THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


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TIP OF THE DAY: Microwave Ears Of Corn

Cook it, then husk it. Photo by Zeeshan
Qureshi | SXC

  We remember frequent trips to farm stands with our mom each summer, for a dozen ears of fresh-picked corn. Back home, we’d watch her husk the ears of corn and pop them into a large stock pot filled with salted boiling water.

Why has it taken us decades to discover the ease of microwaving ears of corn? There’s nothing to do but put the ears on the rotating plate. The husks enable the corn to steam in its own moisture.

  • It’s quick. Microwaving ears of corn still in their husks takes as little as a tenth of the time it takes to boil a large pot of water: just two minutes.
  • It’s easy. The “cooked” husks are much easier to remove after the corn is cooked (and the pesky corn silk also comes off more easily).
  • The temperature is perfect. Boiled corn needs to cool down after it’s removed from the water; microwaved corn is ready to eat. The husks also keep the ears warm for 10 minutes or more, if you need time to assemble the meal.
  • Plus, it saves energy.
  •  

    To start, we rinse the ears of corn and place a paper towel on the plate of the microwave—but only because we’re obsessively neat. It isn’t essential.

    The time it takes to microwave the corn depends on the number of ears. We’ve seen some huge time ranges for microwaving corn. While microwave ovens differ, our midsize Sharp Carousel cooks two ears in two minutes. Try adding 30 seconds for each additional ear and adjust as necessary for your oven. Don’t pack the microwave with corn; cook it in two or more batches if you’re making a lot.

    Husking The Cooked Corn

    While the tendency is to husk the corn the minute the microwave beeps, the husks can be a bit too hot to the touch. You can wear a clean pair of Playtex kitchen gloves, or you can also wait a few minutes until the husks are comfortable to hold. Then, use both hands to pull down opposite sides of the husk. The husk will come off in one good yank, along with most of the corn silk.

    Remove the remaining few strands of corn silk, and the corn is ready to serve.

    While Americans tend to proceed to the buttering stage, fresh-picked corn has such exquisite natural sweetness that it requires no seasoning at all (a nice savings of calories and cholesterol).

    However, after the corn is a day or more off the stalk, the sugars will convert to bland starch. That’s when butter, salt and pepper are needed. For no-calorie seasoning, do what the Mexicans do and add a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of chili powder.

    Another tip: You can use raw corn kernels in salads, salsa and as garnish. Remove the husks and silk, and shave the kernels from the husk with a sharp knife.

      

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    TIP OF THE DAY: Use Only Freshly Ground Pepper

    Pepper has been the world’s most popular spice for some 3,000 years. It has been treasured for its ability to add a kick to bland foods and, in pre-refrigeration days, to salvage food that turned rancid. (Salt, even more popular and essential than pepper, is not a spice. See the * footnote below).

    Until the invention of the pepper mill† in 1842, peppercorns were freshly ground with a mortar and pestle.

    Pepper begins to lose flavor as soon as it’s ground. Pepper gets its spicy heat from piperine, a chemical compound that’s found in both the outer fruit and in the seed (the peppercorn).

    Once the pepper is ground, the piperine is exposed to the air and begins to evaporate. That’s why commercially ground pepper is a bland product.

    And that’s why today’s tip is: Always use whole peppercorns, and grind the pepper as you need it. If you don’t have a pepper mill, get one. Here’s a good, basic pepper mill that’s battery operated, so you don’t have to twist it to grind the pepper.

     
    Use only whole peppercorns, ground as
    you need the pepper. Photo by Adam Kozlowski | IST.
     
    *Spices are aromatic seasonings obtained from the bark, buds, fruit, roots, seeds or stems of a plant or tree. Herbs are the leafy parts of the plant. Some plants yield both a spice and an herb. For example, the coriander plant provides coriander seeds, a spice, as well as cilantro leaves, an herb. Why aren’t cilantro leaves called “coriander leaves?” Cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander, and we adopted the Spanish word for the herb.

    †The pepper mill was invented by the Peugeot company in 1842. A family venture begun in a small village in eastern France around 1793, the company manufactured tools, coffee grinders and even bicycles. (A member of the family broke off to manufacture automobiles.)
     
    Why Not To Buy Peppercorns In Bulk

    Given the higher cost of whole peppercorns, why should you avoid buying them in bulk?

    As pre-ground pepper quickly loses its piperine kick to evaporation, the piperine in whole peppercorns also evaporates over time.

    Plus, most pepper is grown as a commodity, to be sold at a prefixed price per ton. Margins are slim and there’s no bonus paid for quality. The berries are picked as soon as they form on the vine, resulting in meager little peppercorns whose flavors have not had a chance to develop—like tomatoes that are picked from the vine before they ripen.

    So, peppercorns sold in bulk to consumers are not likely to be the best in the first place. And after they’ve been sitting on your shelf for two years, they become as dried-out and bland as pre-ground pepper.

    Introduce yourself to the world of fine peppercorns. Here’s everything you need to know about pepper. It’s hot stuff!

    FOOD TRIVIA

    There is no relationship between black pepper, which originated in India, and chile peppers, which originated in South America. They are from completely different botanical families and their heat comes from two different chemical compounds.

    Black pepper (and white pepper, which is black pepper with the outer skin removed), is the genus and species Piper nigrum from the family Piperaceae. As noted above, their heat comes from the chemical compound piperine. Chiles are from the genus Capsicum and the family Solanaceae. Their heat comes from the chemical compound capsaicin.

    So why do we call chiles “peppers?”

    You can thank Christopher Columbus for the confusion. When he first encountered chiles in the New World, he related the heat in the fruit to the heat in peppercorns, and combined the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word for them, chilli, into chilli pepper.

    And yes, both chiles and peppercorns are the fruits of their respective plants.

      

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    Chilled Cucumber Soup Recipe

    Bowls Of Cold Cucumber Soup
    [1] Chilled cucumber soup. A little garnish turns it into food art (photo © Love And Lemons).

    A Cucumber Growing On The Vine
    [2] Still on the vine, in a home garden with a wooden support for the heavy fruit—yes, cucumbers are a fruit (photo © Bernard Hermant | Unsplash).

     

    We love elegant, chilled cucumber soup.

    Unfortunately, the provider of our video recipes has closed down, leaving us with this tempting idea, but no video recipe on this page.

    So instead, we present two options:

  • The Nibble’s Recipe For Cold Cucumber Yogurt Soup
  • This elegant chilled cucumber soup recipe from Love & Lemons (photo #1).

  • Here’s the commentary from the video recipe that went poof!

    Cucumber soup is refreshing and low in calories—we use nonfat Greek yogurt instead of the whole milk yogurt and sour cream used in the video recipe. And it’s less costly to make than gazpacho.

    Texture. Cucumber soup is customizable in texture, from chunky to smoothie-like (you can drink the latter from a glass or cup).

    While the video host uses an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender or food processor for a finer texture.

    Seasonings. Cucumber soup is receptive to a broad variety of favorite seasonings. While garlic, dill, and mint are traditional, you can change the recipe by adding basil, celery seed, curry powder, minced jalapeño, minced onion, shallot, tarragon, thyme, and/or sage.

    Serving. Serve the chilled soup in plastic cups for parties—either with a spoon or as a puréed, drinkable version.

    We’ll be serving cucumber soup as part of our Labor Day menu. Try it!

    World Cucumber Day is June 14th.
     
     
    > The history of cucumbers.
     
     
    > The different types of cucumbers.
     
     
    > More ways to use cucumbers.

     

     
     

    CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.
     
     
     

      

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    TIP OF THE DAY: How To Fill The Salt Shaker


    Shake it up, baby. Salt and pepper
    shakers and rack from Tablecraft.
     

    Need to refill the salt shaker but can’t find the funnel?

    Pouring directly from the box of salt can create a mess. Instead, use an envelope—preferably one of the smaller return envelopes that arrive in the mail.

    1. Fill the envelope with the approximate amount of salt that you need. Seal the envelope.

    2. Cut off one corner to create a funnel. If you need additional salt, just cut the top off the envelope and add more.

    3. When the shaker is filled, place the “funnel” opening in the carton of salt to return any leftovers.

    Why didn’t we mention filling the pepper shaker as well? You’ll find out in tomorrow’s Tip Of The Day.

    Which Shaker Gets The Salt?

    Traditionally, the multiple-hole shaker is for salt and the single-hole shaker is for pepper. The original reasoning is that people want more salt than pepper. But if you find that pepper flows better from the multiple-hole top, feel free to switch.

     
    Life Before Salt Shakers

    Before there were shakers, salt and pepper were served in small ceramic dishes (crystal dishes for the wealthy) called salt cellars. In the kitchen, a wood salt box* was used. Some have two compartments in order to hold both salt and pepper.

    The word “cellar” doesn’t refer to the basement in this case. It evolved around 1434 from the Anglo-Norman word saler, based on the Old French salier (salt box) and the Latin salarium. Salarium is a great word. There’s more about it below, under Food Trivia.

    Back to the salt cellars: People would simply take a pinch of salt from the dish. But shakers evolved as a more sanitary option.

    The gentry used elegant crystal salt cellars (we still have our great-grandmother’s). Presumably, they all washed their hands before coming to the table and pinching the salt and pepper.

    FOOD TRIVIA

    For most of the history of the world, salt was a scarce commodity and very costly. Few countries had discovered underground salt deposits, and only those with seacoasts could evaporate salt from seawater.

    Yet, as it is today, salt was very important for culinary, medicinal and industrial purposes. People even used it as currency:

  • In Tibet, Marco Polo noted that tiny cakes of salt were pressed with images of the Grand Khan and used as coins (salt is still used as money among the nomads of Ethiopia’s Danakil Plains).
  • Greek slave traders often bartered salt for slaves, giving rise to the expression that a particular individual was “not worth his salt.”
  • In the early days of the Roman army, legionnaires were paid in salt. This “salt money” was known in Latin as a salarium—the origin of the word salary.
  •  
    A brief history of salt.

    One of our favorite books is Salt, A World History, by Mark Kurlansky. It’s a page-turner.
    *Lidded salt boxes are back in style, and are now made in split versions to hold both salt and pepper. In addition to the two-section wood salt box, here’s a handsome black marble salt box.

      

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    TIP OF THE DAY: How To Roast Chiles

    Whether bell peppers or hot chiles, roasted fresh peppers are delicious and easy to make at home under the broiler or atop the grill.

    First the chiles are charred, then sweated to loosen the skin.

    If you’re roasting hot chiles, you’ll need protective latex gloves—the skin-tight ones that doctors wear. This prevents the capsaicin—the chemical compound that gives chiles their heat—from touching your hands. After you begin to handle the chiles, don’t touch your eyes or mouth or you’ll feel the burn.

    Part I: Char The Chiles

  • Wash the chiles and pat them dry.
  • Make a lengthwise slit in each chile and remove the seeds and ribs with a spoon (we use an espresso spoon). Leave the stems on.
  • To roast chiles on the grill: Place the chiles directly on the grill over high heat. When one side is blistered and blackened, flip the chiles. Char the other side, then remove.
  • To roast chiles in the oven broiler: Turn the broiler to high and place the chiles on a baking sheet, five inches from the broiler element. Once the skin chars, flip the chiles.
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    Photo of roasted peppers by Mad Circles| IST.

     
    Part II: Remove The Skins

  • Place hot roasted chiles in a plastic or paper bag to sweat for 15 minutes. If you don’t have a bag, cover them with a damp kitchen towel. The steaming helps to loosen the skins.
  • With the gloves still on, slip the skins off the chiles.
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    How To Serve Roasted Chiles

  • Drizzle olive oil and serve with salt and pepper.
  • Serve as a side with grilled meat, poultry and burgers.
  • Add to a grilled vegetable plate.
  • Stuff with cheese for chiles rellenos.
  • Add to tamales, enchiladas and other Mexican dishes.
  • Add to cornbread.
  • Make a “roasted” salsa.
  •  
    See the different types of chiles in our Chile Glossary.

      

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