FFAQs - Food Frequently Asked Questions
Fall, winter, rain and cold. It’s a great time of the year to be in the kitchen creating warmth and filling your house with those magnificent smells of roasting and baking foods. And it’s the time of year for a variety of items that seem to always have questions. I’ve compiled a short list below to aid any wondering minds.
How do You Cook Winter Squash like Butternut, Kabocha, Acorn, etc.?
Cut any squash in half, take out the seeds, put both halves together, wrap in foil and bake at 350 to 375 degrees fahrenheit for 45 to 60 minutes. (Smaller ones take less time, larger maybe a bit more.) You can also put them cut side down on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover them with foil. And you can bake them cut side down in a Pyrex with a little water or stock. When they are soft, they’re ready. Can you microwave them? Yes but they won’t develop a wonderful roasted and caramelized-like flavor. And why would you want to microwave anything anyway??? There are a variety of other ways to cook squash, as well as flavorings to add but the above I pretty fool proof.
What Is The Best Apple For Pie? Granny Smith is my #1 choice, Pippin, Jonagold and Braeburn work well for tarts. To add a little sweetness, you can mix in a Pink Lady, Fuji or Honeycrisp, as these are firm apples. The most important characteristic is the apple should stay firm after cooked. When it comes to sweet versus tart apples, that’s less of a concern as sugar is usually added anyway. Combining two apple varieties results in a richer flavor, but using just the Granny solo is fine.
Best Apple for Sauce? MacIntosh, Gold Delicious, Gala, Fuji. They have a nice flavor and get soft relatively quickly when cooked. If you want a tart sauce, use Granny or Pippin. Any apple will really work but the above tend to have a nice flavor on their own.
Best Apple to Bake Whole? Red Rome, a.k.a. Rome Beauty, but Jonagold or Braeburn will work too. The Rome is the classic whole baked apple. Conversely, it is no great shakes eaten fresh.
Is it a YAM or SWEET POTATO?
Botanically, they share nothing. Yams come from the lily family while sweet potatoes, the morning glory. They are non-related tubers. The true yam is a product of Africa, while the sweet potato is controversial: did it come from Polynesia or the new world? Yams available in the States are all really sweet potatoes. Why?
There are firm and soft sweet potato varieties. Africans in the U.S. began calling the soft variety a yam, when this was really not the case. Thus the confusion about yam versus sweet potato and now soft variety sweet potatoes are labeled as yams.
Generally, yams have moist, sweet flesh while sweet potatoes have sweet, dry and fluffy flesh (kind of like a cooked chestnut).
Sweet potatoes are rich in beta-carotene (Vitamin A), while yams contain little.
There are over 600 varieties of yams with 95% grown in Africa.
Store both in a cool, dry location and they can last for up to a month.
How Do You Roast CHESTNUTS?
Make a crosscut on the flat side. Place on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or so. They are done when the cut skins curl back. Remove them from the oven and wrap them in a clean damp towel to sweat the skins. After they've cooled, peel away the outer shell and the inside fuzzy skin.
Boiled, roasted or steamed, chestnuts can be used in soups, stews, stuffings and more. When selecting them, pick the ones that are full, dark, shiny and firm. If they have flabby skins beware! They may have mold on the meat.
How Do You Open and Seed a POMEGRANTE?
Score the skin only, into 4-6 segments. Immerse the fruit in a bowl of cold water. While holding the fruit underwater, crack open into segments and flick the individual seeds out with your finger. The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the debris will float to the top. Skim off this debris, drain the water and you’ll have all of the seeds.
Why Should I Bother with CELERY TOPS?
Use the extra foliage to flavor soups, stews and especially stuffings! While you are
at it, toss a few of these pungent leaves into a green salad for an additional flavor dimension. The tops actually have the flavor of the plant whereas the ribs have roughage and water.
What are These Odd-Ball Looking Onions?
The cippolini is small, flat and yellow or red and goes very well with a number of dishes: fish, chicken, beef, veal, and game meat. Best when slow-cooked, as in a roast, they get creamy in texture with a nutty sweetness. If making a traditional fall or winter type vegetable stew, the cippolini is a great alternative to the yellow onion.
Just What are SHALLOTS Anyway?
In the onion family, shallots have a full flavor without the harshness of regular onions or garlic. They’re often used in vinaigrette and sauces but can be used anywhere you use regular onions. Some call them the gourmet onion but don’t let this intimidate you!
How Do You Tell When a PEAR is Ripe?
A pear ripens first at the core and then this softness travels through the pear to the outside edges. Given that, the area around the stem will always show softness way before the body of the fruit. With the tip of your finger, give the area around the stem a gentle touch. If that area shows some “give” … it’s ripe, juicy and ready to eat!
Mandarin? Clementine? Tangerine? Satsuma? Oh my!!!!!!!
All of these small citrus fruits fall into the umbrella group of “Mandarin”. It goes like this: every tangerine is a mandarin, but not every mandarin is a tangerine.
The above information is by no means the end all, be all. If you have other tid bits to add or ways of processing the above fruits and veggies, share the wealth! And if you have a recipe to share using one of the items, we'd love to hear about it. Happy cooking!