Honestly very confused by how it can be a mainstream condiment/dressing. For me it’s just acidic. Doesn’t really taste of much but sorta tingles on my tongue/throat. Sorta like when you burp up a little stomach acid or a milder version of when you throw up stomach acid. Very confused about salt and vinegar chips and any sort of vinegar based salad dressing.
Pickles, salt and vinegar chips, fish and chips with malt vinegar, Chinese hot and sour soup, rustic Italian bread with EVOO and balsamic vinegar, chicken adobo, sinigang, chicharron dipped in spicy sukang, and the list goes on if you want to live a more substantial life with vinegar
Pop some Tums dipped in Tabasco if your body attempts to digest itself inside out
Here’s a trick you can use to fool people into thinking you can cook:
Fry a chicken breast. Ideally, sauté, which just means: get a few tablespoons of canola oil in the pan almost smoking hot, dry the breast with paper towels - like, super dry - then fry the breasts a few minutes on each side. Put a little salt and pepper on the uncooked side as you’re frying it. Flip it only once, fry the other side. It’ll get that crispy brown coating.
When both sides are done, take it out, lower the temp of the pan to about medium, then dump a half-bottle of balsamic vinegar on there. I’m not joking - pour that shit in, a half bottle. Add some more salt & pepper - not too much! - tarragon, it you have it, and just boil it, stirring frequently. Scrape the bottom of the pan while you’re doing it; make sure you scrape up any bits of chicken. Keep boiling that stuff. It’ll boil down to less than half - when you can dip a spoon in curved-side down and lift it up and the sauce coats the spoon (doesn’t just run off), take it off the heat immediately.
It’ll be thick, and you’ll get maybe a quarter cup reduced from the cup you dumped in. It’ll thicken further as it cools. Let it cool, just a little, then drizzle that over the chicken.
Most of the acidity will be gone, and it’ll be a sweet syrup, and it’s fantastic.
But here’s the real magic: you can deglaze a pan and reduce almost anything that has sugars on it. Amaretto Chicken isn’t chicken cooked in amaretto: it’s chicken, with an amaretto reduction made exactly like I described for the balsamic above. Basically; I know the chefs are going to come out of the woodwork, but honestly. Try it with Grand Marnier liquor for an orange twist.
Wine needs more work, and white or red vinegar won’t do - there aren’t enough sugars for a reduction, but any liquor will do. Balsamic is my favorite.
One final trick: the balsamic reduction is best with tuna steaks. With those, you want them to hit the pan, sit for maybe 15 seconds, flip, 15s, and done. Pink in the middle with brown sides.
The most important things about all this are: high heat, and very dry meat. Get that stuff as dry as you can, with paper towels, or hand towels if you like washing clothes. It’s the water on the surface of what you’re cooking that causes oil to splatter, and everything works better when the meat, or tofu, is as dry as you can make it.
Final word: cast iron skillet.
FYI that’s shallow pan frying you are describing. sauté means to jump and the food should be almost constantly moving.
One of the things a sauté does is prevent a fond from forming. That keeps the flavor on the food and a deglaze is not necessary or helpful.
As my chief friend said when you are barefoot at the beach and the sand is hot you sauté to the shade.
https://cookingpro.net/what-is-the-definition-and-type-of-sauteing/
Lol that’s not a trick - you’re describing cooking.
Sshhh.
Thing is, nobody explains how easy these things are to do. Deglazing a pan. Making a reduction. Sauté-ing. They sound fancy, but they’re really, really simple; and sauté is so often misdescribed in recipes it’s become a pet peeve of mine. When I read instructions like, “sauté on medium heat” it drives me nuts. Sauté isn’t just a fancy word for frying. High heat, short cook time: it’s the definition!
Although my post went on a bit long, I was mostly saying that adding a little salt, pepper, and an herb to a lot of a high-suger liquid like balsamic vinegar, or Amaretto, or Cointreau, and boiling it down makes a wonderful sauce; and it’s easy to do.
I see recipes with 30 ingredients and 20 steps, and sometimes that’s needed, but usually not. My favorite bread recipe is “combine all ingredients in a mixer, mix for 5 minutes.” It doesn’t have to be more complex than that.
The best description of good food I’ve ever heard is: “quality ingredients, prepared simply.”
I wish someone had shown me when I was in my 20’s how simple some of these things are to do, hidden behind fancy names and complex recipes. A handful of easy techniques can produce a large variety of dishes just by changing ingredients, and I think that is a trick.
Ohh man, don’t know what it’s called but we make a dip we call Italian bread dip. Use whatever dried spices you want (garlic/onion powder, oregano, basil, thyme, red pepper flakes, etc.) mix in olive oil and basalmic vinegar (I do it by eye and taste but usually around a 2:1 oil: vinegar), mix then rip off fresh crush bread dip and eat. I have to add more vinegar becuase my family loves the tangy flavor.