• Tips and Techniques
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Certain recipes will blithely ask you to do something that you’ve never done before and have no idea about how to do it. Ever clarify butter? Pit an avocado? Even chopping an onion can be daunting if you’ve never had to do it before. Herewith are some tips and techniques.

If you buy young, tender stalks, you can avoid peeling them. Just wash them and bend them gently using the thumb and forefinger of each hand. When they snap, throw away the base. That’s it, no peeling. However, it you buy thick asparagus with woody stalks, you should peel them. Grab hold of the bottom of the stalk in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other. Peel toward your hand carefully turning the stalk as you peel. Snap off the piece you’re holding where the peeling stops and throw it away.

Cut the avocado in half lengthwise around pit. Turn the two halves in opposite directions to separate, leaving the pit in one of the halves. Insert the edge of a sharp knife into the pit, twist and remove it. Holding the pitted avocado half in hand cut slices just to, not through, the skin. Then turn the skin inside out and pop out the avocado from the skin and throw the skin away. Sprinkle the exposed flesh with lemon or lime to prevent discoloration if you’re not going to use the avocado right away.

Tie thyme, parsley, and bay leaf together in a piece of cheesecloth (see Kitchen Utensils section) and drop into soups, stews, stocks and poaching liquids for flavor. Being tied in a bundle makes it easier to remove the spices later on. Some people add other spices, but the original bouquet garni uses only thyme, parsley and bay leaf.

Use one tablespoon of salt for each cup of liquid. Water will do, but so will more flavorful liquids like beer or apple juice. To determine how much liquid or water you’re going to need, put the meat in a container or sealable bag and fill it up with water until the meat is completely covered. Then measure the amount of liquid. Heat about a fourth of the liquid you plan to use in a pot and add all of the salt. Then add any spices or herbs you want for flavor. Once the salt is dissolved, take the pot off the stove and add the rest of the liquid to cool the mixture down. Once the brine is cool, immerse the meat making sure it’s totally covered, even if you have to put something on it like a heavy plate to keep the meat from floating. A rule of thumb is to brine for about two hours per pound of meat, but even 30 minutes will do for a couple of pork chops or chicken breasts. When you’re ready, take the meat out of the brine, and get ready to grill.

In Indian cuisine, clarified butter is called ghee, and it can be purchased in Asian markets. It’s useful in cooking because it can be heated to high temperatures without burning. To clarify butter, melt the butter over low heat in a heavy saucepan without stirring. Skim off foam. You will see a clear, oily layer on top of a milky layer. Slowly pour the clear liquid into a dish, leaving the milky layer in the pan. The clear liquid is the clarified butter; discard the milky liquid.

Nowadays, crème fraîche is available in gourmet stores and some groceries. It’s thicker than whipping cream and has a sharp, tangy flavor. If you can't find crème fraîche in your supermarket, you can make a substitute by combining a tablespoon of buttermilk with a cup of heavy cream in a glass bowl. Cover the bowl and let it sit on the counter overnight to thicken. One of the great things about crème fraîche is that when you use it in cooking, it never curdles or separates.

Pre-heat the oven to 325°F. With a sharp knife, cut off the top from a head of garlic, leaving the bulb intact but exposing the individual cloves. Drizzle the bulb with a tablespoon of olive oil, and then wrap it in aluminum foil. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until the cloves are very soft. Allow to cool. Squeeze garlic from individual cloves. It makes a great appetizer with gorgonzola cheese and French bread.

(Mere-a-pwa) is a mixture of chopped or finely diced and sautéed carrots, onions, celery and herbs. Sometimes it also includes diced ham, bacon, or salt pork. Finely diced mirepoix is used to season sauces, soups and stews. More coarsely chopped, it can be used as a bed on which to braise foods, usually meats or fish. Traditionally, the ratio for mirepoix is 50% onion, 25% carrot, and 25% celery.

Purists say to wipe mushrooms with a clean, barely damp cloth. When you’re done, you still have dirty mushrooms. Better, rinse them quickly in cold water rubbing off the dirt with your fingers, then pat dry. They absorb some water this way, but a little water is better than a lot of dirt. Store loose mushrooms in a paper bag or in a damp cloth bag in the refrigerator to let them to breathe. They’ll keep longer that way than they will sealed in a plastic bag.

Slice off the top of the onion, and then peel off the papery outer skin. Turn it onto the cut side and slice it in half through the root end. Place an onion half, flat side down, on the cutting board and make quarter-inch slices parallel to the cutting board being careful not to cut through the root end. Then, slicing down perpendicular to the cutting board, make quarter-inch slices perpendicular to the previous slices. Then turn the onion and slice from the top toward the root. (Crying while peeling onions is a problem for new cooks. After you’ve been cooking for awhile, you won’t have that problem. A few tips if you do; peel the onions under water, hold a piece of bread in your mouth or wear swimming goggles.)

Prominent in Greek, Turkish, and Near Eastern dishes, phyllo consists of tissue-thin sheets of dough that, when layered and baked, results in a delicate, flaky pastry. It’s available in the freezer section and is easy to use. Just let it thaw while it is still wrapped; once unwrapped, sheets of phyllo dough quickly dry out and become unusable. You can combat this by keeping yet-to-be used dough under a damp cloth.

It too is available in the freezer section. It’s a butter-rich, multilayered pastry. Sort of like phyllo dough only with a lot of butter between the sheets. When baked, the butter produces steam between the layers, causing the dough to puff up into many flaky layers.

Roux is a thickener popular in Cajun and Creole cooking. Combine equal measures of butter (or in some cases cooking fat or oil) and flour and cook them together slowly for several minutes stirring constantly to avoid burning. Roux is classified by its color—white, blond or brown. The color is a function of the cooking time. Simply stir together butter and flour over medium heat for about three to five minutes for a white roux, five to eight minutes for a blond roux and eight to fifteen minutes for a brown roux. Master roux-making and you’re well on your way to become another Emeril.

Halve peppers lengthwise and remove stems, seeds and membranes. Place the peppers cut side down on a foil-lined baking sheet and place about four inches under the broiler in the oven. Watch closely as the skins blister and darken (about eight to ten minutes). Place the peppers in a paper bag and let sit for 15 minutes until cool enough to handle. Use a sharp knife to gently and slowly pull off the skin in strips.

Hold the pepper upright on a cutting surface. Using a sharp knife, slice the sides from the pepper into four large, flat pieces. Discard the stem, seeds, and ribs (i.e. those white-ish things inside the pepper).

Stock making is a day-long affair. If you don’t have the time to invest, you can use canned chicken or beef broth to make a close approximation. Simmer two cups of canned broth with 3 tablespoons carrots, 3 tablespoons onions and 1 tablespoon celery (all finely minced), ½ cup red wine for beef broth or ½ cup white wine for chicken broth, 2 parsley sprigs, 1/3 bay leaf and 1/8 teaspoon thyme.

You’ll need this skill to make a tomato sauce with a uniform texture and consistency. Also, soup recipes that call for tomatoes usually called for peeled tomatoes. If you don't peel them, the skins will fall off and float unappetizingly in your soup; likewise, the tomato seeds. It’s really not that hard. Bring a pot of water to the boil and lower the tomato into the boiling water for 15 seconds. Rinse with cold water. The skin will split easily and peel away effortlessly. Then, cut the peeled tomatoes in half and gently squeeze the seeds out. Discard them.

Zest is the colored outer portion of a citrus fruit peel. To remove the zest, scrape a grater or fruit zester across the peel; avoid the white membrane beneath the peel because it is bitter. Zest is rich in fruit oils and often used as a seasoning.