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Bakeware Basics For Oven Treats
Here’s what you can make in the oven and what type of bakeware you need to create it.
Cakes: A sheet cake pan, or two round layer cake pans. A cooling rack that fits the shape of your cake pan: Baking tip: all cakes need to be cool enough to touch before icing or frosting or the cake will tear.
Pies: A pie dish or pie pan. Baking tip: Look for one with fluted edges for decorative pie shells. Simply use your finger to indent the dough at the top for a fluted edge.
Linzer tortes & quiches: Same pan, different dish. Linzer Tortes are jam-filled, open-faced pie for dessert while quiche is a breakfast, brunch or lunch dish made from eggs, cheese, and vegetables. Both have a pastry crust shaped by the fluted edge of these metal pans. Baking tip: Look for this pan with a removable bottom to preserve the delicate shape of these treats.
Cookies: Whether chocolate chip, sugar or Mexican wedding cookies, you’ll need a great baking sheet to make them. Look for the newest in flexible silicone bakeware, hard-anodized aluminum and classics in stainless steel and aluminum. Baking tip: An easy-grip handle on one side is indispensable for lifting the sheet out of the oven and removing cookies.
Casseroles: These one-dish wonders yield the best results when cooked in a proper dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid.
Soufflé: You’ll need a special soufflé dish either in a single serving size or whole meal size. Beautiful white fluted cookware goes from oven to table with style. Serving tip: QUICKLY move from beating the egg whites and combining the ingredients to the oven and very CAREFULLY go from oven to tabletop immediately as the egg whites and steam that cause the puffiness can easily deflate. Baked dessert custards: You’ll needs a set of ramekins in a classic white fluted French design. These small glass baking dishes are for baking crème brulée, flans and custards that go from oven to table in single serve sizes. Clean-up tip: Glass can be soaked to remove burnt-on messes, so add some baking soda and soak until the mess floats!
Roasts: turkey, beef, pork, lamb all need the same for great roasting results: High heat, a good meat thermometer and a beautiful dependable roasting pan.
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A Pan That's A Real Heirloom (Or Atleast Looks Like It Is)
There’s just something about a cast iron pan handed downfrom generation to generation.Or is there?Now, with pre-seasoned Lodge Logic cookware, you get the same dark, burnished heirloom finish you’d get from your grandma’s pan.Traditionally, it takes years of frying up chicken and baking cornbread to achieve such a brilliant patina.But now, thanks to Lodge Logic, you don’t have to wait to inherit a perfect cast iron pan.To see for yourself, try a Lodge Logic griddle.Its shiny, black finish is not only attractive to look at, it means you won’t have to waste time seasoning and re-seasoning.It also means you can start making French toast right away – just like grandma’s.
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A Lobster Pot Stand-In
Let’s face it.How often do you cook live lobster?Unless it’s something you do on a regular basis, you don’t need a lobster pot.Instead, just commandeer a large pot that’s able to accommodate lots of water for boiling.You will need about 2 ½ quarts of water per lobster, so 20 quarts is perfect for a family of four.If you prefer steamed lobster, simply fill with 2 inches of generously salted water, and add the lobsters one at time.While a steamer rack that fits the pot is helpful, it’s not necessary.When you’re not using the stockpot for lobster, it’s great for boiling fresh corn on the cob, cooking for a crowd or preparing large batches of soup to freeze for future consumption.
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A Tip That’ll Make You (But Not Your Spatula) Melt
Have you ever uttered the words, “oops, I melted the spatula?”It happens.Regular rubber spatulas do not tolerate heat well, and have been known to melt while performing tasks like stirring scrambled eggs or mixing chocolate sauce.Not so with the Le Creuset spatula, made from heat-resistant silicone.It can withstand temperatures of up to 800 degrees without staining or shrinking. As if that weren’t amazing enough, it comes in the same brilliant array of colors as Le Creuset’s enameled cast-iron cookware line.
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Oriental Cooking: How Do They Get Those Veggies So Thin?
Many great Chinese meals start with a knife. A cook does many things with a good quality cleaver: mincing garlic and ginger, dicing onions and peppers, cutting and slicing vegetables into delicate pieces and creating tender slivers of meat perfect for stir-frying quickly.
Cleavers are available in various grades of steel. The best all-purpose tool is made of high carbon steel that is heavy enough to cut through bones. Plain stainless steel cleavers are fine for cutting vegetables, but are too thin for heavy-duty chopping. Since fresh vegetables play such an important role in Chinese and Japanese wok cooking, invest in a good knife to ensure that this rapid and efficient method of cooking will help veggies retain their individual flavors, colors, textures and nutrient content.
Buy the best quality knives you can afford and keep them on a wall mounted magnetic strip (far above where children can reach) or in a wooden block. Knives kept in drawers get blunt quickly and are a danger to searching fingers.
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For Beginner Cooks: Buy Only What You Need
A cookware set can be a beautiful thing!If you know the brand and style of cookware you want, as well as the materials and features that work best for you in your kitchen, then it’s time to buy a cookware set. All cookware sets include your essential pots, pans and the lids that go with them, but some include much more. If you're a beginner, a large cookware set may be too much. Start small and remember, you don’t have to buy the entire set at once unless there’s an unbelievable sale in the brand you want.
Start with just the basic pieces:A large spaghetti stock pot, a regular saucepan for cooking veggies and rice or warming up soups and sauces, a small saucepan for melting and cooking small amounts of liquids or gravies, a sauté pan for everyday dinners and maybe an omelet pan for cooking small breakfasts.
Buy these basics separately to try out the different cooking materials, or try a small 7 piece cookware set to see what works for you, your cooking style and your kitchen.
Once you settle on a brand and type of cookware that works for you, build your set little by little just the way you want it, especially if budgetary constraints are an issue.
Now that you have some basic pieces and have tried different materials and styles, you can wait for a great cookware set sale in the brand and style that includes exactly what you want.
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Cleaning Burnt Pots and Pans
As careful as we try to be when cooking, burnt-on food and scorched cookware can happen to the best of us! Mostly this happens when the heat or flame is set too high for the amount of ingredients in the pan. Other times, it happens because we have too many things going on at once or we walk away while food is cooking -- both cooking no-no’s!
Here’s how to clean your burned pots and pans:
• Plunge the pan bottom into cold water to lessen the burnt taste and reduce the temperature immediately.
• If there is a burnt-on, caked-on coating or film of food, try to boil it off buy adding 1 teaspoon baking soda or washing soda or even cream of tartar for each cup of water. The food should float free after about 20 minutes. Then wash as usual.
• If it’s not a stainless steel pan, cover the burnt inner bottom with baking or washing soda, and then add just enough water to cover the soda. The soda dissolves the “stick” and usually the burnt food will release in an even layer. Sometimes this can be an overnight process.
• DO wash cookware immediately after cooking.
• DON’T put most pots and pans in the dishwasher unless the manufacturer’s directions specifically allow.
• NEVER use bleach, steel wool, oven cleaners, abrasive cleansers or scrape with metal implements to remove burnt on food.
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Cookware Materials: Choose Non-Stick Cookware for Faster Cooking and Clean Up
If you’re a busy person and you spend less than 30 minutes cooking your dinners, non-stick cookware is for you. There’s no doubt that there’s less room for error when you cook in a non-stick pan because food hardly ever burns. And, if it does, you can easily soak it right off very quickly without scraping or using harsh detergents. This type of cookware also requires less cooking oils to achieve the same effect, so for people on special low-fat diets, this can be a great option. However, non-stick cookware can be a little more fragile than other types of cookware as you have to be careful about utensils. You’ll need a separate set of plastic and wooden utensils for use with your non-stick cookware.
The benefits of owning non-stick cookware:
• Less chance of a burnt dinner.
• Easy clean up. A quick suds, wipe and rinse is usually all it takes. Non-stick pot and pans do NOT go in the dishwasher, however.
• Black exterior shows no stains so cookware always looks great.
• Use less cooking oil.
Non-stick cookware is great for cooks who:
• Are on a budget. There are many cookware sets to choose from at every price level and you can find non-stick discount cookware sets easily.
• Lead busy lives. Large, young families, quick meals, and hectic schedules are the hallmarks of this cook.
• Are on a low-fat diet.
• Hate burning dinner more than anything!
• Want clean-up to be a snap!
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Importance of Pan Thickness
Looking for nordic pan advice? Nonstick performance and durability are determined by the pan's thickness and the quality of nonstick coating. Overheating and utensil abrasion are the two factors that most affect nonstick durability. A superior coating on a thin pan makes no sense as the pan will overheat easily. The resulting "hot spots" will damage even the best nonstick coating. Therefore, pan thickness is essential to nonstick longevity.
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