Wiki

The wiki is a resource for educational purposes. Refer back to it when you need a little help or guidance. Here you will find the basics of kitchen hygiene, techniques, an explanation of the most used utensils, and an ever expanding list of ingredients. The wiki is a work in progress and will grow as questions are submitted and menus developed.

The Basics

Several basics should always be kept in mind as you cook and play in the kitchen. Once you gain a grasp of these basic principles, they will serve you well throughout your life. The first two, sanitation and knife skills, are essential for every day eating. Proper sanitation and food storage principles are used to keep you and your family healthy, to prevent food contamination, and keep everybody you feed safe. Knife skills are the most basic of culinary technique – with proper skills you will be more efficient and comfortable in the kitchen. Foods will be produced more quickly and easily when you know how to handle a knife. The remaining set of basics will give an overview to all further interactions in the kitchen.

Sanitation

Food safety and sanitation are different for home cooks and food service establishments; however the basic principles still apply to both. Foods can and are contaminated by bacteria, virus, chemical and even physical contaminates. You cannot tell by looking at or smelling a piece of food if it is contaminated. None of the common food borne contaminants (salmonella, clostridium, fertilizers and hair) have any visual cues or smell. Food safety starts on the farm, and continues everywhere along the line that foods are shipped, stored, processed and sold. While you and I can do little to monitor or oversee these steps we can all participate in food safety through our shopping habits and home storage and processing.

While shopping, make sure that you:

Check and read labels
Inspect that packaging is clean and secure (not ripped or torn)
Check best before or use by dates
Keep meat and poultry separate
Buy cooled items last

At home storage

Check the temperature of the cooler and freezer (should be below 4*c and 0*C)
Place cool or frozen items in the cooler or freezer immediately
Store raw items, meat, fish, and poultry below other food items to prevent dripping contamination
Store ready to eat and cooked items at the top of the cooler
Talk to your grocer about safe storage times – all meats, fish and poultry should be consumed the day of and no longer than three days after purchase

At home preparation

Wash your hands, often
Clean and sanitize all food preparation areas, including counters, cupboards, coolers, cutting boards, and utensils
Clean all items, and wash fruits and vegetables, even pre cut salad greens
Keep raw meats separate from cooked or ready to eat products
Don’t mix raw products together – keep meat, poultry and fish separate
Thaw products in the cooler or under cold running water, never on the counter.
Cook foods to proper temperatures:

Ground meats should be cooked to 160°F.
Ground poultry should be cooked to 165°F.
Solid meats such as steaks, roasts, and chops should be cooked to 145°F.
Whole poultry should be cooked to 180°F in the thigh and to 170°F in the breasts

Knife Skills

Using the right tool for the job makes every job easier. Although I recommend the home cook needs only three knives for all jobs in the kitchen, it is important that the knife is properly sized and comfortable to handle.

The knife should feel solid and comfortable in your hand. Buy the best quality knives you can afford; if maintained they can be a life-long investment. Practice using the whetstone and knife steel to maintain the blade’s edge. A dull knife is difficult to use and a real hazard to your safety.

Proper storage of your knives is very important to maintaining their quality. Set aside a drawer or part of a drawer so you can lay the knives flat upon a folded cloth, if the blades get nicked or banged about the edge, they will develop snags and dull points making it dangerous.

When handling a knife pinch the base of the blade (not the handle) between the thumb and forefinger, let the handle rest lightly in the remaining three fingers. The knife should feel as an extension of your hand.

Use your free hand to grip items to be cut. Form the hand into a claw with the fingers curled. Using the thumb and pinky to hold the sides of the food;

curl the other three down to stabilize the item. Rest the knife side against the curled fingers when chopping so that you can feel the blade with both hands.

Stocks, Soups and Sauces

Most soups and sauces start off as stocks, and the only real difference between soups and sauces are their quantity and use.

Stocks can be easy and straight forward to produce but do take time and patience few of us have. Luckily, several decent products have arrived on the market in recent years. Read the labels and nutrition information. I choose stocks made with natural products like the ones I would find in my cupboard and avoid any with preservatives, additives, stabilizers, and conditioners.

Meat stocks such as beef, veal, and poultry take 6-8 hours of low simmering. Place the bones, or meat into a pot and top with cold water. Bring it slowly to a simmer, skimming any foam that forms atop it. As it reaches a slow bubble, turn it down. Top off water if it gets too low to maintain quantity desired. Chop and add onions, carrots, leeks and celery in the last hour of cooking, add bay, peppercorns and thyme.

Fish and vegetable stocks require only 20-30 minutes of cooking but again maintain a low slow bubbling and don’t let it boil. Most any vegetables can be used for vegetable stocks including trimmings but avoid any from the cabbage family. These include broccoli, cauliflower, turnips and of course cabbages. When using fish, avoid any oily fish such as salmon or other cold water species, as their flavors are too strong and pungent. You can also use shellfish, such as shrimp, lobster or crab shells.

Understanding Vegetables and Grains

Vegetables and grains are the items that create the most diversity in our diets. The appeal of fruits, nuts, vegetables and grains is not just their color, but also their varied tastes and textures. Because of this diversity vegetables and grains can become the main focus rather than neglected, lifeless and limp in the center of the table. They can become the main course or the spectacular sauce to accompany it.

The variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains may appear at first to create a complicated and difficult picture. This truly is not the case. When cooking these items the focus must go into preserving the color, texture and nutritional qualities, and in these areas the fruits, vegetables and grains can be easily grouped together.

Texture is a function of the fiber in a vegetable or grain. Fiber is softened by two actions, the process of applying heat by whatever method and the action of water on the structure of the fibre. If heat is applied for too long the vegetable will become mushy. Vegetables require short cooking, and even shorter when water is used as in boiling, or steaming. Most vegetables are quick to cook taking as little as five minutes and often no longer than fifteen.

Color is another aspect of vegetables that are affected by the process of cooking. Some colors such as the red vegetables are fairly stable in this regard. While the application of acids or alkali substances can change the hue from bright red to a purple, simple cooking will not affect them. Green on the other hand is very unstable, quickly changing from bright green to a dull grey with over cooking. Green vegetables thankfully tend to cook quickly as they are not generally fibrous.

The third aspect to keep in mind is the nutritional quality of the foods. Nutrients in food and especially the minor nutrients in grains and vegetables can be more delicate and easily destroyed through cooking. The longer an item is cooked the further the nutrients are degraded. Nutrients may also be lost to cooking liquids, so if boiling then cook it quickly, better yet steam an item. It is inevitable that some nutrients will be lost to cooking.

Cook it quickly, and as little as possible
Cook it just before serving
Cut items into uniform sizes for even cooking
If boiling; start with boiling water before adding vegetables
For specifics on cooking look up the individual vegetables in the wiki.

Understanding Meats

Meats and poultry have several things in common, namely all meats have the same basic composition. They are made of water, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in varying quantities. The other aspect of meats and poultry that needs to be kept in mind is the toughness of the piece. Is it a little used muscle, tender and soft or is it a working muscle, tougher but more flavourful.

There are two classes of cooking methods, using dry heat or moist heat. Moist heat is any method which uses liquid which will tenderize a tougher cut. Moist methods are boiling, steaming, braising, poaching and so on. Oil is not a liquid; it is actually a dry method, in that oil will force moisture out of foods rather than into foods. Dry methods are used for the more tender cuts such as steaks and chops, or slow roasts. Grilling, roasting, broiling and frying are all examples of dry methods.

Moist cooking methods are best employed with the idea of low and slow in mind. Poaching and braising are characterized by small bubbles rising very slowly to the surface, either on the stove top or in a low oven set at between 250* and 300*. Any higher and you will start to boil. The higher heat in boiling and steaming can cause the muscle fibres to toughen rather than tenderize.

Dry heat methods are either high heat such as grilling, broiling, and frying or can be employed in low heat such as roasting. All of the high heat methods will toughen a piece of meat as they drive moisture out and cause the proteins to tighten up. However the high heat will brown the surface creating truly delicious flavours, best employed in quick cooking of already tender cuts such as grilling steaks or frying thin schnitzel. Low heat methods such as roasting of course take longer but can produce both a browned flavour and a gentle tenderizing as connective tissues and fats slowly melt from the meat. Best employed for larger cuts beef, lamb and pork roasts.

A note about bones in meat and poultry: bones add tremendous flavour to any cut of meat whether it is a chop, or roast but also increase the length of time it takes to cook.

Fish and Shellfish

Fish and shellfish and all other items that come from the waters are very tender and often fragile. Due to their watery environment, the world’s sea life is supported by a natural buoyancy and as such have no need to develop toughness in their muscle and bone systems.

To the cook this means that seafood will never need tenderizing, and they should be cooked quickly to preserve their delicate natures. As a general rule the quicker, and shortest amount of time used to cook fish will always be best. Because of this dry heat methods work very well, but moist heat such as steaming, and poaching work equally as well.

If in doubt about the length of time to cook seafood, err on the side of under done. If it is a filet it will take about 6 minutes an inch, if it seafood such as scallops, shrimp, or octopus they will cook by most methods in 3-5 minutes.

Eggs and Dairy

The composition of eggs includes mostly water surrounded by albumen protein in the whites and fats and protein in the yolks. The whites cook quickly reaching a firm doneness at 145* while the fats in the yolks raise the temperature required to as high as 155*. Because of their protein content, eggs lend themselves to many applications in the kitchen: as cooked eggs by frying, poaching, boiling, and even baked or in other dishes such as custards, quiches or binders in meatloaves.

Unfortunately in North America it can be assumed that all eggs have been infected with salmonella, this bacteria which infects North American chicken flocks coats the outside of the eggs and so if cracked or dirty they should not be used. A new strain of salmonella has emerged in the last couple years which infects the oviduct of laying hens resulting in salmonella tainted yolks. The egg producers want us as consumers to fully cook our eggs to a hard yolk rather than clean up their practices and raise chickens properly. So far the risk is small if proper sanitation is observed.

Dairy covers a large section of foods from liquid milks and creams to cheeses and yoghurts as well as butters. Milk comes from dairy animals such as cows, sheep, and goats, but the milk from other animals is edible and delicious as well.

Milk is a suspension of fats and minerals in water. The quantity of fat is labelled on the packaging such as skim or 1% all the way to 35%. Milk in this country always comes pasteurized, that is to say that whole milk has been heated to kill bacteria and then cooled.

There are two forms of pasteurization, the standard form (typically labelled pasteurized) heats milk to 161* for 15 seconds. This process is also called high temperature short time or HTST for short. The second method kills all bacteria and can even damage the nutritional qualities of milk; it is called ultra high temperature or UHT. UHT treated milk is useless for any cheese or yoghurt making, and only good for long storage applications.

The Utensils

Beyond a few much needed and used items the category of utensils can quickly be overwhelmed by gimmicks and gizmos that clutter up kitchen drawers and confuse the process of cooking. Sure we all love to have a new toy or play with a strange contraption but overall, only about a dozen items are truly needed.

3 knives

8’ chef, or utility – this is your everyday use knife, a chef knife has a wider blade than a utility knife, but both are interchangeable. Great for all slicing and chopping.
10’ bread – bread is the staff of life, use a knife with shallow serrations for better cutting action
Paring – for small trimming and delicate work a small 3-4′ paring knife is a great companion to the 8′ chef knife.

Heavy wood cutting board – heavy for stability, place a damp cloth underneath to prevent any slippage. Wood is soft on knives and porous allowing cleaning solutions to penetrate. Avoid ceramics, steels or glass as they dull knives quickly. Also avoid plastics as grooves are cut into them the plastic will seal trapping bacteria.
Whisk – called a balloon whip, it is a series of wires formed into a cage, and attached to a short handle. At least one of about 8′ length is ideal. 2 or 3 of varying size will come in handy at times.
Grater/ rasp – graters come in multiple sizes; I find the utility of the box grater, incorporating several grate sizes and styles into one tool the best. A rasp with its fine teeth is also a fantastic tool for shaving cheese, lemon zest or chocolate.
Tongs – tongs will be used again and again when you find the right and comfortable size. Choose the clover leaf type, made of two handles that squeeze together; each has a leaf or flower like end for picking up foods. Usually a pair that is about 9′ long will suffice.
Wooden spoon – get several of different lengths
Rubber spatula – buy good spatulas with high heat resistance. Cheap rubber will melt when used to stir sauces and should be avoided. Get a few as you will use them again and again.
Mortar and pestle – a neglected tool. The mortar or bowl should be made of rough non porous granite, while the pestle or stick should have a nice polished rounded base to it. Use the mortar and pestle for grinding spices, or herbs, for making sauces, or mashing nuts and seeds. My favourite tool in the kitchen.
Peeler – used to peel, I prefer the horizontal style with the blade held like a sling shot rather than parallel with the handle. A dull blade is useless and if in this state it should be replaced.
Rolling pin, French handleless – a good rolling pin is a joy to use, I have several but always go back to a straight handle less rolling pin in the French style. Made of oak it is over 12′ long and fairly heavy for its size making rolling dough and pastries quick and easy.
Spatula – spatulas come in several shapes and sizes such as straight or offset. An offset spatula has the blade drop below the level of the handle making it easier to reach into pans and baking sheets for flipping.

The Equipment

A note about pots and pans: professional series, master or any fancy marketing terms mean they are decidedly not ‘professional’. The non-stick coating will always scratch or over heat and flake, soon after everything sticks. Double or triple layered, hybrid, pots and pans are over engineered, with little details forgotten or ignored making them difficult or even useless in the long run. A good set of pots and pans are heavy, well shined aluminum or stainless steel, with oven safe metal handles not plastic and will last a lifetime. You can find them at restaurant supply stores. Only the essentials have been listed below, other items such as a pressure cooker or slow cooker can find use in a well stocked kitchen.

6L saucepan – at least one large pot is useful for boiling or steaming vegetables, for use in pot roasts or when boiling pastas or making soups.
2L saucepan – a small pot finding constant use for sauces and reheating small quantities.
4L straight sided sauté pan – great as an all around pot for open roasting, use for deep frying small batches or to sauté large quantities of vegetables. Also the perfect item to use for stews or other braised items.
Slope sided sauté pan – the most well used pans in the kitchen used for everything from sauté to frying eggs, small sauces and browning meats. Several sauté pans, at least two are recommended.
Colander – a large bowl with perforations. Not always used but essential for draining vegetables or pastas.
Strainer – use metal strainers with a large bowl for straining or scooping items from the pots. Don’t use plastic which will melt at higher temperatures.
Blender or food processor – great for pureeing soups and sauces, to make smoothies and many other jobs in the kitchen. A good blender or food processor will find many uses at first not thought of.
Mixing/ serving bowls – several sizes of mixing serving bowls are useful in the kitchen. Glass can be used for both preparation and for serving, they are heavy and stable while stainless steel are great for a preparation techniques. Stay away from the plastic bowls, while inexpensive they will pick up and hold unwanted scents and transfer residues into the food.
Whetstone/ knife steel – a sharp knife is the most basic and heavily used item in the kitchen. It is essential to keep the blade sharp and in good repair. While it can be a little time consuming sharpening by hand will ensure a proper edge and maintain your knives for a lifetime of kitchen bliss.

The Skills

Knife skills
Sautéing and pan frying
Roasting and baking
Grilling and broiling
Simmering, braising, and poaching
Boiling and steaming
Deep frying

Ingredients

Pantry, dry
Pantry, cold
Meats
Cheeses
Dairy
Produce
Flavourings and spices