Basil is an aromatic herb originally from India. Common sweet basil is green, with large, soft leaves. It is the star ingredient in Italian pesto, and iconic Italian dishes such as the caprese salad. It is also commonly used in Provençal dishes like soupe au pistou.
Thai basil is an herb that can refer to three different types of basil used in Thai cooking -- Queen of Siam, Holy Basil or Horapa, which is the most commonly used Thai basil in the United States. It has purple stems, small greenish purple leaves, and a licorice taste that is distinct from Italian sweet basil.
Thai basil adds a subtle anise flavor and perfume when plunged into hot soups (including Vietnamese Phở), stir-fried dishes or curries just before serving. Or it can be eaten fresh in salads, wrapped in a lettuce leaf with mint, or fried in spring rolls.
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.
A crookneck squash is a yellow summer squash with a distinctive curved neck and bumpy skin.
It's thought that all yellow squash were originally crookneck; only through breeding have we ended up with the straight-necked, smooth-skinned yellow summer squash we more often see today.
Like all summer squashes, crooknecks are picked while immature and have an edible skin. If you happen to get an older crookneck with a particularly tough exterior, you might want to cut some of it away with a vegetable peeler. The thicker rind of the crookneck and the slightly sweet flesh hold up beautifully when baked, roasted or grilled.
Recipe: Grilled Shrimp And Squash Kebabs (Cookthink)
Recipe: Chicken In Parchment With Mushrooms, Red Onion And Squash (Cookthink)
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)
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)
What do we mean by shimmering oil?
What do we mean by shimmering oil?
Shimmering oil is hot oil that is nearing its smoke point.
At room temperature, common cooking oils like vegetable and olive oil seem fairly thick. Put them in a pan and heat them though, and they thin out when you swirl the pan. As they get hotter, they tend to "flow" and coat the pan more easily.
In the right light, when you look at oil that's at a good temperature for sautéing -- nice and hot, but not yet smoking -- it shimmers. It forms "tines" like those on a wine glass. It looks colorful, iridescent even.
Shimmering oil is good for sautéing because it increases the chances that the food won't stick. Hot oil immediately seals the bottom of food, creating a natural barrier between it and the bottom of the pan.
The easiest way to store basil is in a ziploc bag, tucked away in the refrigerator.
The trick here is to manage the moisture content in the bag. If you notice that too much water accumulates in the bag and turns the leaves dark, slip a few pieces of folded paper towel inside the bag between the basil and the plastic. The paper towel will absorb the water, but release enough of it to keep the air inside humid.
If the basil still has roots, you can put the roots in a small cup of water, cover the leaves with a plastic or ziploc bag, and secure the bag around the cup with a rubber band (or just tuck the bag underneath the cup). This method takes up a little more room in the refrigerator, and we haven't noticed that the roots extend the life of the basil that much.
Reference: How to prep basil (Cookthink)
Recipe: Watermelon Basil Agua Fresca (Coconut & Lime)
Recipe: Prosciutto, Mozzarella And Basil Pita Pizza (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.
