Quote:
Originally Posted by LiannaKole
Carter: what are your techniques for adding flavor to food but not calories? I'm always looking for tips like that.
Aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger) and spices! Most vegetables can be sautéed in a small amount of oil with chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. Or, a mixture of chopped ginger, garlic, and scallions makes a great base for a stir-fry. Sauté onions and peppers, add tomatoes, paprika, and cumin for a solid middle-eastern style base for stewing anything. I make a rub for fish with turmeric, salt, cumin, red chili powder (or cayenne), and black pepper, and then pan fry the fish in just a little bit of oil. Roasted root vegetables are much sweeter and more delicious with chunks of red onion and whole garlic cloves mixed in before roasting.
Another middle-eastern thing I do is sweat onions in the bottom of a Dutch oven, and add cinammon, salt, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, salt and pepper, and some chopped parsley, a cup or two of water, and then drop in a small whole chicken. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes. When you pull out the chicken there is a nice gravy in the bottom of the pan; I shred the chicken meat off the bones and add it back into the gravy. You could easily add carrots or other vegetables to this, I think.
If you have an Indian grocery you can buy premade spice mixes - look for Shan or MDH brands, and just buy a box that says it's for whatever you want to add it to - vegetables, chicken, meat. In the simplest case you can just cook these things in a pan and add the spice mix to them. If you have a little more time you can sweat onions first, or even better onion-garlic-ginger and add the spice mix to that. Then add a little water or tomato to make a gravy and cook in that. None of hyphens requires a lot of oil - just a tablespoon to sweat enough aromatics to cook 4 portions. I have a heavy hand with spices - spoonfuls rather than sprinkles.
Finally - this may be obvious to experienced cooks but new cooks often don't know - SALT. Salt added to foods doesn't make them salty; it enhances their flavor. If you are cooking and your food tastes rather drab and uninteresting, it probably needs salt.
I know some people think salt is a bad word but unless you have some reason to keep away from it - diagnosed heart disease and a doctor's order to avoid it, for example - it's really a very good thing to add. Processed food generally has much, much more sodium than you would add while cooking even if you use salt the way I do.
That was fun. Thanks for winding me up and letting me go.