We bruise herbs to release their aromatic oils. To bruise herbs, gently roll and rub a bunch of sprigs in your hand or tap loose leaves with a mallet or the back of a knife.
A recipe may call for bruising herbs in lieu of chopping them when the herbs are not intended to be eaten. We add sprigs of bruised thyme to simmering vegetable soup and then remove the sprigs before serving. Make flavored oil by stuffing bruised rosemary or basil into a bottle of olive oil and letting it stand for at least a day.
The term "Thai basil" can refer to three different types of basil common in Thai cooking -- Queen of Siam basil, Holy Basil or Horapa basil. Horapa is the most commonly used Thai basil in the United States. It has purple stems, small greenish purple leaves, and a licoricey taste that is different from Italian sweet basil.
Thai basil adds a subtle anise flavor and perfume when added to hot soups, stir-fries or curries just before serving. Or it can be eaten fresh in salads, wrapped in a lettuce leaf with mint, or fried in spring rolls.
Recipe: Beef Pho (Cookthink)
Recipe: Thai Carrot-Cucumber Salad (Cookthink)
Reference: What is pho? (Cookthink)
Reference: What is sriracha? (Cookthink)
What is extra-virgin olive oil?
What is extra-virgin olive oil?
Extra-virgin olive oil is the precious unrefined first result of cold-pressing olives to make a fruity liquid that contains less than one percent acid.
Extra-virgin olive oil is the most expensive olive oil variety, and it is best appreciated in salads or as a garnish to give preparations a final flourish. If you are using olive oil to cook, it's fine to use regular olive oil.
Greece is the #1 consumer of olive oil in the world and also the leading producer of extra virgin olive oils, which account for 82 percent of their olive oil production. The U.S. is not a member of the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC), which regulates olive oil standards worldwide, and the IOOC does not recognize the U.S. standards for extra-virgin oil.
There is much controversy in the olive oil world, with accusations of corruption and adulteration smearing consumer confidence and shedding doubt on the purity of so-called virgin olive oil.
Removing the seeds from a cucumber reduces the amount of watery liquid you get in the finished soup or salad in favor of the pure flesh of the cucumber. It's not always necessary (and the seeds are good for you), but it's easy to do when you want a more refined dish.
Slice the cucumber in half lengthwise. Then scoop the seeds out with the tip of a spoon. If you press down hard enough, one or two passes with the spoon should get most of the seeds.
Storing fresh herbs is a battle against the inevitable, but here are a few tips for keeping them alive in time for you to eat them up:
1 Set a bushy herb like parsley, cilantro, chervil, or mint in a shallow glass of water and keep it on the counter or in the refrigerator for several days, just like a bouquet.
2 Or, rinse it, wrap it loosely in a paper or dish towel while still damp, and place it (with or without a plastic bag covering) in the crisper or at the bottom of the fridge.
3 Sturdy herbs such as rosemary or thyme can be stored in paper or loose plastic (either keep it loose or puncture some air holes to let out moisture). Or you can simply hang them upside down in the kitchen, where they will dry slowly.
4 Do not manhandle delicate herbs like chives, tarragon or basil. Rinse lightly, wrap loosely in paper and place in a plastic bag in the crisper.
5 Fresh herbs should last about a week if stored properly. If you're at the end of your garden's season and you have a tons of herbs left unused, you can most herbs to have later in the year. Kalyn's Kitchen breaks down the best way to freeze basil, rosemary and thyme.
Reference: Marjoram vs. oregano (Cookthink)
Reference: How to make pesto (Cookthink)
You can leave basil leaves whole and add them to salads and hot dishes toward the end of cooking, tear them into pieces for more capricious basil flavor, or thinly slice them. To avoid bruising the basil, slide a sharp knife down and across the basil with a deliberate, smooth stroke. A clean cut will darken the leaves less than a pounding cut.
To slice basil, first stack the leaves together.
You can either roll them up like a cigar and slice through them to make a chiffonade, or just slice away at them as they are.
what you should know
If it's ugly, the old produce adage goes, it must be good. Nothing proves this so convincingly as the subsoil family of dark taproots, homeliest among them the beet.
The beet may not be much to look at on the outside, but what really defines it is the sweetness of its flesh, which is usually a vibrant red, yellow or orange.
Its high sugar content and hardiness have made it a fiber-rich workhorse in northern climates such as the Ukraine, whose national dish is the beet-based soup called borscht. (The family of America's most famous beet farmer, Dwight Schrute, came from Germany.)
keep the beet Stay away from beets that are soft or that have wet or bruised spots. You want smooth, firm beets. In the refrigerator, they'll keep for a month or so. Before cooking, gently scrub the beets. To prevent them from "bleeding," wait until after you've cooked and let them cool a little before you peel them.
it's chard When you can, buy beets with the tops still attached. When you get them home, lop off all but a half inch or so of the greens and store them separately. Cook the greens just like you would chard, which is actually a beet that's been bred as a leaf vegetable.
what you need
Peeling with the OXO 7" Good Grips swivel peeler is like writing with your favorite pen. With its thick grip, you can get an easy peel that doesn't maul the beet. (It won't keep your hands from staining pink, though. If soap doesn't get it out, try lemon juice.)
n her book Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters lets beets and other roots shine with as little embellishment as possible. We endorse this.
For borscht, you've got to have a good loaf of locally made bread. At my local market, I buy fresh rye made by Holyoke's El Jardín Bakery. Slice it, toast it and drizzle it with butter or oil. Or just tear a chunk off for sopping.
what you do
You can do no wrong by simply roasting beets. (Wrapping or covering them in foil makes them easier to peel). While they're still warm, peel and toss them with quality vinegar. Waters insists that the vinegar highlights the sweetness of the beets. We agree.
That sweetness is the perfect canvas for playing around with contrasting flavors. Grate raw beets and toss them in a salad with frisee, walnuts and creamy fresh goat cheese.
Depending on where you find yourself in the world, borscht (or barszcz or bartsch or bors) can range from a cold, light broth to a hot, meaty stew. Here's a delicious but simple vegetarian borscht.
what you should know
An aromatic masking as an herb. A slender, slight blade that implies (rather than declares) onion flavor. A garnish's garnish. That's pretty much the skinny on chives.
afterthought Because chives are the most delicate of the onions, they're usually added near or at the end of cooking-- sprayed across the surface of a soup, folded into an omelet, sprinkled on warm noodles or spooned over a baked potato from the salad bar (though not the one at Applebee's).
fines herbes Chives are one of four herbs that form the classic fines herbes. They're also central to the Persian New Year's dish sabzi polo and the Blue Flower omelet, a chive flower-herb omelet traditional in Shaker cooking.
chives tales If you get scorched in the summer sun, take heart: the Romans apparently used chives to treat sunburn.
what you need
Do you use scissors to snip herbs? If not, you're missing out on the joy of kitchen shears.
Each of us owns a rotary herb mill. None of us uses it. Ever.
Use this Cuisinart mini-prep processor to make chive oil, chive butter, chive vinegar, chive vinaigrette and chive cream cheese.
Somehow, it just wouldn't be as funny if it were called The Chive.
what you do
Chilled cantaloupe soup with chives and prosciutto is a perfect cool dinner for a hot summer night.
A shower of chives adds a delicate onion flavor to this heirloom tomato and herb salad.
Tortellini with tarragon, chives and parsley is a nice, light seasonal pasta. (Add chervil to make it tortellini aux fines herbes.)
Next time you're craving meat and potatoes, try a grilled flank steak and braised new potatoes with spring onions, garlic and chives.
You'll have to read Kin Sunée's Trail of Crumbs to get the full story on her whispery eggs with crabmeat and herbs. For a more classic egg-herb combination, try an omelette aux fines herbes.
Featured recipe: This herbed tuna salad with feta and pine nuts comes from Nicole of Pinch My Salt. It's the featured recipe for this week's Root Source Challenge.
To emulsify means to bind two things together that don't naturally bind, like oil and vinegar.
In order to make the combination work, you need an emulsifier, a bridge substance. Common emulsifiers include eggs (to bind oil and lemon juice for mayonnaise) and mustard (for vinaigrette).
To emulsify, you'll need a whisk, blender or food processor. When a recipe doesn't call for an emulsifier to bind, say, a vinaigrette, whisk the oil and vinegar into a temporary emulsion just before serving.
Reference: What makes a mustard "Dijon"?
Reference: Homemade mayo: worth it?
Recipe: Shallot-mustard vinaigrette
Recipe: Kalamata Olive Vinaigrette (Kalyn's Kitchen)
The French term chiffonade means "made of rags." In cooking, chiffonade is a technique for slicing herbs and leafy vegetables into long, thin strips. This method is useful for cooking tougher greens like kale and chard, which can be hard to chew when left in bigger pieces. It's also a nice way to slice up herbs like mint or basil to scatter over a dish or add to a salad.
To chiffonade something, stack and roll a small pile of leaves and then slice (or snip) them into thin ribbons.
The easiest way to store basil is in a ziploc bag, tucked away in the refrigerator.
The trick here is to manage the moisture content in the bag. If you notice that too much water accumulates in the bag and turns the leaves dark, slip a few pieces of folded paper towel inside the bag between the basil and the plastic. The paper towel will absorb the water, but release enough of it to keep the air inside humid.
If the basil still has roots, you can put the roots in a small cup of water, cover the leaves with a plastic or ziploc bag, and secure the bag around the cup with a rubber band (or just tuck the bag underneath the cup). This method takes up a little more room in the refrigerator, and we haven't noticed that the roots extend the life of the basil that much.
Reference: How to prep basil (Cookthink)
Recipe: Watermelon Basil Agua Fresca (Coconut & Lime)
Recipe: Prosciutto, Mozzarella And Basil Pita Pizza (Cookthink)
Side by side, they might fool you: cucumbers and zucchinis share the same dark green skin, pale seedy flesh, and long cylindrical shape. To the touch, however, these near-twins are not the same: cucumbers are cold and waxy, while zucchinis are rough and dry.
The two vegetables also perform very differently when cooked. Cucumbers wilt but maintain a slight crunch when heated. Zucchinis soften, sweeten and brown on the stove top or in the oven. Eaten raw, cucumbers are juicy, cool and crisp. Raw zucchini is heartier, a little sweet and a little bitter. As a general rule, we prefer cucumbers raw and zucchini cooked. (There are many exceptions to this rule.)
While you can’t replace one with the other, zucchinis and cucumbers do complement one another. Slice two cucumbers, two zucchinis and one sweet onion, and soak them all in rice vinegar for at least an hour in the refrigerator. Serve as a cooling side dish alongside something spicy or layer a few slices on top of a burger or sandwich.
Recipe: Cucumber, Carrot And Radish Salad With Creamy Avocado Dressing (Cookthink)
Recipe: Couscous With Raisins, Zucchini and Feta (Cookthink)
Reference: How to seed a cucumber (Cookthink)
Reference: What is raita? (Cookthink)
