Why buy? Just DIY
KITCHEN ECONOMIST | When does homemade trump store-bought? Just about every time.
Consider, if you will, the contents of a 16-ounce bottle of Wishbone Italian salad dressing:
Water, soybean oil, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, salt, dehydrated onion, dehydrated red bell peppers, xantham gum, spices, natural flavor, calcium disodium EDTA, lemon juice concentrate, soybean lecithin, caramel color and annatto extract. All that for $3.59.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
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DIY groceries
Go on -- take a breath.
Now, consider a dressing made by your hands, in your kitchen, with ingredients you probably already have on hand:
Vinegar. Oil. Salt and pepper. A dab of mustard if you want.
Congratulations. With just a tiny bit of effort, you've just made something way tastier than that goopy, cloying bottled stuff -- and at a fraction of the cost.
"What good can Orange No. 7 be?" says Cary Taylor, chef at Chaise Lounge, 1840 W. North, of the various mystery ingredients that make their way into packaged products. "Some things just don't make sense."
Salad dressing is just the beginning. We can think of plenty of other items that fall into this category of things you should always make and never buy because a) it's cheaper, b) it's easy to do (and not just by a professional chef's standards, we promise) and c) it'll taste infinitely better than store-bought.
And the good news: You hardly need recipes for these.
Whipped cream? The name says it all. You whip cream. It's a few minutes out of your life -- and one less aerosol can cluttering up your fridge.
Tartar sauce? Mix together chopped pickles or prepared relish, onions, capers, a dash of vinegar and mayonnaise.
"How much tartar sauce do you ever need?" says chef Randy Zweiban of Province, 161 N. Jefferson. "That industrial tartar sauce just doesn't compare to whipping something up from the refrigerator."
Zweiban brings up a good point about scale. When you're dealing with something like tartar sauce, you typically don't need tons of it. By making just what you need, you won't waste.
That said, mayonnaise, the base for tartar sauce, isn't on our list -- and not because it's difficult to make. It is easy, especially if you have one of those hand immersion blenders.
But while most chefs advocate making your own mayo, home cooks tend to keep and use a lot of it, so the cost may not be worth it in the end. Plus, homemade mayo doesn't keep remotely as long as store-bought.
And guess what? We see a place in this world for jarred mayonnaise. There is an upside to frozen, ready-to-bake puff pastry. Store-bought chicken stock comes in handy for us (though we still say make it whenever you can).
But when a prepared product that is supposed to save you time, money or both falls far short of what you could whip up on your own (case in point: refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough, which went from a tube to break-apart portions -- to on the Food and Drug Administration's recall list due to E. coli contamination), that's when you should consider taking matters into your own hands.
"I think when people can make certain stuff like [vinaigrettes], and they should, they might get more value out of it than just the convenience," Taylor says.
In other words, once you start going the DIY route, you just might not want to turn back. And we won't stop you, either.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: It's ready to use. Plenty of flavors to choose from.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: Ingredient list reads like a science book. And all the flavors kind of taste the same.
IT'S THIS EASY: Vinaigrette, the simplest and most classic salad dressing, is a matter of ratio: two, three or four parts oil (depending on your tastes) to 1 part vinegar or other acid, such as lemon juice. Whisk together; season with salt and pepper.
Variations abound. Mustard is a natural emulsifier and adds punch, as does minced garlic or shallots. Try out different vinegars and oils.
Chaise Lounge chef Cary Taylor's favorite is from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. It is simply ½ cup red wine vinegar, 1½ cups of canola oil and Ό cup Dijon mustard. This makes about 2 cups of dressing; the recipe can be easily halved if you need less.
"It's arguably the best salad dressing that I've ever had," Taylor says.
Dressings that are heavier on the oil can double as a marinade for proteins, says Randy Zweiban, chef at Province. Or, whisk some sour cream into a vinaigrette to make more of a Ranch-style dressing.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: It's America's top-selling condiment. It would be un-American not to, right?
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: Homemade salsa, especially when tomatoes are in season, is so tasty, it's almost criminal.
IT'S THIS EASY: Mark Mendez, chef at Carnivale, 702 W. Fulton, suggests this low-maintenance method:
Line a cookie sheet with foil and place whole tomatoes, unpeeled garlic cloves, onion wedges and a jalapeno pepper on top. Roast directly under broiler until veggies are blackened on all sides. Let cool slightly, peel the garlic, then throw it all in a blender. Add cilantro, lime juice and salt, to taste.
This is all open to interpretation. Throw in a chipotle or poblano chile. Use tomatillos instead of tomatoes. Peel the roasted veggies if you don't like the flecked, rustic look.
And don't think you have to use fresh tomatoes. Zweiban is a fan of canned San Marzano tomatoes. He pulses those in a food processor with peppers and red onions.
"Nothing against Rick Bayless because he does make some nice products ... ," Zweiban says.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: You don't have hours to spare. And those handsomely packaged sauces with Italian names and pastoral drawings are hard to resist.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: You don't need hours to make a good, basic, meatless sauce.
IT'S THIS EASY: Chop an onion and some garlic. Cook in olive oil until fragrant. Open a large (28-ounce) can of whole tomatoes -- the same ones you use to make fresh salsa -- and crush them with your hands into the pot. Simmer for 10 to 20 minutes, until tomatoes break down and sauce thickens. Season with salt.
Or, at the height of tomato season, consider an uncooked pasta sauce. An idea, from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home (Hyperion, $37.50): With your hands, scrunch together tomatoes, any chopped herbs you want and a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar in a bowl. Mix cooked pasta into the "sauce," drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Done.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: Who has the time?
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: OK, this does require time, and yes, prepared stock can be helpful in a pinch, but it also can be pricey and is loaded with sodium. Homemade is hard to mess up, it doesn't require that you stand by the stove while it simmers and its flavor is always superior to store-bought.
IT'S THIS EASY: The pros devote entire classes to how to make a proper stock and each chef, it seems, has his own rules.
The basic route: Take a bunch of chicken bones (from last night's roast chicken dinner) and simmer in water for at least an hour with chopped carrots, celery and onion. The longer it simmers, the richer the stock will be.
Adds Mendez: "If you just throw a whole chicken in a pot with some water, put in a bay leaf, some onion, cook it for an hour, it'll generally come out pretty good." If you pull off the chicken meat and add it back to the pot with diced carrots or other veggies, you now have chicken soup.
Stock tip: Freeze the stock in ice cube trays, then pop out the cubes and store them in the freezer in a zippered bag.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: What could be easier and more festive than spraying it out of a can?
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: It's ridiculously easy to make. And you can flavor it to your tastes.
IT'S THIS EASY: Whip cold, heavy cream with a hand mixer, or in a stand mixer, at high speed (it helps if you first chill the beaters and the bowl). Add a bit of sugar to flavor, maybe rum or other liquor. Watch and marvel as liquid gives way to soft, white peaks, and look, it's whipped cream!
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: You need to get dinner on the table and you're in no mood to mess up the kitchen.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: One pot is all it takes.
IT'S THIS EASY: Boil potatoes (peeled or unpeeled) until soft. Drain, return to pot and mash with butter and milk. Jazz it up with grated cheese, if you like.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT: Like mashed potatoes, these seem like work that you don't feel like doing.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: It's a great way to use up extra bread and, like mashed potatoes, it's ridiculously easy to do.
IT'S THIS EASY:
Day-old bread is ideal. Or, let the bread sit out for a while so it's nice and dry.
For croutons: Cut bread into cubes, toss with melted butter or oil and bake on a sheet tray in a 350-degree oven until lightly browned.
Mendez likes to melt butter with sliced garlic. Then he tosses the bread with the garlic-infused butter before toasting.
For bread crumbs: Cut bread into chunks and pulse into crumbs in food processor. Toss crumbs with melted butter or olive oil, then bake in 350-degree oven until toasted.
WHY YOU'RE TEMPTED TO BUY IT:
Gourmet stuff like this should be left to the pros.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T: You can make gobs of this, customizing it to your tastes. Your money will go even farther if you buy the ingredients in bulk.
IT'S THIS EASY: A million variations exist, but basically, you melt together butter and sweetener (be it sugar, honey, maple syrup, or a combination), and stir that into rolled oats, nuts and dried fruit of your choice. Spread on a sheet tray, pop in the oven and bake. What comes out is what you would pay upward of $4 a box for.