More than 200 types of fish are caught in and around the United States. Some are naturally lean, others oily; some have a delicate flavor, others are almost meaty. A fish’s skeletal structure helps to determine how it will be cut up for marketing, but its fat content is the most important distinction for cooking. The best way to pair a ...

Succeeding in culinary school is more than just being a good student With the recession, customers want cheaper meat. And with the head-to-tail movement, chefs aren’t just cooking prime rib and terderloin, but the neck and shanks of cows, pigs, and ducks everywhere. Whether it’s the recession or the head to tail movement, normally discarded cuts of meat are making ...

To follow up last month’s article on tools of the trade, here is a list of the larger items found in a food stylist’s kit. Heat Gun: This item is usually used to remove unwanted wall paper. The intense heat releases the glue under the paper in order to peel the paper from the wall. But in food styling it is ...

Chefs consider a number of things when they decide what foods to buy and where to buy them. Menus and daily production needs dictate the ingredients. Beyond that, chefs consider quality, cost, and availability. Today’s chef also needs to think about how foods were raised or grown, the ways in which they were processed before they arrived at the restaurant, and ...

Properly cooked foods should be full of flavor and texture. They should also look appealing. You can easily achieve these goals by pairing ingredients and cooking methods to maximize flavor, texture, and appearance. If healthy cooking is a goal, you should also plan to minimize nutrient loss. In most cases, traditional cooking methods are well suited to healthy cooking. The exceptions ...

You’ve probably read the previous piece on North Indian breads. This article focuses on North Indian cooking, which includes cooking style, spices used, terminology and some common foods. North Indian cooking is nearly always quite spicy and uses a large number of spices in any given dish. The terms used for various dishes are normally descriptive of the food itself like ...

There is slang for everything in the kitchen; will you know what you're talking about? Chefs speak in a language that is specific to the kitchen, and you're not going to learn it by going to culinary school or reading culinary texts. So Chef's Blade has worked with industry professionals to bring you this introduction to culinary slang as well ...

Making a vinaigrette is more technique than recipe. Once you know the basics, you’re free to mix up the ingredients (no pun intended) to suit your tastes and salad. Think of a vinaigrette as a sauce. It should enhance, not dominate, the flavors in your salad. A basic vinaigrette consists of two key ingredients – fat and acid. The fat is ...

If you ask me, garlic is one of the great sources of joy in the universe; second only to the obligatory things like being a mom, being kind to others, a warm summer’s breeze and all that jazz. But when my five-year-old is tap dancing on my last nerve (as I’m told five-year-olds are wont to do), I’d be tempted to ...

Chefs consider a number of things when they decide what foods to buy and where to buy them. Menus and daily production needs dictate the ingredients. Beyond that, chefs consider quality, cost, and availability. Today’s chef also needs to think about how foods were raised or grown, the ways in which they were processed before they arrived at the restaurant, and ...

Cooking is the act of applying heat to foods to prepare them for eating. When foods are cooked, changes in flavor, texture, aroma, color, and nutritional content occur during the process. There are three ways that heat is transferred to foods. Conduction is the direct transfer of heat between adjacent molecules. An example of conduction is cooking on a flattop range. ...

The egg is composed of two main parts, the white and the yolk. Various membranes help keep the yolk suspended at the center of the white and help prevent contamination or weight loss through evaporation. Whole eggs, as well as whites and yolks separately, play a number of important culinary roles. Whole eggs are used as the main component of many ...

Carbohydrates come in various forms, and each form reacts differently when exposed to heat. The two forms of carbohydrates that are of interest from a basic food science perspective are sugar and starch. When exposed to heat, sugar will at first melt into a thick syrup. As the temperature continues to rise, the sugar syrup changes color, from clear to light ...

At the molecular level, natural proteins are shaped like coils or springs. When natural proteins are exposed to heat, salt, or acid, they denature—that is, their coils unwind. When proteins denature, they tend to bond together, or coagulate, and form solid clumps. An example of this is a cooked egg white, which changes from a transparent fluid to an opaque solid. ...

One of the basic components of charcuterie and garde manger items is a preparation known as a forcemeat. A forcemeat is a lean meat and fat emulsion that is established when the ingredients are processed together by grinding, sieving, or puréeing. Depending on the grinding and emulsifying methods and the intended use, the forcemeat may have a smooth consistency or may ...

Federal, state, and local government regulations work to ensure the wholesomeness of the food that reaches the public. Any new foodservice business should contact the local health department well in advance of opening, to ascertain the necessary legal requirements. Some states and local jurisdictions offer sanitation certification programs. Regulations and testing vary from area to area. Certification is often available through ...

Foods can serve as carriers for many different illnesses. The most common symptoms of food-borne illnesses include abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, possibly accompanied by fever. These symptoms may appear within a matter of hours after consumption of the affected food, although in some cases several days may elapse before onset. In order for a food-borne illness to be declared ...

At one time the term brown sauce was equated exclusively with the classic sauces espagnole and demi-glace. Today it may also indicate jus de veau lié, pan sauces, or reduction style sauces based on a brown or fortified stock. Espagnole sauce is prepared by bolstering a brown veal stock with additional roasted mirepoix, tomato pinçage, and aromatics and thickening it with ...

The white sauce family includes the classic sauces velouté and béchamel, both produced by thickening a liquid with roux. A classic velouté, which translates from French as “velvety, soft, and smooth to the palate,” is prepared by flavoring a white stock (veal, chicken, or fish) with aromatics and thickening it with blond roux. In Escoffier’s time, a béchamel sauce was made ...

A food stylist’s kit is his/her lifeline. A well-equipped kit will help a job go smoothly and easily. There are things on the list below that one might think odd to use with food but, rest assured, every single item on this list is vital to food styling in one way or another. There are a few obvious things such as ...