Using Your Noodle

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Q: I am having a major problem with rice noodles. I cannot cook them right no matter what I do. Can you explain how to cook them so I can keep serving them? Kay S.

A: You're far from the first pasta cook to be baffled by rice noodles. They flummoxed me, too!

The trick here is how quickly you drain and cool them. Drop the noodles into lightly salted water with a bit of oil floating on top. When they are done, drain them and pour ice water over them while they are still in the colander. This will stop the cooking completely and keep them from becoming a soggy mess.

Q: When making a vinaigrette salad dressing, how much oil and vinegar do you use? What other spices or ingredients do you use? -- L. Slaughter

A: The general rule of thumb is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, although you can adjust that a bit either way to your liking.

What spices? Wow, that's a BIG question. Vinaigrettes can be sweet or savory, spicy or mellow, or just about any other flavor under the sun. My personal favorite for a salad is a red wine vinegar and olive oil blend with some minced garlic and fresh basil. Sometimes I add a teaspoon or two of Dijon mustard.

I am looking for a recipe for fried rice. My family loves fried rice. Every time I have tried at home to "fry" rice it has been disastrous. I have tried pre-frying in oil before cooking rice, I have tried cooking rice then frying. Cooking rice, refrigerating, then frying. Help!

A: One of the main problems with producing "restaurant quality" fried rice at home is equipment. Your average Chinese food restaurant has gas burners firing under their woks that can reach far higher temperatures than anything you can attain at home.

However, if you rinse the starch off long-grain rice before cooking, and refrigerate it for at least two hours before frying, and don't get TOO liberal with the soy sauce, you should be able to turn out a passable product. Don't try to cook too much at once! For the average stovetop wok, you shouldn't cook more than two cups of rice at a time. Any more will kill your wok temperature and you'll get that familiar soggy "almost-fried" rice.

Q: Will it affect a recipe to lower the amount of sugar and/or salt used? If so, how? -- Barbara H.

A: Except for baking or desserts, or if one of the two is a main ingredient, you shouldn't affect your final outcome terribly much by raising or lowering the amounts by up to half the original amount.

Baking relies on some fairly delicate chemical reactions to do its voodoo, so I'd be wary about altering baked recipes.

Cast Iron Warning!

My good friend Grace tipped me to a potential problem for those of you with cast-iron pancake griddles or pizza stones: Be wary when using them on the stovetop, especially covering multiple burners. The uneven heating can cause metal fatigue and brittleness, leading to cracking. It's best to preheat these in the oven before using them on the stove. 400° F should do the trick nicely.

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