Consommé is a French word for clarified meat, poultry or fish broth that is served hot or cold, traditionally as a first dinner course. It can also be used as a stock to make other soups or dishes. Consommé is either thickened with cornstarch or left thin, and is often garnished with other ingredients, such as poached eggs, noodles, sliced meat or vegetables.
Consommé is sometimes served cold as a savory jelly either by adding gelatin or meat bones. A double consommé is reduced in half for added flavor.
recipe: Beef Pho (cookthink)
recipe: Beef Consommé (cookthink)
Root Source: Flat-Leaf Parsley
Root Source: Flat-Leaf Parsley
what you should know
Can we just skip the part where we talk about how parsley is more than a garnish? Okay good.
We love the bright, grassy flavor of parsley in everything from soups to sauces to salads. And because it has more essential oils than curly-leaf parsley, we normally use the more flavorful flat-leaf, or Italian, parsley.
get fresh Jeanne Kelley, whose book Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes we're giving away in this week's Root Source Challenge, notes how hearty parsley is: "I make a habit to buy it weekly at the farmer's market, and often return home to find the previous week's parsley in the fridge looking as perky as ever."
it's a keeper It is okay to have too much parsley. Before tossing into the fridge, wash and dry the bunch, then wrap it in a paper towel and cover it with a plastic bag. Parsley also freezes well, but don't bother with the ho-hum dried stuff.
knives down The best way to prep parsley is to hold the bouquet at an angle over a cutting board and run your knife across the top. If you get some tender stems, that's good. Stems have a lot of flavor.
what you need
Though you can manage your herb prep with any old pair of scissors, we like the multi-blade action of this pair of herb scissors from SNIP.
Nancy Verde Barr's Make It Italian is a clean, straightforward and intuitively designed cookbook that overflows with good uses for parsley.
We had no idea there was an Herb Society of America until we found (and immediately dug) its Essential Guide to Growing and Cooking with Herbs, edited by Katherine Schlosser.
what you do
There are hundred of variations and thousands of uses for this traditional Italian green sauce. Try spooning it over roasted potatoes or on top of pan-roasted fish
Speaking of green sauce and potatoes, try this chimichurri potato salad. Added while the potatoes are still hot, the flavor of "Argentina's ketchup" really soaks in.
Barbara Kafka's invigorating parsley soup will put to rest any doubts you have about parsley's ability to carry a dish.
With just a handful of ingredients, Greek lemon-egg soup is a simple, fast way to renew your spirits.
The parsley is what cuts through the rich layers of this ravioli with sweet potatoes and mascarpone
Featured recipe: We can't wait to make Helen Graves' celeriac soup with parsley oil and Lancashire cheese toasts. The recipe comes from Helen's blog Food Stories and is the winning recipe of this week's Root Source Challenge.
what you should know
Unsalted butter is always equally unsalted, but salted butter is never quite salted the same.
The NaCl uncertainty is the main reason we prefer to use unsalted butter when we cook. Often that salt can subdue the sweet flavor of butter. (Unsalted butter is often labeled as "sweet butter.")
salt conversion In most recipes, the little extra salt will go unnoticed. Still, as a general rule if a recipe calls for unsalted butter but all you've got is salted butter, cut 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick of butter (1/2 cup) you use.
stick it up Salt acts as a preservative for butter. Tightly wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge, salted butter can last for five months, while unsalted butter lasts about three before going stale. (Spot stale butter by slicing into the stick; the outside will be darker than the inside.) Then again, many people don't store butter in the fridge to begin with.
cooking with butter Sometimes, when you want a nuttier flavor, you'll want to let the butter's foam subside. But butter has a low smoke point, so be careful using it as your cooking fat. It'll burn easily. Clarified butter, or ghee, has a higher smoke point (and also makes a tasty dipping sauce for crab, lobster and anything else).
roux-dimentary Butter forms the foundation for countless classic sauces and thickeners, including béchamel, beurre manié and roux.
what you need
Have you ever wanted to make fresh butter at home? This traditional butter churn is based on the famous Dazey churn from the early 20th century.
You can also make a small batch of butter by putting cream in a jar and shaking it for a long, long time until you've shaken it solid.
The water-cooled crock owners we know swear by the constant supply of creamy, spreadable butter they keep on their tables.
Other butter lovers who shun the refrigerator prefer the classic rectangular butter dish.
what you do
Sage and butter are absolutely delicious together. How delicious? Try this rich and pillowy tortellini with sage brown butter and parmesan to find out.
Steamy Kitchen likes to top her slow butter- braised asparagus with parmesan and sea salt. With that savory finale, you definitely don't need salted butter.
Drizzling roasted sweet potatoes with cilantro-lime butter gives them a burst of tart richness.
Salted butter might interfere with the complex sugar-spice interaction in these orange-scented popovers with cinnamon-orange honey.
These better-for-you whole-grain flapjacks from hogwash are made with quinoa, millet and flaxseed. After using butter to grease the pan, you can afford to use a little extra on the cakes themselves.
Coconut & Lime's worked out one of the fastest and tastiest cinnamon bun recipes out there.
what you should know
The general makeup of any fresh sausage is ground meat and fat plus seasonings ("not too much of this and just enough of that," as the Joy of Cooking prescribes.)
The basic formula for what we Americans call "Italian sausage" is ground pork + salt/pepper + fennel or anise seed.
hot or sweet From there, Italian sausage diverges into two camps -- hot and sweet. The sweet isn't really (though some do add sugar to the mix), but the hot can be plenty hot depending on how many red pepper flakes you use.
comi ti chiami? Asking for "Italian sausage" in Italy will no doubt solicit this response: "Which one?"
take 2 anise & call me in the AM The Romans used anise as a medicinal herb for digestion -- important if you're eating more than a couple sausages.
play it loose The casing is an integral part of sausage. But you can also make or buy the mixture loose if you're cooking a casserole or sauce for which you have to break up the meat anyway.
my hero Italian sausage is the foundation for many sandwiches, such as this Pittsburgh classic. (Go Steelers!)
what you need
Move beyond just Italian sausage with Home Sausage Making: How-To Techniques for Making and Enjoying 100 Sausages at Home.
For home sausage making, pull out your stand mixer and the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments.
While the weather's still cooperating, take your sausages on a picnic and fire them up on a portable grill.
what you do
For a classic sausage sandwich, top the meat with peppers onions, and a dollop of mustard dressing.
Rich and hearty, this sausage, spinach and cheese lasagna is great for potlucks.
Packing for a picnic? You can make a batch of sausage, portobello, and barley pilaf the night before.
For a quick weeknight dinner, try whole wheat penne with Italian sausage, cauliflower and rosemary.
A crispy pita pizza is strong enough to hold up to hefty toppings like sausage, peppers, and carrots.
As the evenings start to cool off, dig in to a white bean soup with sausage and escarole.
This week's Root Source Challenge featured recipe is a Soprano's-inspired dish of Roasted Sausages, Peppers, Potatoes and Onions. Congratulations to Nikki of Nik Snacks!
Flat-leaf parsley vs. curly-leaf parsley
Flat-leaf parsley vs. curly-leaf parsley
Italian, or flat leaf, parsley has flat leaves as its name suggests, and many cooks prefer it for its more pronounced flavor, as it contains more essential oils than the curly leaf variety.
Curly leaf parsley is most often used as a garnish to add color to plates of monochromatic food or to dress up seafood displays.
While parsley is generally used for its leaves, parsley stems actually contain more flavor. Finely dice them and add to stocks, sauces, sautés and other preparations for added taste and vitamins.
Recipe: Barbara Kafka's Parsley Soup (Cookthink)
Recipe: Tortellini With Tarragon, Chives And Parsley (Cookthink)
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.
Prepping pearl onions requires a bit of effort, but will make a difference in soups and stews or as a side dish when roasted, braised or glazed.
Start by bringing a saucepan of water to a boil (for blanching the onions). Next, prepare an ice bath -- just a large bowl with a quart of water and 1 cup of ice cubes -- that you will use to cool down the onions after blanching.
Cut off the root end of each pearl onion -- don't cut too much off, maybe 1/16 of an inch. Blanching will loosen the skins and they'll slip off easily.
Blanch the pearl onions by boiling them in water for 1 to 2 minutes until their skins look bubbly and translucent.
With a slotted spoon, remove them to the ice bath so that they stop cooking and become cool enough to peel.
Let them cool for 5 minutes in the ice bath, or until they're cool enough to handle.
Now just slip their skins off.
Since you've already removed the root, the skins will be loose and easy to peel off.
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.
