Famous Flavours and Spices

Good evening to all you mid-weekers! 

I must apologise for my sincere lack of presence over the past week and a half, I've been feeling a little uninspired. Not for any particular reason, other then the fact that I'm inherently lazy. But onwards. Today's post is all about spice, cue the bells and whistles and whatnot.
 

I've been on a bit of a mission the past few days in all honestly. I've been a little driven to convince a few people about the importance of spice, if you will spare a moment for me; I must apologise if you - my humble reader - are the lady from Hotel Chocolat that I directed here the other day. I think I may have mildly terrified you with my rant about the need for spices in cooking. But they are important!

I can hear the faces being pulled into a sour pout as I'm typing this so i'll clarify quickly. I don't mean chilli, I don't mean hot, spicy spices.  I mean everything really, every herb and spice you can find, I even mean garlic and chilli peppers and ginger, because I use them as if they were a spice. I know you guys have seen them, I know the huge spice bays in supermarkets are next to dried pasta and stock cubes, so don't fib! I also know that you've probably thought that you'd never use half of them in a million years, because I used to think that too, until I started cooking my own meals. For the risk of sounding like an advert for the shopping channel I won't waffle on too much, but I really like to impress on people that they should be a part of your general shopping list. And i'm going to give you a short list as to why I think you should consider it:

Número Uno - It reduces the need for salt in your food. If you use spices to give flavour, you won't need to use as much, it's pretty simple. Trust me. Your diet will be healthier, you will feel better and you won't miss it.

Número Dos - It makes your food taste a million times better. It gives your palate more layers of taste, instead of being just a straight-up one dimensional dish. Without the running the risk of sounding like a complete tool, it helps to add more flavour instead of, say, just being able to taste tomatoes, or just being able to taste beef. There's nothing wrong with either of these things, but sometimes it's nice to have something with a little balls.

Número Tres - It does not mean your food is going to be spicy. This makes me sad, because the word spice to some people means spicy. It really isn't. Chances are you've probably used a spice at some point in your life, cinnamon in your apple pie, oregano in marinara sauce. The range of spices is so amazing, you can't just bung it into one palate feature. There are five parts of the flavour palate to stimulate, so do it! (I'll talk a little more about this in a second). So don't generalise! 

Número Cuatro - Spices are beneficial to your health. People have used them for centuries, and pills and medicines aren't the only things to make you feel better for basic ailments. Ginger is amazing! It can help motion sickness, headaches, sore throats, congestion and normal sickness (I can testify to the latter reason after a particularly heavy night out!). Garlic can help to lower blood sugars, cholesterol and kill infections, as well as stimulate the lymph nodes in your body to help remove waste from the body. In addition to being an antibacterial substance and tasting immense. Oregano is a high antioxidant, paprika can help be anti-inflammatory, cinnamon is wonderful at regulating blood sugar levels, especially in diabetics and cumin is effective in killing Helicobacter pylori (the bacteria that can lead to stomach ulcers). If I still haven't convinced you with just the top pick of what it a plethora of amazing-ness, Capsaicin, which is found in chilli peppers and cayenne, has found to not only mute pain by inhibiting the pain neurotransmitters, but has also found to suppress appetite and aid weight loss through exercise. Not that you lovely people need to worry about anything like that, it's just useful to know.

Número Cinco - It makes your food sing! It makes your food awesome! It makes your food more sophisticated! Whatever reason you want to choose, spices make your food so much more interesting, less bland.

I know you might write me off as some other random person lecturing you to use spices, but there's a reason there are so many celebrity chefs reiterating what I'm saying here, they're not plugging Schwartz, they are just genuinely enthusiastic. And if I accomplish nothing else from this blog, I hope you listen to this message, your culinary life will never be the same again.

I mentioned briefly  before that I would talk about the five centres of taste before. You probably learnt about this in science at some point during your education, the whole "there are certain parts of the tongue that taste certain flavours" type...thing. Well, it's my duty to tell to you that what you heard is a dirty rotten lie. Well, kind of. It's not entirely a lie, only the exclusivity of "taste in certain areas" part is a lie. You can actually taste all flavours in all parts of your mouth containing a taste bud, there are just certain areas that pick it up first. And here's a wonderfully useful diagram.
  

So you have the basic four, lets call them the Fantastic, Sourness, Sweetness, Saltiness and Bitterness. Those are all pretty standard. Bitter tastes are things like coffee and raw cocoa, beer, marmalade and some olives. Sour tastes are caused from high acid contents, either citric or tartaric, and these are found in lemons, limes, tamarind and sour milk, among others. Saltiness is, you know, salt, or sodium if you want to get mildly technical. Sweetness is usually the presence of some sort of sugar, glucose in cane sugar, lactose in dairy products can also be counted, fructose in fruits, even something called glycyrrhizin (nope, I'd never heard of it until today either) which is found in licorice and is thirty times sweeter then sucrose. There is one taste sensation that is left out in the cold, poor thing, and that's something call Umami. It's much harder to describe, so bear with me while I try to fumble through. It is, essentially, an "appetitive" kind of taste, it's the kind of taste that makes you crave your food more, it's usually found in meaty dishes, aged cheeses and fermented soy sauce. But it is curiously set off by MSG in the same way sugar is tasted first at the tip of the tongue. The section isn't mapped on my little diagram but it's basically at the centre of the tongue, in between all the others. 

The simplest way I can think to describe this is for you to look at this picture. Look at that badass burger, if you imagine what the burger itself tastes like in your mouth, that is what umami is, to me. For meat-eaters alike, an orgasm in your mouth. I think I should rename the flavours from Fantastic to Famous. Too lame? Perhaps.
Sorry for the science lesson. I may have got a little caught up.

Peace 

JR

Baking 101

Another request for today my lovely followers! A request for a cake suitable for an Easter feast!

This is my Easter feast. And yes, it's all chocolate.

Firstly i'll cover a few basics of baking. I probably should of done this a while ago really, it's very useful information for a beginner baker, and helps to you decide and understand the chemistry of bakery a little more. I won't ramble too much but i'll cover the basic techniques you can use when making your cakes, and it can be applied to most flavours, chocolate, fruit cakes etc. You get the picture, it's useful to know.


Method 1: The Rubbing in Method.

This is quite a traditional method, and more often used in pastry-making, but can still very much be used in making cakes. This is the method where the fat is rubbed into the flour with the fingertips, much like when you make a crumble topping. This often makes for quite a delicate, crumbly textured cake. This method suits lighter vanilla sponges really well, but can be used for most types, it's quite versatile.

Method 2: The Heating Method.
This is where you usually heat the fat in a pan with other liquids (such as golden syrup or milk), cooled and then added to the dry ingredients. It's usually use for quite dense cakes, such as ginger and spiced cakes, but it can technically be used for most cakes. It makes for quite a heavy cake so avoid for lighter sponges. 


Method 3: The Creaming Method.
This is the most popular of the methods, it's used in most modern recipes, partly because it's the quickest, partly because it's the easiest list of instructions to follow, and partly because it's the most versatile, I find at least. In this one you cream the fats and the sugars together to form a light and fluffy mix, usually then followed by the eggs one at a time and then the flour. This is usually used when making rich, springy sponges like Victoria Sponge, fruit cakes or Genoise. 


Method 4: The Sponge Method.
This method is for short-lived cakes. you beat the egg yolks and sugar together until frothy, add in the other ingredients and then fold in whipped egg whites. This method is used for the lightest sponges, such a genoise or Swiss roll-style cakes. Although they are beautiful, delicate and airy sponges, they don't keep very well, often going stale a day or so after. 


So there's a basic summary of the techniques of sponges! I suppose you can choose your form of technique with how you like your cake and your level of baking skills. If you aren't a confident baker, Method 3 might suit you well, if you're baking with children, Method 1 could get them involved with the ingredients and help them to learn about food.

Although most recipes can be adapted to your choice of method, it's worth thinking about the properties of the ingredients you're using. For instance, if you're making a cake with bicarbonate of soda or baking powder and you use Method 2, you'll have to work fast so you're cake mixture doesn't start reacting, and helping you end up with a nice floaty cake, instead of a flat, rubbish one.

For the purpose of this particular baking 101 post - and the fact it's Easter, a time for the traditional - i'm going to include a recipe for a classic fruitcake which has been a good faithful companion of mine for many years. It actually hasn't been that many years, I've just made it quite a few times and it's always been lovely. If you've ever tried Dundee cake, it's very similar, minus the almonds - unless you like almonds, then go nuts!... - oh, that really was an unintentional awful pun, I apologise. It's a Delia special, altered a little for my tastes.

Delia's Lightly Spiced Totally-Not Dundee Cake

Serves a good group of lucky people.

150g butter

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

350g raisins/sultanas (not currants - they are the work of evil!...unless you like them)

50g fresh/dried cherries, stoned and halved. 

Finely grated rinds of 1 orange and 1 lemon.

NB - before you start, I experimented with this once where I soaked the raisins and sultanas in hot water that i'd stewed fresh grated ginger in. It tasted so lovely I do this every time, but it is entirely optional. If you want to take the extra time, it'll definitely be worth it! Soak them for about an hour (or overnight if you can)

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan oven/Gas mark 3

- Line a 20cm (ish) tin with greasproof paper, and wrap the outside of the tin with foil, making sure that the foil goes above where the tin finishes by about two inches (tie it with string if you need to), this will help to stop the outside of the cake browning too quickly.

- This cake uses the creaming method so it's pretty simple, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and add the eggs in one by one, mixing in between each as you go. 

- Sift the flour, baking powder and spices together until they're evenly mixed and fold them into the mixture gently. GENTLY! You have got to stir in the fruit as well, so don't knock all the lovely air out. At this stage, it needs to be at a soft dropping consistency. Now, this could sound like absolutely nothing to anything, what is soft dropping consistency? It's basically, where you can pick up a dollop of mixture on a spoon, it keeps it shape roughly and when you tip the spoon to the side, it 'drops' off and makes a really satisfying(/rude) sounding slop. It will keep it's shape if you drop it, but it'll easily mix back in.

- Fold in the sultanas and raisins carefully again and spoon into the tin. 

- If you want to make it look like a Dundee cake, you can arrange some almonds on the top of the cake if you want to in pretty circles, otherwise just leave it uncovered and bake for 2 hours - 2 and a half hours. If it's browning too quickly, cut a circle of grease-proof paper and pop it on the top of the cake and it should be fine!

- Leave it to cool completely in the tin and to make it taste extra sexy, leave it overnight to let all the flavours mingle.

And that's it, it does take a little time, but it doesn't take a great amount of skill and tastes awesome, It's also a nice change from regular sponges and chocolate eggs at this time of year. Everything is quite subtle, the spices not too OTT and the raisins are just awesome by themselves. Personally, I don't think it needs any adornment to make it look pretty, but feel free to arrange edible flowers or marzipan/royal icing on top. You can make it look like a simnel cake if you really want to, it won't taste like one, but it'll look pretty with the crimped marzipan.

The crust looks all dark and scary, but it's actually lovely and light on the inside!

I might make a series of 'Baking 101' posts, if the response to this is okay. Hmm, we shall see. Enjoy your Easter days off my little chickens and I hope you've enjoyed learning about the basics of baking.

Peace

JR