Cooking

Your Ingredient Toolkit – Thyme

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Thyme is one of the most unexpected ingredients in my “toolkit” of things that I use to tweak and improve recipes.

It’s a strange spice. It has a woody, somewhat bitter taste that reminds me a bit of bay leaves, and not something you’d think “man I need to add this to my food!” It’s not like pepper or garlic where you can say “yeah, that’ll work!” or “yeah, that won’t work.”

But the power of thyme isn’t in it’s taste per se – it’s how it works with other tastes.

Thyme has this strange ability to blend flavors together and enhance them – especially vegetable tastes. Time and again I’ve found that dishes that are vegetable-heavy but are missing “something” are improved by adding or increasing thyme. It seems to enhance or “turn up” the flavors.

I’ve found this is especially true in dishes with tomatoes in them. Thyme just makes things work when tomatoes are involved. If your tomato sauce or other dish needs a certain “oomph” consider some thyme.

It also plays well with other “leafy” spices – basil, oregano, rosemary, etc. If you’ve got a heavily spiced dish that’s not quite working, thyme may be what you need to tie it all together.

I usually find you don’t need more than 1/4 or 1/2 tsp of ground thyme to get the effects in an average-sized dish. So it’s not much effort to give it a whirl, though I think it’s taste could be overdone, so I’d start low just in case.

Next time you can’t get that dish right, give thyme a shot!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Cooking: Containers Are For Eating

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OK, I know the image of eating a reheated meal out of a container is not exactly dignified. It conjures up imagines of someone who can’t cook, is too rushed, or just has no dignity.

I beg to differ.

See, I cook and freeze a lot of food. I live alone, I like to experiment with cooking, and I like to pace out what I eat so it’s not the same thing four days in a row. Needless to say a lot of what I eat spends its time in a glass container in the freezer.

In turn, that container may not be reheated at home. A lot of food I make is reheated at work, even though we have a great cafeteria (I’m a cheapskate also).

In all these cases, if I reheat food, unless I really need to (like, say, pouring out curry sauce) do I really want to reheat something then dump it into another dish or bowl? Hell, I just eat it out of what I reheated it in.

Why?

  • First, it’s faster. I don’t have to go around getting something else to eat out of.
  • Secondly, it dirties up less dishes. Like I really need to mess up the food container and another dish (or a paper one and waste it).
  • Third, I don’t have to pack or find other dining ware. I just use what I have.
  • Fourth, a good container is multi-use.  It’s not just for freezing – I use mine to store vegetables, side dishes, etc.  Saves me a plastic bag being thrown away.

Do I do this at home? Absolutely. I don’t need to make more of a mess. So yes, in stereotypical bachelor fashion, I eat out of the reheating container.

But as far as I’m concerned? It’s worth it. It’s simpler, faster, and neater. It’s not undignified – it’s precise.

(Besides, I think most of my food is pretty damn classy, thank you!)

If you shop around you can also find some great storage containers that make excellent dining ware. I myself favor the Ziplock glass containers, which come in multiple sizes, have nice-fitting lids, and are pretty sturdy. Also being glass they look a bit more dignified to eat out of.

So go on. Eat out of the container!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Curry Diary 10/24/2013

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OK a quick update on my quest for the best Japanese Curry.

I’ve been playing with Milestone Curry #4 for awhile, trying to find how to get the balance of tastes – mostly as the addition of red wine made it complex but a bit too sweet.

I think I got it to a near-milestone again – by cutting the wine to 1/3 a cup and giving up on using the Broth substitute.  The Broth substitute is nice, but I tried home-made vegetable broth and it seems to add a little extra something.  I’ll probably use regular vegetable broth (made at home) for the rest of my experiments.

(It’s not like it’s hard to make)

So I’m going to try a few of the stored servings to really get to know the subtleties of the new taste.  I think I’m close to a new plateau, but it’s more subtler than the last one – all the tastes in balance.  From here I think it’s a matter of improving a mix of richness but keeping balance.

The red wine was actually very revealing.  I’m starting to realize the power of fermented foods and taste.  Several of them – soy sauce, wine, and vinegar – are big parts of my cooking.  In combination they’re quite powerful (my experimental vegetarian Cincinnati Chili, which isn’t ready for prime time, uses all three).  Consider other similar foods such as beer or cheese, and the richness they bring.

Well, I’ve got two more servings of this curry to eat, then I’ll think about the next stage . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.