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.
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".
Onion slices are versatile. In quick-cooking dishes, they stay distinct enough from the other ingredients that they don't permeate every bite as diced onions would. In longer-cooking dishes, they have enough surface area to turn soft and brown, but their natural shape and length keeps them intact.
To make contoured half-round slices, first cut the onion in half through the root.
Next, slice away the both ends of each half and pull away the onion's skin. Since the ends hold the slices together, cutting them off frees the slices to fall into individual pieces.
Starting on one side of the onion with the knife at an angle, make slices as thick or thin as you like.
Rotate the knife around the contour of the onion, bring it closer to perpendicular to the cutting board as you go.
Here's a fast, organized way to slice a bell pepper. First, cut off the top end. You can use the flesh around the stem, so save it to prep at the end.Next cut off the bottom. Save it to slice or dice at the end, too.Split the pepper from top to bottom with a single cut.Pull out and dscard the core and seeds.Now you're left with relatively flat sections. You can slice them to any thickness, in any direction. For stir-frys, slice the pieces into long thin strips.To make larger irregular slices for longer-coooking dishes like braises and stews, rotate the sections back and forth as you slice.
Sauerkraut is a classic fermented dish popular in Germany, France and all over northern and central Europe that was invented as a way to preserve cabbage over the winter.
Fresh sauerkraut is high in vitamin C and was frequently taken on long sea voyages by European explorers to help prevent scurvy.
The version that is most popular in the U.S. involves very thinly shredded cabbage. It is salted to draw out its juices and then sits in the resulting brine for 4 to 6 weeks as it cures and ferments. The bacteria that ferment the cabbage help to turn the sugars in the leaves to lactic acid, which imparts the distinctive taste.
There are many variations on the sauerkraut theme, including using red cabbage for a bright pink result and adding various spices to the brew. Caraway seeds and juniper berries are traditional additions; black peppercorns and slices of apple are also found in many recipes.
Reference: How to make sauerkraut
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.
Juniper berries are not really berries, but the seed cone of an evergreen tree that is found all over the world.
Used as a spice in many cultures, juniper berries are traditionally used to flavor sauerkraut dishes such as choucroute garnie from Germany and the Alsace region of France. The "berries" are usually crushed before use since the flavoring resins are inside the berry and not in the exterior skin.
Mentioned in literature as far back as Roman times, juniper berries were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
What does it mean to julienne?
What does it mean to julienne?
To julienne something is to cut it into long, thin strips, like matchsticks. While there is some discrepancy over the exact width of a julienne cut, it is the smallest of its category, generally agreed to measure around 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch.
The alumette cut is a bit bigger than the julienne, and the batonnet is the largest of the matchstick cuts, about 1/4 of an inch. There's no need to get out the ruler at Cookthink, though. We usually just go with "cut into matchsticks" instead of "julienned". It's just easier that way and, frankly, you'll be fine as long as you think "matchsticks" and cut whatever it is you're cutting as thin as you can.
Some vegetables you commonly cut into matchsticks: peppers, carrots, celery and onions for salads and soups. Beef, pork or duck work well this way in stir-fries.
