NO MORE TAKE OUT

WANTING TO COOK

• In my project, I was focusing on becoming a better cook. I wanted to learn the ways of the chef. In order to learn a lot about the topic I knew I need to shorten it down to something simple. The topic of cooking is too large to learn everything ,so I picked 5 certain types of cooking to focus on.

INSPIRATION TO COOK

• My dad loves to cook and passed that trait down to me. He inspired me by showing me what you can do with food by cooking. I also thought that later in life, cooking would be a valuable skill to have. Lots of kids struggle with good food in college and maybe with a little cooking skill it would be better.

MENTOR

• My dad was my mentor throughout this project, helping me along to make sure I do it all semi-right. He would help me with the tough parts and help me do it right. Having my mentor so close and easy to contact for help, it made for a much better, easier experience.

RESOURCES

• The Internet was a huge help in my exploration of the culinary arts and more importantly I used a couple of certain websites. One great website was Bobby Flay's website he is a professional chef and his website had some good beginners tips. Martha Stewart's website also had some good beginner videos.

STEPS

• In order to begin cooking first I researched the 5 types of cooking I wanted to do. After I learned about them, I preparing to practice it. Near the end of the project, I did the techniques and it turned out well.

CHALLENGES

• Grilling without a grill. I overcame this by erase arching how to do it in the oven. You do it by putting a grill pan as you would normally use on a grill, but put it in a very hot oven.
• Not knowing if what I did was the correct way. Luckily, my dad was there to help to help me.

SEARING HOT

• First I'll tell you the bare bones basics, then we can get into the more complicated details of it. Searing is just getting a steak and putting it on a hot skillet to form a little crust on the meat by having an excess, but not too much seasoning.

PREPPING THE STEAK

• To start those preparations make sure that the steak is room temperature to make sure that the steak cooks perfectly through. Also, you need to dry off the meat all the way around with a paper towel. Just dab the meat all over until you got some moisture out. Next, you want to season the steak with more than average salt and pepper to help form that perfectly delicious crust.

COOKING TIME

• Now it is finally time to cook the steak. Your preparations are ready and it is finally time. Get the pan extremely hot, this will help make that crust we are striving for. It needs to be hot enough for a water droplet to instantly evaporate if it comes into contact with the pan. Put the steak on and let it sit for 3 minutes before flipping. You don't want to be constantly flipping it because then it will cook worse. You will know it is done when the internal temperature of the steak is 120 degrees.

POACHING

• This type of cooking is kind of like steaming in the sense in that it uses moist-heat cooking to cook what is usually protein foods such as meat or eggs.
• In basics this type of cooking is putting the food in a pan with a liquid and cooking at a low temperature until the steam rises from the liquid rises to infuse in the food and cook it.

DETAILS OF POACHING

• Now to add a little more detail to poaching. Various liquids you can use include water, milk, stock, vinegar, wine, and lemon juice. Let your meat cook in the liquid for around 10 minutes to have a nice soft flaky food.

STEAMING

• Definition: You heat a pot of water with the food above. The heat vaporizes the water causing steam to come up. The steam coming up is hot and cooks the food.
• With steaming the food that you are cooking gets a very soft texture and is very moist. The only downside is steaming brings no flavor, so you have to be good at seasoning.

HOW I STEAMED

• This is the way I steamed: First, I filled up a pot about halfway full with water. I put the water of high heat so that it would start boiling. While that was going I got some Brussels sprouts and put them in a steamer, a bowl that has small holes in it. I put a lid on top and let them cook. Some say that you need to cook brussels sprouts for around twenty minutes, and that is true ,but I like to use the method of when they get real soft, they are done.

SAUTÉING

• Definition: to fry in alittle hot fat.
• In this project I learned that sautéing is pretty much the same thing as searing, but for vegetables. I treated it almost the same exact way except I cooked each side for much less time and I tossed the food around a little instead of not moving it at all.

HOW I SAUTÉED

• For my example of how I did it I used some miniature green squash. First, I cut a couple of small pieces so that they can cook well. Then, I treated it like a sear, I put some butter in the pan and turned up the heat to high. Once it heat up, I put on a couple pieces and let them cook for about a minute on each side. Once I took them off, they had a really nice browned side that had amazing flavor and was very soft, which in my opinion is the right way to cook squash.

GRILLING

• Definition: Uses dry heat from the below or above the food to apply heat directly to the surface of the food.
• From grilling the food that you cook gets a nice char on it from the the direct heat to certain parts that adds a good flavor.

HOW I GRILLED

• First, before I grilled my steak I put some seasoning on both sides of my steak in hopes that it would taste better and help get a char. I finally put it in the oven at 500 degrees, until it as a little brown on the outside. Once slightly I turned the oven on broil and let it get fully cooked and hopefully charred. The outcome was juicy, tender, perfectly cooked, very slightly charred steak.

COOKING IN THE FUTURE

• I will easily keep cooking in the future and this project really proved how much I like it by showing me how interesting it really is.