Meat & veggies in one pan

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

pacanis

Chef Extraordinaire
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
18,750
Location
NW PA
I caught a little bit of RR's 30 minute meals last night. Seems like every time I see her cooking now, it's in a large, oval non-stick saute pan. Anyway, she started some bacon and added ground turkey breast. Then she moved those to one area of the pan and threw in her onions, mushrooms... maybe something else(?) on the other side of the pan. She made a point of separating her ingredients into meats and veggies before mixing them together, even mentioning it, but never said why.

I have always dumped one on top of the other and kept stirring and flipping the mixture. Is there any benefit to doing it her way? There was so much stuff piled on top of each other neither "pile" was getting much cooking surface area anyway.....
 
It sounds like a "stir fry" method. Cooking the meat(s) first then adding veggies in the order it takes them to cook, with item(s) that take the least amount of time added last.
It may also help sell large oval non-stick pans.......
 
I think she does it so that everything, at some point, has direct contact with the heat of the pan. Or, it's what UB said about selling the pan.:)
 
That's how I would do it if I was doing a fry up, as opposed to a stirfry. So I would put the chop/steak/sausages in the pan, start it cooking, then when it was partially cooked, I would add the onions in another part, the mushrooms, next to them, then the tomatoes, and something green like asapargus or spinach. Everything is done in the one pan, all the juices meld together a bit but at the same time you can season them differently, like the mushrooms would have garlic and Worcestershire sauce on them, but the tomatoes would just have salt and pepper. If you are stir frying, you cook in small batches, putting to one side and then add everything to the pan again with the sauces.

I will use one pan only whenever I can. I loathe washing up and don't own a dishwasher!!
 
She may have seasoned the items differently and I missed that part..... but it was going to be a casserole. Wouldn't the flavors meld together anyway?

I think you may be right UB, probably to make it seem like everyone should have one of these large oval pans. Like I said, I can't see doing it this way to expose more cooking surface to the hot pan. Not the way the stuff was piled up. You'd be better off mixing everything together and stirring it more..... unless maybe she adjusted the pan on the burner to make one side hotter.....
Who knows. It was RR :LOL:
 
I do that all the time. She probobly didn't want the veggies to sweat mixed in with the meat. If she added the raw veggies to the cooked meat she would wind up with a liquidy mess in the pan.

I use the same method for alot of different dishes. When I make sausage & peppers, I'll brown the whole sausages, remove those to a cutting board, cook the veggies in the oil/juices from the sausage, then move those to the side of the pan and cook the garlic and tomato paste seperate. When the paste/garlic is done, I mix in the veggies, slice the sausage and mix that in.

This is where a cheaper pan works great, you can move the pan off to one side of the burner to make a hot spot. A quality pan can be used too, but they transfer the heat much more evenly.
 
I wouldn't trust her with anything she pretends to cook.
I agree. It's funny, she had a recipe for potato pancakes that she did and it sounded good so I went to FN's site and got the recipe. One ingredient sounded odd (nutmeg) with the other ingredients so I left it out. The ep repeated this morning and she didn't put it in to the potatoes. Makes you wonder how much you can trust her recipes when she shows one thing and does another.
 
I caught a little bit of RR's 30 minute meals last night. Seems like every time I see her cooking now, it's in a large, oval non-stick saute pan. Anyway, she started some bacon and added ground turkey breast. Then she moved those to one area of the pan and threw in her onions, mushrooms... maybe something else(?) on the other side of the pan. She made a point of separating her ingredients into meats and veggies before mixing them together, even mentioning it, but never said why.

I have always dumped one on top of the other and kept stirring and flipping the mixture. Is there any benefit to doing it her way? There was so much stuff piled on top of each other neither "pile" was getting much cooking surface area anyway.....

I think she's just promoting her oval pan.
 
I wouldn't trust her with anything she pretends to cook.

I've never accomplished any of her recipes in 30 minutes..... but I've printed out a few of her recipes I like. Quick, simple....
I think tonight she's making tacos for 150 people in 30 minutes :ROFLMAO:
 
Jeekinz, why do you get a watery mess if you mix them together and not if you cook them side by side in the same pan?

BTW, thanks for your sausage and peppers recipe!
 
I agree. It's funny, she had a recipe for potato pancakes that she did and it sounded good so I went to FN's site and got the recipe. One ingredient sounded odd (nutmeg) with the other ingredients so I left it out. The ep repeated this morning and she didn't put it in to the potatoes. Makes you wonder how much you can trust her recipes when she shows one thing and does another.

Gee, I've forgotten to put an ingredient in, forgotten quite a few times.
 
Trouble is a lot of the recipes aren't always written by the celebrity chefs but their staff, either from the inspiration of the chef or off their own back. That is often why you get the discrepancy. A while ago, some newspaper (somewhere in the world) tried cooking some of the celebrity recipes as they stood and they didn't work out at all! Think they may have taken that on board and get them tested before printing now.
 
Gee, I've forgotten to put an ingredient in, forgotten quite a few times.
Or I just haven't wanted to buy one small ingredient just to create a dish.

When I first moved out of home, I had no spices, only some basic ingredients and minimal cookware. I got invited to a friend's place so I thought I would take an Australian apple struedel - pretty cheap dish usually. Cost me over A$30 (several years ago) by the time I had bought the pan, the bowl the spices, etc!!LOL Would have been cheaper to have bought a tray of French patisserie cakes!
 
I hardly ever follow recipes exactly. I get the essence of it and put in what I want to put in. ;-)
 
I can't seem to use the spices fast enough before they go bland. The only ones I actually use fast enough is garlic powder and oregano, and maybe cumin seed.
 
Jeekinz, why do you get a watery mess if you mix them together and not if you cook them side by side in the same pan?

BTW, thanks for your sausage and peppers recipe!

Usually, the water in the veggies won't have enough room to escape so the water just stays in the pan. Like an over-crowding situation.

Add some evoo to coat the ingredientts, S & P and red pepper flakes to taste;)
 
I've never accomplished any of her recipes in 30 minutes..... but I've printed out a few of her recipes I like. Quick, simple....
I think tonight she's making tacos for 150 people in 30 minutes :ROFLMAO:

I haven't finished them in 30 mins. either, but then I don't have a teleprompter in my kitchen telling me what to do next :) I also don't have my cutting board right next to the stove, so that may affect the time. The recipes I've tried have been good and fairly quick, though, maybe 45 mins.
 
Back
Top Bottom