Got milk...burned to the bottom of your pot?

Recipes that begin with "Scald the milk..." or "Heat milk to almost boiling..." have always meant that I will be scrubbing burned milk out of the bottom of the pot later. I'm not a "stir constantly" person (not even for risotto or caramel, and they turn out fine, really!); I simply don't have the patience for it. So, I can't say that if I stirred the heating milk constantly, I would avoid the burnt milk issue, but I suspect not. It's just one of those cooking inevitabilities. Until now.

Thanks to Alana Chernila (yes, I have now mentioned her two posts in a row, go read her blog, seriously), I can now avoid the cooking milk = strenuous pot scrubbing cycle, by using her tip to "ice the pot," which I read about in her book, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making. And no, she's not paying me to plug her book, and yes, I will probably write about it again. This is one of those books that immediately captured my attention and, as soon as I got it home, I read it cover to cover, and marked dozens of recipes to try.

Anyway, back to that burned on milk issue. I have been cooking for a long time, read many cookbooks and websites and blogs about cooking, and I have never seen this helpful idea before. Simply put an ice cube in the bottom of the pot and let it melt (before turning on the stove). Then pour the milk into the pot on top of the melted ice and proceed with the recipe as directed. Proteins in the milk float above the icy water. Or something. I'm no scientist, but this technique has now saved me much pot scrubbing.

So, is anyone wondering why am I heating so much milk? Well, I have recently become a yogurt maker. No, not a small appliance, just a home cook who loves yogurt but hates paying the money for the good brands of yogurt at the store. I have made it several times and it's easier than I thought, tastes much better than store bought (yes, even better than the expensive Greek-style stuff), and is even cheaper than the store brands that are filled with...fillers and other undesirable ingredients. I promise to share my method in a future post. Stay tuned! I also regularly make ricotta, which is another use for the handy ice cube trick.

Awesome Sauce

I first heard about Francis Lam's Ginger Scallion Sauce from Alana Chernila's lovely blog, Eating from the Ground Up. I believe her post said something like, "I am jealous of anyone who hasn't yet discovered this sauce." I don't watch cable, so I was unaware of who Mr. Lam is, but I  have both of Alana's books (The Homemade Pantry and The Homemade Kitchen) and have been devouring her blog, so I trust her recommendations and followed her link to the recipe.

I happened to have all of the ingredients at home already (all four of them - scallions/green onions, ginger, oil, salt; this is a simple recipe) and made it that night to go with a salt-and-peppered roasted chicken (more on that later). Joe and I both love roast chicken all by itself. But suddenly, that sauce became the reason to eat roast chicken. Or rice. Or, well, pretty much anything we could think of. A pint jar lasted less than a week.

The sauce was christened Awesome Sauce by Joe, and that instantly became the perfect name, the perfect description, the perfect title of my first-ever blog post. So, even though blogs are better with pictures, and that sauce didn't last long enough for me to take a picture of it, I still felt like this was the right subject to begin A Resourceful Kitchen with. This recipe has all the hallmarks of the cooking style I strive for: simple ingredients that add up to more than the sum of their parts; tastes like something from a great shop or restaurant, but is actually easy to do at home; is inexpensive to make but doesn't taste "cheap"; a new-to-me skill or technique that is now part of my repertoire; something I immediately want to share with others.

So, please, please, please do yourself a favor and make Ginger Scallion Sauce. You will not regret it, and you will want to tell everyone you know about it.