On the Glories of Butter

Every time I put up a recipe that contains a whole lot of butter I always get a few comments along the lines of: fat has so little flavor all by itself, is it really necessary?. The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes, just with more mumbo jumbo added to it.

It’s true that fat — even butter — doesn’t have all that much flavor in itself. However it’s real utility is as medium for flavor. Allow me to explain. A typical mouthful of food contains quite a wide variety of molecules: carbs, proteins, fats, etc.. Some of those molecules aren’t technically fats, but they fall into the general fat or “lipid” category because they share certain structural similarities to fats.

READ ON

Oh Fruit, Why Can’t You Be True?

Reader Edgar points out that the duplicity of fruit really knows no bounds. There are no “true” fruits among the things we commonly know as “fruit” (a true fruit being defined as an item comprised solely of the ovary of the plant with no other structures in it). Most berries aren’t true fruit. But then most berries aren’t true berries, which serves them right. Blueberries are false berries. Blackberries and raspberries are aggregate fruits, meaning they’re made up of many, many ovaries all pressed together. A pineapple is a multiple fruit.

READ ON

Great Northern Berry

The strawberry is one of those (faux) fruits that humans in the Northern Hemisphere have been eating for a long, long time. It’s indigenous to just about everywhere north of the equator and south of the arctic circle, from eastern China all the way around to the California coast. Some linguists believe that the word “strawberry” itself has been in use for some 6,000 years, a combination of two Indo-European root words “berry” (which means “bright” or “shiny”), and “straw” (which means “scattered” or “strewn”, a possible reference to the fact that the strawberry plant spreads via runners).

READ ON

Dr. Annie’s Chocolate Mousse

Reader Annie, Ph.D., writes:

I have a chocolate mousse recipe that I’m really struggling with and that I so want to master! To melted chocolate I beat in some egg whites that have been whisked to the firm peaks stage before folding in the remainder of the egg whites. The chocolate turns into a thick paste as soon as I start whisking in the egg whites EVERY time! I am then unable to incorporate the egg whites into the chocolate without folding and folding until I have no bubbles left in my mousse. Please help!

Problem understood! That little bit of water (from the whites) is causing the chocolate solids in the recipe to swell, get sticky and clump. The cure for that is more water which creates more syrup and helps the chocolate solids flow again. So you can try stirring more whites to get the mixture to loosen to the point that you can start folding. However…

READ ON

Strawberries: The False Fruit

Imagine how betrayed I felt when I discovered that the strawberries I’d known and cherished all my life weren’t really berries at all. They weren’t even technically fruit. Alright! I cried out in the middle of the produce aisle, what ELSE have you been hiding from me all these years???

A strawberry is certainly no vegetable, but what makes it so unusual is that it carries its seeds on the outside. Most types of berries we know today (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and the like) carry them on the inside. Just like an ovary — and in fact berries are plant ovaries — the critical bits of regenerative matter are kept protected in the interior.

READ ON

What is Crème Mousseline?

Those of you who have a hang-up about dietary fat, plug your ears. Classic crème mousseline is a 2-1 (by volume) mixture of pastry cream and cool butter, whipped together into a rich, silky foam. It could only have been invented by the French, God love those people. If you want you can substitute stabilized […]

READ ON

Next Up: Fraisier

Seasonal who? Locally sourced what? This classic strawberry “cake” is usually made in the springtime for reasons that should be obvious. However the strawberries at our local supermarket are so good right now I don’t feel a speck of guilt about making good on reader Kelli’s request from, what, five months ago? Let’s do this […]

READ ON

Stock Up On Vanilla for the Holidays

Reader Rainey writes:

Costco is stocking their seasonal stash of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans. They sell 10 of them for $12. They come in a couple glass test tubes which I find wonderfully convenient for that trick of nipping off one end and plunging the cut end into about 1″ of vodka. Once emptied they’re also useful for gifting a bit of vanilla sugar with one of the empty pods cached inside.

Informative AND educational. Thanks, Rainey!

READ ON