A purée is a thick, soft dish that's made by pressing cooked foods through a sieve, or mixing them in a blender or food processor.
Vegetable purées are either used as a base for soup -- thinned with water or stock -- or eaten as a side dish. Tomato purée, used for sauces and soups, is made by removing seeds from lightly cooked tomatoes and straining the pulp. Fruit purées are used to make sauces, mousses, soufflés and other preparations. Purées can also be made from anchovies, chicken livers, shrimp or salmon, and used as a filling for canapés.
Recipe: Butternut Squash And Banana Puree With Whiskey And Pecans (Cookthink)
Recipe: Parsnip And Orange Puree (Cookthink)
Reference: Tomato paste vs. tomato puree vs. tomato sauce (Cookthink)
What's the point of sifting flour?
What's the point of sifting flour?
Originally, the point of sifting flour used to be to remove lumps and the occasional insect, although modern flour is generally free of those concerns. If you don't buy pre-sifted flour, sifting can still be a good idea for a number of reasons.
First, it loosens up flour that has been sitting around in storage for a long time, aerating it and helping your baked goods to have a lighter texture. It's also a good idea to sift flour if you are combining it with other ingredients, such as salt, baking powder or soda, or cocoa powder, to give the mixture a homogeneous texture.
Flour can be sifted either with an old-fashioned sifter, or by shaking flour through a sieve. Dry ingredients can also be whisked together with a wire whisk in a pinch, which also helps lighten up the flour.
Nevertheless, some people think that sifting flour is a pain, and skip it altogether, claiming they don't notice the difference. Do you?
Recipe: Sour Cream Bundt Cake (VeganYumYum)
Recipe: Banana Hazelnut Upside-Down Cake (Hogwash)
How to make grilled nectarines with raspberry sauce
How to make grilled nectarines with raspberry sauce
These grilled nectarines with raspberry sauce make a refreshing summertime dessert, especially when served with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream. This short instructional video by Handmade TV shows how easy they are to make.
Dashi stock is the base of many soups from Japan, including as miso, ramen and soba. It can also be used as a poaching liquid for fish and meats.
The basis for dashi stock is kombu seaweed. Caked with tiny streaks of sea salt, the kombu can be cracked or cut into sheets to make the stock. It imparts the necessary umami, or savory component.
In a stock pot, heat 5 cups of water to almost boiling and add in 1 large sheet of kombu. Remove from heat and let the seaweed steep and plump up. After 5 minutes, remove the kombu.
The next ingredient is bonito flakes -- bits of shaved, smoked and dried skipjack tuna. They add body to the stock.
Reheat the kombu-flavored water to just under boiling, add 2 cups of bonito flakes, take it off the heat and let it steep for 5 minutes.
Strain out the bonito flakes and it's done!
How to make smooth custard fillings
How to make smooth custard fillings
If you want to make sure your cheesecake, ice cream, pudding, quiche filling or pumpkin pie has a smooth, uniform texture, use a fine-meshed sieve or a fine chinois to strain the custard before cooking.
Using a super-fine chinois will even remove the white, string-like chalaza from the mixture. Inside the egg, the chalaza acts as a seatbelt for the yolk, preventing it from bobbing all over the developing chick; cooked in a recipe, the chalaza becomes a rubbery piece of protein that often goes unnoticed but prevents the finished dish from achieving its nirvana of smoothness.
