Most of us home cooks buy pre-cut pieces of chicken rather than whole chickens. We think a pack of chicken breasts, thighs, legs or wings can be more affordable. This can be true if you plan to cook several of each piece in a value pack. However, I want to challenge this notion a bit. You can get more for your buck if learn to debone a chicken and use all of the bird to it’s max. The trick is learning the techniques to unlock all of the flavor in the whole chicken.
Culinary Building Blocks
Homemade Chicken Stock
Chicken stock is a fundamental building block for so many delicious recipes and if you use it in as many recipes as I do it makes sense to put in a little extra work sometimes to make it at home.
How to Brine a Turkey, Start Today!
Friends, I’d like to warn you that due to the nature of this post it will be in progress and updated with additional pictures over the next 4 days.
This year I have opted to brine a turkey. This process involves soaking the turkey in a salt water solution that can also include other adjunct flavorings. The result is an incredibly flavorful and moist bird.
Feed Your Fellows, Be Fed with Homemade Pasta
Yesterday, I met a fellow Austin food writer at church. While I dabble in writing by basically subjecting you all to my inner thoughts and emotions, she’s a real freelance food writer, y’all. Meaning she pitches story ideas to various media outlets around town and has editors backing her up.
We got to talking about why we cook rather than just dine out all of the time. Naturally, this topic of conversation struck a chord with me and I’ve been thinking about it for 24 hours now. I thought, perhaps I should write this down to share with my fellow cooks (and so my mind stops racing). Continue reading Feed Your Fellows, Be Fed with Homemade Pasta
Roux and The Mother Sauces
Thickening Sauces with Roux
Probably the simplest and most used classic French culinary component, roux is nothing more than equal parts fat to flour cooked to varying degrees and used as a thickening agent for sauces, soups and stews. Butter is most commonly used as the fat, but olive and other oils or animal fat can also be used.