Flavour Basics

Flavour perception comes mostly via the mouth and the nose. The tongue’s tastebuds pick up sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami taste elements. The nose detects hundreds of chemicals emitted from a food into the air, thus perceiving the flavour characteristic of a particular food through its vapour ‘fingerprint’.

The pleasure we derive from each mouthful of food seems to follow some general principles, so there are some useful guidelines to maximise this pleasure. These are described below. There’s nothing new here, just a summary of information from various sources, which appears to be substantiated or corroborated, if only by experience, including my own.

All the flavours in a dish are heightened with the addition of salt, and diminished if salt is missing. It is generally wise to add just enough salt to effect this enhancement, without giving the food a salty taste. Below this taste threshold, salt levels increase perceived sweetness and decrease the perceived acidity of the food.

Acid, sourness or tartness (as in vinegar, lemon juice, sumac and tamarind) similarly heightens the flavours in a dish. The effect is described as a brightening and a clarifying of the flavours.  Acids are also useful for correcting a problem with food that is overly rich, heavy or fatty. The acid is said to ‘cut’ through this heaviness.

Sweetness is pleasurable of its own accord. As a fruit ripens, the starch stored in the fruit converts to sugar. And the acid in the fruit reduces, which makes the fruit seem sweeter still. Sugar is added to dishes to ‘round’ the flavour or to take off spiky edges caused by overly prominent acid, salt, or bitterness.  (Subthreshold sugar levels make a food taste less salty than it really is.)  Thus sugar moderates the effects of these other palate activators.

Bitterness is present in many vegetables, coffee and cocoa. Adding bitterness is desirable to balance excess sweetness. It is also used to cut through richness, helping to cleanse the mouth ready for the next bite.

Humans have tongue taste receptors specific to MSG, whose active component is the amino acid, glutamate. MSG is classed in the umami category. Umami gives a savoury, meaty or mouthfilling effect associated not only with meat, but also with many other foods, such as mushrooms and cheese.

Astringency is not a taste but a tactile sensation in the mouth. It is caused by particular compounds, mostly tannins, which bond to the proteins in our saliva.  The saliva doesn’t do its job as well, and instead of a smooth feeling in the mouth it feels dry, puckery and rough. Think of the effect of strong tea, tannic red wine, or an unripe banana. The more mouthfuls, the stronger the effect, as the proteins continue to clump up. Acids and salts will increase the perception of astringency, and sugar reduces it. If proteins are added to the food, for example by adding milk or gelatine, the tannins bind to these instead of to the saliva, thus reducing the problem.

The picante, or ‘hot’ flavours, that occur in chilli, pepper, ginger, mustard, horseradish, onions and garlic, are detected by both our mouth and our nose, which are irritated as a result of the chemical processes that occur once this  food is chewed. In small doses, the effect is actually pleasurable, but at higher doses it becomes painful. This threshold varies with the individual, and with the frequency of exposure.  Strong pungency will diminish the sensitivity  of our tastebuds.

. . .

Mouthfeel is affected not only by which tastebuds are activated on the tongue, but also by the length of time the flavour components remain. Something oily coating the tongue, or something jelly, that dissolves slowly in the mouth, will give a more prolonged flavour sensation than something that is quickly washed away by saliva.

Our enjoyment of food is influenced by other mouthfeel effects, for example ‘comfort foods’ are typically pureed or creamy in texture. Crunchy foods tend to be more exciting.

The flavour of food is affected by the temperature at which it is served. For example, coldness suppresses sweetness. Warm foods taste stronger (as well as sweeter) not only because more volatiles hit the nasal passages, but also because the taste buds are most receptive between 20 and 30 degrees C.

In cooking it is important to consider not only the quality and intensity of the flavours introduced with the ingredients, but to consider the effects of the cooking process on the flavour of the finished dish. Some flavour chemicals, particularly green, citrusy and floral flavours, are easily evaporated away by heating, and should be introduced only just prior to serving. A pressure cooker cooks for a relatively short time, and with the very tight seal, has very low evaporative loss. Flavour retention is thus often higher than in stovetop or oven cooking, especially if the cooker is not unlidded before the temperature has dropped.

Some unwanted flavours can be removed by blanching, and discarding the water in which the undesirables dissolve (for example the metallic flavour of silverbeet).  Most desirable flavour molecules dissolve better in fats and oils than in water and are retained by it, so sautéing at a gentle heat will pick up flavours that might otherwise be lost in the cooking process.

Some flavours are created newly by the chemical processes that occur in cooking, such as the browning and caramelisation of food (where particular combinations of food molecules, heated at a certain temperature in the presence of oxygen from the air,  dehydrate and then transform into different flavour molecules).

An otherwise relatively simple mouthful of food can have a complex and relatively prolonged impact on our senses, if it combines multiple oral and nasal impacts as described.  Some effects are immediate and ephemeral, like a leafy odor, others slightly delayed, like the heat from wasabi.

Balancing flavours is very important. This means balancing not only the sweet, sour, bitter and salty elements, but also the aromas. It is important to note flavour affinities, and to make sure flavours don’t overly compete with each other or blur each other. It is also a good idea to respect traditional or regional combinations of flavours.

Food Chain: sustainability, ethics, agriculture

Here I share some interesting articles from 27^th Griffith Review,  Autumn 2010, published by Griffith University.

Margaret Simons, in ‘Sustaining a Nation’, writes about the lot of the Australian farmer, particularly in New South Wales and South Australia.  About the effects of the drought on the lives of those who stay, and about the dislocation of those who move away.  The farmer is at one end of a long and complex food supply chain, whose every link suffers from competitive tension, and which ultimately causes a disconnect between the primary producer and the consumer.

Simons writes that the ACCC’s 2008 report on the competitiveness of the grocery industry found that the industry was ‘workably competitive’ despite only two supermarket chains selling half of the country’s fresh produce and three quarters of packaged goods, and despite the fact that some products are sold at below cost, to bring customers in.  This – while the Horticulture Australia Council says that 85 per cent of its members felt that growers were unwilling to raise concerns with the major retailers for fear of retribution. The ACCC  report found that “the numerous anecdotes and allegations about standover tactics and threats by the big supermarket chains were not reflected in hard, actionable evidence”. As a result, nothing much is changing.

Simons shares ancient and less ancient myths of the Murray-Darling basin, and makes it clear that  even relatively recent myths are no longer valid.  About water, consider this 1958 quote:

 “..that lucky horseshoe of Murray River that unites two Australian States, will always be our first national shrine to irrigation science”.

Such a story has been replaced by one of interstate and federal battles, of the disparity between those who live upstream and those living downstream, and a foreboding “sense of injustice, envy and fear”.

Water in the Murray-Darling basin is used primarily to irrigate cotton, dairy farming and pasture, and rice. Simons quotes economic returns for every megalitre of water used – rice returns $200, livestock and pasture $300 and cotton $600. She compares that with vegetables $1800, fruit $1500 and grapes $900. But to replace the former set with the latter would entail major changes, and have huge effects on the communities living there.

Elaine Reeves, in ‘From Harvest to Market’, writes about the value and growth of that market zone sitting between the supermarket and the farmer’s market.  It is fed by growers whose volumes are too large, and too limited in range, to make the hassle of setting up stall at farmers markets worthwhile, but who are unwilling to play the supermarket supplier game. She talks about the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of mandatory quality assurance schemes at the big end, and the debilitating costs they incur, for example in the demands supermarkets place on presentation and packaging and in the costs associated with regular auditing. She describes the inability of farmers to deal directly with their local grocers if these are outlets of a major supermarket chain. Of having to send produce to a central distribution point miles away, knowing that it will just be trucked back to the local supermarket.

She describes a growing trend in Tasmania for small high-end retail outlets, who concentrate on

“quality goods, their own cooked fare, a good deli. They carry your bags to the car and know your name – and they buy locally from suppliers and growers who do not produce enough for the big supermarkets.”

One retailer collects produce from local organic producers and sells it on at the Salamanca Market once weekly, saving the farmers from having to man their own stalls at farmers markets.

Reeves mentions the same ACCC report and the lack of action since its release, including the limitations of, and eventual abandonment of the GroceryChoice website, which was to compare prices of a basket of goods at major supermarkets and independents. One major submission to the ACCC enquiry found that in the past seven years there has been a significant increase in the sales of fresh produce, because more people are cooking at home and looking for locally-produced seasonal produce. Much of this is being bought from independent retailers.

Cameron Muir has written an extensively researched eye-opener of a piece, based partly on his work in the Macquarie Marshes and Barwon-Darling country, with a focus on the history of agriculture and conservation science. The title: ‘Feeding the World’, refers to a speech of outrage by the National Party’s John Cobb at the government’s purchase of Toorale Station in 2008, located at the junction of the Warrego and Darling Rivers, “..conspicuous for its squattocracy and corporate-farming heritage”. “If”, Cobb said, “the government was putting the rural sector out of production, instead of supporting it, how could Australian farmers continue to ‘feed the world’?”

Muir observes that the feeding the world myth originated in Australia’s early 20^th century, where most of the country’s wheat and meat was exported. The bare fact is, however, that Australia contributes less than two per cent of global food production. Expanding, Muir says:

“Throughout the history of settler Australia, we have valued the social function of agriculture over its utilitarian function. We have cared more about the culture, character and work of agricultural production than the actual food and fibre it produces. The social function is being reassessed, and the role of agriculture in Australia might change – again.”

After putting some bones behind this statement, Muir explains the paradox of the global commodity food trade.  Despite food prices behind at near-record lows, 850 million people suffer under-nourishment. Three quarters of these people are farmers or rural workers, and depression of prices under government agricultural subsidies is what makes them poor. Subsidised products are dumped, the local farmers cannot compete and are eventually forced to sell their land, becoming part of the urban poor.

“The current system of agricultural commodity trade creates a situation where low prices are detrimental to two-thirds of the world’s undernourished people, while high prices are detrimental to the other third in the urban slums.”

Despite Australian farmers being among the least subsidised, they do enjoy advantages in access to equipment and research. Nevertheless the situation is not good. Muir describes the history of cotton production – of the generous bounties offered by the government to new irrigators many years ago, and of the boom in the 1990 when irrigators were kings, until the drought hit.

Muir says:

“we need to be honest about the role agriculture plays in Australia and start developing support for a fairer system for Australian farmers, the environment, and farmers in developing nations. Trying to force a productionist culture of farming isn’t benefiting many people.”.

As a positive offering, Muir describes regenerative agriculture, citing reserves and private landholdings in the Macquarie Marshes.

“the concept of nourishing terrains … might become the way Australians understand their environment. The function of agriculture would have to conform to this way of seeing, living and working.”

Brenda Gleeson has written a short piece ‘Backyard Gardens’, describing their significant potential role in a time of global warming and reduced water availability. She also explains that backyard production is nothing new. Then she examines a list of barriers, including fragmentation, pests, work patterns and time demands, property and public-liability issues.

These are just four of the 27 pieces in the 27^th edition of the Griffith Review, which includes three works of fiction and a picture essay.

Making Tempeh

Here follows a record of my first attempt at making tempeh.  I’m not very knowledgeable, so hope this post doesn’t lead you astray. I discovered tempeh fairly recently. It has more flavour, body and bite than tofu products. It has the extra flavours that fermentation adds, but it also browns nicely in oil, and marinates well.   Substituting tempeh for meat is a small step towards reducing greenhouse gases―with no animal methane involved, and reduced production energy and water. And if locally produced, no overseas transportation. Alas I know of no commercial producer of tempeh in my home state.  I have to search it out from the freezers of asian grocers, and it invariably is imported.  So I’m making my own, and it is a fun little project.  I would also like to try making tempeh with other, locally grown beans, preferably unirrigated, if such beans exist.

I haven’t tasted the tempeh yet, but it does smell very, very good.  Sort of nutty and mushroomy and beany. I sourced the starter fungus―rhizopus oligosporus―from Margaret River Tempeh.  I also purchased their pre-punched ziploc bags to start with. The beans incubate in these bags, and the tiny punched holes are necessary to allow oxygen ingress. Good instructions came too, but I also found information on the web and in Sri Owen’s book,  ’Indonesian Food’.

The hardest thing with tempeh is to set up a suitable incubating environment, if you don’t live in a tropical country! Free airflow is important, but the environment shouldn’t dry out the beans. The fungus grows well at 30^o celsius, but dies at 35 ^o. As heat is generated by the mycelium itself when it grows, to avoid overheating you have to reduce the added heat, or move the beans to a cooler place, partway through the incubation period.

My setup is for 500g of dry beans, which makes three 300g blocks of finished tempeh, each in its own ziploc.  I brought the dry beans to the boil and then let them soak for 24 hours – plenty of time to kit-up the makeshift incubator.  A  lidded wooden tomato box was my incubator of choice―it allows oxygen to flow in through the gaps in the sides. Having no warm spot in the house already, I bought a relatively inexpensive kit of three 10watt halogen lights (transformer included) from the hardware shop. I already had a good digital thermometer that I sat next to the box, with the probe (connected by cable) inserted in the box.

These lights all connect to one transformer, and sit under the box

The halogen light kit

Lidded fruit box sitting on lights, with thermometer display

It’s important to provide sufficient bare bean surface for the fungus to feed and grow on. As it grows, the mycelium forms the glue that binds the beans together in a tempeh block. So after my 24hour soak period, the hulls were removed and the beans split. This took much less time than I expected―it happened  just by squeezing the beans together in a bowl of water. The hulls float up and are easily skimmed off. 

The hulls are easily skimmed

The split beans were then boiled for an hour, with a tablespoon of vinegar added towards the end to acidify a little, and assist with healthy fermentation. 

Then the beans were partly dried, using a towel.

Drying the hulled, split, boiled beans

Then back into a bowl for inoculation – just over  a teaspoon of Margaret River’s culture was mixed through, very thoroughly.

The Ziploc bags were filled. 

Then into the incubator and the wait begins. The fruit box is not long enough for three bags of beans to sit side by side, so I needed to prop up the third bag above the other two, with room for airflow.

Inoculated beans going into the incubator

I found that the beans were taking a long time to warm up, so I used a lightweight alpaca blanket offcut for insulation.

After about 21 hours, the mix started to generate its own heat, so I took the blanket off. An hour later, the temperature had crept up to 32 degrees, so I removed one of the three lights. At this stage I couldn’t distinguish any white mycelium, but the beans looked a little slimy.

After another few hours, the mycelium was clearly visible. Except for a round hot-spot in the centre of each of the two bottoms bags, just above the lights. Obviously the fungus there had overheated and died. So I found something to elevate those bags.

Notice there is no fungus where the bag was too close to the light

At 32 and a half hours after placing the bags in the incubator, I took one out to photograph for this blog. It wasn’t quite done on one side, so has been placed back in. Here it is, in all its frothy glory, still warm.

Eyjafjallajokull

The volcano under the glacier; violence under glass; fire under ice.  Eyjafjallajokull –  I haven’t heard the name spoken, and wouldn’t try to guess the pronunciation. Eyjafjallajokull  - a metaphor for something beyond mastery, defying comprehension. And as air-traffic comes momentarily to a halt, a reminder that, in the end, nature will have the final word.

This appeared today

A thaw of ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, research suggests.  

and following this comment, an explanatory quote from a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.
And within me, deep below ground, rumbles a sea of unease.
Today, also, I notice a website called The Dark Mountain. A dark website, with a striking poem on its homepage:

Rearmament

These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future … I should do foolishly. The beauty of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.

Robinson Jeffers

Searching the poet in Wikipedia: From the USA, 1887-1862 “Jeffers was an advocate for inhumanism, the belief that mankind is too self-centered and too indifferent to the ‘astonishing beauty of things’.” Clicking inhumanism: “…This manner of thought and feeling is neither misanthropic nor pessimist…. It offers a reasonable detachment as rule of conduct, instead of love, hate and envy…. it provides magnificence for the religious instinct, and satisfies our need to admire greatness and rejoice in beauty.”
Jeffers wrote the poem in 1934, obsessed with the war before it began. Now we obsess about a different dance of the dream-led masses. A dance to the destruction of homo sapiens. Before the glaciers flow again. On the mountain. On the earth, whose greatness and beauty no human rejoices.

http://www.dark-mountain.net/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36627947/ns/us_news-environment/

Making lactic-fermented milky things

I recently bought some cultures and a yoghurt incubator, with which to dabble in lactic-fermented milk products. These include soft fresh cheese (quark), sour thick cream (crème fraiche, sour cream or cultured marscapone), yoghurt and buttermilk.  None of these products use rennet and all are easily made, without unusual equipment. However a (cheap) milk thermometer is a good idea.  And yoghurt requires an incubator, unless you have a suitable warm spot.   

So I’m sharing some of my initial experiences and knowledge here. This is a long post, beefed out by some background information that I think is important if you are interested in playing with cultured milk products.        

Background info

 The delights and benefits of yoghurt (especially for the lactose-intolerant) are well-known. Buttermilk is great for baked goods and pancakes. Quark can be used like ricotta in pasta dishes, and for stuffings, but it has a different flavour and texture to ricotta. Good as a spread, alone or mixed with herbs and other flavourings, it can be made with a very low fat content. Crème fraiche is luxurious with fruits. It has flavours that uncultured cream products lack. Crème fraiche resists curdling when added to hot sauces. And lots of interesting things can be produced by blending the above products.        

Milk thickens and then coagulates (to curds, which separate from the liquid whey) as it becomes increasingly acidified. (Heat can also play a part in the onset of coagulation). The acidity is indicated by sourness, and is typically measured by pH. Accurate pH measuring is not easily done in the home, but is not needed for these products. (Consistency of batches is not an issue as it is in commercial manufacture, which needs strict pH control.) The acidity of milk and milk components can be increased directly, by the addition of acids such as vinegar and lemon juice (as is usual for ricotta and commercial marscapone), but the much more interesting way to acidify is with the help of lactic bacteria. These tiny organisms digest the sugar in the milk (lactose) and, in so doing, produce lactic acid, while also multiplying in number. This takes time, up to 24 hours for some products. The time varies depending on the type and quantity of bacteria used and the desired flavour endpoint.        

There are many different bacteria used in fermented milk products (including cheeses), some not so much for their acid production, but for creating interesting aromas and flavours. Each bacterium species will grow best, and work fastest, within a specific optimum temperature range. There are two broad groupings used – mesophilic bacteria, growing best at a room temperature, i.e. low to mid  20s Celsius, and thermophilic, growing best in the low 40s. Quark and many cheeses are usually produced by mesophilic bacteria, yoghurt by thermophilic, and cultured creams by either. You can buy small packets of culture—specific mixes of bacteria—in a dried (DVS) form, which will keep frozen for 12 months. Excessive temperatures will kill the bacteria.        

Some interesting chemical and physical changes go hand in hand in the production of cultured milk products.  I’ve not seen any books for the novice which describe these processes well. Although there is much technical and academic literature, this is targeted to commercial production.        

My cultures (starters)

 I bought cultures from Cheeselinks online. Cheeselinks are a reseller (who also offer cheesemaking courses). My cultures are:        

• Cheeselinks type B flora, mesophilic, mainly for quark. B flora produces a more aromatic quark than their standard type B. It contains lactococcus lactis ssp cremoris, lactococcus lactis ssp lactis, lactococcus lactis ssp diacetylactis and leuconostoc mesenteroides ssp cremoris.
• Cheeselinks type E, for cultured cream. It contains only streptococcis thermophilus, an acid-sensitive lactic strain. It is thermophilic.
• Cheeselinks type C (ABy-1), for yoghurt, thermophilic. As well as the standard lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus, this yoghurt mix contains lactobacillus acidophilus a probiotic. The yoghurt produced by this bacteria is mild and takes a longer time to make than that made by some other yoghurt cultures.

       

The incubator, the culture's packet and the container I freeze the culture in

  

The methods

I’m not reproducing ‘recipes’ here, just giving an overview. You can find yoghurt instructions on the web, using just bought yoghurt as a subculture. For example, Tomato’s is good. If you are going to buy pure cultures, I suggest you get instructions from the same source supplying your culture. Cheeselink sells their own book, by Neil and Carole Willman, ‘Home Cheesemaking’.  I also recommend the US published  ‘Home Cheese Making’ by Ricki Carroll.        

For all these products it is essential that equipment is sterilized (typically by contact with boiling water for at least two seconds, or by the use of chemical sanitising solution).  Once sterilised you should not then touch, or otherwise contaminate, any surface which will be in contact with the ingredients. Hand-sanitizer is a good idea.        

Scalding the container I use for quark, thermometer and spoons

  

UHT milks and creams can be used as a starting point, and if so, no heat treatment of the milk is required. With normal pasteurised milk however, you have to take the milk up to within a given temperature range (often for a given time), and using a double-boiler or water bath is the safest way to do that. For yoghurt, this step is critical to ensure that a stable gel forms. Once heat treated, the milk or cream then has to be dropped to the correct (incubation) temperature before adding culture.        

Without the heating and cooling, using UHT milk saves time and cleaning up. All you have to do is open the box, pour into the sanitised container, add culture, stir with the sanitised spoon, put the lid on, incubate and wait. Homebrand UHT milk is no more expensive than pasteurised milk. You can use UHT goats milk to make a mild soft fresh goats cheese.  I have only seen one UHT cream, which is a 200ml size, and although stabilised, still sets well.  I’m not sure yet what the effect of stabilisers and thickeners in the cream have on the finished product.         

There is an interesting story around the use of raw (unpasteurised) milk as a starting point, but I have no space for that here.        

The yoghurt incubator, left, and quark in the insulated water bath, right

  

        

Yoghurt

Yoghurt mixed with pureed, lightly stewed apricot

 With yoghurt you can thicken (and prevent later liquid separation, or syneresis)  by adding up to 100g of powdered milk per litre of milk. I do this.  Either skim or full milk is fine. To one litre, you add just a tiny amount of culture, like 1/10 tsp. You can then make another four or five batches starting with a tablespoon of freshly made yoghurt before starting again with the DVS culture.  For my particular culture, in the incubator I have, the yoghurt takes about 12 hours. It is smooth, delicious, and not too tangy. Other cultures can take a lot less time. The yoghurt can be strained through muslin to increase the thickness further.        

 

Quark

The instructions I have for quark don’t mention the option of adding powdered milk. On a warmish day, room temperature is sufficient for quark incubation – just ensure the container, if clear, is protected from sunlight. If you are incubating at night, and the air temperature drops below the 20s, you’ll need some way of keeping it warm. I use my old ‘Easyo’ insulated water bath container for this. (I stopped using it for making yoghurt because it was too difficult to control to low 40s temperatures, but for low 20s it’s good.)          

After 12 to 24 hours you will see that the milk has coagulated (it’s best to leave it a few hours after coagulation initiates). Then the quark is strained through a couple of layers of (scalded) muslin or cheesecloth, in a colander. If a firmer quark is required, the muslin can be pulled up and tied at the top (over a wooden spoon) and hung over a tall container to drain further. Draining is faster unrefrigerated and the lower the fat content the faster the drain. You should get about 30% yield of quark (by weight). So from a litre of milk you will have about 700ml whey, which contains lots of calcium and some protein. I make a two-loaf bread batch with this quantity.  You can adjust the fat content, and texture, of the quark by adding some of your cultured cream. Alternatively you can make a savoury quark (with added herbs and salt) by adding EV olive oil, but this will thin the consistency of the quark somewhat, so it’s best to use thoroughly hung quark in this case.        

Quark draining in muslin in colander

  

Quark (from reduced-fat milk) after moderate draining only

  

Quark mixed with some creme fraiche and dill

  

Cultured Creams

The differences between crème fraiche, sour cream and cultured marscapone are not clear to me, and opinions seem to vary. It seems that in Australia, the most commonly used distinction is in the fat content. Marscapone is based on a 45-55% (double) cream, whereas crème fraiche is based on a 35% (whipping, or pouring) cream. Sour cream can be made with either a pouring cream or a light (18%) cream.  Sour cream tends to be more acidic (sourer) than crème fraiche and marscapone.      

Creme fraiche, from 35% fat (pouring) cream

  

When cream is cultured it thickens, and pouring cream develops a consistency closer to that fresh heavy cream, but more gel-like. So by culturing you get thickness of a heavier cream without the added fat, plus you get the extra flavours and the tang. I made crème fraiche, using my type E starter, incubating in a small glass jar inside the yoghurt incubator. I was a little disappointed with the bland flavour, and discussed this with the supplier. It seems that type E (steptococcus thermophilis) is recommended for home-made crème fraiche and marscapone because the pH of the cream cultured by this single acid-sensitive strain will not drop below 5.1- 5.3, which is typical for these products. By contrast, the pH of sour cream is 4.6-4.7. (pH number goes down as acidity goes up).      

The alternative for me, then, is to use the type B flora starter, which produces the desirable aromatics. However because the cream will continue to acidify (past the standard crème fraiche point), I need to stop fermentation (by quick cooling) at the right point. If you have some pH paper, you can tell when to stop (in the low 5s pH) by testing with pH paper, which gives a rough (but good enough) indication. Without pH paper, you just stop it as soon as the cream is set.      

But if you don’t intend to thicken hot sauces with the cultured cream, and you don’t mind the tang, then there’s no reason to stop the process at this intermediate point, and you will end up with a very flavourful sour cream, perfectly fine when used with savoury dishes. To accompany fruit however, the less acidic, aromatic creme fraiche is preferable.      

If you are blending the cultured cream into quark cultured from B flora, then using the Type E starter for the cream is fine, because the quark already has a lot of flavour and tang.  Type E can also be used to make a thick acidified milk similar to buttermilk. This is one of the things I have yet to try.  

pH strips show a drop from 5 (left) to 4.6 (right) over several hours

Found in the recipe pile…treasure

Windy Gap, by David Campbell

As I was going through Windy Gap
A hawk and a cloud lay over the map.

The land lay bare and the wind blew loud
And the hawk cried out from the heart of the cloud.

“Before I fold my wings in sleep
I’ll pick the bones of your travelling sheep,

“For the leaves blow back and wintry sun
Shows the tree’s white skeleton.”

A magpie sat in the tree’s high top
Singing a song on Windy Gap

That streamed far down to the plain below
Like a shaft of light from a high window.

From the bending tree he sang aloud,
And the sun shone out of the heart of the cloud

And it seemed to me as we travelled through
That my sheep were the notes that the trumpet blew

And so I sing this song of praise
For travelling sheep and blowing days.

From ‘The Hardening of the Light: Selected Poems of David Campbell’

Post for a numb day, with Keats

Ode to a Nightingale, by John Keats (1795–1821)

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
  But being too happy in thine happiness,
    That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
          In some melodious plot
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
 
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
          And purple-stainèd mouth;
  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
 
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
          And leaden-eyed despairs;
  Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
 
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
  Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
  Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
  And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
    Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays
          But here there is no light,
  Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
 
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
  Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
  White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
    Fast-fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
          And mid-May’s eldest child,
  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
 
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
  I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
  To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
          In such an ecstasy!
  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
    To thy high requiem become a sod.
 
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that ofttimes hath
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
 
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
  As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Nathaniel Hawthorn, on his Kitchen Garden

“…My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze with the certainty that somebody must profit by it and that there would be a little more honey in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that honey.

Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate.

But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the first little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until they lay strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads beneath the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,—especially the early Dutch cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart often bursts asunder,—is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, after all, the hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children of ours are smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a meal of them…”

From the short story: ‘The Old Manse’ published in ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’, 1854. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hawthorne/nathaniel/mosses/chapter1.html

Making Sausages

I’m posting this particularly for @frogpondsrock (twitter name), who is thinking of making her own sausages. Below is the method that happens at my place. The one that happened yesterday, in fact, when I made a batch of pork,sage and ginger sausages plus a batch of kangaroo, apricot, allspice and clove. Home-made sausages are very good, with a good recipe, but you need the equipment and the time. I was given dad’s old equipment. He had come by an old butcher’s mincer and had bought a hand-extruder to go with it. The mincer is a beast―zips through the meat in no time. Sorry no photos with this post, my hands were too full to take them.

The method:

Preparation

• Be familiar with the sausage-making section of Ruhlman and Polcyns’ ‘Charcuterie’. It’s great. Following is a summary of that plus stuff that the book doesn’t tell you.
• Locate sausage casings, preferably natural ones (salted). You will find suppliers online but they tend to only sell quantities that will make ten years worth of sausages. You need to find a butcher who will sell them to you, and not charge a fortune for the privilege.
• Get large quantities of cheap good meat—you don’t want to be doing this again for a while, so make it worthwhile. Don’t bother with more than two different types of meat. Pork shoulder is good, and inexpensive. Keep in mind that you need about 25% fat (despite what the experts say, any more is sick-making). If you are getting lean meat, like kangaroo or goat, you will need to buy pork backfat to blend with it. Gather the other ingredients according to your selected recipe/s. That typically includes lots of garlic.
• Soak casings in tepid water. They’ll be ready when you are (no need to do them the day before).
• Clear out a whole shelf in the frig and make space in the freezer.
• Place the auger and other loose parts of the grinder in the frig – all equipment needs to be cold.
• Weigh meat, and calculate required ingredient quantities, according to the ratios in your recipe/s.
• Cut meat into chunks, mix in the salt and refrigerate again.
• The meat will need to be ice-cold, but not quite frozen, so keep swapping  the meat/s between freezer and frig  as necessary, while you prepare.
• Clear kitchen benches, sweep/vac  the floor, in preparation for mess.
• Chop other ingredients, grind spices. Have all ingredients measured and ready before removing meat from frig.

Grinding, Kneading and Washing Casings

• Lug the grinder onto bench―mine requires two strong people―and assemble it. I prefer a chunkier blend, so use my middle-sized die and blade.
• Grind meat, together with other dry ingredients, and quickly return it to the frig – it must stay ice cold. When grinding (and later extruding), always put the milder flavoured batch through first. It’s okay to get a little bit of pork in your kangaroo sausages, but not vice-versa.
• Wash the grinder. If you lose a washer/spacer, trust that it will turn up later.
• Add the liquid/s and knead the meat for a few minutes, till the consistency is right, but not too pasty.
• When main helper decides he has to go to in-laws for very important family stuff, look around for other helpers. Negotiate with handy teenager, offering lots of cash. Preferably one who is not sleep-deprived and is wearing old clothes. Get them to set up their dodgy music, so they feel it’s a bit about them.
• Put water in sink, wash casings very, very gently – DO NOT swirl them into a tangle.
• Replace water in sink, and let casings float (to help with tangle removal) while flushing the whole length out with water.  (Slipping the end over the tap nozzle helps). Wind casing onto rolling pins – small ones if you have them.
• Empty sink and refill it with soapy water for washing your hands as you go to and from the equipment, the frig etc. Forget rubber or disposable gloves – it’s a nice thought, but this is serious business.

Extruding and Linking

• Find a large circular tray (an old giant microwave glass is great). Place it, wet, on the bench to collect sausage tube.
• Get ready to do lots of explaining to teenager, who should now be helping.
• Feed length of casing (from rolling pin) onto the nozzle (the right size nozzle for your casing).
• Attach the nozzle to the canister, fill it with sausage mix, pushing the mix in firmly to expel all the air, set up the canister in the holder and start extruding.
• You need one person for turning the piston handle and holding the extruder steady. The other person guides the casings and rotates the tray so that sausage tube falls in a spiral on the tray.
• After the meat starts to flow out of the nozzle and into the casing, squeeze out air at the end and tie off the casing.
• When the  canister is empty, leave the casing attached while refilling, then cut and tie off the casing and start a new section – otherwise there will be air in the casing, the extruder will make rude noises, and the sausage tube could rupture.
• Feed on new casings as needed, always leaving enough excess to tie off. (Note that when you stop turning the handle, there will still be a little more meat flow out of the nozzle, unless you back the piston off a little).
• When the extruder accidently dives to the floor, don’t blame the teenager. Just call the dog to clean up the mess, make a mental note to not walk in that spot and move to another part of the kitchen – recall you can’t allow the meat to warm up in the extruder.
• When extruding is complete, you start to make the links. Twisting every second link works well for me. Some clever people can do triple linking.
• Bag up sausages, keeping one bag fresh for tomorrow night’s dinner (not tonight’s, despite insistence from non-helping family members).
• Be thankful that teenager is now an expert with the extruder and has learnt how sausages are made. Say goodbye to teenager.

Denouement

• Clean up, and clean up some more. Then clean up.
• Mop floor.
• Stretch neck and arms to try and get rid of the burning sensation at the back of your shoulders, from all that hunching over.
• Have a good shower. Take extra time with your fingernails.
• Get a very long drink, sit down and decide not to make sausages again for a long time.
• Give orders for dinner.

The Flavor Bible: First Impressions

‘The Flavor Bible’ is by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, published 2008 by Little, Brown and Company, New York. http://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400

 I admire authors who create books about food that aren’t just recipes, but are nevertheless educational, interesting, and useful for a cook. There are so few of these books. McGee’s ‘On Food and Cooking’ is one classic. Hemphill’s ‘Spice Notes’ is another. The Oxford Companions related to food, and of course Larousse Gastronomique are fascinating, but one has only so much shelf space. Certainly this sort of book is worth the space of a dozen gaudy cookbooks, that come and go from fashion.

The Flavor Bible is a little misleadingly named. Sure it’s about flavour and it’s hefty, but it’s not dogmatic. Rather than spelling out hard and fast rules, the authors rely heavily on the comments of various chefs when covering particular phenomena or ingredients, particularly in the early two sections of the book. And it’s not, as the flyleaf says, a ‘guide to creativity’ but it does inspire, and it provides a guide to ingredients and cuisines.

The first section of the book is titled: ‘Flavour = taste + mouthfeel + aroma + ‘the X factor’: learning to recognize the language of food.’ This is clear, concise and has excellent information, much of it new to me. But I’d like more, please. Our perception of food, as it’s consumed, is broken down into elements—a comprehensive matrix.  Also flavour ‘realms’ are described, as physical, emotional and mental—I can’t explain this briefly, you just have to read it.  There is so much here that is eye-opening and yet immediately familiar.  I would have preferred a little basic science in this section. Also absent is a description of how our flavour perceptions change over time, either in the short term (as we eat) or the long term (as we age).

The second section: ‘Great cooking = maximizing flavour + pleasure by tapping body + heart + mind + spirit: communicating via the language of food’, talks about understanding both the ‘essence of the moment’ and the ‘essence of the ingredients’ while planning. This is very, very good, and peppered with excellent quotes and examples. Then there’s an introduction to the classification terms that are used in the third section.

Section 3 is the bulk of the book. Called ‘charts’, it’s really a printed database. Hundreds of ingredients and cuisines are listed, alphabetically. For each of these, appropriate classifiers are used. The classifiers include season, taste, function, weight, volume, techniques, tips, avoid, and botanical relatives (as explained in section 2). Then there’s a listing of related foodstuffs or cuisines for that particular item, like a ‘goes with’ listing. The significance of each entry in that list is indicated by its typeface, whether normal, bolded, caps or bolded caps. This significance is based on a weighting of opinions of a cross-section of experts/chefs. Not just the authors’ opinion – excellent!  Another great  descriptor is ‘flavour affinities’ which lists not single companion flavours, but groups of things which go together. Recommended dishes (by chef) are sometimes listed, plus enlightening quotes about how a chef will use the ingredient.

 

I just wish that the book had come with a CD, or was available online by subscription, so this information could be searched like a database. If I have a recipe calling for a certain ingredient, let’s say a fish recipe using capers, I’d like to be able to find a substitute for capers if I don’t have them, without reading through the book from A-Z. In an electronic database, I’d just tick a few boxes, using the information I find under capers – salty, sour, pungent, light weight, loud volume, and of course, fish. The database would return a list meeting these search terms, each of which could then be clicked for further information. Maybe I might conclude that I’ve just got to go and get capers! Or maybe I need to cook something completely different.

Oh and there’s no entry for silverbeet, not even a ‘see chard’ entry. Hmm.