Local NewsJanuary 14, 2015

Kathleen Purvis, of the Charlotte Observer

If one of your resolutions is to learn to cook this year, maybe I can help. Sometimes cooking is like a secret club. Once you have a little experience, it gets easier to figure things out. Here are a few cooking rules that no one tells you:

1. There's never enough frosting to cover the cake. You want that Martha Stewart look? Make two batches of frosting.

2. When you put meat in a hot pan to sear it, it will stick for a minute. But if you're patient, it will release when it's brown. Same thing works on a hot grill: Let it develop a browned surface and nudge occasionally until it starts to move. That's when it's time to turn it.

3. How much you enjoy the meal is in inverse proportion to how hard you worked to make it. The dish that took three days of soaking, drying and smoking may taste wonderful. But it probably won't taste as good as that thing you slapped together when you were out of time.

4. Corollary to No. 3: How long it took to make it is in inverse proportion to how long it will take someone else to eat it. You worked on it for three days? They'll eat it in three minutes.

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5. The recipe with the simplest name usually will taste the best. "Sopes With Duck Confit, Black Beans, and Plum-Cranberry Guajillo Sauce" or "Duck Enchiladas"? My money is going to be on the duck enchiladas.

6. In recipe language, pans are metal, dishes are glass. "Beat it" usually means to use an electric mixer, and "mix it" usually means to beat or stir by hand. (Sorry.)

7. The best way to know for sure if something is cooked through is to use a thermometer. But ... thermometers lie. I have a super-accurate Thermopen that set me back almost $100. It still sometimes misleads me into thinking a chicken breast is completely done when it is still a little red at the bone.

8. It will never get easier to cook if you don't cook. (Sorry again.)

TNS

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