This seems to make sense, right – I mean, fresh is always better than canned. Or is it? It turns out that canned tomatoes often beat out fresh for making sauce. There are several reasons for this:
- The makers of canned tomatoes can grow multiple varieties with different taste characteristics and blend them for an ideal taste profile in their product.
- The tomatoes are grown for canning near the processing plant, so they can be left on the vine until ideally ripe and at the peak of flavor – no need to account for transport time.
- The tomatoes do not have to be bred to transport well or to look pretty on the shelf in the market. As long as they taste good, they can be delicate and ugly.
This is not to say you can’t make great sauce from fresh tomatoes–of course you can, but only if you have the ideal locally grown and perfectly ripe tomatoes. My point is that you should not dismissed canned tomato products just because they are processed. And, you do not have to buy the super-expensive imported and/or organic varieties. In fact, one of the US’s major brands beat all of those out in a taste test held by a notoriously fussy cooking magazine.
Here’s an interesting Mark Bittman article on this topic:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/not-all-industrial-food-is-evil
It’s widely believed that when you are steaming clams or mussels, any that do not open must be discarded. Turns out it is usually a waste of perfectly good shellfish. An unopened clam may be bad, or the shell full of mud, but in my experience they are usually fine. What I do is set the unopened ones aside and deal with them separately. In almost all cases they are very easy to open with a blunt knife and the little feller inside is just fine. When you do find a bad one, out it goes. If you find more than a very occasional bad one, you might want to buy your clams elsewhere.
As an aside, fresh clams/mussels should always be stored in the fridge in a ventilated container, never a sealed plastic bag. They are alive and use some oxygen – not much, but a sealed bag will suffocate them and then you will have a bunch of bad clams!
A sharp knife cuts more easily, so this make sense – right? But, it is not true. With a sharp knife, cutting is easily done and nothing needs to be forced. And it’s the forcing that causes cuts, when you have to press down hard and the knife slips onto your finger. Ouch! With a really sharp knife, your cutting can be smooth and relaxed, with less danger of cuts. So, keep your knives sharp!
To the contrary! Since being turned on to coffee roasting a while back (after a visit to an organic coffee plantation in Nicaragua), I regret not having started sooner. If you want better, cheaper coffee for little effort, read on. If you like Charbucks – err, I mean Starbucks – coffee, don’t bother.
- Process: A coffee roaster can cost as little as $130. It looks sort of like a blender and works by blowing hot air up through the beans to agitate and roast them. Add the green (raw) beans, turn on, and forget – it’s that simple. You can vary the type of roast (light, medium, dark) by varying the roasting time and/or temperature. This process will generate some smoke, particularly when making a dark roast, so be forewarned. There are also drum smokers that heat the beans in a rotating drum.
- Savings: Green coffee beans, easily available over the internet, cost in the $5-7 / pound range with a few exceptions for super-premium beans like Jamaica Blue Mountain. Beans lose 15-20% of their weight in roasting, so a pound of roasted beans ends up costing $7.00-$7.50 / pound. Compare that with the $12-15 that high quality roasted beans cost. Your savings will soon pay for the roaster and you’ll be saving money.
- Variety: My favorite source of beans, Burman Coffee Traders, currently lists green beans from Costa Rica, Hawaii, India, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, New Guinea, Tanzania … the list goes on. Decaf beans are available as well. Plus, you can experiments with your own blends.
So, if you love coffee – good coffee that is – you might want to try roasting your own.
In fact, the opposite is true – dissolved salt raises the boiling point of water. For the amounts of salt used in cooking, however, it is a tiny amount, a fraction of a degree, and you needn’t be concerned about it.
A soufflé is a delicate creation that rises due to expanding bubbles in beaten egg whites. A sudden shock such as the oven door slamming will, supposedly, cause it to collapse. While this may be a nice plot twist, tests show that it isn’t true – your soufflé will survive a slammed door just fine, as will delicate cakes.
I was quite interested to find out that this is not only false, but it is defined by US Government regulations. Whipping cream must contain at least 31% butterfat but no more than 36%, while heavy cream must contain at least 36% butterfat. What does this mean to you, the cook?
When making whipped cream, heavy cream takes longer to whip but lasts longer once prepared (losing its peaks and becoming watery). In contrast, whipping cream whips faster but does not last as long.
A more important difference may be between creams that are pasteurized vs. those that are ultra-pasteurized. Both treatments kill bacteria and extend the shelf life of the cream, but the ultra procedure uses a much higher temperature. The result is cream that lasts longer (in the unopened container) but does not whip as well or taste as good. Look for local, pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream that is free of additives.
Fresh corn on the cob is, of course, best cooked as soon as possible after picking, but that’s not always possible. How should it be stored? Many people say not to refrigerate it, but that’s a myth. Put it in the fridge – after all, the chemical reaction that causes corn to lose its sweetness is slowed down by cold, just like almost all chemical reactions. Corn can still be wonderful after a day or two in the fridge, although not as good as really fresh.
By the way, an easy and energy-efficient way to cook corn is to put the husks and trimmings in the bottom of your kettle, pile the ears on top, and add an inch of water – instant steamer! Cover and boil for 4-10 minutes depending on the corn and your preferences. By not bringing a full pot of water to the boil, you save time and energy.
The crying response to onion vapors has to do with your eyes, not your nose. Using a sharp knife, to reduce the tearing and bruising caused by a dull one, may help, as will refrigerating the onion ahead of time. Keeping your eyes closed will help, but you may lose a finger or two!
A potato will absorb little or no salt, so this just does not work. Adding more unsalted liquid and other ingredients is about the only solution to this problem.
