Boiling meat has largely gone out of fashion, mainly I think because a number of the cuts of meat associated with it are no longer all that popular either.
This is not necessarily a good thing. As a way of cooking meat, boiling is cheaper than roasting and it preserves more of the essential minerals and vitamins, as long as the cooking liquid is used for gravy.
The unappetizing color of...
Why are eggs so important? Because they appear in just about every type of cooking and if you can handle them successfully you can deal with anything the kitchen throws at you.
Just in case you don't believe me, here's a few of the ways in which we use them; cakes, omelets, pancakes, souffles, ice cream, soups, meringues, breakfast, tea, sandwiches, sauces, custard, pastry, desserts,...
All chefs who go to a western-style catering college, and most butcher's apprentices, are taught to sharpen their knives by swiping the cutting edge several times on a steel towards the hand that is holding that implement. I used to do it that way as well, many years ago.
I also used to teach others the same method until the day I saw someone lay his hand open with a cut needing fourteen...
Choosing a barbecue means spending money on something that you are going to be using on a fairly regular basis with high expectations for the end result. So it's important to make the right decisions early on in order to avoid disappointments later.
Not All Barbecues are the Same
In fact, if you are relatively new to them, you could be forgiven for thinking that there is a bewildering array...
It can be argued that there are two separate ways of using terror as a weapon; one is to maintain the status quo and the other is to change something, usually in terms of a political and/or economic regime.
The question is, does the use of terror achieve these ends in either case?
The answer, surprisingly, seems to be 'yes' in the case of one and 'no' in the case of the other, while the...
One of the more shady practices of unscrupulous butchers, including those to be found in many supermarkets, is to label young mutton, also known as hoggett, as 'prime lamb'.
It's not just that there is a difference in flavor, succulence and tenderness, there is also a considerable price difference at market as any struggling sheep farmer will tell you. In other words, we are being ripped...
In the early 1970s one of the first celebrity chefs hit the TV screens of Australia and Great Britain in the form of Graham Kerr, 'The Galloping Gourmet'.
Kerr was a leader in stripping away a lot of the over-complicated cooking methods still being peddled in many cookbooks. His teaching premise was as simple as his recipes - learn a basic method first and everything else will follow.
My...
I learned to fillet fish, including salmon, in a very busy restaurant in Cherbourg, Normandy, where the required rate was something like one whole fish every 10 seconds, including gutting and cleaning.
We used razor sharp filleting knives that were kept so with a few wipes on a steel from time to time and the fillets on thicker fish such as cod and salmon were removed with just four strokes....
Poaching eggs is a skill that is rapidly disappearing from the kitchens of the world, thanks to those awful patent cookers that produce something with the appearance, and consistency, of a plastic amoeba.
I'm not exaggerating when I say it's a skill. Poaching an egg in such a way that it retains its shape and texture is something that many chefs, let alone home cooks, never quite master. It...
Balsamic vinegar is the 'wine' of Modena, Italy. It is rich, thick, expensive and marries up beautifully with food such as steak to produce an unusual finish that greatly enhances the look and flavor of the meat.
But be warned. Not all vinegars labeled 'balsamic' are the real thing. In fact, most are decidedly not even though the label may insist they are. There are three things to look for...
