All About Garlic

This is a subject so very near and dear to my heart... Garlic! It is my #1 favorite ingredient, I put it in everything I can get away with, I would figure out a way to put it in desserts if you would let me! 

Garlic is an incredible flavor additive, it can be the star of the dish if done properly, but it can also overpower a dish if not used carefully. I have some tips for getting the most of your garlic. 

You guys are getting a sense of how much I love garlic, so that means I'm going to have a lot lot say about it!! Grab a nice crisp white wine (I would suggest sauvignon blanc, of course. My go-to wine choice), some crusty garlic bread, and hunker down to learn a lot about my absolute favorite ingredient.

First, a note on garlic in some of its different forms. 

Dried

• Garlic powder: dehydrated garlic cloves that have been ground into a very fine powder resembling powdered sugar in consistency. 
• Granulated garlic: similar to garlic powder, but this has the consistency of regular sugar. 
• Garlic salt/garlic blend: typically granulated garlic mixed with salt in about a 50/50 mix. Other garlic "blends" may include other herbs and spices, often onion powder, parsley, basil, or others. 

My preference: granulated garlic. I like to be in strict control of the amount of sodium I put in my food. Because I don't really know how much of the garlic salt is garlic and how much is salt, that leaves some uncertainty which I don't appreciate. Also, you almost always season food with salt and pepper anyway, if for no reason out of habit, so you're double salting which will increase your sodium consumption unnecessarily and also affect the taste. So because of that, garlic salt or garlic blends are out in my book. The one exception to this is Lawry's seasoned salt which is basically salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and some sugar. The difference though is that I use it the same way that I would use salt, I don't think of it as a "spice." 

So that leaves powdered vs granulated. And this just comes down to personal preference, but I opt for granulated because it is easier to work with. The powdered tends to puff out when I try to pour it directly from the container and it makes a garlicky mess on my counter. Or it clogs my DIY spice rack container and is hard to get out - I have to shake a lot, and it tends to clump. So I prefer the granulated because it shakes nicely, pours beautiful (think sand falling through an hourglass). It also has a little more of that garlic bite, which I love. But if you don't want that, just use a little less and you can avoid it. I use granulated garlic when I'm making salads (my standard dressing that goes on 90% of my salads is olive oil, salt, granulated garlic, and either red wine or balsamic vinegar). It's also good in baked goods (when I want to make garlic rolls) or my go-to quickie dinner is gluten free pasta, some butter, granulated garlic, and parmesan cheese. So simple, but that's the best comfort food for me.

Prepared

Minced garlic: I grew up using this stuff. This is the pre-minced garlic that comes in those little glass containers with the blue lid and is floating in a mystery liquid. My parents used to buy this stuff from Sam's club because we went through so much of it! And from a convenience perspective, you can't beat it. You scoop out however much you need with a spoon, toss it in whatever you're making, and you're good to go. But from a flavor perspective, I've learned that this doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. Now that I've experienced the beauty of fresh garlic, I will never go back to this stuff. PLUS, if you read my last post about how to use a garlic press, you'll see my comment about most people leaving the "butts" on the cloves. This type of garlic still has the butts on when it was minced by a machine, so every once in a while you bite into this really unpleasant crunchy piece, which I do not enjoy. This goes for any size of cut garlic in mystery liquid (sliced, crushed, etc.)

Garlic Paste: This typically comes prepared in a tube, and I I had never actually used it before. But if I want to be the expert on all things garlic, I need to be well-versed! So while writing this post, I went and picked up a tube. Here's my report: it's just ok. It's not great, it's not the worst. But what I don't like is that the ingredient list is very long. Longer than it should be. It's got a lot of preservatives, salt, citric acid, etc. and you can taste those things. When I taste it raw, I can taste the acidity, I can taste the extra salt, but overall, it tastes somewhat similar to raw garlic (more similar than the jarred stuff). So when using this, adjust the recipe and use less salt, or a little less acidic ingredients like lemon or vinegar if applicable. Ok in raw applications and sauces, I would not recommend sauteing it.

Pre-peeled garlic: This comes as individual cloves that have already had the paper removed (butts are still on though! I seriously am the only person I know who seems to care about this :-P ) . I approve of these because there is no mystery liquid involved! And the process to remove the paper is strictly mechanical and does not involve any chemicals (see here) My friend and I used to buy a huge package of these from the Asian Markets in Koreatown on the northside of Chicago and split it because there's no way one of us could use that whole package, even with the way that I cook! 

So when it comes to using actual garlic (not dried), you know that I prefer fresh. Check out my post here to see how to prepare cloves to be worked with, and how to use the garlic press. The first few steps are the same (smashing, peeling, cutting off the butts) no matter what preparation technique you use, so here are some other ways you can prepare garlic, and why the difference matters.

Using Garlic
It is important to understand why preparing garlic in different ways matters. Over the next few weeks, my recipes will feature many of the different preparation styles I'm about to describe and you can taste the difference for yourselves if you cook along with me :) The reason there is a difference in flavor has everything to do with the essential oils contained in garlic. At a cellular level, the oils contain all their garlicky goodness. When you break down the cell wall, the oils are released and the flavor is let loose on your taste buds. So the more you break down the cell walls (i.e. the more damage you do to the clove), the more garlic flavor you're going to get. Keep this in mind - sometimes you want a more subtle flavor, so you don't want to do much to the clove. Sometimes you want a big garlic punch, so you're going to want to murder that thing.

First I'll describe different ways to cook it, then I'll get into different ways to prepare raw garlic for whatever cooking technique you're using.

Are you guys getting how much I LOVE garlic yet??!?!?!

Cooking Techniques
Roasting - This is one of my favorites! You take a whole head of garlic and slice the whole thing in half into a northern and southern hemisphere. 

Drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil, and roast in the oven at 300 - 325 degrees for an hour. Every oven varies especially at low temps, so just watch it and see how long yours takes. The key here is low and slow - if you use too much heat, the outside of the cloves will brown before the insides are cooked. You want the whole thing to brown slowly and evenly. 

When it's roasted till brown, you literally squeeze the roasted cloves out of the paper in these delicious little packets of gooey garlicky goodness. No need to worry about the butts here, they stay attached to the base and only garlic comes out. When I do this, it always reminds me of that scene in The Little Mermaid when Ursula puts on her lipstick from some sea creature haha!! I'm such a Disney nerd!!!

Roasting garlic gives it the most amazing flavor. It becomes sweet, mild, and perfect. I use this as the base for my decadent garlic bread recipe. You can also use it as the base for all types of sauces, dips, spreads, whatever. 

Sauteing - The trickiest part about using garlic is not over-cooking it. Depending on how small the pieces are that you're using, garlic can be cooked in as little as 30 seconds, and burned in as few as 60-90. Burned garlic is not a flavor you want in your food. It is bitter, pervasive, and can ruin a dish, so be very careful! The most common rule of thumb is that as soon as you can smell the garlic, give it a few more seconds, and then you're done!! If you cook it longer than that, you've over-done it. You'll want to think about when you need to add the garlic to your dish, remembering that it should only cook in oil for about a minute. If you're making, say, a marinara sauce, you'll heat your olive oil until shimmering but not smoking, add in your diced onion, and when it's almost done cooking you toss in your minced garlic for about a minute. Then as soon as it becomes fragrant you add in your tomatoes and then simmer all afternoon. Once you add the liquid, the garlic is no longer "sauteing," it's now braising and not at risk of burning. But if you're doing an olive-oil only sauce for pasta, it cooks in the olive oil the whole time before being tossed with the pasta, so you'll want to add it right at the end before you're about to combine everything together. Make sense? Garlic + oil + heat = ~60 seconds of cook time, even if other dry-ish ingredients are involved. Once you add liquid, you're safe.

Using raw - There are only a handful of cases where I use raw garlic, and they're all dressings or sauces. This makes sense because it is a VERY strong flavor! Skordalia is a Greek garlic sauce that I am obsessed with... I need to learn how to make it from Mike's aunt!! It uses raw garlic. Tzatziki sauce uses raw garlic too (seeing a trend here...). Mike's cabbage salad I wrote about a couple of weeks ago uses a few cloves of raw garlic in the dressing. I recently made grilled zucchini and prosciutto skewers with a raw garlic-lime-mint dressing that was fantastic. The dressing in my favorite pasta salad calls for raw garlic too. I'll occasionally mix up a homemade salad dressing that uses raw garlic. I'll be including all of these recipes over time, since they're delicious. You see the pattern... usually in raw applications, dressings, and used sparingly.

Baking - There's not much you need to know about baking, except that the smaller the pieces are that you use, the more likely it is to burn while being baked since you have less control than when sauteing. For example when I do Greek chicken with lemon, olive oil, oregano, and garlic, I use the Smashed Clove technique, or I use slices. They burn less easily that way while still flavoring the dish.

Grilling - I would recommend against using garlic in something that will be going on the grill. Given the high temp of grilling, it's very likely to burn. I would recommend grilling your dish and then using garlic in a raw application as a dressing / sauce after grilled.

How to Prepare Raw Garlic

I'm writing this in order of "less mutilated" to "most mutilated" - aka most mild garlic flavor to most intense garlic flavor. 

From Left to Right: Sliced, Minced, Pressed

Whole clove - this is where you don't do anything to the clove besides peel the paper off of it. The time when you would use this is if you're making authentic garlic bread. I'm not talking about my decadent recipe described above... I'm talking about a crusty loaf of Italian bread sliced on a bias, grilled over a hot flame, kissed with some garlic, and brushed with fantastic quality extra virgin olive oil. This is the type of bread you'd use for a fresh bruschetta or with prosciutto and melon... I'm drooling. All you do is peel the paper off the clove, and then after your bread has been grilled (or under the broiler for a minute or two), take it out and rub the whole clove on the crusty side of the bread. That's it!! It's basically just going to take some of the essential oils from the part of the clove that gets a little torn up from the crusty bread, and it will give your bread the most delicious hint of garlic without being too overpowering. Then brush on some good quality olive oil, maybe a little salt and pepper, and you're done. This is the authentic way of making garlic bread, it's so simple and perfect... less is definitely more if you're working with quality ingredients!

Smashed clove - Follow steps 1 and 2 from my last garlic post - smash and peel. You can leave the butts on for this one because you'll never actually eat the clove itself. But when you smash it for this technique, really smash the crap out of it. This is the only "manipulation" of the clove you're going to do, so you want to release as many of the essential oils as possible and really bust it up while keeping it in tact. What you do with a whole smashed clove is flavor cooking oil. This will give you a great, subtle garlic flavor that will permeate the entire dish you're cooking. You measure out the oil required, toss in your couple of smashed cloves, saute until the cloves are just beginning to brown and have become very fragrant. This is the exception to the ~60 second rule, because you're cooking with whole cloves. Because there's much less surface area since it's still in tact, you need to cook it for longer to get the flavor you need. So as soon as the cloves begin to brown and turn fragrant, you scoop them out of the oil and discard them (or in my case, add them to the foil for your latest batch of roasted garlic!). You now have garlic-flavored olive oil that will give a beautiful, more subtle flavor.

Sliced - Slicing garlic is an awesome way to prepare it. You get a good amount of garlic flavor, but it's not too overpowering. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because the pieces of garlic are bigger, you'd assume you'll get these big bursts of garlic flavor. But remember that the longer you cook it low and slow, the more mild and sweet the flavor gets. So you'll slice garlic if you're going to be baking it or cooking it on the stove at a low temp for a longer time so it browns just slightly, but very evenly. I used sliced garlic to make this delicious shrimp tapas recipe that I brought with Mike and I on a picnic last summer. 

Minced - After slicing, if you keep running your knife through the pile of slices, you'll eventually end up with minced garlic. Mincing is knife cut that creates very small pieces of something. Technically you want all the pieces to be the same size, but who has time for that when you're working with such a teeny ingredient? So I just run my knife through it a bunch of times. For this, I like to use my German-style chef's knife, which is better for the continuous rocking motion that is used to mince. If you remember from my post about chef's knives, the curved bottom of the German style is better for this compared with the flat bottom of the Japanese style.

Pressed - See last garlic post.

Paste - You can make a garlic paste that can be used in raw applications (dressings), or is a great way to infuse a marinade with delicious garlic flavor. What you do is after you have the minced garlic on your cutting board, you'll add about 1 teaspoon of kosher salt for ever 2 cloves of garlic you minced. After adding the salt, you're going to scrape the garlic / salt mixture against your cutting board using the wide part of the blade of your knife. Almost like you're laying grout for tile, you scrape against the cutting board. Over and over again, pushing the paste off your knife and re-forming the pile as you go. The Kosher salt helps in cutting up the cell walls in the garlic and after a minute or two of this, a paste will form.

Side note on prep: If you're making a recipe that calls for garlic and other ingredients to go into a food processor, make sure you put in the garlic first and buzz it up for a minute or two by itself. Most recipes won't remember to tell you this important piece of information, but it's the way you need to do it. Otherwise if you add all the ingredients at the same time, your garlic is more likely to stay in some big pieces and not get as finely or evenly cut, which is not what you want. So always buzz your garlic for a few seconds first until it's evenly chopped in your food processor, then add your other ingredients and process away.

I know this was a novel, but this is one of my absolute favorite things to share about!! I hope you guys learned something new, and I can't wait to cook my way through all these recipes I promised you and share them with you in future posts!! Peace, love, and garlic.

Parmesan Crusted White Fish

I told you guys that I have 3 seafood recipes... one Asian-inspired, one Italian inspired for Salmon, and one Italian inspired for white fish. Here's the white fish recipe!!

It's a Parmesan "Crusted" Tilapia inspired from a recipe I found on Sparkpeople.com, which is a health and wellness website. The crust is in quotes because it's not a crunchy crust with any type of breading, it's more of just a Parmesan layer. Call it what you will, it's delicious.

The ingredients for the "crust" are:

~1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp softened butter

1.5 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp celery salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

(optional) Granulated garlic to taste

1/2 - 1 lb. fillets of any white fish (tilapia, sole, flounder, trout, snapper, etc.)

1. Preheat your broiler. Put aluminum foil on a baking sheet and spray with nonstick cooking spray

2. Combine all ingredients except the fish and set aside.

3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat; flip fillets, and coat with the prepared Parmesan cheese mixture. Broil until golden and bubbly and the fish flakes easily with a fork. Avoid overcooking the fish! Use trial and error in your oven (or toaster oven in my case) - for mine, I actually do not pre-cook the fish, I just coat them with the topping and broil. But try it out for yourself and see how quickly your oven cooks it!

I hope you enjoy. Please leave your comments below!

I had some sole fillets in my freezer so that's what we used!

Starting from the top going around clockwise: Parmesan cheese, black pepper, celery salt, onion powder, dried basil, butter, mayonnaise

I top my fillets before baking. This time they were teeny fillets and I actually had to layer 2 of 3 on top of each other to get a piece of the size I wanted that would make sense to crust. If you're working with good sized fillets, follow directions above until you know how your oven cooks.

Delicious golden crust

Flowers from my overgrown sage

Wednesday's GHI: Garlic Press

You guys know how I feel about unitaskers. I don't have space for them in my kitchen, I don't have room for them in my life. With RARE exceptions. And this is probably the biggest exception of all.

Garlic is one of my absolute favorite ingredients. I've got a post half-written all about garlic that I'll be sharing with you soon. But in the meantime, I'm going to share this week's Gotta Have It with you - my garlic press. 

Is it absolutely necessary? No. You can get by just fine mincing garlic on your own, or turning it into a paste using the blade of your knife and some salt. But with the amount of garlic that I use in my cooking, it saves me a lot of time.

And in my next post about garlic, I'll share with you the reason why using a garlic press actually changes the garlic vs. just mincing or slicing it. But until that post, here's how to use one of my most favoritist tools, the garlic press. This one was also a gift from my brother Billy. Clearly he has good taste in gifts.

Many people will just pop the clove off of the bulb, put it in the press, and smush out the pulp to use, and then throw away what's inside. And yes, you can do that. But in my opinion, that's wasteful, and it provides sub optimal results. So here's how I use my garlic press to create one of the most magical substances on earth... Garlic paste.

My beautiful garlic cloves... mmmmmm

Step 1: Smash the garlic. This not only loosens up the paper to get it off, but smashing it also begins to release the essential oils and bring out all that garlicky goodness. Lay your knife on the clove, and give it a good smash. Get out that aggression, I mean a real smash!!

Step 2. The "Paper" is already falling off after giving it a good smash. Peel off the rest of the paper

 Step 3. So garlic has this rough stump on the bottom of each clove. It's where the clove is connected to the bulb. I call it the butt. I think I'm the only person I know who does this, but I cut off the butt before I work with the garlic. I do this because I'm a texture freak. If I don't, I can crunch down on a piece of it in my food, and I just do not enjoy it. So for the extra 3 seconds it takes, I slice it off.

Butts removed. If you don't care about this texture, skip this step, but I always do it. 

Step 4. Place the smashed garlic cloves into the well of the garlic press

Step 5. Close the grips of the Garlic Press and smush. Garlicky goodness will come oozing out the other end like Play-Doh from the pasta extruder when you were a child. If you're pressing multiple cloves, it's at this step where you'd open it again, put the next clove inside, and press again. Repeat indefinitely.... garlic.....

Step 6. Scrape the smashed garlic off the end of the garlic press

Step 7. Now you've got this layer on the inside of the garlic press. You flip the handles inside out, and push them together, and it helps pop out this little layer. 

Step 8. Now this is where I do things differently. Like I said before, many people pop the whole clove into the press, and this layer is what they pop out when the clove is pressed, and it includes the paper, the butt, and any extra skin. But remember, I've already removed the paper and the butt, so this is all good garlic that can still be used! So I pop it out, add it to the pile of other pressed garlic, and run my knife through it a couple of times and I just added to the volume of usable garlic deliciousness. And the nice part is that if you're pressing multiple cloves, each clove pushes out this layer from the previous clove, so you don't need to repeat this step. But if you had put in the whole clove including paper and butt, you'd need to clean the press out after each clove. It's totally personal preference, but this is my blog so I'm telling you how I do it. 

My only complaint: why is it called a garlic "press"? It should be called a garlic smusher, or I would even accept garlic smasher. That would be a much more accurate name... 

Garlic.... mmmmmmm.....

Veggie Stir Fry

Stir Fry is my version of "Weeknight Surprise" - any random leftover veggies in my fridge get sauteed, tossed with some tasty sauces, and served over noodles or rice, and deliciousness ensues. 

So tonight, what I had in my fridge was: Broccoli, orange peppers, frozen green beans, onions. In hindsight, I would have left out the green beans. Mike specifically requested we keep water chestnuts on hand from now on because they would have gone perfectly! I just want to share with you guys exactly what I did, but also let you know what I would have done. Would have liked to add snow peas or snap peas instead of the beans, and some chicken would have been a good addition. 

So when making a stir fry, the goal is to cook everything at a very high heat for not a very long time. You're not looking to braise your food (braising means cooking low and slow in liquid... think osso buco, or any kind of stew). You want to get a good amount of browning on the outside, which means caramelization, which means flavor. Brown food tastes good. And you don't want the veggies to be mushy, you want them to still have a little crunch. So to do this, you'll pre-heat your wok or huge sautee pan with 2-3 tbsp of canola oil and 2 tbsp sesame oil. Do not use olive oil here for two reasons. 1) it has too low of a smoke point (meaning you need to heat it up hotter than it can safely get. Over-heated olive oil creates carcinogenic free radicals... that means causes cancer) and 2) it has a strong flavor that doesn't mesh as well with Asian flavors as the neutral canola oil would. So go with your canola oil / sesame oil blend (both of which have a high smoke point, and sesame oil has an amazing flavor that goes so well with stir fries). Get it screaming hot, then first add your protein, if using any. Always season your protein with salt and pepper before cooking. If you're using land-based protein (beef, pork, chicken), you'll want to fully cook it through. If you're using shrimp or scallops, you'll want to cook them just till they start going opaque and pink (shrimp) or browning (scallops). Do not fully cook them at this stage, because you're going to heat them more later. So if you cook them all they way now, they'll be rubbery by the end. No bueno. Tofu counts as a protein here too (though I'll be putting up a post later about why I avoid soy-based products when possible and what alternatives I use).

After the protein is cooked and removed from the pan, add another couple of tablespoons of oil. It's almost time for your veggies, but we need to be strategic about it. If you throw all your veggies in at once, toss for a few minutes and serve, you'll wind up with unevenly cooked veggies. Some may be overdone, some may still taste raw. So you need to add the veggies at different times so that they all finish cooking at the same time. And as for the quantity? Whatever blend sounds good to you, but I probably used 10-12 cups of chopped veggies for this stir fry and this quantity of sauce (note: I did not have a protein, so add more sauce if you're using a protein).



Before the veggies though, you need to add the Asian Trinity: onions, garlic, and ginger - the base flavors of so many Asian dishes. For stir fry, I use sliced onions. I would recommend that you do these first so that they can brown on their own. Once you toss in the other veggies, the onions tend to not get the alone-time they need in the hot wok to brown up deliciously. After the onions have started to brown, add your garlic. For this recipe I used minced. Garlic should only cook alone in the pot for literally 30-60 seconds. As soon as the garlic becomes fragrant and you can smell wafts of that deliciousness, it's time to toss in more food. When you add more food, it brings the temperature down inside the pot, so you don't risk burning the garlic. If I had fresh ginger, I would have grated it and added it right after the garlic, but unfortunately I did not. So I used 1-2 tsp. of powdered ginger which I added with the sauces, it just depends on how much of that ginger bite you like.


After your seasonings are done, it's time to add your veggies. You should add them in order from hardest / sturdiest to softest / most delicate. So for my stir-fry, I started with the broccoli. If I had snow / sugar snap peas, I probably would have added them around now as well. After those cooked for a few minutes, I added the orange peppers, and lastly the green beans (previously cooked and frozen, so just needed to be heated through). 

It is important to add the sauces to the veggies and protein after everything has been browned. Once you add the sauces, things will start to braise and will no longer be able to brown, so do not do this step too soon.  At this point, if you cooked a protein, add it back in, add the sauces, toss to combine, and cook for another couple of minutes until the sauce thickens up. You can choose to either serve it over cooked brown rice, or like I did, toss in some boiled gluten free rice noodles, so they sop up all that delicious sauce.

By the way, the leftovers of this are amazing. I love stir fries because they are so versatile - you can use up whatever's in your fridge in a satisfying way. And when done right, they are quite healthy too!! Great way to get more produce, whole grain brown rice, and lean protein. Win-win-win!!!!

Base Recipe for Stir Fry
Ingredients:
2-3 tbsp canola (for veggies, and another 2-3 for protein)
2 tbsp sesame oil
~1 lb lean protein (sliced lean beef, sliced or cubed chicken, sliced or cubed pork, shrimp)

~8 cups chopped Asian-inspired vegetables (broccoli, snow peas, snap peas, peppers, water chestnut, zucchini, onions, carrots, etc. Think about what you can get at Flat Top or Stir Crazy, and add whatever you have)
2 medium onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp fresh, or 1-2 tsp powdered ginger

Stir-Fry Sauce: 
4 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
*(optional) 1 tbsp sweet soy sauce
*(optional) 1 tsp sweet mirin

1) Heat canola oil in pan; season protein with salt and pepper. Cook till browned on all sides. Remove from pot, let drain on plate
2) Add remaining canola and sesame oil. Cook onions till just beginning to brown. Add garlic and fresh ginger (if using); cook for 30-60 seconds, then add veggies from hardest/sturdiest to softest/most delicate. Cook each type of veggie for a couple of minutes before adding new ones
3) Add all ingredients for sauce (including powdered ginger, if using). Return protein to wok, and toss to coat/combine. Cook for a few minutes to finish heating the protein and so that it absorbs some of the sauce
4) Either toss with noodles, or serve over whole grain brown rice

Enjoy!!

*I would use either one of these two optional ingredients, but not both. They are optional because they aren't pantry staples I expect everyone to have (read: you should have all the other ingredients. If you don't, you're missing a lot of flavor in your life. Hoisin sauce is my jam).

Wednesday's GHI: GOOD Chef's Knife

Most Millennials are on a budget. And if you aren't, you probably should be, to some extent. So we don't usually spend a lot of money on things like kitchen equipment until we get really successful and can afford the splurge, or as in my case, register for it for our wedding and have somebody else buy it for us. 

But if I could recommend ONE high quality item to spend good money on, my Gotta Have It this week is a fantastic chef's knife. It is the work horse of your kitchen, and you will use it for just about everything you do. 

My brother Billy got me the Wusthof Classic Ikon 7" Santoku knife for my 23rd birthday in February, and it was one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. I moved into my apartment in Chicago that summer, and for almost 3 years that was the only knife I used in my kitchen, and it was perfect. I bought a cheap set that had a paring knife and a serrated knife for cutting bread, but those were terrible quality and I only used them when I absolutely needed. 

And while you're living on a budget, that is exactly what I would recommend that you do. Invest in one solid chef's knife, get a cheap paring knife and serrated knife for bread, and then upgrade to the good stuff either when you can afford it, or when you can register for it. 

There are two main styles of knives: Japanese, and German. The biggest difference is in the shape of the blade, and the width/angle of the blade. The Japanese knives (Shun, Korin) have a flatter cutting edge, meaning that you are cutting more surface area with each pass. You can see below that the German-style Chef's Knife that I have has a rounded cutting surface, making it great for any cutting that involves a rocking motion. The other shape difference is the width - the German knives (like Wusthof, J.A. Henckels, etc.) are MUCH wider than Japanese knives, and are thicker near the handle and get thinner towards the tip. Japanese knives are a more uniform width down the whole length of the blade. Certain Japanese knives are used to cut raw fish into precise, sometimes paper thin slices for sashimi. To cut through something that delicate, it can't have a lot of resistance. That's also what those cut-outs are for along the bottom edge - it helps minimize the friction with whatever you're cutting. And my last point on shape is that in my opinion, the handles on Japanese style knives tend to be more ergonomic and streamlined, and that handles on the German knives tend to be a little chunkier. 

The other big difference relates to the angle of the blade - not the angle like we talked about rounded vs. flat at the bottom, but if you were to look directly at the blade with a microscope, what angle is it sharpened to, compared with a perpendicular plane. So the classic Western Chef's Knife maintains an angle of 40-45 degrees (meaning that if you created a 40-45 degree angle, that is how sharp the blade of the knife is. So the bilateral shoulder is 20-22.5 degrees. That means that when you sharpen these knives, you want to hold that side of the knife at about a 20 degree angle away from the steel sharpening tool on each side, creating an overall angle of about 40 degrees). On the Japanese style knives, there are two differences: 1. they are often only sharpened on one side (though traditionally Santoku knives, which are among the most popular, are sharpened on both), and 2. Their angle is between 20-30 degrees, or 10-15 degrees per side. So the cutting blades of Japanese knives are two times more narrow compared with German knives. This doesn't mean twice as sharp, it just means twice as narrow. 

So which do I prefer? The answer is both. They both have their uses, and I love them both in different ways. It truly is personal preference - if a consumer report tells you definitively that one style is better than the other, don't believe it. Try them both out and make your own judgement. If you're INVESTING (yes they're expensive!!) in a good quality chef's knife from a reputable brand, you will probably be happy with either style. 

My last tip for this post is for when you are taking the plunge to either invest in or register for your full knife set. The tip is this: don't get a pre-packaged set. Knife companies make knives in all different shapes and sizes and styles, and they are purchased by a variety of individuals with specific needs. However the vast majority of us do not need all of those knives. But the company pays money to make them, so they want to sell them. What do they do? They package them up with other more useful knives in a beautiful block, "discount" the set, and sell it as a packaged deal. Don't fall for it! All you really need in your knife set is the following:

7-8" Chef's knife (obviously... please go back to the top if this was unclear)

~ 3.5" Paring knife

~8" Serrated Bread Knife

Good kitchen shears

Carving Knife at least 8" and Carving Fork (I only use this on holidays, but you sort of need it if you're roasting big meat like turkey, beef tenderloin, standing rib roast, etc.. Damn you unitaskers!!!!!)

These knife blocks usually throw in a skinnier knife that's about 6" - it's too small to do any heavy lifting, and too long and skinny to do delicate tasks. And sometimes a 6" paring knife... what the hell are you supposed to do with that?? So don't fall for it, save your money!!

The proper way to hold a knife, using my Wusthof Classic Ikon 8" Chef's Knife as an example

In later posts, I'll get into knife skills as well as caring for your knives. Did you learn something from this? Is there more you'd like to find out? Share below!

Herb Crusted Salmon in Parchment

I am a sucker for good seafood. I tend to travel to places where seafood is a staple dish - Greece, Hawaii, Costa Rica, San Francisco, etc. The problem is, I don't get very creative when cooking it myself. I'm solid in terms of crustacean recipes, but when it comes to fish, I have three recipes - two for salmon (one Italian-inspired, one Asian-inspired), and one for any white fish (parmesan crust that will be featured very soon). So here's the Italian salmon one.

I chatted up the fish monger at Whole Foods and picked out a beautiful piece of salmon. Whole foods can be expensive if you do all your shopping there, but I go there for any animal I'm going to eat. When it comes to animal protein, I am way more concerned with quality, organic, local when possible than I am about produce. I also am a huge environmentalist, and the factory farm industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gases and why our planet is falling apart. So I appreciate the fact that Whole Foods cares about sustainability and sources most of its products from organizations that care about that too. Yes it's more expensive, but totally worth it to me. And plus, since it's more expensive, we tend to ration it out a bit more which is not a bad thing from a nutrition and environmental perspective. Replacing animal protein with veggie protein a few times a week is a GREAT way to keep your body detoxed and help keep your liver and GI tract healthy. 

Additionally, re-read the first sentence of the last paragraph... one of my favorite things about Whole Foods is how knowledgeable the staff are in their respective departments. The conversations I've had with the butchers, fromagers, and fish mongers are miles above what I feel like I could get out of the staff at most other grocers. So when I have questions or need to talk before making a purchase, it's ALWAYS Whole Foods for me.

Ok... to the "recipe." And again, we already learned how I write "recipes" - there isn't really any measuring. I took pictures of each step this time though, so you could follow along.

My ingredients: Sodium-free Italian Seasoning blend, dried basil, granulated garlic, salt, pepper, lemon slices, and olive oil. In a perfect world, I would have used several cloves of fresh cut garlic, but it was 8:30pm and I was hungry so I went with the quick stuff. Still delish.

Here's the order to sprinkle them all on the salmon: Salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic (granulated or fresh), basil, Italian seasoning. I just do a couple of drizzles - not a lot. Salmon is a very fatty fish to begin with, though it's amazing healthy fats that your body needs and that are necessary for proper neural activity and also good for your eyes. So don't over-do the oil, you're basically just putting a little bit on so that the herbs stick to the salmon. You could even use an olive oil cooking spray if you wanted. And as for the herbs, you can see the thickness of the "crust" that I use.

Then layer the lemon slices on top of the salmon like so...

And fold the parchment around the salmon to make a packet. Do your best oragami so that the parchment is actually sealed. The point is that as the fish cooks and gets hot, the parchment traps in the steam, and your fish basically steams. This keeps it moist and flaky and delicious. So use a lot of parchment - then fold two sides towards the middle, hold them together up above the fish, then roll down towards the fish till sealed. Then crimp in both open sides to fully seal.

Cook at between 375 - 400 for ~20-25 minutes. Depends on your oven and on the size of the piece of salmon. Warning - if you have any loose edges on the parchment (like I had here), IT WILL SMOKE in the oven! So either tuck in all loose ends, or go for 375 and a slightly longer time.

To test if the salmon is done, stick a fork right in the middle. It should flake away pretty easily. If you got a good quality salmon, please don't cook it to death... if the middle is slightly darker than the edges, that's ok. And probably preferred.

I meant to get a picture of it completed and unwrapped, but I was starving and forgot. So here's the skin in the cooked parchment after removing the flesh and portioning it out.

My serving - about 5 ounces. I love fresh lemon on my seafood, because it helps me use less salt, which is my weakness! Less sodium = less water retention!

It always comes out so incredibly moist, flaky, and delicious!

Because I can't just have salmon, we made a quick salad with whatever veggies we had in the fridge. Romaine lettuce, yellow peppers, onions, kalamata olives. Dressing is always the same: red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, granulated garlic. Dress lightly, toss, taste, adjust ingredients, toss, taste, repeat until delicious.