Kitchen Zen

[herlander_refugee]

If one takes the most light-hearted definition of any practice described as Zen-like, it would surely mean something that gives you great calm and even bliss in the practice?

Making a fantastic new recipe can do that for almost anyone, but we all know time does not always allow for such an extravagant choice. I find, as I get older, that I actually revel and delight in the most repeated and ordinary kitchen cooking chores.

I don't use margarine, I whip butter with equal amounts of olive oil and the sight of it, fluffy and fragrant as I pour it in the dish where it will stay spreadably soft in the refrigerator always gives me a visual rush of pleasure.

But the best, absolute best Zen-like kitchen joy is making ghee. I put a pound of unsalted butter in my iron skillet and melt it. I stir it as it bubbles and foams; I lower the temperature and let it simmer until it pops and fizzes off excess liquid. The cheaper the grade of butter, the longer this takes. The scent of boiling, browning butter fills the house with such a mouthwatering fragrance! I skim the bubbles browning on top, and after 15 minutes or so, I pour it into a heat proof glass container through a cloth coffee filter in a sieve. This will cook eggs and saute various things for more than a month. The skillet is well seasoned once the brown-black milk solids crusting the bottom are scrubbed away in plain hot water. And the house smells warm.....I'm pretty sure the scent of familial love is browning butter!

What is your kitchen zen?

Comments

[monanotlisa]

This is a lovely post. :)

[herlander_refugee]

Thank you.

[merrycaepa]

I love the repetition of layering baklava: dough, nuts, butter; dough, nuts, butter; dough, nuts, butter; etc. And because the dough dries out so quickly and is so delicate, it helps enormously to have a partner in crime. I love the efficiency of it coupled with the satisfaction of making something worthwhile (and tasty) with someone else.

[herlander_refugee]

Mmmmm. I have not made that in literally decades...I recall making apple strudel gave a similar sensation.

[darkemeralds]

Lovely post. I've never made ghee, so thank you for the instructions.

For me, I think it must be chopping. I really enjoy knife-work.

[herlander_refugee]

I cut myself too easily to like chopping, lol! But I love watching someone who IS good at it.

[darkemeralds]

A few years ago I took a Saturday afternoon class in knife skills at a local cooking store. It turned me from a dangerous lefty to a semi skilled onion dicer. One if the best classes I've ever taken. It really opened up my cooking horizons.

[herlander_refugee]

I was not formerly so klutzy with knives; but my hands are not so well controlled any more since a upper spinal injury back in 1990. I fear a class wouldn't help me much, darn it all.

[technoshaman]

There are things I enjoy doing in the kitchen - many things, really - but I think *for me* the real joy of the kitchen is not in the doing, but in the being... or more accurately, in the smelling. The cinnamon of a pumpkin pie, the rosemary of a pork roast, the heady bouquet of flavors of a well-seasoned roast simmering away in a crock pot that socks you up'side the head like a Zen master when you walk in the door after a long day... the warm yeastiness of fresh bread...

Oh, I know. Zen is making pancakes. Especially when you manage a perfect flip and the pancake comes out a lovely even golden brown... you get that groove going where you've got the heat and the timing just right...

[herlander_refugee]

Now, see, we would be a perfect team: I am into the Zen of EATING pancakes!

[acelightning]

For me, it's yeast breads. I have bread-making in my DNA - there were many talented home bakers on both sides of my ancestry. I learned how to make bread when I was so little that I had to kneel on a kitchen chair in order to reach the tabletop.

I love all the sensory aspects of making bread. There's the lively, silky feel of the dough as the gluten develops while I knead it... the earthy, fertile smell of the yeast in action... the sight of the miraculously swelling mound of dough rising... the springiness under my hands as I shape it... the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread filling the house, promising primal goodness to come... the "song of the bread", the tiny little crackling sounds as the crust cools... and, finally, the reward I've waited so long for, the incomparable taste and texture of warm, fresh bread in my mouth - and the knowledge that this bliss is the work of my own hands.

[herlander_refugee]

Oh yesssss! Bread baking is way up on the list...I just don't do it as often as when I had a houseload of children to eat it. But yes, and that pay off "knock, knock, it's done" at the end of baking.

[acelightning]

Oh, there are only two of us, but I've been baking (pastries as well as bread) a lot in the past few years. We fell upon financial hard times (or they fell upon us), and I went back to the idea of "making stuff yourself is usually cheaper than buying it". And I'm a very good baker, and I use butter and real vanilla and unbleached flour, so we eat breads, cakes, and pastries that would be very expensive to buy from a bakery. Even with the relatively expensive ingredients, though, we're still saving money. However, we don't feel deprived, because we're eating "gourmet" treats instead of ramen and government cheese!

[herlander_refugee]

Likewise the reason I baked so often ---military pay only stretched so far when one was constantly making up for costs associated with continuous moves and the like.

I bake less now because the Man is to avoid carbs more. I only treat us to something oven-yum a couple times per month.

[acelightning]

I'm baking more for my own "Himself". His job often doesn't allow him time to eat, not even a sandwich, and he has no way to keep it cold anyway. He prefers to snack on pastries of various sorts - and he's skinny enough that it works for him. I would rather have him eat my homemade things, though, instead of buying (for more money!) junk-food snacks that are loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats.

[kukla_red]

You have put me under a spell. Must... go.... bake something... NOW.

[acelightning]

Oh, good - that was what I was hoping would happen ;-)

[willidan]

Baking. Bread, cakes, pies, cookies. I love the heat the oven gives off and filling the entire apartment with the scent of something freshly baked. And I love, love, love the fact that I can tell when something is almost done just by the smell that fills the apartment.

[herlander_refugee]

And watching the filling bubble in the steam vents of pies?

Great, lol, now I am hungry!

[willidan]

I try not to look through the oven window too often for exactly that reason. And so I don't burn my tongue by eating them as soon as they come out of the oven.

[herlander_refugee]

Oh my, no, don't do that! That burned tongue thing is very bad!

[amalnahurriyeh]

Anything in the kitchen can do this for me, as long as I don't need to think about it. The winter I catered, making sugar cookies became Zen. It was really beautiful when I was in it. These days, it's more about knifework. I know I have a stressful day ahead of me, so I just made crock-pot applesauce, as an excuse to cut up a dozen apples.

[herlander_refugee]

I bet the cooking apples smell lovely!