What Our Grandmothers Didn't Know They Knew

 Most of us who are old enough, remember our grandmothers putting baking soda in with green beans, and being served those amazingly bright green vegetables. Nothing ever tasted quite the same afterwards. Well, that wasn't just our perceptions--that is food chemistry, and it comes about because of the chemical reactions between baking soda and sulfur compounds.

Now many foods have sulfur compounds, which add quite a bit to flavour: in eggs, cabbages and other cruciferous vegetables, olive oil, coffee, and wine, just to name a very few foods, and those sulfur compounds take multiple forms. But baking soda breaks those sulfurous bonds and modifies the flavour of food. So if you don't like a certain food, in all probability it is the sulfur compounds that are responsible, and it is possible, therefore, to significantly alter the flavour of food (for better or worse) by using baking soda.

So I challenge all my readers: if you are interested in food chemistry, add a few grains of baking soda to your food over the next few weeks, and carefully observe and increase and decrease the amount of baking soda and note the results. Those dishes you didn't like before might take on new life, and even the ones you already like might benefit. Of course, if you try this and prefer the original, you will also benefit, because you can avoid other primarily basic ingredients, and stick to the more acidic ingredients in dishes that rely on sulfurous compounds for their flavour. By understanding the role of sulfurous compounds in food and flavour, you can make that understanding work to your advantage in coming up with the best possible taste for your cooking!

Hypocras

What with so much going on, I haven't had much time to devote to food chemistry or pattern recipes. My apologies, and to make up for it, here's an actual recipe! Soon I should be back to regular posting routines, but sometimes life just happens!

Hypocras is a medieval drink, dating from the days when the Roman Catholic Popes moved to Avignon. This is a refreshing and hearty wine punch which can be served either hot or cold, and will certainly add flair to a Medieval- or Renaissance-themed party!

Ingredients:
Dry Red Wine (Syrah or a mixture containing Syrah and Cabernet is best--you want rich tannins)
Honey, Brown Sugar, Sugar, or any other sweetener
Cinnamon
Ginger
Galangal
Clove
Grains of Paradise
Nutmeg
Mace (the spice)
Cardamom
Black pepper



Pour the wine into a heatproof dish with a tight lid that can later be placed in the refrigerator. Add spices and sugar or honey, and mix with a wooden spoon until the honey or sugar is completely dissolved. Cover and leave to sit in a cool place overnight. The next day, taste it. If it's too sweet or too spicy, add more wine. If it's not sweet or spicy enough, add more sugar or spices. Reseal and leave overnight. The next day, filter your wine by pouring it through a towel. (The original medieval recipe specifies filtering it nine times through a clean sock.) Seal tightly and keep in a cool, dark place. As with other wines, once you open it, try to drink it within a week. Serve hot or cold.

• For a shortcut, most pumpkin pie spice mixes contain ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.
• Medieval recipes do not have precise measurements, so start with a small quantity until you work out the correct proportions to suit your taste. I like mine very spicy! 

Herbs, Part 4

Without a doubt, I'm a big fan of fresh herbs. I grow them myself, not only on my own property but at my friends' and neighbours' houses, too. And always people ask me, "How do you use all those herbs?"

One of my favourite ways to use herbs is infusions. Whether I infuse them in water (to make tea), in cream (to make sauces or custards); in stock (to make soups or gravies); in liquor, or in just about any liquid, herbs add a great kick to just about anything.

Need to spice up a recipe? Simple. A day or so before you make it, look at the recipe (you have to look at it anyway, before you go to the store, right?) and see what liquid it calls for. Okay, now take that liquid and measure it out. Stick some fresh herbs in it and put that liquid in the fridge. Now when you go to make that recipe, simply pick out the herbs with a tweezers and voilà! You've just found a way to use those fresh herbs!

Better Living Through Chemistry

Yes, that was the slogan I grew up with, not only because I was a child in the 1960s, but because my parents were both well-versed in chemistry. Although I didn't do particularly well in chemistry class because of the valences, I did understand a lot of what I did study.

This past two weeks I have had several opportunities to see chemistry at work in the kitchen, both unexpected. The first was when I decided to soak my burner pans. Mine (I thought) were fairly clean, so I dumped them in the sink, added some warm water and dishwashing detergent, and let them soak overnight.

The results were impressive--so impressive that I've been letting them soak for two weeks and will probably let them soak for another. You see, while I live with chemistry every day, I never really believed in chemistry until I saw the grease dissolve even from spots that were invisible to the naked eye. But I would wake up in the morning, go into the kitchen, and see dissolved grease from those invisible spots spread out around the spot like a halo. And the other thing I learned from this experience was that baked-on grease smells terrible, and that smell gets into your food. And I know this because when I put the burner pans back on the stove, the food tasted much cleaner when I cooked it the next time.

Chemical reactions take time, but the results are real and consistent. Have faith that the right reactions will occur, and soak your burner pans overnight once a week!

  The second time I had a chance to really watch chemistry at work was when, as it turned cold, I actually went to the trouble of mulling wine. Most of the time, I admit, I'm lazy, and I just heat the wine, either on the stove top (be sure to unplug your carbon monoxide detector first; this is the voice of experience), or in the microwave. But mulling actually requires a poker (or other suitable piece of metal) to be heated red-hot and plunged into the wine or other beverage to warm it. (Again, the voice of experience: the wine or beer will foam up, so leave plenty of room at the top of your cup!) The difference was so extraordinary I could not believe it. You see, when you heat wine another way, caramelization does not take place, so you have less flavor because there's not the "browning" reaction such as there is with intense heat.

If you decide to try mulling, buy and reserve a separate poker for this. Otherwise you'll end up with ashes in your drink (not the voice of experience here. I figured this out for myself first).

Herbs, Part 3

Last week we discussed herbal sugars: this week we're going to talk about herb salts. Just like sugar, salt can be infused with flavours, too. Depending on the size of the salt crystals, this may take quite a bit longer but again, the flavour results are well worth the wait!

Galvanised Metal Pot with Lemon Thyme Set in Gravel with Shells Linda Burgess

Infusing salt works exactly the same way as infusing sugar, except the results may take much longer (up to a year). This is because the salt compound does not react with the plant essential oils in the same fashion that sugar reacts to them (remember that all plants contain sugar, and therefore plant oils and sugars are natural friends).  However, herb-infused salts are well worth the wait.

Again, we need to take into account the interplay between sweet and savoury, and their exchanges here. So, for an experiment, you might try making a small amount of cinnamon salt. What to do with it? How about sprinkling it over sweet potatoes, brushed with olive oil, walnut oil, hazelnut oil, or grapeseed oil and roasted in the oven? Now, what can you make with vanilla salt? Mint salt (it's not as strange as it sounds, as you've probably eaten mint jelly with lamb)? Again, the list is limited only by your imagination. Later on we'll get into baking some more, and then we'll be using some of these herb salts in cakes and other goodies.

In the meantime, try using these herbs to infuse salt (remember they will take a while to perfume the salt), and then we will see the results in a few months. You'll be amazed at the flavour layers you can achieve with a few infusions!

Herbs, Part 2

Many people are confused about how to use herbs. Today we'll start with a simple solution that was used by our grandparents and great-grandparents: herb sugars. Indeed, if you read recipes from earlier centuries, you will see that from the Middle Ages to Victorian times, cooks were passionate about infusing sugar with other flavours, some that may seem quite odd to us today!

On second thought, it might not be that odd. Most of us remember cinnamon sugar on French toast from our childhoods (or perhaps even more recently). Now it is time to expand on cinnamon sugar and start experimenting.

One old standby is vanilla sugar, which, like all infused sugars, is made easily enough. When you have used the vanilla bean pods in something like ice cream, take the pods and instead of throwing them away, submerge them in some sugar and place in an airtight container. Leave for a few months, and when you open the jar, you will have gorgeous, vanilla-scented sugar.

Victorian cooks were especially fond of lavender sugar, as well, and used it in almost everything. I have recipes for cakes, cookies, pies, ice creams, and more that use lavender sugar, and it's delicious in tea, too!

Oregano

However, as my readers know, I am interested mostly in applying techniques regardless of ingredients. Remember my post about swapping around sweet and savoury? What about combining them? Then we get oregano sugar, thyme sugar, rosemary sugar, fennel sugar, and many more (borage sugar or salad burnet sugar is especially delicious).

If this seems odd to you, remember that herbal tea? Did you put sugar in it? Ah, now this doesn't seem quite so eccentric, right? In any case, to make herb sugars of any variety, it works the same way. Spices should be finely ground to mix with the sugar. Herbs should be fresh. Simply submerge the fresh herbs completely in the sugar, and wait a few months, shaking the sugar each week or so. Sift or pick through the sugar with tweezers to get the pieces of herbs out, and you will have exquisitely perfumed sugar to use in baking, in tea, or anywhere you want to have a spicy or herbal sweet taste.

Looking through baking recipes, especially from earlier ages, is a great way to get a sense of how to use herbal sugars, but even if you never use them for anything but to sweeten your tea, you will have made your life that much more exciting. And as a last resort, infused sugars make wonderful and thoughtful presents!

Puddings

Apple Pudding with Calvados Custard Jörn Rynio

A pudding is merely a custard thickened with a little flour or cornstarch. If you look back to the post on ice creams, you'll see that we already have the formula for sweet custards: three eggs and 1½ cups of sugar to a quart of dairy. Heat (following the directions on the ice cream blog post if it gets lumpy), add your flavorings and let them infuse a while, put the flour or cornstarch in to thicken it, and then pour into a dish to bake until it sets up nicely. That's really all that is needed to make excellent pudding from scratch--much better than those mixes, and better for you, too.

By all means, use recipe books, especially for suggestions, but don't get too bogged down. Just remember the basic proportions, and you'll do fine! If you approach cooking as an adventure, you will be much more likely to venture out into unexplored territory! Do not be afraid to try small variations in proportions, or much greater variations in tastes--remember that what tastes great to one person will be icky to another, so don't be offended if someone, somewhere doesn't like your creation--someone else will absolutely love it!

Also don't be afraid to take those old children's classics and revamp them for more sophisticated tastes. Instead of plain Nilla Wafer banana pudding, how about spicing that up with gingerbread instead of Nilla Wafers? What about adding banana liqueur, or livening it up with orange or lime zest, or adding nutmeg? Or a tiny hint of chipotle? In the kitchen, anything goes--although sometimes it goes to the dog!