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His description of saltiness reminded me of something I like to do: I enjoy braised vegetables cooked so that there are varying levels of doneness throughout.
by grandalf 10y ago
His description of saltiness reminded me of something I like to do:
I enjoy braised vegetables cooked so that there are varying levels of doneness throughout. It's as if all the best flavors in each manage to come through and you get this whole spectrum of what it means to be that vegetable.
- zwieback 10y agoTrue not just for doneness but other attributes as well. Having ingredients chopped not too uniformly, charring only some of the surface, throwing in the same ingredient later in the cooking process, etc. are other ways of getting the same ingredient on the plate in different ways.
- grandalf 10y ago> chopped not too uniformly, charring only some of the surface, throwing in the same ingredient later in the cooking process Yes! I do that stuff too. Making me hungry just thinking about it.
- munificent 10y ago> I enjoy braised vegetables cooked so that there are varying levels of doneness throughout. Yes! A common technique among more advanced cooks is to add the same spice multiple times through the cooking process. Spices (and other ingredients) change in flavor in response to heat, so you end up getting several different flavors even though they come from the same original ingredient. My favorite example of an ingredient that works like this is onions. A fresh onion is super crunchy and so pungent it literally makes your eyes water. Simmer it for hours and you've got French onion soup—something so soft and sweet it's practically a dessert. That's all the onion changing in response to heat. When you use an onion, you aren't selecting an ingredient. You get to select any precise point on that continuum between sharp and soft that you want, just based on when you put it in. Even with the same recipe, I'll vary it up each time I make it based on how I'm feeling. Sometimes I want my farmer's omelette to have some crunch and tang so I cook the onions less. Other times I want it smooth and savory so I cook them more. (And, of course, once you take into account cooking temperature—slow and low versus hot and fast, and how finely you chop them—thickness effects how different the inside and outsides of each piece cook are—you realize even a single ingredient gives you a multi-dimensional space to explore).
- beachstartup 10y ago> thickness effects how different the inside and outsides of each piece cook are for most people, the most dramatic example of this is a medium rare (or less) steak. black and blue is the extreme.
- grandalf 10y ago> to add the same spice Interesting, any tips on spices that works particularly well with? I can totally relate to the desire to have the onions be a bit more or less crunch in an omelette depending on your mood.
- beat 10y agoI think of it more in terms of different techniques applied at different stages. One example is deglazing. Fry a piece of meat, and little sticky bits of meat and caramelized fat stick to the pan. Remove the meat, wash the pan with wine or some other liquid, scrape the meat remnants into it, and you get a sauce for the meat. Another variant of the concept is red-eye gravy. Cook sausage, deglaze the pan with coffee. Then the gravy becomes a connector between the sausage you're eating and the coffee you're drinking.
- legodt 10y agoI'm absolutely in love with your description of experiencing "the whole spectrum of what it means to be that vegetable." If you ever have a chance, I would highly recommend going to a farm to table restaurant (or just doing this at home if you access to high quality produce) where they bring you all of the ingredients they will be using that night for your meal raw to be tasted before the meal as a reference point of sorts. It's an absolute delight to anchor the experience of a meal that way and I wish more places would adopt the practice in some form or another.
- magic_beans 10y agoThat's amazing!! I'm surprised that kind of restaurant doesn't exist in New York (or maybe it does and I just don't know about it).
- legodt 10y agoBlue Hill Farm is a little drive north of NYC and this is where I first heard about such a presentation technique. If you can wrangle the time to get out there, go for it!