Do you know that your bacon and egg breakfast, glass of milk at lunch, or hamburger for supper were all produced with U.S. corn? Corn is a major component in many food items like cereals, peanut butter, snack foods and soft drinks. There are two the most popular variety of corn today-white and yellow corn. Sweet corns are classified by the percentage of sugar in their kernels. Sweet corn has 5 to 10 percent. Sugar-Enhanced 15-18 percent and Super sweet 25 to 30 percent.
- To buy a fresh sweet corn, make sure it has tightly closed hulk that keeps the seeds within at maximum freshness. Feel the top from the outside of the bulk to check out whether the cob is completely filled.
- Don’t salt the water you boil for corn because salt toughens the skins of the kernels. For super sweet corn the briefer the dip into the boiling water the better.
- Cook corn on the cob with the husks on. The husk increase the flavor and steam the corn rather than boil it.
- If you prefer to use a steamer for cooking the corn, don’t cook long. It make take 5 to 10 minutes to ears to heat through, though the length of the time may vary.
- If you grilling the corn, don’t soak it in cold water, because that steams the corn on a grill. Either grill the corn in the husks, or grill the nude ears directly over the heat. This will caramelize the sugar in the corn and give it a n excellent taste and color.
- Roasting corn in a hot oven is better than using oven broilers. If you roast the ears in their husks, you are steaming the kernels. It takes 6 to 8 minutes to get the corn hot all the way through.
- If you are cooking one or two ears, microwave ovens do well with the corn. To keep the corn kernels from drying out, cook the ears with the husk on and at the highest setting, or simply cover kernels with a plastic wrap.
Most sauces use a high-calorie base of butter, cream and meat fat. But if you are dieting and want to reduce calories, it is easy to converted those sauces into low-calorie ones. Add wine, or sherry to accentuate the flavor of the dish, or simply choose a different cooking method.
Wine sauce
Heat a small amount of oil or butter in a saucepan and add an equal amount of flour. Cook 2 minutes to form a thick paste. Pour in 1 cup of your favorite wine, and cook until alcohol has cooked off and sauce looks like heavy cream. Good with stir-fried chicken or broiled beef.
Deglazing sauce
Deglazing captures the rich flavor of wine and turns it into a sauce without adding fat. Once the poultry or meat is completely cooked, remove it to a platter and keep warm. Add directly to the pan juices in the roasting pan about the same amount of dry wine and bring to a boil. Boil rapidly at high heat until reduced to half the original amount. This cooking method called reduction: pan juices are cooked at high heat to evaporate the excess liquid and concentrate the flavors.
Stir-frying brings out the full flavor of a saute without the high calories of other frying methods. Less oil is needed due to quick cooking. Stir-frying is usually done at high heat in a wok, because it conducts heat quickly and evenly along all surfaces. Well-seasoned woks require only a little oil to prevent food from sticking.
During stir-frying you should toss the food using a wooden spoon or spatula.
Heat a small amount of oil and 1/4cup of wine or sherry in the wok or skillet. Use high heat when stir-frying. Then add the strongest-flavored vegetables (such as onions) and quickly toss with the cooking liquor to coat completely. Add other vegetables when the onions soften.
If you stir-frying vegetables with meat or fish, cook the meat or fish first; then remove from heat while vegetables finish cooking. Finally, season the stir-fry. The successful stir-fry has a bright appearance, a crisp texture, and plenty of seasoning.
The most important fact in choosing fish is freshness. A fresh fish will not smell fishy; a fishy smell means improper handling. A fresh fish has a mild odor, firm flesh, clear eyes, pink gills and shiny scales. When you buy steak or fillets look for flesh that is not yellow and brown around the edges. If you buy frozen fish make sure you don’t buy anything that has been defrosted for more than two days. It is better to buy frozen fish and defrost it at home.
There are two categories of fish: lean and oily. Lean fish has a mild flavor, white flash and contains 5% or less fat. Sole, flounder, turbot, cod, Pollack, sea bass, rock fish, snapper, drum, bass are examples of lean fish.
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When you are cooking every day you might run out of interesting recipes. These days markets offer a huge variety of vegetables. Among them are vegetables that you have never tried or considered to try. Sometimes I want to eat something new but have no ideas how to cook it, or serve it, or store it. Well, sometimes it worth to spend some time and find out. It may be very surprising to discover that you can change the flavor simply by cutting and cooking vegetables in a different way. Did you know, for example, that you can add extra sweetness to the carrot by cutting them in small pieces and frying in a pan with a spoon of both butter and water? Do you want less oil in your eggplants? Easy - just grill them and you will get rich, caramel-like taste.
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