Cooking Without A Cause

by:Rafael Gomez

2

When it come to what you eat, and how you eat it, every-one’s got an opinion. From how to drink your coffee (black vs. cream and sugar), to how to properly eat string cheese (pull away strands vs. biting straight into it), there are many meth-ods of cosuming food.

Is any one way correct? It just depends on how you look at your scenario at hand.

For example, lets take a look at

The Right Answer

Cereal.

3

Each one of these examples serves a different function, but all have the same end result: you get to eat your cereal. Many chefs use similar methods when deciding on how they want to present their food:

bowl vs. plate vs. what ever

Can you think of any other foods that you could eat differently?

What silverware or plates/bowls would you use?

4

That’s NotLogical

Now let’s get to the trickier stuff: the stove! Yes, I may have done a big jump for some, go-ing from cereal, to turning on a flame. But I promise it’s not that hard or intimidating. One way to make the strange into something familiar is by using metaphors as a means to demystify the beast. What do we know about stoves? They’re sometimes wood, elec-tric, or gas powered. They may or may not have an oven (or one that heats up properly, anyway), and you put pots and pans on the burners to heat up their contents.

What metaphors can you come up with to describe how a stove works?

5

First, we’ll use soft thinking, or the freedom to think of any ab-surd idea, in order to come up with a metaphor describing stoves. Side-walks on summer days, the hood of an overheating car, etc. Then you move on to the hard thinking, or the type of thinking you need to get the job done. Well since electric grills are much like stoves, I thought of other electric surfaces whose job it is to heat up. Clothes Irons! They are the perfect thing to use for making grilled cheese.

- 2 slices of Texas style bread- 1 Tbs (table spoon) of butter spread

on each slice, only on one side - 1 or 2 slices of american cheese

- 1 “borrowed” clothes iron with heat-ing side wrapped in foil (for easier

cleaning)

Make sure you’re set up in a heat resistant area. Heat the iron to its highest setting. Once the iron gets no-ticeably hot (sprinkle water to check for sizzling), bring it 1 to 2 settings down. Place iron on butter side of bread. Keep it there for about a min-ute or until golden brown. Repeat for the other buttered bread that hasn’t been ironed. Take off the iron, and put your slices of cheese on the non-buttered sides of your bread. Now join them together. Grill a little more to get the cheese melted. And there you have it! You’ve got yourself one nasty looking grilled cheese! Congrat-ulations!

What other kitchen appliances do you think need the help of a metaphor in order to appear more approachable?

6

Follow the Rules

What goes on a Chicago dog? Mustard, [green] relish, onion, tomato, sport pepper, a spear pickle, and celery salt. Why? What was the original purpose to confine a hot dog from Chicago to only those in-gredients. From what I under-stand, Chicago’s rich European, mainly German, ancestory gave way to this combination of flavours (european spelling). But chicago is now home to more than just German culture. Shouldn’t our food reflect that as well? One way of being cre-ative in the kitchen is learning the rules in order to break the rules. Start by analyzing what rules serve no purpose any more, much like the mustard-no-ketchup rule on Chicago dog’s. “But Rafa, Chicago style hotdog’s are an institutional thing when visiting Chicago. You add ketchup, you remove my identity!” Nonesense. You

must not fall in love with an idea, because this will hinder you’re flexibility on trying to understand why anything is the way it is, never having to question its usefulness. How about we make a Chicago Mexican style hotdog, or an Indian style hotdog?

How about a Chicago Ko-rean bbq style hotdog?

7

1 package of Brauts/hotdogs1 package of thinly sliced bulgogi meat1 bottle of bulgogi marinade1/4 cup of chopped green onions(optional) 1 Tbs of mayo1 package of hot dog buns1 tsp of oil

Marinate bulgogi meat in the refridegerator with bulgogi sauce anywhere from 30 min. to overnight in a ziplock bag. Heat up enough water in a deep sauce pan to cover up the brauts/hot-dogs. Get it to boiling. Drop in your brauts/hotdogs. Hot dogs are usually precooked so they won’t have to cook for more than 5 min in boiling water. Brauts will take a little longer; about 10-15 min. In a different pan with a tsp of oil on medium heat, have the marinated meat cooking about 2-3 min-utes on each side. Put the meat on a separate plate. Take out the hotdogs/brauts and put them in their bun. Top them off with the marinated meat, mayo, and green onions. Or dont follow these di-rections and put peanut butter and brocoli. Your call. And VUALA! You’re finished.

8

Be Practical Let’s say you ignore my advice and you avoid using the stove, or you just flat out don’t own one. How will you cook food at home? You’re faced with a scenario and are told that you need to figure it out. Well for one, you can always just live off of ironed grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of cereal. Or not, I guess. All the beginning ideas are you’re stepping stones, or ideas that get you to think of other ideas, that will help you achieve creative problem solving. List what your options are. I looked around my kitchen and figured that I’d still be able to use my microwave and toaster oven. What type of cooking am I limited to when using just these appli-ances? I’m thinking breakfast would be my easiest choice. How about a breakfast sandwich? Sausage, Egg, and Cheese on an eng-lish muffin. I think so! Wait-- scratch that. I Forgot the english muffins at the grocery store. We’re eating them on the TEXAS TOAST from earlier!

9

1 egg1 tsp of water2 slices of texas bread, or any other bread you have laying around1 slice of american cheese1 breakfast sausage pattyA pinch of salt and pepperA microwaveA toaster oven

Preheat toaster oven to 375 degrees in the bake setting for about 5 min. On a cook-ing sheet small enough to fit the toaster oven, line it up with foil and place the patty on the tray. Place tray in toaster oven and cook each side of the patty about 5 minutes on each side, or to 160 degrees internal heat. While patty is cooking in the toaster oven, crack an egg in a mug with a tsp of water. Scramble the egg by whisking it with a fork, breaking up the yolk and egg whites thoroughly. Sea-son with salt and pepper. Place mug in the microwave and cook in 30 sec increments until it’s visibly cooked or not “runny”.

What other meals can you cook with just these appliances?

10

Play is Frivolous Learn to be fearless in the kitchen. That means taking risks on new textures, new colors and flavor combinations. You are an inventor, an artist, a culinary explorer who’s only starting off on their quest of conquering the kitchen! In learning and growing as a person and chef, we’re al-lowed to have a playful attitude when figuring things out. Kid’s demonstrate this creativity while they’re at play. A box is not a box for them. It’s a sci-entist’s laboratory, a race car, a spaceship headed off to mars in search of alien lifeforms. We can also add con-traints to try to help out with our brainstorming. Constraints narrow down you’re options, but in a way that will make it

feel limitless! Lets use frying things as an example. We have to come up with a food to cook, but we’re only able to use frying as our method of cooking. Al-though our constraint is to only fry our food, our options are more narrowed but still limit-less! I’ll add one more contraint: our food needs to be for dessert.

Lets make some FRIED. ICE. CREAM!!!

11

1 gigantic scoop of ice cream1 cup of crushed cornflakes1 egg, whisked2 quarts of oilSundae toppings are optional

Make a gigantic scoop of ice cream by putting two normal sized scoops together and form them into a fall with your hand. Line a bak-ing sheet with wax paper and store in the freezer for 2 hours. Take it out and roll it in a bowl of crushed cornflakes until evenly coated. Freeze for 30 min. In a bowl, whisk one egg with a fork and set to the side. Take out the ice cream ball, roll it in the whisked egg, and roll again in the crushed cornflakes. Freeze it again for about 30min to an 1hr. In a deep saucepan, heat up about 2 quarts of oil, or enough to fill about

half way. To check if oil is ready, dip a piece of bread and check for siz-zling. Once hot, bring out the ice cream ball from the freezer and fry it for about 10 to 15 sec. or until golden brown. Serve immediately. Top with your favorite sundae top-pings like whipping cream, oreo crumbs, and possibly even a CHERRY!!

12

That’s Not My Area

Growing up, my mom al-ways cooked traditional Mexi-can food for us. As I grew up, and explored my kitchen more, Mexican food was the first thing I gravitated towards because of the familiarity of the cuisine; the tastes, the smells, and colors a dish should have. But at a certain point, I felt like I plateaued with my learning. Everything became too familiar and expected. That’s when I decided to go beyond my comfort zone. In learning to be a fearless explorer in the kitchen, you must be willing to beyond your expertise and comfort zone to jog your creativity. I was going to try my hand at asian food. My philipino friend’s mom taught me how to make crab ran-goons. Although crab rangoons are about as Asian as nachos are Mexican food (they’re not), it was a great introduction to the flavors and colors that are common in Asian cuisine.

1/2 a package of imitation crab meat (about 5 sticks), shredded1/2 a red onion, minced1/4 cup of green onions1 clove of garlic, minced1 package of cream cheese1 Tbs of worcestershire sauce1 Tbs of soy sauce1 tsp of crushed black pepper2 quarts of oil1 package of wonton paper

In a bowl combine the crab meat, red and green onion, gar-lic, cream cheese, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and black pep-per together. Place about a table-spoon of mixture in the center of each wonton sheet. Wet corners a little with water so corners stick to eachother. Fry in medium high heat oil until light gold color.

13

14

Don’t Be Foolish

In talking about getting out of a cooking rut, you must learn to have fun and laugh at yourself in the kitchen. One way I achieve this is by drinking and dancing as I cook. A glass of wine or some shots of mescal, and some tunes to set the mood. It real-ly does the trick when trying to loosen up my creativity, or when entertaining guests at dinner parties. Not only does this loosen your guests up, but by the 2nd or 3rd drink, they’ll forget all about the food thats coming out late because of all the dancing! I start pouring a drink for myself, and then one for my homies, which made me think, “why not pour it into my food”. Lets cook up some

Chicken Marsala!

15

1 chicken breast, “butterflied”1/2 a shallot, minced5 white mushrooms, sliced1 clove of garlic, minced1/4 cup of chives5 tbs of olive oil4 tbs of unsalted butter (half a stick)1/3 cup of chicken stock1/3 cup of marsala wine1/3 cup and 1 tbs of flour1 tsp of parsley (optional)salt and pepper to taste

Butterfly your chicken, or cut it length wise but not all the way, until it resembles a butter-fly with wings out. Season with salt and pepper. Put flour in a bowl, and dip chicken in it until fully covered. Dust off any excess flour from chicken. In a pan, put 2 tbs of oil and 2 tbs of butter in medium-high heat. Place chicken in pan and cook each side about 3 minutes. Only flip over once. Place chicken on a plate and set to the side. Put 2 tbs of butter, 1 tbs of oil and mushrooms in the same pan. Lower heat to medium-low heat,

and cook mushrooms for 4 minutes. Transfer mushrooms to the plate with chicken. Add the remaining oil to the pan and bring up the heat to medium-high. Add shallots and garlic and cook for about a minute. Add in 1 tbs of flour to the pain and stir. Cook for another minute, and add the chicken stock and wine. Stir, while scraping bottom of pan to get the crusty brown stuff (flavor) into your sauce. Cook for 2 minutes or until sauce gets slightly thick. Add in the chicken, mushrooms, and chives into the sauce. Cook until thorough-ly heated. Garnish with parsley (op-tional). Look at that. Your first legit restaurant-quality dinner. And you made it while getting drunk. Con-grats!

16

AvoidAmbiguity

Sometimes I walk to my fridge hoping that something to eat will be waiting for me already made. But thats not always the case as I sometimes easily give up and exclaim to myself that “there is nothing to eat in this house!” That’s when a little creativity goes a long way. Instead of giving up and ordering take out somewhere, take stock of what you have. I look in the pantry, there’s rice. I look in the freezer, and theres frozen steaks. I look in the fridge and there’s a medley of vegetables to choose from. What sometimes seems like random ingredients in your pantry and fridge, could very

well be the next culinary craze right there with quinoa and put-ting bacon on everything. It’s just a matter of putting these random ingredients together, like pieces to a puzzle. Let’s make some

Beef Fajitas and Rice!1 lbs of skirt steak1 green pepper, sliced1 red pepper, sliced1 onion, sliced1 cup of rice1 1/2 cups of water1/2 of a chicken bouillon cube2 tsp garlic powder1 bottle of lemon pepper mojo/marinadeSalt and pepper to tastevegetable oil

17

Marinade your steak with a pre-made lemon pepper marinade for about 20-30 minutes. You may use a can of beer as a an alternative. Just add some black pepper garlic and onion powder. Experiment. In a strainer, rinse your rice until water runs clear and not “cloudy”. In a pot, heat 2 tbs of oil on medium heat. Once hot, dump rice into the pot. Stir to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once you hear a lot of “cracking” sounds, pour your water in. Stir in your bouillon cube and garlic powder unti almost dissolved completely. Cover with a lid, and minimize “peeking” times (check only 1 or 2 times), as this releases heat needed to cook the rice from the pot. Cooks in about 10-15 min-utes. In a separate pan, heat up 2 more tbs of oil and cook up your steaks (sea-soned with salt and pepper), about 3 minutes on each side on high heat. Take out of the pan, and set to the side. Turn heat down to medium-high heat and add about 1 tbs of oil. Throw in your veggies and cook for about 2 minutes or until onions are visibly translucent. Cut skirt steak into strips on a cutting board, and return meat into pan. Finish cooking for about a minute or until thoroughly heated. Who needs “chipotle” when you can make your own at home.

18

To Err is Wrong

You would not believe how many times it took me to cook the chicken and rice cor-rectly. Poultry and pork, un-like beef, cannot be consumed “rare” (pink in the middle), and need an internal tempera-ture of about 165 degrees. Most of my dinners from my very humble beginnings were disas-ters because of cooking times and temperatures. I wasn’t fully equipped with the tools neces-sary to accomplish this. I didn’t let my failures bring me down, but saw it as an opportunity to change my cooking technique. Maybe instead of cook-ing a chicken breast whole, you can cut it up into pieces to en-sure that each piece is cooked thoroughly. In this recipe, we’ll do another chicken meal but with this different method of preparing instead. This is how to make a Coconut Curry Chicken.

2 chicken breasts, cut into cubesa pinch of salt and pepper to season chicken1 14 oz can of coconut milk8 oz of water1 tbs of chicken bouillon, powder2 tbs curry powder1 tsp of tumeric powder1 tbs of sugar2 cloves of garlic, minced1 tbs of ginger, minced1/2 a yellow onion, mincedvegetable oiloptional:

1 tsp of lemon grassorzest from a lemon and lime

19

In a sauce pan, heat 3 tbs of oil in medium high heat. Cook the garic, gin-ger, and onion first until onion is slightly translucent. Add the curry powder and tumeric. Stir to prevent from burning. Cook for about a minute, then add the coconut milk. Bring down the heat. In the can that the coconut milk came from, pour in about 8 oz (half of the can) of water. Pour this water into your coconut curry. Add in the chicken bouillon powder, sugar, and (optional) lemon grass/ lemon zest. Simmer in medium-low heat. In a seperate pan, heat up 2 tbs of oil in medium high heat and throw in your [seasoned] cubed chicken. Stir to make sure all sides get seared. Take off the pan when done searing and add them to the curry. Let simmer for 10-15 min. or until chicken is throughly cooked on the inside (no pink). Garnish with cilantro or parsley. This dish may be eaten with rice, potatoes, or both of them! Or none of them I guess. You’re the one eating it, not me. See if I care.

20

I Am Not Creative

Congratulations on completing this cook book. Hope-fully by now you have gained confidence in your ability to step into any kitchen and feel like you’re up for creating anything with nothing but staple ingredients in any cuisine. You learned to question sacred foods (the chicago dog), step out of your comfort zone (crab rangoons), and even think on your feet when you have little-to-no ingredients and appliances (iron grilled cheese, breakfast sandwich, and beef fajitas). You even have two DATE NIGHT DISHES (chicken marsala and fried ice cream)!!! And remember, if all else fails, have 2 or 3 phone numbers of restaurants that deliver and a bottle of wine. As my coworker used to say, “it’s the process, not the product, unless you’re selling it!” Don’t let this inflate your ego of course, be-cause you’re only just beginning!

21

Fin

22