How to Sautee Stuff

If you didn't receive good cooking instructions like I did then you may need some extra help. I'm here to help.

Sauteeing is a basic cooking maneuver and it's good to know exactly what you're doing.

Garlic and Onions
Heat up a pan over medium low heat. Just before you put in the garlic and onions put a tbsp or two of oil. Drop in the goodies. Usually you want the onions to just become translucent. To caramelize the onions let them go until they turn brown and smell sweet. Make sure you don't burn garlic, though because it turns chewy and bitter. It also gets stuck in your teeth when it burns. A little toasty is okay but too far is not good for garlic.

Peppers
They can be tempermental. For fajita peppers you wanna sautee them without oil over medium low heat. The point of cooking them this way is so that parts of them get burnt. It tastes good I promise. Don't move them around too much just flip them around every now and then so different parts come into contact with the pan. For other applications you want just a bit of oil at the bottom of the pan with medium low heat again. Keep them moving just a bit. For crunchier peppers don't let them go as long. Test their texture with a fork or whatever you're using to stir them.

Mushrooms and Eggplant
Both are pretty much just blobs of fiber. They are also very absorbent. Mushrooms will release water as they cook and eggplant will soak it up. If you're going to cook either of these be careful using olive oil. You may not even use olive oil at all. With either of these make sure you season them well since they don't have much flavor of their own.

For eggplant you can cook it in something else like canned tomatoes (with the water in the can) or just some stock. The eggplant will soak up whatever you cook it with so be careful. You could also use lightly salted water.

Mushrooms you can just throw in a pan and not worry about. They release water as they cook and will provide their own cooking liquid.


Hope this helps guys!!!