Nov. 27th, 2008

firstfrost: (Default)
There is something odd about cooking - really, about most sorts of Making Things - that sees large piles of ingredients fussed with and distilled down to smaller items. Things are peeled, packaging is discarded, liquids soak into dry things and hide, steam evaporates: almost everything gets smaller when cooked. Everyone who's cooked spinach knows this. The shallot confit was probably the most extreme example of this in tonight's dinner - take a large bag of shallots, add butter and olive oil and sugar and such, cook for an hour and half, and decant a very small amount of confit. But it does get very dense in flavor.

This year, I learned the trick for chestnuts - cut them in half, parboil[*] them for about two minutes, and strip the shells off with pliers. Amazing!

I have been thankful for many things, great and small, but for the moment, I shall be thankful for [livejournal.com profile] ilhander and Kye running about like mad things entupperwaring all the leftovers.

*: ilhander asks about the distinction between blanching and parboiling. According to the web, blanching is very fast (30 seconds), and is used to set the color on a vegetable without really otherwise cooking it; parboiling is cooking slightly (a few minutes). [livejournal.com profile] harrock noted that he parboils bratwurst before frying them, and we didn't think you could blanche bratwurst.

Profile

firstfrost: (Default)
firstfrost

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 4th, 2025 08:11 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios