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)
The word "canola" is a derivative of the phrase "Canadian oil, low acid."
Let's break that down a little further. Canola oil was first developed in Canada (in the 1970s), so that takes care of the "cano-" part of the word.
What about the "-la" or "low acid" part? Canola oil is made from varieties of rapeseed that contain very little amounts of something called erucic acid. Rapeseed naturally contains high levels of erucic acid, which has been suspected of being toxic to some animals in high levels.
People have been cooking with rapeseed oil for centuries. However, given the suspicions about its cumulative negative health effects, breeders began developing rapeseed that contained only small traces of erucic acid. And that's how "cano-" got its "-la".
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.
Once a prize kept under lock and key in wealthy households, sugar is now ubiquitous and comes in many forms. Most commercial sugar is made from cane or beet root. Here's a look at the most common types of sugar used in the kitchen.
Granulated white sugar: White sugar is highly refined and made from sugarcane or beets. This all-purpose refined white sugar has small but fairly coarse crystals and is used to sprinkle on food, sweeten beverages, or add to dishes during cooking. Golden granulated sugar is a brown sugar made from sugar cane molasses that is similar but has a light brown color.
Castor (caster) or superfine sugar: This refined white sugar has fine crystals that dissolve more quickly than regular granulated sugar, making it a good choice for baking meringues. Golden castor sugar is made from unrefined cane sugar.
Brown sugar: Brown sugar is nothing more than white sugar that has been mixed with molasses to color it and give it a moist texture. Light brown sugar has less molasses than dark brown sugar. Brown sugar should not be confused with raw sugar, which has a similar color and taste but is actually the residue from processed sugarcane.
Turbinado sugar: A sugar cane extract that is made by steaming unrefined raw sugar. It has large crystals and a slight molasses flavor. It's a shade paler than brown sugar and can be substituted for brown sugar in recipes. We like to use turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top of muffins, cookies and scones. It holds its texture well and, when cooked, has a nice sweet crunch.
Demerara Sugar: True Demerara sugar is raw or partly refined sugar with large crystals, but some impostors are nothing more than white sugar stained with molasses.
Muscovado Sugar: This raw cane sugar comes in light and dark varieties and is used to make cakes and desserts.
Powdered, icing or confectioner's sugar: This sugar is made by reducing granulated sugar to a powder and mixing it with starch to prevent it from lumping up. It's used to decorate cakes and can also be used in making sweet dishes and baked goods.
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.
Cornstarch is a silky smooth powder made from the starchy part of the corn kernel known as the endosperm.
Most commonly used in cooking as a thickener for gravies, soups, sauces, pie fillings and puddings, cornstarch does not alter the flavor of a recipe or cloud the consistency of a dish.
Whisk cornstarch with cold water to make a paste (called a slurry) before adding it to a recipe to prevent lumps from forming.
Cornstarch can be used in baking and in gluten-free cooking as a substitute for small quantities of flour. When substituting, note that 1 tablespoon of cornstarch equals 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.
To wash or not to wash? Though the conventional wisdom says not to wash mushrooms, we side with Jacques Pepin, Harold McGee and Alton Brown, all of whom say that washing leads to neither mushy mushrooms nor lost flavor. Most of the time though, you'll be okay just brushing over dark spots with a damp paper towel. However you decide to clean your mushrooms, wait and clean them just before you need them.
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
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