A lot of good cooking is in technique. What’s something that you discovered or was told that really changed something meaningful for you? For me, I had struggled a lot to make omelettes. They always wound up becoming scrambled eggs because I sucked at flipping them over to cook on the other side (I like my eggs cooked pretty well so this was important to me.) Finally, watching someone else make an omelette, I noticed they didn’t flip it. They put a lid on the pan, turned the heat down, and let the top cook that way. I tried it myself and now I make almost perfect omelettes every time. Have you had anything like this happen to you? If so, what was it?
Adding the same ingredient twice, for two different roles. A few examples:
- Tomato sauce: a single tomato, diced small, to add near the end, to improve the texture.
- Curry: half of the onion gets grated and goes in the roux, with a bit of baking soda (so it melts down). The other half is diced larger, and gets added near the end as a plain veg. As a result I get a thicker and tastier curry.
- Farofa: whatever filling I’m adding (pork rinds, bacon, banana, scrambled eggs…), I reserve some bits to add near the end as garnish. It’s both more pleasing to look and it allows people to pick a bit more of the filling if they so desire.
- Breaded anything: seasoning goes both in the marinade and the flour / breadcrumbs.
Farofa sounds like a very versatile food. I’m going to have to look it up
It is - the carb in it is typically fried yucca meal or maize meal*, but I’ve seen people doing it with breadcrumbs and even rolled oats. There’s a lot of freedom for the fillings too, although farofas made as side dish for meats tend to be simpler than the ones intended a as full meal.
Just as an example here’s my breakfast farofa. It’s enough for two people.
- a hard sausage, diced small
- 3 eggs, whisked with some salt and black pepper
- half onion, diced small
- a handful of maize meal (the amount is eyeballed)
- hot pepper sauce, veg oil, salt
- Brown the sausage on a non-stick large pan or wok, using a bit of veg oil. Reserve some if you want.
- Add onion, turn the fire to low, and let them cook until transparent.
- Add whisked eggs. Scramble them with a silicone spatula; they’ll stick to the other fillings but that’s OK.
- Add maize meal, salt, hot pepper sauce, and a bit more of veg oil if necessary. Mix it constantly. When the meal darkens just a bit, turn the fire off but keep mixing it (as the pan heat might otherwise burn it). Transfer to two bowls and, if you reserved some sausage, add it as “garnish”.
Now thinking, the salt here is also a nice example of using the same ingredient twice. You need to season the eggs and the meal separately.
*I’ll provide a pic because I don’t know how to call this type of cornmeal in English. It isn’t the same as polenta:
That’s probably most similar to what we’d call “flaked corn”, but it’s not something that we see commonly in stores (in America, at least). It is somewhat similar to “corn flakes” which are different.
It’s mainly used for brewing and distilling, and it’s made by taking dry corn, partially cooking it with water, putting it through a roller mill, and then drying it out.
Reading about farinha de milho, it actually might be similar to “corn flakes”, though. It’s a breakfast cereal made by taking ground corn and cooking it in water, and then drying it out in little sheets. It is super common to use as an ingredient in things like fried chicken batter, or as a topping to things you want to be crispy.
