Ultimate Cook Book_ 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas - Bruce Weinstein [428]
Dried Bananas. Long and thin, like fresh bananas, these should be chopped before using. Those found in health food stores and gourmet markets are often dark brown because they lack preservatives. Don’t confuse them with fried banana chips, which are too oily for successful baking.
Duck Confit. This is the meat from preserved duck legs. The heavily salted legs are slowly poached over very low heat in duck fat. They are cooled in the fat, then packed in it.
Eggs. We only call for large eggs. Mostly, they should be at room temperature. Cold eggs can shock batters and cause melted chocolate to seize (that is, come apart into tacky little threads and a thin liquid). To get cold eggs quickly to room temperature, submerge them in a bowl of warm (never hot!) water for 5 minutes. For tips on egg safety and egg anatomy, see section Breakfast and Brunch.
Emmentaler. Most likely the original “Swiss cheese,” this pale gold cow’s milk cheese is slightly sweet with a nutty flavor. It is often served on its own after a meal. The brown rind is not edible.
Fish Sauce. Made from fermented fish parts, salt, and aromatics, this Southeast Asian condiment has a pungent smell that mellows beautifully when heated or combined with sugar and/or other fats. Don’t be put off by the aroma: there is no substitute. But there are different varietiesnam pla (the very heady Thai bottlings), nuoc mam (the slightly sweeter Vietnamese bottlings), and fish gravy (the much milder Indonesian bottlings). You can buy fish sauce at almost all supermarkets these days; it is usually found in the Asian aisle, although the selection at Asian grocers will be larger. Once opened, store it in the refrigerator.
Flour. Flour is simply a finely powdered grain, seed, or nut. The most common type in Western cooking is, of course, wheat flour—and the only kind of flour called for in this book. In almost all the recipes, the flour isn’t sifted; modern flour is aerated enough to make a tender cake without additional fuss. We also never call for self-rising flour, a mixture of flour, salt, and some kind of leavener, most often baking powder.
While all-purpose flour is made from only the wheat’s endosperm, whole wheat flour has the bran and germ as well, all ground together.
Whole wheat pastry flour is a specialty flour, a more finely ground version of whole wheat flour and thus better for baking delicate cakes and breads that still need the extra body of whole wheat.
Cake flour is a high-starch, soft wheat flour, designed to give cakes better heft. A quick if somewhat unreliable substitution is 14 tablespoons all-purpose flour plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
For bread flour,.
Ginger. This rhizome should have a sweet smell, papery skin, and no wrinkled, mushy spots. Look for it in the produce section of the supermarket. Peel off the skin with a vegetable peeler or a knife, then either grate the ginger on a ginger board (available at cookware stores) or mince it very finely by rocking a knife back and forth through it until almost pureed. Jarred minced ginger is a convenience product, also often found in the produce section of a supermarket; once opened, store it in the refrigerator for months on end.
Crystallized ginger is strips of fresh ginger that have been cooked in a sugar solution and then dried. Sometimes called “candied ginger,” it’s available in the spice aisle.
Ground ginger is a powder made from dried ginger; it has a fairly short shelf life, perhaps only 6 months, after which it dulls and becomes rather like dry mustard.
Ginger Juice. This is the pressed juice from ginger. It’s available in small bottles at most markets, usually alongside the condiments or sometimes in the Asian aisle. Make your own by placing small chunks of peeled fresh ginger in a garlic press and then extracting the juice. Freezing ginger before you juice it breaks down the fibers