Do I need to blanch bacon before using it in a recipe?
Do I need to blanch bacon before using it in a recipe?
It depends on how you want the finished dish to taste.
If you want a salty, smoky flavor in the finished dish, then you shouldn't blanch the bacon. (Do be careful though if the recipe calls for additional salt.) If you want the pork flavor of the bacon to come through but are concerned that its smokiness will overwhelm the other flavors, you should blanch the bacon before using it in the recipe.
To blanch bacon, put it in a saucepan and cover it (by 3 inches) with cold water. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the pan, rinse the bacon in cold water and then pat it dry with paper towel.
Reference: What does it mean to blanch something? (Cookthink)
Reference: What does it mean for bacon to render its fat? (Cookthink)
Recipe: Avocado With Bacon Vinaigrette (Cookthink)
Recipe: Chicken Madeira And Macaroni Soup (hogwash)
Recipe: Pork Paté With Port And Hazelnuts (Traveler's Lunchbox)
How to make homemade beef stock
How to make homemade beef stock
Got some leftover beef bones? Make beef stock. It's a long but easy process. Here's what you do.First, take several beef bones along with large pieces of onion, carrot and celery and place them in a shallow roasting pan. Roast them at 400F for about 45 minutes or until they brown.Put the vegetables and meats in a large pot with star anise, cinnamon, thyme and enough water to cover. Simmer for 4 hours or so.When it's done, strain the liquid into a bowl. Set it in the refrigerator for several hours, and the fats will congeal to the top. Once they are solid, you can just lift that layer away with a spoon or tongs.Recipe: Beef Pho (Cookthink)
Reference: What is pho? (Cookthink)
Bacon is the cured and/or smoked side, belly or back of a pig.
American bacon—called streaky bacon by our British friends—is cut from a side of fatty pig belly. It's normally sold in slices ("rashers" across the pond). Canadian bacon (English back bacon) is made from the leaner loin, located in the back.
While bacon usually implies "pork," the word can be used to describe cuts (and composite cuts) from other animals, such as turkey, as well as "veggie bacon" made with soy.
What exactly is Tabasco Sauce?
What exactly is Tabasco Sauce?
Tabasco Sauce is the name of a tradmarked hot pepper sauce made from small, red Tabasco peppers that originated in the Mexican state of Tabasco. It's manufactured on Avery Island in Louisiana from barrel-aged peppers, vinegar and salt. Tabasco Sauce is used to add a vinegary heat to scrambled eggs, soups, stews and other dishes, and is an essential ingredient in Bloody Mary cocktails.
Tabasco Sauce was invented in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny, an ex-banker from Maryland who moved to Louisiana in the 1840s and the company is now run by the fifth generation of his family. Tabasco Sauce hits 2,500-5,000 SHU on the Scoville scale.
By far the most popular type of beer in the world, lager tends to be crisp, nonchalant and easily swillable. If you've had a pilsner, bock, marzen or Colt 45, then you've tasted lager.
What's the difference between a lager and an ale? German for "storehouse," lager refers to the cold rooms where lager is fermented (using bottom-fermenting yeast). Ales are made with top-fermenting yeasts that prefer warmer temperatures.
Lager predates Christopher Columbus, but by the 19th century, the U.S. had developed its own style of lager. Based on the Czech pilsner, the taste of American lagers are generously characterized as "flavor neutral."
Every year, Munich celebrates lager with Oktoberfest.
Is making mayonnaise at home worth it? Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
Homemade mayonnaise is one of the easiest things you can make and the taste is far superior to the stuff in the blue-topped jars.
You can't buy the fresh lightness of a homemade batch of mayo, especially one spiked with some nice herbs, a little garlic or some cayenne. Two minutes with a food processor, and you're done. Take that time and try it for yourself.
Recipe: Fresh Mayonnaise(Cookthink)
Recipe: Shallot Mayonnaise(Cookthink)
what you should know
If you were a beer, odds are you'd be a lager.
By far the most popular type of beer in the world, lager tends to be crisp, nonchalant and easily swillable. (Just like you?)
If you've had a pilsner, bock, marzen or Colt 45, then you've tasted lager.
lager vs. ale What's the difference between a lager and an ale? German for "storehouse," lager refers to the cold rooms where lager is fermented (using bottom-fermenting yeast). Ales are made with top-fermenting yeasts that prefer warmer temps.
ancient history Lager predates Christopher Columbus, but by the 19th century, the U.S. had developed its own style of lager. Based on the Czech pilsner, the taste of American lagers are generously characterized as "flavor neutral." (Monty Python fans will know why American beers are like making love in a canoe.)
golden days Every year, Munich celebrates lager with Oktoberfest. If you can't make it, Eric Asimov can recommend some fine steins to drink at home.
what you need
This simple beer kit is a good way to get started if you think you're interested in home brewing.
There is no better way to proclaim your love of lager than with a wall-mounted beer-opener.
Author Maureen Ogle counterintuitively sings the praises of big, consistent American beer in Ambitious Brew.
If you aren't drinking from the bottle, try these classy pilsner glases. For something slightly less classy, there is always the funnel.
what you do
Need a little hair of the dog? Mix a Michelada to ease the pain.
Bring a barbecue classic indoors and make this beer can chicken in your oven.
While an English ale seems more fitting for fish and chips, we prefer to wash them down with the light, crisp flavor of a lager.
All the talk of cold beer has us craving spicy shrimp (Brys), Asian mussels (Kristin), onion rings (Claire), black bean soup (Corinne) and chicken and sausage gumbo (Chip).
Turkey and red bean chili will keep you warm as the nights grow cold.
Featured: Munch on these pepper jack and lager grissini, this week's Root Source Challenge featured recipe. Congratulations to Cafe Lynnylu!
Find more lager recipes at Cookthink.com. And if you haven't yet signed up for a free account at Cookthink, do it now!
Sauerkraut is easy to make at home; it mostly requires cabbage, salt and time.
First, clean and core the cabbage.
Next, finely shred the cabbage to about the thickness of a nickel.
The key to good sauerkraut is controlled fermentation; this is acheived by cool temperatures and lactic acid-loving bacteria. Your hands and the container need to be immaculately clean so that the cabbage does not pick up bacteria that may rot it instead of fermenting.
A large, enameled stockpot is a good place to make sauerkraut should you lack a wooden barrel or a piece of glazed crockery. The heavy metal will help to keep the temperature steady and the enamel will prevent the salt and lactic-acid brine from reacting with the metal. Under no circumstances should you use a bare metal pot to make sauerkraut, as the acidic brine would leach metals out into the cabbage.
After thoroughly coating the shredded cabbage with salt and layering it into the crock of your choice, make sure that there is enough brine covering the cabbage. (This may take an hour or so for the liquid to leach out of the leaves and cover the future sauerkraut.) A little extra brine may be made from boiling water and salt, cooled and then added to the shredded cabbage before covering the whole assembly with plastic wrap and a heavy plate. The plate will serve to keep the mixture submerged so that fermentation is undisturbed.
After a few weeks of fermenting at 50F, the finished sauerkraut is a pale, creamy color and full of rich, briny flavor. It is recommended that sauerkraut is rinsed and drained before use to control the salt levels in the dish.
Parsley used to be a gross-looking garnish on the side of your plate. Now, we think of it as one of the best go-to herbs to work into your cooking. It adds a bright but relatively neutral herbal flavor to almost any dish.To prep it, first rinse and shake dry the leaves. Hold the bouquet at an angle with the leaves against the cutting board. Run your knife down the side of the bouquet to slice away the leaves. It's fine to remove some of the tender stems along with the leaves.Now just run your knife back and forth across the pile of leaves, chopping them as coarsely or as finely as you need to. The closer to the end of the cooking you plan to add the parsley, the finer you'll want to chop it. But since parsley's so tender it's usually okay to keep the the chop coarse.
Pumpernickel is a dark German rye bread. It gets its color from baking for up to 24 hours in a low, steam-filled oven. Some modern manufacturers cheat on the long baking time and instead add molasses, coffee, cocoa powder and other coloring agents.
So why the funny name? Some suggest that the bread was named by an 18th-century Frenchman who dismissed its non-baguetteness as "bon pour Nicole" -- good for Nicole, his horse.
Others have guessed that it comes from the word pumpen, a German word for "fart," plus nickel, a nickname for Nikolaus that can mean either a half-wit or the devil himself. Another theory traces the bread back to the 1450s, when it was distributed to the poor during a famine in Osnabrück, earning it the nickname of bonum panicum, or "good bread," which later morphed into "bumponickel" and finally into "pumpernickel."
