Hotashi - Jack’s Blog

I haven’t cooked much since moving back home from Waterloo. Not sure why, but when I’m at home I just don’t feel like cooking much. But, now that I am living by myself in Toronto I really want to try out different dishes. Today, I made halibut fillet with mustard and white wine reduction, and penne with chicken thigh and black olive sauce.

The first recipe was one I made up myself with some knowledge of what may go well with halibut from cooking shows. I usually don’t cook with fish, but I thought I’d give it a try. I started by putting some salt and on sides of the dish, along with some olive oil and lemon juice. I boiled the fish on both sides. I was planning to do maybe 5-6 mins each side, but left it in too long so it came out a bit dry and flaky. The sauce was about a cup or so of white wine, with some dijon mustard, grainy mustard, and lemon juice. I let the whole thing reduce to about half its original volume. Towards the end I threw in some dill. The fish was garnished with fresh dill, then the sauce poured over it. It turned out alright, even though the fish was dry. If I were to do it again I’d play around the sauce a bit more.. maybe take out the grainy mustard and add some honey or maple syrup.

The second recipe was actually inspired by two recipes from Michael Smith’s show, Take Home Chef: pasta with chicken thighs and peppers, and penne with black olive sauce. I began with browning the skin-side of the chicken, and cooking on the other side for a bit, then removing from the pot. I cooked onions in the same pot until caramelized, then added the garlic. After about three minutes I added canned plum tomatoes, dried basil, and some salt. I used a hand-blender to smooth the sauce out a bit, then I added the thighs back to simmer for about an hour — until cooked through. The penne pasta was mixed in with the sauce. Baby spinach was used as garnish on top of the pasta, and the chicken placed on the top. This dish turned out very well, trés delicious! I’ll definitely cook it again, and maybe play around with some ingredients.

I’ve looked into some of the common knowledge people share about the Kitchen, mostly regarding cooking. I knew some of them to be false before but I decided to check into more of them. It seems many of the knowledge passed through the ages has proven to be wrong by modern science. Though I must admit there are many things that are confirmed by modern science as well. So without further adieu I give you my list. (these are all false)

1. Raw meat must be washed before cooking to kill germs and bacteria.

I have never come across anyone who doesn’t wash their meat before they cook. It turns out washing your meat could make things worse because you get the germs and bacteria in your sink, and the water you use to wash can splash into other parts of the kitchen. The truth is if you cook your meat thoroughly there is no need to wash them at all. And of course anything that the meat touches must be sanitized properly — including your hands.

Source: Food Standards Agency (UK).

2. Baking soda eliminates odours.

Baking soda is actually quite poor at absorbing odours, contrary to what years of marketing has led you to believe. The only way to eliminate odours is to be sure you don’t have spoiled food in your fridge, cover everything, and clean the entire fridge out once in a while.

Source: Ask a Scientist. Department of Energy (US).

3. Cold water boils faster than warmer water.

I’ve always thought this just to be one of those counter-intuitive ways physical science work sometimes. But it turns out it’s not true at all! However, under special circumstances hot water does freeze faster than cold water.

Source: Scientific America.

4. The reason to add salt to water when cooking pasta is to raise it’s boiling point.

The real reason you want to add salt to water when cooking pasta is to flavour it. Nothing more. Scientifically speaking salt can raise the boiling point of water, and lower it’s freezing point at the same time — in fact this is how anti-freeze works — but the amount you need to add in order to raise the boiling point by any practical amount is too high. However, this property is practical for lowering the water on our driveway’s freezing point during.

Source: I don’t know, just Google it, I’m sure there are tons of sites on this.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. Maybe I’ll add more later when I do more research.