Ingredients:
Leftover tuna (seared)
A couple handfuls of chopped kale
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Kosher salt

Supplies:
The Top
A good family
A large skillet

Method:
Get in touch with your wife on a Friday afternoon and explain you have no ideas for dinner. Have your wife suggest going out, and agree on The Top*. Work through the rest of your day, then meet your lovely wife and awesome son at the restaurant. Sit outside and order a glass of Spanish white wine. It’s going to be fish or chicken for dinner because you gorged on meat-lover’s pizza at lunch and you can still feel all four slices parked in your gut.

Play ninjas with your son and his little Imaginext figures and point out the different skateboards displayed in the gallery window next door. Watch people walk by and smile as the sun sets and downtown Gainesville begins to light itself all gold and red.

Order the ancho bean cakes and ask for the sushi-grade tuna. Order it seared, and when it comes marvel at the texture. The black bean cakes, too, are delicious. Eat them and some of the tuna and a few of your son’s fries. Enjoy the wine and your wife’s company and the evening. Be present. Have fun.

When it’s time to go, pack the tuna and some of the delicious sauce in a to-go box and take it home. Plan to have it the next morning, or maybe for lunch, depending.

Wake hungry. Brew coffee, read a book, ease into your day**. When it’s time for breakfast, take the tuna and kale out of the fridge. Get your kosher salt and some lemon juice and a large skillet. Set the tuna on the counter and set the skillet on the stove

Add some olive oil (just a splash), and set the burner to medium-high. When the pan comes to temperature, toss in the kale. Listen to it sizzle a moment, then sprinkle on a pinch of salt. Gently stir the kale in the pan, add a small splash of lemon juice, and give it another stir. Keep moving the kale until it cooks down and is a little tender.

While the kale cooks, slice the tuna.

When the kale has cooked down, transfer it to a bowl and top it with the sliced tuna. Wait. Let the kale warm the tuna through*** (it won’t take but a minute), then sit down with a knife and fork and enjoy.

*Substitutions can be made. Keep in mind the place must be friendly, have good food, offer excellent drinks, outside seating, and it should speak to you in some way. One or more of the people you go with should feel at least a little at home there.

**You shouldn’t eat right when you wake up. You need to give your body a little time to get its metabolism started. If you’re really looking to lose some weight or tighten up a bit, try to get a little exercise before you eat. Wake up, have some coffee, read some news, then go take a walk around the block. When you get back, you’ll probably be ready for a good breakfast (though not too much, and nothing made out of candy).

***Reheating fish is incredibly tricky business. In fact, it’s usually best not to bother, especially with shrimp, which often ends up overcooking and getting rubbery. If you are going to reheat fish, it’s best to start with cool, not cold fish. So if it’s been in the fridge, let it come closer to room temperature. If you can, let other things you’ve made heat the fish (like the kale in this example). This will ensure it doesn’t cook too quickly and will also help keep the fish oils from overcooking and going stinky. If you have to heat fish all by itself, you can use a pan on low heat, a steamer, or the microwave. If you’re using a pan, let it come up to temperature, set the fish in the pan just enough to heat that side, then flip it. Let it sit a bit longer (again, just enough to heat the side), then move it to a plate. Let it sit a moment so the heat can disperse into the middle. Then enjoy it. It won’t be hot, but it’ll be warm, and still taste (and smell) fresh. Don’t keep fish around for long. If you can’t enjoy it the next morning or for lunch the next day, don’t take it home. And I wouldn’t recommend trying this with deep-fried fish. Battered things just don’t keep.

My son staring at eggs in a pan

Before last night, he’d done a few things here and there to help out: adding a dash of salt to a chick pea salad, putting the coffee filter in the coffee maker (we make the coffee together almost every morning), and adding a splash of lemon juice to some sauteed greens. But the night before last, it really felt like he was helping. We made a mexican-style casserole, modified from a vegetarian layered enchilada recipe I found in the Whole Foods app. My son helped me line the pan with tortillas; helped me measure out the corn, chili powder and lime juice; helped mash the black beans; and helped spoon the black bean and vegetable mixtures into the pan.

Too young?

Lining the casserole dish with tortillas

Some poeple might think he’s too young to be in the kitchen. Some people might think that he’ll get hurt, what with all the knives and hot pans and scariness. And yes, he might. But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. I want him to get an appreciation for food and cooking. I want him to undersand how good it feels to make something (he was super excited when I pulled the finished dish from the oven), and though I never put it together before, cooking can teach kids some valuable skills, like addition, measurements and time:

• You can get two cups of corn kernels by counting out four half-cup measurements
• A tablespoon is three teaspoons
• Fifteen minutes is one quarter of an hour

Whether he puts any of this togther at this point is irrelevant. He counted to four when we measured the corn, and it made him happy. He was able to hold a measuring teaspoon steady enough to fill it three times with lime juice, and each time tipped it into the right bowl. He added two pinches of salt to the kale I sauteed on the stove. And when we’d finally put everything together and I slid the food into the oven, he raced into the living room and said, “I helped make dinner!” It was followed by multiple high-fives all around.

Don’t make it too complicated

If you’re going to cook with kids it’s important to keep things simple. Casseroles are perfect. You mix and layer a bunch of ingedients, then put it in the oven to cook.

veggie Mexican casserole

Mexican casserole (nee layered veggie enchiladas)

Ingredients:

• At least 12, small white-corn tortillas (They’re probably listed as taco-sized on the package)
• 16oz freesh greens
• 2 cups frozen corn kernels (or fresh, if you have them)
• 2 cups thinly sliced bell pepper
• 15 oz. diced tomatoes (it’s tomato season in many places, and fresh is best)
• 2 cans black beans (if you make fresh, you’re looking at 28oz., give or take)
• 1 cup shredded cheese (equal parts cheddar and monetery jack works great)
• Cumin
• Chili powder
• Salt
• Pepper
• Lime juice

Supplies

• 9″ * 13″casserole dish
• 1 large bowl
• 1 large skillet
• Measuring spoons
• 1 wooden spoon
• A potato masher (or sturdy fork)

Set your oven to 400 degrees. While the oven heats, you can do everything else:

Sautee a pound of greens over medium heat in about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. You’ll want them to cook down^1., so it might be best to work in batches. We used kale.

While the greens cook down, mix the bell pepper, tomatoes and corn together in a large bowl. Add a tablespoon of chili poweder, a tablespoon of lime juice and a sprinkle of salt. Mix it together. Then line the bottom of the casserole dish with half the tortillas.

note: the tortiallas should overlap and should come up some on the sides of the casserole dish.

Once the greens have all cooked down, add the corn mixture to the pan and mix it together.

While that warms through, put the beans into the bowl, add some chili poweder, a little salt, and a little cumin and mash them (if your potato masher will work, great. Otherwise, use a fork).

When you’re done with the beans, spread them evenly on top of the tortialls. Spoon half the corn mixture over the beans, and sprinkle half the cheese evenly over the vegetables. Top with the remaining tortillas, spoon on the remaining corn mix, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, then slide the dish into the 400-degree oven for 15 minutes.

Slice and serve.

1. When you cook down greens, you’re essentially extracting water and wilting them. It’s best to work over medium heat so your greens don’t burn. Add a little oil to a large pan, get it hot, then begin adding the greens. Add enough so you can still stir them a bit, but get as much in as you possibly can. Let them sizzle, and move them from time to time. When you can add more greens, do so, then stir it up so the newest addition gets worked to the bottom and closest to the heat. Working in this way, you should be able to get your greens wilted down so you have enough room to add the corn mixture.

You haven’t given them any recipes
Who needs recipes?
Your readers might like one or two. You know, that’s why people come to a cooking blog. For recipes.
They shouldn’t.
No?
No. Besides, I’m not very good with recipes. Mine are always slap-dash and imprecise.
Then why should they bother?
They should bother so they can learn how to cook.
So what are you waiting for?

If I’m being honest, I can say I’m a descent cook. I make food good enough to win a departmental cooking contest, but I’m certainly no Grant Achatz. I’m not even an experienced line cook. But I’ve been fortunate to have a patient wife who’s willing to encourage my cooking, even when it doesn’t go well, and I know enough to pay attention so I can learn from my mistakes. A big one I run into time and again? Cooking cold chicken thighs too fast so they’re under-done in the center.

I know what the problem is: cold chicken thighs take longer to heat through than even cool chicken does. And they have that cold bone in the center, acting like a heat sink. So I put them in the pan, sear them, and when the skin’s nearly perfect they’re still raw in the center.

Bummer.

What’s the secret? Start with chicken thighs that have been allowed to come closer to room temperature, or finish them off in the oven. Either one works all right, though starting closer to room temperature gets better results.

And I’ll get to some recipes, I swear. I just think it’s important to mention a few things before we go there.

Heat, Moisture and Time

For me, cooking comes down to these three elements. When cooking, you’re trying to heat food without losing all its moisture. At least I am. Don’t heat enough, though, and it’s raw. Heat too much and it’s burnt. Proteins cooked too high and too long end up rubbery and tough. Vegetables cooked too long and too dry become leathery or brittle. Pasta cooked too long disintegrates. Cakes and breads turn to carbon. They have for me, at least.

The thing is, knowing the various cooking methods can pull you back from the brink of a bitter disaster, and just might salvage an otherwise inedible dinner.

Cooking methods: wet and dry

If you pay attention to recipes, you’ll see the same cooking methods come up over and over again. You’ll see some of them stand alone, and others you’ll see used in conjunction with one another. The important thing is to notice. Notice when a high, dry cooking method is paired with a long, low wet one, or vice-versa. Pay attention to how people use bake and roast (in my experience, it’s mostly about temperature, but I am probably dead wrong about that). When you’re working with food, figure out how sturdy it is. Brussels sprouts are going to stand up to a par-boil much better than Ritz crackers could ever hope. But bagel dough? Boil away.

Because I cook when I get home from work, and because I want my family to eat closer to 6:30 than 8:00, I tend to rely on fast cooking methods. For the most part that means lots of cooking energy or very high heat: boil, steam, grill/broil, sauté.

Boil
I hope you know what it means to boil. If you don’t, go fill a pot with water, put it on high heat on the stove and don’t look at it. If you watch the pot, it’ll never boil.

And old wife told me that.

Anyway, boiling can be a remarkably fast cooking method because the water currents and constant motion mean hot water molecules are smashing into cool food molecules, imparting some of their energy, then racing off to gather more energy. It’s also an incredibly violent process and only hardiest foods can stand up to it. Think beans, sturdy vegetables, starches and dry pastas. Boiling won’t brown food, though, because it’s not hot enough. For browning, you need to go with direct heat and a little fat.

Steam
Heat water until it evaporates and then don’t let it escape. Steaming is a quick, efficient method of cooking delicate foods like fish. It’s also great for imparting even heat pretty quickly because a lot of hot molecules are coming in contact with the food. Steaming heats a little quicker than boiling because condensing water vapor releases some energy in the form of heat (it’s an exothermic reaction).

Steaming doesn’t get hot enough to brown food either.

Sauté
Sauté comes from the French, and means, literally, to jump. The idea here is that food comes into contact with a pan so hot the surface water in the food immediately steams away and causes the food to ‘jump’ in the pan. It’s the European equivalent of a stir fry. To sauté, make sure you have some fat in the pan (oil, butter, etc.), get the pan piping hot, and toss in the ingredients. The key here is to make sure the ingredients have enough room to let the steam escape. If they’re too crowded, they’ll end up steaming, not sautéing, and you won’t get the wonderful caramelization of sugars or the browning of amino acids.

When sautéing vegetables, it’s important to keep them moving. When searing meat, poultry or fish, you’ll want to let it sit on the pan long enough to get a good crust on it.

So now what?

Now you can cook. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Try these simple dinners:

Rosemary and sage-scented pork roast with potatoes and carrots

This is a variation on the pork roast from the salt post. See how this stuff fits together? (You’ll also see now what I meant when I called my recipes slap-dash).

rosemary and sage scented pork roast with carrots and potatoes

Ingredients

• Pork loin
• 6 Yukon gold potatoes
• 5 carrots
• Kosher salt
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Butter
• Olive oil

Supplies

• A large skillet
• A large roasting pan
• A splatter guard

Take the roast out of the fridge, salt it, and set it aside in a container on the counter. Begin preheating the oven to 300 degrees F. While the pork sits and the oven comes to temperature, cut up the six potatoes and break apart the carrots. Toss them into the roasting dish, sprinkle them with a couple pinches of salt and set it aside.

Place the pan on the oven over high heat and add about a teaspoon of olive oil. When it gets hot (the olive oil will look a little shimmery), lay the roast in the pan, cover with the splatter guard, and leave it alone for about a minute. Turn and sear each side about 60 seconds, then transfer it to the roasting pan. Make sure the roast is down in the potatoes and touches the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle in a few pats of butter (two tablespoons, total), a couple sprigs of rosemary, and a few sage leaves. Cover in aluminum foil and slide it into the oven for two hours.

The next night you can use the leftover pork to make pulled-pork sandwiches. Delicious and amazingly easy, especially if someone’s in the middle of painting your kitchen.

Notice how in that example we used high, dry heat to brown the meat and then steam to finish cooking it? In this next dish, we do just the opposite.

Skirt steak with collard greens, potatoes and carrots

Skirt steak with collard greens and seared potatoes

Ingredients

• Skirt steak
• 16oz collard greens
• ½ medium onion
• A few strips of bacon
• Kosher salt
• Red pepper flakes
• Leftover potatoes and carrots from the roast

Supplies

• Large skillet
• Large stock pot
• Splatter guard

Again, take the meat out of the fridge and salt it. Set it on the counter so it’ll come to room temperature. Dice the onion and chop the bacon. Put the big stock pot on a big burner and turn the heat to medium. Add the bacon to the cool pot.^_1

Once the bacon has just begun to brown, add the onion. Stir it around a couple times and then let it sit.

While it sits, microwave the leftover potatoes and carrots a couple times. I used 1 minute, 15 seconds, twice.

Now, add the collard greens to the pot, give them a stir and then add enough water to just cover the greens. Increase the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium and toss in a couple tablespoons of kosher salt and a few shakes of red pepper flakes. Cover the greens with a tight fitting lid and let them boil away about 10 minutes.

When the 10 minutes it up, remove the lid, but don’t do anything else.

Place the skillet on another burner over medium-high heat. Add a pat of butter. When the butter begins to brown, gently lay the skirt steak into the pan, cover with the splatter guard and let it sear for about 2 minutes. When that’s done, turn it over and let the other side sear about 2 minutes. When that’s done, move the steak to a plate and let it rest.

Now add the potatoes and carrots right into the skillet with the beef juices and browned butter. You can stir them a couple times to mix everything together, but we’re really looking for a good crust on some of the potatoes and carrots to lend some texture and taste variety, bite to bite. So just let them sit there in the pan a few minutes, then bring them off the heat.

Plate the collard greens using a slotted spoon, pile on the potatoes, and finally cut the skirt steak against the grain and place a few pieces on top.

Congratulations
You just seared potatoes that had been steamed to cook them through (the opposite of what we did with the pork roast before), boiled a hardy vegetable and seared a steak to perfection.

You have just used sautéing, boiling and steaming to cook a couple really delicious meals.

Oh….you want substitutions? Fine. You could use the same method to cook a beef roast instead of a pork roast. Or to steam potatoes on their own. If you boil other greens, like kale, don’t let them go as long. Boiling kale takes about five minutes. Instead of skirt steak you could sear chicken breasts. Or, you remember those chicken thighs from the very beginning?

Salt the chicken thighs and let them come very close to room temperature. Add a couple table spoons of olive oil to a pan, get it piping hot (medium-high should do it), and set the thighs in the pan, skin-side down. Let them sear about four minutes, then flip them over and let them sear another four minutes. Then add a half cup of white wine and a couple bay leaves. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve with some crusty bread and Spanish rice.

Congratulations, you’ve just added another cooking method to your repertoire: braising.

1. Adding the bacon to a cool pot and letting it cook as it also comes to temperature will render more fat out of the bacon. The fat will lend its flavor to the collard greens. Plus, the bacon will end up good and crispy, if you let it cook long enough.

I love transferrable skills. It’s one of the reasons I do my best to talk about understanding food rather than memorizing recipes. If you understand food, then you can take an idea and move it across an entire spectrum of entrees. Like, for example, the idea of including onion in a recipe without really including onion, an idea I got from this Salt & Fat post on Tomato-butter sauce and transferred to black bean tacos.

The results? Stellar, and without any onion bits to dissuade a finicky 13 year old (or any texture eater) from gobbling up dinner.

(And before you suggest just leaving out the onions, it’s probably best you move along. You can’t have black beans without red onions. It’s just not done.)

Black Bean Tacos
(feeds 3 with plenty of leftovers)

Ingredients:

• 28 oz cooked black beans
• 8 oz water
• 1/2 large red onion
• At least 9 corn tortillas
• 16 oz uncooked long-grain rice
• 4 oz shredded Monterey jack cheese
• 12 oz cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • Note: you can alter the ratio of cheddar to jack cheeses depending on how sharp or mild you want your cheese sauce. You just want to have 16 oz. of cheese, total
• 1 cup (8 oz) half-n-half
• olive oil (about a tablespoon)
• a couple big cloves of garlic
• kosher salt
• black pepper
• ground cumin
• hot sauce (optional)
• cayenne (optional)
• lime juice (optional)

Supplies:

• Large skillet
• Small sauce pan
• Large pot with a tight-fitting lid

Begin by making the rice. Boil three cups of water in the large pot, add your rice, stir about a minute, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Set a kitchen timer for 20 minutes.

Put a splash of olive oil in your skillet and set it on the stove over medium-high heat. While it heats, cut your onion half in half. Set the pieces in the skillet ring-side-down so they begin to caramelize and release their flavor into the oil. While they’re cooking, go ahead and mince the garlic. After the onions have cooked about two minutes, add the minced garlic and give it a stir for about 15 seconds, then add your beans and about half a cup of water (4 oz). The water will help the beans heat evenly, prevent them from burning, distribute all your flavors, and provide a nice sauce once you’re done. Let them heat through for a couple minutes, then reduce the heat to simmer. Stir in a generous pinch of salt, a couple grinds of pepper, and a generous sprinkle of cumin. Give the mix a taste. If it doesn’t taste enough like food from your favorite Mexican restaurant, sprinkle in a little more cumin. At this point you could also add some cayenne pepper for heat and a splash of lime juice to bring a little brightness to the mix.

Note: as you finish out the remaining ingredients, keep tasting your beans. If too much of the water simmers out, the flavors will become too concentrated and the beans will get dry. If you need to, feel free to add an extra splash or two of water. Also, feel free to doctor the ingredients as you go. Don’t be afraid to play!

When there’s about a minute left on the timer, heat your tortillas (I use the microwave) and store them in a clean tea towel (paper towels will do just fine). Then set the remaining sauce pot on the stove over medium heat and add your half-n-half.

When the timer beeps, pull the rice off the burner, give it a stir, put the lid back on and set the rice aside. Begin sloooooowly adding the cheese to the half-n-half, a big pinch at a time, and give one or two stirs with each addition. After you’ve added all the cheese, stir slowly and smoothly until it’s blended to a sauce.

To serve, spoon rice and beans into a tortilla, set it on a plate and smother with cheese sauce. Bask in your family’s loving gaze and applause.

Pan-seared tilapia with bacon and shallots (links to a previous post)

A: We’re all scared of fish. Undercooked, fish of any but the best quality ends up cold, clammy and unappetizing. Overcooked, it falls apart or ends up chewy. Overcooked fish also tends to extrude its fishiest chemicals, which is one of the reasons reheating fish can be so difficult. But a pan-fried fish can be a wonderful thing. Simple, delicate, delicious. To successfully pan-fry fish, it’s important to consider the following: method, variety, fat, heat, hardware.

Method
I’m going to make the assumption that when you ask about pan-frying a fish, you’re talking about frying fish in a skillet with a little bit of oil, like you might sear tuna. The considerations I talk about here will work for any kind of frying, but fish usually doesn’t stick if you go with a traditional pan-fry method: a quarter to half an inch of oil in a heavy skillet, battered fish fried on one side, then the other. Fish you might find at the local southern diner comes to mind. If you ARE talking about a traditional pan fry, I’ve included some batter recipes at the bottom and some simple techniques you can use to pan fry or deep fry your fish to perfection.

Variety
Fish come in all shapes and sizes. It’s a no-brainer, I know, but it has a lot do with how well it will stand up to searing in a skillet.

In general, fish have much less connective tissue than other animals, and many fish have much less connective tissue than others. Connective tissue helps hold muscle fibers together and it melts away under high heat. Your fish probably flakes apart in the pan because you’ve cooked it too long, or it didn’t have much connective tissue to begin with.

The amount of connective tissue a fish has depends largely on the life it leads beneath the waves. Fish that move a lot, like tuna and salmon, have a great deal of connective tissue because their muscles are highly developed and are in constant or near-constant use. Fish that don’t have to move very often have less connective tissue, and fish that rarely move at all have almost none, relatively speaking. So, take a moment and think about the grouper spending its days moving gently to and fro among the coral reefs in shallow waters. It’s going to have less connective tissue than the tuna or mahi-mahi, but will probably have more than, say, bass, who spend ninety-percent of their time floating still beneath downed logs or rock ledges.

Fish with a high amount of connective tissue are going to stand up well to pan searing. Fish with little connective tissue are better suited to grilling (using a fish basket), poaching, steaming or baking.

Fat
No one likes to talk about fat. It’s become an ugly word, but if you’re pan searing, whether it be fish or steak or vegetables, you’re going to need some fat. White fish like cod work marvelously with butter, but butter has a very low smoke point. Olive oil, too, has a fairly low smoke point, but the flavor it can impart to certain fish is fantastic. What I would recommend is mixing an equal part canola or other high-heat, low-flavor oil with the butter or olive oil to help raise the overall smoke point. Raising the smoke point will allow you to work at higher temperatures which might be a key to your sticky problem.

Heat
The challenge with cooking any protein is managing heat. Specifically, getting the middle heated through without burning the exterior. They key? Let the meat or fish spend a little time outside the fridge, right there on the counter. I always try to allow any protein I’m cooking to come as close to room temperature as I feel comfortable. I’ll let steaks rest, salted, for about 15 minutes on the counter. I wait the same time with chicken. Fish, depending on the thickness, might not need as much time, but certainly five or ten minutes will help immensely.

When searing fish, you’re going to work hot and fast. I would suggest searing at about medium-high (it will vary some, depending on your oven), and for no more than a couple minutes on each side, depending on how thick the fish is and the variety you have. I’d say no more than a minute per side on thin fillets of delicate fish.

Hardware
Turning fish is next to impossible without a fish spatula, especially if the fish is delicate, like the grouper I mentioned above. If you cook fish a lot, I’d recommend buying one. They’re long and thin and designed to be able to support the whole fillet. If you’re like me, and don’t cook a lot of fish, then just keep two spatulas on hand and use them in tandem when you want to turn the fillet.

I’d also invest in a good, even-heating pan. You can get incredible deals on cookware at Amazon.com.

So now you’re ready to cook

Ingredients

• Two thick grouper fillets
• Kosher salt
• fresh black pepper
• Sliced lemon
• One clove of garlic

1. Put about 1/2 a tablespoon butter and 1/2 a tablespoon canola oil in a medium-sized skillet (it’ll need to be big enough to hold both fillets). Set the skillet over medium-high heat.
2. While the oil heats, mince the garlic and sprinkle the fillets with salt.
3. Add the garlic to the oil and let it sizzle a few seconds, then place the fillets into the oil, skin side up.
   • (Note: by placing the fillets in the skillet flesh-side down, you’re allowing some of the naturally occuring fat in the fish to mingle with the oil in the pan, bringing some extra flavor to it. You’re also going to cook the most fragile side of the fish while its connective tissue is strongest)
4. After a couple minutes, use your fish spatula to flip the fillets, and cook them the same amount of time on the other side
5. Plate, sprinkle with pepper and hit them with a dash of lemon juice

The traditional fry
There are two variations on the traditional fried fish I’m familiar with: catfish, because I’m from the south, and shrimp, because shrimp tastes good.

Fried catfish:
Two catfish fillets

batter:
12 oz beer
1.5 cups flour + 1 cup flour
.5 tsp salt

Put one cup flour in a shallow dish. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining flour, the salt, and the beer. Heat about 1/2 inch oil in a heavy skillet. Pull out the catfish fillets, pat them dry, then dredge them through the flour. Dunk them briefly in the batter, and lay them into the hot oil. Cook about 90 seconds per side, serve with lemon and tartar sauce, corn bread with honey and cole slaw.

Fried shrimp
About a dozen large shrimp, peeled and deveined

breading and batter
.5 cup buttermilk
1.5 cups panko breadcrumbs
.5 tsp paprika
.5 tbl garlic powder (or less, to taste)
.5 tsp ground ginger
.5 tsp salt
black pepper to taste

Heat .5 inches of oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Pat the shrimp dry and dunk them in the buttermilk before dredging them through the dry ingredient mix. Toss them in the oil, and let them fry for no more than 90 seconds on each side. Drain on paper towels a couple moments, then enjoy.

Do you have a question about food or cooking? Drop me a line and I’ll do my best to answer it in a future edition of Burning Questions.