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Fête & Feast. Classic Pea Soup with Ham recipe. Using paring knife, peel off and discard skin from ham hock.

Classic Pea Soup with Ham recipe

Trim off and discard fat. Set aside. In Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-low heat; fry onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaves, salt, pepper and ham hock, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add stock, peas and 2 cups (500 mL) water; bring to boil over medium-high heat, skimming off any foam. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until peas break down and meat is tender enough to fall off hock, about 1-3/4 hours. Remove ham hock; pull off and shred meat. Additional information : Tip: After removing the ham hock, you can also use an immersion blender to blend soup to half chunky stage while still in the pot. Using paring knife, peel off and discard skin from ham hock. In Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-low heat; fry onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaves, salt, pepper and ham hock, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes.

Brining Pork - Keep it moist and tender by brining first. Brining any meat can add a significant amount of water to it before you cook to make meats juicier and tenderer.

Brining Pork - Keep it moist and tender by brining first

You can actually increase the total weight of a cut of pork by 15% or more. While this is purely water weight it is liquid that takes time to cook out. Therefore the amount of water that remains in a piece of meat during cooking can increase greatly. This makes it moister and more tender. The basic formula for a brine solution is 1 cup of salt (preferably without iodine) to one gallon of water.

When it comes to the amount of time you want to brine something it is more important not to brine too long than not long enough. Pork Chops (about 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick) - 12 to 24 hours Whole Pork Tenderloin - 12 hours Whole Pork Loin - 2 days Brining times are not only determined by the weight and thickness of meat but also by the grain of the meat.

The most basic seasoning that you want to add to your brine is a sweetener. Apple Caviar recipe by Chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli - Spain on Star Chefs.

Beer & Wine

Food Carts. Molecular Gastronomy Recipe Redux" ­It's not the goal of molecular gastronomists to reduce cooking to a collection of dry c­alculations and lifeless formulas.

Molecular Gastronomy Recipe Redux"

Rather inventive cooks are trying to make their­ creations e­v­en tastier, with the help of a new technique or by tweaking an old favorite. Let's see how they might ­transform this traditional meal. ­ Caviar, the classic upscale hors d'oeuvre, is prepared from the eggs of certain fish species. With a little kitchen chemistry, you can enjoy a new­ kind of caviar -- apple caviar -- first developed by Ferran Adrià, the chef of El Bulli Restaurant who experimented with spherification. Here's the basic recipe; you can find detailed instructions on the StarChefs Web site. For the main course, we're going to have duck à l'orange. A molecular gastronomist overcomes this by taking advantage of microwave technology. Homemade vanilla ice cream is last. ­ Up n­ext, we'll talk about some chefs who have embraced molecular gastronomy.