As with living in any area, this means that I'm exposed to certain things and not necessarily exposed to others. While it's a plain concept, it seems that cook books, cooking shows, and the interwebs can get confused about this.
A brief story:
I was watching 10 Dollar Dinners, because Melissa d'Arabian has some pretty neat and helpful ideas, and she described how to make a wonderful, creamy polenta. Huh, this substance looks pretty appetizing, and I wait for the ingredients, "dried polenta," hmmm. No worries, I'll look up how to make polenta on their site. Ingredients: Dried polenta. Okay, Google, you've got this, right? 1 cup medium-grain yellow polenta*. WTF? It wasn't until one of my neighbors was getting rid of a magazine that it finally said that polenta was ground corn meal.
*(Since this incident, more recipes were added on Food Network's site that actually explain, and the wiki page was updated).
I decide that I'm going to cook it. We had some ground yellow corn meal--actually we had a lot for some reason--and I figured we could use it.
Well hell, it's basically GRITS but with a different name!
Ha! Culture differences are funny.
SO, here are some things that I'd never heard of...till the advent of Food Network and The Cooking Channel
(I don't want to get into the long, proper definitions; this is how I'd explain it if I were talking to you.)
Leek: I just thought they were super huge green onions, and, apparently, you don't use the green part. I still haven't tried this...to my knowledge.
- leek: a vegetable where the stalk is used
- the bottom and green portions are trimmed
Green Onions/ Scallions: Okay, so, I've gotten confused in the past, and annoyed, when I hear someone say to use scallions when what I see them use is what I call green onions. I thought there was some subtle variation that I'd never heard of before. It wasn't until I got a copy of Commander's Kitchen that it was finally explained that green onions and scallions are the same thing. In the region I'm from, we say green onions instead.
- Green Onions = Scallions
- Oh, and personally, I use the green part too, so long as it's healthy.
--I actually thought that was the only part you were supposed to use for a few years, oops.
- anise: a spice; can be in ground or whole form
- it has a licorice-like flavor
- coriander: an herb; can be in ground or whole form
- in whole form, it looks similar cilantro
- I prefer ground--it makes my life easier
Couscous: Don't hate! This just sounded like hippie, rabbit food when people talked about it... the very few times it happened. This has saved my tummy many-a-time when I was to tired too make something more labor intensive.
- couscous: basically little bits of semolina (what most pasta is made of); there are two popular types (that I know of)
- Instant- small pellets of semolina (what we typically see in a box)
- Israeli- are bigger and pearl like
Shallot: It' looks like a dark, over-grown clove of garlic... at least, that's what it looked like to me
- shallot: in the onion family; more mild than an onion
By God, it's one of my new favorite things. I view it as a milder, single-serve onion, which is super convenient for me, saves Pyrex container space, and is less offensive to the resident onion-hater
Yeah, I'm certain that I will learn about more things as I expand my palate, but this was a respectable start.
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