Culinary Propaganda

Pleasure Tools

2011-10-13T15:45:00.000-04:00

A version of this article appeared in the Montreal Mirror on October 13, 2011 (here).

When it comes to kitchen equipment, I believe in minimalism. As a general rule, the home cook should aim to have a basic set of high-quality, multi-purpose tools. Specialized, single-purpose tools are only worthwhile if they allow you to do something you could not accomplish with a multi-purpose tool, or could accomplish only through a great deal of agony. Home cooking, like other activities that result in the furtherance of human life, should be pleasurable.

Two narrowly specialized kitchen tools from which I have been deriving pleasure continuously for years now are the olive pitter and the lemon squeezer. In both cases, the tool’s arrival in my kitchen altered my relationship to the ingredient it helps to process.

The Olive Pitter

If you want to use olives in a dish while avoiding dental work, it is advisable to use pitted olives. The trouble with olives that are sold pitted is that they are usually crap. If you want to use really good olives, you will have to pit them yourself. If you have tried doing this without a dedicated tool—for instance, by slitting the olives and trying to squeeze out their pits—you will know that it is a pleasure tantamount to masturbating with a cheese grater.

Figure 1. An olive is shown who's boss.

Not so if you own an olive pitter, a small, simple tool that should set you back no more than $10 (Figure 1). You will be amazed by how fast, in fact, by how fun, it is to show those olives who’s boss. You can rip through a cupful of kalamatas in just a couple of minutes (Figure 2).

Do not confuse an olive pitter with a cherry pitter! They look similar but the latter has a much larger receptacle for the fruits; it will not hold olives snugly and instead of removing their pits it will turn them to pulp. Any merchant who tries to convince you otherwise is a big fat liar.

Figure 2. Look ma, no pits!

The Lemon Squeezer

The case of the lemon squeezer is somewhat different from that of the olive pitter, in the sense that most of us already have a specialized tool for extracting juice from lemons and other smaller citrus fruits—i.e., a juicer. I am referring to those ridged cones made of wood, plastic or glass that you impale lemon halves on and twist to wring out their entrails. They do effectively extract the juice, but they also take out pulp, pith, and seeds. Herein lies the problem with juicers: you just want the juice, not the other junk, and especially not the seeds. You have to take certain cumbersome steps to separate junk from the juice, straining it out with a sieve or removing it manually with a spoon.

Figure 3. That lemon got juiced.

The lemon squeezer, a tool that looks like a garlic squeezer on steroids, elegantly solves this problem (Figure 3). You load your lemon or lime half, flat side down, into a receptacle with small holes that only allow juice to pass through. This means you can squeeze the juice directly into your dish; the seeds, pith, and pulp are trapped inside the squeezer. No fuss, no muss.

Squeeze hard enough and you will not only extract every last drop of juice but also some of the extremely fragrant citrus oil from the rind! After squeezing, open the squeezer and tilt it over your compost or garbage bin and watch that dead, inside out lemon rind fall out along with the seeds. It’s so efficient it would give a German engineer a boner.

Tapenade Recipe
Having these tools will enable you to make dishes that would otherwise have been tedious, if not impossible, to make. For me, one such dish is tapenade—the classic, southern French olive paste. It requires significant quantities of both pitted olives and lemon juice. Below, I provide you with a recipe for tapenade that I believe to be vastly superior in taste (not to mention inferior in cost) to any of the prepared products available on the market.

Ingredients

1 cup pitted black olives (works well with kalamata olives)
2 tbsp capers 8 anchovies
2–3 cloves garlic juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tbsp brandy (optional)
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Procedure

Put all of the above ingredients in a small food processor (Figure 4) and blend until a coarse paste forms (Figure 5). Very difficult!

Figure 4. Before.

Figure 5. After.

Tapenade is delicious on bread, with cheese and tomatoes.

Good appetite.

Pickle Yourself

2011-08-23T20:44:00.000-04:00

In this installment, dear reader, I will show you how to make brine-fermented dill pickles, the superior way to preserve cucumbers. These are also know as "deli-style" or "kosher" dill pickles. They are made without vinegar.

The Science of Dill Pickles

Cucumbers, like other vegetables, can be preserved by immersion in a salty, acidic solution. The combination of salt and acid inhibits the growth of certain bacteria and therefore protects the cucumbers from spoilage and decomposition. Of course, it also considerably alters their texture and taste, usually in a very positive way.

The nature of the acid in which cucumbers are preserved can vary. Like many other vegetables, they can be preserved in vinegar. Any clear or lightly flavoured vinegar, such a cider or white wine vinegar, will do. But they can also be preserved in lactic acid produced through fermentation. This is nothing unusual; there are many other familiar foods, such as sauerkraut, yogurt, and even certain types of sausage, that are created through lactic acid fermentation, which gives them their complex, sour flavour while helping to extend their shelf life. You can easily tell a jar of vinegar pickles and fermented pickles apart; the fluid surrounding the pickles will be clear in former and always cloudy in the latter (fig. 1). Also, in grocery stores, the former will be found on the shelves whereas the latter will often be kept in a refrigerator.

fig. 1

Fermentation, strictly speaking, is any process that consists of bacteria or yeasts (or some combination thereof) consuming sugars and yielding another substance, such as alcohol or lactic acid. For some types of fermentation, a bacterial or yeast culture needs to be added to start the process. This is not the case with cucumbers—the bacteria we seek already naturally occur on their skin.

To get the right kind of fermentation—we are making pickles, not cucumber wine—we need the right kind of bacteria to grow. For this, we need to create the right kind of environment. Very conveniently, it just happens that friendly, lactic acid producing bacteria thrive in salty environments whereas their unfriendly, homicidal cousins don’t. So, to achieve lactic acid fermentation, cucumbers need to be submerged in brine with the right concentration of salt. Too little salt and the unfriendly bacteria may gain a foothold and destroy the cucumbers before they have a chance to sour. (They could also turn into poison.) Too much salt and the pickles may never sour, as even the friendly bacteria’s salt tolerance has limits.

But why?

Why bother with this bacterial fermentation when you can just dump some vinegar on your cukes? The answer is that fermented pickles, in my not-so-humble opinion, taste better. They are less astringent and have a fuller, more complex, sour flavour. They happen also to be probiotic and are a source of the otherwise tricky to obtain vitamin K. Another advantage is that you can use their brine. In central European folk medicine, pickle (and sauerkraut) brine is thought to be an unparalleled hangover cure. Otherwise, Poles like me add fermented pickle brine to various soups, to a very delicious effect. One such soup is chłodnik (a.k.a., cold borscht).

Recipe

The key to success for fermented pickles are the relative quantities of cucumbers, water, and salt. If you have more or less cucumber, it is imperative that you adjust the amount of water and salt accordingly to get the right salt concentration in the end. I provide the quantities for 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of cucumbers to allow for easy multiplication. You will probably want to make more than just one kilo, as each kilo will yield about one-and-a-half to two one-litre (one quart) jars of pickles, depending on the size of your cucumbers. The remaining ingredients are flexible. You can change the quantities or omit them altogether (though only a fool would omit dill and garlic). I permit you to flavour your pickles as you like. Please express yourself!

Some people ferment their pickles in a single, large, non-metalic vessel and pack them into sterilized jars later, once they are sufficiently fermented. I prefer packing them into sterilized jars immediately and letting them ferment therein. This method involves less work and allows me to vary the flavourings across jars.

To sterilize, I wash my jars and lids thoroughly (use a dishwasher if you have one) and put them in the oven at 120°C (250°F) for 15 minutes. This is far easier and faster than immersing them one-by-one in boiling water and just as effective.

I add a piece of sourdough bread (whole wheat or rye) to each jar. Sourdough breads contain friendly bacteria and naturally occurring yeasts that will complement the bacteria that dwell on the cucumbers’ skin and help kick start the fermentation process. The greater diversity of bacteria will also impart the pickles with a fuller, funkier bouquet. This is a matter of preference—I permit you to leave the bread out.

Ingredients

To be multiplied to match the quantity of cucumbers:

1 kg Kirby or other pickling cucumbers*
34 g salt (iodine-free)
700 mL water
3-4 cloves of garlic

Per 1 litre (1 quart) jar:

1 branch of dill flowers (fig. 2) or 1 tsp dill seeds
½ tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp black peppercorns
½ tsp coriander seeds
¼ tsp chili flakes
1 bay leaf
1 small square of sourdough whole wheat or rye bread (about 2 cm x 2 cm or 1” x 1”)

*The smaller the cucumbers, the better. They will have a thinner skin, be more crunchy, and be easier to pack into the jars.

fig. 2

Procedure

You will mix the water and salt and bring to a boil in pot. You will allow the brine to cool to room temperature before using.
You will thoroughly wash the cucumbers. You must remove any stems that remain attached to them. Discard any cucumbers that are excessively wilted, rotting, or moldy.
You will fill the sterilized jars with the flavourings.
You will insert the cucumbers into the jars. Pack as many as you can in up to 3-4 cm (1-1.5”) from the top of the jar to leave room for the bread and to ensure complete immersion in brine. Pretend you are doing a puzzle (fig. 3).
You will put a square of bread in each jar, if using.
You will the remaining space in each jar with the cooled brine. Make sure the cucumbers are completely immersed but leave a bit of headspace between the surface of the brine and the lip of the jar. If the fluid touches the lid, it may cause it to corrode.
You will put the lids on the jars but you will not seal them tightly. Gases that form while the pickles ferment must be allowed to escape or the jars will pressurize.
You must now store the jars somewhere away from sunlight, where they will be at room temperature.

fig. 3

After three or four days, you will have what are known as half-sour pickles. You may eat them at this point—they will be slightly sour but will still retain some of the natural freshness of a cucumber. If you want to keep some of your pickles in this half-sour state, you must transfer them to the refrigerator, which will effectively stop the fermentation process.

Those that remain at room temperature will become full-sour pickles after approximately two weeks. The cucumbers will have taken on the characteristic, dull yellow-green colour and the brine will have become cloudy (fig. 4). After this point, the environment in the jars will become so acidic that even the friendly lactic acid producing bacteria will stop functioning—they will have in effect pickled themselves to death. The fermentation process will therefore grind to a halt and flavour of the pickles will stop evolving. You must now tighten the lids on the jars to prepare your pickles for long-term storage. They store perfectly well at room temperature for up to a year. However, after opening a jar, you should store it in the fridge and eat the contents within a month.

fig. 4

Good appetite.

You Will Eat Mackerel

2011-07-15T14:11:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, in the present installment of Culinary Propaganda, I offer you three lines of argument for why mackerel (fig. 1), a surprisingly underappreciated fish, will be on your plate. I also suggest a few particularly delectable ways to enjoy mackerel, including an original Szef Bartek recipe.

fig. 1

The first line of argument is about being a responsible consumer of seafood. The global stocks of many species of fish have been considerably degraded over the last century, and some are on brink of total annihilation. Mackerel is not among these. On the North American Atlantic coast, it has long been and continues to be considered a junk fish. Few commercial fishermen seek it out as their primary target. Most are caught as by catch and are used as bait or for fishmeal. A friend originally from the Canadian east coast told me that, when she was growing up, fishermen there would ridicule anyone who wanted to eat mackerel.

Mackerel is also widely distributed on the other side of the Atlantic, where it receives only a modicum of respect. Certain Northern Europeans, including my own countrymen, occasionally eat it, mostly in smoked form (fig. 2).

fig. 2

As a sidenote for my fellow Montrealers, mackerel is not only a sustainable fish, but it could also be the closest thing we have to a locally caught saltwater fish. Its range starts in the Saint Lawrence River estuary, which is only a few hundred kilometers downriver from our city. The only hitch is that few fishmongers seem to have fresh mackerel. I have seen some at La Mer (1840 René-Lévesque E.). I have also found frozen raw mackerel from the Magdalen Islands at Loblaws, of all places. However, smoked mackerel, using fish from Canadian waters, abounds in local grocery stores. Yes, run-of-the-mill grocers like Metro and IGA carry them. You will look in the fish or the deli section.

The second line of argument has to do with the nutritional value of mackerel. Like other small, oily fish such as herring and sardines, mackerel are rich in those much sought after omega fatty acids, particularly those of the #3 variety. At the same time, they are free from (or certainly very low in) mercury and other fat soluble toxins that tend to permeate the flesh of larger predatory fish, such as tuna and swordfish. Pregnant and breastfeeding ladies, take note.

The third and most important line of argument in favour of mackerel is about its outstanding culinary properties. Mackerel’s flesh is firm, dark, and pleasantly flavourful, but not as pungent as herring or sardine. Mackerel are actually members of the tuna family and their flesh, after being skinned and boned, is surprisingly similar—like a miniaturized, albeit oilier, version of tuna. In my experience, where only small chunks or flakes of fish are required, canned mackerel can very successfully stand in for canned tuna.

Even when whole, mackerel is an easy fish to prepare. Its skin is free from scales and requires no cleaning. It can be left on for cooking but, if desired, it is very easy to remove. Another plus is that mackerel has rather large, thick bones for a small fish. After cooking, the backbone and spines will practically fall off of the flesh. And there won’t be any nasty, esophagus-puncturing surprises. If you want to cook boneless flesh, they are a cinch to filet, also thanks to the coarse nature of their bones.

Mackerel in the Kitchen
Mackerel take especially well to frying, roasting, and grilling. As they are robustly flavoured fish, they are best complemented by strongly flavoured garnishes and sauces, with lots of spice and acidity. Anything tart and tomato based, especially with garlic, will go with mackerel. Mackerel also make an excellent base for escabeche—a Spanish technique for preparing fish that involves frying fish along with aromatic vegetable then dousing the whole lot in wine and vinegar and letting it pickle overnight, to be served cold (try this excellent recipe). If you get some really fresh mackerel, you could also trying curing them in a mix of salt, sugar and dill—basically gravlax (or gravad lax) with mackerel in place of salmon. Hugh Fearnsly-Wittingstall, the food writer with possibly the most criminally British name, calls this “gravad max” (recipe here).

Mackerel, like salmon, also takes extremely well to smoking. In fact, mackerel in smoked form seems to be a lot more available, at least where I live, than in the raw form. This is not surprising, given how delicious it is—more delicious, I think, and certainly a lot cheaper than smoked salmon. I most often enjoy smoked mackerel on butter-smeared piece of toast or crisp bread, with a little squeeze of lemon juice. But I would also highly recommend trying it atop a bagel with cream cheese, in lieu of lox. Indeed, smoked mackerel makes an excellent substitute for smoked salmon pretty much in any situation where the latter’s pink colour is not crucial to the aesthetics of the dish.

More recently, I have also taken to experimenting with substituting bacon with smoked mackerel—with great success, I must say. The most fruitful of my adventures in substitution has been in realm of potato salad. A favourite simple recipe involves combining boiled young potatoes with a vinegary homemade mayo, diced bacon, dill, and green onions. Recently, I tried replacing the diced bacon with shredded smoked mackerel. This turned out to be rather tasty. I have since made a few additional embellishments to the recipe, such as replacing white wine vinegar with lemon in the mayo (lots of lemon!) and adding anchovies and capers for a flavour boost. I have codified and reproduced this recipe below for your benefit, dear reader. Obedience will be rewarded, trust me.

Szef Bartek’s Smoked Mackerel Potato Salad
Smoked mackerel should not be too hard to find. As noted above, they are readily available in grocery stores here in Montreal. For those of you residing in other cities, you are very likely to find some at a Polish, Russian, or German delicatessen near you.

Ingredients

1 kg young potatoes (use young Yukon Gold if you can find them)
1 tbsp salt
2 smoked mackerel filets (approximately 250 g), shredded (fig. 3)
1 bunch dill, chopped
1 bunch green onion, white and green part, thinly sliced
5-10 anchovy filets (optional)
3-4 tbsp capers* (optional)
1 quantity lemony mayo (recipe below)

fig. 3

*I prefer capers packed in salt to those packed in the vinegary liquid. In the latter type, I find the vinegar overwhelms the capers' floral perfume. They are after all unopened flower buds. If you get salt packed capers, rinse them thoroughly to remove the salt. You can soak them in water for a while to further desalinate them.

Procedure

You must wash the potatoes thoroughly, scrubbing any black spots of dirt. If the potatoes are more than 3 cm in diameter, cut them in half. If they are more than 5 cm in diameter, quarter them.
You will put the potatoes in a pot and cover them with water. You will add 1 tablespoon of salt. You will cover the pot and place it on maximum heat. When the potatoes come to a boil, you will turn the heat down to medium.
While the potatoes are boiling, you will prepare the mayo (see below). After 15 minutes, you must check the potatoes’ tenderness with a fork. If fork does not penetrate easily, you will continue boiling them. You will check again every few minutes until fork penetrates easily. You will drain the potatoes and wash with cold water to cool them down.
Once the potatoes are cool enough to touch (it is okay for them to be slightly warm), you will place them a bowl. You will now add all of the remaining ingredients to the bowl. You must mix thoroughly. You will check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired. Your mackerel potato salad is now ready to serve.

Alternative Versions

Szef Bartek’s Bacon Potato Salad: As noted above, this salad was derived from a recipe that involved bacon. Should you wish to make the bacon version, replace the mackerel with the same quantity of bacon and omit the anchovies and capers. Cut the bacon into small dice or strips and fry them until just slightly browned. Drain the fat and let the bacon bits cool before adding them to the salad.

Szef Bartek’s Chorizo Potato Salad: Another variation on the theme I have tried and enjoyed very thoroughly involves using Portuguese chorizo instead of bacon. Likewise, cut the chorizo into small dice and brown it slightly in a frying pan; drain and cool before adding to the salad. A few drops of sherry vinegar before serving will give the salad a nice zing.

Lemony Mayo
Dear reader, if you have never made mayonnaise yourself, this recipe is likely to be quite an eye-opener. You will see how ridiculously easy it is. All you require is a small prep food processor or an immersion blender with a small receptacle. A full size food processor will not work as there will not be enough material for the blade to catch early on in the process.

Note that lemon juice can be replaced lime juice or a vinegar of your choice. White wine vinegar in particular makes for a nice mayonnaise. Add some garlic to this recipe and you an aioli on your hands.

Ingredients

2 egg yolks
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2-3 lemons, juiced
1 cup of olive oil
salt

Procedure

You will put the yolks, mustard, and lemon juice in the blender receptacle.
Turn on the blender and begin pouring in the oil slowly. Continue blending and gradually pour in the rest of the oil.
You should now have a thick emulsion. You will taste it to check the seasoning. Add some salt if necessary.

You’ve got mayo.

Good appetite.

The Cardoso Solution

2011-04-17T20:03:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, near the end of the harvest season there is an overabundance of green tomatoes. As the weather grows cooler and the days shorter, these fruits don’t manage to reach full-red maturity on the vine. It’s better to pick them than to let the first frosts bite them. This is why in late September and through most of October, the market near Culinary Propaganda Headquarters is flooded with bushels of these green globes, usually priced quite modestly. Similar situations probably occur at markets and greengrocers near you. But how many fried green tomatoes can one eat? What else can one do with this bounty?

I knew no answer to this question until I encountered a force of nature called Mrs. Cardoso, my feisty Portuguese landlady. A few years ago, on a balmy late-September morning, not long after I occupied the apartment on the upper floor of Villa Cardoso, a one-litre jar with a green, vegetable-like substance materialized on the table on my terrace. On it there was a note that said:

There was no indication as to the exact nature of this concoction. Curiosity piqued, I wasted no time to crack open the jar and inspect its contents. As I removed the lid, an enchanting garlic and herb aroma, with a vinegary undertone, immediately tickled my nostrils and opened the salivary floodgates. I dug in, still not quite knowing what I was getting into. I removed a surprisingly firm, green, herb- and garlic-speckled disk from the jar, which I eventually recognized as a slice of tomato.

It tasted better even better than it smelled, and it had a wonderful crunch to it. It was hard to stop eating this. I went through a quarter of the jar in one go. I later offered some to Einar Einarsson, my roommate. Being from Iceland, he views most vegetables other than the potato with great skepticism. Though initially hesitant, he too quickly fell under the spell of the Mrs. Cardoso’s green tomatoes. Another quarter of the jar vanished in a matter of minutes. The remainder got decimated within a day.

I was hooked and I needed more. My upbringing prevented me from asking Mrs. Cardoso outright for another jar. I expressed gratitude profusely and flattered her excessively, hoping she would get the hint. It worked, but the second jar only lasted two days. I knew I could not go on supplicating for more, so instead I humbly asked Mrs. Cardoso to reveal the recipe. She was more than happy indulge this request. She invited me over and we made a new batch together so that I could see the process. And now, dear reader, I pass this knowledge on to you.

The recipe has never existed in written form, until now. Mrs. Cardoso makes her marinated green tomatoes by eye and, since I learned from her, so do I. The last time I made them (whilst shooting the accompanying video), I kept track of my use of the key ingredients to have a ballpark idea of the required quantities. Please understand, dear reader, that this method for preparing marinated green tomatoes is not an exact science. You must treat the recipe as an outline, not a chemical formula. You will try it a few times with a smaller batch of green tomatoes to get a feel for it. I enjoin you to adjust things as you see fit. In particular, the quantities of vinegar and of the different flavourings—garlic, chilli, and herbs—are flexible. You will reduce or omit any you don’t like, boost the ones that you do. I list the suggested quantities for 1 kilo of green tomatoes, for easy multiplication. I usually make it in 5-10 kilo batches.

Equipment:

a large stainless steel bowl
a kitchen towel
a vegetable peeler or pairing knife for coring
a chef’s knife for slicing and chopping
tongs or salad utensils for mixing
jars for storage

Ingredients:

1 kg green tomatoes
5 tablespoons pickling salt or coarse sea salt
2-4 cloves of garlic
2-3 branches of flat leaf (Italian) parsley
handful of fresh basil leaves
handful of fresh mint leaves
5 sprigs of fresh oregano
5 sprigs of fresh thyme
5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1-2 red Italian (or similar) chilies
2 teaspoons of fennel seeds (optional)
½ cup of white vinegar or white wine vinegar
¼ cup of olive oil

A note about the tomatoes: This recipe must be made with under-ripe, hard tomatoes. Beware of tomato varieties that are green when ripe! Ripe tomatoes will lack crunch and they will probably turn to mush when you try to toss them with the other ingredients. I have tried marinating various varieties of tomatoes and I find this method works best with run-of-the-mill, round field tomatoes. I have tried green plum tomatoes (both Roma and San Marzano) and did not much like the results.

A note about the garlic: You will not use garlic imported from China, especially the ones sold four-for-a-dollar in the sock-like packages. I have no prejudice against the Chinese nation, and have nothing but admiration for their culinary traditions. It’s just the garlic they export seems to invariably lack potency and taste bitter. You will pony up for locally grown garlic if possible, or at the very least for good quality garlic from one of the warm and bountiful parts of your continent. Here in North America, that means California. The cloves should be hard as rock, creamy white (not yellowish!) on the inside, and sticky to touch. It will no doubt cost you more, but your obedience will be rewarded.

Procedure:

You will wash and wipe dry the tomatoes. You must core all of them with the peeler or pairing knife.
You will slice the tomatoes about 0.5 cm thick. Place them in the stainless steel bowl and sprinkle salt as you go along. The idea is to sprinkle some salt over all of the slices.
You will cover the sliced and salted tomatoes with the kitchen towel. You will leave to cure for 24 hours.
You will drain the fluid that has leached out of the tomatoes. Do this either by holding them down in the stainless steel bowl using a lid or a large plate or by transferring them to another bowl using a slotted spoon.
You must now strip all of the fresh herbs, except the parsley, from their stems. You will peel the garlic cloves and stem the chili.
You will finely chop all of the herbs, the garlic, and the chili. Use you chefs knife or a mezzaluna to do this. Chop, chop, chop. It must be very fine.
You must put the chopped herbs, garlic, and chili in the bowl with tomatoes. Add the fennel seeds, if using. Pour in the olive oil and vinegar. Toss the tomatoes to thoroughly mix together all of the ingredients.

The tomatoes are now ready to eat. Whatever you don’t eat right away, you must pack tightly into sterilized jars and store in the fridge. They will keep for months.

You can enjoy these as a side dish or as a condiment. In the latter role, they are versatile: they go well in sandwiches, with cheeses, meats, or both! I love to use them on grilled pork chops with cheese. Brine a pork chop, fry it in butter and olive oil or grill it. After you’ve cooked one side, turn it over and cover it with slices of sharp cheese (aged cheddar and gruyere work nicely) plus a few slices of marinated green tomato on top. Be sure let the cheese melt and mingle with the meat the tomatoes. As with all meats, when it’s cooked, remove from the pan or grill and be sure to let it rest a few minutes before digging in. This allows the boiling juices inside the meat to settle.
Good appetite.

PS. You will follow Szef Bartek on Twitter @SzefBartek.

Sausage Party

2011-03-17T12:11:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, surely you are desperate for someone to impose some structure on your culinary life. I am writing this short message to assure you that I have not forgotten about you. It's just that I have been very busy over the last few months. Among other things, I have been consumed with making sausages and showing other people how to do it. I recently gave a workshop on this very subject. You will view the photographic evidence found here (courtesy of my friend and workshop co-organizer Natasha Pickowicz). You will also read the short article about making fresh sausages that I just published in the Montreal Mirror.

The structure you desperately need will be put into place soon: a second Culinary Propaganda video, along with an instructional article, is about to drop - stay tuned. In the meantime, good appetite.

Nice Briskets, Baby!

2010-08-27T16:22:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, in the present installment I will instruct you on how to prepare a very tender and intensely delicious salt beef brisket—one that can rival those served at the fine Hebrew delicatessens of Montreal and New York City.

The brisket is a cut of beef that you have most likely never cooked. It is taken from the area just behind a cow’s (or steer’s) front legs. It is very fibrous, tough, and fat-laden, making it a relatively inexpensive cut—one that was favoured by our cost-conscious grandmothers but is largely ignored by the time-conscious contemporary home cook. To be made at all edible, the brisket demands time and special attention in the kitchen. That does not mean that it is labour-intensive to prepare. In fact, the preparation requires very little work, only a little bit of advanced planning.

The key to success with the brisket is curing it to start breaking down some of the tough muscle fibres and to finish the job by cooking it very, very slowly. This is the basis of the recipe presented below. The curing process in this case takes several days and the cooking process takes several hours. Neither process, however, will require much of your labour and attention.

Salt beef, also know as corned beef, originated in a time long before the refrigerator. Briskets and other joints of beef were packed into barrels with copious amounts of salt not for taste but as a means of long-term preservation. A small amount of saltpeter, a powerful antibacterial agent, was often mixed into the salt to further prevent spoilage. The “corned” in corned beef, incidentally, has nothing to do with maize. Rather, it refers to the “corns” of coarse salt in which beef was cured. Usually, a variety of herbs and spices were added for flavour. Meat treated this way could be kept for months, even in warm weather. Pieces of meat would be removed from the barrel as needed and then soaked in fresh water for many hours to remove excess salt, after which they were ready to be cooked.

Today, with modern refrigeration technology, it is hardly necessary to pack fresh meat in salt with saltpeter to prevent it from spoiling. It is nonetheless still worth doing because the results of this process are rather delicious and are likely to impress dinner guests. Contemporary recipes, such as the one below, probably use a lot less salt and saltpeter than those of the days of yore; the meat can be stored in the refrigerator while it cures, making is less susceptible to spoilage.

Strikingly similar recipes for cured and boiled beef are known across Europe and North America. The differences between them are primarily in the flavourings added to the cure. The inclusion of copious amounts of garlic is what makes the recipe below distinctly Jewish.

Recipe

The general procedure is to first wet-cure the brisket for several days (at least five), soak it in water overnight the day before cooking, and then to boil it very slowly. So, you need to start curing the brisket at least six days before you intend to serve it. On serving day, you will probably need a free afternoon as you will need to keep on eye on the brisket as it boils.

PHASE I - Curing

Ingedients:

For a 2 kg beef brisket you will need:

3/4 cup coarse salt
1/3 cup of brown sugar
4-8 cloves crushed garlic (depending on size)
2 teaspoons cracked black peppercorns
1 teaspoon crushed allspice
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon crushed coriander pods
1 teaspoon chili flakes
3-4 crumbled bay leaves
2 teaspoons of saltpeter or pink salt (optional)

As you will be keeping your brisket in the fridge while it cures, you do not really need saltpeter (potassium nitrate) or pink salt (sodium nitrite) for antibacterial protection. However, using either one of these substances will give the brisket that characteristic “deli” taste and prevent it from turning grayish-brown during cooking. Instead, the brisket will take on a rather attractive, dark pink or burgundy colour when cooked.

The main reason for not using saltpeter or pink salt is that nitrates and nitrites are potentially carcinogenic if consumed in large quantities. However, unless you eat deli meats every single day, I would not worry about this too much. The other reason not to use either substance is that they can be hard to obtain. Saltpeter is one of the ingredients used to make gunpowder and is therefore a controlled substance. You are more likely to find pink salt (dyed pink so that you do not confuse it with regular salt). Ask a butcher about it or look it up on the Internet.

Procedure:

You will wash your brisket under running water and you will pat it dry with paper towel.
You will stab the brisket all over with a fork. You must be sure to stab both sides. This help the brisket absorb the flavours in the cure.
Mix all of the cure ingredients together.
You must rub all of the mix into the brisket. Rub rub rub.
You must place the brisket in a non-metallic container into which it fits snuggly.
You must pour just enough water into the container to cover the brisket. You may wish to weigh it down with a heavy plate or some other non-metallic item to help keep in submerged.
You will now place the brisket in the fridge. From now until when you take it out for soaking, you must turn it over once a day. It will start to feel slippery to touch after a couple of days.

PHASE II - Soaking

Procedure:

The night before you intend to cook the brisket, you will remove the brisket from the wet cure and rinse it with running water. You may now dispose of the cure.
Place the brisket in a large container and fill it with plenty of water. Place in the fridge and leave overnight.
In the morning, you will dump out the water from the container and fill it with fresh water. Change the water again a few hours later.

PHASE III - Cooking

Ingredients:

2 kg cured and soaked brisket (i.e., the product of the above procedures)
2 large carrots
2 large onions, quartered or
2 whole leeks (green and white part), thoroughly cleaned
2 celery ribs
1 or 2 parsnips (optional)
2 bay leaves

Procedure:

You will place the brisket in a large pot along with the other ingredients above. You will add enough water to cover the brisket.
You will the put the covered pot on medium-high heat for 15 minutes or until it begins to steam. You must then turn the heat down to medium-low. You must not let the water boil vigorously. It should be steaming and its surface should be trembling slightly for the entire duration of cooking. If it boils too much, reduce the heat. Obedience will result in a very tender brisket.
After a couple of hours of cooking, you may wish to skim the fat, copious amounts of which should be appearing on the water’s surface.
After four hours, you will check the brisket’s tenderness by stabbing it with a knife. If it is ready, the knife should penetrate effortlessly. If it is not yet tender, cover and continue boiling. Check again every 20 minutes or so.
When the brisket is ready, remove it from the pot and drain thoroughly. Set it down on a large cutting board and cover it with aluminum foil. You must let the brisket rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

PHASE IV - Serving

When the time comes, slice it as thinly as you possible can and serve it. Slice only as much as you need to serve—once sliced, the brisket oxidizes and looses it bright colour.

You may wish to keep the cooking water from the brisket. It is essentially a very flavourful beef stock. Strain out and dispose of the vegetables, which by now are likely to be mush. You may freeze the stock in small batches and use it as needed for soups (it is an excellent base for borscht) or sauces.

Brisket is delicious with brine-fermented pickles, sauerkraut, mustard, as well as freshly grated horseradish. Under no circumstance should you ever consider insulting the brisket with prepared horseradish from a jar. You have just spent a week preparing this thing; don’t get lazy now. Pick up a fresh horseradish root, peel it and grate it. I personally like grating it coarse—it’s faster and it makes for a nice textural counterpoint to the very tender, slow-cooked brisket. I add a little bit of olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, and sugar to my horseradish, as if I were lightly dressing a salad. You must try this. Obedience will be rewarded, trust me.

Good appetite.

Stick with it

2009-11-19T01:46:00.000-05:00

Dear reader, the purpose of the present installment is to convince you that you should not be using non-stick cookware. After briefly reviewing the history of non-stick coatings, I present two distinct lines of argument against their use in the kitchen - particularly on frying pans. First, I examine the potential health hazards related to the use of non-stick coated pans. Secondly, and more importantly, I examine the disadvantages of using non-stick cookware from a perspective of culinary practice. I conclude by suggesting an alternative to synthetic non-stick pans that avoids both the hazards they entail and their practical shortcomings.

Frying pans with a non-stick inner surface are ubiquitous. You probably have one of these, dear reader, as I once I did. The material used to create most of non-stick cookware surfaces is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), invented in the US in the 1930s and marketed under the Teflon trademark. Being highly non-reactive, Teflon was originally used for coating containers and pipes for reactive or corrosive chemicals. Due to its low-friction characteristics, it was also used (and continues to be used) as an ingredient in lubricants.

It was not until the mid-1950s that Teflon was first used for cookware. A French engineer found a way of binding Teflon to aluminum and produced a frying pan under the Tefal brand name (Tef from Teflon, al from aluminum). Aluminum is lightweight and has good heat conductivity but is highly reactive, making it a less than ideal material for cookware on its own. Coating it with the chemically inert Teflon solves the reactivity issue. The result is cheap, lightweight cookware with good heat conductivity and a surface to which food does not adhere during cooking, allowing less fat or oil to be used. As a further advantage, cleaning the Teflon coated pan is much easier than a conventional pan. At face value, a miracle product.

In recent years, this miracle has been the subject of scientific scrutiny. Research has found that, when heated to high temperatures, PTFE gives off toxic fumes. PTFE begins to deteriorate and release the said fumes at temperatures above 260°C (500°F). The fumes that are released have been shown to be lethal to birds and, at the very least, to be nauseating to humans. This is why most manufacturers warn owners of non-stick pans not to use them on high heat.

Even if you don't leave your non-stick pan empty on high for a while, you are still quite liable to heat its surface to temperatures above 260°C on a conventional stove. The probability of exposure to the fumes it releases is therefore high, if not imminent. Though there is no conclusive evidence as of yet, there are good reasons to suspect that repeated exposure to fumes from PTFE could pose a health risk to humans. One of the principal chemicals given off by heated PTFE, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), has recently been classified as a ‘likely carcinogen’ by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In the absence of conclusive evidence, I suggest that it is better to err on the side of caution and avoid PTFE coated cookware altogether.

The health question aside, from the perspective of culinary practice, there are many things you simply cannot do with a non-stick pan. For starters, for the reasons mentioned above, the use of non-stick pans at high temperatures is inadvisable, which effectively prevents their use for searing and stir-frying, both of which require extremely high heat.

Other limitations of non-stick pans are related to how foods interact with their surface. A non-stick pan’s low adhesiveness can limit the surface area of the food that comes into direct contact with the pan’s inner surface. As a result, the food in the pan is cooked by radiation rather than by contact. Contact with the pan is essential for various processes, such as searing, browning, and especially caramelization. Caramelization, which involves the slight burning of naturally occurring sugars within fruit or vegetables, is an indispensable process in certain recipes. One such classic recipe is French onion soup, whose characteristic taste and colour depend crucially on the caramelization of onions. I have tried making onion soup with a non-stick pan and it was an absolute failure. The onions shrank and began to dry up but just did not want to caramelize – or at least not within the amount of time they usually would on in a conventional pan.

Some sticking to the pan, or coating the pan with a brown residue, is actually quite desirable in many cases, especially where cooking meats is concerned. An elementary step in the preparation of many sauces for meat is the deglazing of a pan in which meat was fried or roasted. Deglazing, for the benefit of the uninitiated, involves pouring wine or another liquid in the pan and using it to dissolve the caked on residues from the meat. These residues, full of caramelized sugars and broken down proteins, are a goldmine of rich, meaty, umami flavour (see article), not to be wasted under any circumstance. You will find no such treasure at the bottom of a non-stick pan, dear reader.

An inexpensive alternative to non-stick coating is cast iron cookware. With use, the inner surfaces of cast iron pots and pans become ‘seasoned’ – i.e., coated with a waxy layer of residues from fats and oils. This waxy layer acts as a natural non-stick (or at least limited-stick) coating. Making delicate things like omelets and crepes on a well-seasoned cast iron pan is just as easy as in a non-stick pan, provided that you follow certain basic rules. These include the following:

Thoroughly heating up the dry pan. Do not add fats or oils until the pan is hot.
Not moving the food for at least a minute after placing it in the pan – that is, unless you are stir-frying. Avoid the temptations to push the food across the surface of the pan or jamming the spatula under the food. Many foods will initially seize to the bottom of the pan but will eventually come unstuck once they heat up.
Cleaning the pan with hot water only. Use a non-metallic brush to scrub any residues off of the pan. Using soap and metallic brushes or scouring pads can remove the seasoning from the pan and, as a result, make it stickier the next time you use it.

Another good practice includes letting your food warm up to room temperature before frying.You can do this simply by taking your food out of the fridge half an hour before cooking. This is especially critical for meats. Most meats are cooked when they reach an internal temperature somewhere between 70°C and 90°C. Warming meat up from refrigerator temperature (4°C) to room temperature (usually slightly over 20°C) makes a big difference. It will help the meat sear better when it hits the pan and will prevent its juices from leaching out. Moreover, it will allow the meat to reach the desired internal temperature faster, reducing the risk of over-drying or burning the outside before the inside is sufficiently cooked.

A new 25 cm (10 in.) skillet – the size that I use the most often – can be purchased at the likes of Canadian Tire for $25. If you go to any flea market, you are bound to find one for even less. Price is not the only advantage of buying used cast iron pans – they are likely to already be well-seasoned. If you pick up a new pan, you can pre-season it yourself coating the inner surface with a thin layer of cooking oil using a paper towel and then putting it in a hot oven for 20 minutes or so. You should repeat this a few times before using the pan for the first time – even if the manufacturer claims that it is pre-seasoned. Be patient the first few times you use your new pan – it will develop its natural non-stick properties only after a few uses.

Good appetite.

Exit Gazpacho, Enter Chłodnik

2009-07-30T03:30:00.000-04:00

Dear Reader, you have probably tried borscht (in Polish, “barszcz”) before—a deep purple soup based on beets. Borscht is known all over Central and Eastern Europe, and each region has its own spin on it. Some are clear, others are chunky; some have sour cream, others don’t; some are chicken or meat based, others are vegetable based… But there is one version that, to my knowledge, is unique to Poland: chłodnik—pronounced who-wad-neek.

With chłodnik, Poland challenges Spain’s supremacy in the cold, savory soup category. Chłodnik is a deep magenta-coloured, creamy soup, with crunchy chunks of summer vegetables. It is replete with vitamins and insanely refreshing—a lifespan extending delight. The soup’s name is a modification of the word “chłód”, which is Polish for cool (the literal cool; “spoko” is the figurative cool). The addition of the suffix “-nik” has much the same effect as “-er” does in English. Thus, chłodnik translates approximately to “cooler”.

The key ingredient in chłodnik is whole, fresh young beets. Unlike the familiar hot borscht, the entire beet plant is used in chłodnik rather than just the bulbous beetroot. The purple, celery-like stems and the deep-green leaves of the beet – similar to chard – are an integral part of this soup and essential to its unique flavour.

Not unlike borscht, there are more recipes for chłodnik than there are households in Poland. Rather than giving you a precise recipe, dear reader, I will give a basic outline of the ingredients to be used and of the procedure to be followed. I believe that all recipes should be treated as guidelines and not as strict chemical formulas—do not take any of the quantities below too literally. I recommend that you play around with the quantities and adjust the different flavours to your taste. If you like pickles (as I do!) then you should throw more in; if you don’t like them, then leave them out—no worries! Important: use naturally fermented dill pickles – the ones in the murky liquid, not the vinegary ones in the clear liquid. (Here is how to make your own.) Most pickles labelled "kosher" fit this description. Anyway, after a little experimenting with the ingredients, your household should, like a respectable Polish household, establish its own chłodnik recipe.

Ingredients

2 bunches young, fresh beets – roots and leaves
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup naturally fermented ("kosher") dill pickle brine
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups sour cream
1 large cucumber, diced
2-4 kosher-type pickles, diced
1 bunch radishes, diced
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
¼ cup fresh dill, finely chopped
1 bunch chives, finely chopped

Procedure

You will cut the stems off of the beetroots. You will peel and clean the roots and cut them into small dice (say 0.5 cm or ¼”). If you suffer from lazyitis, or perhaps if you lack dexterity and/or a decent knife, you will instead instead coarsely grate the roots. Either way, I recommend that you wear gloves for this part of the procedure or the beet juices will dye your hands a deep, murderous red which you will not be able to wash out for days.
You will roughly chop the beet stems and finely shred the beet leaves.
You will throw the stems, leaves, and diced beetroots into a large pot and pour in the stock. If the beets are not completely covered in liquid, you will add just enough water to cover them. Place the pot on medium heat. An important thing to remember when making any sort of beet based soup is that you must NEVER let the beets boil or else the soup will lose its bright purple color. If you see that the water is beginning to bubble, you will reduce the heat by a few notches. The surface of the water should be barely trembling. You will continue heating gently until the diced beetroots begin to soften. Remove the pot from the heat allow its contents to cool.
When the beet broth is cool, you must stir in the pickle brine, buttermilk, and sour cream. You will then throw in the radishes, cucumber, and pickles. Stir gently and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to the fridge. You will chill the soup for at least an hour or two before serving. Like gazpacho, this soup benefits immensely from being properly cooled.

When ready to serve, you will ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the chopped herbs and sliced egg. Dear reader, equipped with this knowledge, you are now ready to chill like a Pole. Spoko.

If you live as deep into the northern hemisphere as I do, I urge you to try this recipe now (July/August) as all of the vegetables it uses are currently at their zenith. Also, it's hot outside and this soup is, as I said, insanely refreshing.

Good appetite.

Umami, you sexy!

2009-02-10T01:05:00.000-05:00

Dear reader, I feel it is incumbent upon me to inform you about umami, the fifth sense of taste. You may have heard of umami already – it is a buzz word in culinary circles in the western hemisphere, even though it is old news in much of the eastern hemisphere. Unlike other, lesser food writers, I will not just inform you about the history and scientific nature of umami, but I will also instruct you on how to utilize this knowledge in your kitchen in view of improving the flavour of your food and, ultimately, the quality of your life.

Umami is a hot topic in the western hemisphere because scientists confirmed its existence only very recently – in 2001 to be exact. Yet, the concept of umami is one century old. A Japanese chemist called Kikunae Ikeda first documented umami in 1908. Professor Ikeda was intrigued by what made dashi – a broth made with a type of seaweed called kombu – so delicious. Ikeda was gifted with a highly discerning pallet; in dashi, he was certain that there was a taste component that was neither sweet, nor sour, nor salty, nor bitter. He eventually isolated a substance that was unusually abundant in kombu and that appeared to stimulate this fifth taste: monosodium glutamate (MSG). He noticed that the flavour of many savoury foodstuffs was enhanced when sprinkled with this substance. Hence, he dubbed the taste MSG imparted umami, Japanese for “delicious”.

Ikeda immediately embarked on a mission to save Japan from the blight of blandness by finding a cheap way of producing MSG. Within a year, he discovered that large quantities glutamate could be obtained by fermenting wheat gluten. The fermented gluten, when mixed with brine (water with lots of sea salt) would yield monosodium glutamate – the glutamate from the gluten would bind with the sodium ions floating in the brine. He began to market the product under the name Aji-no-moto or “the essence of taste”. The product took most of East Asia by storm and the humble chemist became a very wealthy man.

MSG did not cross the Pacific until after the Second World War. According to legend, American soldiers stationed in Japan, tired of Uncle Sam’s rations, began trying some of the rations the demobilized Japanese army had left behind. They found the Japanese rations to be absolutely delicious! Undoubtedly, this was because they were loaded with umami-tingling, MSG-laden treats. Upon completing their tour of duty, the legend goes, the soldiers went back to America with a collective addiction to instant ramen noodles. It would not take long for instant ramen, and their magic ingredient, to follow the soldiers back to the land of apple pie, where both would proliferate rapidly.

Initially, Americans, or at least the burgeoning American processed food industry, embraced MSG with great zeal. Alas, the honeymoon with this magical substance, which had the power to impart flavour to even the blandest can of soup, ended abruptly in the late 1960s. A Chinese-born American physician, Dr Ho Man Kwok, wrote a letter to a medical journal in 1968 in which he described a set of symptoms that he experienced whenever he ate at a Chinese restaurant. The symptoms, which began appearing within 20 minutes of starting a meal, included “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitations…”. Interestingly, Dr Ho did not implicate MSG as the cause of these symptoms. Other scientists and the media began investigating other reports of similar symptoms; the phenomenon was soon dubbed “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” (CRS). MSG, a substance used widely and generously by Chinese restaurants, was singled out as the culprit. Mass panic ensued. Bans and labeling requirements on products containing MSG soon appeared in several western countries. Chinese restaurants across the western hemisphere started offering no-MSG options (and, some claim, often using MSG anyway). Meanwhile, people in East Asia continued wolfing down truckloads of Aji-no-moto with reckless abandon, totally un-phased by CRS.

The hysteria surrounding MSG appears to be completely unwarranted. In the 40 years since Dr Ho wrote his letter, science has repeatedly failed to conclusively link MSG to any health problem. MSG’s bad rep in the west is undoubtedly related to the popular misconception that it is a synthetic chemical, like the many dyes and preservatives commonly added to processed food. Yet, the molecule at the heart of MSG, glutamate, is nothing other than an amino acid - one of twenty that make up the proteins in our bodies. In fact, our bodies produce it.

Glutamate abounds naturally in many foods, although most of it is locked within proteins. Some foods, however, contain significant amounts of glutamate on its own, not bound to any protein – called free glutamate. Kombu is one such food; there are many others (see Table 1). Generally, fermenting, curing, and cooking foods with protein-bound glutamate releases free glutamate and therefore imparts umami taste. Curiously, the consumption of Roquefort and Parmesan cheese has never been linked to CRS.

Understanding Flavour

Before I tell how to utilize this newfound knowledge of umami in your kitchen, I would first like to briefly discuss with you the basic science of flavour. An understanding of the rudimentary mental underpinnings of flavour will allow you to better manipulate this perception.

Flavour is frequently confounded with taste. Strictly speaking, taste is the aspect of food that you detect with your tongue. There are foods that have taste but no flavour – take pure white sugar or salt for example. We humans detect a total of only five tastes: the traditional four – i.e., sweet, sour, salty, bitter – and of course umami. To have flavour, a comestible item must simultaneously stimulate our taste receptors and our smell receptors (see Diagram A). Our smell receptors recognize thousands of different odors.

There are two distinct ways to heighten the perceived flavour of a foodstuff: (1) to heighten the taste or (2) to heighten the smell. Generally, the former is much easier than the latter, as we have access to odorless substances such as sugar, salt, and indeed MSG which can augment taste (and therefore the flavour) without altering the overall smell of a food.

Something very interesting happens when you pursue the first strategy. If you heighten only the taste of a food, you will perceive an increase in both taste and odor. For example, if you are eating bland strawberries and you sprinkle them with some sugar, their perfume will seem more vivid. The inverse also works: if you strengthen only the odor of a food, you will have the impression that it also has more taste. To use the strawberry example again, if you have fresh, ripe strawberries with a strong perfume, they will taste sweeter than bland strawberries even if the actual sugar content in both is the same.

So, by heightening any of the five tastes in a food, you will increase the flavour and you will have the impression that the food has more odor, or aroma if you prefer (see Diagram B). You are undoubtedly already accustomed to adjusting especially the saltiness and sweetness of foods. I encourage you to also learn how to adjust the “umaminess” of foods, especially savoury foods.

Umami in Your Kitchen

Adjusting umami in a savoury dish, just like salting, will extend the flavour of the dish (see Understanding Flavour). In fact, by increasing the umami in a dish, you can reduce the need for salting. (As you have probably been warned, your salt intake is likely to be inversely proportional to your lifespan.) Obviously, you could just add Accent, the North American brand of pure MSG, to your cooking. However, even though there may be no health risks, I do not advocate the use of pure MSG. Instead, I propose manipulating the umami taste through the use of ingredients inherently rich in free glutamate.

To maximize umami in your cooking, I warmly encourage you to follow two basic strategies:

Know your free glutamate sources. Keep them stocked in your kitchen. This is your Umami Arsenal.
Use multiple weapons from your Umami Arsenal. You can maximize umami taste by combining several free glutamate-rich ingredients. Its better to combine a few rather than to max one particular ingredient.

You can equip your kitchen’s Umami Arsenal with the following items:

cured meats: prosciutto, pancetta, bacon
cured or fermented fish products: anchovies, fish sauce
hard, aged cheeses: Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, old cheddar
plant-derived free glutamate sources: kombu, shitake mushrooms, soy or tamari sauce, Bragg’s, nutritional yeast, miso paste, tomato paste

Looking at this list, you can see why, for instance, Caesar salad is so delicious. It contains three umami bombs: anchovies, Parmesan, and bacon. Traditional miso soup also caries a nice umami payload: kombu, miso paste, and shitake mushrooms. Add some shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) or tamari and you will be blasted to a four-dimensional umami paradise.

Cured meats as well as anchovies can be used especially in soups and sauces. The process of making many soups and sauces begins with sautéing aromatic vegetables, particularly onions and garlic. Before adding the vegetables to the pan, you can add a small amount of one of the cured meats listed above, finely chopped. You can also add a few anchovy fillets, which will dissolve in the oil on the pan within a minute or two. Do not fret about using anchovies – if you add only a few filets (say, three or four), they will not taint your dish with a fishy smell. Note that both cured meats and anchovies are salty; when you are seasoning your dish, be careful not to add too much salt.

Even if you disdain animal murder, there are still interesting avenues for enhancing your soups and sauces. In your case, you may wish to add kombu and shitake mushrooms to your vegetable broth. Neither of these ingredients need be restricted to the realm of Japanese cooking. Throw them into any oriental or occidental soup or sauce the same way you would throw in aromatics, such as bay leaves or thyme.

Umamilicious hard cheeses are generally added to a dish just before serving but they can also be blended into a dish at an earlier stage. Parmesan in particular is well suited for this. I especially enjoy adding a small amount of grated Parmesan to salad dressings. The Parmesan tends to dissolve in the olive oil and thickens the dressing. Yes, a thick and extra delicious dressing!

When seasoning any dish, I urge you to consider using a few drops of fish sauce in lieu of salt. Just as kombu and shitake mushrooms have a place beyond Japanese cookery, fish sauce too should flow freely beyond the cuisines of Thailand and Vietnam. Did you know that fish sauce was once quite at home in Europe? Garum, as it was called in Latin, was all the rage at the height of the Roman Empire. A few drops of this pungent potion in a soup or sauce, and even in a salad dressing, will tremendously enhance the flavour. Do not be turned of by the pungent smell that will emanate from your dish when you first add fish sauce – it will mellow with time. But do not overdo it either – add it in small amounts, a few drops at a time. Stir for a few moments, taste, and repeat if necessary. If your sense of ethics or general squeamishness prevents you from using fish sauce, apply soy sauce or Bragg’s in the same manner.

Dear reader, I could prattle on like this for several more pages. I think that this will have to do for the present installment. I am confident that I have convinced you of the paramount importance of the umami taste and that you will now take every opportunity to maximize it in your food. Take the above ideas and experiment a little bit. Get a feeling for the items in your Umami Arsenal. Free that glutamate!

Good appetite.

Brine Swine, Dine Fine

2009-02-10T00:38:00.000-05:00

Dear vegetarian, in this article I discuss a highly rewarding culinary practice that, due to your choice of diet, you will not be able enjoy. You might as well forgo this installment of Culinary Propaganda – there is nothing here for you.

Dear omnivore, you should read this article with great care as it contains information that will dramatically enhance your quality of life. I will explain to you the paramount importance of brining pork, chicken, and turkey prior to cooking. After reading this article, you will never, ever eat a pork loin or chicken breast that has not been brined.

Brine is a strong solution of salt and water. In addition to these two basic ingredients, brines can contain a variety of flavourings such as sugars or other sweeteners, herbs, spices, and aromatics such as citrus zests, onions, garlic, and ginger. Brining is the process of immersing foodstuffs in brine for a prolonged period of time, ranging from several hours to several days. In times of yore, brining was first and foremost a method of food preservation. The salt in brine protects foods immersed therein from bacterial decomposition. But aside from preservation, brining also affects the flavour and texture of foods – often in very beneficial ways. This is very much the case for certain types of meat.

In general, brining enhances the flavour and texture of “white” meats such as, pork, chicken, and turkey. Although any part of a pig, chicken, or turkey is improved by brining, the ones that benefit the most are the lean ones. In the case of pork, this includes all cuts from the loin. In the case of chicken and turkey, this includes especially the breasts. Other meats, and beef in particular, are not considered amenable to brining as it has an undesirable impact on the texture.

Due to their lack of fat, pork loins and chicken or turkey breasts are easily overcooked and tend to be insipid and dry even if cooked correctly. By immersing them in brine for a certain period of time, you can transform these often-unsatisfying meats into something quite delectable. Brining improves these meats in a number of ways. First, it makes them more tender as the salt in the brine breaks down certain proteins. Second, it makes them more moist as the cells in the meat swell up with brine, resulting in increased water content. Third, brining will yield meat that is perfectly seasoned. A modest amount of salt will evenly penetrate the flesh, resulting in very consistent salting throughout each piece of meat. After soaking in well-balanced brine, there is usually no need to add salt during cooking or at the table. Finally, you can subtly enhance the flavour of the meat by adding flavourings to the brine. This will flavour the meat more delicately than a typical marinade, complimenting its intrinsic taste rather than masking it.

Basic Brine Recipe

4 cups of water
¼ cup coarse, iodine-free salt (e.g., kosher salt, pickling salt)
¼ cup brown sugar, honey or maple syrup

Flavourings

Herbs: fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, bay leaves
Dry spices: coarse black peeper, paprika, cumin, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds
Fresh aromatics: onion, garlic, ginger, citrus zests

To make the brine, you will put the water in a pot and you will add the salt, sugar and any flavourings that you are using. You will need to heat the water until all of the salt and sugar dissolve. Let the brine cool to room temperature. Put the meat in a non-metallic contained and pour the brine over it. Be sure to completely submerge the meat in the brine. Cover the brine and immersed meat and refrigerate. For pork chops, chicken breasts or thighs, and small pieces of turkey, you will want to start brining the night before, or at the latest in the morning on the day you plan to eat them; for pork roasts, whole chickens, and bigger pieces of turkey, you will want to start brining two or three days in advance. Before cooking, remove the meat from the brine and pat it dry with paper towels. Cook the meat as usual.

You may have to multiply the above recipe to produce a sufficient quantity of brine. There are no hard and fast rules for this – you will have to figure out how much you need yourself. To minimize the amount of brine required, use the smallest possible dish for brining. To give you an approximate idea, if you are brining a pork roast or a whole chicken, for example, multiply the above recipe by two or three; for a whole turkey, by three or four.

Brining, it cannot be denied, entails a modicum of extra work and advanced planning. This extra work and advanced preparation will doubtless strike many of you as onerous. I contend that the work involved is minimal – no more than 15 minutes of your time are needed to prepare the brine. Please do not be lazy, dear reader. I promise you that this small time investment will yield considerable flavour dividends.

I opine that it is your duty to make the most out of every piece of meat that you cook. An animal’s life has been taken to provide you with the piece of flesh that you are consuming. You should make sure that this animal did not die in vain! Dear reader, if pork loin or chicken breast is on the menu, it is your duty to brine it. I am serious. Without brining, you are simply wasting these meats. And even if you plan to dine on parts of pig or bird that are well-endowed in fat – such as ribs and shoulders in the case of pork and thighs and wings in the case of birds – I command you to brine them as well. You will not believe the sensations in your mouth.

You will write to culinary (dot) propaganda (at) gmail (dot) com to thank me. You are at liberty to write to the same address to ask me sensible questions about brining and other culinary matters.

Good appetite.