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So, I've written a lot about various sundry goals I've got, but one of them I don't discuss very often here is how I'm working to be a better home cook. Part of it has to do with diet; I've been pretty good at making healthy vegetable-and-grain based meals, and I'm generally pretty happy with what I make here. But, well, I just kind of think that I've been limited in what I'm able to make because I've spent most of my life cooking from recipes and extrapolating from them without getting into the kitchen fundimentals.
Knife work's part of it - our knives are honestly getting pretty dull - but physical techniques aren't exciting to read about. (I'm practicing, but yeah, whatever.) The best bit is that I've been writing a kind of culinary task list that starts, in part, with making the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine. This means learning to make a roux well and being able to consistantly make a brown stock (I've been making my own chicken stocks for a while, and they come out well. I haven't even really tried to make a beef stock since I rarely actually cook beef.) The goal is to make the sauce from scratch, and make the parts from as close to scratch as I can manage. I figure once I make a pretty okay beef stock, I can probably purchase a good one, but I want to be able to do it at least once.
Because it's the easiest, and I'm the most familiar with it, I'm going to start with the tomato sauce. I made sauces with whole tomatoes and ones from cans, and even Alton Brown is of the opinion that cans are just as good with whole tomatoes, as they're usually not much more than packaged and peeled tomatoes of good quality. (Fresh tomatoes might actually be inferior, as out of season produce usually comes from Florida and is grown to look nice, not taste good. Canned facilities are usually in California and are grown for canning, so appearance is less important. Taste is usually superior, then.)
Once I've got the sauce, obviously I'll need to use it in something - the most obvious dish (and a nice one for the winter) is a good plate of spaghetti and meatballs. In this case, I've made quality meatballs from scratch plenty of times, but I think I'll take a chance on making the pasta scratch, too. Pasta's not really that hard, but it's time consuming and rarely important. Still, I think I'd like to take a shot at it. I've got some fresh basil, and I might work it into the dough.
Knife work's part of it - our knives are honestly getting pretty dull - but physical techniques aren't exciting to read about. (I'm practicing, but yeah, whatever.) The best bit is that I've been writing a kind of culinary task list that starts, in part, with making the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine. This means learning to make a roux well and being able to consistantly make a brown stock (I've been making my own chicken stocks for a while, and they come out well. I haven't even really tried to make a beef stock since I rarely actually cook beef.) The goal is to make the sauce from scratch, and make the parts from as close to scratch as I can manage. I figure once I make a pretty okay beef stock, I can probably purchase a good one, but I want to be able to do it at least once.
Because it's the easiest, and I'm the most familiar with it, I'm going to start with the tomato sauce. I made sauces with whole tomatoes and ones from cans, and even Alton Brown is of the opinion that cans are just as good with whole tomatoes, as they're usually not much more than packaged and peeled tomatoes of good quality. (Fresh tomatoes might actually be inferior, as out of season produce usually comes from Florida and is grown to look nice, not taste good. Canned facilities are usually in California and are grown for canning, so appearance is less important. Taste is usually superior, then.)
Once I've got the sauce, obviously I'll need to use it in something - the most obvious dish (and a nice one for the winter) is a good plate of spaghetti and meatballs. In this case, I've made quality meatballs from scratch plenty of times, but I think I'll take a chance on making the pasta scratch, too. Pasta's not really that hard, but it's time consuming and rarely important. Still, I think I'd like to take a shot at it. I've got some fresh basil, and I might work it into the dough.