The history of cooking dates back to around 250,000 years ago when our ancestors had just recently discovered the energy source for cooking, the holy fire, and began tossing a piece of raw meat into it. What cooking does is, it denatures the protein molecule available in the meat and allows us to digest and flesh out more absorbable nutrition in foods, opening the gate for our highly functional brain to develop. Cooking also helps us to preserve nutrition in food, like pickles, cheese, butter that we love so much, leaving us no worries when the food source is at scarcity. Furthermore, Cooking requires good coordination between the cooks, from cutting the meat, roasting the meat, and serving it, taking our social communication to the next level. Thus, in another way, cooking provided the way for us to evolve to the society we are in nowadays.
From then on, cooking techniques have been evolving so far and inextricably tied to our cultures. Each part of the world has its own cooking techniques, cooking utensils, and its unique ingredients present locally. This vast diversity results in a huge array of cuisines available nowadays. And as our understanding of Science behind foods has been evolving as well, it elevated our cuisine to perfection. Technology also provided us some foolproof methods to pursue perfection that no single cook back then could imagine. One of them would be sous-vide. I knew this cooking method when I was watching a movie starring Bradley Cooper, Burnt(2015). The word is taken from French, which means under-vacuum in English. This is a method of cooking in which food is placed in a plastic pouch or a glass jar and cooked in a water bath for longer than normal cooking times (taken from Wikipedia). This technique ensures the inner side of the food is cooked perfectly without overcooking the outside while retaining the moisture, by regulating the temperature with the help of the machine. Cooking a perfect medium rare steak could have never been easier than this. For a better idea, I can give you how the sous-vide cooking technique looks like below.
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| Taken from Wikipedia as well |
And now, how did I discover my passion for cooking? Did my passion for cooking come from my family? Hmm, not really. Even though my mom isn't really a great cook (she even admitted it), but she works neatly and well-organized in the kitchen. My father occasionally cooks at the weekend, and his foods are quite delicious in comparison to my Mom's. But whenever he works in the kitchen, the kitchen turns into a mess which my mom would often be angry at him. There was no single time they asked me to help them in the kitchen. And why should I? I can just sit, watching TV without doing anything and the foods would come later. That is why I didn't develop an interest in cooking. I wasn't really into cooking until I watched a reality show of cooking competition for amateurs. Yap, you guessed it right, Master Chef. For the first time, I realized that there is so much more in cooking. The science, the technique, the creativity, the background, and the upbringing every contestant showed during the show left me stunned.
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| Taken from Google |
For the first time, I thought deeper about cooking. Every ingredient has its own property and combining those ingredients into harmony with different cooking styles that exploit the science behind its property. The limitation is your imagination. Don't you think it's awesome? I DO!!! For the first time, I was willing to try out things in the kitchen. Time to explore the uncharted me. If I am not mistaken, my first dish (it's not like I had never cooked before, I could cook instant noodle and fried eggs. But other than that, I hadn't tried anything) was kind of roasted garlic cream sauce fettuccine. And, it was ...... barely edible. And I stupidly cooked several batches at once. So yea, the first experience wasn't that great. The second time I tried to cook, it was lumpia with chicken filling. And the result was, you would be tired of the endless chewing. It was tough as hell. It made me think that maybe I am not destined to cook. And I was afraid to waste the ingredients as well, so yeah I decided that probably cooking is not my cup of tea. I enjoyed watching others cooking, but never really enjoyed cooking by myself.
The turning point when I had to embrace myself with cooking is when I started to study abroad in Japan. Since I am a Muslim and have to eat halal food, I have no choice but to cook everything by my own self as most of the foods that I can find here tend to incorporate pork. Even though Japan is notoriously known for its seafood, but seafood isn't that cheap here. Regardless of halal foods and pricy seafood, cooking is the skill that allows you to eat healthy, delicious but affordable meals. In my opinion, everyone should at least know the most basic way how to cook. It doesn't have to be fancy dishes, any simple meals would do the work. It is teaching your self how to feed your own body. Now, one can argue that in these modern days, you don't have to be able to cook, restaurants are plenty, and take-outs are cheap as well. Here is the thing, can you guarantee that what you eat from take-outs or restaurant are healthy for you? Are you sure you're not going to regret your lifestyle later in the future when you hit your 40's? You have the total control in the ingredients you put if you cook the meal by yourself. If you have more money, sure you can definitely eat in 'healthier' restaurants that provide fresh ingredients. But we don't know if your financial situation will always be able to afford those restaurants. So, being able to cook will definitely not hurt.
The cooking skills that I can confidently say I pretty much know a thing or two about it are cooking chicken and pasta. Because I've been cooking it plenty times LoL. Chicken is a versatile, cheap, delicious protein that you can't really go wrong with it. The parts that I usually use are boneless chicken thigh and breast. You can cook it in various ways, but my personal favorite would be pan seared chicken breast.
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Chicken Breast (left), Boneless Chicken Thigh (Right)
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When you pan-sear chicken, there are several things you need to pay attention to. First, apply Gordon Ramsay's rule, no color no flavor. Make sure you get those nice brown color on the surface as it is the source of the flavor. The brow color is called the Maillard reaction (here we go science nerds!). The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar that sort of form those caramelized color on the surface (not precisely a caramelization process). During the process, these compounds break down and deepen its flavor depending on the type of the amino acids. That is the reason why each protein has its own distinct flavor after undergoing this reaction. This reaction requires heat, so preheat your pan and add a little bit of oil on it. As your pan is sizzling and hot enough, you want to make sure that the surface is dry enough as water prevents this reaction from happening until all the water evaporates.
Now for seasoning, there are three holy seasonings that I always use whenever I cook my protein.
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| American-mix seasoning (left), Himalayan Pink Salt (middle), Black pepper (right) |
American-mix seasoning is comprised of pepper (red and black), coriander and garlic. The main purpose of using this is to give the nice, fragrant smell to the chicken as smell plays an essential part in creating flavor experience aside from taste (believe me!!!). Then, why do I use Himalayan pink salt? Himalayan pink salt contains less sodium and more well-balanced minerals such as potassium, calcium, and magnesium. And you only need just a pinch of it to season your kitchen as somehow it is saltier than table salt (correct me if I'm wrong, but that is according to my palate). And lastly, black pepper, c'mon you can't really pan-sear anything without black pepper, can you? When you put seasoning on the surface, it's better to wait at least three minutes before putting it on the pan. Why? Salt draws out water, and you don't want to get wet chicken as I mentioned earlier to make sure the surface is dry. It takes time until the water is reabsorbed back to the cells. So be patient.
Lastly, the texture. You want the chicken to cook all through, but you want to keep the inside to be moist and juicy. So it all comes down to heat and temperature. Even many chefs at restaurants admit that this is a tricky problem. Many factors come into play, the type of the protein, the thickness of the protein, heat intensity, heat distribution, and method of cooking. For chicken thigh, you will hardly make it overcooked as it contains a lot of fat. Just put it on medium heat (skin side down if you don't remove the skin) for 5 minutes each side, you will pretty much get juicy and cooked chicken thigh. In contrast, chicken breast tends to dry out quickly as it is mainly protein. I have to admit that I don't always nail a perfect juicy chicken breast.
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| That is quite tender, isn't it? |
You can tell whether you cooked a perfect chicken breast when you can chew it effortlessly, there you nailed a perfect chicken breast. For me, the thicker the chicken breast is, the easier I get a moist and juicy chicken breast. I normally crank up the heat for four minutes to get the Maillard reaction and set it down to small heat to let the chicken breast cook through. You can also add butter, thyme rosemary or any herbs to finish it as when you pan sear steak. And lastly, let it rest for 5 minutes, don't touch it, don't poke it, just don't do anything. You don't want to lose all the good chicken juice that makes it succulent and tender. And also, even after taking it from pan, the cooking process doesn't necessarily stop, so you don't make it well done on the pan. If you make it well done on the pan, you are going to get overcooked chicken breast as the cooking process still continuous.
Okay, that is enough for chicken. Now let's talk about pasta.
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| glistening and gorgeous |
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| Finishing Garlic Prawn Linguine |
You add the pasta into the sauce, not the sauce into the pasta, and that is a must, at least that is what an Italian chef would say. That makes a perfect sense to me though. You want the sauce to be distributed evenly and coat all every single tiny bit of pasta. And also, do not forget to add the leftover pasta water as it contains starch, it will help to thicken and emulsify the sauce resulting in creamier pasta. This is even on point for an oil-based sauce such as Aglio e olio which is basically just garlic and olive oil. You want to taste the pasta together with the sauce in every single bite of it. Pasta water helps the sauce to adhere to the pasta; otherwise, it will just sort of slip from the pasta.
Wow, all of those sound complicated for relatively simple dishes. Well, It's up to you whether you want to follow it or not. After all, you are cooking for yourself. But, It's going to be a different story if you cook for somebody else. See, a lot of science is involved, and cooking techniques are fundamentally developed by exploiting the underlying science behind. Now it's up to your imagination how you utilize all of those cooking technique, and combine various ingredients to create a harmonious, well balance delicious dish. And that what makes cooking is an art. It involves your creative side as to how art is supposed to be. Furthermore, how the dish look is also critical. At least if you want to make money out of it. It should have the finesse presented on the plate.
Look at how astonishingly beautiful how the sashimi is plated. The chef tries to incorporate various colors into the dish creating a palette on the plate as the canvas. At this point, foods step to the next level, not only does it serve a purpose to fuel your body, but also it gives you a unique experience that engages three of your senses. The Look, the smell, and the taste. One may argue that the appearance is not important as long as the taste is good. That is true to some extent, depending on what you are looking for, As previously mentioned, if you go to a restaurant where the art aspect is considered, you do not go there to satiate your hunger, but you want to have the experience of eating it. In my opinion, the pinnacle of cooking as a combination of science and art would be desserts. It needs precise measuring on every single ingredient, you can't just free-pour as you may usually do in cooking savory dishes. Moreover, the technique should be done flawlessly. It is either 1 or 0, an impeccable dish or a total mess. And for desserts, finesse is a must. A pile mud-resembling chocolate cake would be unappetizing. But again, this only matters when you want to serve it to somebody else.
Personally, I haven't delved deeper into the art aspect. All I did just reading and following the recipe, and gaining a deeper understanding of the science behind the techniques. I want to try things out, but most of the time, I just don't have the leisure time. Or, ingredients are too expensive to be wasted (LoL). Especially baking, I haven't baked anything even once. I'll probably try it later when I have time and money to waste. (LoL)
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| Sashimi |
Personally, I haven't delved deeper into the art aspect. All I did just reading and following the recipe, and gaining a deeper understanding of the science behind the techniques. I want to try things out, but most of the time, I just don't have the leisure time. Or, ingredients are too expensive to be wasted (LoL). Especially baking, I haven't baked anything even once. I'll probably try it later when I have time and money to waste. (LoL)
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