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Welcome to Ruhlman.com where I blog about food, cooking, recipes and technique, because the world is better when we cook for ourselves. Thanks for visiting and I hope you’ll join the conversation.
Category Archives: Kitchen Tools
Le Creuset Giveaway: The Way to Braise
We're back with another cooking lesson and Le Creuset giveaway! This time with my favorite cooking method: braising. Why is it my favorite? Because it so definitively expresses what real cooking is: transformation.
Great cooking is about transforming something that would be unpleasant to eat into something exquisite. In my view, grilling a steak is not cooking, it's heating. That's not to diminish grilling steaks—one of my favorite activities and foods to eat. It can be done well or poorly, but it doesn't transform food, which is what truly inspires me in the kitchen. To transform pork shoulder into a sausage is cooking. Whether caramelizing onions to develop their sweetness or toasting seasonings in a pan to grind and create a curry, that's cooking.
And braising, transforming tough cuts of meat into meltingly tender mouthfuls of pleasure—that is cooking.
In the above video, I talk about the ...
Also posted in Beef, Braise, Main Courses, Recipes Tagged beef, braise, kitchen equipment, Le Creuset, short ribs Comments closed
Great Kitchen Tools
The best, I mean the very best and most useful kitchen tools, are almost always the simplest. Yes, you've got the kitchen workhorse, the standing mixer, the food processor (I almost never use mine), the hand blender (my favorite small appliance). But really what I love most? Two really sharp knives. A thick flat hard surface that gets really hot. A heavy wood cutting board. And these: Rocks and sticks. Point is: fewer rather than more, simple rather than complex. (One clarification in the video that I failed to make clear at the time. For testing the temperature of frying oil, I use the chopsticks I save from Chinese take out, not really nice ones.) Once again, many thanks to Todd Porter and Diane Cu. I called them saints among us in the last "something to say" video. That was wrong. They're angels. Stay here! If you liked this post on I ...
Also posted in Kitchen Technology, Kitchen Tips, New Media, Rant, Video Tagged kitchen, something to say, tools, video, white on rice couple Comments closed
Pressure Cooker Beans 3 Ways At Once
American three-bean salad/Photos by Laura Pazzaglia
A pressure cooked bean salad.
Also posted in Guest Post, Kitchen Technology, pressure cooker, Recipes, Salads, sidedishes Tagged beans, hip pressure cooking, Laura Pazzaglia, pressure cooker, recipe, salad Comments closed
Give the Gift of Sous Vide
Sous Vide cooking manual. Photo by Deborah Jones
Also posted in Books, Elements of Cooking, food science, Holiday, Kitchen Technology, Technique Tagged gifts, holiday, kitchen technology, polyscience, sous vide at home, sous vide supreme Comments closed
Gift Week: Affordable, Useful Gifts
When it comes to small great gifts, kitchen tools can’t be beat. Items like the above Benriner mandoline, a tool you’ll find in just about every professional cook’s knife kit, is perfect.
But there are many many ridiculous small brightly colored kitchen items out there tempting those who don’t cook with promises of ease and convenience . Last year my mom got me these pink silicone trussing bands —I do not recommend! This is the kind of stupid product that makes me crazy.
But a great pepper mill, that’s something truly valuable—there are good ones and bad ones. Pugeot’s are excellent. This one from opensky is top of the line with an adjustable grind.
The side towels I offer at opensky ...
Also posted in Holiday Tagged handblender, holiday, Kitchen Tools, mandoline, microplane, mortar and pestle, scales, shopping, side towels Comments closed
