How to Make Homemade Hot Dogs

Hot dogs or frankfurters are nothing more than ground meat with seasonings. They are easy to make at home with about an hour of time invested. You can make these all beef or all pork, if you wish. Feel free to adjust the seasonings to suit your own personal tastes. Plan ahead to find the casings, usually available at your local butcher shop.

Prep Time: 1 hours,
Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
3 feet sheep or small (1-1/2-inch diameter) hog casings
1 pound lean pork, cubed
3/4 pound lean beef, cubed
1/4 pound pork fat, cubed
1/4 cup very finely minced onion
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon finely ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard seed
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon freshly fine ground white pepper
1 egg white
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 cup milk

Preparation:

Prepare the casings (see instructions below). In a blender or food processor, make a puree of the onion, garlic, coriander, marjoram, mace, mustard seed, and paprika. Add the pepper, egg white, sugar, salt, and milk and mix thoroughly.

Grind the pork, beef, and fat cubes through the fine blade separately. Mix together and grind again. Mix the seasonings into the meat mixture with your hands. This tends to be a sticky procedure, so wet your hands with cold water first.

Chill the mixture for half an hour then put the mixture thorough the fine blade of the grinder once more. Stuff the casings and twist them off into six-inch links. Parboil the links (without separating them) in gently simmering water for 20 minutes. Place the franks in a bowl of ice water and chill thoroughly. Remove, pat dry, and refrigerate. Because they are precooked, they can be refrigerated for up to a week or they can be frozen.

Preparing the Casing

Snip off about four feet of casing. (Better too much than too little because any extra can be repacked in salt and used later.) Rinse the casing under cool running water to remove any salt clinging to it. Place it in a bowl of cool water and let it soak for about half an hour. While you're waiting for the casing to soak, you can begin preparing the meat as detailed above.

After soaking, rinse the casing under cool running water. Slip one end of the casing over the faucet nozzle. Hold the casing firmly on the nozzle, and then turn on the cold water, gently at first, and then more forcefully. This procedure will flush out any salt in the casing and pinpoint any breaks. Should you find a break, simply snip out a small section of the casing.

Place the casing in a bowl of water and add a splash of white vinegar. A tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water is sufficient. The vinegar softens the casing a bit more and makes it more transparent, which in turn makes your sausage more pleasing to the eye. Leave the casing in the water/vinegar solution until you are ready to use it. Rinse it well and drain before stuffing.

Hot Dog Storage

Hot dogs are readily available in all sizes and types in just about any grocery store. The pre-cooked weiners are vacuum-packed and have a relatively long shelf life for meat. Store unbroken packages in the refrigerator, and consume by the manufacturer's use-by date. Opened franks may be stored in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator and used within three days of opening. Hot dogs are a good item to freeze for up to six months at 0 degrees F. With most standard cooking methods, the dogs can go straight from the freezer to the pot or grill.

Hot Dog Cooking Tips

Although hot dogs are fully cooked, it is customary to warm them before eating. The flavor improves greatly by any type of reheating method, although as a child, I remember snacking on cold hot dogs wrapped in a slice of plain white bread with no embellishments. Favorite cooking methods include boiled, broiled, braised, baked, grilled, fried, and a particular favorite, steamed in beer or other liquid. Do not puncture hot dogs or sausages when cooking. The juices will run out, resulting in a tough, dry, unappetizing weiner. The hot dog recipe collection includes not only a recipe for homemade frankfurters, but also recipes using hot dogs and condiments to go with them.

Easy Ways to Make the Best Burgers

Burgers -- most of us love them. But sometimes they are dry, sometimes they don't have much flavor, and sometimes they turn into "hockey pucks" on the grill. Here are some tips to bring your burgers from "good" to "great".

Select the Best
MeatI surveyed a lot of authorities on cooking burgers, and there is agreement on this point. The best, juiciest burgers are made from ground beef chuck, which is about 20 percent fat. Less fat makes a drier burger (however, see tips below when using leaner meat). Meat labeled "ground beef" or "hamburger" can be up to 30 percent fat, and authorities agree that it is also best to know what part of the animal your burger is coming from.

Even Better...and Best Ways
Select a piece of chuck and have your butcher grind it (yes, there are people behind those doors -- just ring the bell). Ask for a "coarse" grind. Or, best, grind your own with a meat grinder or chop in the food processor (cut into 1- to 1½-inch cubes first). An advantage to this is that there are fewer worries about contamination and you can safely cook your burgers medium-rare, if that's how you like them.

Don't Handle the Meat Too Much
The heat from your hands begins to melt the fat and makes the patty too dense. Move it lightly from hand to hand and loosely make a patty ¾- to one-inch thick (no thicker, or you will have to cook it too long).

Don't Press Down on the Burgers When Cooking
This compresses the meat, making it denser, and also squeezes the juices out of the meat.

Make an Indentation in the Top
Have you noticed that your burgers tend to form rounded tops when cooking, causing the condiments to slide off? So did the folks at America's Test Kitchen. They found that by pushing down slightly in the center, creating a round area about ¼ inch lower than the surrounding meat, made the burger come out flat.

Try Different Types of Meats or a Combo
Almost any kind of ground meat can be used to make burgers, or mix together different ones. I've heard of mixing pork with beef, chicken with lamb, or even buffalo with beef. For flavor, try mixing some fresh sausage in with another type of meat.

Adding Flavors to the Meat
Many people just want great beef, straight up with salt and pepper. But it's also fun to add flavors, and if you are using leaner meats, or leaner cuts of beef, you can add moisture at the same time. Finely minced vegetables such as onion, mushrooms, or mild chiles are especially good for this. You can also take a lean cut of meat and add some olive oil for good fat, although this will cook faster than meats that are naturally fattier.
Tip: When adding other ingredients to ground meat, use a spoon or spatula to avoid heating the meat with your hands - see above.
Liquids - Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce are perhaps the two most common liquids to add to burgers. Most recipes call for about a Tablespoon of liquid per pound of meat, but I have seen anywhere from a teaspoon to 2 Tablespoons. Wine is another possibility, or, for blander meats, concentrated beef stock or.
Spices - Other than salt and pepper, almost any spice in the cabinet is a good addition. Garlic or onion powder is probably the most common, but everything I've seen everything from chili powder to Asian spices to Middle Eastern to packets of salad dressing mix (but watch the sugar on that one).
Cooking the Burgers - Get the grill or pan really hot. If using lean meat, oil the grill or put a little oil in the pan. Put the burger in and don't move it until it naturally releases. Some people turn it at this point (and then flip again later), and others cook for 2 to 4 minutes, depending on how hot the grill is, the type of meat (leaner meat cooks faster), and how done you want it to be. Then flip the burger and cook on the other side until done, about 2 to 3 minutes more.
If you have a thermometer, cook until 160° F., unless you have fresh meat ground at home. In that case, you can take them off around 140 if you like.

Delicious Rice Noodles

The Noodles is not a modern food item it is eaten from 4000 years ago in China and then it is slowly spread to Northern America and rest of the world. At first Noodles were made only by millets. In Northern America Noodles are made by Wheat & Rice. The communication develops all people made Noodles as per their taste with using items like Wheat, Rice, Millets etc.

A Noodles is a delicious dish and also it is a item of fast food. Noodles were invented 4000 years ago in China. Mainly Noodles are made from Wheat, Millets etc. Wheat & Millets are high contents of carbohydrates, proteins etc therefore Noodles also high contents of carbohydrates, proteins & other nutrients. Noodles are made faster in cheap rate. This shows that eating Noodles is a cheap and good for Health also. The native dishes derived from Malaysia and Indonesia take full advantage of vegetables

Rice noodles are noodles that are made from rice. Their principal ingredients are rice flour and water. Rice noodles are most commonly used in the cuisines of East and Southeast Asia, and are available fresh, frozen, or dried, in various shapes and thicknesses. This is a good salad for a hot day.

N- Noodle
O- Omni (in all ways)
O- Optimal (best)
D- Delicious and
L- Loved
E- Everyone.
Noodle is Omni Optimal with Delicious and Loved by Everyone.

A Rice noodles is a very simple dish. Rice noodles are lovely to use and very light and easy to digest, take care not to leave in the boiling water too long otherwise they over cook. Vegetable rice noodles is a very flavor and very tasty and preparation is very easy. There are a few different kinds of rice noodles. The ones referred to here are flat, dried and about the width of linguine.

Akhirnya...

Akhirnya...
Ya itulah kata pertama yang saya ucapkan setelah selesai membuat blog ini, saya adalah mahasiswa di Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta (UAJY) dan jurusan yang saya ambil disana adalah jurusan teknik informatika. Sebagai anak informatika saya memang dituntut harus "up to date" dalam hal-hal yang berbau IT salah satu contohnya adalah saya dituntut untuk harus mempunyai web, baik web yang berbayar atau web yang gratisan seperti blogger ini contohnya. Di salah satu mata kuliah yang saya ambil di UAJY, saya dan teman-teman yang belum memiliki web sendiri berulang kali disindir oleh dosen yang mengajar. "Sebagai anak informatika, jika anda tidak punya web itu sangat MEMALUKAN!!!", kalau tidak salah kata itu yang di ucapkan dosen kepada saya dan teman-teman yang belum mempunyai web tapi inti dari perkataan dosen saya adalah seperti itu.hehehe!

Spontan saja sindiran itu membuat saya malu dan membuat saya menjadi sangat bergairah untuk membuat web. Saya tidak mau di tiap kuliah itu mendapat sindiran-sindiran yang memang memalukan. Akhirnya saya berhasil membuat blog ini, memang masih standard sekali dan terlihat amatiran tapi sebisa mungkin saya akan terus mengupdate-nya. Rencana ke depan saya, saya akan membantu teman-teman sekelas saya di kampus untuk membuat blog seperti ini. Buat pak dosen saya, Pak Sigit, hehehehe saya sudah buat lho pak, meskipun masih jelek-jelekan gini yang pentingkan sudah punya.hehehehehe
Makasih juga ya pak sudah membangkitkan semangat saya untuk membuat blog lagi!

Loving Food And Digesting It

Firstly, Easterner like eating hot food. For example, on the morning, Chinese often eat hot porridge, clay oven rolls, fried bread stick, noodles, soybean milk and other Chinese food. All of these are hot. On the other hand, People in the west usually eat bread, milk, orange and coffee which are cold commonly.

Secondly, An Easterner like drink hot water whenever it is winter or summer. If you go to a Chinese home, they will give you a cup of tea, and the tea always is hot unless you demand for cold water. But in the west, People like drinking cold water or beverage, they even can drink a bottle of cold water in winter, this is inconceivability in an easterner's eyes.

Thirdly, It is different altogether between Easterner and Occidental in dinner. We often see a round table in a Chinese family, then, a whole family can sit together to eat dinner. They like share all dishes with other families, round table is convenient for a family. On the other hand, In a occidental family, a square table is familiar. A family eats in each different dish. Why dose a Chinese family use a round table? Because they think a whole families sharing all food represent reunion and "warm". All of this are traditional. In modern life, Chinese also like square table, because it is popular.

We’ve always been known for our love of food, but for most people, that hearty appetite comes at a price. With our increasingly hectic lifestyles, there’s hardly any time to exercise or get fit. Add to that the fact that Filipino cuisine tends to be high in fat and calories. Yes, it’s great food, but you have to admit it’s not exactly healthy.

But before ditching that adobo or taking out those South Beach cookbooks, here’s some good news: there is such a thing as low-fat Filipino food. In fact, you can make any dish diet-friendly with just a few simple tweaks—without giving up any of the flavor. If all that eating is taking a toll on your waist, start eating healthier with these tips and low-fat Filipino food recipes.

One of the secrets to low-fat cooking is replacing common ingredients with low-fat alternatives. Start with your oil: most people use regular cooking oil, which is made from animal fat and very high in cholesterol. Use vegetable-based oils such as corn, canola, sunflower, or if you can afford it, olive oil. When making salads, replace mayonnaise with mustard or vinaigrette, and use fresh instead of canned ingredients.

A common problem with substitution is that they don’t always work. You can’t expect them to taste the same as the original, but they don’t have to taste bad. It takes some practice and experience to know which ingredients will work together and which ones will not. Feel free to experiment—you’ll learn from your mistakes and get the hang of it in no time. Fish is a favorite replacement for meat dishes. Try this low-fat recipe in place of steak and meat chops.

Secret to Make Great Homemade Pizza

A pizza is the sum of its parts; namely, the pizza crust, the pizza toppings and the pizza sauce. Make each one as wonderful as you can make it and you'll be assured of turning out the best homemade pizza possible. Try out the following secrets when you make your homemade pizza.

Pizza Crust Secrets
Bake your pizza crust separately: It would be best if you can bake your pizza crust first before you add on the toppings and sauce. There's one good reason for doing this. If you bake the lot at one and the same time, you may end up with a pizza that has overcooked toppings, burnt cheese and an undercooked, flat crust. Of course, you should not bake your crust fully the first time so that you won't end up with a pizza that has a burnt crust after your final baking stage. Mixing pizza dough ingredients: Begin by putting in a bowl at least one-tenth of the warm water specified in your homemade pizza recipe. Add yeast gradually to the water, stir and let it stand for a few minutes. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, put the remaining warm water, stir in the sugar and salt (if your recipe calls for these ingredients) and the other dry ingredients except the flour, add the water and yeast mixture, stir the lot then immediately add the rest of the ingredients. Kneading the pizza mixture: Kneading will let air mix with your pizza dough mixture. You should knead the pizza dough only until it reaches the proper consistency: the dough doesn't stick to the container and individual portions can be stretched without breaking. Over-kneading will result in brittle pizza dough. While kneading the dough, use flour to prevent the mixture from sticking to your hands and the bowl, but use as little flour as possible. Let your pizza dough rise before using it: After kneading your pizza dough, you must give it enough time to rise to your desired thickness. Generally, the longer the fermentation time you allow your pizza, the better the taste of the pizza crust. However, be careful not to use too much yeast if you are going to let the dough rise for hours (say you prepared the dough in the morning and let it relax for the rest of the day in preparation for baking by day end). If speed is of the essence: If you need the pizza dough as quickly as possible, you can let it rise faster by adding more yeast to the mixture or by increasing the temperature of the dough. To do the latter, you can heat your oven for a few minutes, turn it off, cool the oven off a bit by leaving the oven door open for a few seconds, put the dough in a covered bowl, put the bowl in the oven and close the door. Let the mixture stay in the warm oven for at least 30 minutes, take it out, softly press the dough down then repeat the "rising" exercise for another 30 minutes. Another technique that you can apply for a faster fermentation period is to use warm water. The higher the water temperature, the faster yeast action will be. Just a note of caution, however, the pizza dough which has been allowed to ferment longer using minimum amount of yeast generally results into a better-tasting pizza crust so it's best that you mix and knead your dough hours before you actually need it. Frozen homemade pizza dough preparation: If you have prepared pizza dough the night before and left it in the refrigerator for next day's baking, take it out in the morning and let it rise for at least several hours before you use it. Again, the less the yeast used, the longer the rising period required. To make a thin pizza crust: If you are aiming for a thin crust pizza, you will want to use less dough per pan. You can also just stretch your pizza dough more on the pan. Doing this will naturally reduce the crust thickness. To get a thick pizza crust: For a thicker crust, you need to use a pizza pan with a smaller circumference, use more pizza dough per pan or stretch out the dough less. The result would be increased crust thickness. To get a crispy pizza crust: For a crispy pizza crust, it would be best if you reduce the amount of water. Drier pizza dough usually means a crispier pizza crust. Stiffer pizza dough also means crispier crust so it would be best to use flour with high gluten content if you want a crispy crust. For a soft and gooey crust: To get a soft and chewy crust, you need to add more water to your dough mixture or use less flour. More moist pizza dough means softer pizza crust. To achieve better results, use flour with low gluten content. You may make gluten-free pizza dough by using gluten-free flour If you live in a high-altitude location: Be mindful of the effect of high altitude on pizza dough. A higher altitude means less air pressure so the dough will rise faster, and it means a faster rate of evaporation so the dough will dry out faster. Thus, if you are in a high-altitude location, it is generally advisable to use more water and less yeast in your pizza dough mixture than you would normally use if you were in a low-altitude location.

Pizza Toppings
Simply speaking, the pizza toppings you should use depend on the type of pizza that you want. Fresh mozzarella cheese is necessary if you want to make a New York pizza. New York style pizza is typically minimalist; that is to say, they use as few toppings as possible. On the other hand, a Chicago deep dish pizza is usually loaded with meaty toppings: pepperoni, beef sausage, pork sausage, ground beef, bacon, ham, etc. You will also see bell peppers, mushrooms, and different kinds of cheese on a typical Chicago pizza. Tomatoes, cheese, anchovies, garlic, and herbs like basil and oregano, on the other hand, are typical of Italian pizza. California pizza, on the other hand, is characterized by seasonal vegetable toppings, fruit toppings, chicken pizza toppings, smoked salmon toppings, and other unusual toppings. For great economy: Use pizza toppings that you already have on hand. Bacon, ham and sausages left over from breakfast, for instance, will make great toppings. Innovate depending on what ingredients you have. Naturally, cooked toppings will require less time in the oven so be sure to take this into account when baking your pizza. Fresh toppings: It is recommended that you use fresh ingredients for your pizza toppings. Use fresh mozzarella cheese, if possible. Finger crush herbs: To release the flavor of dried herbs, it is best to finger crush them before you add them to your pizza. Drain and dry toppings: To avoid getting a soggy pizza, especially if you are using lots of canned and moist ingredients, you should drain your toppings of excess moisture before you arrange them on your pizza base.

Pizza Sauce
Your pizza sauce will give your pizza its distinctive flavor. In the web, you can find a lot of easy pizza sauce recipes to follow. You can even try making your own trademark pizza sauce. Easy pizza sauce recipe: There should be canned, pre-mixed pizza sauces available in your local supermarket. On the other hand, you can use spaghetti sauce as your pizza sauce. Another easy alternative would be to sauté some onions and garlic in extra virgin olive oil, add tomato sauce (chunky tomato sauce is fine or tomato paste/puree diluted with some water), add salt (and crushed pepper if preferred), let the sauce simmer then add basil and oregano. You can even add some balsamic vinegar if you wish. You can also add some cooked ground meat to your sauce if you prefer. Thicker sauce is better: Use thick pizza sauce on your pizza. Too watery pizza sauce means a soggy pizza. If you are using canned pizza sauce, evaluate the thickness. If too thin, let the sauce simmer before using it on your pizza. Pizza sauce on top: When cooking your pizza, it is advisable to put the sauce on top. This will prevent your cheese and other ingredients from burning.