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Shopping
- The Silk Road has been supplying Canadians with exotic spices since 2008.
Training
- The New York Times may not be publishing any of DT's alternative facts but they've got some really good cooking guides.
To my way of thinking cooking guide is a very modest description but by all means judge for yourself.
- Knife Skills: The Serious Eats video series.
- America's Test Kitchen now has a cooking school. Monthly membership allows you to pick and choose courses of interest or 'Instructor-led
memberships offer access to the full catalog of Technique Lessons, Recipe Lessons, and In-Depth Courses, as well as access to our world-renowned
test kitchen instructors who are available to create personalized lesson plans, answer your questions, guide you through the material, and provide
feedback on your assignments.' If you are, like me, a long time follower of ATK then you may find that you've already been exposed to the
material but if you haven't then there's a lot to learn. Either way they have a 2 week free trial so get to
http://www.onlinecookingschool.com and check it out for yourself.
- Instruction Videos shot in the CIA kitchen
How to poach shrimp (the ouch test)http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-poach-shrimp-properly-294968/
Conversions and Measures
- 200 calories - what it looks like on a plate! In this handy visual from Wise Geek you can compare what 200 calories looks like in a bunch
of different foods. https://i.imgur.com/aUyraGC.jpg.
- Food Nutritional Chart, Calorie Chart, Fat Grams Chart, Carbohydrate Chart, Low Calorie Chart
- Nutrient Values Health Canada has a pdf copy of Nutrient Value of Some Common Foods available here.
The nutrition value
site appears to be the work of Vitalii Vanovschi and is based on Data from USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
which can be found here (not for the faint of heart)
- Food volume to weight and
weight to volume conversions at Aqua-Calc
are a little confusing at first only because so much data is presented. The quick charts under the data input show the conversion
you want along with many of lesser interest (a pound of spinach is 725.7 teaspoons). Further down the page a food density chart
gets into the nitty gritty. The food item input box needs a couple of clicks before it presents comprehensive list based on the input filter.
- How much does a cup weigh? Having trouble measuring recipe ingredients? Here's the scoop.
When you use a recipe in your cooking, you could be faced with up to three different measuring systems:
- US: cups, (American) pints and quarts.
- British imperial: ounces, pounds, fluid ounces and (British) pints.
- Metric: grams, kilograms, milliliters and litres.
Converting between imperial and metric is a simple matter of arithmetic (see below for more information). Converting to
and from the American system is more problematical. That's because Americans measure their recipe ingredients by volume;
the rest of the world measures by weight.
The nice people at Veg World have put together
this reference chart to help out.
btw 2 ounces of dry pasta makes about a cup of cooked and a tablespoon of butter weighs 14.2 grams (it's a lot easier to
weigh out butter than to try to smoosh it into a little spoon).
- Online Cooking Conversion Just want to convert your recipe from volume to weight to be more accurate? Well there's a problem, at least
with compressible materials such as flour. The Los Angeles Times found these variations:
- King Arthur Flour: 120 grams
- Bake From Scratch: 125 grams
- Washington Post: 126 grams
- The New York Times: 128 grams
- Bon Appétit: 130 grams
- AllRecipes.com: 136 grams
- The L.A. Times; Cook’s Illustrated: 142 grams
Bearing that in mind -
CookConversion,
OnlineConversion.com/,
King Arthur Baking Company Ingredient Weight Chart,
or Convert Recipe Weight to Recipe Volume
Equipment
- Cheesecloth. You don't make cheese? Well there are several other reasons
to have a supply of this versatile product in the drawer.
- Fine hardwood cutting boards made right here in CK. Canuck
Cutting Boards
- In the world of cast iron, there are unfounded, untested claims left right and center. J. Kenji López-Alt and
Serious Eats to put a few of those myths to rest.
- America's Test Kitchen has a whole series of 'Best' articles some of which are available here
.
- "Cooking with an induction cooktop or range is simply the best way to cook, for professionals in a work environment or
just for the average household." or at least that's the way the induction website
sees it. Most of what you might want to know about induction cooking can be found here and, oh yes, they do sell the equipment. They claim
"Right now, we believe we have virtually all residential equipment available at retail in North America at the best internet prices
to be found". Fighting words to be sure.
Sustainable Food
- The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program helps consumers and businesses make choices for healthy oceans. Their
recommendations indicate which seafood items are "Best Choices," "Good Alternatives," and which ones you should
"Avoid.". Get their pocket guide here.
- Environmental Defense Fund Find a Fish Surf the
alphabetized list of seafood to find a particular kind and how it's rated. Also see our full
list of sushi choices
http://seafood.edf.org/guide/best
Lexicon of Food
- foodlexicon is the english version of the german webpage lebensmittellexikon.de.
foodlexicon is a reference work for common and exotic foods with many preparation tips - detailed and up-to-date as no other
online-dictionary before. It gives an overview of available products and their production. Its current focus is on vegetables,
milk, milk products, cheese, sugar, honey, edible fats, meat, poultry, nutrients, wine and the conservation of food.
- The Cook's Thesaurus is a cooking encyclopedia that covers thousands of ingredients and kitchen tools.
Entries include pictures, descriptions, synonyms, pronunciations, and suggested substitutions. She got fennel right
and there's an extensive section on pasta. It missed our favourite strascinati (made in Southern Italy) but I found an almost identical shape
listed as cavatelli. I expect that regional names would preclude ever creating a complete list of pasta shapes.
http://www.foodsubs.com/
- FoodReference.com An eclectic world of unique & fascinating food information
This is the work of one American chef so do not expect accuracy outside of the US (for example I'm pretty sure there are a
couple of cooking schools east of Alberta). That having been said there is much of value. An extensive section on ingredients is
for some reason under cooking tips so you'll have to work to extract the value. I think it's worth the effort.
http://www.foodreference.com/
- Linda's Culinary Dictionary A Dictionary and History of Cooking, Food, and Beverage Terms. A complete list? No but
it's a good list and the author solicits suggestions and comments.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Glossary/GlossaryIndex2.htm
- I'm not sure if this is a resource or a great time sink but The Chest of Books has untold books online, many of which
are cookbooks, mostly old ones by the look of the list. I think old cookbooks are a great read and who knows, tonight's
supper might just be waiting.
http://chestofbooks.com/food/index.html
Process
- Serious Eats has a series on preserving where you'll learn the significance of PV=nRT as it's applied to canning and
many other useful and sometimes esoteric things.
- The National Center for Home Food Preservation is your source for current
research-based recommendations for most methods of home food preservation.
- How long does food really last? The 'best before', 'use by', or 'sell by' dates found on many foods contribute significantly
to the enormous amount of food that we waste. These are NOT EXPIRY DATES. EatByDate
has realistic use dates for many foods and a search function so you can get right to the item you want.
- Flour Storage Guide
Most types of flour keep well in a sealed container in a cool, dry, and dark location. The original paper packaging used for many types of
flour is fine for long term storage as long as the package has not been opened.
Flour milled from whole grains does not keep as long as highly refined flour because the germ portion of the whole grain can cause the flour
to become rancid over time. Flour that does not look or smell good should not be used. It is best to buy smaller quantities of flour if you
are finding it necessary to continually discard the flour due to spoilage.
See the whole article and storage tips for many flours at
http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1039/flour-storage-guide.asp
- Smoking Points of Fats and Oils What's Cooking America has compiled a list of the smoke points of various oils along
with descriptions of the oil and use for each.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/CookingOilTypes.htm
- Serious Eats has a lengthy dissertation on the boiled egg, both hard and soft here
followed of course by an extensive selection of comments from the nay sayers. You might also want to read the page on the Cooking for Engineers
site for a slightly different take.
- The Food-Info site http://www.food-info.net/uk/index.htm is a
multi-lingual site run by the Food Technology Department and a team of international students at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
The site seems mostly about technical aspects of food but there is much of general interest.
- Food Temperature Chart from Amazing Ribs (found through Google's beta Knol site) reproduced
here just in case the site changes (which it did).
The original
page is well worth a read (even more so now) but be warned, you'll need a couple of hours free to check out the rest of the site,
Amazing Ribs.
Ingredients
- Umami. Serious Eats list of pantry items to build up your umami
punch. Be sure not to miss the peanut worms.
- Caitlin PenzeyMoog of the Penzeys Spices and The Spice
House family has a Serious Eats article on peppercorns
(and then some)
- Stella Parks from Serious Eats shares her pantry must haves for baking.
- epicurious lists 14 Types of Mushrooms and their Uses (and a few recipes to boot)
- 8 Game-changing spice blends for home cooks who think they have everything.
- The Serious Eats Guide to Vinegar will expand
your horizons.
- Mullaco Online has posted The Complete Glossary and
Guide to Indian Spices and Herbs. If it isn't complete it's certainly comprehensive.
- Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages are not a complete spice reference
but it's a good start
- The Borough Market has a good series of spice articles but they've yet to publish an index. This
Google
search will bring up the current articles.
- Serious Eats did a quick testing of 'parmesan' cheeses for it's Italian American recipe guide. The bottom line - "The imported Parmigian Reggiano
whipped the pants off all the other cheeses." See the testing results and the recipe guide.
- Just in case you ever have a pressing need to try each and every variety of Italian pasta you can find the list at
http://en.foodlexicon.org/p0000880.php There are 183 entries and while
one would hope that it's complete I expect that regional variations preclude that.
Another list appears here http://www.food-info.net/uk/products/pasta/shapes.htm
which has pictures and synonyms.
If you should chose to venture into the even more complicated world of Asian noodles then a good place to start would be The Serious Eats Guide
to Shopping for Asian Noodles which can be found here.
- Do you
know your soy sauces? One of the oldest condiments in the world (it's got a three-millennia history!), soy sauce is a by-product of
fermented soybeans and wheat that have been mixed with brine. First, Aspergillus moulds are added to cooked soybeans and roasted wheat
resulting in a mixture called koji (the term koji can also be used to refer to just the bacterial culture as well). After the moulds grow
over three days, the culture is combined with salt water and transferred to large vats where lactobacillus-a bacteria that breaks down sugars
into lactic acid-is added.
- There is no longer any useful information on the Canada Beef Inc. site
A little harder to use but hey . . it's still there http://www.beeffoodservice.com/beefcuts.aspx
- Cheese is nutritious food made mostly from the milk of cows but also other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, reindeer,
camels and yaks. Around 4000 years ago people have started to breed animals and process their milk. That's when the cheese was born.
More at cheese dot com
- Are you getting enough of the nutrients your body needs? Find out by browsing the Eating Well
Nutrient Library. In it,
you'll discover why these 27 essential nutrients are so important for your overall health.
Other
- Storage Wars from FOOD52, a new series about the
best ways to store, well, everything. From how to keep produce orderly in the fridge (or not), to ways to get your oddball nooks and crannies shipshape
- Slow Food believes in recognizing the importance of pleasure connected to food. We should learn
to enjoy the vast range of
recipes and flavours, recognize the variety of places and people growing and producing food. We should respect the rhythms of the
seasons and conviviality. But the recipe developed by Carlo Petrini and other Slow Food members proposes to add a new sense of
responsibility to the search for pleasure, which we all have a right to enjoy. Slow Food has called this approach ecogastronomy.
http://www.slowfood.ca/index.php
- Good Food Revolution. A weekly newsletter about all things food (not your typical ezine)
http://goodfoodrev.com/
- Food Secure Canada (FSC) is a Canadian organization which works to unite people and organizations working for
food security across Canada and globally. http://www.foodsecurecanada.org/