second time. An hour later the dough had puffed out a bit, but perhaps not as much as it should have. I threw it in the oven and waited. Perhaps I wasn't attentive enough, because I sortamaybekinda overcooked it. Instead of a nice golden brown, it was more chocolate brown. Notice how I am refraining from using the "B" word? Because it didn't. Not really. Anyways, it did not match the image I had in my head, but it tasted pretty good, albeit kinda hard.

The second attempt I was determined to make this work. I bought new yeast and warmed the milk. Once again following directions as written (except for the milk bit) and after mixing all the ingredients, I dumped the dough onto the board. Knead, knead, knead... where's my silkiness and elasticity? I added a little more milk and kept at the dough once again. With every press of the dough, the skin would turn white. I didn't notice it earlier, but all the skin was pretty dry looking. But I followed the directions!!! Lost at what to do next, I threw it in the bowl and hoped for the best.

I checked the bowl two hours later and was somewhat relieved to see that the dough had indeed risen. But once again it did not double like the recipe said to look for. It was just slightly larger. When I took it out of the bowl, it wasn't light and springy, like you would expect from risen dough. This fell out with a thud and was impossible to work with. It wouldn't obey the rolling pin, and still had that distinct whitening of the dough skin. I could pull off a piece without it having the dough string, or at least fight against losing some of itself.

Not knowing what to do, I filled up a bowl with some warm water and threw the dough in there for a few minutes. If I didn't put enough liquid (even though I followed the directions) hopefully the soak will hydrate it enough to be workable. I worked with the now sticky dough until I had a ball and threw it back into the rising bowl. Two hours later, it was a little better... but still refused to roll out.

It was at this point where I gave up. Instead of making Cinnamon Rolls, I decided to just make monkey bread. After the dough was rolled out, I quickly cut it into long strips, which I cut again into one inch nuggets. Tossed with cinnamon and sugar, drowned it in melted butter, and threw it in the oven. And guess what? It wasn't bad at all. Tasted sort of like the monkey bread I make with the refrigerator biscuit dough. Just a little tougher.

I think I'll steer clear of the yeast bread for now in the book.

How to Cook Everything Project: Penne Arrabiata

See this? Follow through.

There was some hunger that played a role, but I think that's a given. To start off the HTCE project, I went Italian. It's simple and doesn't take a lot of ingredients. I'd take this over a boring Marinara any day (even though it is pretty much marinara with some heat).

This was a win, thank goodness. The only problem I came across was some of the tomato squirting out at me when I was crushing them in my quite stressed hands. I used half a bulb of garlic which I smashed and roughly chopped. For the heat, I used the Thai chilies I grew this summer. These ingredients seem all too familiar... the only thing missing were the anchovies. People who tried the sauce even mentioned the addition of some anchovy. I guess I make that sauce a bit too much!

The longer you allow it to cook, hell... eat it hours later and it exponentially tastes better. The recipe calls for penne, which I used at first, but ran out and used capellini for the rest of the sauce. Definitely making this again, and in bigger batches. Can never have too much sauce on hand.

The How to Cook Everything Project

How To Cook Everything Project from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

I realize the mic on my laptop isn't the best, which explains the poor sound on it. Whoopsie.