MISE EN PLACE

Mise en place (pronounced MEEZ ahn plahs) is a french cooking term that means "put in place."  Assemble and measure all of your ingredients before you start.

Let's say you are baking bread.  Measure out 4 cups of flower and put them into a bowl.  Measure out a teaspoon of salt and put it into a little cup (or, put it into the flour.)  Don't start mixing or cooking until you have everything in place in front of you.

This avoids these unpleasantnesses:

• If you are interrupted by a phone call, can you remember how many cups of flour have gone into the mixing bowl so far?
• Will the mixture burn if you have to go over to the pantry and search for an ingredient?
• If you are out of an ingredient or don't have the full amount that you need, the time to find out is BEFORE you start.

Happy Cooking!

Temperature Control Is the #1 Food Safety Tool

The temperature of the food you prepare, serve (and eat) is the number one safety concern for any serious cook.
Buy a good thermometer.
COOKING TEMPERATURE FOR MEATS
A good thermometer will have a chart (on the back of an electronic readout, or on the sleeve of an instant-read stick thermometer) of the appropriate temperature to which to cook food.  It should be something like this:

Beef – rare	140 F
Beef – medium	160 F
Beef – well done	170 F
Fish	137 F
Ham – precooked	140 F
Ham – fresh	160 F
Poultry	180 F
Lamb	180 F

HOLDING TEMPERATURE FOR ALL FOOD
Bacteria can multiply at temperatures above 40 F and below 160 F.  Once bacteria has contaminated food, it must be discarded (don’t be fooled that you can reheat the food hot enough to kill the bacteria.  While that reheating WILL kill the bacteria, it will NOT remove the toxins that the bacteria have left in your food.
Cold food must stay below 40 F.  This applies to ALL cold food, but especially any made with mayonnaise.  Keep cold food in the refrigerator until ready to serve, and if serving outside on a warm day, use an ice bath to keep the food cold.
Hot food must stay above 160 F.  The back of the stove may be warm enough to keep things hot for a while, or keep food in the oven (even if the oven has now been turned off.)
MINIMIZE WARMUP TIME AND COOLDOWN TIME.
When you are ready to put hot food back into the fridge, be very careful to first cool off the food quickly before putting it into the fridge.  Hot food put directly into the fridge just makes the fridge too warm, and can spoil the food already in the fridge.  To quickly cool of hot food, place the container in a water-bath or ice-bath in the sink, stirring frequently, or, in winter, place the covered food outside.  To warm cold food up to temperature, use the hottest temperature you can use without scalding or harming the food that you are warming up.
KEEP YOUR THERMOMETER CLEAN.  Wash with hot soapy water.  Some thermometers may be dishwasher-safe.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD THERMOMETER?
Electronic thermometers tend to stay pretty accurate.  Other thermometers should have a way to re-adjust the setting.  To check the accuracy of your thermometer, put it into ice-water or boiling water.  If the temperature does not measure 32F or 212F, adjust your thermometer until it does.
I have a selection of electronic thermometers and regular instant-read thermometers, and both types are useful.  Most instant-read thermometers can NOT be left in the oven.  They are meant to stick into whatever you are measuring, come up to the correct temperature, and then be removed.  I enjoy my electronic thermometer, which has a sensor at the end of a long heat-proof wire.  The temperature sensor can be left in what I’m measuring in the oven or stovetop or grill, and the other end stays cool outside the oven where I can read the temperature without opening the oven door.  It can also be set to beep an alarm if the temperature goes above or below a setting that you can control.
Make sure the end of the thermometer that measures heat is long enough to reach the food you are measuring.  I have a regular-size and an extra-long thermometer that clips to the side of my stockpot.  If the stockpot is half-full, I need to use the longer probe to reach all the way down to the liquid I am measuring.  All of the probes have a small indent at some part of the probe.  That marks where the temperature is being taken, and that’s the part of the probe that needs to be inside the food you are measuring.
If you are using the thermometer outside in the dark, for example, for grilling, be sure the dial has a light, or you have a flashlight.  Look for a large readout.
To measure meat, try to get into the middle of the meat and away from the bone.  The middle will cook more slowly than the outside, so you need to make sure the inside is cooked to the appropriate temperature.  The bone also affects the temperature, so keep the probe an inch or more away from any bones.

Making Greek Yogurt -- Main Post

Jim’s Recipe for Greek Yogurt

 

This recipe creates thick, luscious Greek-Style Yogurt.  Greek-Style Yogurt is strained so that the whey is separated, and the remaining yogurt is thick, creamy, and packed with protein.
This post is divided into specific sections:
1.  Before You Start:  Equipment, Ingredients
2.  The Process
3.  What Can Go Wrong and How to Fix It
 
Ingredients
Section 1 talks more about ingredients, but the list of ingredients is:

• Milk
• 2 Tablespoons of yogurt as a starter
• Non-Fat Powdered Milk (optional, and without the addition of water, to increase protein)

 Up-Front Considerations

• How much yogurt do you plan to make? At the end of the process, you will need to strain the yogurt to separate off the whey. I start with 2 gallons of milk at a time to make about one gallon of yogurt, so I found a strainer or colander that will hold 2 gallons.
• Find a warm place that can hold your yogurt at around 110° for five to eight hours. Test your oven with a pot of water and a thermometer before you try it with a real batch of yogurt. The pilot light alone, or the oven lowest temperature, or even the heat from a light bulb may be sufficient to let the yogurt continue to form.  Temperature over 120 (F) tends to kill the yogurt cultures, and at temperatures below 90 (F) the yogurt goes inactive and does not continue to grow.

Making Greek Yogurt Part 1 -- Equipment and Setup

This posting is subsection 1 of a series on how to make Greek-Style strained Yogurt.  Please start with the section title “Main Post”, then proceed to subsections 1, 2, and 3.
Ingredients

• Milk (Whole milk, 2%, 1%, depending on the fat content you want in the end product)
• Non-Fat Dried Milk Powder (about 1 cup per Gallon of Milk, more or less to taste).  We are using only the powdered milk to increase the amount of protein in the final product, not the additional water that would be added.
• Greek-Style Yogurt with active culture (Brown Cow, Fage, … ) Must have active live cultures. Look for “Greek-Style’” on the label.  Avoid yogurt that has additional ingredients such as gelatin or other chemical that might be used in some commercial yogurts to help thicken their product or prolong its shelf-life.  Do not freeze. Frozen yogurt is delicious, but the freezing kills the active cultures, and you can’t make more yogurt out of it.  Use 2 or three tablespoon of starter per batch, regardless of the total size of the batch.  After you take the tablespoons of starter out of a cup of yogurt, refrigerate the rest to either eat later, or to use as a starter in a later batch.  You can use your own homemade yogurt as a starter, but after one batch from home-made starter, I tend to go back to store-bought.  

Quantity
I make batches of yogurt starting with 2 or two-and-a-half gallons on milk.  As you are learning to make your own yogurt, I suggest you start with smaller batch sizes until you get used to the process.  As noted below, the amount of non-fat dried milk is variable to your own taste, and can also be omitted.  I think the additional non-fat dried milk adds considerable richness and additional protein, without adding more fat.
See notes below on equipment to make sure you have the appropriate sized equipment to make the batch-size you are choosing.  I once made a 5-gallon batch, only to realize at the end that I had to strain the resultant yogurt in smaller batches because I didn’t have a big enough strainer.
Equipment

• Pot, non-reactive like stainless steel or porcelain. Aluminum is not recommended.
• Strainer or colander. (The cheesecloth will do all of the straining, so it doesn’t matter how fine the strainer is.)
• Cheesecloth (Fine Mesh) I use a single layer of a very fine mesh cheesecloth. I get mine from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The stuff I bought at my local grocery was way too coarse. You need a large enough piece to line your entire strainer.  If you need to double or triple the layers of cheesecloth, then you will need a huge sheet to line the entire strainer.
• Kitchen thermometer. All temperature readings below are Fahrenheit.  I recommend an electronic thermometer with a remote temperature sensor that can be left in the pot, with a wire connecting it to the display.  Mine can be set to ring a chime if the temperature falls below 100(F) or above 120(F).

Making Greek Yogurt Part 2 -- The Process

The Process
Pour the milk into a clean pot, and gently heat up to 180° f. I use a 10 quart stock pot placed inside a 20 quart stock pot. Nestle the smaller stock pot into the larger, and then fill the rest of the outside stock pot with water almost up to the top. (Note: This is a bain  marie, or water bath cooking method, and raises the temperature of the milk slowly and gently. This is different than a double-boiler, where the level of the water in the outer pot would never touch the bottom of the inner pot, so that the water quickly would come to a boil.)

When the milk reaches 180°, then cool it back down to about 110°. This initial heating kills any other bacteria that might be present, and also starts to pre-process the protein in the milk.  You can take the inner pot out of the hot water, and place into a sink of cold water to speed the process. You can also add ice cubes to the water in the sink to cool it even faster. Don’t let the cold water in the sink come up over the top of the pot of milk.
Add non-fat dried milk powder to the milk, either while heating or while cooling. Just add the powder, not the extra water. This adds more protein and milk solids, without adding more liquid or fat. I use about 1 cup non-fat dried milk powder per gallon of milk. The non-fat dried milk powder is optional.
When the milk has cooled to about 110°, mix in the starter yogurt. Use a couple of teaspoons of yogurt per gallon of milk. More starter yogurt will speed up the process slightly, but don’t user more than 3 tablespoons of starter per gallon of milk. To help the thicker yogurt mix well into the milk, I put the yogurt starter into a small bowl, add a half-cup of milk, and stir that well before adding to the larger pot.  Stir the starter well into the pot.
Cover the top of the yogurt pot with a lid or aluminum foil, and keep somewhere for at least five or six hours at 110°. You might want to use a fancy electronic thermometer that can be programmed to alarm you if the temperature goes over, say 120°, or under, say 105°. If the yogurt mixture gets too cool, it will only slow down the process. (Solution: gently rewarm to 110°). If the yogurt mixture gets too warm, say over 120°, then it may kill the starter yogurt. (Solution: Cool to 110° and add fresh starter). The time is variable, because it all depends on how well your starter culture thrives and how consistent the temperature is kept.
After four or five hours, you should start to see the mixture thickening. When you see pools of clear greenish whey form on top of the yogurt, you can do one more thing to speed the process: Gently run a wire whisk or long knife through the thickened yogurt. This will break up the thickened yogurt and help the whey separate out. DO NOT STIR the yogurt, just run the whisk slowly through the thickened yogurt to break it up a little. After this process, let the yogurt continue to brew for another hour or so.
The total time to finish this part of the process depends on the factors mentioned above, but also how thick you like your yogurt. The longer you let the yogurt sit at 110°, it will become thicker, and will also become tangier. If you don’t like tangy yogurt, then stop the process a little earlier.
Strain the yogurt to separate the yogurt from the whey. Pour the yogurt mixture into the cheesecloth-lined colander. You should see the thin greenish whey fall through the strainer into a bowl below. If the whey looks very milky, then either the cheesecloth is too coarse, or the yogurt has not cooked long enough. If the entire batch of yogurt will not fit in the strainer at one time, wait a little until more whey has strained out, and that makes more room in the strainer for the rest of your yogurt.
The longer you leave the yogurt in the strainer, the thicker it will become as more whey drains off. You can drain the whey into another bowl if you plan to use the whey for something, or just let it run into the sink. If you drain whey into a bowl, remember to keep a few inches between the bottom of the strainer and the level of whey that is draining.  We often set the strainer in a larger bowl, and put the whole assembly in the refrigerator overnight.  If the yogurt is too thick for your tastes, thin with some of the whey or some milk.  We like a very thick yogurt, so we drain off a little more than one gallon of whey from two initial gallons of milk, leaving a little less than one gallon of finished yogurt.  One last optional step is to put the strained yogurt into a large bowl and beat with a hand-mixer to smooth out the texture.  Put into plastic containers with tight-fitting lids, and store in the fridge.
Adapt the recipe and process to your own tastes. Longer cooking time makes thicker and tangier yogurt. Longer straining time also lets the finished product thicken even more.
Serve with honey, preserves, fresh or frozen fruit, to taste.  We always add the flavorings to each bowl as you are eating it, not into the larger plastic tubs of yogurt.
You can use your home-made yogurt as your starter base for your next batch, but we found it to be a little tangier. We prefer to go no more than one batch from store-bought and then one batch from that homemade batch, then back to store-bought. We usually divide an 8 oz or 6 oz package of store-bought yogurt into starter for three or more batches, but only if those later batches are still within the expiration date of the original container.
You are not done yet. Thoroughly clean all pots and pans. Dried-on Yogurt is very difficult to clean, so be prompt. Thoroughly hand-wash your cheesecloth with soap and water, then rinse thoroughly in cold water until all suds are gone. When the suds are rinsed out, refill a container with hot water and a capful of bleach. Soak your cheesecloth in the bleach solution for at least a minute, then wring out and hang up to dry. When I use my cheesecloth the next time, I give it the sniff-test. It should smell slightly of bleach, with no sour or moldy smell to it.

Making Greek Yogurt Part 3 -- What can Go Wrang and What to Do

My initial heating of the milk got too hot – over 180 (F).  Taste the milk.  It will probably taste scalded or off in some way.  The milk has been ruined, and you need to start over.  This is an important reminder that an electronic thermometer that can beep when your batch goes over a specific temperature is so important.
Run out of time?  If a stubborn batch just won’t thicken up, you can put the pot into the fridge and start again later. Gently re-warm up to 110° (NOT back up to 180°) and continue. (Food safety hint – putting a very large hot pot into your fridge will warm up your fridge and possibly spoil other food. Cool off any warm pot by placing it in a sink full of cold water or ice water before putting it into the fridge.) If it still doesn’t thicken the next day, check your starter, add more starter, or get another container of fresh yogurt from the store to add fresh starter.
While brewing the yogurt, the temperature went below 90 (F).  No Problem.  The yogurt culture (starter and whatever has brewed in the meantime) has gone dormant at the lower temperature.  Gently re-heat to 110 (F) and the culture will re-activate.  Continue holding at 110 (F) until finished.
While brewing the yogurt, the temperature went over 120 (F).  This is a problem.  Temperatures over 120 (F) start to kill off the yogurt culture.  Cool to 110 (F), and add new starter.  Stir the new starter GENTLY into the mixture, and continue to cook.
How exact are the temperature requirements?  a few degrees over or under is usually not a problem.  For the initial heating to go over 180 (F) or 185(F), especially for a longer time, is probably the most critical temperature, and the most serious cause of a ruined batch.  A batch that goes over 120 (F) can still be saved.  Bring the temperature down to at least 115 (F) or so, and see if the yogurt continues to develop.  If not, the batch is NOT ruined, but the starter may have been killed off.  Gently stir in a fresh starter, and continue.  After this fix, the total active cultures in the batch might be decreased, so don’t use this batch as a starter in subsequent batches.

Large Lasagna Recipe

1	2	4	6	8	Number of Hotel-sized pans
24	48	96	144	192	Makes this number of servings (about 3” by 3” each)
					Unit of measure	Ingredient
3.75	7.5	15	22.5	30	lbs	ricotta
1.5	3	6	9	12	16 oz pkg	lasagna noodles
1	2	4	6	8	102 oz can	Crushed Tomatoes
9	18	36	54	72	oz	Grated Parmesan
4	8	16	24	32	each	Eggs
0.5	1	2	3	4	bunches	Fresh Parsley, chopped
2.5	5	10	15	20	lbs	Sausage, Ground Beef, …
1.25	2.5	5	7.5	10	lbs	Shredded Mozzarella
1.5	3	6	9	12	each	medium onion
1.5	3	6	9	12	tsp	Each of Fennel, Oregano, Italian Seasoning, dried Basil (More or less to taste)
6	12	24	36	48	cloves	Garlic (optional--skip, or add more or less to taste)
Vegetables (Optional) -- pick two or three from this list:
4	8	16	24	32	bunches	Spinach, washed and chopped
2	4	8	12	16	lbs	Mushrooms
1.5	3	6	9	12	cups	Peppers (red or green or yellow or mixed)
1	2	4	6	8	cups	Olives
8	16	32	48	64	each	Shredded Carrots
8	16	32	48	64	each	Zucchini, diced
8	16	32	48	64	each	Eggplant
8	16	32	48	64	each	Summer Squash
4	8	16	24	32	heads	Broccoli, cut into florets

NOTES:       The table above gives the approximate number of servings. The number of people fed will depend on how hungry the group is, and what else is served on the side.
To start, pick your ingredients.  The quantities shown are appropriate for all of the major ingredients, but all quantities can be increased or decreased to taste.  If several vegetable options are chosen, cut back on the total amounts to leave some room.
A 'hotel pan' or 'steam table' pan is a standard size for a large 12" by 20" pan.   This is also the standard size for most rectangular chafing (warming) dishes.  A "half pan" is 12"x10" (note – full size hotel pans do not fit in most home ovens).  This recipe is sized to make full sized pans, or can be divided into to half-size pans, or … you do the math.  Full-size and half-size disposable aluminum pans are available in most warehouse club groceries.  A full hotel pan can be cut in fourths the long way and then into sixths on the short axis (cut in half, then cut each half into thirds) results are about (24)  3" by 3"  servings, which will feed perhaps 16 to 20 people (depending on how hungry they are, and what else is served). 

I use regular lasagna noodles, not the no-boil variety.  I do not pre-boil the noodles; I use them straight out of the box.  I use cans of crushed tomatoes, not tomato sauce. The extra water in crushed tomatoes is absorbed into the uncooked noodles.  

Meat must be precooked.  Brown the meat in small batches, then cool to a safe temperature to handle.  Carrots should be shredded and blanched.  Other vegetables should be diced.  Vegetables, especially watery vegetables like spinach, should be sauteed long enough to remove most water.  Garlic and/or onion should be cooked in with either the meat, or the vegetables.  Spices can be cooked in with the meat or the vegetables, or can be sprinkled on top of the layers.    

 PROCEDURE:
Preheat oven to 350 (F).  Pre-mix the ricotta and eggs together. Add the Parmesan, and finely-chopped parsley. (For very large batches, this premixing can be done in smaller batches as well.).  Spread a thin layer of crushed tomato on the bottom of the pan.      1. Add a layer of uncooked lasagna noodles. Press the noodles into the previous layers to keep the dish together.
2. Add a layer of ricotta/egg mixture.  This mixture is easier to spread directly on top of the noodles.
3. Add a layer of meat (if used) and a layer of vegetables (if used).
4. Sprinkle one-fourth of the shredded mozzarella and add a layer of crushed tomato
Repeat steps 1, 2, 3, 4 two more times.
Top with one final layer of noodles, and a final layer of crushed tomatoes.  Be especially careful with the last layer of crushed tomatoes to cover all of the noodles.  Cover with the balance of the shredded mozzarella.
Cover with foil, and bake at 350 (F) for an hour and a half, or till bubbly. Allow extra time if you are cooking multiple pans in the same oven.  Remove from oven and allow to sit for 15 to 30 minutes before serving.  While most of the ingredients have been pre-cooked, there is raw egg that needs to cook through, and the unboiled noodles need to be thoroughly cooked to soften.

SAFETY

Always move hot lasagna (especially in those flimsy aluminum disposable pans) by first sliding it onto a large cookie sheet to evenly support the bottom.