Sheldon wrote:
> aem wrote:
> > Dan Abel wrote:
> > > [snip preceding]
> > > The Frugal Gourmet always said:
> > >
> > > hot pan - cold oil - food won't stick
> > > [snip]
> > Logically, this has never made sense. But I've always believed it was
> > nevertheless a sensible thing to tell people because it got them to pay
> > attention to getting the pan hot. Putting food in the pan before it is
> > hot enough is the first mistake to avoid. How fast a little bit of oil
> > heats up in a hot pan is just a detail. It doesn't matter much whether
> > you heat the oil with the pan or add it to heat fast just before the
> > food goes in.
>
> The Frug gave great tips for the non cook.
>
> Mostly people walk off and forget to tend to business, the oil
> overheats, it degrades, and also makes whatever is subsequently cooked
> in it taste shitty... like the OP did by putting butter into that cold
> pan and then turned up teh heat full on, overheated butter is awful. I
> place fat into a cold pan all the time, but I heat with low and never
> walk away. In fact the best way to start bacon is with low heat in a
> cold pan, the rashers practically separate themselves... pulling apart
> cold bacon rashers stretches and distorts them, is what makes then
> curl. Yoose last professional cooking tip for the year... don't
> stretch the bacon.

The best way to cook bacon is in 3/8" - 1/2" of bacon grease.
We generate enough bacon grease that I can even use it to fry fish
(after which it needs to be pitched). Tonight I fried cod. I about
half thawed the fisn, salted it with superfine (popcorn) salt, and
grated on mixed peppercorns. Usually I'd then coat it with cornmeal,
but, we were out, so I used masa. I fried the fish in bacon grease.
It would have been lovely, but we were also out of lemons, so had to
dip them in reconstituted lemon juice. *Ouch*! I can feel this NG
branding me a philistine before I've even posted this.

I'm going to try the separating the slices after starting cooking.
What I usually do is bend the rasher before separating, though with
thick sliced bacon it's less of an issue. I choose bacon for the most
lean at the ends, and plenty of fat in the middles, esp. well striped
with thin lean strips. I think most people just try to go for % of
lean.

One of my faves is *overcooked* green beans with a liberal addition of
finely crumbled bacon, simmered in for a few minutes with freshly
milled pepper. I had that for lunch.

For breakfast it was bacon with jumbo eggs, lightly basted in bacon
fat. Basted eggs are a mostly lost art. Animal fat has gotten a bad
rap, and polyunsaturated fats have gotten undeserved praise.
Monounsaturates are probably the healthiest choice, and pork fat is
higher in monounsaturates than saturated fats. Bacon grease can be
frationated by allowing it to cool to where it separates into more of
the heavier saturated fats at the bottom of the pan, with the mostly
monounsaturates on top. Carefully pouring off the more liquidy stuff
on top into another pan, and discarding the stuff on the bottom leaves
a very nice all-purpose--not really all-purpose because of the smoke
flavor--frying fat.

I also fry chicken in rendered chicken fat, topping off if necessary,
with bacon fat. Hydrogenated fats rarely enter our house, and IMO,
should have been outlawed years ago.
Next to cigarettes, vegetable shortening/margarine are the biggest
contributors to premature death in America. Polyunsaturates are
frought with their own health issues because of rancidity, both pre and
post-ingestion.

I'm not a paragon of healty eating. I eat too many calories and consume
too much alcohol, but I get much pleasure from well prepared foods. My
biggest weakness is potatoes, which are the most fattening thing out
there.

I'm rambing. Sorry.

--Bryan