Here are more food preparation and ingredients tips I learned on Holland American’s Westerdam on our August cruise to Alaska. It was so much fun learning about cooking from some great chefs, while experiencing all the wonders of Alaska and cruising.
Here’s a way to analyze the quality of honey, olive oil, and maple syrup. Take a flat plate, pour a couple of tablespoons onto the plate. Take your index finger and make a channel through the middle of the liquid. Watch how quickly the liquid flows back together. The more quickly, the lesser the quality of the liquid, whether honey, olive oil or maple syrup. This tip from Chef Phillip from the Westerdam, Holland America cruise line.
Here are some money saving tips regarding olive oil. In cooking with olive oil, it is not necessary to use your precious, expensive Extra Virgin Olive Oil for sautéing or frying. A lesser oil will do just fine. Save your EVOO for pesto and salads. To further economize when cooking with olive oil, use a mixture of olive oil and canola oil for your frying and sautéing. The proportions should be 1 part olive oil to 4 parts canola. The reasons behind this are that the olive oil can be too strong a taste in some cases, and also you can heat the oil mixture to a higher heat without smoking than what would be possible with olive oil alone. A final olive oil tip: buy it in a can, not a glass or plastic bottle for extended shelf life.
Now for a couple of tips concerning preparation of fish: one, don’t pepper salmon before frying or sautéing. Use only a little salt. The same advice holds for halibut. Put pepper on after cooking. The surprising reason is that pepper burns easily.
Second, when cooking fish, dry it first so you don’t wind up “poaching” the fish.
Third, you don’t have to marinate fish overnight because there is no connective tissue that has to be broken down by the marinade.
The final ingredients tip I got was that in making a recipe that calls for bread crumbs, consider whether it would be advantageous for the bread crumbs to absorb a maximum amount of liquid. If so, choose Panko bread crumbs: They are dried so that they soak up more of the liquid.
It was fun learning these tidbits. It made me realize that although I used to consider myself a good cook, my cooking is really pedestrian. That being said, I still love to cook for my family and they still appreciate my efforts. That’s what really counts.
Sorry Linda, but your chef has it all wrong on olive oil. As a producer and judge of olive oil, I hope my comments are helpful.
The viscosity may be measure of quality for maple syrup or honey but certainly not for olive oil.
Extra virgin olive oil is fine for frying but it must be a high quality one. It’s only the low quality extra virgin oils which can’t be used for frying as they have a lower smoke point. For economy for deep frying, it’s better to use a refined olive oil, usually labelled “Pure” or “100%” or “Light”, but remember that this oil has none of the health benefits or fine flavours of EVOO and should not be used for anything else.
Storage should be in the dark, away from heat and in a tightly sealed container so a can is not the best for long term storage. As soon as you open the container, the oil begins to oxidise so it it best to buy it in small, dark containers and store it in a cool place. Make sure you buy the current season’s oil (look for a harvest date on the container) and use it within about 2 months of opening. Happy cooking!