Saffron, the world’s most expensive spice by weight, comes from the stigmas of the purple saffron crocus (a member of the iris family). Each flower contains three stigmas, which are harvested by hand and then dried. One pound of dried saffron requires a minimum of 50,000 flowers to be picked, which helps explain the elevated cost. Native to Asia minor, Iran and Spain now lead the world in saffron production.
Saffron can be purchased ground into a powder or whole as threads. Buying the threads ensures the spice’s purity, since powdered saffron may be watered down with additional spices like turmeric or safflower. The threads tend to have a stronger taste than the ground, and must be steeped in milk or water, or roasted, before being added to a dish to release their flavor.
Saffron has a bitter taste, an earthy, hay-like smell, and a golden-red hue, which gives food a deep yellow color. When cooking with saffron, it must be used sparingly; too much can produce a harsh, medicinal 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.
What does it mean to shock a green vegetable?
What does it mean to shock a green vegetable?
A green vegetable is shocked after blanching by throwing it into an ice bath (cold water with ice cubes added) to stop the cooking process.
This ensures that your broccoli, broccoli raab, spinach or green beans will stay crisp and also keeps them bright green. As soon as your shocked vegetables have cooled, remove them from the bath so they don't absorb excess water and let them dry off or place them on a kitchen towel to absorb excess moisture.
The term "refresh" is also used as a synonym for this process, but shocking is a more accurate term.
Whipping cream is another word for heavy cream.
Heavy cream has a high fat content -- between 36 and 40 percent -- that allows it to double in volume when whipped. Whipping cream is used to make whipped cream (or chantilly, which is slightly sweetened whipped cream).
Do not try to whip light cream, as it will not obey, no matter how hard you beat it.
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.
Couscous is a coarsely ground pasta made from semolina, a type of wheat.
A staple of the North African Maghreb, couscous comes in instant and non-instant varieties.
Like macaroni and spaghetti, couscous is made from semolina flour, but rather than mixing the semolina with a prescribed amount of water and/or egg into a dough, couscous is made by rubbing the semolina between moistened hands until the flour combines with just enough water to form hundreds of tiny grains. Obviously the process takes a light touch, lest the grains combine into a gooey mass, but once learned it is one of the simplest forms of making pasta and one that is practiced in villages all around the Mediterranean basin.
After the couscous grains are formed they are dried and steamed over a stew, usually made from lamb, in a special pot called a couscoussière. Steaming couscous is an involved operation, requiring sealing the top of the couscoussière to its bottom with rags dipped in flour paste, and then interrupting the steaming several times to rub the softening couscous grains to insure that they remain separate.
Fortunately it is no longer necessary to go through all that labor, due to the broad availability of instant couscous. This product has already been steamed and then dried again before it is packaged. It needs only to be soaked in boiling water until it swells, a process that takes about 10 minutes.
Couscous doesn't have a lot of flavor on its own, but it works well as a base for vegetable or meat dishes. It also mixes beautifully into salads and can be flavored with herbs like coriander, basil or mint, or even studded with fruit like raisins or apricots. It's a very neutral -- and nutritious -- base for all sorts of dishes.
Reference: A really simple way to make couscous (Cookthink)
Place the pomegranate down on its stem end; the blossom end with have a small opening.
Cut firmly down along one of the 6 hexagonal ribs; hitting the rib cuts the flesh and not the seeds.
Hold the fruit down firmly and move your fingers away from the bottom; the juice is very dark red and stains almost everything.
Remove the split fruit to a bowl of water immediately to prevent staining of fingers and cutting boards.
Holding the cut side down over the bowl of water, tap it firmly with a spoon. The seeds will fall out and sink to the bottom; the inedible pith will float to the surface.
Alternatively, peel the skin off the fruit in the bowl of water. Either method works well to extract the sweet, juicy kernels.
A meringue is an airy mixture of stiffly beaten egg whites and caster sugar. Said to have been invented by a Swiss chef, the meringue was a favorite of the famously sweet-toothed Marie Antoinette, who introduced it to the French.
Some meringue, like that which is piped on top of a lemon meringue pie, is uncooked (or just browned), while other meringues are baked in a slow oven, at which point they crisp and can be eaten like cookies. Meringue can can be made plain or flavored with vanilla extract or ground almonds or hazelnuts.
Recipe: Meringue Cookies (Cookthink)
Recipe: Lemon Meringue Pie (Washington Post)
A pavlova is the national dessert of New Zealand and Australia. A light, elegant disk of meringue topped with whipped cream and fruit, it's a snap to assemble.
Cornstarch and vinegar are often added to the meringue mixture before baking to give it a crisp exterior and a pillowy interior. You can top your pavlova with whatever kind of fruit you like -- kiwi, passion fruit, raspberries, peaches, or pomegranate seeds for Christmas, when it is often served.
The pavlova was named for Anna Pavlova, a lightfooted Russian ballerina, during her visit to Australia in 1929, though the New Zealanders claim to have invented it first.
Recipe: Pomegranate Pavlova With Mixed Fruit (Cookthink)
Caster (or castor) sugar is superfine refined sugar. That makes it finer than granulated sugar but not as fine as confectiones sugar.
Caster sugar dissolves easily and so is used to give baked goods (especially meringues) a lighter texture.
If you don't have any or can't find caster sugar, you can pulse regular granulated sugar in a food processor to help break down the grains.
Recipe: Rhubarb Syllabub (Cook & Eat)
Recipe: Meringue Cookies (Cookthink)
Related Article: Meet the sugars
No-knead bread is a no-brainer method for making homemade bread.
Dry ingredients -- bread flour, yeast and salt -- are swirled with a fork.
Water is added and the dough is quickly mixed.
The dough is then covered with cling film and left alone in a warm place for 12 to 18 hours.
After a long rest, the dough is fully risen and ready for basic shaping.
A fold, a roll and a pat into a dome shape and the dough is ready to rest in a cornmeal-covered cloth while the stock pot and oven heat up to 500F.
After 30 minutes in the stock pot, the lid is removed so the loaf browns and the crust can develop.
The interior crumb is soft and dense and richly flavored. The crust is crackly and crunchy, breaking under the fingers and teeth.
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.
