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)
What does it mean to let the butter's foam subside?
What does it mean to let the butter's foam subside?
Certain phrases have become part of the recipe vernacular despite giving little in the way of good guidance. Most of us, for example, have seen something like this in recipes that call for cooking with butter:
“Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. When the foam subsides, add the vegetables and stir.”
Why does the butter's foam need to subside?
It’s an indicator of temperature. Adding vegetables or meat to cold fat is a fast way to mess up a good dish. The ingredients soak up the butter rather than cook in it, and the finished dish can turn out excessively buttery and too moist on the surface. Hot fat, on the other hand, prevents sticking and encourages browning.
Letting the butter's foam subside before adding ingredients ensures a hot cooking environment and adds a rich flavor to the dish. Of course, butter is hot well before its foam subsides. In some dishes like soups, where you're sweating vegetables, you may not want that extra richness. In these cases, you're looking for the point at which the butter begins to foam.
But if a recipe does call for you to let the butter's foam subside, here's a rough guide:
Heat 2 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat. Swirl the butter around in the pan. The milk solids will begin to separate out. The butter will sizzle and foam.
After another minute or so the foam subsides. The butter looks more like oil now, and it’s hot. At this point you might add eggs for an omelette.
For something like a sage butter sauce, let the butter go another 30 seconds or so to let it brown and take on a slightly nutty flavor. Like olive oil, butter has a low smoke point, so watch it closely. You don't want it to burn and smoke. If it does, rinse and dry the pan, then start over.
Recipe: Tortellini With Sage, Brown Butter, And Parmesan (Cookthink)
Related: Root Source: Unsalted Butter (Cookthink)
Root Source: Champagne Vinegar
Root Source: Champagne Vinegar
what you should know
Red and white wine vinegars, while often good, tend to taste like a single note. Champagne vinegar, more aromatic and complex, tastes like a chord being played in your mouth.
The word vinegar comes from the French phrase "vin aigre," which means sour wine. Wine and Champagne vinegars are formed by the fermentation of their alcohol into acetic acid.
so bad it's good Does that just mean that vinegar is wine gone bad? Yep, that's pretty much what it means. Except that the process is controlled to make its "gone bad" taste good.
champagne for one Champagne vinegar is an obvious choice for French-leaning vinaigrettes. But it's also flavorful enough to use by itself for drizzling over hot, roasted potatoes, a creamy soup or a composed salad.
fan dom One of the greatest quotes ever -- Ever? Yes, ever! -- is attributed to the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon, who, upon tasting Champagne for the first time, supposedly yelled: "Come quickly, brothers, I am drinking the stars!"
what you need
Ever wanted to know how bubbly gets it bubbles? Girard Liger-Belair's Uncorked: The Science of Champagne exhausts the subject in a highly readable way.
At the top of Chip's reading list for the spring is Benjamin Wallace's upcoming The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine.
You can spend a lot of money on a single whisk, but we've never come across a task that this no-frills set of three stainless steel whisks by Norpro couldn't handle.
what you do
One of Brys' favorite ways to start (or end) a big, rich meal is with this slightly bitter, palate cleansing frisée salad.
We love to pair Champagne vinegar with walnut oil. In this beet, escarole, walnut and goat cheese salad with orange vinaigrette, we stick with olive oil but mix in the walnut itself.
Lately, we've been on the hunt for simple recipes that somehow taste bigger than the sum of their parts. This Bibb lettuce and avocado salad is a perfect example of that.
A healthier and, we would argue, tastier way to make a classic side dish: potato salad with capers and parsley.
The coarse crust of peppercorns and the tangy sauce play off the rich, tender strip in this riff on the traditional steak au poivre.
Tongs are the most useful tool in the kitchen.
Having a good pair of tongs is like having a heatproof robotic arm in the kitchen. Consider a partial list of things you can do with a pair of tongs: stir something in a sizzling pan; flip something in a sizzling pan; move something around in a sizzling pan; spear something in a sizzling pan; push something in a sizzling pan to check for doneness; hold something above a sizzling pan to taste it; take something out of a sizzling pan. And that's just around a sizzling pan. Standing around a grill or reaching inside an oven, tongs are critical.
You can spend a small fortune on specialty tongs, but you don't have to. OXO's Good Grips stainless steel tongs are inexpensive and probably as special as you’ll ever need.
So here's our public service announcement - buy tongs now.
Most of the juiciness in meat is actually water, but the sensation of juiciness happens on two fronts.
The first comes from actual moisture held in meat fibers that is released when the fibers are broken during chewing.
The secondary perception of juiciness is due to saliva flow that is stimulated by the presence of fat in the mouth. That is why a well-marbled meat will taste juicy even when it has been cooked relatively dry, while a bite of veal (too young to be thickly marbled) may start out moist and tender, but will dry out in the mouth before it’s swallowed.
Vinegar is basically fermented wine. You know how that forgotten bottle of red takes on a thin, shrill quality when you neglect to drink it in a timely fashion? It's on its way to becoming vinegar. (The French word for vinegar, vinaigre, literally means "sour wine.")
Made since the Gallo-Roman era, vinegar gots its official stamp of approval when vinegarmaking was declared an official occupation in 1580 by Henri IV. It's a pretty simple process: vinegar is made using a bacterial process in which naturally fermented wine is converted into a weak acetic acid that lends vinegar its sour taste.
Vinegar quality depends on the quality of the ingredients from which it is made. There are many types of vinegar, which can be made from wine, spirits, Champagne, rice or honey. It can be infused with tarragon, raspberry and even rose petals.
Reference: The Vinegar Institute's FAQ
Recipe: Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Sweet Onions
Recipe: Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
