Cooking  /  Kitchen 101

Chicken is every cook's best friend, for one simple reason: versatility. Whether you crave exotic flavours or simply want to experience the smell and taste of home-cooked comfort food, there's a recipe for you.

Knowing how your food is raised is an important part of being an educated consumer. While all chicken in Canada is raised to a high standard of quality and animal care, you also have choices in how the chicken you buy is raised. Understanding those designations can be tricky, so here are a few pointers to help you along the way.

Learning how to cook isn’t just about the food: you’ll need some good basic tools on hand to prepare and serve your culinary creations.

According to the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, the best way to prevent foodborne illness is to keep foods – all foods, not just animal products – either hot or cold.

Get a good knife. Use heavy, well-balanced knives with secure handles, and get them sharpened regularly.

If you promote yourself as the kind of person who burns water, this guide may be for you. Or, you may be fresh out on your own and unsure what you should have in your kitchen. Try this on for size – it’s an introduction to your kitchen – the greatest room ever!

Chances are you’ve heard the buzz about eating local: the lifestyle that has you visiting your local food markets and checking out where products are from at your local grocery store. Summer is the perfect time to start thinking about eating local, as there is an abundance of locally grown produce available at your local farmer’s market. To make it even easier, Canadian chicken is always available! According to experts, eating locally can help your community and slow down environmental damage. Sound complicated? It’s not! Here’s the low-down on eating local, and some easy ways you can get started.

There are many ways of enhancing the flavour of a whole roasted chicken, and a favourite of ours is brining. Brining keeps chicken incredibly moist while adding an excellent flavour. It’s a bit more labour intensive than a simple spice rub, but it’s worth the effort for special occasions.

There’s nothing better than peas and asparagus in spring, strawberries in June, and corn and peaches in August. Sure, you can get most of these things at the supermarket year-round, but the flavour of any of these foods in January pales in comparison to what they really taste like in their season. That’s because in-season ingredients are picked during their natural growing season, at their peak of ripeness and usually much closer to home. Eating seasonally lets you enjoy the highest quality food while encouraging you to you eat locally and eat economically.