Food, Face First

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...

I started cooking when I was ten years old. As the daughter of an industrial chemist, I was always interested in how cooking worked, and thanks to a commenter on another site, and some encouragement from the fine folks at foodloversweb.com, I decided today to start this food blog. What I will be publishing is patterns in cooking as I find them. What that means for my readers is to free them from the tyranny of recipe books, and to learn to create your own recipes. Here's the first... although...

My friends know that I love to eat and I have a real enthusiasm for food and flavour. I don't mind making messes in the kitchen, as anyone who knows me will attest, and often at dinner will put my face dangerously close to my plate to savour the delicious smells... and so now you know where the "face-first" comes from, because food ought to be so great that you're ready to just dive in! Thanks to Linda Buzzell who blogs about food at the Huffington Post, and Correen over at Foodloversweb for...

Fannie Farmer Cookbook, because I had bought a pork butt on sale and didn't know what to do with it. A pork butt is about 1/3 fat, which is what you'll need for a good meat pate or terrine. The first thing to know is that a pate and a terrine are exactly the same thing--the only difference being that a terrine is in larger chunks. (Pate is simply the French word for "paste," so I remember that pates have to be ground to a fine paste.)Now that we know what pates and terrines are (that is,...

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. T his 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...

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...

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...

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...

Savoury Carrot Custard with Vegetable Sauce Nicolas Coipeau Custards are a mixture of milk and eggs, and are the magical ingredients mixture not only for delicious ice cream, but for quiches, puddings, and other fabulous dishes as well. Whether you use equal amounts of egg yolks and whites, or one more than the other, the general ratio is three eggs to thirty-two ounces of dairy, which makes a custard that will set up well.You need to temper the eggs (which means to beat them while pouring...

Ice Cream Cone with Many Colored Scoops Shaffer & Smith This past weekend, I had to make four gallons of ice cream for a huge pool party (to which few people showed up, so I have tons left over). I learned a lot from reading and experimenting, so here are my general observations on ice cream: The more fat, the better and creamier. Also, the more loaded with calories it will be! As I had to make a choice between fat and sanity, (this is for four quart machines), here's my take, after a number...

When I lived in the Mediterranean, I used to try to improve my French by reading women's magazines, and I was often intrigued by the recipes there. One technique that I have tried and loved is preserving citrus fruit in olive oil. The oils in the skin of the fruit will leach into the olive oil, both preserving the fruits and flavouring the oil, and leaving you with a delicious-tasting result!Enough of the preliminaries--let's get on to the techniques. This is simple and easy to do, and will make a great gift for just about anyone, too! Wash your fruit thoroughly before beginning. Slice oranges, ...

As the daughter of an industrial food chemist, and as an artist myself, I beg to differ with this statement. I really think cooking is mostly about science, and to this end, I just finished reading this book: Now, I really like to cook, and I really like to understand why food chemistry works as it does. I find all kinds of things about the science of cooking fascinating, and so I was thrilled to see that there is an entire chapter devoted to foams in food! (No, not the fashionable froth that...

Baked goods are particularly difficult for some people to get right, and one of the baker's problems is consistency--how to achieve that perfect balance between chewiness and cakeyness. (I know there's no such word, but there ought to be.) It turns out that the difference between chewiness and cakeyness is all down to saturated vs. unsaturated fats and their proportion in each recipe. By varying the proportions (and carefully noting them down), it is possible to achieve the perfect...

So many people plant herb gardens, and then never use the fresh herbs they grow. Let's change that, starting today! First off, for those herbs you grow yourself, get rid of all those little bottles of herbs you've been using all these years. Those bottles are a pale imitation of what you will get from the fresh leaves. Instead, before you begin, take your scissors and a container, and go snip off a little of whatever you're growing: basil, mint, thyme, fennel, lovage, parsley, sorrel, winter...

No, I'm not talking about affection! I'm talking about those bits of food left over in the pan, and why they are so important. One of the important steps in cooking food is caramelization. Basically, this consists of cooking the sugars in the food, and it is this which gives you the crusty brown stuff that is so flavourful--one of the primary reasons for grilling, among other things. Caramelization accounts for the searing on steak, the browning of meats and vegetables, and much more. The...