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Hi, everybody.
James Simmers, Moraine Park
Technical College culinary arts
instructor.
Had some questions this week
about some quarantine cooking.
Everybody has a lot more
time to cook on their hands,
and well, a lot of people
aren't going out to restaurants,
but remember, you
can get carry-out.
Support those local
restaurants as well.
A little side note.
But anyway, what we're going
to be talking about today
is some different oils and
shortenings you can use,
and how to keep foods
from sticking to the pan
when you're frying.
So it's kind of a
condensed lesson.
We're just going to go
over some basic oils.
I just gathered up things
I had around my house,
some different oils
and shortenings.
This one must be leftover
from the automotive guys,
so we're not going to
use motor oil today,
but we do have some other
oils that I had around.
We have basic shortening,
which, of course,
is at room temperature,
quite solid, as you can see.
That's good for a couple
of different things.
Deep frying.
I don't use that a lot.
I use that primarily for baking.
We also have butter, of course.
A lot of people love to
fry things in butter,
but there's a little
bit of secret.
One of the problems one
of my friends mentioned
about cooking with
butter was that it always
seemed to stick to the
pan, and it made the pan
really difficult to clean.
There's a reason for that.
Butter isn't a pure shortening.
There's other
things in here, too.
There's milk solids, there's
water, a couple of other things
that make it spreadable and
make it enjoyable for us
to put in our toaster, our bread
or whatever the case might be.
For frying, it's
not always the best.
A lot of flavor, but
burns very easily.
It has a low smoke point.
Some of my chef friends do
like the flavor, though.
What they do is they'll take the
butter, and they'll clarify it.
You can find out how
to do that online.
It's really quite simple.
Once it's clarified, the
smoke point is higher,
and you don't have any
of those solids left.
It's also known
as ghee, G-H-E-E,
which is used a lot
in Indian cooking.
As far as the other
oils we have here,
I have one of my
personal favorites,
and this is olive oil,
but this isn't really
that good for cooking or frying.
Number one, it's not real
pure as far as being filtered.
You don't want it to be, because
you take out a lot of flavor
and the benefits of olive oil.
But I love just
drizzling it on things.
I love, after steak
comes off the stove
or off the grill, a little
bit of this maybe infused
with some garlic.
Really good, too.
Another one we use a lot
around our house is sesame oil.
In fact, we're almost
out, as you can see.
Sesame oil, again, not real
good for frying, because again,
not super filtered.
It has a lot of solids in it.
It tends to burn.
It's also quite expensive,
so I use this more
as a seasoning in the oil.
So I might start
with another oil,
then use a little
bit of this just
to get that kind
of Asian flavor.
The number one oil I've
used throughout my career
for sautéing, and light frying,
and things like that is just
a basic, simple vegetable oil.
The reason is, again,
it's highly filtered,
it doesn't have a lot of
solids, and quite frankly,
it has almost no flavor at all.
Now, why would that be good?
Because I want to
taste the food,
I want to taste
what I'm cooking.
Sometimes with butter, it's fun.
You can have the buttery
flavor and that, too.
But sometimes, I just want
the pure food to come through.
Examples would be
like, fried chicken.
You have all of that
flavor in your breading,
and you have all that
flavor that maybe you
brine your chicken in that.
I don't want to add another
flavor with the oil,
so I want something very, very
basic without a lot of flavor,
OK?
If I'm making salad dressings
and things like that,
I'll use some of these,
one of these two, maybe.
I'm not going to use the
shortening, of course,
or the butter, or
anything that's
solid at room temperature.
But there's lots of other
oils you can use, too.
There's walnut
oils, avocado oils.
The list goes on and on.
But for cooking, this
is my number one go-to.
My number two would probably
be the clarified butter.
That's if I want
to add some flavor.
Now, to keep your
foods from sticking,
obviously, a number of
different kinds of pans,
but the parts I
like most are ones
that are the most versatile.
This is a aluminum core
stainless steel-coated pan.
The reason the core is aluminum,
that conducts heat very well
for a reasonable price.
There's other things that
conduct it a little bit better,
but for an affordable, nice
pan, an aluminum core is nice.
The reason I like the
stainless on the outside?
Number one, some things
will react with an aluminum
pan, things like tomatoes.
Anything highly acidic will
react with an aluminum pan.
You might get a little
bit of that metal flavor.
Number two, they just
plain look nicer,
and so if you're hanging
room in your kitchen
or you're having guests over,
it's just a nice-looking pan.
A lot of people,
this is their go-to,
the traditional nonstick pan.
This one is a very,
very inexpensive one.
They call it nonstick.
Yeah, once you use any kind
of hard metal or anything
to turn anything
in there, chances
are what's going to happen is
you're going to scratch it,
and it's going to lose
that Teflon power.
Also, if you have
good Teflon pans,
don't put them in
the dishwasher,
because you'll also lose
that nonstick power, OK?
As I said, my number
one to keep food
from sticking, what
I do is, let's say
we're cooking something like
a fish, something that usually
tends to stick a lot, so
let's think salmon filets
or something like that.
So what I'll do is
I'll heat this pan up.
Then I'll add my clear oil,
my just typical vegetable
oil, canola oil, salad oil,
whatever it's listed as.
I'll put that in here,
and I'll heat it up.
Some people will heat the
pan first, then add the oil.
That's fine, too.
Make sure the pan is hot.
You don't want it smoking, OK?
But make sure it's hot.
One way to do that--
now, listen carefully,
because this can be
dangerous if you do it wrong.
You can heat this pan slightly
without the oil in it.
When you put a drop of water
in there, and the water dances,
that means that it's hot enough.
So then put the oil in,
wait a second or two.
That oil will heat
right up, and then you
can add your food to it.
Don't add water to the
oil because, bush, you'll
set your kitchen on fire,
probably, so don't do that.
But a good way to test
if you want the oil?
About 350 degrees or so.
Then you put your fish in.
Once you put your fish
in, just leave it alone.
It won't stick until
it's red-- it won't stick
if it's ready to be turned.
Sorry, I kind of messed that up.
I don't know if I can
do two takes or not.
Ah, whatever.
So it might stick
in the beginning,
but eventually what's
going to happen
is that's going to release.
When it's ready to be turned,
you simply turn it over.
A little trick you can
do, too, if you have-- you
should have a ton of oil.
You're not deep frying, but
a small amount of oil, simply
tilt it forward,
bring the fish back up
to the top where there
is no oil, flip it,
and then you won't splash
it back on yourself.
So there's a couple
of things just
to keep foods from sticking,
learning how to cook things
that do traditionally stick.
90% of the time, it's because
you're trying to turn it just
a little bit too soon.
So I hope everyone learned
something about oils,
and sticking, and
everything else today.
I hope everyone's
staying safe, and we'll
see all again real soon.
Thanks.
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