From trimming and peeling to slicing and dicing, many vegetables and herbs need advance preparation before they are ready to serve or to use as an ingredient in a recipe. Presenting perfectly cooked, aesthetically beautiful dishes begins with the mastery of these fabrication techniques. The best dishes begin with the […]
Risotto is a dish we most often eat at restaurants, reinforcing the illusion that it’s difficult to prepare. Sorry to spill the beans, restaurant chefs of the world, but despite being creamy and decadent, risotto is actually really easy to make and not nearly as time consuming as you might […]
If there is one cooking technique you really need to know, it’s sautéing. Sautéing is how we can most easily cook a tasty chicken breast, yummy veggies, and quick stir-fries. It’s quick, requires basic tools, and is, frankly, hard to mess up. Sautéing and the closely related technique of stir-frying […]
Peanut butter is pretty much a Top 10 Best Food, and everyone has their favorite brand. But here’s a little secret about peanut butter: it’s one of the easiest foods to make, (seriously, you don’t even need a recipe) and it is endlessly customizable. In fact, you can even replace […]
To make the most of large roasted foods, such as turkey, they must be carved into portions correctly. After roasting a turkey and letting it rest, transfer the bird to a carving board (a cutting board with an indentation around the edges that captures the juices released during carving). If […]
Sweet and tender corn is a pinnacle of summer, enjoyed raw, grilled, on the cob, or off. It is a plentiful and inexpensive ingredient that adds a burst of sweetness to any dish, and, boy, do we cherish it. Before you’re able to enjoy the perfection that is summer corn, […]
Beans and other legumes are considered superfoods, with nutritional benefits that are helpful to people with many types of health concerns or dietary restrictions. Paired with vegetables, beans and legumes can be considered a complete meal and healthy source of protein. Beans are available dried and canned. Canned beans have […]
Braising, barbecuing, and slow-roasting are all long, low cooking methods that utilize less tender, fattier cuts of meats with a lot of connective tissue. But braising stands apart in that it includes liquid in the cooking process. It is also a combination cooking method—one that uses both dry and moist […]
Hearty vegetable soups (broth + veggies + other ingredients, left chunky) are for more than the cold of winter, since they can showcase some of our favorite spring and summer veggies! Best of all, you don’t need a recipe to make a flavorful hearty soup, as long as you follow […]
At the CIA, each kitchen classroom is equipped with several scales for measuring ingredients, and we are firm believers in scales for home cooking and baking. Not only are weight measures more accurate, but they can make for quick and efficient measuring (not to mention less dirty dishes to clean […]
Plumping dried fruits by soaking them in a liquid will make them tender and juicy, eliminating any possibility of the undesirable leathery texture they can sometimes have in finished baked goods. Plumping dried fruits also serves to keep the amount of liquid in the formula balanced, as dried fruits can […]
Gentle warning: you are about to read a lot of information explaining the basic technique of laminated dough. Though it seems long and overwhelming, the process is technically simple, so take it step by step. When you are ready to try a recipe, read it all the way through before […]