Tips & Tricks | Ingredient Tips
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Cleaning Basil
To wash basil or any leaves, fill a large bowl or your clean sink with cold water. Pick the leaves off the large stems; swish them around in the water until the dirt sinks. Scoop the clean leaves off the top; dry in a salad spinner or wrapped in clean kitchen towels. Toasting Nuts Always store nuts in the refrigerator or freezer; they’ll get rancid faster than you think, if you leave them in a cupboard. To toast nuts, throw them in a dry, non-stick pan, large enough to hold them in a single layer. Use medium heat and WATCH them, tossing frequently. They’re done when you start to smell the aroma and they begin to brown just a little bit. But pay attention; they can go from perfectly toasted to burned in a hot second. Taste one before toasting and another after. You’ll see why I always toast nuts, no matter the recipe. Softening Cream Cheese & Butter You will have a problem with some recipes if your cream cheese isn’t soft enough to blend with the other ingredients. You may have encountered a similar problem with butter that is too hard to blend with flour for a pastry. The only way to get them soft enough is to leave them out overnight. Yes, I said it. Over. Night. In fact, as long as it’s covered, butter can live on your counter and always be ready for smooth spreading on a piece of soft bread. We can talk about food safety another time, but if you are working with name-brand cream cheese, that is manufactured and sealed in a sterile facility, you can leave it out overnight. It won’t go bad or get you sick. Kosher Gelatin It’s kind of a long story, but the kashrut of gelatin is complicated. For many years, kosher-certified gelatin didn’t gel properly, which made some things impossible for kosher cooks. Based on my studies and the opinion of my rabbi, I use un-certified Knox gelatin. But I recently discovered a brand of kosher gelatin that does, in fact, gel – BaKol. It is made primarily from carrageenan, a plant-derived product that some people avoid, but it works. |