Rinia & Ernie's Cooking Tips 1. Quantities in recipes, should be seen as general guidelines. Any good cook will fiddle with them until he/she gets the desired effect. ---------------------------------------------------------------- BAR-B-Q We're talking charcoal here, gas driven Barbies are just one those odd compromises, like a camelopard; Who the heck needs that? Anyway what seems to work best, is a large grill with one half that is very hot where you carbonize stuff and another half that is a lot mellower where you can slow cook stuff (like chicken,) before moving it over the hotter coals. Our secret ingredient is sumac (not so secret anymore;) You can sprinkle it on any of fish, fowl, or meat with excellent results. We learned another trick from our friend Anthony about corn grilling; Apparently, the best way to grill a corn is by pre-soaking it in water for at least an hour before grilling (in its husk, of course.) On the grill you then slow cook it for a while (still in its husk,) before stripping and placing it over the very hot half of your grill for a brief roasting (don't wait too long or it will come out too dry.) And since you've got your grill all fired up, you could also roast some Italian peppers, or just any old sweet peppers which you can later pickle in vinegar. Roasted eggplants would also come in very handy in a few different kinds of very tasty salads (check out our recipes.) HOT PEPPER Always use some kind of thin gloves when handling very hot peppers; Personal experience reminds us that sometimes you forget and you touch your eyes or nose or something right after chopping cherry peppers and boy, does that burn. SALADS Choose the best ingredients. Meaning: a. Fruits & Veggies (the tomato is technically a fruit) not too ripe (but also not too raw,) free of blemishes, and good looking. b. If your dressing calls for oil, always use Extra Virgin/ First Cold Press Olive Oil. c. If it's vinegar, just remember that the healthy vinegar is the Apple Cider Vinegar. Of course, red wine vinegar tastes a lot better - so do a lot of Balsamic vinegars, but if you want to play it safe, nothing beats the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon. d. Whenever possible, taste your ingredients; if a tomato, or cucumber doesn't taste good by itself, adding it to a salad will not improve it's taste and might ruin your entire salad. Olive oil should be so tasty, that you could just dip your bread in it and enjoy the flavor. SALT & PEPPER Cooking with salt doesn't seem to make any taste difference. It can always be added later, so add a little bit at a point where you can taste your dish. Do not over do it, as you may always add salt, but it will be very difficult to remove it. The same is not true about hot pepper; Cooking with it makes a difference in the final flavor. Try to use only as many Scovills in your dish as you think your diners can tolerate. SOUPS & STEWS A stew needs to be thick or else it is a soup. Lots of cooks like to use flour in order to their broth, but we like to use something starchy, like potatoes or cassava and cook some of it longer then the rest of the ingredients thus thickening the concoction. Other than that, stews are wonderful to eat, you can always cook a large batch that could last you or a while, and they always taste better a day or two after you've cooked them. Another major selling point for stews, is that you can put almost anything in a stew, and if you do that the proper way, your stew will be marvelous and different tasting, every time you make one. And in a lot of cases, just by undercooking a stew, you can create a very tasty soup.