How To

Here’s a link to help improve your kitchen skills for the new year! Six different techniques are covered in detail: skillet seasoning, knife use and care, pizza dough making and tossing, basic recipe ratios, no-knead bread, and cooking the perfect egg. It’s great basic information that every cook should master. So dig in – there’s plenty to digest here until the next post (which I have resolved to make a more regular thing in the new year).

There’s a great in-depth post on how to cook perfect prime rib over at Serious Eats.
For a cut of meat that can cost upwards of $100, it’s worth knowing how to cook it right, so if you have plans to roast prime rib, this post is required reading. It’s also chock full of fascinating food science, so fans of Harold McGee take note.

Artisanal pizza was the year’s biggest food phenomenon. Almost overnight, thin crust pies draped with local veggies and house-cured meats were popping out of brick ovens across the city. Despite all the hype, one thing was clear: brick ovens really do make the best pizzas. Searing heat is the key: it bakes the crust so fast that the outside gets crisp before the inside can dry out, giving it the chewy interior and crispy exterior that’s so distinct. If you’ve ever tried to make your own pizza, you know how hard that is to achieve, even with a baking stone. Short of installing a brick oven in your kitchen, getting that kind of crust in a homemade pizza has been impossible. But thanks to the work of a few obsessed food-hackers, we’ve got some ingenious ways to create brick-oven crust in a standard issue kitchen. Click to read more…

Here’s an enlightening piece that explains how covering (or uncovering) beans while they cook affects their texture.