Learning My ABCs

I've only been working seriously on my cooking skills for about a year. And, other than a quarter of Home Economics in high school and watching a lot of cooking shows, I haven't had any real cooking instruction. So, it's to be expected that there are plenty of pretty basic things that I don't know.

I ran into one of these holes tonight. I was making a sauce in which I would be tossing some chicken drumsticks. The recipe called for reducing the mixture "until it coats the back of a spoon".

The trouble, you see, is that I've never actually made a reduction sauce before. And I had no idea about what the back of the spoon thing meant. But, I forged onward, figuring that I'd recognize that stage when I got there. I let my mixture simmer for about the suggested time, stuck a spoon into it, and looked at the spoon's back.

The spoon's back was wet. Of course it was wet: my sauce was not so volatile as to dry in the second or two I was staring at it. This is when it occurred to me that I had no idea how to tell "coated" from "wet". And, I gave up too soon. Thus, my drumsticks were less "glazed" than "damp". Bobby Flay would not have been begging me to come be his sous chef.

After talking to a friend on Twitter, I did an web search and came up with this link. Having read it, the finger part of the test rang a bell - I've seen this done on TV.  It makes sense. That is, it makes sense NOW, sitting at my computer instead of standing at the stove.

I truly don't feel badly about this - it's just something else I needed to learn, albeit something that I could have best learned standing at the elbow of a more experienced cook.

Sometime over the next few days, I'm going to make myself up some dark-colored liquid with some honey in it and reduce it. I'll test it every few minutes until it clearly passes the "back of the spoon" standard to get some actual experience with it and it actually becomes part of my skill set. And I'll be that little bit closer to being able to make myself some dinner.I