Mitra
03-08-2006, 04:25 AM
The tip in Staying Power this week was about good fats. Very topical, though not specific to maintenance:
"Good fats are extra virgin, virgin, and pure olive oil as well as coconut, walnut, macadamia, hazelnut, almond, peanut, sesame seed, and avocado oils. Clarified or unsalted butter is also a good fat. Other good fat sources are coldwater fish (sardines, salmon, mackerel, herring and tuna). Cod liver oil is a good oil, but scores low on most people's taste charts."
I think there are some missing. The fat that comes with your meat is also good fat: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck, goose.
It's also worth mentioning that some of the oils (especially walnut oil) shouldn't be heated. Neither should cod liver oil, but somehow I don't think most people would be tempted to start using CLO to sautee their vegetables!
In my mayonnaise experimentations, the best tasting one I've made was from avocado oil. It was a very pretty green colour, which isn't what everyone expects from their mayo Wink but the taste was wonderful - mild, rich and creamy.
The yogurt making seems to be taking. I've just bought a bigger thermos, because I was having to make a new batch every other day with the old (0.5 L) one. The new one makes a litre (that's about a quart in US-sized pints). The recipe I started with suggested simmering the milk for half an hour to get a thicker yogurt, but I found that if the simmer was the tiniest bit too hot, the milk took on an evaporated milk flavour, which completely destroyed the clean fresh yogurt taste. So, my current method is to take about 1L whole milk (4% fat), add 100ml double cream (50% fat), and bring it to the boil. Let it cool to about 50°C/120°F, then mix it with a Tbsp or so from the previous batch of yogurt and put it in the thermos jug for about 8 hours. Then I strain it for about an hour. This makes a thick, creamy Greek-style yogurt.
The new thermos is actually intended for yogurt making, and has an inner canister of 1 L, that sits on a sort of stand, and you can pour hot water into the space below it. But it's designed for use with some powders that you mix with cold water, so I will have to experiment a bit to find the best way to use it with warm milk rather than a cold mix.
I've been using a lot of Paula Wolfert recipes recently, and in the back of her Eastern Mediterranean book she has a section on yogurt, which says that if you culture it quickly, keeping the temperature close to 50°C/120°F then it will have a mild, sweet taste. If it has a longer time at a lower temperature, the taste will be stronger and more sour. I quite like a certain amount of sourness - I like my yogurt to taste like yogurt, not like cream, but it's good to understand enough about the process to be able to adjust it to suit your taste.
I've ordered some more Paula Wolfert: South Western France, and Mediterranean Slow Cooking. They should be here any day, so I can see lots of fun ahead!
Well, this has turned into a bit of a ramble! What are the rest of you up to?
"Good fats are extra virgin, virgin, and pure olive oil as well as coconut, walnut, macadamia, hazelnut, almond, peanut, sesame seed, and avocado oils. Clarified or unsalted butter is also a good fat. Other good fat sources are coldwater fish (sardines, salmon, mackerel, herring and tuna). Cod liver oil is a good oil, but scores low on most people's taste charts."
I think there are some missing. The fat that comes with your meat is also good fat: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck, goose.
It's also worth mentioning that some of the oils (especially walnut oil) shouldn't be heated. Neither should cod liver oil, but somehow I don't think most people would be tempted to start using CLO to sautee their vegetables!
In my mayonnaise experimentations, the best tasting one I've made was from avocado oil. It was a very pretty green colour, which isn't what everyone expects from their mayo Wink but the taste was wonderful - mild, rich and creamy.
The yogurt making seems to be taking. I've just bought a bigger thermos, because I was having to make a new batch every other day with the old (0.5 L) one. The new one makes a litre (that's about a quart in US-sized pints). The recipe I started with suggested simmering the milk for half an hour to get a thicker yogurt, but I found that if the simmer was the tiniest bit too hot, the milk took on an evaporated milk flavour, which completely destroyed the clean fresh yogurt taste. So, my current method is to take about 1L whole milk (4% fat), add 100ml double cream (50% fat), and bring it to the boil. Let it cool to about 50°C/120°F, then mix it with a Tbsp or so from the previous batch of yogurt and put it in the thermos jug for about 8 hours. Then I strain it for about an hour. This makes a thick, creamy Greek-style yogurt.
The new thermos is actually intended for yogurt making, and has an inner canister of 1 L, that sits on a sort of stand, and you can pour hot water into the space below it. But it's designed for use with some powders that you mix with cold water, so I will have to experiment a bit to find the best way to use it with warm milk rather than a cold mix.
I've been using a lot of Paula Wolfert recipes recently, and in the back of her Eastern Mediterranean book she has a section on yogurt, which says that if you culture it quickly, keeping the temperature close to 50°C/120°F then it will have a mild, sweet taste. If it has a longer time at a lower temperature, the taste will be stronger and more sour. I quite like a certain amount of sourness - I like my yogurt to taste like yogurt, not like cream, but it's good to understand enough about the process to be able to adjust it to suit your taste.
I've ordered some more Paula Wolfert: South Western France, and Mediterranean Slow Cooking. They should be here any day, so I can see lots of fun ahead!
Well, this has turned into a bit of a ramble! What are the rest of you up to?