I used to joke that I need to eat out because my own cooking makes me sick. But like any joke, it's based on the truth — I knew very little about cooking that I would usually undercook something, while managing to burn it at the same time.<\/p>\n
Then I started watching Good Eats<\/em>, mainly because guys with glasses are so my type, and Alton Brown? Definitely<\/em> my type. But it also helped that Good Eats<\/em> uses humor to demonstrate the ins and outs of the cooking process. Brown doesn't just tell you to put stuff in a bowl and stir — he tells you why you need to put them in and what happens when they mingle together.<\/p>\n I've been watching the show since 2002, and it's because of Good Eats<\/em> that I finally invested in more equipment, the most important being a thermometer. Since acquiring the thermometer, the incidences of sickness from my own cooking have essentially been eliminated. 160 degrees is such a magical figure.<\/p>\n I broil regularly. I make sure my oil is at least 375 degrees before pan frying anything. I'm not afraid to use butter. And on the few occasions I bake, wet ingredients go on top of dry.<\/p>\n These days, I find myself getting even bolder.<\/p>\n I usually pan-fry my steaks, seasoned with nothing but garlic salt, which I picked up not from AB but from mom. But one night, I experimented with broiling, and while I didn't follow Alton's instructions thoroughly, the resulting steak was still tasty. Another night, I supplemented the garlic salt with other herbs in my pantry, specifically Italian seasoning. I surprised even myself.<\/p>\n I bought the Italian seasoning for a recipe my mom used to cook. I could only find a big bottle of the stuff, so I've been putting it on everything. Tonight, I supercharged a chicken recipe. It's really simple.<\/p>\n Season chicken with salt and pepper. Coat chicken in mayonnaise. Roll coated chicken in bread crumbs. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.<\/p>\n That recipe alone is quite tasty. I altered it thusly …<\/p>\n Season chicken with salt, pepper and Italian season. Coat chicken in mayonnaise. Roll coated chicken in a mixture of bread crumbs and panko. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.<\/p>\n I don't know how much difference the panko made with the bread crumbs, but the Italian seasoning certainly played well with the other ingredients.<\/p>\n But as I was experimenting, I remembered a number of things from Good Eats<\/em>. Spices burn, so I didn't mix the spices with the breading. Instead, the spices went on the chicken pieces themselves, with the mayonnaise coating to seal them in. I also remembered to let the chicken rest for a few minutes before serving, letting carry-over heat take over.<\/p>\n I wouldn't have been able to articulate that before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used to joke that I need to eat out because my own cooking makes me sick. But like any joke, it's based on the truth — I knew very little about cooking that I would usually undercook something, while managing to burn it at the same time. Then I started watching Good Eats, mainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Bkgj-J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/vexvox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}