Food Blogging & Food Photography Tips

Last week, Danica from Danica's Daily was live tweeting from the BlogHerFood Convention in Atlanta Georgia. Danica tweeted loads of useful tips and tricks on food photography and food styling as well as copyright and recipe etiquette. Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil was also there and tweeted some great tips on recipe development and blog design. I enjoyed their tweets so much, I must have "favourited" at least a dozen from each lovely lady.

Here are my favourite tips from Danica (tweets condensed into paragraphs):

On Food Photography:

"A tripod is the best inexpensive tool you can get for great food photography. DSL users - If you can only buy one lens make it a zoom Tamron 28-75 mm. Shoot by a window, outside or in dark shade. Avoid direct sunlight. Use an old sheet/table cloth or parchment paper to hang over the window if it has harsh direct sunlight. In low light, use a tripod."

On Food Styling and Props:

"Keep your dishes simple. Go for smaller, white, matte dishes with no designs. Keep your props simple and use them over again... mix it up with the food, napkins etc. If you have $25 to spend on photography, buy foam core, white sheet/table cloth, plain white plate, plain white bowl and a clear drinking glass." Tip from Twitter user FrenchFoodieMom: "When adding garnishes to your food pictures, make it like it fell there."

For the live blog notes from the 'Simple, Affordable Tools, Techniques and Accessories to Improve your Food Photography' seminar, go here.

On Crediting:

"Adapting is recipe specific, meaning you saw a specific recipe in a book/online and you change some ingredients to make it yours, based on your own culinary style/tastes. Changing 2 or 3 ingredients in a recipes does not make it yours. When adapting, reference the author and site/book/link where you found the recipe. Put the intro/instructions into your own words.

'Inspired by' means there is no specific recipe. You tried a soup at a restaurant, liked it and created your OWN take on it."

On Copyright:

"Publishers can reproduce up to 3 blogger recipes to use in their book without permission because bloggers are in the media world. Once recipes are published they are considered public domain. Individual recipes cannot be copyrighted, but, groups of recipes (in books) can be copyrighted. The more individual the writing voice you use in your recipe, the intro, the ingredients and the instructions the more claim to copyright you have.

For the live blog notes from the `Copyright, Credit and Etiquette` seminar, check here.

And my favourite tweets from Lindsay (tweets condensed into paragraph):

"For recipe name, find a happy medium. Convey enough of what the dish is but don't name every single ingredient. A long ingredients list is daunting, if you can shorten and simplify, do so. At the same time, don't trick your reader into thinking a recipe is simple when it is not. Use commas carefully when writing ingredient lists in recipes - "noun, verb" - but be aware, "1 cup parsley, chopped" and "1 cup chopped parsley" are not the same. Your recipe instructions are where you can deliver a lot of voice and personality. When writing recipe instructions, give visual cues for done-ness, not just a range of time. Giving the 'why' of an action turns you into a friend in the kitchen (e.g. remove from heat to prevent scorching). When you test your recipes you know your readers will be successful and you know that they will trust you."

To read the live blog notes from the "Professional-Grade Recipe Development" seminar, check here.

I learned so much just from reading the #blogherfood tweets and from reading through the seminar live blog notes. There were a lot of things I had never considered before, like using a tripod in my photography. I already have a really great tripod but for some reason, I never bother to use it. Hopefully these tips will help improve my recipe writing and food photography so I can deliver a better blog. And... depending where BlogHerFood 2012 is held, I might have to look into attending!

Chicken Stock

You brined a chicken. You roasted a chicken. You carved and ate a chicken. Now it's time to deal with the chicken remains. Why waste a perfectly good chicken carcass when you can boil it with aromatic vegetables and create a simple and delicious stock. If you aren't ready to make your stock the day after your chicken dinner, put the bones in a bag and freeze them until you are ready.

Ingredients:

Carcass and bones of a 2-3 pound chicken
4 litres water
1 large whole onion, ends trimmed, cut in half (skin left on - adds colour!)
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
3-4 fresh or dried celery leaves (optional - but adds a great deal of flavour)
1 bay leaf (optional)

Directions:

1. Add everything to a stock pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

2. Reduce to low and cover. Simmer on low for at least 2 hours and up to 12 hours or overnight.

3. When you have simmered your stock for the desired length of time, remove bones and vegetables using tongs or a slotted spoon and discard. Pour stock through a fine strainer. Pour strained stock into jars. Leave overnight or in refrigerator until fat congeals at the top. Remove congealed fat with a spoon and discard or save for later use (chicken fat is referred to a Schmaltz. It is used in Jewish cooking, in place of butter or lard, as it is considered kosher).

4. Pour stock into ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen, pop out of trays and store in ziplock bags in the freezer. Most standard ice cube trays will produce a 1 ounce portion of stock, ready for use when needed. You could also measure one or two cups of stock into ziplock bags and freeze for times when you need larger portions. DO NOT freeze your stock in glass canning jars as the stock expands when it freezes and may cause your jar to crack and leak (as mine did, duh!). The fresh stock will keep in your refrigerator for 2-3 days. Use stock in soups, stews, sauces and stir fries.

*Seasoning your stock with salt and pepper is optional. I generally do not season my stock as it gives me more freedom to season later on when I use it in my cooking. Overly seasoned stock may interfere with the flavour and seasoning of the dish you are creating. Sometimes I will add a bit of fresh cracked pepper, but I never salt my stock.

Brining Poultry

I just finished week 8 of my Surf & Turf cooking class over at CHEESESLAVE. This week we learned about roasting and braising meats and sauce reductions. Recipes included pot roast with gravy, braised short ribs, Moroccan chicken, lamb chops, pulled pork and roast duck, among many others! Also included in this class was a video about how to roast a chicken. Ann Marie doesn't cover brining in the videos, but briefly mentions it and includes some direction in the recipes.

Last year when I cooked my first ever Thanksgiving turkey, I brined my turkey in a mixture of water, salt, honey and citrus zest. Brining poultry before cooking leads to juicier and more tender meat. My turkey was a huge success. My brother-in-law declared it was the best turkey he had ever eaten. I would like to think it was just because I cooked it, but I'm quite certain the brining had something to do with it.

The problem with brining is that it takes time. A large bird (10lbs or more) requires 12-24 hours to brine then an additional 12-24 hours to "dry" (a wet bird won't cook or brown well). A smaller bird can be brined adequately in 3-12 hours and left to "dry" for 6-12 hours. Basically, if you want to brine your bird, you should start 2 to 3 days in advance of cooking. It's not as much of a pain as it sounds. Preparing the brine takes minutes and once the bird is in the solution, you don't have to do anything until you take it out of the brine! Don't forget you also need at least an hour (for a small bird) before cooking so the bird can come to room temperature before putting it in the oven!

A basic brine includes salt and a sweetener. More advanced brines will include flavour enhancers like citrus zest or dried herbs. The one I used for my turkey last year included lemon and orange peel, cardamom pods and dried thyme. For my roast chicken though, I wanted something very simple and very basic.

Cooks Illustrated has a great PDF with loads of info and tips on brining. They recommend the following ratios for a basic brine:

Per 1 litre (1 quart) of water add 1/4 cup of fine kosher or sea salt (1/2 cup if salt is course) and 1/2 cup of sweetener. One litre (1 quart) of liquid is required per pound. They also say it should not exceed 2 gallons of brine, but you need enough to cover your bird so if you are cooking a large chicken or turkey, you may need as much as 3 gallons of brine. They also say to brine for one hour per pound, but for no more than 8 hours.

My brine didn't follow the Cooks Illustrated model exactly but it was close. I adapted my brine from the Healthiest Meals on Earth cookbook. It looked something like this:

2.5 lb whole chicken
2 litres warm water
1 cup sea salt
1 cup unpasteurized, raw honey

The brine was mixed together in a stock pot and the chicken placed inside. The chicken was brined in the refrigerator overnight, for about 12 hours. After that, I drained the pot, rinsed the chicken and placed it in the empty stockpot, and left it in the refrigerator for another 6 hours.

And contrary to what you may have read online, you CAN use a metal pot to hold your brine - just make sure it is stainless steal or enamelled cast iron (like Le Creuset). Do not use aluminum or straight cast iron as metal can leech into your brine and affect the taste. You can also use glass or plastic container or a plastic brining bag. Do not use a garbage bag as they are not food safe. You may need to weigh your chicken down with a plate to ensure it is completely submerged.

When you are ready to cook your bird, take it out of the refrigerator and leave it to sit, covered, at room temperature for at least one hour.

Next time... Basic Roast Chicken