Bay leaf

Flowers are small, yellow, in umbel clusters of 3-4. Leaves are 3 inches long, deep green, stiff, leathery, oblong and pointed on the end. The leaves are shiny on top and gray-green underside.

The best place to store Bay leaves is in a cool, dry place, away from bright light, heat and moisture. Bay is available fresh, dried whole leaves or ground dried leaves.

The main contribution of bay to foods is its fragrance, sweet but not cloying, pervasive but not overpowering. It’s a key ingredient in French and Mediterranean dishes, including bouillabaisse, and bouillon and -- along with other seasonings like parsley and thyme -- in bouquet garni. Bay leaves can be added to marinades, stock, pâtés, stews, stuffing’s and curries. When poaching fish, bay leaf to be added the water.

Bay’s sweet, balsamic scent is quickly apparent, but it takes a while for its flavor to permeate foods, so it should be added to dishes—like hearty soups, gravies and stews, stewed chicken, pot roast or poached fish—early on.
Bay leaf

What is chaat masala and what is it used for?

Chaat masala is the quint essential Indian spice blend, a tangy condiment that perks up the flavors of salads, legumes, fruit, grilled fish and meats, potatoes and other vegetables.

Originally from North India, it gets its trademark sour and salty flavor from dried green mangos that have been ground to a powder and special black salt. Himalayan black salt, or Indian black salt, contains a high amount of sulfur that gives it a distinctive odor.

Masala means ‘spice mix’ while chaat is a term in India that refers to something to be licked when applied to snacks or appetizers so the little of this slice mix references it use with finger foods or snacks as it is sprinkled over the foods for a flavorful topping.

Chaat masala can be used either before or after cooking or used in place of regular salt.

What is chaat masala and what is it used for?

What are the provolone cheese characteristics?

With a subtle flavor and a pale yellow color, provolone is widely used in Italian cooking. Young provolone is dolce, or sweet, aged up to two three months. After it ages and becomes spicier and more granular, the cheese is called picante.

Like mozzarella, provolone is also a pasta filata or stretched-crud-type cheese. It has less moisture than mozzarella and is additionally cured by suspending in ropes or plastic mesh at 85% humidity.

It has a stringy texture. The minimum milk fat content is 45% by weight of the solids, and the maximum moisture content is 45%.

Like reduced-fat mozzarella, reduced fat provolone - which works in both cooked and cold dishes - will save up to 5 percent of fat per ounce when compared with the full-fat product.

For cooking, Provolone is multipurpose. It can be used on pizzas, in lasagnas and for flavorful casseroles. It goes well with tomatoes and fruits such as pears, grapes and figs.
What are the provolone cheese characteristics?

Chestnuts

Chestnut is a genus of Castanea. The chestnut has been eaten since prehistoric times in both Mediterranean basin and Asia Minor as well as in China.

The nuts are harvest by hand once they have fallen from the burr, the name for the spiny outer covering.

Chestnuts can range in size from a half inch to more than an inch, depending on the variety. They have one rounded side and one flat side and one rounded end and one pointed end.

Chestnuts are usually roasted boiled or ground into flour.  They have the consistency of thick, mashed sweet patties; in the United States, they are best known as a treat added to poultry stuffing for festive Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. The roasted kernel is soft meaty and sweet.

Chestnuts are also dried on racks and made into nutrient-rich flour that is used in a variety of recipes, from soups to breads to desserts.

The French refer to larger chestnuts which is better for cooking, as marrons and to ordinary chestnuts as chataignes.

Chestnuts are an excellent source of manganese, molybdenum, and copper and a good source of magnesium. In addition, they are a good source of vitamin C as well as vitamins B1, B2 and B6 and folic acid.
Chestnuts

Raisins

Raisins didn’t become popular in Europe until the 11th century when knights returning home from the Crusaders brought raisins back with them from the Mediterranean and Persia.

Raisins are one of the most popular types of dehydrated foods products. Raisins are dried fruit of various kinds of grapes that contain considerable sugar and are cured in the sun or in an oven.

As a dried fruit, they are a concentrated source of calories and nutrients, including vitamin B6, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and thiamin.

They are also high in dietary fiber and have no cholesterol. Today, raisins are made similarly the world around. The grapes are handpicked and spread in rows between the vines to dry in the sun. Their bloom – the coating of natural yeast that cling to all grapes – remains intact and the dried grapes turn almost black.

Raisin can be eaten as a snack, either alone or mixed with nuts and either dried fruits. They are stirred into yoghurt, added to cereal and oatmeal, used in breads and cakes.

Like other fruits, raisin should be washed thoroughly before they are used. They may then be soaked in warm water and stewed in exactly the same way as prunes.
Raisins

One of the most important food ingredients: Salt

Salt is one of most important food ingredient in our food. Human need salt. Human use it daily. Imagine human life without salt. However if consume excessively then we will have health problem.

What is salt? Salt is used as a condiment or ingredient. It brightens food flavors and facilitates a balance between sweetness and acidity by decreasing the sourness of acid and increasing the sweetness of sugar.

Salt is also act as a natural preservative which inhibits the growth of molds and bacteria. It literally pulls the life-sustaining moisture from those harmful bodies, making them unable to grow or reproduce.

Archaeologist study shows that salt eating developed as humans learned how to keep animals and grow crops in the years after 10,000 BC. As the proportion of meat in their diet fell, people had to find salt for themselves and for their domesticated animals.

Salt has another crucial property that made it important for the development of human society. By 2000 BC, people knew that adding salt to food stopped it going off.

Salt was used to preserve meat, fish and vegetables, and to create delicacies such as salted olives, which added variety to the diet.
The buying and selling of salt became one of the most important trading activities in the world.
One of the most important food ingredients: Salt

Galangal (Alpinia galanga)

The exact origin of galangal is unknown. Today galangal is cultivated in all of Southeast Asia.

Galangal is a tall plant with blade-like leaves and white lily-like flowers. Its rhizome has distinctive orange-brown skin marked by rings and a crisp whitish flesh.

Galangal has a beautiful ginger scent and helps to tenderize meat .It is a popular ingredient in Thai soup and curries for its fragrant, tangy aroma. It is the key ingredient in the Thai Tom Yum soup.

Galangal is a ’de-fisher’ and so is frequently used in fish and shellfish recipes, often with garlic, ginger, chili pepper, lemon, and/or tamarind. It is used in the more complex spice mixture of Indonesia, as well as the tongue-searing tom yum soups of Thailand.

In Malay Peninsula, galangal fruits are sometimes substituted for cardamom and the flowers are occasionally consumed in salads. The fresh stems lends a wonderful aroma to dishes such as curries and chutneys and like ginger, galangal goes well with garlic.

Currently galangal finds its way into modern spa treatments as an ingredient in herbal body wraps.
Galangal (Alpinia galanga)

Salt as cooking ingredient

Almost 80% of the sodium consumed comes from processed food. Salt has been used to preserve food since human started cooking. Salt performs many culinary functions, and one of them, is to enhance the flavor of foods.

Different people have such widely different tolerances for salt in their food that no recipe can guarantee to please every palate.
Salt is harvested from sea and rocks. Sea salt is more expensive and can be found in many high, expensive grades, colors.

Sea salt is much preferred in cooking by professional chefs for its more delicate flavor. Harvested from evaporated seawater, it contains useful trace minerals, including some naturally occurring iodine.

Rock salt is literally minced from earth, from dried up sedimentary lakes and seas. It is refined to produce pure sodium chloride. Iodized slat is rock fortified with iodine and has noticeably metallic flavor.

Expanding the concept of salt to include seasonings such as miso, tamari, shoyu, umeboshi, and even olives and sauerkraut can give much more inventiveness to the cooking.

Most of these salt seasoning have extra power, not just seasoning power; because they have undergone a fermentation process, beneficial are part of their essence.

It should be used with great care. It assist in the color and finish pastry. If using salted butter or margarine, less salt is required.
Salt as cooking ingredient

Food Ingredient for cooking

Food ingredient is an ingredient in food recipe. The cooking can only be as good as the ingredients’ used.

While the recipe is a set of instruction for producing a certain dish, it is necessary to have a precise record of the ingredient, their amounts and the way in which they are combined and cook in order to duplicate a desired preparation.

In Wikipedia encyclopedia ingredient means something that forms part of a mixture. For example, in cooking, a recipe will specify which ingredients are used to prepare a specific dish.

The best chefs know this and spend as much time sourcing and choosing ingredients as they do cooking.

Great cooks and professional chefs have learned a few tricks along the way to make their food taste great. Some believes that salt is the key ingredient in cooking.

Many commercial products contain a secret ingredient that is purported to make them better than competing products. In the food industry, an active ingredient is that part of a formulation that yields the effect required by the customer.

Normally the recipe is not developed in a purely sequential manner. Much trial and error occurs as various combinations of ingredients, temperature and timings are tried. Chef will try out different proportions of ingredients and cooking times on multiple versions of the dish simultaneously.

To cook delicious, fresh man and nourishing food, chefs have to start with good ingredients – real ingredients. That doesn’t necessarily mean expensive ingredients – fancy techniques and equipment.

For best cooking results, need to use fresh ingredients whenever possible.
Food Ingredient for cooking

Usage of Starch

Starch is a complex carbohydrate which is insoluble in water; it is used by plants as a way to store excess glucose.

Starch are by far the most significant polysaccharide in the diet. They are are found in grains, legumes and other vegetables and some fruits in minute amounts.

Starch need to be cooked because raw starch tastes floury and is not easily digested. When starch and water are heated , the water passes through the walls of the starch granules and the granules become swollen and may burst.

This process is called gelatinization - a process in which starch, on heating , absorbs water and thickens liquids.

The major food sources of starch include grains in the form of cereal, pasta, crackers, bread and other baked goods.

Starch is used to produce food extenders and sugars syrups such as maltodextrins, glucose, dextrose, fructose, maltose and hydrogenated derivatives.

Many cooks use starch for such diverse properties as thickening gravies and soups, making a sweet pudding or dusting pastry before cooking.

For dough in breadmaking starch can be used to offset the excessive toughness caused by a strong flavour.

When added t batters for cakes, starch increases the tenderness and softness of the finished goods.

In cookies, it can help to form a tender structure, can sometimes reduce stickiness and oiliness and can bind water to give soft varieties.
Usage of Starch

How to freshen your cooking

How to freshen your cooking
Replacing the dried herbs called for in a recipe with fresh leaves of the same herbs will usually improve the flavor of your dish, but you will need to use larger quantity of fresh herbs.

The usual ratio of fresh herbs to dried ones is three to one; which means, for example, that one tablespoon of chopped fresh herb is approximately the same strength as one tablespoon of the same herb in dried form.

But there are exceptions to this rule of thumb: for example a mere half teaspoon of dried basil is equivalent to one tablespoon of fresh, while one and one half teaspoon of dried dill are needed to match a tablespoon of the fresh leaves in flavoring power.

Thus, to freshen a recipe calling for a teaspoon of dried basil, use two tablespoons of the fresh herb; and of a recipe is content with a teaspoon of dried dill, then only two tablespoons of fresh dill will substitute for it.

As much as possible, alter the recipe to add fresh herbs near the end of the cooking process, which helps them conserve their essential oils. Dried herbs, on the other hand, need to go into a dish early enough to soak up its liquid and rehydrate.

In the case of bay leaves, there is really nothing to be gained in replacing a dried bay leaf with afresh one, since these leaves retain their flavor very well when dried and in fact, leaves that have dried just to the point of being brittle are actually preferred.

And fresh mint should not be substitutes for dried mint, as the two have rather different flavors.

Similarly, fresh and dried ginger are like two separate seasonings and neither can be used in place of the other.

Using whole species instead of commercially ground powders also has an amazing freshening effect. Measure out the same amounts of freshly ground spices as called for in the recipe.
How to freshen your cooking

Ginger

Ginger
Fresh ginger can be bought almost everywhere in the shop, it should feel form and look healthy, with its suave, suede-textured skin.

Buy a little at a time so that it does not go stale in storage. In fact, ginger freezes very well and can be grated from frozen with great case.

For most dishes, it is peeled and then is either chopped or sliced thinly, or put in the blender along with other ingredients for a paste.

Vary amount of ginger to suit your own taste. If you only want a hint of it to flavour the food, cut it in two or three large pieces which can be found and removed before the dish is served.

Dried and pickled ginger are also good for cooking, but avoid the powdered variety which loses what little flavour it has very rapidly.

Ginger helps the digestion by reducing flatulence and promoting that pleasant feeling of relaxed well-being that the stomach expects after a good meal. It is also said to stimulate the circulation.

To make ginger juice: peel a good sized piece of ginger, and put it into a blender with 1 tablespoon of warm water, then pass it through a fine sieve. It may then be frozen in ice cube trays.

Small amounts of ginger juice can be obtained quickly by crushing chunks of ginger in a garlic press.
Ginger