How to Saute Vegetables.

For the past couple of years, this blog focused merely on recipes. This year, I'll try to change some things that would make this blog more productive. I'll discuss some things not just "how to cook what" but discuss some topics that still related to foods and cooking.

I'm not an expert in cooking but I know how to cook. I was trained since I was young with my mother and I'm thankful that cooking is no longer a problem for me when I got married. I know a lot of women out there who doesn't know how to cook and I wonder why? Is cooking hard for them to learn?

I started cooking rice when I was in Grade 4 and I was 10 years old then. During that time, we don't have rice cooker yet so what I need to do is cook the rice over fire. I still remember the feeling after I have seen my work done. It's great!!!

I don't think cooking is that hard, as long you have the interest to learn then that would be easy. Nowadays, cooking rice is not a problem anymore because there's rice cooker to help you. The main problem of others is how to cook food and even there's a recipe book if you don't know the basic then others still find it difficult.

So, starting from this post, I'll share some basic tips in cooking to help those beginners out there. Here's what you need to learn:

Saute - This is one way of cooking food quickly the right amount of oil and/or butter over high heat. Similar to the word fry, but sauteing uses a smaller amount of oil fat. In sauteing, you usually use onions and garlic but not at all times. If you know how to saute, you can create several dishes without recipe.

So, the question here is "How to saute?". First, you need to choose the suitable pan you need for the food that you want to saute. Let say you're going to saute vegetables, make sure that the pan you're going to use is spacious enough for your veggies. Let's try to saute this simple recipe I have here.

What you need is

Sauteed Vegetables Ingredients

1 md Eggplant	1 ds Black pepper
1/2 ts Salt	1 ds Cinnamon
2 ts Vegetable oil	1/4 c Fresh parsley finely chopped
2 Green peppers, sliced	1/4 c Fresh dill, finely chopped
2 md Carrots	1 md Tomato, cut into wedges

Instructions for Sauteed Vegetables

Cut eggplant lengthwise into 1/4" slices. Sprinkle slices with salt & let sit for 1/2 hour. Rinse, squeeze & pat dry. Heat oil over medium heat. Saute eggplant for a few minutes til soft. Remove to serving dish. Saute sliced green peppers till just tender. Place next to eggplant. Saute carrot till just tender & place next to green peppers. Season with pepper & cinnamon. Sprinkle parsley over eggplant & the dill over the carrots. Garnish with tomato & serve.

Source of the recipe Bigoven.com

I just hope that with this simple recipe, you know now how to saute. Always remember, "Practice makes perfect!" Enjoy cooking!!!


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Appetizer | Green Mango Salad

This will serve as my first post for the year 2009. I was away for how many days to spend my New Year with my in-laws. So now I'm back to blogging.

Anyway guys, I would like share something here. I'm not going to post difficult recipe's now or the usual dishes that you can see here in my blog. What I'm going to share is an appetizer and I discovered this appetizer when we ate at Gerry's Grill. Yes, it's my first time to try this salad and what can I say but loved it. It's called Green Mango Salad and you can do it yourself because it's so easy to prepare. Here's what you need.

Green Mango Salad

Ingredients:

1 green mango chopped
1 large onion chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
3/4 cup crushed chicharon
Sauteed alamang (Sauteed Small Shrimps)

1. With the tomatoes remove the seeds before chopping.

2. Combine all five ingredients.

3. Add alamang according to taste.

This appetizer is best for fried dishes and grilled recipes.
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