ANYWAYS, cooking…

Cooking is something that you can get better at easily because the very nature of needing to eat means that you have the opportunity to practice it several times a day. And I do think its something that takes practice. If you are reading this then there’s probably a good chance you’ve eaten food that I have made and most people have told me that what I make them is good. That said, I know for a fact that I have screwed up, and not a little bit. Once when I was a teenager tasked with making the family dinner I ruined it with too much cinnamon. I knew I screwed it up and my family was not really shy about telling me that it wasn’t good. I have also cooked dinners for my wife that were “not my favorite”. This is ok, its part of the process, its part of life. As long as its not literally inedible or going to make someone sick they can, and will, get over it. They (you) get to eat again in like 8-12 hours. This too shall pass. This also doubles as advice for eating something you might not like, be it trying new stuff or eating something that someone has made you that you might not care for. Eat it anyways and move on with your life. You get to eat again. This is not your last meal. And ESSPECIALLY don’t make the other person feel bad that you didn’t like it. That can be CRUSHING for someone trying to get better at cooking.

My first bit of advice is stop trying to cook recipes and start cooking food. You don’t need to cook; Jamie Oliver’s Tuscan chicken with Venetian cannellini bean and Tuscan arugula salad. You need to cook beans and chicken

Learning to food ingredients rather than recipes will lift your skills faster than anything else. How do you do this? Easy pick foods and cook them. I’m not trying to be obstinate here, I’m trying to make you see that food (specifically dinner) doesn’t have to be A Thing™ every night. It doesn’t have to be something specific. It can just be food. I’ll include an example towards the end.

This leads well into my next point, one I was sort of making earlier. Food, by its nature is ephemeral. If you don’t absolutely CRUSH dinner tonight, guess what. You’ll have another chance tomorrow. If you don’t love what you made, learn from it. Think about why, was it the flavor? Was it the the texture? Was it the combination of ingredients? Whatever it was, next time, do it different. Bam. You learned, you got better. Well done. You’re well on your way.

Now, I’m not an idiot. I hear you yelling at the screen. “But Corey! How do I know what to change!?!?” Easy. Was it just kind of bland? Add salt. Was the texture wrong? You either cooked too hot or too cold resulting in it cooking too long or not long enough (It was probably too hot). Was it just kind of ::gestures vaguely:: missing something? Acid, it was missing acid, squeeze some citrus on it or add a splash of vinegar. Trust me. Was it overly dry and not pleasant in the mouth? It didn’t have enough fat.

Salt, fat, acid, heat. 4 simple words. UNLIMITED possibilities for deliciousness.

I debated heavily on whether or not to include the following as it strays much to closely to a …recipe (Dragnet sting). Now that I have decided to include it, I don’t know exactly how. Should I just give some examples of what I cook on a weeknight? Or should I instead I’m going to phrase it as a series of tips and advice? Por que no los dos? Idk. I assume that if you’ve made it this far you’re pretty comfortable with my disjointed and rambling style. So I’d like to give an example (or maybe 2) of what I might serve on a random weeknight. One of which is what I like to call Ground Beef du Jour, or sometimes just “brown food”, it goes something like this. Ground beef in a pan, till its brown, not grey, brown, add some spices that I like from the pantry, maybe 3 tablespoons total, add a tomato paste and some hoisin/oyster sauce, stir till its glossy and bubbly. Separate pan, throw down a bit of oil and some broccoli florets, cook till done. How do I know its done? I taste it. Serve with rice. Congratulations now you’re cooking like Corey. We eat this at least once a week. Its delicious. Does it have a name? No….Ok ok yes you’re technically correct, it does because I named it to be funny. But the point is its not like A Thing its just food. And the best part, none of it is rigid. You could do it with chicken or pork, you could swap out the veg, you could serve it over spaghetti if you wanted. Want to make it “better” cook some diced onions and mushrooms into your beef. There are no rules.

Now here are some rules(of thumb):¹

• Brown your meat don’t grey it.
  • Cooking gringo tacos with a kit from the grocery store? Box says brown the ground beef doesn’t it? Cook it till it turns BROWN. I know this sounds so dumb but I swear to glob it will make your food so much better.²
• You (probably) need less heat than you think
  • I do about 95% of my cooking at, or just above, medium heat.
  • The exceptions are deep frying, boiling, and when you need a HEAVY sear on a hunk of beast. Which are all up near 9-10/10.
• …But let your pan PREHEAT
  • Any kind of pan, let it sit there for a min or 3
• USE MORE SALT
• The fewer ingredients a you are using the more they matter³
• I’m probably forgetting one
• Have Fun
  • this is just like any other hobby. Meant to be enjoyed. Even though it has a large amount of utility.

Ok I think I’m done. I don’t have some grand conclusion. I don’t even really know what the whole point of this was other than sharing my thoughts. I just want people to eat and be happy. Thanks for reading

~Corey

The conversation quickly turned into something much more than a discussion of bread, butter, and cheese. I realized that this starts to get into a broader theory of all cooking really quickly. I haven’t fully thought through every aspect of this but my working theory right now is:

In other “words”:

(Number of Ingredients)=100/Inpact of Each Ingredient¹

As and example, if you think about something like a cup of coffee versus a pot of chili, yes, the ingredients and technique matter in both instances. However its a matter of scale. In a cup of coffee; If you have bad beans, bad water, or if you don’t know what you’re doing, it goes downhill quickly. But a pot of chili is like…almost designed to be hard to mess up. I often use leftovers and things not at their prime in chili because its so forgiving and there are like 30 ingredients so any one is of nearly trivial value.

Which brings us to the crust of the matter

I think grilled cheese is somewhere in the middle. Yes, you can absolutely make a great grilled cheese sandwich with 89c Wonder Bread, a shmear of margarine, and a nickel’s worth of processed cheese product but it’s so easy to burn or to otherwise mess up, the technique really matters a lot. However, if you go in there with some hearty fresh sourdough and some fancy cheeses, it’s actually easier to pull off well because they don’t cook as quickly. It’s a really interesting midpoint.

It’s also interesting/tricky because the difference between those breads and cheeses is so vast that if you did the exact same times and temperatures for both “recipes”, you’d come up with two different products.

OK, enough theory, enough rambling, its time for me to be getting to how I make my grilled cheese, but I want to lead with a qualifying statement. None of what I’m about to say is in any way meant to be definitive or prescriptive, and I certainly don’t think that this is the only way. It might not even be the best way.

This is my way

Generally, I prefer butter, but I’ve also been known to use my jar of bacon drippings. I keep my butter on the counter so it’s always room temp and spreadable. Additionally, I buy bougie butter. Kerrygold or the Kirkland knockoff which is also delicious.

I use my lodge 10 and 1/2 in flat Skillet (the one with no sides). I use this for a couple of reasons. The first is it’s very heavy. It’s incredibly well seasoned. It allows great access, but perhaps more so than any of that. It sits almost perfectly flat on my glass top stove so there are minimal hot spots and it doesn’t move around.

Generally speaking, I use sourdough or a loaf that is marked as “Italian bread” in the Publix bakery. For reasons completely unknown to me, sourdough takes a little bit longer to toast. So in order to achieve the nice golden brown we all long for it requires a little more time on the fire. However, although sour dough is what I have most often, my actual favorite is pumpernickel.

When it comes to cheese I prefer Colby cheese although pepper jack is also nice. I’m not above using American or something else, but if I’m going to the store with the intention making grilled cheese, I’m getting Colby from the deli. The important thing is to have a cheese that melts well. Also, I tear up the slices and distribute them across the piece of bread so that every part of the sandwich is as close to two slices of cheese thick as I can reasonably make it. I do this mostly because the bread and the cheese are not always the same size. I also try really hard not to have the cheese hang outside of the bread

I used to be a fan of putting a little whole grain mustard on the inside of one slice but I don’t do that a whole lot anymore.

Alright

• Pan on Medium Heat
• Get Out Other Ingredients
• Butter Both Slices, Set Aside
• Portion Cheese, No Thicker Than Two Slices at Any Point
• Place First Slice in Pan (if It Sizzles Really Hard, Cut the Heat 20% and Move the Pan off the Fire)
• Put Cheese on First Slice
• Top With Second Slice
• Wait
• Listen, Smell and Watch for Bread To Begin To Toast
• Flip When Golden Brown
• Repeat Previous Two Until Desired Level of Crispiness and Golden Brownness
• Remove to Cooling Rack
• Wait at Least a Minute
• Cut DIAGONALLY

It should never sizzle really really hard. If it does, remove pan from heat, you can even pull the sandwich out and set it aside on a cooling rack for a minute.

Honestly I could keep going but at this point I’m pretty sure you guys are tired of reading this dissertation. Go forth and grill some cheese and be merry.

~ Corey