Kitchen Mathmatics: Part II

Recently I spoke of the mathematics you’ll need to employ in the kitchen, to better understand how our time will be spent when we cook. It’s not meant to suggest that you’ll have to work really hard or wait for hours on end just to eat something. Fact of the matter is, you need only invest about five minutes of time if the height of your culinary aspiration is a peanut butter sandwich. However on the other side of the spectrum, you could throw that roast into an oven, cook it for five minutes, and then start eating it. I doubt the end result would be safe to eat, and would probably taste pretty gross, but it’s definitely within your means (that said, don’t do it!)

The purpose of our time in the kitchen is twofold:

• To cook the dish to completion
• To be pleased with the end result.

Cooking to completion is based completely on personal preference. Take for example, a good old fashioned steak. For those of us who love our cattle cooked medium rare, to completion takes on a different meaning than it does for those who love to burn their stuff to well done. But one thing we can all agree on is that cooked means something more than raw, so let’s just run with that shall we? So, we spend as much time as necessary to cook our food to a pleasing state of doneness.

The second purpose is what will make up the brunt of our kitchen time. A meal can be cooked to completion with very little fuss. Stick a piece of meat and a potato in the microwave and radiate the heck out of it for twenty or so minutes, and things will be cooked through. But I highly doubt that your dining experience will be a pleasurable one. In fact, I’m going to safely say that it’s going to trigger your gag reflex more than anything else.

So we invest more time into our food to make a more satisfying meal. And this can entail anything from chopping up vegetables to picking herbs, to making broths, and everything in between.

So how much time on average can we expect to spend in our kitchen? I would say for anything more intense than a sandwich, expect a minimum of a Rachael Ray-friendly 30 minutes. This counts everything from preparation to sitting down to eat the finished product. This number also assumes that we’re going for optimal quality, since there are ways to cut down this number, but it will be at the expense of taste.

As for the maximum amount of time you can spend in the kitchen, well the sky is the limit. It can be as little as an extra five minutes, or it can even reach into several days for some dishes (like coq au vin for example.) It really boils down to how much time you want to put into your meal. My attitude is that the more time you’re willing to spend on a dish, the better it’s going to be.

Now this doesn’t mean that cooking steaks for two hours straight on high heat will find a new nirvana of tastiness beyond burnt. It’s just going to be a different, more unpleasant, class of burnt. But you can invest more time in preparing good sides, or whipping up marinades for your wonderful steaks, season them early, let them reach room temperature, etc etc. Such things can only make the meal better.

But it’s going to come down to how much time you have available to spend, and your willingness to use it. For me, spending a bit more time to make an average meal special is a better use of my time than catching up on Simpson’s reruns. And I think, with a little know how and a bit of confidence, you’ll find yourself feeling the same way.

Kitchen Mathmatics

This blog assumes that you’re wanting to deviate away from microwavable dinners, quick heat packages, and canned sludge. It assumes that you’ve lost your taste for fast food and don’t really want to spend your hard-earned cash on eating out. If we are to proceed into this new world of culinary nirvana, we must be armed with new math.

You see, the laws of instant gratification that operate at the drive-thru do not work in the kitchen. Sacrifices of time and energy must be made if you are to make a meal that is good, and good is the key word here. The reason we’re steering clear of microwavables and take-out in the first place is because we want to have something that tastes better than microwaveables and take-out. If tasteless TV dinners suddenly sound more appealing to you than giving up your precious time, this would be a good opportunity to leave. For those who remain undaunted, here are the formulas you need to consider:

• Time-consuming preparation + quick but intensive cook time = Good food

• Quick but intensive preparation + time-consuming cook time = Good food

And no, there is no formula for quick preparation and quick cooking that equals good food. The only people who will tell you otherwise are companies that sell processed box dinners or useless kitchen gadgets. And the cost for dealing with any of them will be your hard-earned cash, something I consider self-defeating since one of the purposes of cooking at home is to save you some money. Now, there are plenty of dishes out in the world that have times between 20-30 minutes from start to finish, but typically you'll still see them getting lumped into either of these categories. And of course there are hybrid formulas involving medium preparation and medium cooking, but we’ll get to those another time.

The first formula considers dishes like stir fry, fajitas and burgers, where the brunt of your time is spent getting everything ready. Cook time for such dishes can happen in a matter of minutes, but they also require our constant attention. To abandon our post in favor of a little TV time can be the difference between a well cooked dish and something that’s been burnt to a crisp.

The second formula covers things like soups, stews, and roasts among other things. Cooking the dish can take up to several hours, but it’ll be pretty easy going. You can go catch up on some TV or read a few chapters of a book without having to do much to your dish. And there’s less of a likelihood that you will burn or damage your dish with this method. Of course, the catch is, you’re going to have to wait for the end result, and if you’re starving, then waiting several hours for dinner might not be in the cards. The other catch is while the preperation work isn’t difficult, it’s imperative to get everything right. This means having everything cut, portioned and set to our liking. Once all your ingredients go into the stew, there’s not going to be any chances for second thoughts.

Sounds complicated? It’s not. We just need to understand that creating a quality meal will take time. And it’s oftentimes more time than the fluffy cooks on Food Network are willing to acknowledge (they’ve got a whole team of prep cooks off camera, of course they’re going to say it’s quick and easy.) But it is time well spent, as long as you’re willing to dedicate a little effort and patience to the process.

Enjoying The Art Of Shopping

Clean, sparkly kitchens are only part of the equation. The other half is to have food in that kitchen to prepare. And for this, an expedition to a grocery store/local market is necessary. I can speak in great depth about where to shop and where to look (which I'm sure I will later,) but for now, let's discuss getting in the proper grocery shopping mentality.

Many of the avid cooks I know swear that wandering around their local market in search of foodstuffs is every bit as enjoyable as shopping for clothes, gadgets, or anything else that's exciting. And frankly, that's just how it should be. If we can't enjoy the process of buying tasty food, how are we ever going to enjoy the process of cooking it?

The problem is that most trips to the market have become a major pain. Huge lines of people, all tired and grumpy, clogging up the aisles, stripping the shelves of every decent looking thing that's on sale. And despite your best intentions of getting in and out quickly, you end up spending an hour in the store, most of which was spent just waiting in line. And by the time you do get out, you're frustrated, irritable, and would rather go grab a hot burger somewhere then ever endure that evil place again.

We've all been there, and can all agree this is an unpleasant situation that happens more than it should. So, we're gonna need a few tricks in our arsenal to keep the experience of food shopping enjoyable.

STEP 1: SHOP AFTER DINNER

That's right, eat your meal, clean up a little bit, then head for the store. By simply adjusting the time you shop for groceries, you have a number of things working in your favor:

• There are no lines. Oh sure, the store won't be completely abandoned, but it won't be anything near the chaos of the 5:00 post-work rush when everyone and their pets are hungry. This allows us to take our sweet time picking whatever we want, and lets us get out of the store when we would like to.

• We're not hungry. This means we're in a far better mood than the aforementioned 5:00 post-work crowd. We're not in a hurry to get home and stuff ourselves before our stomach starts to eat at it's own lining, and thus we can simply enjoy the experience by picking our ingredients in a relaxed fashion. The other advantage of not being hungry is that we're less likely to make that impromptu snack purchase. A person who's full isn't nearly as interested in potato chips and candy bars as a hungry person might be

• It gets us moving. Our natural temptation after stuffing ourselves to the gills with quality eats is to flop on the couch and lapse into unconsciousness. As you can imagine, this does not sit well with our bodies, who would like you nice and energetic to help break down all those nutrients. Hitting the couch post-dinner affects our metabolism, fat processing, and how we digest food. The healthy thing to do is take a little stroll after your meal. By doing your shopping, you are in fact killing two birds with one stone.

• The staff is in a better mood. If you frequent the deli, or need help trying to locate certain items, your friendly local grocery store employee is probably going to be a lot nicer after dinner. When 5:00 hits, these poor souls are running around like mad trying to get the huge amounts of people out the door. And your grocery store employee is used to sweating, getting yelled at, and treated like garbage at these times, which means he/she isn't going to be in the most pleasant of states. Once the panic has died down, these dedicated employees tend to be more helpful, more pleasant, and generally make the experience that much better.

• It gives you a few more culinary options. Even if you don't do anything but throw your meat in a pan with potatoes and cook until brown, it's nice to at least have the option to do more isn't it? If you're wanting to play with marinades, then it's advantageous to be able to do it the night before. And perhaps you can spend the night making sauces or chopping vegetables or other assorted mish-mash. Either way, it means less work for you tomorrow. And speaking of tomorrow....

• You can go straight home. Since you purchased everything last night, you don't have to fight with the crowds. You can just head home, prepare your meal, and enjoy a bit more of your evening.

STEP 2: KEEP THE SHOPPING LIST MELLOW

Obviously there are things that are must have on your shopping list. Cereals, basic vegetables, and breads are things that pretty much everyone buys, so you definitely want the essentials on your list. But, leave yourself a little room for exploration.

Take meat for example. Making the decision to buy pork chops before you walk into the store doesn't serve us well, because there are a number of factors to consider, like freshness, price, and good old fashioned craving. If you go to the store and find your pork chops looking a little sad and off color, priced 20 cents a pound above the norm, perhaps its time to rethink tomorrow's dinner. And besides, what about making a decision on what looks good? If we're buying stuff that looks really good and sounds like it would make a nice dinner, well then we're going to be that much more excited to cook it. Make tomorrow evening's meal an adventure. Browse through the meat department and let your creativity wander. Consider the following:

• What looks fresh today?
• Is there anything on sale?
• What sounds like it would be really good?

STEP 3: AVOID THE MAGAZINE AISLE

I see it all the time, a crowd of very well-meaning people crowding the magazine section, flipping through food magazines in search of ideas. Yes I know that the food looks good, and is causing a little inspiration to happen, but they usually tend to cause more stress in the end.

Here's how it plays out: The well-meaning person flips through the magazine, sees a pretty picture that looks tasty, and then they look at the huge list of ingredients that routinely averages the size of a VCR technical manual, and proceed to wander around the store in search of every single ingredient on that list. By the time they are finished, they are worn out, tired, and have a huge pile of spices and ingredients that they may never ever use again.

This is self defeating, and doesn't make for happy cooks. And this one of the reasons we here at CSD don't follow the recipe books. We are going to experiment at our own pace, regardless of what the fluffy TV chef's on Food Network say. So, avoid the temptation to browse through magazines to select tomorrow night's dinner. If the pull is just too great, then you may look at the pictures......but avoid the ingredient list and recipe like the plague.

Try these three simple steps to improve your grocery shopping experience

The Ultimate Mini Kitchen

Here's a fascinating multi-function design from Ensci. This bad boy takes care of a lot of your basic kitchen needs, like stovetop, oven, sink and storage, all while occupying a tiny footprint of your oh-so-valuable space. It has retractable countertops to increase counter space, and folds up nice and compact when not in use.

This is just a concept of course, with no word on whether it will ever reach the open market. For me, white definitely isn't my color, but I must admit the design is pretty intriguing. However, if space is at a premium in your domicile, then you may not have the room necessary to retract those nifty countertops. Plus there's the issue of price, which isn't listed but is very unlikely to be cheap. Certainly not within the range of the small home/cramped apartment dweller who might actually have some use for this.

Courtesy of Gizmodo.