I was under the impression the longer you cook a sauce or soup on low heat, the more the bring out the flavors?
each flavor cooks at a different heat
each flavor needs to be cooked a certain amount to be coaxed out of the food
for example, penne alla vodka:
cook the onions on super high heat for one minute, then slowly on medium with constant movement for five to six
that's a classic onion preparation but the idea is puncture the cell walls, five or six minutes of letting the cells sweat out the water and let everything else cook down into sweeter sugars
then you raise the heat to nuclear (oil should be splattering everywhere) and then the tomatoes go sliding in. similar idea, break the cell walls you even let them start to uh, not burn or crisp, i forget the word, really kinda dehydrate and then you add the vodka and it sucks up the heat by vaporizing and in the meantime it chemically cures the tomato, which you keep on high simmer while the pasta cooks just to dehydrate. and then adding the unrinsed salty pasta to the cooked-down tomato (as the pasta finishes) adds the salt that finally breaks down the remaining cell walls of the tomato, inside which the tomato sugars are caramelizing, and the salted pasta grabs the oily tomato sauce and the boiling water stuck to the pasta loosens the tomato-tomato molecule bonds so it's nice and creamy (or something)
so the point is not low or high heat, it's just dependent on what you're making
now that's a sauce, not a soup
but with a soup i think you generally want to bring to boil for same reasons, and then cook for like an hour or two on a simmer, and then TOSS everything in there and start again on medium heat, adding the things you want to cook in roughly order of time it takes to cook them, then simmer high at the end super briefly if you're adding anything back in (like chicken from the soup stock) and let cool.
otherwise what you're talking about is making a stock and not a soup, if you're starting a soup with stock then you could cook briefly at high simmer or slowly on low simmer depending on what you are trying to do w/ each vegetable / grain / meat texture
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 22:54 (eleven years ago) link
when i say TOSS i mean DISCARD everything that's been slow cooking for 1-2 hours, or if it's stern stuff that takes 1-2 hrs to cook perhaps blend, but that would be some seriously tough veg
you may want to experiment with starting off salty and never adding any more salt until finished, that's traditional in italy i think
also in a stock you add the spices (except salt) after the boil, i think, because you don't want to break down their flavor by cooking at boiling heat, and the aromatics go in the soup proper and not the stock (say cilantro) so don't slow cook away the aromas!
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 22:58 (eleven years ago) link
That's one of the most informative postings I have read on ilx, thanks!
― JacobSanders, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:06 (eleven years ago) link
all i did is just get some *simple* books (like nigel slater level) and followed them religiously and after awhile you get the sense of timing of heat and salt and that's kinda it to cooking
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:14 (eleven years ago) link
welp
― We demand justice: who murdered Chanel? (Matt P), Monday, 1 October 2012 23:24 (eleven years ago) link
it's like i just learned a new language.
― We demand justice: who murdered Chanel? (Matt P), Monday, 1 October 2012 23:25 (eleven years ago) link
the language of heat
― We demand justice: who murdered Chanel? (Matt P), Monday, 1 October 2012 23:26 (eleven years ago) link
literally cooking is all salt and heat! (and acid and oil i guess)
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:34 (eleven years ago) link
one of my favorite exercises is the thai flavor wheel:
start w/ a pinch of chili, then taste a drop of lime, which cuts the oil, then a taste of salty to break down the acidity and further cut the oil, then sweet to bring out and balance the salty (not sure what sweet was, maybe a bit of palm sugar or coconut milk
then to make a curry you do the same thing in different order, to make soup you do a different order, to do salad you do a different order (salad iirc was garlic + salt + chili -> add lime -> add sugar -> add fish sauce (aromatic) finish)
so that's the originary vocabulary for thai cooking, i think every cuisine has an equivalent (french has oil or egg or cream, lemon or vinegar, onion and garlic, italians have different oils and vinegars)
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:41 (eleven years ago) link
i think cooking as a kind of math actually
― the late great, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:42 (eleven years ago) link
You're not wrong. I think that's why I love it so.
― Jaq, Monday, 1 October 2012 23:45 (eleven years ago) link
See I dont, really! I wing everything with instinct. Tho I guess I do think about reactions and whatnot. So, chemistry rather than math for me.
― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 October 2012 00:25 (eleven years ago) link
you mean amounts or the temperatures and order in which you the parts of a curry or whatever?
― the late great, Tuesday, 2 October 2012 00:37 (eleven years ago) link
i prob do things more instinctively too, but then i tend to loosely follow recipes and only really improvise when i'm sure.
― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 2 October 2012 10:58 (eleven years ago) link
I mean reactions and heat and stuff, its hard to explain. I know when something's brown enough/caramelized enough/soft enough/flavoursome enough somehow?
― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 October 2012 11:01 (eleven years ago) link
from looking and feeling
― the late great, Tuesday, 2 October 2012 19:32 (eleven years ago) link
that's experience too
I think there are very generally sensory cue-driven people and precise science-driven people when it comes to cooking. I'm in the former camp, but I respect the latter if that approach works for them. You just have to figure out what works for you (ie experience).
― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Tuesday, 2 October 2012 19:40 (eleven years ago) link
hey i paid way more attention to / thought about how heat and salt work and made the best version of a dish (my own recipe) i've ever made last night. thank u late great and thread!
― We demand justice: who murdered Chanel? (Matt P), Tuesday, 2 October 2012 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
np, i tried to mash up three recipes, spilled a box of couscous all over the floor, dumped a pot of kale + cooking water all over the counter, and ended up with 2x as much dressing as i needed for kale and vegetables. yay me!
re: recipes i think the key is not so much precise amounts of spices and ingredients or certain amounts to the minute of cooking but more *the order of things* and the relative amount of time it looks for something to *be done*
you can only tell if a steak's done by look, smell, feel, etc, ditto toasting couscous
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:20 (eleven years ago) link
which i over toasted in my haste
cooking is just str8 up practice imo
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:43 (eleven years ago) link
and trying shit; like over the summer i made a terrible pork chop on the grill but tonight i made a rad pork chop in a skillet. like you gotta find what works for you.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:44 (eleven years ago) link
yeah it took me a while to get the hang of grilling chicken breasts without carving them open to see if they're pink inside and now I am QUEEN OF ALL I SURVEY
and there are days where you just wing it and think you're gonna make something amazing that just really turns out like boiled garbage. circle of cuisine. new delicious dishes are born, they grow and change, others die slow deaths in yr stomach/trashcan/dogbowl
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:52 (eleven years ago) link
my best bad cooking effort: I tried to make sweet potato homefries and they burned all to fuck but they were still kind of edible and so mr veg and I sat at the dinner table eating forkfuls of these weird blackened chewy sweet potato worms and just looking at each other like 'WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN'
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:53 (eleven years ago) link
chicken breasts are a national lie
― barthes simpson, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:53 (eleven years ago) link
boneless skinless = agreed
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:54 (eleven years ago) link
they have their uses
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:56 (eleven years ago) link
they are good ... for me to poop on
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 02:57 (eleven years ago) link
Dark meat all the way with skin and bones
― JacobSanders, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 03:18 (eleven years ago) link
if it quells your ire we buy breasts on the bone & I occasionally use them for boneless skinless cooking on a grill pam when it is too hot to use the oven
jeez u guys
i love dark meat too!
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 03:22 (eleven years ago) link
leave the skin on dammit, helps keep the precious poultry juices inside the meat
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 04:18 (eleven years ago) link
crispy salted chicken skin mmmmm or just peel it off before serving
the best is a whole chicken + a weeks leftover chicken
YOU ARE NOT THE CHICKEN BOSS OF ME
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 04:51 (eleven years ago) link
we regularly barbecue the chicken with the skin on
leaving the skin on a filleted breast is kind of pointless, surely - the juices are going to come out the cut side anyway
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 04:54 (eleven years ago) link
wait why did you filet the breast?
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:11 (eleven years ago) link
i guess for scallopini or whatever you take the skin off but i so rarely eat chicken filet
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:12 (eleven years ago) link
because I don't want to turn on the oven - it's hot as hades here already
I can cook the filets quickly and easily on the stove on a grill pan
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:13 (eleven years ago) link
and by filet I mean just take the breast off the bone, I don't mean like paper thin slices or anything crazy like that
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:14 (eleven years ago) link
if you grill pan w/ skin side down the juices will trap between the crisping skin and the meat, be sure to cover with a heavy lid to keep the juices steaming the chicken
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:16 (eleven years ago) link
you can kinda brown w/o cooking the inside with the skin down too
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:17 (eleven years ago) link
if I ever leave the skin on, I'll try that :P
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:34 (eleven years ago) link
:)
if you know what;s good for that chicken
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:35 (eleven years ago) link
*eyeroll*
lol
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 05:42 (eleven years ago) link
Ive gone right off skinless breast meat for anything, in the old days I'd pan fry those fuckers and always wonder whyfore chewy. Now I do whole roasts, and if its stir fry or curry, thigh meat all the way. Im not a dark meat fan in the "eat the meat off the bones" sense when it comes to the whole bird. But thigh meat is best in stew situs. All that fat.
Breasts are good poached but I'm still working that one out.
― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 06:30 (eleven years ago) link
how do you poach? i haven't done that yet.
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 06:54 (eleven years ago) link
except fish in an oven
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 06:55 (eleven years ago) link
Just slip a breast into water or stock (usually stock) with maybe some slivers of garlic and a bay leaf, then simmer gently for maybe 5 mins then let it sit covered in the liquid with the heat off, for another 10? Im never sure how long, i seeem to still overdo it and it goes tough.
― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 06:57 (eleven years ago) link
covered, right?
― the late great, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 18:29 (eleven years ago) link