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.
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.
An egg wash is a well-beaten egg that's often mixed with a bit of water, milk or salt.
Egg wash is applied with a pastry brush to unbaked bread dough, pie or pastry crust to seal the dough and to give it a glossy finish once it comes out of the oven.
Egg washes can also be made with egg whites or egg yolks only, and whether you add water, milk or salt to the mixture can affect the final look and texture of the dish. Different recipes may call for different sorts of egg washes, and you can experiment to see which one works best for you.
An egg wash can also be brushed on the edges of wonton wrappers to seal dumplings or on the edges of ravioli to seal them before poaching.
The smoke points of an oil (or butter) is precisely what it sounds like: the temperature at which it begins to release clouds of smoke. At that point, the oil is breaking down and has a very narrow window of time left until it burns and should be tossed out.
The smoke point is different for different kinds of oils. Vegetable oils are tougher and can reach a higher temperature before smoking, making tehm good for frying. (The commonly accepted temperature for frying is somewhere between 365F-375F.) Butter burns easily, and olive oil has a pretty low smoke point, so they’re better for sautéing at relatively lower heats.
Here are a few examples of oils and their smoke points (get your thermometers ready!):
Sunflower Oil -- 440F
Canola Oil -- 400F
Butter -- 350F
Extra Virgin Olive Oil -- 320F
what you should know
Made from the pressed fruit of autumnal apples like Baldwin and McIntosh, cider is just juice that hasn't been filtered.
While apple juice tastes pure and sweet, apple cider is murkier and more mysterious, with a tart, tangy thirst-quenching quality.
drink up Supermarket cider is flash-pasteurized or treated to prolong its shelf life, but traditional sweet apple cider is one of fall's ephemeral gifts; keep it too long and its natural yeasts will turn the sugar to alcohol -- resulting in the slightly carbonated drink known as hard cider.
mull it over Mulled cider = cider + spices + heat (and if you're lucky, a splash of rum or brandy). The chemistry of this warming beverage, one writer mused, is reminiscent of the Obama-Biden ticket.
an apple a day In colonial times, hard cider was the beverage of choice since water often carried bacteria and diseases. It was almost definitely served at the original Thanksgiving, and John Adams drank a pitcher every morning before breakfast.
cider house gang Other famous cider lovers include Robert Frost, Annie Proulx -- and Gwyneth Paltrow?
what you need
Before The Shipping News, Annie Proulx wrote a book about cider.
If you're considering going into the apple business, you'll want to invest in an apple crusher and cider press.
Mulling spices would make a lovely gift for your favorite cider lover.
Looking for some truth about Johnny Appleseed? Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire has a whole section on the history the apple.
what you do
Dense and spicy, apple cider doughnuts are best dunked in coffee while still hot.
Apple cider adds tang to this creamy, fall risotto.
Roasted pork and fall fruit basted with apple cider will warm you through and through.
Making ribs is a cooking rite of passage. Try these easy ribs with a lip-smacking cider-bourbon mop sauce.
We can't get enough of this apple cider caramel cake.
An intoxicating lamb stew made with cider lets those tasty fall root vegetables shine.
Featured: This week's Root Source Challenge winner sent us a wistful recipe for pleasingly tart cider jelly. Congratulations to Culinaria Eugenius!
Find more apple cider recipes at Cookthink.com. And if you haven't yet signed up for a free account at Cookthink, do it now!
Which apples are best for cooking and baking?
Which apples are best for cooking and baking?
There are no firm rules about which of the world's thousands of apple varieties are most appropriate for cooked sweet and savory dishes.
But for baking, Honeycrisp, Cortland, Golden Delicious, Gala, Newtown Pippin and Granny Smith work well because they hold their shape in pies and tarts without turning to applesauce. Some people favor naturally sweeter apples like Golden Delicious and Gala when baking desserts; Newton Pippin and Granny Smith add a tart note to savory dishes like stuffings.
To make apple sauce, Gravenstein apples have an ideal sweet-tart balance; Jonathan apples have a tender texture and moderately tart flavor.
Fennel is a multi-faceted plant that brings a subtle anise flavor to the table in a number of ways.
Technically an herb, it also provides spice in the form of fennel seed. The pollen of fennel flowers is intense and sweet. The tasty bulb can be eaten raw or cooked. And the fronds make an aromatic garnish.
The same compound that flavors aniseed and star anise also flavors fennel, although not as strongly. The slight licorice flavor is frequently found as an ingredient in Italian sausages.
Elixirs and distillations of fennel have been used for centuries as nerve tonics and digestive aids. Its use as a component of gripe water has helped to ease the colic in babies as a homeopathic remedy.
what you should know
Technically an herb, fennel has a celery-like texture and a warm, licorice-y flavor.
Fennel provides a spice (fennel seed) and the pollen from its flowers is intense and sweet. But most of the time, we're content to use fennel's bottom white bulb. Thinly sliced, we roast it, toss it raw into salads or add it to braising chicken.
chemical attraction The same compound that flavors aniseed and star anise is also found in fennel, which provides the hint of licorice in Italian sausage.
chill out Fennel's mythic roots run deep. According to Greek mythology, Prometheus hid the fire he stole from the gods in a stalk of fennel. Elixirs of fennel have been used for centuries as a nerve tonic, digestive aid and colic-relieving gripe water.
what you need
A good quality spice grinder will help you to prepare fennel seed for Italian rubs and spice blends.
Learn more about the glories of fennel in Antonio Carluccio's Italian Feast.
Swivel peelers make quick work of peeling the fennel's tough outer layer.
Do you care that in the 8th century, Charlemagnepassed an edict ordering fennel to be grown in southern France? If so, then you'll enjoy Alan Davidson's Penguin Companion to Food.
what you do
Simple braised fennel shines in a mild broth of olive oil and lemon juice.
Roasted potatoes get a licorice lift with fennel chunks and seed.
Fennel has a thing for fish. Try roasted cod and olives on a bed of potatoes, onions and fennel.
For a hearty snack or appetizer, top fluffy foccacia with prosciutto, shaved fennel and fresh mozzarella.
Roasted tomatoes and fennel shine in a thyme vinaigrette.
Featured recipe: Sautéed fennel, dates, merguez and preserved lemon add an exotic note to all-American stuffing.
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.
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.
