Cream is made by skimming the layer of butterfat from the top of milk before the milk is homogenized. Varieties of cream are defined by how much milk fat they contain. Creams with less fat are fine for coffee, but they can’t be heated or whipped. Cultured creams (sour cream, crème fraîche) break down when heated, and are best drizzled or dolloped after you've finished cooking a dish.
The spectrum of cream from lowest to highest butterfat content:
Half & Half: A mix of half whole milk and half cream. No whipping. No heating.
Light Cream: AKA Table Cream - Usually contains 20% milk fat. No whipping. No heating.
Crème Fraîche, Mexican Crema and Sour Cream: The cultured creams. No whipping. No heating. Cultured creams have sour undertones that differ from the silky sweetness of creams that are not cultured.
Light Whipping Cream: Has more milk fat (30-36%) than light cream. Whips into soft peaks. Heats nicely, too.
Heavy Cream (aka, Heavy Whipping Cream): 36-40% milk fat. Can be whipped into stiff peaks. Heats to a silky, rich thickness.
Recipe: Pappardelle With Creminis, Cream And Sage (Cookthink)
Recipe: Cream Of Broccoli Soup (Cookthink)
Reference: What do I do with leftover heavy cream? (Cookthink)
Pancetta is often called Italian bacon. That's a true enough description, but unlike American bacon, which is most often smoked, pancetta is unsmoked pork belly that is cured in salt and spices such as nutmeg, pepper and fennel. It's then dried for a few months.
Outside of Italy, pancetta most often comes rolled (rotolata) so that the fat and muscle spiral around each other. Pancetta can also be made as a slab (stesa) so that the fat is mostly on one side. Rolled pancetta is normally cut into circular paper-thin slices before being fried, while slab pancetta is usually chopped or diced before being added to a dish.
Pancetta adds a distinctive pork flavor to pasta and other dishes, without infusing into them bacon's smokiness. In the U.S., it's a common substitute for guanciale, which is the cured pork cheek that is the traditional base for many classic pastas, like carbonara or all'amatriciana.
Recipe: Browse Cookthink's pancetta recipes.
Reference: Browse Cookthink's bacon recipes.
Reference: How to prep pancetta (Cookthink)
Reference: What is guanciale? (Cookthink)
What's the point of sifting flour?
What's the point of sifting flour?
Originally, the point of sifting flour used to be to remove lumps and the occasional insect, although modern flour is generally free of those concerns. If you don't buy pre-sifted flour, sifting can still be a good idea for a number of reasons.
First, it loosens up flour that has been sitting around in storage for a long time, aerating it and helping your baked goods to have a lighter texture. It's also a good idea to sift flour if you are combining it with other ingredients, such as salt, baking powder or soda, or cocoa powder, to give the mixture a homogeneous texture.
Flour can be sifted either with an old-fashioned sifter, or by shaking flour through a sieve. Dry ingredients can also be whisked together with a wire whisk in a pinch, which also helps lighten up the flour.
Nevertheless, some people think that sifting flour is a pain, and skip it altogether, claiming they don't notice the difference. Do you?
Recipe: Sour Cream Bundt Cake (VeganYumYum)
Recipe: Banana Hazelnut Upside-Down Cake (Hogwash)
The cured italian meat pancetta comes either rolled (rotolata) or flat (stesa). Rolled pancetta is often sold thinly sliced. Flat pancetta comes as a slab. You can use it in any dish that would benefit from an underlying, mild pork flavor.
Here's an easy way to prep thin slices of rolled pancetta. First, stack 3-4 slices and roll them up like a cigar. If you want short strips (like lardons), cut the pancetta cigar in half lengthwise. Skip this step if you want the strips to be long.
Then slice the cigar crosswise. Toss the pieces around with your hand to separate them.
To dice slab pancetta, cut a few slices crosswise as thick or thin as you like. Stack the slices, then slice off and discard any unwanted tough skin.
Cut the slices into strips lengthwise.
Rotate the strips 90 degrees around and slice them crosswise to finish the dice.
Guanciale is Italian cured pork cheek or jowl. It's traditionally used in classic pastas, like spaghetti all carbonara and bucatini all'amatriciana. Because it's largely fat, guanciale has a more seductive pork flavor and delicate texture than cured meat that comes from the belly (like pancetta, which is a common substitute, though the flavor isn't the same).
To make guanciale, you rub pork cheeks with some combination of salt, sugar, pepper, herbs and spices and then air dry them for several weeks. If you're feeling ambitious, try making your own. Otherwise, La Quercia, Buon Italia and Salumi Artisan Cured Meats are all good sources.
Reference: Guanciale, the magic Roman bacon (FX Cuisine)
Reference: How to prep pancetta (Cookthink)
Recipe: Fettuccine With Guanciale, Egg And Parmesan (Cookthink)
What exactly is thick-cut bacon?
What exactly is thick-cut bacon?
Sliced American bacon is cut from a side of cured and/or smoked fatty pig belly and sold in packages without its rind.
It comes in three sizes: Thin-sliced bacon has about 35 strips per pound; regular-sliced bacon has 16-20; and thick-cut has just 12-16 strips per pound.
what you should know
An ancient, rugged predecessor of broccoli and brussels sprouts, kale loves the icy gloom of winter. Like many hardy greens, it sweetens when exposed to frost.
get it young Kale is a versatile, vitamin-rich antioxidant. Get them young and slender. If you bring home large, coarse kale, be prepared to cook it for a long time (like you would other bitter greens).
kaled over A few months ago, food writer Melissa Clark discovered that not all kales are created equal. ("If a chef dares to offer something as unappealing as, say, a raw kale salad, chances are it's fantastic." This epiphany led Clark to discover the glories of lacinato kale (aka, black kale, Tuscan kale and dinosaur kale).
clean greens Kale's ridges harbor all kinds of dirt and grime. You really have to go at them to get it all out. We prefer to wash and dry our greens before we prep them. But you might try chopping (or slicing) your kale and then washing and draining it. Whatever works.
hooked on kail In Scotland, kale (or kail) was for so long been a hardy staple that the word kail became another way of saying dinner. J.M. Barrie belonged to a group of Scottish writers known as the "Kail-yard school" because of their nostalgic depictions of rural Scotland (where kale fields were common).
what you need
At her Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, Annie Somerville does wonders with kale and other hardy greens. Our favorite of Somerville's books is her Everyday Greens.
We've been dying to try the duck leg stuffed with Tuscan kale in Thomas Keller's Bouchon, the follow-up to his French Laundry Cookbook.
Have you contemplated going vegan but been put off by the thought of getting by on seitan and tofu pups? Veganomicon be the book you've been waiting for.
what you do
Feeling a little worn? Make this invigorating Indian chicken, carrot and kale stew. Garam masala plays off the earthiness of the kale and carrot, and a touch of jalapeno points up all the flavors.
Broiling a steak? Pair it with a comforting, rich bowl of creamed kale. (You could also just skip the steak.)
For a heartier side dish to that steak, try mashing kale with potatoes. The Irish call this dish colcannon. The Dutch have a version called stamppot.
In this dish of chickpeas with merguez and kale, the beans act as a creamy canvas for the spicy lamb sausage and bitter leafy greens.
Get some satisfaction with this marinated beef and kale stew.
Pork, kale and cheese have a obvious affinity for each other. In this bacon and kale gratin, the greens ground what is an otherwise indulgent concoction.
Pork, kale and fish are the less obvious but equally delicious combination that's fuels hogwash's Seattle shellfish stew.
A reminder: if you'd like to wander through cookthink.com, we now have an index of all our recipes. And don't forget about our brand new Cookthinktank.
what you should know
Often called "Italian bacon," pancetta is different from its American counterpart in one important way. Bacon is usually smoked (and only sometimes cured), while pancetta is pork belly that is cured and spiced but not smoked.
roll vs. slab Pancetta can be prepared in two ways: as a roll (rotolata), in which the fat and muscle spiral around each other; and as a slab (stesa), in which the fat is almost entirely on one side.
make and prep your own Rolled pancetta is most often sliced paper thin. With slab pancetta, you often get a slightly thicker slice you can then dice. (If you want to cure, roll and age your own pork belly, check out Chow's step-by-step guide on making pancetta.)
if you lack guanciale Pancetta is often used in place of guanciale, which is the less commonly available cured pork cheek called for in traditional pasta dishes like carbonara and all'amatriciana.
if you lack pancetta If you can't find pancetta, you can use bacon in its place. Do you need to blanch the bacon before using it? Depends on how you want the finished dish to taste.
what you need
It's more focused on lardons than pancetta, but Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery is our favorite of Jane Grigson's contributions to the world of food reference.
More recently, author and blogger Michael Ruhlman has updated the world of charcuterie with the appropriately titled Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
In Pig Perfect, Peter Kaminsky goes on a pilgrimage in search of the world's best cuts of pork. He mostly succeeds.
what you do
Tender, bitter and salty, this recipe for lima beans and radicchio with pancetta is Italianesque comfort food.
Not as comforting, though, as this fettuccine with pancetta, egg and parmesan, a variation of classic pasta carbonara.
Another classic winter dish: Italian cabbage and white bean soup.
This hearty lentil soup with chorizo and potatoes combines the mild spiciness of the Spanish sausage with the porky richness of pancetta.
Even though it's out of season, we've seen some beautiful asparagus lately. Food miles be damned: we've been eating a lot of this sautéed asparagus with pancetta and garlic.
What do I do with leftover heavy cream?
What do I do with leftover heavy cream?
It often happens that you have a little heavy cream left over from some other recipe. To use it up, try one of these easy suggestions:
- Whisk it together with an egg yolk, grated parmesan and red pepper flakes, then toss with hot noodles in a bowl.
- Add to scrambled eggs for an extra rich flavor.
- Drizzle over vegetables (fennel, asparagus, endive) in a gratin or casserole dish, sprinkle on some grated cheese and broil for a delicious side. (Recipe: Endive Gratin)
- Whisk together with herbs and vinegar or lemon juice for a creamy dressing.
- Stir it into a soup or stew for richness. (Recipe: White Bean And Green Pea Soup With Mint)
Whether it's visible or not, vegetables usually have dirt, dust and other residue on them. Here's an easy and thorough way to wash all kinds of leafy greens:
Grab a bowl large enough to easily hold the greens and fill it with lukewarm water. Submerge the greens in the water and shake them back and forth to dislodge or dissolve the dirt. Then just lift the greens out of the water so the dirt stays behind. Pour out the water and repeat with clean water until the water stays clear when you pull out the greens.
