Flavor Infusion

Let's get creative! A great way to add your own touch to something is by using infusion. You can infuse all sorts of liquids, with all sorts of flavors, to add your own flair to an otherwise ordinary recipe. Oils, vinegars and even water can act as a blank canvas for your creations!

from Flickr - by quinn.anya

A really refreshing treat for the summer is to add slices of cucumbers and lemons to a pitcher of water and allow it to sit in the fridge for a few hours. When you have a glass, you get a chilled glass of wonderful flavor, rather than a plain glass of water.

from Flickr - by erik boralv

Try infusing some chili peppers in olive oil for a few days before using it to sear some scallops or shrimp, for an added bite to your seafood. To infuse an oil like this, you can do it over time, in a shelf-stable container. You can also heat the oil with the flavors to speed up the process. Herbs and garlic also make a great infusion for oil. I've never tried this, but I'm thinking a scallion-infused rice vinegar might be de-lish-ous!

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Share with us!

A Mortar and a Pestle...You'll need one of each!

The mortar and pestle is an elusive tool for a lot of people, I think. For a long time, I would see that it was used to complete a part of a recipe, and just...well, improvise, since I didn't have one. That's fine, improvising is a great thing, but I had no idea how much more difficult I was making it until I decided to buy myself one of these mystical kitchen tools.

They come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them are smoother, while others are as rough as sandpaper.  I bought a nice, little marble one about a year and a half ago, from Sur La Table. It's really cute, and it gets the jobs that I need it for done well.

Isn't it cute!? :)

The inner sides of the mortar are ridged for easier grinding with the pestle. Sometimes, the larger version of a spice, when ground together with others, produces more flavor than the ground version easily purchased in stores. Jamie Oliver does this in quite a few of his recipes. For example, he'll add cumin seed, rather than ground cumin, along with some minced garlic, and other spices to a mortar and grind the flavors together into a paste, which is then thrown into the dish. The flavors are melding as you grind, so even before the spices have hit the pan, they are stronger than each spice alone.

If your mortar is big enough, you can also use it to make homemade guacamole. Since all of the ingredients are just mashed up together, this is a perfect vessel for combining the flavors! Mine is not big enough to do that, but there are a few mortars I've seen that would be perfect, and I have my eye on those!

From Flickr - by ScribeSevenThree

Another Important French Term

It seems that the French have a corner on the market of important cooking techniques, and the mirepoix is one of the most important. Have you noticed that many recipes start with an assortment of diced onions, carrots and celery? That's the mirepoix! (pronounced meer-pwah)

Mirepoix for Tomato Sauce

In all its forms, either raw, roasted, or sauteed in butter, this trio is the base for many stocks, stews, and sauces. While this is the most common threesome, other cuisines have their own variations. In Italian culture, it is known as soffritto, and involves olive oil (instead of butter), as well as garlic, fennel, leek and herbs. In Creole cuisine, it is known as the Holy Trinity, and uses onion, bell pepper and celery.

The reason for the use of onions, carrots and celery (usually in a 50%, 25%, 25% ratio respectively) is the flavor and aroma that these three ingredients add to a dish. When chopping, there's not much need for uniformity among your cuts, since the vegetables cook down so much during the process. They get extremely soft and almost melt into the surrounding ingredients, adding body and thickness to the stew, soup or sauce. The smaller the dice, the quicker the aromas and flavors are released. In the event that you are looking to make a "white" stock (stock that has little to no color to it), substitutions for the carrots include parsnips and/or mushroom trimmings.

Roughly chopped mirepoix (Wikipedia)

I keep these three ingredients on hand at all times, and they usually have a starring role on my grocery lists as well. So many things start with this threesome, its just easier to always make sure you have enough on hand. Even if you don't have a recipe to go on, it's the base for basic marinara sauces, as well as most soups and stocks, so even if you are throwing something together during that "clean out the fridge" week, it is best to have them on hand!

Fun Fact: In French restaurants, mirepoix is an important item in every line cook's "mise en place" (the prepared food items at their cooking stations that save them the trouble of making each tiny part of a recipe every time an order comes in). Read more at Suite101: Mirepoix: A combination of onion, carrot and celery 

New Toys!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful meal somewhere terrific this evening!

Yesterday, I got a special delivery! I had some Williams Sonoma gift cards that I used last weekend to buy myself a new toy for the kitchen, and I'm VERY excited to use it! What did I buy, you ask!? Well, I think I've mentioned that I much prefer fresh pasta to dried, and that on most occasions, I make my own. I do this with attachments for my KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Currently, I own a pasta roller, as well as a cutter for both fettuccine, as well as spaghetti. In addition to the rollers, I also have an attachment that works with the meat grinder to make some of the shaped pasta, but it's not ideal for my needs. So I purchased....drum roll please...


A PASTA PRESS!

This attachment, for the KitchenAid Stand Mixer, presses the pasta dough through specially shaped discs to make Spaghetti, Bucatini, Rigatoni, Fusilli, and both large and small Macaroni. Who's excited!?!? I AM!! I've been waiting to buy this accessory for a long time now, so I'm ecstatic that's it's here! I plan on making some of these shaped pastas now, instead of purchasing them. The more things I make from scratch, the fresher we keep our diet, and that's something I stand 100% behind. I also have plans for a bread maker in the near future, which is a very exciting prospect for me!

Fresh pasta is a process for sure, I won't deny it, but it is worth every second. Once the dough is made, rolled out and cut, it takes about 3 minutes in the boiling water, and it is just so soft and succulent. It absorbs sauces and flavors much better than dried pasta, since it's more of a doughy consistency, and really accentuates those flavors. You can even take a weekend and make a bunch of pasta, and refrigerate it or freeze it for the future. I challenge each and every one of you to a taste test between fresh pasta and dried pasta. If you try it, and prefer the boxed variety, I'll eat my socks! :)

Stay tuned for some delicious fresh pasta recipes!