Food Chemistry – UrbanMonique

Blanching & Freezing Fresh Peas

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Three years ago almost to the day, I posted this, and here we are full circle. Enjoy!

Received this PM earlier today, from alert and hearteningly honest reader Sarah, who lives in the wilds of Cleveland, Ohio.

‘Recently saw the photos of your wife’s garden. It just so happens that I planted peas for the first time this year, and lo and behold, they actually grew! I ended up harvesting a big pot, and then realized that I really don’t know the step by step for preserving these things! Naturally, I though of you, so, what do I do?!’

Well, Sarah, first and foremost, I hope you know how much it thrills us that you thought of us first with such a great question. Secondly, good on ya for asking, and third, your timing couldn’t be better – Monica and our two lovely Granddaughters picked a whoppin’ big bowl full of fresh peas last night – They’ve headed for the park, and I’ve been tasked with pea processing – so let’s get after it!

Freezing really is the best thing to do with fresh peas. You didn’t mention the variety you grew, so first we’ll touch briefly on the three most common versions, shell, snow, and sugar snap. Shell, (also called garden, English, or Sweet), are thin skinned peas with an inedible shell. Snow peas, (also called Chinese pea pods), are smaller peas with a thicker, edible pod. Sugar snaps, (or just plain snap), peas are a cross between the former and the latter, with a very thick, edible pod and relatively large mature peas.

Snap, Snow, and Shell peas, respectively.

For both snow and snap varieties, while you can and should eat some whole when they’re just picked, it’s best to remove the fibrous strings that run along the seams before you do so.

Regardless of what variety you’ve grown, you’ll want to freeze them. Canning peas is laborious, and frankly, doesn’t yield very good taste or appearance. Shell peas must, of course, be shelled prior to freezing. Snow peas can be frozen whole, as long as they’re blanched first – If you don’t do that process diligently, you’ll end up with nasty, mushy results.

With snap peas, I’ve found that whole peas just don’t freeze very well; they’re really delicate things, which is why their freshness is so fleeting. For my mind, it’s best to eat and cook whole peas at the peak of their freshness, and to shell anything you’re going to freeze. Don’t toss the pods however; sauté them in a stir fry, or better yet, make a pea stock, which makes a phenomenal base for split pea soup. Here’s how.

Fresh pea stock is great for split pea soup

Snap Pea Stock

10 Cups Water
4-6 Cups empty Snap Pea Pods
1/2 Cup Sweet Onion, rough chopped
1/4 Cup Carrot, rough chopped
2 Tablespoons Celeriac or Celery Leaf
1 teaspoon Lemon Thyme
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
1 Bay Leaf

Put everything in a large stockpot over medium high heat.

As soon as the stock begins to simmer, cover and reduce the heat until you’ve got a very slow simmer; cook for 45 minutes.

Pour the stock carefully through a chinoise, or a colander lined with cheese cloth into a clean mixing bowl.

Allow to cool to room temperature.

Transfer to clean glass jars, or a freezer bag. May be frozen for up to 4 months, or refrigerated for 3-4 days prior to use.

Pea stock is surprisingly fragrant and lovely stuff to boot — Pea stock is surprisingly fragrant, flavorful, and lovely stuff to boot

To preserve those peas, you’ll need to shell them. As with all production cooking processes, set yourself up an area where you can have everything arranged right at hand. To shell fresh peas, grab one and turn it wide seam side up, with the stem away from you. Grab the stem between thumb and forefinger, and zip it back toward you – that’ll remove the fiber along the seam. Now zip your thumb nail along the seam and viola, your pea will open up like a book. Push the peas out of the pod and into a mixing bowl.

Now it’s time to blanch. There are a lot of questions about blanching, and most, if not all of them are answered here at one of my favorite cooking sites, serious eats. Blanching is a short, high temperature cooking cycle done in boiling water, followed by an immediate plunge into ice water. We blanch for three reasons when – To
destroy enzymes that begin to break produce down once they’ve been harvested, to preserve great color, and to keep them crisp – All very worthwhile pursuits, indeed.

The fine print for blanching is that you want two things without question – First, you need water at a steady boil through the relatively short cooking time, and secondly, you need to plunge what you blanched into ice water immediately after cooking. Those things are non-negotiable for the success of the process.

The old adage about using lots of water to blanch really doesn’t translate all that well to home kitchens – The logic ran that a relatively large volume of water won’t lose temperature as drastically when food is introduced. That’s true for commercial stoves, but not so much for home cooks – If you’re blanching in small batches at home, a pot with one quart, (4 cups), of water will actually recover a boil far faster than larger volumes.

Second issue is salting. The sages say ‘salt heavily’, and to some degree, that’s true. You want water about as salty as the ocean, or about 3%. The wonderful website Pickl-It has a super handy brine calculator that’ll let you dial that right in, (and its 1 ounce of salt for 1 quart of water). Now, this requires weighing, because the fact is, all salt weighs differently. I can’t recommend a small kitchen scale enough – They’re cheap, easy to use, and if you get at all serious about baking, you’ll want to have one anyway. I’ll give you a cheat and tell you that 1 ounce of the most popular kosher salt is roughly 5 teaspoons. While Harold McGee notes in his epic reference volume, On Food and Cooking, that salt tenderizes veggies by interacting with natural pectins, this also means that too much can make your peas soft.

Finally, there’s time. I don’t know how many folks I’ve heard say that you ‘blanch for about a minute,’ and frankly, that dog just don’t hunt. Blanching time varies depending on what’s being blanched, and you should pay attention to that. The Reluctant Gourmet has published a great blanching time list, so head over there, read and heed.

OK, now we’re ready. It’s possible I just made blanching sound really laborious, but it’s not at all. Set up a station so everything is close at hand. You’ll want a stock pot of salted water, a large bowl with ice water, and a single mesh strainer handy.

Shelled peas do indeed blanch for about a minute. For peas, corn, and a whole lot of veggies that are small individual things, I add about a half tablespoon of butter to the blanching water. It doesn’t impart much taste, and it helps them freeze without turning into a block of peas or whatnot.

A little butter in salted blanching water helps frozen veggies seperate

Once your water is boiling merrily, throw in those shelled peas and count off a minute. As soon as the time is up, carefully pour the peas into a single mesh strainer and immediately into the ice water. Work the peas around gently with a slotted spoon to help them cool. Let them sit in the ice water for about 3 minutes, until they’re thoroughly cooled. Scoop off any remaining ice, pour the peas back through the strainer, then transfer them to a clean mixing bowl. Viola – bright, crisp blanched peas.

Blanched peas drained and ready for the ice water bath

Plunge blanched peas into ice water immediately

Fresh peas ready for the freezer — Fresh peas blanched and ready for the freezer

Now it’s time to package for freezing. A vacuum sealer is the bomb for such things, but not everybody has or really needs one. Next best thing is a nice, heavy freezer ziplock style bag. Portion the peas into bags based on your anticipated use – I portion for two, as you can always whip out an extra bag for guests. Seal about 90% of the bag, then suck all the air out that you can, and zip it all the way closed while you’re still sucking. That’ll do about as good a job as possible to deter freezer burn and keep things fresh. Label your stuff with the date, pop them in the freezer and you’re good to go.

So, there you go, Sarah – Maybe more than you asked for, but hey – You got me started! Happy preserving.

Time to explore some salt-free seasonings

For most of us, Salt is a must in the kitchen. When the term ‘season lightly’ is bandied about, it almost always means add salt and ground pepper to taste. As I’ve noted here in many, many times, one of the major differences between home cooks and Pros is the judicious use of salt and pepper throughout the cooking process – Seasoning lightly in layers. If you often read electronically as I do, take any of your cookbooks and do a word search for salt – Guaranteed it’ll come up more than any other term in most, if not all of them you own and use. In other words, the influence of salt in cooking is felt damn near everywhere – So what to do when you simply can’t have that mineral any more? Time to explore some salt-free seasonings.

Salt’s ubiquity in cooking isn’t a mistake. In addition to being used as a preservative for thousands of years, salt does yeoman’s duty in waking up or suppressing certain flavors. Ever wonder why something like a cake recipe often calls for a pinch of salt? Its presence rounds out how we taste, smell, and feel food in our mouths – Even sweet stuff. Taste a fresh batch of soup or stew without salt in it, and the vast majority of us will note something to the effect of, it tastes bland, off, flat, no backbone, and so on. A dish that we expect to note the presence of salt within, and doesn’t have it, will seem incomplete or out of balance. As oft noted in the food world, we eat through our sense of smell as much as we do taste, and here again, salt plays a pivotal role – It enhances the volatility of many aromatic components, making their presence much more notable to our schnozes – It does this by freeing aromatic scents from the foods in question, thereby making them more intense to our perception. It wouldn’t be out of line to state that our brains have salt receptors – When it senses salt where we think it should be, it’s a happy brain, and vice verse when it’s not there – That’s powerful stuff.

Sodium chloride is a mineral, which is fairly unique, food-wise. Given its broad power in the kitchen, salt becomes an imposing thing to do without, or to adequately compensate for the absence thereof. An old friend contacted me yesterday, asking for salt free seasoning blends. Her Hubby recently suffered a serious medical setback, and as such, his Docs say no mas with salt. Medical and dietary restrictions are the primary reasons folks are forced to give the stuff up. When it’s medical, it’s serious – a guy really can’t cheat and expect to recover fully or quickly. The current trend in medical thinks says too much salt isn’t good for your blood pressure, heart, liver, or kidneys, and can lead to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. But absolutely no salt isn’t that great for you either – The indication being that moderate salt intake affords some protection from those ills, while an absolutely zero salt diet probably does not. It has some critical functions, acting as an electrolyte to balance fluid, as well as aiding nerve and muscle function. But again, that’s moderate use.

The WHO calls moderate less than 5 grams daily intake, but that’s for sodium as a whole, not just salt. If one’s diet includes regular doses of fast food, and/or highly processed foods in general, chances are good you’re taking in far, far more than that – Often two or more times that RDA, in fact – The FDA claims that roughly 11% of our sodium intake in this country comes from an actual salt shaker, while over 75% of it is derived from packaged, processed food. Let that sink in for a sec…

In other words, it’s not at all out of line to say that most American’s problems with sodium doesn’t come from seasoning, but from eating shitty food. That’s easily remedied, in a way – Get rid of the junk, and you’re mostly good – Or as I used to teach in first aid classes, just go around the outer ring of the grocery store. That way, you’ll get produce, protein, dairy, and beer – And most of what’s in the inside probably ain’t all that great for you, anyway… Of course, just stopping eating a high sodium diet, and still enjoying what you eat, isn’t as easily said as done – Doing that takes some help – and that’s where low or no salt spice blends come in.

If you’ve poked around here, then you know most of the blends I’ve offered do contain a fair amount of salt. Many commercial seasoning blends contain salt first and foremost, for the reasons detailed herein, so how should we compensate? Salt free or damn near is an obvious step, but not a fulfilling one necessarily – Perhaps we should rephrase the question as, how do we compensate with something that will adequately fill the taste and flavor enhancing qualities of salt? The quick answer is acid and umami.

When reviewing the ingredients in commercial no salt seasoning blends, (and how many of us actually do that, by the way?), it becomes readily apparent that the most popular contain at least an acidic constituent, usually powdered citrus or vinegar. Yet quite a few have no viable salt substitute at all. To me, this is a no brainer – If we’re out to successfully replace salt, there must be something effective in its place. Flavor balance among the primary tastes, (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, and possibly kokumi, described as mouthfulness or heartiness), is a key to great overall taste, and a key to many cuisines, especially Asian. Simply removing salt without compensating for and considering the other primary taste factors is unlikely to yield a satisfying result. Again, acidity and umami are the primary candidates to fix that.

Umami is often regarded as being closely associated with MSG, monosodium glutamate, the sodium salt of glutamate. Contrary to a lot of common myth, MSG is not unnatural – It occurs in many foods, (It’s why we dig Parmigiano-Reggiano and tomatoes, among others), and it’s found in our bodies as an amino acid. Granted, there are some folks who don’t tolerate it well, but there are also, to my knowledge, no viable studies that tie MSG to nerve damage, as has been broadly claimed in the past, and many of the studies that found it deleterious to health involved people ingesting quantities far above anything us relatively sane folk would do. MSG contains appreciably less sodium per weight than regular salt, and as such certainly can be considered as a viable constituent of a low salt seasoning blend. Pure MSG is available readily, as are MSG powered seasonings like Maggi. The latter is a good candidate for a spice blend, (it comes in cube form as well as liquid), as a very little bit added to an herb blend packs a big umami/salt punch. Maggi has a bunch of other things in it, herbs, aromatic bases, and the like, depending on where it’s made – Swiss in origin, there are variants made all over the world, and they’re all unique. All that said, if MSG just isn’t on your list, then consider acids.

When it comes to salt free home made spice blends, citrus or vinegar are excellent salt substitutes. Both can be bought powdered, as can lime, lemon, and orange, and all of those in very pure form – These are spray dried, and contain nothing but dried citrus juice. You can also buy, or dry at home, citrus and citrus peel, albeit they won’t have nearly the punch, weight per weight, that dried juice will. As stand alones, or perhaps with the tiniest touch of MSG or regular salt, acids can be effective and satisfying salt replacements.

Next, let us consider the best herbs and spices to employ. This is where things get fun, because replacing or reducing salt calls for the use of what may be considered somewhat exotic ingredients. While there really aren’t any spices, herbs, or aromatic bases that taste salty, there are quite a few that can add their own unique punch to a blend – Something that can contribute to that sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami balance and fill in the missing pieces. Alliums, like garlic, onion, and fennel can do a lot in this regard. So can chiles, throughout their range of heat and smokiness – everything from cayenne to Piment d’Espelette, urfa biber to pepperoncino, or Szechuan to Thai, and any of a hundred other regional gems in this vein. Then consider some of the warmer spices that may not usually make it into your thinking for every day spice blends – Cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, coriander, and nutmeg come to mind. No, these won’t replace salt, but they can provide a balanced flavor profile that intrigues a tongue dismayed by the lack of a favorite thing – This stuff is all about receptors – in our tongues, eyes, noses, and brains – Whatever we need to do to adequately fill the void is the ticket. Add to this the heady, heavier notes of traditional constituents like basil, bay, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, and sage, and you’re in the wheelhouse.

The final consideration is proportion. This really will depend on what you’re building. Let’s say we go for something you’d like to use as an every day blend, something that could go on a wide variety of dishes as a salt based blend might. If it’s me, I’m going allium heavy, with onion and garlic leading the way. How about a Mexican based blend? Chiles are the obvious lead, with pepper as a close second. Speaking of pepper, how about that as a lead? I’d follow it with alliums and sweet pepper notes. Something for poultry? How about paprika, onion, chiles, lemon and some floral herbs?

I think, and trust, that y’all get the idea. I’ll put a few of my ideas up, but here as always – and especially here, where it may be really important to y’all – I need you to take this and run with it. There are no truly bad choices. If you’re unsure of where you’re going, make a tiny batch and see what you think. Tweak that and get where you want to be, and then, guaranteed, one day you’ll use it and think, ‘this is good, but I should…’ and the answer to that is damn near always, ‘yes, do!’

With all of these blends, combine and mix thoroughly. If you’re starting with whole spices, grind them fine. I transfer blends to a shaker topped glass jar, stored away from direct sunlight. Depending on the gauge of your shaker top, you may need to run the finished blend through a single mesh strainer to make sure it’ll flow well. Caking can be an issue, especially in humid environments. Calcium Phosphate is yet another edible rock that does yeoman’s duty as an anti-caking agent. It’s readily available online, and yes, it’s perfectly fine to use and consume – A teaspoon or two in any of these blends should do the trick.

Urban’s Every Day Lo Salt Blend

2 Tablespoons granulated Onion

1 Tablespoon granulated Garlic

1 Tablespoon Smoked Paprika

1 teaspoon dried Mustard

1 teaspoon ground Pepper

1 teaspoon powdered Lemon

1/2 teaspoon Sage

1/4 teaspoon Maggi seasoning

Urb’s Low Salt Pepper Blend

2 Tablespoons ground Black Pepper.

1 Tablespoon ground Red Pepper

1 teaspoon ground Green Pepper

1 teaspoon granulated Onion

1 teaspoon granulated Garlic

1 teaspoon powdered Vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ground Celery Seed

1/4 teaspoon Maggi seasoning

Garlicky No Salt Blend

2 Tablespoons granulated Garlic

2 teaspoon powdered Lemon

2 teaspoon ground Tellicherry Pepper

1 teaspoon Urfa Biber

1 teaspoon Vinegar powder

Urb’s No Salt Mex Blend

1 Tablespoon ground Ancho chile

1 Tablespoon ground Pasilla chile

1 teaspoon ground Chipotle chile

1 teaspoon granulated Garlic

1 teaspoon granulated Onion

1 teaspoon powdered Vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ground Coriander

1/2 teaspoon Mexican Oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin

Urb’s No Salt Poultry Blend

1 Tablespoon sweet Paprika

1 Tablespoon granulated Onion

1 teaspoon powdered Lemon

1 teaspoon ground Pepper

1/2 teaspoon Chile flake

1/2 teaspoon granulated Honey

1/2 teaspoon Sage

1/2 teaspoon Lemon Thyme

Urb’s No Salt Italian Blend

1 Tablespoon Basil

1 Tablespoon Oregano

1 teaspoon Rosemary

1 teaspoon granulated Garlic

1 teaspoon granulated Onion

1 teaspoon powdered Vinegar

1/2 teaspoon powdered Lemon

1/2 teaspoon Marjoram

Urban Chinese Five Spice Blend

1 Tablespoon whole Szechuan Peppercorns

3 whole Star Anise

1 stick Cassia Bark (AKA Chinese Cinnamon)

2 teaspoons whole Cloves

2 teaspoons whole Fennel Seed

Allow a dry, cast iron skillet to heat through over medium heat.

Add Szechuan pepper, star anise, cloves, and fennel seed to the pan. Toast the spices until they’re notably fragrant, about 3 to 5 minutes. Keep the spices moving constantly to avoid scorching.

Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Add the toasted spices and cassia to a spice grinder, blender, mortar and pestle, or whatever you use to grind spices. Pulse the blend to a uniform rough powder.

No Fail Frying

Alert follower Ian chimed in this morning with a great question:

‘How would I bread something wet like a pickle spear, or tempura vegetables?

The smooth surfaces would make binding difficult, would it not?’

As always, thanks for following and asking – I love being able to help with stuff like this.

The short answer is – Yes – A smooth and/or wet surface is a challenge when it comes to getting a coating to hang on whilst deep frying, or for baking for that matter. As many of you know, we like to watch a bit of food porn, and Chopped is right there at the top of our list. The other night, we watched a professional Chef and culinary instructor serve fish breaded with an ingredient from the mystery basket – His breading fell off. His fish ended up dried out, he’d effectively missed a mandatory ingredient, and he got chopped – Even Pros get the blues with this issue.

A further problematic component is the solution(s); ask five people their advice/method, and you’ll get five different answers – Egg wash, no egg wash – refrigerate, don’t refrigerate – cornstarch, no cornstarch – And on it goes. If the problem has ever happened to you, (and if you tell me it never has, I won’t believe you), we’re here to tell you how to make the bad thing stop.

The first consideration when frying stuff is whether or not any treatment is needed. You certainly could fry almost anything with no coating at all, but you’re not likely to get what you’re after with some foods. Frying is a relatively high heat cooking method, and the density of oil means that heat gets right to work on your food and stays at it. Relatively delicate stuff like veggies, seafood, and chicken can and will get dry and tough real quickly if they’re not properly prepped for frying. The reason we coat things is threefold.

First, a good coating protects foods from drying out or charring, and promotes browning;

Secondly, it forms a tasty, crunchy crust;

And third, that coating forms a barrier that keeps food from absorbing too much oil and becoming greasy.

That’s a description of a good crust, of course, but not all crusts come out that way. A bad crust falls off, ends up tough and chewy, or soft and mushy – We’ve all experienced those, so the question is, how do we achieve a good crust?

The first aspect to explore is what to coat with; each permutation has its plusses and pitfalls.

There’s breading, which means some combination of bread crumbs and seasoning. I’ve made breading with crumbs from many different breads, cereal, crackers, and potato or corn chips. Breading certainly makes a formidable barrier layer, and can add a nice elements of crunch and flavor, but may do so at the cost of overwhelming the food being breaded. Things to keep in mind are crumb source and size – Crackers and chips generally have higher fat content than bread, so those can end up burning easier and/or tasting greasy, so compensate with attentive frying and proper proportion. Same goes for exceptionally large crumbs – a lot of oil can and will get caught therein if things aren’t just right, so reducing crumb size with a quick spin in a processor or grinder might be warranted.

Dredges are usually flour based with some added seasoning. They’re far subtler than breading, but in and of themselves, don’t add as much crunch, which in the case of, say, fried chicken, might be highly desirable. Things to watch here are quantity and source. Too much flour leads to tough, doughy coatings, too little to an inordinately fragile shell. All purpose and bread flours made from wheat are relatively high in gluten, so they stick well, but that also makes them potentially gluey. Low protein alternatives, like Wondra, cake, rice, or corn flour will make a thinner, crunchier crust that won’t get sloppy. Root and nut flours are not recommended for dredges, because they’re prone to rapid breakdown in the high heat range of frying, and can lead to soggy results. Finally, mixing in a little cornstarch rarely hurts – it’ll help dry things out a bit and acts as additional glue.

For both breading and dredges, the egg wash is a must as far as I’m concerned – That’s the glue that makes your coating stick, and without it, it’s a lot more likely to fall off. Pat your food dry before you coat it, and here’s a serious secret weapon: The double dip and cryo routine is a sure fire way to avoid catastrophic crust release; here’s how it works.

Set out bowls of egg wash, (1 tablespoon of whole milk per egg, beaten well), and your seasoned crumbs or dredge. Drag whatever you’re frying through the egg wash, shake it a couple times, then run it through the crumbs or dredge, shake or tap off the excess, then repeat – So, egg/dry/egg/dry. That second run will lock both the glue and the coating tightly onboard. Then, place your prepped stuff in a single layer on a waxed paper lined plate or pan, and slide that into the fridge for about 30 minutes while you heat your oil. The cryo-treatment keeps that crust firmly onboard until you fry. Again, watch your oil temp, as colder food will make it drop faster – Work in small batches and adjust temp as needed to stay where you need to be.

Batters are wet coatings, made with water, milk, or beer. Again, batter adds great crunch and taste, but done wrong it can override primary flavors, and lead to that chewy or mushy coating we mentioned earlier. Batters really require deep frying to shine, while breading or dredging can be done shallow with fine results. Dairy or beer generally works better than water for batters heavier than tempura; the water has a tendency to turn quickly to steam when it hits the oil, and can lead to that premature coating release we want to avoid. If you’re working with slippery food in this genre, a quick dusting of corn starch makes a great batter glue, and won’t appreciably affect taste. Finally, adding a bit of a chemical leavening agent like baking soda helps form a lighter crust.

My advice is to experiment freely, trying different combinations to arrive at a favorite or two. With all of these options, make sure you season your crumbs/dredge/batter – boring batter leads to more blah fried stuff than any other source. Keep in mind that seasonings get amplified by frying, so watch the salt especially.

Proper temperature is also a big part of good results. You should fry pretty much everything between 325° F and 375° F – Lower than that range will allow oil to enter the food, make things heavy and greasy; too much higher and most oils will start to smoke, which is dangerous and not at all tasty. More delicate stuff like veggies and fish go at the bottom of that range, chicken in the middle, root veggies at the top. Oil variety is up to you. We fry in peanut oil, because it has a nice, savory taste note, can be had relatively cheaply, and is a monounsaturated oil that’s relatively good for you. Canola is cheap and works well too.

For post fry draining, brown paper bags are our go to – You’ll get the crunchiest results using those instead of paper towels or newspaper.

For Ian’s primary question, deep frying pickles, there is a trick I like a lot. Use thoroughly chilled pickle chips, slices or wedges. Make a thin beer batter with 50% – 50% cake flour and beer. Pull those pickles, batter them, and place on a waxed paper lined plate in the fridge for about 30 minutes while you heat your oil. Again, that cryo-treatment really helps the coating stay put. Fry at 350° F, in small batches, closely monitoring oil temp. NOTE: If you like the idea of breaded pickles, try crushed sea salt and vinegar, or black pepper and sea salt chips as your crumb; they’re both pretty stellar.

For tempura and veggies, incorporating rice flour will help the batter stick better. Our go-to tempura batter is nice and light – It looks like this:

1 Cup ice cold Water

1/2 Cup Cake Flour

1/2 Cup Rice Flour

1 large Egg

2 Tablespoons Corn Starch

1 Tablespoon Baking Soda

In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients and incorporate thoroughly.

In a large mixing bowl, combine egg and water and beat to incorporate thoroughly.

Add half the dry mix and whisk gently to incorporate, then add the remaining half and combine thoroughly.

Fry veggies at 325° F; when they pop to the top of the oil and are light golden brown, they’re good to go.

Now, everybody say “Thanks, Ian,” for a great question!

Salt Cured Egg Yolks

There’s no telling how long people have been preserving eggs. As one of natures most amazing sources of energy and great taste, there’s always been great interest in having them available whenever desired. Whether by brine, smoke, or chemistry, there are a bunch of ways to do it. And it’s a natural progression to go from preserving the whole egg to just focusing on the yolk, since that’s where all the really good stuff is – and if you’re going to do that, there’s nothing easier or more effective that a simple salt cure.

Egg yolks are a nutritional powerhouse. All the fat and roughly half the protein an egg possesses is in there, along with a very long list of other things – carbohydrates, amino acids, vital trace nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and yeah, a healthy shot of cholesterol, but that’s had a bad rap for far too long. Donald K. Layman, Professor Emeritus of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Illinois has gone so far as to say that, “cutting dietary cholesterol is almost irrelevant when it comes to promoting healthy blood cholesterol levels and heart health.” While that’s not an endorsement to go off and start an all Twinkie diet, it does get eggs and a bunch of other formerly vilified foods off the hook.

Century Egg - Seriously acquired taste — Century Egg – Seriously acquired taste

There are a raft of preserved egg and yolk examples out there. The Chinese alone have been doing this for hundreds of years, exemplified by the so called Century Egg, which appeared in Hunan province during the Ming Dynasty. This, like rotten shark, is an acquired taste to say the least – They make durian seem tame – and yes, I’ve tried one, and I won’t do it again. To be fair, it’s the smell more than the taste that’s severely off-putting – think of a multi-feline cat box unchanged for weeks, and you get close.

Smoked eggs are as they sound, done either with cold or hot smoke. They too are sublime – The smoke, and as such choice of wood used, adds a lovely depth and complexity to the egg – It exemplifies egg versatility to a surprising degree.

Then there’s the brined or salt cured whole egg, which is an entirely different experience – good ones are lovely, like a really good egg with over the top concentrated richness and umami. The star of course, is the yolk.

This whole exercise begs the question – why would I want to do it? Well, you either love egg yolk or you don’t – If you don’t, go out and play – if you do, read on. Egg yolk has a savory, smooth taste absolutely brimming with umami, and they’re pretty, to boot. If we can create a version of that which intensifies the umami, and makes them instantly usable whenever the whim hits, it’s worth doing.

There’s also the transformational consideration – Great food is all about taking something common and doing uncommon things with them – When the whole process is stunningly simple, it’s that much sexier in the end run – And salt cured egg yolks are very sexy indeed. What you end up with is something that you can and will grate, with a gloriously bright yellow color. Preserved yolk tastes like buttery cheese – rich but not cloying – with a high level of umami added to whatever floats your boat – And it will, believe me – On pasta, pizza, salads, veggies, you name it, a little grating of this is stunningly good.

On to the process. It is a very simple thing, albeit there are a couple of versions, and we’ll cover both herein. As with all things simple in cooking, the first and most critical consideration is ingredient quality. If ever there’s a time to buy the freshest, most local eggs you can, this would be it. Since we’re merely concentrating that which already exists, mediocre will certainly breed mediocre. What you want is a stellar egg, one with a lovely orangish-yellow yolk, as fresh as you can get. Ditto for salt – you don’t need fancy, but you do want pure – high quality, coarse kosher or sea salt, with absolutely nothing else in it, is the key. Once you’ve got these together, do the deed the same day – It doesn’t take long, and that way you’re assured of taking full advantage of fresh stuff.

As for specific methodology, as mentioned, there are two primary schools – One uses just salt for the cure with passive secondary drying, while the other employs a salt and sugar cure coupled with mechanical drying in an oven or dehydrator. Both work fine, so it comes down to your predilection, and how fast you want to get done. Again, it’s so simple, it’s highly worth trying a batch of each and making your own comparison. From there, you can tweak whatever you like best to make it yours. Here’s the drill.

In both methods, the first step is the cure. You need a bunch of salt for this, depending on how many yolks you plan to do. Again, it’s super easy to do, so start with maybe four yolks, try out the results, then try the other method, pick your fave. To process a dozen yolks, you’ll need a pound of coarse kosher or sea salt. If you use the sugar/salt cure, it’s a 50%-50% blend of each – Use regular old cane sugar for that – Nothing fine or fancy needed. That’s the only difference in the cures.

Once you’ve chosen your cure, get an appropriately sized container big enough to hold how ever many yolks you want to process, as well as a bunch of cure. I like food storage containers with a snap fit lid for this – It’s gonna go in the fridge for a week, so it’s nice to have something that’ll stand up to daily use and exploration. Word to the wise, if you’ve got a bunch of folks in your house, tell them what you’re doing and point out the container – that can go a long way toward not having your stuff tossed or played with.

Pour an even layer of cure about 1/2″ thick into the container, then form a series of evenly spaced divots to receive how ever many yolks you’re gonna cure.

Have a second airtight container ready for your egg whites. Carefully separate yolks from whites, (You can and should freeze the whites for a future endeavor.) Slide a yolk into each little depression in the cure.

Now carefully cover the yolks with a nice, even layer of cure – Here again, you want about 1/2″ or so of cure over the tops of the yolks.

Seal up the container and slide it into the fridge, and leave it alone for a week.

Once your week is up, pull the yolks. Fill a small bowl with warm water, and have a clean piece of cheese cloth handy.

Take each yolk out of the cure, and brush excess cure off. Dip the cheese cloth into the water and use that to gently clean as much cure off of the yolks as you can – At this stage, they’re still a little tacky, which is just fine – Don’t freak out if the cleaning process is taking a bit of yolk with it, but again, be gentle.

Now comes the division between finishing steps.

If you’re going the passive route, then all you need is some more clean cheese cloth. Wrap each yolk in a hunk of that and tie it off with kitchen twine.

After that, hang it from a shelf in your fridge so that each yolk has good air flow all around it. Leave them there for at least a week, and two is better. When that’s done, you’re done, and you can go to town with them.

If you prefer the faster mechanical method, then you’ll set your oven or an adjustable dehydrator to 200° F. Put the yolks on a silicone pad or parchment if you’re using the oven, onto a rack if you’re going dehydrator. Let the yolks dry for 45 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool to room temp before refrigerating.

Either way you choose, the yolks, refrigerated in a non-reactive, airtight container will last at least a month, (but they won’t, ’cause you’ll scarf ’em down.)

Salt cured egg yolk on house made pizza - Si! — Salt cured egg yolk on house made pizza – Si!

Now, back there a ways I mentioned that you can tweak things, and you can – herbs and spices in the cure are par for the course, so have some fun, use your imagination, and let me know what you come up with, yeah?

Salt Potatoes

I have a favorite kitchen mantra that goes like this – Simple is always good, but not always easy. The implications are rife in that phrase – Simple is always good, but our inclinations sometimes work against it. And then as stated, simple just isn’t always easy, in fact sometimes it’s deceptively hard. Yet when we bow to the sublime, amazing things can happen. Salt potatoes are such a thing. Chances are you’ve never had them, and if you have, you’ve been given an origin story for the dish. It’s safe bet they’re far older than you were lead to believe, and more widely travelled to boot.

There are over 5000 potato varieties world wide

The potato, (most often Solanum tuberosum), is another gift from the Andes, specifically southern Peru and northwest Bolivia, where it was first domesticated somewhere around 8000 to 5000 BC – Yes, that means roughly 7000 to 10,000 years ago. Brought to Europe in the mid 1500s by, (yup, you guessed it), those marauding Spaniards, the spud is now cultivated worldwide, though of the roughly 5,000 varieties known around the globe, over 3,000 are still found in the Andes – Think about that the next time you’re picking between russet, gold, or reds at the store. If ever there was a crop begging to be expanded in your garden, this is it.

Initially, Europe wasn’t crazy about the potato, especially, and maybe most strangely, in the northern climes where potatoes do quite well. Part of the reticence may lie in their Solanaceae family roots, which includes some pretty dangerous plants, (and the leaves and green skins of potatoes exposed to light.) Over time, the nutritional punch made its way through the naysayers, and by the 1800s, potatoes were in heavy cultivation throughout most of Europe. A raw potato is 80% water, followed by 16% carbs, and about 4% protein, and are rich in vitamin B and C. While cooking degrades some of the nutrient value, they’re still a relatively good bang for the buck, which is why they’re the worlds forth largest food crop – And over 68% of those grown are eaten directly by humans, to the tune of an average of 72 pounds annually. These days, over 37% of world production happens in China and India.

And of all the myriad ways to cook a potato, who’d have thought to just boil them in brine? Turns out, pretty much everybody, although some lay heavier claims than others. Look up salt potatoes, and in this country, most of what you’ll find will claim that they were invented in Syracuse, New York. Now, that’s simply not true, but there is a reason that one of these far flung claims resides there – Syracuse was a major salt production and shipping center in the 19th century.

In the fall of 1825, the last section of the Erie Canal was completed. Running east to west, the Erie connected to the north-south running Oswego canal at a little town called Syracuse. With canals running right through town, Syracuse picked up the moniker as the American Venice. The Erie Canal had been built to move Onondaga Salt to New York City and the world, and for a while, it worked really well. As fate would have it, bunch of those old Salt workers were Irish, and they truly loved their potatoes, and regularly cooked those and corn in brine, but they didn’t invent the dish.

Papas Saladas - Andean Magic — Papas Saladas – Andean Magic

Who did remains shrouded in mystery, but it’s a good guess it started down in South America. There, among many local versions, you’ll find papas saladas, that hail from, of course, another salt mining town. In the Canary Islands, they’re papas arrugadas, (which we mentioned in our Mojo post), and in the Guérande salt producing region of France, they’re patate cuit au sel. And of course there’s many more – Chances are very good you’ll find a version in every country, and many will claim origination – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Papas Arrugadas - Canary Island Magic — Papas Arrugadas – Canary Island Magic

If you’ve never tried salt potatoes, trust me when I tell you it’s time. They’re a perfect summer accompaniment to grilled meats and veggies, and they’re delicious enough to stand alone. While the method and ingredients couldn’t be simpler, there is a bit of slightly complex chemistry going on under the hood of this one.

Right off hand, it’s not outrageous to question how good a potato boiled in brine will taste. The assumption is that way too much salt will get into that spud, making for an unpleasant, out of balance experience. Fortunately, that’s not what happens. Here’s the magic – One, cooking in a brine solution raises the boiling point higher than plain old water, (just as it lowers the freezing point when making ice cream), and two, the thin salt crust that forms on the spuds acts as a barrier, keep excess salt and water out. As a result, the potatoes effectively steam in their own skins, and you only end up with that thin layer of crystallized salt on the outside of the skins. That leads to an amazingly fluffy spud with a super tasty skin, just right for dipping in melted butter, gribiche, mojo, sauce diable, or chimichurri. As I mentioned, they’re stunningly good, good enough to eat as a meal, with little bowls of this and that to add as you please.

There are slightly different cooking methods around the globe – Some boil in brine and drain, (The Syracuse method), others boil the brine completely away with the spuds still in the pan, (I prefer the latter method.) They’re all worth trying, but this one will set you well for your first endeavor. As with all simple dishes, quality and freshness count – Freshly dug, local spuds from a farmers market deserve this dish – Old, soft, mealy, bulk spuds do not. Same goes for salt – This is the time to use something good – Sel de mere, Bolivian Sunrise, Himalayan pink, or Maldon – Whatever the unique signature the salt bears will play out beautifully. All salts do not have equal volume so you’ll be best served by weighing it out.

Salt Crusted Potatoes

1 Pound fresh new or fingerling potatoes, (You want something in the 1″ to 2″ range, and pretty uniform in size)
1 Ounce really good Salt.

In a heavy sauce pan over high heat, add potatoes, salt, and just enough water to cover the spuds.

Once you reach a boil, reduce heat to maintain a steady simmer. Cook potatoes until fork tender, about 20 minutes.

Pour off all but about a half inch of water. Put the pot back on the burner and turn heat to high.

Use a wooden spoon to roll spuds through the remaining brine as it begins to boil off. You’ll see the salt crystalizing on your spuds as this occurs – It’ll take a few minutes for the brine to disappear.

Continue gently rolling the spuds in the dry pan for another couple of minutes, until the salt crust evenly coats each potato and the skins start to get slinky wrinkly.

Remove from heat to a serving bowl and serve promptly.

Creating Thick from Thin

I wish to make a declaration, and here it is – Monica makes better stew than I do. That’s because she unfailingly understands and implements the proper steps needed to separate a stew from a mere soup – She knows exactly how to thicken things up, and what to use in so doing – In other words, creating thick from thin.

Thickening is far more important to cooking than first glance might indicate. From baking to braising and sauces to stew, entire dishes, or critical components thereof, require a dependable thickening agent to turn out as expected. Let’s say you’re in the mood for pasta, and you want to keep things light. A pan sauce, made with stock, a little wine, a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper would do nicely – Except that, as described, it won’t stick to pasta very well, and it will be watery – Not a very appetizing image. Add a touch of a decent thickening agent, however, and everything is transformed. The delicate flavors now have a stable framework to marry within, and your lovely pan sauce will stick heartily to your pasta. Three questions spring from this example – What are our options, how do they work, and which thickener works best for a specific application? Let’s find the answers.

In a word, what we mean when we say thickening agent, is starch. From flour to cornstarch, and arrowroot to potato starch, there’s a wide array of options for home cooks. In gnarly scientific terms, a starch is a polymeric carbohydrate, or polysaccharide – a really long chain of sugar molecules that most green plants use as a primary source of stored energy. These starches occur as really small granules for the most part, which is a big reason that they lend themselves so well to cooking. The ones that make their way into our kitchens come from cereals and tubers – Wheat, corn, potato, and cassava for the most part. Seaweed also gets the nod, although that’s not all that common in the home kitchen – Irish moss, carrageenan, agar, and eucheuma are common examples.

There are, of course, artificial versions as well, and if you eat the processed crap that lurks in the middle aisles of your local grocery, you’re eating those too – anything that reads ‘alginate’ is an industrially produced product, mostly seaweed derivatives, and variously labeled as a thickener, stabilizer, or emulsifier on product labels. Finally, the popularity of molecular gastronomy has lead to some hybridized versions of things that are actually pretty cool, and quite accessible to the home chef – More on those a bit later.

So, how do these little suckers work, anyway? The answer lies in the chemical properties of those long chains of sugar molecules when they’re heated. Thickening gone wrong in the kitchen is like hitting a deer in eastern Washington – There’s those who’ve done it, and them’s who are gonna. Almost without fail, what’s at issue is a failed introduction. The oldest and most common starches found in the average home kitchen are flour and cornstarch, and those two just don’t mix with cold liquids. Once you introduce a starch to something hot, the magic begins – The starch granules begin to swell almost immediately, absorbing water. Once they hit their saturation point, the granules burst, adding more of those long chain molecules to the mix, and serious thickening begins. The starch expands, acting like a net and gathering as much liquid in as it can, and you’ve got gravy. How hot is hot enough to make this tiny miracle work? Flour and cornstarch are rich in amylose, and that little beastie needs to be almost to a boil to really reach its prime, although they’ll begin to work above 140° F.

Tapioca and cassava flour, on the other hand, contain another starch, amylopectin, and they don’t need to get close to a boil to work well – And for the record, tapioca and cassava are not the same thing – Tapioca is extracted from cassava roots by washing and pulping, while cassava is the whole root, peeled, dried and ground, as we covered recently in a post. Similarly, arrowroot as a dried version of a tropical tuber, and may come from one of several varieties, including cassava. More on this a bit later.

While we’re discussing how and why starches work as thickeners, it’s important to highlight some things that will hinder the thickening process. Acids, like that lemon juice and wine in our pan sauce, (as well as Vinegar of course), will weaken the thickening power of starch – not critically, in most formulations, but enough that we should be aware of it. The other common cooks mistake is tossing starch straight into a hot liquid. As many have discovered, that dog don’t hunt all that well. What happens is a very rapid gelatinization of the outsides of each starch lump. This effectively traps the rest of the stuff, leaving lumps of thickening agent and an embarrassed chef. What’s better, (and proper, frankly), is to draw off a half cup or so of whatever you’re wanting to thicken into a measuring cup, add the starch to that, mix thoroughly with a fork, and then pour that into the dish in progress – Stir that in thoroughly, and you’re giving your thickener the chance it needs to do its thing.

Time to answer that third question – What are the various thickeners best at, and how should they be deployed?

Flour power - limited sweet spot, but great at what it does. — Flour power – limited sweet spot, but great at what it does.

First comes flour, the go-to for most home cooks. The first things we’ll do, then, is talk about why maybe you don’t want flour to be your go-to. The reason? Putting it simply, flour isn’t a pure starch, as many other thickeners are – There are other proteins and whatnot in there, so ounce per ounce, flour has roughly 50% of the thickening power of pure starches. That means that it not only takes more to do the same job, but you get definite taste, textural, and visual notes when thickening with flour that you may not always want. Flour works best for stuff that won’t suffer from those potential shortcomings – White sauces, like béchamel, stews, and fricassées, for instance, and of course nothing else will truly do in a roux.

If you’re going to use flour for thickening, I highly recommend investing in Wondra – You’ll find it in most stores, in a round, blue and white can – Wondra is a low protein wheat flour that is roasted and dried, so it’s kinda like the Uncle Bens of flour. Because of that, it doesn’t clump, and makes excellent gravy and sauces – Its also great for dusting stuff you’re going to fry – It makes a nice, light coating. How best to deploy flour? You can add it to your aromatics at the beginning of the build process for a soup or stew – It’ll combine with the oil you use to sauté those veggies, and effectively create a roux. You can also coat your proteins in it, and then brown them – That’s Monica’s preferred method and it works great. You can also add flour to a cup or so of whatever you’re wanting to thicken with good results. One important note – Just as you need to cook canned tomatoes or beans long enough to get the can taste out, so must you cook flour thickened dishes to get rid of the raw flour taste – 3 to 5 minutes minimum at a steady simmer will do the trick.

Cornstarch, clean and quick, but likes to clump

Next up, cornstarch. Derived from, yes, corn, it’s a pure starch and a potent thickener. It imparts fewer indicators of its presence than flour does, and it can stand up to quite a bit of cooking without losing power. Because of that, it’s great for cream pies and puddings that require fairly lengthy cooking times. The potential downside of cornstarch lies in the fact that it’s more prone to clumping than any other starch – combine it with sugar when baking, or to enough liquid to form a smooth paste before introducing it to the main dish, to counteract its desire to clump. Cornstarch also provides a clearer finished product than flour – Something to keep in mind when appearance matters, (and when doesn’t appearance matter?)

Tapioca, in pearl or powder for, shines in pies

Tapioca, which is extracted from cassava roots, can be found in pearl and powder form. It has, for my mind, a pretty narrow window of use. It’s great with fruit pies, jams, and jellies because it gels up more firmly than other starches, and holds a lot of liquid, and those qualities can really help keep a sweet treat from getting soggy. That said, it can be quite overwhelming, even cloying, hence the narrow window of opportunity. Note that tapioca does not do well on baked goodies with an open or lattice top, because it will not dissolve well when so deployed – With any pie, it’s a best practice to let the tapioca marry with the fruit for a good 10 minutes prior to baking. It’s also not great for soups and stews because it tends to break down quickly when exposed to relatively long cooking times.

Arrowroot - potent, fast, and clean — Arrowroot – potent, fast, and clean

Arrowroot is not widely used as a thickener, though it sure was back in the day – The earliest cultivation evidence for this stuff goes back over 7,000 years – It is enjoying somewhat of a comeback lately. Arrowroot is a favorite for its light footprint and formidable thickening power. Arrowroot comes from several rootstocks – Maranta Arundinacea or Manihot Esculenta, (AKA Cassava) in the tropics, Zamia integrifolia (Florida Arrowroot), and Pueraria Lobata, AKA Japanese arrowroot, also known as the dreaded Kudzu vine. The only no-no for this stuff is use with dairy – doing that will result in a most unpleasant, slimy consistency.

Otherwise, arrowroot works faster and more efficiently than either flour, cornstarch, or tapioca. It will thicken at a lower temperature, and won’t make clear stuff cloudy. You can even freeze stuff thickened with arrowroot, something no other options does very well at all. You can substitute 2 teaspoons of arrowroot in recipes calling for a tablespoon of cornstarch, and 1 teaspoon for those asking for a tablespoon of flour. When you use arrowroot, add it to warm liquid and mix well prior to introduction to a hot dish. As soon as whatever you’re working on thickens, remove it from heat, as arrowroot has limited tolerance for long cooking, (As such, it’s not what you want to use for pies, tarts, etc). Arrowroot has excellent resistance to the weakening effects of acids, so those soups, stews, and sauces with citrus, wine, or vinegar are prime turf for its use.

Potato starch is another thickener that you’ve not seen much in this country until recently, though it’s always been popular in Europe. Derived from, yep, potatoes, its recent popularity here is due to the fact that it’s one of the latest crown princes of the gluten free/super food hype parade. Beyond that, it’s another one I like a lot. Bob’s Red Mill makes great potato flour and starch, and is widely available. Potato starch is highly refined, meaning it has very little protein or fat in it – This yields a thickener with a truly neutral taste, great strength, fast action, durability, and most impressive clarity – That stock, wine, and citrus pan sauce we started with comes out beautifully with potato starch onboard.

And then there’s that molecular gastronomy stuff. Poke around a place like Molecular Recipes, where I like to get my stuff, and you’ll find a raft of thickeners. All those industrial thickeners I mentioned a while back are here, if that sort of thing floats your boat. There are also elegantly refined versions of more traditional stuff, like the product they call Ultra Sperse. This is a highly refined version of corn starch – So much so that you can add it to almost anything, hot or cold, and it will thicken quickly, robustly, and without making lumps. Ultra Sperse yields a clean tasting, clear, bright thickened product you can cook to your hearts content, or. Ore to the point, not if you prefer or need to do things cold. It’s amazing stuff, and I highly recommend it. THE USUAL DISCLAIMER – No, I don’t work for or with this outfit, nor do I get free or discounted stuff from them. I bought it, with my money, same as you can, and I recommend it because it’s great stuff you’ll like too.

And finally, never forget the power of leftovers – Case in point, we’ve just had thanksgiving, which lead to the full blown turkey and all the trimmings dinner. On day three, I made turkey stew, and thickened it with leftover gravy and mashed potatoes. It was stunningly rich and delicious. And of course gazpacho, that heavenly cold soup, absolutely must have day old bread used as the thickener – Anything else would be uncivilized. And a little corn flour is the bees knees in your next batch of chili.

So there you have it, some new stuff to go find and try, and a solid reference for future explorations.