Corduroy Orange

Hi there,

I’ve been accepted into Pitt’s MFA program, which I am very psyched about, and I’m headed that way for a visit.

Is there much of a foodie scene in Pittsburgh? What kinds of things should I try to check out while I’m there?

Thanks in advance!

Emily

Beyond a doubt, there is a great foodie scene here! Much of it is centered on the Strip District, which borders on Downtown and is centered on Penn Avenue and Smallman Street. Here, you’ll find all kinds of specialty and ethnic shops. The variety of wares available and the numbers of people who flock to it are proof of how much this city likes its food.

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Is anyone familiar with Corman’s light butter? Corman is a company in Belgium. They also sell products in France and Denmark under the names Carlsbourgh and Balade. For a short time, I was able to purchase their light butter in the U.S. It had fabulous butter flavor (because it is REAL butter, but they somehow magically removed a lot of that fat). Sadly, Corman’s light butter disappered from my grocery shelf never to be seen again.

I’m not actually familiar with the product, and having never tasted it, I’m unable to recommend for or against the product. Your description of magically transformed butter piqued my interest, though, so I decided to see what I could find out.

The Corman’s web site was of little help in solving the mystery. Though the site does promote the light butter, it provides very little information about what spells and hocus pocus they use to reduce the fat content. The only mention I was able to find is that “the fractionation technique allows Corman to adjust the softness of a butter naturally by separating the liquid triglycerides (oleins) from the crystallized triglycerides (stearins).”

What’s the fractionation technique? Even after emailing Corman for more information, I’m still not sure. I’ve reproduced their email below, complete with information of where the product can be found and under what labels. If there’s a chemist out there who can explain more clearly what their process entails, I would definitely appreciate your input.

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Some of my friends want me to hold a cooking class to teach them how to cook.  Do you have any recommendations on what dishes I should teach them?  How should I format the class and what kind of prep-work I should do before they get there?

My friends will cook for me as soon as I teach them how

MFWCFMASAITTH—

What you should teach them depends on two main factors: what you know how to cook well and what your friends already know.

There’s no way you’ll be an effective teacher if you’re trying to show people how to cook something that you’re not already completely comfortable doing yourself.  So, choose a couple of dishes that you have made many times and go with them.  Break them down into the component techniques that add up to the dish and explain different ways those same techniques can be used.  That way, your students will leave not only knowing how to make the specific dishes that you teach, but also knowing that their newly gained knowledge can be applied to other culinary creations.  For instance, if you’re making French Onion Soup, you’ll be caramelizing onions; deglazing; and simmering—techniques that are applicable to most stews and sauces.  If you’re making waffles, all of the steps are applicable toward making a souffle….

When you’re choosing your dishes, the other thing you should keep in mind is their general level of cooking experience—the less experience they have, the simpler you should keep things.  Don’t try to make puff pastry from scratch with people who have never made a pie crust.

As far as the level of prep you should have going into the class, make sure that your students help with (or at least see) every step that goes toward making the dish: from cutting the vegetables on through. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have flour, baking powder, etc. measured out beforehand (if necessary); everyone should know how to measure quantities of dry goods already.  There’s probably not a need to do much beyond that unless you’re making something that takes an extremely long time to cook (like a stew that would have to braise for three hours).  In that case, you should still have your students help with each step toward getting it ready; but you should have one of whatever it is completely done that can be taken out of the oven when you put the student-made one in: that way they’ll be able to taste the results without waiting around for the long haul.

I tried to make your King Cake and I may have rolled my dough too thin. It fell apart when I tried to move it. I just sort of scooped it up and plopped it on the baking sheet and hoped the filling would hold everything together. It doesn’t look too bad but we’ll see what happens when I try to take it off the sheet.

Hopefully it will taste better than it looks.

That may be something that a bench scraper would help you with. Use its wide blade to scoop the first part of the dough off the counter. That way, you don’t have to tug at the dough, thus you’ll be less apt to lose its form. I’m sure it will be fine, though—the braided top is really just a way to make it look good; it’s not necessary to the success of the recipe.

In fact, for an easier and still attractive presentation, you could spread the filling over most of the dough (not just the middle 1/3) and roll it up into a long tube. Then, bake it the same way as you would if you braided the top.

You probably could have used that advice before you started the process; mea culpa.

PS—Update to the recipe!  I way-overestimated how long I rolled out my dough (like, by a foot!).  I should have written to roll the dough out to 2 1/2–3 feet in length!!  I have changed the recipe accordingly.

Hey, Jesse.

I cook something fairly elaborate for myself pretty much every night, either trying something out of a cookbook or ad libbing with veggie combinations that sound good. But the key word there is myself, so I usually cut those cookbook recipes in half. A girl eventually gets tired of beet and lentil leftovers.

But I’m wondering if there are some ingredients that shouldn’t be halved (like olive oil? my sautéed onions end up a bit cajun sometimes), or cooking times that I should adjust when there are fewer ingredients. Any techniques for the solo cook?

Cheers,
Halfsies

Halfsies–

When you’re sauteeing something like onions, the amount of oil you need is in large part dependent upon the size of the pan you’re using. You need enough fat to cover the bottom of the pan or else the vegetables are liable to stick and burn. You’ll also want to keep the vegetables moving in the pan so that the same surface isn’t in constant contact with the heat source (another condition that will lead to blackened ingredients).

A good (if somewhat vague) rule of thumb if you’re ad libbing vegetable combinations is to lay out as much as you think you’ll eat and cook it until it’s done. Soups, stews, and stir-frys should be simmered or sauteed for as long as the recipe calls for or until the ingredients are done: the ingredients don’t cook any faster just because there’s fewer of them. This crib sheet provides general guidelines on the order in which you should add vegetables to a dish of your own creation, based on relative cooking times.

If you’re baking a half recipe of something (like brownies, etc.), adjust the size of the container you’re putting the batter in to one that has approximately half the surface area of what’s called for in the recipe; keep the baking time the same. If you spread the batter out too thinly, cooking time will be fairly unpredictable.

If you make yeast breads in smaller portions than your recipes call for, you’ll have to figure out the timing by trial and error. Start by checking them at the recipe’s halfway point; if they’re not done, give them a few minutes longer. Make note of how long they took so that next time you shrink the recipe, you’ll have a guideline to go by.

Do you have a question about something related to the world of food? Email me and I’ll try to respond in a future post.

Chef Orange -

My roommate and I are having an ongoing debate of butter vs. margarine. She was raised on it, and believes it to be healthier than eating actual butter. I was raised believing that real butter is the only way to go, and argue that the artifical ingridents are actually worse for you. What is your take?

thanks -

All Buttered Up

ABU—

I’m going to have to side with you on this one. Margarine is made by hydrogenating vegetable oils and adding artificial butter flavor. Basically, that means that manufacturers of margarine take regular old corn oil, process it with nickel, and then expose it to hydrogen gas under heat and pressure. The unsaturated vegetable oil fat molecules change shape and take on hydrogen to become artificially saturated. This allows the margarine to mimic butter, as saturated fats solidify at higher temperatures than unsaturated fats (i.e., in the refrigerator, not the freezer), and hold their shape at room temperature. The nickel is then strained out, having fulfilled its purpose as a catalyst to the reaction.

While it is true that the hydrogenation process mimics the saturated fat content of butter, I’d prefer my fat to be presented to me in its natural format: oil when oil is called for; butter when butter is called for. That’s a personal choice. Somewhat more troubling to me are the potential side effects of exposure to large quantities of artificial butter flavoring: the potential of serious health problems due to one of its key ingredients, diacetyl.

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Dear Corduroy,

At Caribou Coffee this afternoon I noticed a tag next to their decaf coffee saying “Natural Decaf”. I asked about it and was told they use only water to decaffeinate their coffee. In the past we talked about how other companies use harsh chemicals like methylene chloride to remove the caffeine that hurt the flavor and could be harmful to the drinker. According to Caribou’s website their process preserves “nearly 100%” of the coffee’s flavor. Have you heard about this? Maybe it is time for a taste test.

–Sleepy in Pittsburgh

Sleepy–

Maybe you should switch to full-caff and it’ll help you wake up!

I have heard about the water-only decaffeination process (branded as the Swiss Water Process). Its proponents tout it as a way to remove the caffeine without removing the flavor; their case is summed up in a tutorial on the Swiss Water website. The basic process consists of soaking a batch of green (unroasted) beans in hot water, thereby dissolving the caffeine and the flavonoids (compounds responsible for the coffee flavor) out of the beans, discarding that batch of beans, and then using that same batch of water to soak more batches of beans. The caffeine is filtered from the water by means of a charcoal filter; the flavonoids stay in the water.

Because the subsequent batches of beans are soaked in flavonoid-saturated water, they retain coffee flavor while losing caffeine. The process works well (removing almost all of the caffeine and retaining the coffee’s unique flavor) so long as all batches of beans soaked in the water are the same type of bean. Because the flavor components are water soluble, and because the water can only absorb a certain concentration of these flavonoids, it’s easy to guarantee that the beans will leave the process with almost as much flavor as when they entered it, but not that the beans will taste the same. If a batch of Sumantra Mandheling beans is soaked in water that has been used for Kenya AA, Colombia Supremo, and Guatemala Antigua, the beans leave the process tasting like a blend of all four types of coffee because the flavonoids intermingle during the decaffeination process.  In general, though, you should be wary of the “Naturally Decaffeinated” label.  It can be misleading.

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You can’t make real Hollandaise without heat, and you’re much more likely to make a greasy, highly breakable mess by trying to make the emulsion cold as you describe (at least, every time I try this ‘easy’ method, that’s what I end up with!).

–Pagganos

Chances are you’re pouring the butter in too quickly. Drizzle it in very slowly, especially at first—the more fat the egg yolks have emulsified with, the more new fat they are able to handle. In the end, the blender method (performed properly) takes about a minute—approximately ten percent of the time the method you describe takes—leaving nine minutes to pay attention to other parts of the meal.

If you have a question about the world of food, email me, and I’ll try to respond in a future post.

I plan to make a pork “roast” that cooks in wine in the oven when my inlaws are over for dinner soon. If I wanted to use the wine and pork drippings to make a white wine sauce do I need to let it reduce anymore, or would the time in the oven be enough? I have loved the mother sauces tutorials thus far!

I fear I may have dragged my feet too long to be of assistance with your pork roast question and your in-laws may have already visited. If so, I’m sorry about that. I was hoping to try a pork roast out in my kitchen along the same lines so I could have more specific advice to give you, but sadly this hasn’t worked out; and since I’m going to be getting (in conjunction with several friends) 1/4 of a cow in the next couple days, I doubt I’ll be having pork roast anytime in the immediate future. A general (and I hope somewhat helpful) answer to your question would be that it depends on how much wine you’re using.

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Dear Corduroy,

I’m getting ready to move into a new apartment and (of course) I’m not looking forward to the process of packing and unpacking. One of the worst parts as far as I’m concerned is arriving at the new place hungry and tired. I won’t want to do much but curl up in the corner—and after the expense of moving, I’d like to avoid ordering in if I can. Do you have any suggestions of easy and quick meals I can actually make after the ordeal of transporting my life to a new city?

Harried and Hungry

Harried–

This is one of the few times when I think that convenience foods make a lot of sense. Really, who wants to go through tthe ordeal of making an elaborate meal when most of your kitchen is still packed in boxes? If you can get to the basics, though, you can have a decent meal without much trouble with a couple packs of ramen noodles and some tuna helper.

There’s no need to limit yourself to what comes straight out of the packages, though, if you don’t have to. Make an effort to get a potato or two, a couple of carrots, and a head of broccoli. These are all vegetables that travel well and can withstand a bit of abuse along the way. Cut them up to fairly small pieces so that they’ll cook quickly. Boil the potato and carrot in the water for your ramen noodles until they’re soft (probably about 5-10 minutes, depending on how small you cut them) and start your tuna helper by sauteeing the broccoli briefly in the pan before following the directions on the box. The end result should be a fairly easy meal at a fairly low price, and only two pans to wash.

Have a question about cooking or food? Email me, and I’ll try to answer your question in a future post.