Kitchen Basics
There are a lot of basic skill sets involved cooking that are the foundations of various recipes. On this page I am going to cover some foundations, such as mother sauces (as well as mention some of the derivatives), mirepoix, trinity, roux, and some other things that are building blocks of soups, as well as the bases of a lot of other recipes.
Stocks are a very important aspect in soup making, and kitchen work in general. If you have the storage capacity, the available time, and the scraps from your meals to make it worthwhile, I strongly recommend making your own.
This is one of those extremely versatile items that you can make in batch, then store in the oil for a very long time in your refrigerator. By slow poaching the garlic cloves in oil, you mellow the sharpness and create a rich earthy flavor
The purpose of rendering bacon is to ensure that you are using as much of the product as possible, while keeping the texture of the bacon as crispy as possible for your final product.
If you take the extra step to prepare this properly, you use the fat as your initial oil, thus layering the bacon flavor, and giving you the crispy texture that you are looking for to finish your dish right.
There are a number of different ways to caramelize onions but I prefer to do the slow and low method. I don't add any fat, and just use the natural sugars to cook the onions until the end. Then depending on what the purpose of the onions are, is when I'll add seasoning and butter.
There are a number of different ways to thicken and add mouthfeel to soups and sauces. One of the most basic ones is roux. Roux is a blending of fat and flour, it doesn't have to be butter and it doesn't have to be wheat flour. Just a combination of some type of fat with some sort of flour, normally at a 1:1 ratio, though I have adjusted my amounts based upon what I am preparing.
Preserved lemons, in my opinion, are a staple you should have on hand in your kitchen. Like roasted garlic it adds complexity and depth of flavor to dishes and it is extremely versatile. The only thing that you really need for it is time. It takes about 3-5 weeks to get it where you want, but the flavor continues to grow with time. As far as versatility, you can use it with meats, seafood, dressings, sauces, salads, etc., the list is pretty much endless.
There are a ton of barbecue sauce recipes out there, additionally there are a good amount of sauces that you can buy already made that are good. For this recipe I used three types of hot sauce, and a fair amount of black pepper. With each sauce I used a heavy tablespoon so the final product was on the hot side.
