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.
What is the difference between stock and broth?
What is the difference between stock and broth?
The two terms are often used interchangeably but retain an aura of cloudiness like the unskimmed foam on a simmering pot of stock or broth.
Stock is the strained liquid that you get once you've cooked various meat, poultry, fish or seafood, vegetables, herbs and seasonings in water. Brown stock is made by browning bones and vegetables first in oil before adding water and/or wine to the pot.
Stock is the basis for many a soup, stew and features in many sauces, often reduced. White sauce is made from white stock made with chicken, veal or other poultry; brown sauces incorporate brown stock made from veal, beef or poultry meat and bones. A court-bouillon is also a stock. Vegetable stock is made with vegetables which may or may not have been first sautéed in oil or butter.
Broth is also the strained liquid that's left after you've cooked meat, poultry, fish or seafood, vegetables, herbs or seasonings in water. Broth is also called bouillon. Nevertheless, cubes of instant stock that is reconstituted with water as a cooking shortcut are called bouillon cubes. The liquid in a pot-au-feu is also called bouillon.
Florence fennel, the bulbous variety found in most American stores has a subtle anise (mild licorice) flavor and delicate celery texture. The bulbs are often sold with the feathery fronds lopped off. Get the ones with some fronds attached if you can -- they’re the perfect raw finish to a fennel dish, sprinkled on as a bright green top layer to echo the anise flavor.
You can thinly slice fennel crosswise for sautés, pastas, and salads, or cut it into wedges lengthwise to roast, braise, or gratinee.
First, rinse the bulb and fronds well and pat them dry. Cut off the the stalks close to the bulb.
If you want to remove some of the slightly stringy outer layer, peel bulb with a vegetable peeler.
To slice for salads or quick cooking, just cut across the bulb as thick or thin as you like.
For longer cooking methods like braising and roasting, cut the bulb lengthwise into wedges of any size. Slice through the core, leaving some of it attached to each wedge to help keep the wedges together. The core will become tender with cooking.
If you want to cook wedges briefly, like on a grill, it's best to remove the core. Cut the bulb into wedges lengthwise, then sliced down along the core at an angle. Then just slice the quarters crosswise to any thickness.
Now that you know how to prep fennel, try cooking it - there are lots of fennel recipes at Cookthink.com.
Prepping squash is a lot like prepping zucchini, except that some squash have a more irregular shape than zucchini. You can take care of this by cutting the squash into similarly-sized sections and going from there.For longer cooking dishes like ragouts, braises, and stews, you can slice the zucchini into full rounds of any thickness. For most dishes you'll want them from 1/4 to 1-inch thick.For quicker-cooking dishes and to make bite-size pieces, cut the squash in half lengthwise. Then slice it crosswise to any thickness. To make quarter-rounds, just cut the squash halves in half again lengthwise, then slice crosswise to any thickness.For a prettier cut, you can slice them on the bias. This cut is great for stir-fries.For even smaller pieces, usually for quicker-cooking dishes, just slice the lengthwise halves in half again. Then slice them crosswise as before, either straight on or on the bias.
When you want a dish to have quintessential garlic flavor that permeates each bite, mince it. You can mince with a knife, or a garlic press.
Either way, you need to free the individual cloves. To do that, press down on the head with the heel of your palm. Apply firm, even pressure so the cloves don't fly all over the place.
To peel an individual clove, cut of the hard stem end where the clove attached to the bulb. Either stop the cut just short of the skin on the other side and peel the skin around to remove it, or make the cut all the way through and squeeze out the clove. The older the clove, the easier the skin releases.
You can also peel it by setting the side of your knife blade on the clove and pressing down until you feel the skin release, though not hard enough to pulverize it, or the skin will get mixed in with the garlic.
To mince with a knife, smash the peeled clove with the side of the knife. Then just run your knife back and forth across the smashed clove, chopping as you go until it's as fine as you like.
If you don't want individual little pieces of garlic and have a press, just put the whole peeled clove (or cloves, if you can fit them) in the press and squeeze. Use your knife to trim away any clinging garlic.
Kosher salt is a bright-tasting white, coarse-grained salt made without additives (such as iodine).
It is called kosher salt in North America (elsewhere it's referred to as coarse-grain salt) because it is used to aid in the preparing of kosher meat that is salted after butchering in order to draw out the animal's blood. Kosher salt works particularly well because its large grains don't immediately dissolve on the surface of meat, drawing in liquid instead.
But you don't have to keep kosher to appreciate kosher salt, a favorite of cooks everywhere for its large flaky texture and clean taste that works in a variety of dishes.
If you're new to kosher salt, be aware that it doesn't always dissolve completely in baked goods and that its grains vary in size according to the manufacturer, so be sure to check the box for measurement conversions. The large flakes of kosher salt make it a nice finishing salt to sprinkle on dishes before serving.
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini?
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini?
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini. As far as cooking goes, not much -- just their skin color. We substitute one for the other all the time.
Both are so-called summer squashes that are picked while still immature, so that their thin skins and soft seeds are still edible. A yellow squash is of course yellow, with either a straight body and smooth rind or a crookneck and bumpy skin (which looks odd but is perfectly fine to eat).
Recipe: Zucchini Soup With Lime (Cookthink)
Recipe: Grilled Shrimp And Squash Kebabs (Cookthink)
Reference: Cucumber vs. zucchini (Cookthink)
Waxy white and red potatoes have less starch and more moisture than russets and other high-starch potatoes. This low moisture content makes them ideal for boiling, mashing, roasting or frying. New potatoes have a waxy texture and thin skins, meaning they keep their shape in potato salads and can be pan roasted.
Store potatoes in a cool, dark place. Putting them in the refrigerator will turn their starch to unwanted sugar, making them grow unpleasantly dark when cooked.
Recipe: Potato Salad With Capers And Parsley (Cookthink)
Recipe: Roasted Fennel And Potatoes With Fennel Seed (Cookthink)
Chopping is probably the most common way to prep an onion. Chopped onions show up in anything that needs the basic, earthy pungent flavor that onions give. Chop them larger for longer-cooking dishes like stews and rustic soups, and smaller (call it a dice if you like) for anything from salsas to sauces to ragouts.
To start, cut the onion in half through the root. The root itself will help keep the onion together for chopping
Rotate the onion 90 degrees and cut off the papery end (not the root end). This will make the skin easy to peel away and discard.
Peel back the onion's papery skin. It's often easiest to peel away the first layer of the onion along with the skin.
Make a series of diagonal cuts (roughly 45 degrees) into the side of the onion. Keep more space between the slices for a large chop. Make the cuts closer together for a small chop or a dice.
Now make a series of horizontal cuts to finish shaping the chop or dice.
Finally, rotate the onion again and slice crosswise against the checkerboard pattern you made in the onion. The chopped pieces will fall away from the onion.
Cannellini beans vs. Great Northern beans vs. Navy beans
Cannellini beans vs. Great Northern beans vs. Navy beans
Cannellini, Great Northern and Navy are three popular types of white beans. What's the difference between them?
Cannellini beans are large and have that traditional kidney shape. With a slightly nutty taste and mild earthiness, they have a relatively thin skin and tender, creamy flesh. They hold their shape well and are one of the best white beans for salads and ragouts.
Great Northern beans are smaller than cannellinis and and suitable for any number of uses: salads, soups, stews, ragouts, purees. Their texture is slightly grainy, with a nutty, dense flavor. Popular in North America, Great Northerns look like white baby lima beans.
Navy beans are small and oval and cook relatively quickly (which, as Aliza Green notes in The Bean Bible, has made them popular with commercial baked bean manufacturers). Known as Boston beans, the white coco, pea beans or alubias chicas, Navy beans are perfect for dishes that don't need the full bean shape to shine: purees, soups, stews and baked beans.
It's great to know the differences between the three and it's worth paying more attention to them when you're using dried beans. Truthfully though, when we use canned white beans, we use these three almost interchangeably.
Recipe: Italian Cabbage And White Bean Soup
Recipe: Squid, White Bean And Arugula Salad
Recipe: Tuscan White Bean Stew (VeganYumYum)
