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Cooking Techniques - C
Cooking Chestnuts
Chestnuts come from the nut-bearing Castanea tree, which is rare
in the United States due to a blight in the early 20th Century.
They are now cultivated in Europe and are imported fresh from September
through February. Chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts (which
are inedible and dangerous to eat) and water chestnuts (a tuber
with an apple-like crispness that is widely used in Asian cooking).
 To
roast fresh chestnuts, make a one-inch slash on the flat side of
the nut's shell with a sharp knife, just barely revealing the flesh.
Place the nuts on a cookie sheet in a preheated 400º oven until
the skins split and the flesh begins to brown (about ten minutes).
Peel away the shell with the help of a knife. Chestnuts can also
be blanched. After boiling for 3-4 minutes, wrap them in a towel
and squeeze hard to crush the skins and extract the meat. Keep fresh
chestnuts up to one week in a cool, dry place, or two weeks in a
plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Caramelising Sugar
Sugar is caramelized when it is melted into a clear golden to dark
brown syrup, reaching a temperature from 320 to 350 degrees F. The
example here is a medium amber.
To
start, add some water to dry sugar in a pot, stirring, until it
reaches the consistency of wet sand. The acid from added lemon juice
will help prevent recrystallization. Instead of using lemon juice,
you could add acidity with vinegar, cream of tartar or corn syrup.
Always start with a very clean pan and utensils. Any dirt or debris
can cause crystals to form around it. Heat the pan over a medium
flame. As the sugar melts, you can wash down the sides of a pan
with a wet brush, which also prevents crystallization by removing
any dried drops of syrup that might start crystals. As the caramel
heats, it colors in amber shades from light to deep brown.
Caramelising Food
All meat and vegetables contain some sugar (in the form of carbohydrates).
Under intense dry heat, as in roasting or sauteing, these sugars
break down. The result is the brown color and rich flavor called
caramelisation.
Making Crepes
Crepe
batter should be allowed to rest for 1 to 24 hours before use. This
allows the gluten to relax, and the flour to absorb the liquid therefor
collapsing any air bubbles in the batter. If crepe batter is made
in a blender it can be used immediately and does not need to rest.
The
basic recipe for crepes is 1/2 cup liquid to 1/2 cup flour to 1
egg. An expensive crepe pan is not necessary. Any good non-stick
pan will work fine. Coat your pan with a thin coat of butter or
oil first then heat over medium-high heat. Once the pan is heated,
no additional fat should be needed but if your pan develops a dry
spot use a oil dampened paper cloth or a quick spray of cooking
oil. It is best to use a ladle and to quickly coat the bottom of
the pan with a thin coat of batter. The quicker the thinner the
better! Tilting the pan is a good way to evenly distribute the batter.
When the edges of the crepe are dry and begin to pull away from
the pan, use your fingers to gently lift and flip the crepe. The
second side should be done in seconds and be ready to be placed
on wax paper to cool. Putting a sheet of wax paper between the crepes
will keep them from sticking together and can be immediately placed
in a plastic bag for storage in the refrigerator or freezer.
Chiffonade
When
translated literally from the French, "chiffonade" means "made of
rags." In culinary terms it means finely cut strips or ribbons of
leafy vegetables or herbs.
To
chiffonade a cabbage for coleslaw, cut a cleaned, washed head into
quarters, remove the hard core, then thinly slice the quarters across
the grain. Greens with large, loose leaves, such as chard, can be
rolled up and sliced thinly. Smaller leaves, such as basil, can
be stacked, then rolled and sliced across the vein. For leaves with
a central woody stem, such as kaffir lime leaves, roll from tip
to stem, slice parallel to the vein and discard the woody stem.
Chop
To
chop means to cut foods into pieces. This is a larger cut than dice
or mince and generally does not need to be uniform.
To
chop vegetables, first trim the stem and peel if necessary. To hold
your chef's knife properly, grasp the handle with three fingers
and put your forefinger and thumb on opposite sides of the blade.
With a rocking motion, keeping the tip of the knife on the chopping
board, slice down through the vegetable at regular intervals, using
the full length of the knife. Use your other hand to feed the vegetable
toward the knife. To do this safely, curl your fingers in and use
your fingertips to grasp and move the item. With a little practice,
you'll be chopping quickly and safely.
Clarify Butter
While
clarified butter doesn't have as much flavor as whole butter, it
does have a higher smoke point--making it useful for saute--because
the milk solids, which scorch easily, have been removed. Also, without
milk solids butter won't spoil as quickly. In the days before refrigeration,
cooks in India perfected a special clarifying process that significantly
prolongs freshness. This highly clarified butter is called ghee.
To
clarify butter, first melt unsalted butter slowly in a pan. Simmer
over low heat, without stirring, until the milk solids have separated
and sink to the bottom. Other impurities will rise to the surface,
while the butterfat in the middle layer becomes very clear. Remove
the pan from the heat and skim off the foam with a spoon. Then carefully
ladle the clarified butterfat into a separate container. Be careful
to leave the solids behind. One pound of butter will yield approximately
12 ounces of clarified butter.
Citrus - How to Section
Removing the sections of citrus intact from the tasteless membrane
seems more complicated than just peeling and eating an orange. However,
with patience, a little practice, and a sharp paring knife it will
become a breeze.
Begin
by cutting off the top and bottom of the fruit down to the pulp
using a back and forth sawing motion. Place the fruit on a cutting
board and cut away the peel in strips from top to bottom using the
edge of the previous cut as the starting point for the next. Remember
to stay close to the pulp and maintain the sawing motion. Then,
holding the fruit in one hand over a small bowl, slowly cut through
it along one of the membranes down to the center using the sawing
motion. Gently repeat this with the membrane on the other side of
the section, which should then come free. Carefully place the section
in a container for later use. After you have removed all of the
sections, pour the excess juice into the container. You now have
perfect citrus sections to use as a flavor component or garnish
for salads, appetizers, entrees, or desserts.
Coconuts: Opening, Grating and Liquado
Opening Coconuts: Open the coconuts by flinging them onto
a cement or rock surface (this is how the monkeys do it!) Don't
worry about losing the liquid, as it's not the coconut milk called
for in cooking. Each coconut should break in 3 to 4 pieces. It is
also possible to open a coconut by piercing the eyes of the coconut
with a screwdriver or ice pick, draining the liquid through the
holes and placing the coconut in a 400 degrees F oven for 20 minutes.
Wrap the coconut in a towel and hit it with a hammer to loosen the
shell and split it into pieces. Pry out the white meat and then
pare off the dark skin.
Grating Coconut Meat: To grate the white meat, put the meat
through the grating disk of a food processor or use a hand grater.
You should get about 7 cups of grated coconut from the two coconuts,
which will keep in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days.
Coconut Liquado: To make the coconut milk, combine the remaining
3 to 4 cups of loosely packed grated coconut with the milk (use
3/4 cup of coconut for each 1 cup of milk) in a heavy saucepan.
Heat slowly, bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat and cool.
Strain the milk, pressing down on the coconut meat to extract all
the liquid. Squeeze all the coconut through a towel to get any last
drops. Discard the coconut.
Cookies, Cookies, and More Cookies
Bakers usually classify cookies by the way they are made. Drop cookies,
such as oatmeal and chocolate chip, are made from soft, thick dough
that is dropped onto a pan with a spoon or a scoop. Sugar and shortbread
are two examples of cookies made from dough that is stiff enough
to roll out and cut with a cookie cutter. Icebox cookies, such as
checkerboards, are made from dough that is shaped into rectangular
or cylindrical blocks and then refrigerated. You can pull the dough
from the refrigerator, slice, and bake it at a moment's notice.
The dough for bar cookies, such as spice bars, is shaped into logs
that are flattened on a pan and baked. After cooling, you cut them
diagonally into thin, chewy bars.
Sheet
cookies are baked in a thin layer and can be either cake-like or
chewy – brownies and blondies are just two examples. Regardless
of the type, make cookies uniform in size and carefully space them
to ensure even baking. Remember, cookies bake for just a short time,
and will continue to bake after you pull them from the oven. Watch
them carefully and remove them about a minute before they are completely
done.
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