Cooking

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.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi David - Thanks for your question! At Milk Street we use leftover cheese rind from hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino to add a savory boost to soups and stews. Parmesan contains high levels of glutamate, an amino acid that (along with ribonucleotides) imparts umami. The dish won’t taste cheese-y, per se, but the rind will add a depth of flavor that will really take your dish to the next level. As Elizabeth S. mentioned, we use parmesan rind to flavor the broth in our weeknight Kale and White Bean Soup and in the vegetable broth for our Risotto with Fresh Herbs. I would also recommend adding a rind to a Bolognese, meat ragu, or tomato sauce, a minestrone, or, really, any soup or stew. Happy cooking! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Ramona - Unfortunately, I think it's pretty difficult to reheat steak without overcooking it. The most successful method I've found is to reheat in a low oven (200-250 degrees) and then sear quickly in a hot pan. This can take at least 30 minutes, however, and the steak can still become a bit dry. Since I don't really mind cold steak on a salad, I often make our Thai Beef Salad using leftover steak (assuming it is simply seasoned with salt and pepper) when I'm looking for a quick, no-cook meal on a hot summer day. Hope this helps and thanks for writing us! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Elizabeth - Lucky you! The sundried tomatoes that you got in Sicily aren't all that different than the ones that are packed in oil. The ones packed in oil are dried the same way - either using the oven, a dehydrator, or in the sun - and then added to oil that may also include additional flavorings like garlic and herbs. Because of this, the flavor may not be as potent as the ones that are simply dried. In general with sundried tomatoes, a little goes a long way. You could try substituting some of the grape tomatoes in our Sicilian Trapanese Pesto with some rehydrated sundried tomatoes. However, you may find that you need to add extra cooking water as the sundried tomatoes won't have as much moisture as the grape tomatoes. Our food editor, Matt Card, makes a fantastic Pasta con Fagioli with sundried tomatoes from our recipe for White Beans with Rosemary and Thyme in our Sunday Cook series, which features recipes to cook on Sunday from which multiple recipes can be made during the week. You can find all of our Sunday Cook features by searching "Sunday Cook" on the website. Capers packed in salt are actually much more flavorful than those packed in a vinegar brine. Rather than tasting the vinegar, you get the caper's natural, floral flavor. To use, rinse in water and then, depending on how much salt you want in the dish, soak them for up to 15 minutes to draw out the salt. Taste them as you go to gauge saltiness keeping in mind that as you soak you are losing some of the caper's flavor as well. These capers would be best served raw in a salad to maintain their fresh, floral notes. Thanks for writing to us! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

We aren’t a health food company so, if I’m honest, we don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about food additives. That being said, we are definitely proponents of buying fresh, local ingredients whenever possible and using high quality products that you can afford. I’m not sure where you’re located, but I would recommend seeking out a local farm to see if they make their own fresh dairy products. If not, for buttermilk, I know Kate’s Fresh Real Buttermilk from Maine and Organic Valley Low-fat Buttermilk do not contain carrageenan. The organic food industry in general is making a push to eliminate carrageenan from products labeled "organic" so more and more companies are removing it and/or replacing it with gellan gum. I would certainly look to organic producers for carrageenan-free products. A little background on carrageenan: Carrageenan is an extract from red seaweed called Irish Moss. This edible seaweed is native to the British Isles where it’s been used in traditional cooking for hundreds of years. It’s natural gelling ability makes it a common thickening ingredient in the commercial food industry. Here is an excellent article from NPR that explains some of the controversy on its purported toxicity:  https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/12/12/504558025/carrageenan-backlash-why-food-firms-are-ousting-a-popular-additive.