Tips & Tricks

just make the kind of food that you like, then make the food that sounds like you would like
if you cant afford daily trips to the supermarket or wherever you buy yor ingridients try to stick with one type of food like french or italian for the most part.
Learning how to cook for the sake of learning how to cook is stupid, most people who do that end up never cooking
Learn how to cook because you like cooking and food and feeding people

Mornay is a specific type of a bechamel sauce. Bechamel can be made with flour and any dairy, mornay is specifically flour and cheese. If you've ever had a Kentucky Hot Brown, that's an open-faced turkey sandwich, covered with mornay, then topped with bacon and tomatoes.

The main thing here is being able to make a roux. If you can do that, you can make gumbo, shrimp creole, crawfish etouffee, a ton of different Cajun dishes that are delicious.

>a common book of sauces?
Yes, every cookbook ever published by a French cook since the dawn of time. Just google them and practice, it's not difficult.

any french cookbook

this is a super easy shortcut hollandaise that's just as good and takes 10% the time and effort of the traditional way: youtube.com/watch?v=rOWzVV_XrcM

Espagnole is something anyone can easily do if they make their own stocks (beef or pork).

Neat

You could also shred a carrot. Carrots are high in sugar.

Yes

meat Stock always seems something home chefs seem to not have.

cinnamon's good in meat, actually, but don't fucking overboard with it. don't be afraid to experiment but if you make something that sucks you have no one to blame but yourself.

Slow cooking stuff always needs liquid. Two pieces water and one piece red wine make a good sauce for slow cooking meat if you have nothing else to add.

> don't be afraid to experiment but if you make something that sucks you have no one to blame but yourself.
In other words: Be afraid of experimenting and always follow a recipe from someone who knows what theyre doing.

no, what I meant to say is that you should be smart about the shit you make but don't be afraid to try new things

I heard on this board that people add corn-meal to thicken sauces (as opposed to a roux) -- Does anyone know if 'polenta' (I'm in Argentina right now) would be the same thing? Or does it have extra stuffs that would ruin the thickening aspect?

Actually, would you thicken with flour or cornmeal and why?

Ive seen the carrot-in-tomato-sauce used in salsas here in Texas. Not sure why they'd waste time using carrots when sugar is probably cheaper.

corn meal sounds like a decent idea as long as the flavor isnt overpowering. ill tell you one thing, i havent had any good results using corn *starch* as a thickener. It's so bitter.

Learn how to mince your own garlic. I add fresh garlic to almost everything I make, tastes way better than that crap that comes in jars, and if you cook every day it hardly takes any time at all.

just use powdered corn syrup, not corn meal. There's a reason it became popular to use.

Use wines for deglazing. White for chicken/fish and usually pork but use your judgement, red for beef, lighter reds for veal.

With soups I find that if you blend one third of the soup then add it back in it tastes at least 3 times better

Thats a great idea on the blending bit.

Why would blending do anything? Is it the oxygen being introduced?

concrentrate all the flavors that are seperated due to being solids?

Espagnole is worth it 100% even if all you ever use it for is making demi-glace.

>food that can be used in a lot of other dishes

Whole chickens, turkeys, and beef and pork roasts can be used for multiple dishes throughout the week. Set aside a day a week to either slow roast something, like a pork butt, or roast a couple of chickens, make stock with the bones, winglets, or any excess meat you have after cleaning them up.

I smoke pork roasts and use the meat for: BBQ sandwiches, pork taco's, tamale's, Asian stir fry. The chickens I smoke are used in everything from Indian or Thai style curry meals, to Cajun gumbo or Jambalaya, to Italian dishes with a marinara sauce. You can do the same thing by simply roasting them in your oven.

>techniques that you use in cooking to squeeze out that extra bit of taste from your meals.

I think the number one easiest thing you can do to improve your meals is to always have some stock or broth on hand and always use it in place of any recipe that calls for adding water to your dish. Make it yourself, but even the store bought stuff will help make your meals much better. Just beware of the high sodium content of some store bought stocks.

Here's a freebie for you - easy pan sauce:
1. deglaze the pan with some wine and reduce
2. add stock and reduce
3. add butter and reduce to desired consistency
4. add cream and reduce to desired consistency

Strain, if desired, and serve over your meat.

Youtube, my man. Youtube.

Do a search for "classic mother sauces", and you'll find everything you need, and be able to watch how they do it.

What would you use in place of wine? Ideally something that isn't more alcohol or meant to taste like it without the content.

You could skip it and just do the deglaze with stock.

One other thing is to check for, or add, seasonings before you slap your sauce on your protein.

Thanks user, sorta figured that would be the case, alcohol in recipes is so common it's hard to tell how different it would taste with it included.

There's still something to be said for adding acidity or alcohol(any actual alcohol cooks off so no content) to pan sauces. It lightens the weight noticeably. Try adding lemon juice or keep doing what you're doing with vinegars. Maybe try experimenting with different vinegars and herb vinegars.

Protip: peel your onions first.