Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for March, 2011

Rainy Days Are Good for Somethin’

Posted in Healthy Meal, Recipes on March 24, 2011 | 2 Comments »

This week was, in fact, the first week of spring.

Shocking, I know.

I mean, what screams spring more than tons of freezing rain and snow; thick clumps of slush falling from the sky and pelting your umbrella, which you had hoped you could put away for the time being, as you practically sprint home from work. Yesterday, the temperature was so low that in just the ten minutes that it takes for me to walk from my subway stop to my apartment (okay, so the market below my apartment), my hands went completely numb and turned blue. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s just the sort of thing I hope to say arrivederci to come springtime.

With Cara lounging on a Carnival Cruise pool deck in the southern Caribbean this week, and loads of terrible weather swirling around outside my home in New York, last night appeared to be a rare occasion where I had a) the apartment all to myself, b) nothing to do, and c) absolutely zero motivation to venture out into this big ol’ city and have an adventure. When the nice weather is back, I’m sure that urge will hit me, but last night, nothing was more appealing to me that reorganizing my kitchen and cleaning out my closets.

Inspired by this blog I’ve just discovered, I was pretty amped to get to work fung-shui-ing . But with a big project like this looming on the horizon, I was unsure what to do about dinner. I’d just gotten home from work, and wasn’t exactly hungry, but I knew that after a few hours of reorganizing cabinets and packing away winter clothes, I would be.

Then it hit me. Soup! Usually I look forward to the end of soup season in springtime, but when the weather turns cold, rainy and raw when you least expect it, soup seems the only way to warm your spirits – from the inside, out. Plus, we’d just covered the art of soup making in class at ICE, and I was eager to put these newly learned “Pillars of Soup Making” to the test. In case you were curious, these pillars would be “Extraction, Dilution, Concentration” – but more on that later.

I was initially eager to test out a recipe for a Silky Cauliflower Soup that I came across on Smitten Kitchen, but sadly the market below my apartment was fresh out of cauliflower, and there was no way I was prepared to brave the two block walk to the grocery store in that downpour. So I scooped up some extra-large carrots, bright red peppers, garlic, ginger, and onion, and hurried back upstairs to set to work.

Two-and-change hours later, I was left with this: a savory, somewhat sweet, slightly spicy, super satisfying soup that made me drop the broom and completely melt away into the deliciousness of this dish. I’m not even sorry that I wound up making about 3/4 of a gallon – I’d eat this soup every day (and now it looks like I’ll have to)! Challenge yourself to become a Soup Master – make some Carrot and Red Pepper soup, or use the same guidelines below with just about any veggies and experience the same great success I did!

Creamy Carrot, Red Pepper + Ginger Soup – Makes 7 – 1.5 cup servings

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 2 large red bell peppers, cored and chopped
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp ginger, minced
  • 3 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 – 6 ounce container of low-fat Greek yogurt
  • 1 quart of low-sodium vegetable broth
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • Salt + pepper, to taste
  • Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste

For this recipe, I’m going to break it down into the three key steps of soup making I outlined above. Now, all in all, this might not seem so different from how you’ve made soups in the past, and that’s great – that means you’re doing it right. The most important thing to remember is that each time you make soup, the ingredients might change, but the steps in this process will not – sticking to these guidelines will ensure you have a rich, flavorful soup time and time again!

1. Extraction

To start, chop all of your vegetables – the carrots, red peppers, onions, garlic, and ginger. Since the garlic and ginger are smaller, you want to mince these. For the carrots, red peppers, and onion, you want to chop them as finely as possible, making sure to keep the pieces uniform. A very fine dice of 1/4 to 1/2 inch creates a ton of surface area exposure, and the more surface area, the more quickly food will cook and the more flavor you will extract. Uniformity is also crucial, since you want all your veggies to cook evenly so one flavor isn’t more dominant than another.

Then, add the olive oil (or, Paula Deen, you could also use butter) into a large pot, and add in the veggies. Toss all the veggies to coat, then turn on the flame super low – as in, just above a flicker – cover the pot, and walk away.

Walk away. It’s going to be fine.

The key here is to sweat the ingredients as much as possible to extract all of their natural juices and flavors. If the juices and flavors stay inside the veggies, it’s like they’re locked away, but once they come out, they have the chance to concentrate, meld with other flavors, and become much more rich and intense. This is a very good thing. Sweat your vegetables for as long as you can – at least thirty minutes, but up to an hour is even better. Stir them occasionally to redistribute the heat, and adjust the heat as needed.

2. Dilution

Once the extraction process is done, there should be a good amount of liquid in your pot, even though you didn’t add any to begin with. This liquid is all the juices you’ve extracted from the veggies – pretty cool, eh?

You’ll dilute the flavors further by adding your vegetable stock, and bringing the whole mixture up to a boil.

3. Concentration

Once you reach a boil, reduce the soup to a simmer, stir, and simmer over medium-low heat for another 45 minutes to an hour. You want your mixture to reduce to about 2/3 its original volume, which you can eyeball.

For this stage, it’s also important to use your tongue. Yep, that’s right – your sense of taste is your greatest tool. Once the soup looks like it’s concentrated quite a bit, taste it. If the flavors taste a bit watery and diluted, it still has a way to go. But if you can taste all the distinct flavors and aromas of the various ingredients and are getting a sense of the richness, you’re right on target. This isn’t an exact science; a lot of it is guesswork and preference, but it’s also pretty hard to mess up.

Once your soup has concentrated to about 2/3 its original volume, season it with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, as well as your cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. Always wait until after the concentration stage to season your soups, unless you’re using hardy herbs and spices that take a while to release their flavors. If you season them during an earlier stage, the seasoning will over-intensify during concentration, and your soup’s flavors will be way off base. Trust me on this one.

Then, get to work pureeing the whole pot! An immersion blender is definitely the easiest way to do this, but if you don’t have one, you can certainly puree it in batches using a blender.

The last (totally optional) step is complete is to add the greek yogurt. I opted to add it for an extra layer of richness and the tangy flavor that the yogurt provides. Greek yogurt is also less likely than, say, a sour cream to break at high temperatures; it’s more like a creme fraiche in that it incorporates very smoothly into the soup.

4. Eat and Enjoy

At long last, the soup is done! Go ahead and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Sure, it took you two hours to make – but look at all you got done in the meantime! Plus, you’ll have plenty extra soup to enjoy yourself and share with friends for the next couple weeks. I enjoyed a steaming hot bowl topped with a crumbled Wasa cracker, leeks, and a little bit of shredded pecorino.

And did I mention this is insanely healthy? Per 1 1/2 cup serving:

115 calories, 6.5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of fiber. So get in there and make some soup – and let me know how it goes!

Read Full Post »

Culinary School Confidential, Week 3 (Green Eggs and Tranche)

Posted in Culinary School, Recipes on March 21, 2011 | 2 Comments »

This week at ICE, we entered Lesson 8 and finally moved away from chopping and blanching raw vegetables, and into the wonderful world of proteins.

We started off with one of the simplest of proteins, an item so commonplace that it’s beauty and elegance is often overlooked, a food I have, more than once, revered on this blog.

The Egg.

Now, as someone who fries, scrambles, poaches, flips, and hard boils these suckers on a weekly, if not daily basis, I thought I knew nearly everything there was to know about eggs. And then of course, as if on cue, culinary school proceeded to blow my mind with a brand new way to make eggs that was by far the most delicious rendition of eggs I’ve had in my entire life. Yep, I went there. Sorry poached eggs with truffle honey, just being honest.

But more about that later…

As soon as we stepped into the kitchen on the day of Lesson 8, we came face to face with three flat crates of eggs, with each crate holding approximately 64 eggs. We were immediately instructed by Chef to crack these nearly 200 eggs, and to do so by cracking each with only one hand. A few people looked confident, but most of us looked fairly nervous. I personally had never been able to master the one-handed egg crack – in fact, I’m usually good for a shell or two when using both hands – and so I watched Chef frantically as she did her one and only demonstration of this act.

“Watch,” she said. “You grasp the egg in your hand, with your two fingers around the top, and your thumb cradling the bottom. Then, you crack,” she demonstrated on the side of a stainless steel bowl, “And use your fingers to pry the shell apart.” She spread her first three fingers outward, with the halves of the shell easily separating and the contents of the egg dropping lazily into the bowl below. I gaped. She smiled, and passed us each an egg.

As most of us stood cowering over the steel bowl containing a single, perfect egg yolk, each willing another to be the first to take the plunge, we heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind us. “A-hem!” Chef had returned, holding a super-fine chinois, or mussolini. She waved the strainer back and forth, clearing a path through us, and dropped it in the bowl. “The first time you do this, we’ll use the strainer. Don’t worry about shells right now, just work on the technique. After this, though, no more strainer!” She grimaced and stared around, and then walked away.

With a weight off our shoulders, we set to cracking. Within ten minutes, the 200 eggs had been emptied of their whites and yellows, and a few of us stood shaking out the chinois while rapidly whisking down the goopy egg that remained inside the strainer, pushing it through the mesh into the bowl below. Finally we were done, and Chef appeared with an eight ounce ladle and six-inch saute pan. She examined the contents of the bowls, nodded her approval, and grabbing one, beckoned us over to the stove.

“What I want you to do today,” she began, “Is cook eggs four ways. I don’t care how you cook them – you can fry them, scramble them, whatever. But however you decide to cook them, you have to use a different type of cooking fat for each: one with olive oil, one with canola oil, one with butter, and one with this,” she said, jabbing a thumb at a pot on the stove. It was full of what appeared to be a deep golden oil floating gently over a heap of oozing fat that had collected at the bottom of the pan.

“Clarified butter!” she announced. “Now, don’t ask me how we make this – that’s another class! For now, you can use your small ladles to put a bit of this in your pan and use it to cook the eggs.” She indicated by doing so herself. With a flick of her wrist, she had lit a high-powered burner to the lowest flame it could manage, slid the saute pan over the heat, and used her large ladle to add a healthy amount of beaten egg to the pan. Then she asked for someone to lend her their heat-resistant spoon.

“In America, everyone is hell-bent on killing their scrambled eggs.” Chef was scowling slightly, staring intently at the pan while ever so slowly beginning to stir the eggs in the pan, which were apparently refusing to cook. “People toss the eggs in the pan over a high flame, stir them once or twice, cook ‘em til they’re bone dry, and then break them up and call them scrambled eggs.” Eying the barely-there flame she was cooking over, it was clear this was not Chef Anna’s intention.

“These are not your average scrambled eggs. These are French eggs. You cook them extremely slowly and stir them constantly over a very low flame. Instead of getting those huge chunks, you get extremely small curds of egg while incorporating lots of air. This creates incredibly complex layers of flavor and richness that’ll taste like you’ve added cream when in fact, you have not.”

At this point, we were all reverent watching Chef slowly coax these eggs into cooking. All in all, the process took about ten minutes of constant stirring and adjusting the flame. If regular scrambled eggs are rice, then these eggs are risotto – slow cooked, creamy, with few similarities to their less elegant step-sibling. She salted them while reminding us that in the professional kitchen, you never season someone’s eggs before service, and plated the eggs while they were fluffy but still very moist. We all tucked into the plate with our plastic tasting forks, and one by one our eyes closed in enjoyment of this newfound dish.

I was immediately struck by the custard flavor of the eggs. There was something there, underlying and fleeting, but decidedly there, that reminded me strongly of crème brulée; a certain sweetness that was inexplicable, sugar having not been added to the dish at any time. The eggs were creamy, almost the consistency of a rice pudding, but still steaming hot. And Chef was right – it was as though lots of cream had been whipped right into this, so rich was the consistency.

We all scrambled off to try our own hand at French eggs and unsurprisingly, no one was quite able to replicate the small, delicate curds that Chef had achieved. Most of us walked away with a slightly more elegant version of regular scrambled eggs, and Chef assured us, once again, that one day makes a master out of no one. Slightly dejected, but not quite defeated, we turned to our other dishes and one by one learned what differed between eggs cooked in canola oil, olive oil, butter, and clarified butter.

The answer, my friends? Well, the first was quite obvious; of course, it was the flavor. Each of these oils have a distinct taste which they impart upon the food cooked in them. This was not surprising.

As best as an iPhone can capture, counter-clockwise from top left: Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Clarified Butter, Butter.

What we did find more interesting was how the color of the eggs was slightly different each time it was prepared. One member of our class cooked the exact same dish – scrambled eggs – four times in a row, changing only the cooking fat. The resulting four dishes were placed in a square on the large prep table, and we all gathered to observe. The two dishes of butter-cooked eggs were both a deep, bright yellow – the excited color you expect eggs to be. The canola oil eggs were the palest of them all, just barely the most delicate shade of yellow. And the olive oil cooked eggs were, well, green.

I saw this even more clearly for myself when I made an olive oil fried egg just minutes later. As the white of the egg swam through the faint green oil, firming and beginning to bubble, it took on a rustic green hue that reminded me of how an egg prepared in a brick fireplace, in a cast iron pan, in a Tuscan village far away would have looked. Leave it to me to romanticize frying an egg. What can I say? This sort of stuff excites people like me. Perhaps it was that romanticism that gave me the gall to choke up on that pan and flip that egg one-handed, using only the weight of the pan and strength of my wrist muscles, while Chef Anna stood behind me, gently coaxing me to do so.

So there you have it, in an eggshell - and perhaps you’ve even learned something you never knew that you never knew about eggs.

And as for the tranche, you’ll just have to stay tuned…

Read Full Post »

Roast Chicken with Chickpeas and Smoked Paprika

Posted in Healthy Meal, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on March 17, 2011 | 6 Comments »

Every once in a while, a dish comes along that totally blows you out of the water. You may have low expectations, or no expectations, or haven’t had time to think through all the possibilities. Maybe you just thought, hey, I can make that! I have all the ingredients! Or maybe you thought, middle eastern food in under 30 minutes – Rachel Ray would be so proud!

While that particular brand of approval isn’t something I exactly aspire toward, having this exotic and easy one-pan-wonder ready in thirty minutes was pretty spectacular. The recipe that was the inspiration for this dish sounded pretty good, but it wasn’t until this sucker was roasting up in my tiny little oven that I knew it would be pretty damn great. Something about the mouth-watering aromas, I guess. AND, as per my latest habit of cooking 99% of my dinners with common ingredients that I already have on hand, this meal from a faraway land may not even require a trip to your faraway grocer!

Chickpeas, or garbanzo beans, pop up pretty often in Middle Eastern cooking, which is not surprising considering these little peach guys originated there over 7,500 years ago. Whether it’s Channa Masala from Delhi or Halua from Bangladesh, chickpeas are an essential ingredient to many of this region’s most traditional dishes. But look around your everyday American life, and you might be surprised at how rampant these Indian Peas run. Ever had hummus? How about falafel? Believe it or not, the smooth, rich consistency of both fairly Americanized foods has that cute, crumbly chickpea to at its core.

Now something that should make anyone who’s a fan of Middle Eastern cuisine pretty happy – chickpeas are not only delicious and packed with healthy fiber and protein, but they’re one of the cheapest things you can find in your grocery store, with a can costing just over a buck.

I located a can of Trader Joe’s garbanzo beans in the back corner of a kitchen cabinet last week, dusted the pretzel crumbs and Belgian chocolate dust off of it, and smiled. It’s a rare treat to find a single can of goodness in your pantry that can become the heart and soul of a dish, but this did just that. Armed only with my can opener, some defrosted chicken breasts, and a Pyrex baking dish, I was able to prepare a wonderfully savory, spicy, smoky and satisfying dinner that proved to be a great way (and possibly the only way) to make my boyfriend extremely happy to be home from a Vegas vacation! If hearing a whole lot of “this is so delicious!” and “this is one of the best things you’ve ever made!” after a week-long diet of Las Vegas fine dining doesn’t shout success, I don’t know what does.

Moral of the story? You have literally zero reasons NOT to make this. If you live alone, and are cooking for one, guess what? This dish is unreal heated up the next day, and even better stuffed in a pita pocket with some fresh greens and a drizzle of the yogurt sauce of the top, or on a bed of jasmine rice, or just by its plain old self, as I had it (I stole the leftovers for myself- some things are just to good to share). On a diet? Great! This dish has lean chicken breast meat, tomatoes, and chickpeas, and gets its flavor from smoky spices, not lots of butter and grease, making it high in protein and fiber, low in fat, and extra happy. Don’t have the smoked paprika? Do your self a favor, and take a few bucks to invest – chances are you’ll fall so in love with this spice, you’ll wind up using it – and enjoying a variety of new dishes – more often than you could have imagined!

Great, so now that you believe me, here’s how you make it:

Roast Chicken with Chickpeas and Smoked Paprika – Serves 4

  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (you can get away with less if you’re really trying to watch calories)
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
  • 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
  • 1 lb (16 oz) of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I recommend using thin sliced breasts for increased tenderness)
  • 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
  • 1.5 cups of fresh tomatoes, chopped (recommend using dark red heirloom varieties, or cherry tomatoes for added acidity)
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided

To start, clear out all those pots and pans you’ve been storing in your oven and preheat it to 450°.

In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, garlic, paprika, cumin, and crushed red pepper. Add 1 teaspoon of the spiced oil to a small bowl with the greek yogurt, and whisk to combine and set aside for sauce. Note that spices can be added directly to the yogurt for a lighter sauce.

Lightly spray your Pyrex or baking dish with non-stick cooking spray, and lay chicken flat. Season well with sea salt and a little bit of fresh cracked pepper, then drizzle 2 tablespoons spiced oil mixture over chicken and rub into the chicken well. Add beans, tomatoes, and 1/2 cup cilantro to remaining spiced oil mixture and toss to coat. At this point, taste the bean mixture – I thought it was seriously lacking in salt (I like to season my chicken in addition to this to make sure both are adequately seasoned), so I added a little sea salt and pepper to this as well. Then, pour the bean mixture around chicken.

If time allows, it’s pretty nice if you can cover this up with some plastic wrap and let it hang out in the fridge for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Even that little bit of marination time allows the flavors to really permeate the meat and enhance your dish.

Roast until chicken is cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup cilantro. Transfer chicken to plates. Spoon bean mixture and extra juices over the chicken. Serve with yogurt sauce and warm naan bread.

Read Full Post »

Culinary School Confidential, Week 2 (Spices: A Study)

Posted in Culinary School, tagged , , on March 14, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Contrary to popular belief, culinary school isn’t all that different from regular college. Sure, your classes are filled with mise en place and prime cuts of meat, not Powerpoint projectors and uncomfortable desks. But you still leave the first day of class laden down with more textbooks than you can reasonably carry, have an excessive amount of reading to get through each night, and homework, and papers, and tests.

It caught me a bit by surprise when my very first night of class, while being walked through the program syllabus by our Director of Education, that we had our first paper due in just two weeks! Not to mention, our first quiz in a week, and our first exam less than a week after that. Talk about diving head first into the deep end!

That being said, I’ve really missed being a student since I graduated from the University of Maryland over two years ago, so I was excited to hear that there would be more academia involved in our culinary curriculum than I had anticipated. I eagerly flipped to the instructions for our first written assignment, and what did I find?

A Study on Spices

Learning the proper use and execution of spices is a technique that separates good cooks and chefs from great ones. Toasting cumin just enough to release the essential oils, but whisking it off the stove a second before it burns; infusing oil with smoked paprika to perfume a whole dish with a slow-grilled, smoky flavor… You don’t see that at The Olive Garden.

But anyone can toss some onion powder on a turkey burger, and thus, like most things in life, this is easier said than done. So far, from what I gather, it’s important to not only have working knowledge of a wide variety of spices, their origins, and how they can best be used to enhance cooking, but also to be comfortable not “over using” spices, as overzealous cook new to the exciting world of spice may. A small amount of the right spices, in a well-executed combination, will be much more successful in elevating a dish to a higher level than adding a little bit of everything in the kitchen sink.

For this assignment, I selected five spices that I’ve either never used, or know very little about, with the hopes of broadening my own (and with any luck, your own) culinary horizons. This might be a bit drier than what I usually post on the blog, but it’s sure as hell informative, and hey, there are pictures! So at the risk of sounding cliche, passe, and slightly bossy, I say to you: go ahead – spice up your life!

Saffron

Saffron, a spice which consists of stigmas picked from the saffron crocus (a flower), is one of the world’s most expensive spices by weight, and used extensively throughout European, North African, and Asian cuisine. The resulting spice produced from the stigmas of the saffron crocus is a dusty red in appearance, and takes the form of thin, brittle threads.

Experts describe the aroma of saffron to be similar to that of honey, with underlying grassy, hay-like, and metallic notes. The taste can also be compared to hay, but with underlying bitterness to it. Because of these earthy flavors, saffron is an ideal seasoning for a variety of foods, including baked goods, cheeses, liqueurs, confections, curries, and meat dishes.

Saffron is most commonly known, however, for being one of the three essential ingredients in paella, or paella valenciana, a traditional Spanish rice-and-meat dish. It is also essential in making the spicy French fish stew, bouillabaisse, the Italian risotto alla milanese, and saffron buns, which are rich yeasty buns flavored with saffron and raisins. To all of these dishes, saffron contributes a rich yellow color in addition to its inherent flavors.  

Cardamom


Similar to Saffron, Cardamom is also a very expensive spice – the third most expensive in the world – and is produced mainly in India. The cardamom spice itself comes from the ginger-like seeds of the cardamom plant, where the small brown-black sticky seeds are contained in pods. These pods may be roughly triangular, oval, or oblong, with rough, furrowed surfaces. Green cardamom seed pods are smaller and a pale green, while brown and black cardamom are larger and more ridged.

This spice has a strong, unique taste, with an intense aromatic, resinous fragrance. The flavor can be described as “Warm and eucalyptine with camphorous and lemony undertones. Black cardamom is blunter, the eucalyptus and camphor suggestions very pronounced.” Green cardamom, which are the “true” cardamom dried fruits, are sweetly fragrant with a slightly pungent flavor. Brown or black varieties of cardamom are larger, courser in flavor and have a slightly cooler, smokier scent.  

Cardamom is used most widely in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indian cuisine, where it is used as a flavoring in savory and sweet dishes. It features in curries, being one of the spices comprising the Indian spice blend garam masala, and rice dishes as well as Indian sweets and drinks. In the Middle East, whole and ground cardamom seeds are also commonly added to coffees and teas, and in confections and baked goods. The aromatic properties of cardamom have also made it commonly used as a breath freshener to be chewed after meals.

Turmeric

Turmeric is a spice that is native to South Asia, and is derived from the rhizome or rootstock of the Curcuma longa, a leafy plant in the ginger family. Once gathered, the rhizomes are boiled for several hours, dried in hot ovens, and ground into a powder that becomes Turmeric. Turmeric is distinctive in its deep orange-yellow color, earning it the nickname “Indian Saffron,” which it became a much less expensive alternative for.

Turmeric has an earthy and slightly acrid aroma, with hints of orange and ginger. Its flavor can be described as warm and aromatic with a bitter undertone.

This spice is used extensively in Middle Eastern and Asian cuisine, particularly in curries and curry powder, where it is often the principal ingredient because of its distinctive color. Interestingly, turmeric is popularly used in fish curries because it masks fishy odors. Turmeric is also used extensively in Moroccan cuisine to spice meat, especially lamb, and vegetables.

Juniper Berries

While the origin of Juniper berries is obscure, the spice is commonly cultivated across the Northern Hemisphere, most commonly in Hungary and Southern Europe, particularly Italy. The berries themselves are initially hard and light green, but eventually ripen into a blue-black berry surrounding three sticky, hard brown seeds. While best if used while they’re still green, juniper berries are commonly used in their dark, ripened forms.

Juniper berries are often described as having an air-freshening, piny aroma – one that is fragrant and flowery, a cross between gin and turpentine. In flavor, it is very “clean,” aromatic, bittersweet, and piny. The flavor of juniper is often compared to gin, as it has been used to flavor gin since the 17th century.

Because of their distinctive clean flavor and aroma, juniper berries play a unique role in cuisine, which is to contribute to a dish by “freshening it.” In addition to providing flavoring, juniper can reduce the gamey flavor of game or the fattiness of duck and pork dishes. As such, juniper berries go well with all sorts of game and meat, including pork, duck, veal, lamb, venison, rabbit and wild boar. It also blends well with a variety of spices, including thyme, sage, oregano, marjoram, bay leaves, and all spice. Juniper flavors are often featured in goulash, sauerkraut, fruit dishes like apple tarts, and any dish requiring alcohol.

Caraway Seeds

Caraway figures prominently in the cuisines of Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. It seems to have a special affinity for apples, pork and sausages. The spice has been said to counter act the fattiness of pork, duck and goose. Caraway comes from a flowering plant; once the plant flowers, the seeds produced are brownish in color, are ribbed and slightly crescent shaped. The spice resembles cumin and the two are often confused in Asia.

The caraway seeds, usually used whole, have a pungent, anise- and fennel- like flavor and aroma that comes from essential oils, mostly carvone and limonene.

Like many spices, caraway seeds should be toasted before many applications, particularly when being used as a flavoring for meats like beef, pork, and lamb. Caraway is also sprinkled on rye breads and added to sauerkraut, potatoes, stews, cauliflower and cottage cheese. It can also be used in cakes cookies, soups, omelets, rice and pasta dishes, cheese spreads and vegetable dishes.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 158 other followers

%d bloggers like this: