Cooking

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Suzanne - It's super easy -and much cheaper! - to make your own infused olive oils. Add the peel from one lemon or 2-3 limes to about 1 cup of olive oil (adjust accordingly depending on the amount you'd like to make). Add to a saucepan and heat over very low heat for about 15-20 minutes. Strain and store in an airtight jar in a dry, cool place. Make sure the oil doesn't get too hot - you don't want to see if bubble or splatter. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Justina - Thanks for your question! We've never done a side-by-side test of "raw" vs. pre-boiled (or soaked) fresh lasagna noodles, but my guess is that what you've found is true - there is really no need to pre-boil the fresh noodles. I would give a couple of caveats though - you want to make sure your sauce is pretty loose so there is enough moisture there to cook the noodles but not dry out the lasagna. Also, make sure to cover the lasagna with foil for the majority of the cooking time to trap the heat allowing the noodles to cook through. Remove the cover with about 10-15 minutes left to go to brown the top. I think, traditionally, the goal of pre-cooking was to season the noodles themselves by boiling them in well-salted water. It's my opinion that the sauce and cheese will do a fine job of seasoning the noodles and skipping pre-boiling will save far more time and hassle! Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Micah - We don't have a recipe for kimchi at Milk Street (yet!). Our recipe developers generally use store-bought kimchi. Since we go through so much of it on a regular basis, they don't typically have time to wait for it to ferment. I spoke to our Head of Recipe Development to see if they use a particular brand or style, but she said they use all different kinds. However she did say they typically use kimchi that is more mild, not spicy. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Charles - I agree that de-seeding canned tomatoes seems like a pain. I did see a trick on the internet in which you drain the tomatoes in a fine mesh strainer, break them open, and then transfer them to a salad spinner. Apparently the centrifugal force of the salad spinner leaves you with seedless tomatoes in the basket of the salad spinner and all of the seeds and juice in the bowl of the salad spinner. Then you just strain that juice from the salad spinner through a fine mesh strainer. I haven't tried this but it might be worth a try to see if it can make quicker work of de-seeding for you! Here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWnzQ-r-UBQ. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Jane - Definitely not! At Milk Street we never brown the meat for soups and stews. One of my top 10 favorite Milk Street Recipes is our No Sear Lamb or Beef Chickpea Stew. We found that as we traveled around the world most cooks didn't bother with the added cumbersome step of browning meat before making a stew and instead use abundant herbs and bold spices to add flavor to a stew. For some Milk Street stew recipes, such as our Tuscan Beef and Black Pepper Stew, we brown the meat by removing the cover halfway through cooking time and letting the oven do the browning work for us. Some suggestions for adding bold flavor without browning - tossing or rubbing the meat with a flavorful spice rub, slicing off the top and adding a whole head of garlic to the pot, using fresh ginger or chili peppers, and finishing with a generous handful of herbs. I hope this helps streamline your stew making! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Lisa - due to the high salt content of miso it will last indefinitely if stored in the refrigerator. You can rely on the flavor being consistent for about a year, however, any flavor differences that may occur will be fairly imperceptible. Enjoy your miso! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi David - In general, we recommend using all of our specialty soy, tamari, and shoyu in their raw form so we don't compromise their delicate flavor. Some suggestions - dipping sauce for fish, chicken, or tofu, drizzled over mild-flavored vegetables or rice, salad dressing, marinades (but only the bolder flavored Smoked , Black Garlic, and Matsutake Shoyu) etc. So you had the right idea by using the Takuko White Soy Sauce in a salad dressing! I think what may have masked the flavor was your choice of greens. Kale is a hearty green with a lot of bold flavor that likely overpowered the soy sauce. I would instead recommend using bibb, green or red leaf lettuce, or spring mix, which are all mild enough to keep the delicate flavor of the white soy sauce intact. Both the Takuko White Soy Sauce and the Nitto Jozo White Tamari would also be excellent with sushi or sashimi. The Haku Smoked Shoyu would be fantastic drizzled over grilled meats, especially salmon, pork, or lamb. The Black Garlic Shoyu (or, really, any of the soy, shoyu, tamari in our store) would be great in the Tamari Dipping Sauce for our Japanese Fried Chicken. The Matsutake Shoyu is great in vegetarian dishes since the double umami hits of the soy and the mushrooms adds tons of meaty flavor. I also think it would be fantastic as a marinade for skirt, flank or hangar steak. Have fun experimenting with all of these distinct sauces! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Mitchell - you can substitute chicken breasts for most (if not all) of our sheet pan chicken recipes, including our recipe for Miso-Glazed Chicken with Mushrooms. In fact our Sheet Pan-Roasted Chicken (which includes 3 flavor variations - za'atar, jerk, and coriander) calls for a mix of whatever parts you like. I would recommend using bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. The skin and bone will protect the chicken a bit from drying out. Most importantly, temp your chicken. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the breast and pull it out of the oven when it hits 160 degrees. This will ensure that the chicken will still be moist and juicy. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C. \_

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Quintin - you might be interested in Mark Bitterman's book, "*Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes." *Mark is considered an expert on all things salt (he both coined the phrase and is considered a selmelier, a food service professional whose expertise is in salt). His website, The Meadow, has a little bit on the history of salt (albeit a bit skewed towards finishing salts which he sells in his salt boutique): https://themeadow.com/pages/introduction-to-gourmet-salt. I also found some great information on the history of salting food for flavor from Saltworks, a sea salt company: https://www.seasalt.com/history-of-salt and a short article and video from the History Channel: https://www.history.com/news/off-the-spice-rack-the-story-of-salt. I hope you enjoy reading these! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Howard - the classic French recipe, Poulet en Cocotte, is a whole chicken roasted in a small, covered Dutch oven (a cocotte) that essentially cooks in it's own juices which, in turn, become a very flavorful sauce. You can also find a similar version of this recipe in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan). In both regions it's always been made with a whole chicken. The idea was to provide an easy, economical dinner for the family. Whole chickens were and are widely available (most countries still don't sell chicken parts) and, even here in the U.S., are much less expensive per pound than cut-up parts. I make this recipe a lot at the end of a busy day and I'm grateful to be able to just throw the whole chicken in the pot to start cooking while I help with homework or shuttle my daughter to a dance class, leaving my husband to keep an eye on the pot. Another benefit -you can use the cooked leftover carcass and the giblets to make a super flavorful stock. My favorite thing about this recipe is that it offers endless opportunities for variation in both the spices on the chicken and the sauce ingredients. Thanks for writing to us! Best, Lynn C.