Text 35591, 93 rader
Skriven 2010-03-08 20:39:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DALE SHIPP
Ärende: REMOVING LEAD  00306
============================
-=> Quoting Dale Shipp to Jim Weller <=-

 JW> Or that metallic mercury is far less toxic than the organo-mercury
 JW> compounds

 DS> I remember playing with mercury as a kid.

Same here.

 DS> A few months ago, they
 DS> closed one of the local schools for a couple of days after some
 DS> students spilled some mercury in the lab.

Knee-jerk overkill!


MMMMM-----Meal-Master - formatted by MMCONV  2.10

     Title: A Gastrique Primer
Categories: Condiments, Info
  Servings: 4

    1/4 c  vinegar
      3 tb sugar

or How to Improve Your Next Tomato Sauce

I blanched and peeled the tomatoes, chopped them, strained the
seeds, and simmered it for twenty minutes into a simple sauce. Then
I made my gastrique, which involved no measuring -- maybe 1/4 cup of
vinegar and 3 tablespoons of sugar -- and a quick boil into
something thick and syrupy.

I tasted the sauce before adding it, which was fine, clean and
simple.  And then I tasted it after. The difference was noticeable.
Both of the most prized qualities of a good tomato -- sweetness and
acidity -- were suddenly brought to the forefront. The sauce went
from just fine to something special. It was amazing.

The way it was demonstrated was simple: red wine vinegar in a small
saucepan, handful of sugar, then the whole thing boiled down until
syrupy and viscous. It took just three or four short minutes. The
result was drizzled into a simple tomato sauce.

The sauce, which we were making in the dead of winter, was made with
fresh tomatoes. To amp up the flavor which winter tomatoes lack in
comparison to how they taste in the summer, we used a little tomato
paste while sweating shallots and garlic. This helped somewhat. But
tomato paste doesn't bring any brightness. Its flavor is deep and
rich, but also a bit muddy.

A gastrique is good for lots of other things, too. Traditionally
it's used to season sauces for meat, adding punch and depth. Or, it
can become a simple sauce on its own, in which case it often has a
bit of fruit which softens and gets glazed with the reduced syrup.
You often see it employed with duck breast. Anywhere a sweetness and
acidity are useful, a gastrique can only help.

In fact, there's a new use for gatriques that has come out of the
cocktail vanguard. Rather than just a simple syrup (sugar + water),
the complexity of a gastrique is a way for bartenders to play with
new flavors.

Gastrique Basics

The proportions don't seem to be exact -- Larousse Gastronomique
doesn't bother with a recipe, just calling it a reduction of sugar
and vinegar. I think that 1/2 cup vinegar and 2 or 3 tablespoons of
sugar is a good place to start.

All you need to do is combine them and boil the sauce down until
much of the moisture is gone, and the viscosity of the mixture
starts to increase. Eventually you'll start to see bubbles getting
bigger and stickier, as in the photo above. It shouldn't be as thick
as honey, more like a syrup.

by Blake Royer

  From: The Pauper Chef                 
 
MMMMM-------------------------------------------------


Cheers

YK Jim


... Can you smell the deadly radiation coming out of the TV set?

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