• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 633 0

the collards and the hocks, with cooking liquid, to the smaller pot to keep the hocks submerged. Continue cooking for another 2 to 3 hours longer, or until the collards reach the consistency of your choice.

Although collards are often a side dish, I like to serve them in soup bowls, topped with the chopped hock meat, and cornbread on the side.

Yield: A mess o’ greens for 4-6 people and pot likker to dip your cornbread into.

Software:

2 pounds collard greens, stemmed

and cut into 2-inch strips

2 smoked ham hocks

3 cups water

⅓ cup vinegar of your choice (I

like a combination of cider and

rice wine vinegars)

Hardware:

The biggest covered pot you have

that’ll fit in your oven

Heavy-duty aluminum foil

Another covered pot about

half as big

A Quick Mess O’ Greens Place in a pressure cooker in the following order: collards, ham hocks, water, and vinegar. Lock the lid in place and set over high heat. Bring to high pressure (this takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes), then reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 minutes more. Gently release steam. Remove the ham hocks (or pick the meat off the bone and add to the collards) add Kosher salt to taste, and serve.

Pilaf

The word “pilaf” does refer to an actual dish, but more often than not it refers to a procedure, a way of cooking rice or other grains that includes a quick sauté in fat before any moisture is added. The result is far more flavorful than any boiled or steamed rice can muster. So why cook rice any other way? I honestly can’t say.

Application: Simmering

Preheat the oven to 350° F (see Note). Add the salt to the liquid and bring to a boil in the kettle.

Heat the sauce pot over medium-high heat, then add the butter. As soon as the foaming subsides, add the onion and garlic. Stir with the wooden spoon until fragrant, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the rice and stir to coat. Stir off and on until the rice begins to smell slightly of nuts. Continue to stir, and pour in the boiling liquid (there will be some sputtering and steam). This will be the last time a spoon ever touches the rice until serving.

Cover the sauce pot tightly and place in the oven for 17 minutes. Remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Do not touch the rice in any way for one minute. Then fluff with the fork, and serve.

Yield: 4½ cups

Note: I simmer my pilaf at this higher temperature because of the amount of energy required to continuously convert the water involved into steam. The type of starch present in rice really needs that heat.

Software:

1 teaspoon kosher salt

4 cups liquid (water, stock, wine, or

any combination thereof)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ cup diced onion

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 cups white rice

Hardware:

Kettle (I prefer electric ones)

Sauce pot with tight-fitting lid (if

the fit is questionable, seal the

pot opening with aluminum foil,

then push on the lid)

Wooden spoon

Large fork

Boiling

Master Profile: Boiling

Heat type: wet

Mode of transmission: 70:30 percent ratio of conduction to convection

Rate of transmission: high

Common transmitters: any liquid

Temperature range: 212° F at sea level

Target food characteristics:

• Pasta

• Eggs in the shell

• British food

• Foods that can stand up to fierce convection currents (see Blanching)

Non-culinary application: sterilizing stuff

OIL AND PASTA

I have received angry letters on this one from hardened pastaholics, but I can find zero science to back up the claim that adding oil to pasta cooking water keeps pasta from sticking. It’s as simple as this: pasta is dehydrated, so it wants to be around water, especially hot water, which due to added molecular motion penetrates faster than cold. So you’ve got a lot of water and a lot of pasta, then you add a tablespoon or two of oil. Considering how oil and water feel about each other, I’d say that Butch and Sundance had a better chance of making it out of that Bolivian bank than that oil has of getting to first base with the pasta.