The how – to – cook series
Most readers of this blog think that I don’t make mistakes in the kitchen. I do, actually. There is no perfect cook. Even a chef who claims that everything he cooks is a hit will be lying. Even tried-and-tested recipes fail sometimes. The quality of the meat may not be that good, the lemon may not be that juicy or the tomatoes may not be that plump… The reasons vary but the bottom line stays the same — we all mess up with the cooking occasionally. I’m not ashamed to admit it. During the past two weeks, I created two disasters that I was almost unable to salvage. Let me be more precise than that.
There was this chicken that I marinated then stuffed with a whole orange and onion. I wanted to try slow-roasting — low oven temperature and longer cooking time. Some blogger claimed the chicken turns out more juicy that way. Well, I didn’t find out if it was true. After two hours in the oven, the insides of the chicken were raw. I had to put it back in the oven twice to cook the meat through. You can just imagine the scenario — hungry husband and daughters waiting on the dining table and getting disappointed every time the chicken came out of the oven.
Then there was the beef stew topped with chili corn bread. The stew was great but everyone hated chili corn bread which I baked for the very first time.
But even mistakes can sometimes lead to something good. As much as possible, I take photos of every step of the cooking to make the blog entries more instructional. Well, okay, that’s the noble way of explaining it. Perhaps, the more glaring truth is that I’m just camera obsessed. Anyway, visual guides are always good in food writing. Even with the disastrous cooked dishes, I have a myriad of step-by-step photos that illustrate various stages of cooking — chopping onions the painless way, mincing garlic without the cloves flying all over the kitchen, the stages in beating egg whites, cutting the kernels off a cob of fresh corn… You name it, I probably have a photo for it.
So, I figured why not post them as “how to” entries? After all, cooking is not always as simple as measuring ingredients and following a recipe. To kick off the series, I have posted If you want your chilis mildly hot instead of very hot. I have also collected other “how to” entries in the archive and put them all under one category. I hope you find them useful and enjoy them as much as I’m enjoying raking through my hard drive for more “how to cook” photos.
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Pig’s brain and eggplant frittata
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Conversations
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yeah, I agree with the pictures. They really do help a lot. The good thing is that you enjoy it.
Another one cooking blog i subscribe into is (hate to admit this because I’m a man) the Pioneer Woman’s Blog.
Sobrang enjoyable, at sobrang informative. She has a wide fan base because of the easy to follow recipes and pictures. Sayang nga lang kasi most of the time, wala yung ibang ingredients niya dito sa Philippines.
You probably know her blog already, but for those who don’t, here’s the link: (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/)
I have some old entries with step by step photos but the bandwidth usage used to kill the web server. Now that I have my own dedicated server, I can afford the step by step photos hehehe
Re Pioneer Woman: I do, Al. I read her too. Discovered her a couple of months ago.
Love her blogs. She is sooooo funny.
Ahhhh, i seee. I’ll try to look for them! Yeah, on my part as a reader, I have some bandwidth issues too. Particularly Pioneer Woman’s blog, because at times, the pictures take too long to load. (Nonetheless, sulit naman kasi maganda)
And yes yes, she’s so funny and interesting. No wonder I got interested in cooking.
Here’s another food blog with step by step pictures that you might be interested in:
(http://fxcuisine.com/default.asp?orderby=popularity&orderdir=desc&pg=1)
This time, it’s a Swiss man, blogging mostly about European cuisine. (Again, wala na namang ingredients, so your niche still has a lot of potential, Ms Connie!)
So there, basically I listed all of the blogs in the Food Folder of my Google Reader. Yours, Ree’s and Francois-Xavier’s.
Cheers to all of you!
Oh my gosh! That site sure has great photos. Inspiring. I really think I need to get a macro lens. Very soon.
You probably know this too by now, but try Hidalgo Street near SM Carriedo in Quiapo Manila. That lens might be cheap there.
It’s far from us (I live in Marikina), but the trip was worth it. Aside from the cheaper cameras and accessories, the place was an overload in many ways – sidewalk and middleroad vendors, people, etc! Eye candy ftw!!
wahh, sorry sorry po puro link, pero ito: http://digitalprinting.multiply.com/
marami silang camera products!
last link na yan for the day! Sembreak kasi. hehehe.
Yah, I’ve heard about Hidalgo but it’s so far LOL And my hubby says there’s nowhere to park so I’ll have to commute. But they only take cash there and I’m not comfortable with the idea of commuting all the way from Antipolo and back with so much cash.
Thanks for the link. Nangangamoy gastos hahahaha
ma’am;
can you add the “how to deboned whole chicken”, i been longing to cook rellenong especially that christmas is around the corner.. thank you!
You read my husband’s mind, Toni. He was suggesting it just last night. I will, soon, I promise.
Good way to use pictures that didn’t make the final cut into a recipe post. I must have thousands like that on my hard drive.
Nate, well, after all, every picture has a story to tell.