thanksgiving
Nov. 27th, 2008 09:22 pmThere 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
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).
harrock noted that he parboils bratwurst before frying them, and we didn't think you could blanche bratwurst.
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
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*: 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).
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