I received an email from Glenn asking “how to coat fried breaded zucchini better”.

He asked,

“My father just asked how to make the breading on fried zucchini stick (better)? He just made some but the bread crumbs didn’t stick to the zucchini very well.  He dipped zucchini slices into egg and then bread crumbs. The bread crumbs ended up kinda burned, oiley and fell off, but the zucchini was fine. Thanks for any tips you can give.”

Breading Vegetables For Frying

When breading veggies (or anything) the rule is: dry sticks to wet and wet sticks to dry.  Wet and wet doesn’t work; dry and dry doesn’t work.

In order to get your breading to stick on your zucchini (eggplant, green tomatoes), first pat the veggies dry as much as possible.  Then dredge them in a bit of seasoned flour (cornstarch or rice flour to make a crispier end product).

Next dredge the vegetables in your wet batter - either an egg wash or egg-buttermilk combination or you can try a tempura batter consisting of 1 cup ice water, 1 egg and 1 cup flour.

Finish with a dunk in some panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) or other dried, seasoned fine bread crumbs.

I recommend deep frying for fried veggies since the outer coating will have a tendency to burn if they’re sitting in a hot pan.  If you are going to pan fry, use about 1/2 inch oil, keep your heat moderate and be very gentle when turning them.

If you have a favorite technique or recipe for fried vegetables, please post in the comments section below.

The Importance of Internal Cooking Temperatures

You may have seen my blog on wood burning ovens describing the oven we just installed on our patio. I have been having fun with it making pizza but also trying my hand at roasting meat and over night slow cooking using the oven’s residual heat. It has been quite a learning curve but a lot of fun with some great results.

One detail I’ve learned in the past two weeks about cooking is the importance of knowing the internal temperature of what you are cooking.  Not that I didn’t already know this about cooking but when you can’t accurately regulate the temperature of the oven like you can with a conventional oven, you really depend on knowing the internal temperature.

See my meat doneness chart for internal cooking temperatures.

Forget About Cooking Times

With most recipes, they tell you how long to cook something and at what temperature. Just look through any cookbook. If roasting they tell you to preheat the oven to a certain temperature and roast for so many minutes. If grilling they tell you start at the highest temperature for so many minutes and then finish on the cooler part of the grill for so many minutes. The same is true for sautéing, braising or whatever other way you like to cook.

This is all great if everyone’s oven or grill were exactly the same. How about different sizes of what you are cooking? The recipe might be for a 2-inch thick chop but you purchased a 1 ¼ chop. They tested the recipe in a heavy bottomed copper pan over a commercial grade Viking stove top but you own less expensive cookware and cook on a GE electric range. These factors will all effect the cooking times and final results.

Rare, Medium-Rare, Medium, Medium-Well

Don’t believe you can’t get your steaks to the exact doneness you like and can only get results like that in a restaurant. Heck, how many times have you ordered a steak medium-rare and it comes out medium-well? Do you send it back? (That’s a question for another post)

Most home cooks have learned to cook using time and external temperature as our guide. It’s easy and so what if the meat is a little overcooked. How many of you purposely-undercooked meat, knowing you can throw it back on the heat? Or have overcooked it using the excuse, “I want to make sure it’s safe”? I know I have.

Taking The Guesswork Out

Cooking in a wood-burning oven, where I find it almost impossible to keep the heat source constant, there is a lesson to be learned. The lesson is knowing the desired internal temperature of what I am cooking and using an instant thermometer to monitor it. I learned this when cooking a pork roast last weekend.

Do You Use An Instant Thermometer? Take a Poll at My New Cooking Community Forum

I can’t set the oven to 350º or 400º F and cook the roast for 15 minutes per pound, as many recipes will tell you. Each time I put a log on the fire to keep it burning, the temperature in the oven changes. Instead, I try to keep a somewhat constant temperature but monitor the pork roast’s internal temperature until it reaches my target of 150º F knowing it will reach my ideal internal temperature of 160º F after resting.

What’s This About Resting?

Meat & poultry need to rest before carving. They need time to redistribute the juices so they don’t all leak out as soon as you make that first cut. They need time to even the temperature throughout. While your meat is resting, the internal temperature continues to rise 5º to 10º F because it is continuing to cook internally.

So if you are trying to reach an ideal internal temperature of 145º F for that perfectly grilled New York Strip steak, you want to cook it to 140º F and let it rest for 5 – 10 minutes until it reaches 145º F. Now you are cooking like a pro.

Try This At Home

Grill two steaks anyway you like. When you think they are perfect, let one rest and cut into the other. You should notice the steak that didn’t rest will bleed out a lot of juices, the steak will appear undercooked (very pink) in the center and I’m guessing the meat will be chewy. (This is why it is a bad idea to cut into a steak or any meat for that matter to test its doneness. You bleed out the juices that keep it moist.)

Let the other steak rest for 5 – 10 minutes and then cut into it. There should be a lot less juice bleeding out, the meat will be more even in color and it should be tenderer than the other piece.

If you have an instant thermometer, see what the internal temperature of the steaks are. Is your medium-rare steak at the correct temperature or is it overcooked? Using an instant thermometer and knowing your desired temperature can help you prepare perfect steaks every time. You just have to take it out of the drawer and use it.

What About Testing By Touch?

We have all heard you can test the doneness of a cooked piece of meat by comparing the firmness of the meat to the flesh at the base of your thumb.  I have told people to do this and have believed it to be true for years and it may really work but if I compare my hands to my wife’s hands, my steak will always be over cooked if I’m doing the grilling. Our hands are that different.

Conclusion

Go out and buy a good instant thermometer. If you already have one, use it. I can’t tell you how much more accurate and tasty your results will be if you depend more on actual internal temperatures than cooking times and external temperature.

Check out my meat doneness chart with both ideal temperatures and when you should remove from heat temperatures.   These are based on how I like my meat cooked and may differ from you personal preferences. If that’s the case, make your own chart, print it out and have it standing by in your kitchen. You will really notice a difference.

How to Help Your Kids Enjoy New & Different Types of Food

I receive a lot of emails on this subject and have a few ideas that I try to relate but this week I read an article in the Philadelphia Inquire by Karen Heller about a new cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of actor / comedian Jerry Seinfeld called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids to Eat Good Food.

The article, Mrs. Seinfeld’s recipe to raise picky eaters, is a great read, informative and humorous itself, but I was more interested in Karen Heller’s own “tricks” to get children to eat more adventurous foods at the end of the article. They are right on.

Not that there is anything wrong with Jessica Seinfeld’s methods, they just differ with Ms. Heller’s philosophy. I have not read Mrs. Seinfeld’s book yet so I will reserve my editorial to a later date.

Start Early

Ms. Heller suggests presenting “interesting food to children” as early as possible so they are “more likely to adopt an interesting diet”. I couldn’t agree more. It’s not easy, but I ask my kids to at least try everything I prepare and if they don’t like it, which is more often than not, they can spit it out in my hand. Sometimes I think they fake not liking it just so they can spit in my hand.

And you will be surprised by what they like and don’t like. For example, my youngest does not like hamburgers. I’m thinking, “What kid doesn’t like hamburgers?” but she and her sister both love steamed clams. When I was a kid I didn’t even like looking at steamed clams.

Dining Out

Ms. Heller also suggests taking kids out to restaurants so they can learn to eat different ethnic foods. I could not agree more. Not only do they experience new styles of cooking, they get the whole experience of dining out and how to behave in a nice restaurant. Be careful how young you start taking them out to be considerate of the other people in the restaurant.

One of the first times we took our oldest daughter out to a restaurant as a baby, I was holding her in my arms with her head looking over my shoulder at the table behind us. They thought this was cute until she threw up. Luckily we knew the people and they were ok with it but it could have been a really bad experience for everyone.

Cook With Your Kids

The most powerful suggestion Ms. Heller writes is “Cook with your kids. Children love to cook. They love to eat what they’ve made.”

This is so true. I can’t tell you how much my kids like to help in the kitchen especially my 7 ½ year old with cerebral palsy. We have a special stander that brings her up to counter height and she helps me prepare meals. She gets great satisfaction out of being able to help and she is definitely more likely to try eating something that she was involved preparing than something I throw in front of her.

I get emails from parents all the time asking me about cooking classes for their kids. They are around and I am going to put together a list and post it on my web site but I always respond to the parents by suggestion them to start in their own kitchens. At these early stages, most of us parents have all the skills we need to be our kids’ culinary arts instructors. Besides, it’s a great way to bond with your kids.