Bagna càuda means "hot bath" in Italian.
It's the name of a convivial dish from the Piedmont region of Italy that dates back to the 16th century, in which a "bath" of olive oil, butter, mashed garlic and anchovy fillets (plus white truffles if you're in Italy and they are in season) is heated up and used as a fondue-like dip for raw vegetables.
Bagna càuda can include fennel, celery, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, radishes, artichokes, cardoons and pretty much any other vegetable that strikes your fancy.
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.
How to make quinoa tabouleh-stuffed peppers
How to make quinoa tabouleh-stuffed peppers
These quinoa tabouleh-stuffed peppers can be served as a main course for vegetarians, or as a lovely addition to non-vegetarian meals. After watching this video by Handmade TV, you'll be all set to make them on your own, from scratch.
Do not merely drop a hunk of butter into a saucepan and wait for it to melt. Instead, cube it first.
This method may seem fussy at first glance, but in the end it makes perfect sense: by taking a second to cut the butter into small, uniform cubes, you allow it to melt evenly in the pan. The butter does not burn and is ready all at once for the next ingredient.
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.
What does it mean to temper chocolate?
What does it mean to temper chocolate?
Tempered chocolate is carefully heated and cooled for the purpose of dipping strawberries or cookies, drizzling on cakes or other baked goods, or molding into festive shapes. Once properly tempered, chocolate is shiny and smooth and will snap when broken.
To temper chocolate, it is chopped, melted over a double boiler to avoid scorching and removed from the heat when it reaches the correct temperature (which varies according to the type of chocolate used, with dark chocolate requiring a slightly higher temperature than either milk or white). It is then cooled by adding more chocolate and stirring until it reaches its final tempered temperature. (Some chocolatiers cool the chocolate by folding it on a marble slab.)
Once cooled to the correct temperature, the chocolate may then be reheated slightly to achieve the desired consistency.
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.
Polenta is an Italian staple that has gone from peasant food to high-end in recent years.
It is a dish made from coarsely ground yellow cornmeal -- which is sometimes sold as "polenta" in supermarkets -- that is boiled with water, stock or milk. Polenta must be slow-cooked and requires constant stirring to prevent lumps from forming -- although instant varieties are popular with home cooks.
You can eat polenta like a side dish in hot porridge form or cool it down, cut it into strips or squares or roll it into balls and fry it in olive oil or grill it. You can enrich polenta with cheese and top fried polenta squares with roasted or sautéed vegetables. The Italians traditionally use kitchen string held taught between two hands to slice cooled polenta, but a wet knife will also work.
Cornmeal porridge is popular in many cuisines of the world, including America -- where it was once called cornmeal mush and a staple food of early settlers. White cornmeal porridge -- called grits -- is a classic dish in the American South.
Demi-glace is a thick, shiny deep brown French sauce used as a base for other sauces to give depth to complex dishes.
Demi-glace is made by boiling espagnole sauce (which is a classic French brown mother sauce made with brown stock, brown roux, mirepoix and tomato purée, cooked for several hours), skimming it and adding white stock or estouffade (clear brown stock that's used to dilute thicker brown sauces or moisten other dishes), plus Madeira or sherry and in some cases mushroom stalks until it reduces by half into a glaze-like sauce that coats the back of a spoon.
It's quite a project, and even French home cooks usually resort to dehydrated powdered demi-glace, available in supermarkets.
What's the difference between polenta and grits?
What's the difference between polenta and grits?
Italian polenta and American grits are both dishes known as cornmeal mush, made from boiled ground cornmeal.
Polenta is made from yellow corn and has a bright yellow. Grits, on the other hand, are made from white corn and have a pale white color.
Both Italian-style polenta and grits -- which are popular in the American south -- can be eaten like a soft porridge. Grits are often topped with butter; polenta is usually finished with olive oil and also can be cooled, cut into strips and grilled or fried. Both dishes are either served plain or used as a canvas for cheeses, meats, seafood, vegetables or herbs.
First, slice an "x" across the blossom end of the tomatoes; this will help the skin to peel off in a regular fashion.
Next, plunge the tomatoes into barely boiling water, stem-side down, for 30 seconds.
Turn the tomatoes once so that they heat evenly, allowing the tomato's skin to pull off in large strips.
Using tongs, move the tomatoes to a bowl of ice-water to stop the cooking; the tomatoes will be very hot to the touch, but the interior flesh will not be cooked.
When the tomatoes have cooled -- after 3 to 5 minutes -- remove them from the ice bath, pat them dry with a paper towel and gently peel the cooked skin off along the "x" where the skin has naturally split.
Next, with sharp knife, cut the tomato into quarters and remove the seeds, being sure to cut away the core on the stem end.
Once the seeds and skin have been removed, you're left with tomato flesh petals that can be used to hold dollops of tuna or vegetable salad, or diced and added to soups, salads and sauces.
What does all'amatriciana mean?
What does all'amatriciana mean?
All'amatriciana is an Italian pasta sauce made with guanciale or pancetta, tomatoes, and dried chile peppers. Although it is often associated with Rome, it actually gets its name from its hometown of Amatrice in northern Lazio.
This piquant red sauce can be eaten with spaghetti or bucatini. Romans -- who call it Matriciana either because of their regional accent or to strip it of its ties to Amatrice -- add onions and eat it with rigatoni.
All'amatriciana is thought to be a variation on a dish called pasta alla gricia, a shepherd's favorite made with guanciale and sausage, freshly ground pepper and sprinkled with Pecorino Romano. The sausage was snubbed and the tomatoes were added in Amatrice, although apparently restaurants there still offer "Amatriciana bianca" or "rossa" depending on whether or not you want tomatoes.
