22 Jul 2007, ST
Q I recently picked up muffin-making. However, my muffins do not have a fluffy and soft texture. How do I make the texture better? And how do I prevent a burnt exterior while ensuring the inside is soft and hot?
Brandon Ho Teck Hon
A Muffins need to bake at a slightly higher temperature than larger cakes. This makes for a quicker rise, yielding the desired fluffy, irregular crumb, peaked top and golden-browned crust of an ideal muffin.
If they're burning, your oven thermostat may simply be off - buy an oven thermometer, which hangs from your oven rack and displays what the actual internal temperature is.
If the muffins are heavy and dense, a number of things may be at fault. First, check your baking powder's use-by date. Always buy it in small batches and use it within a year (or better still, eight months) of opening it.
Second, make sure your wet and dry ingredient mixtures are very well mixed before combining them - stir the dry stuff together for a good minute, and beat the liquids until blended and frothy, then pour one into the other.
Lastly, never overmix the batter - beating it until smooth will give you a tight, dry and leaden crumb. Most recipes tell you to stir only a few times to yield a lumpy batter, which is perfectly right.
---------------------------------
Q What's the difference between parsley and Chinese coriander?
Ivy S. L. Lim
A People tend to confuse Chinese parsley, parsley and coriander, perhaps because their leaves look superficially similar. They aren't good substitutes for each other.
Coriander is also known as cilantro, wan sui, daun ketumbar or 'Chinese parsley' (left, in photo).
Its juicy stems hold soft, feathery leaves that can vary a fair bit in size. It is an invaluable garnish and sauce ingredient across Asia, South America and the Middle East.
Coriander's aroma combines grass, flowers, maybe hints of citrus and pine. Its fresh and forward character makes it always a co-star, never an extra.
Chinese celery, also known as qin cai or kun choi, is a cousin of thick-stemmed Western celery (right, in photo).
Its flavour is flatter and less complex than coriander, with a strident celery note.
This herb is useful for adding zingy pungency to soups, stir-fries, and stews built with bland legumes or red meats.
Flat-leaf Western parsley, xiang cai in Mandarin, has a less floral and more herbal snap than coriander.
Use it raw or barely cooked to maximise its aroma. Simmer it in stews and soups for a pleasant, mellow freshness. Its clean brightness makes it a great unifier of other herbs, such as chives, dill and thyme, in herb blends.
----------------------------------
Q Red wine is used to cook red meats and white wine for white meats. Can you use red wine for white meats and white wine for red meats?
Cecilia Ng Li Cheng
A Matching red with red and white with white is an old-school and rather too restrictive rule for choosing wine to drink with food.
Choosing wine to cook with is a slightly different matter - one that is more simple and also more complicated.
More simple because the heat of the cooking process blunts and changes the profile of the wine, especially if prolonged. This both blurs the fine details and mellows out any rough edges to all but the most pernickety palates.
Fatty ingredients like butter and cream and aromatic ingredients like herbs will further disguise a wine's subtleties.
This means that if you need, say, a white wine for a sauce, almost any white wine will yield an adequately tasty result, the exceptions being those at the extremes of the taste spectrum, such as the very sweet or very acidic.
More complicated because you should try to match the weight and character of the dish with the wine's qualities. For instance, a simple citrus-scented sauce would benefit more from a light, bright sauvignon blanc than a big heavy red, and a hearty stew of red meat and game needs a robust red, not a minerally white.
You can see how the colour-matching rule can break down here: a rich seafood, like roasted salmon, may go with a reduction sauce of a soft, fruity red as well as or better than one of white wine.
Fortified wines like sherry, marsala and port have nutty, caramelly nuances that, at least to my palate, complement ingredients high in umami (savouriness), like tomato, soy sauce and seafood.
Lastly, two things to beware of: Never use 'cooking wine, basically cheap plonk with salt added; and don't cook with very tannic wines, as cooking can concentrate tannins to a mouth-imploding harshness.
Q I recently picked up muffin-making. However, my muffins do not have a fluffy and soft texture. How do I make the texture better? And how do I prevent a burnt exterior while ensuring the inside is soft and hot?
Brandon Ho Teck Hon
A Muffins need to bake at a slightly higher temperature than larger cakes. This makes for a quicker rise, yielding the desired fluffy, irregular crumb, peaked top and golden-browned crust of an ideal muffin.
If they're burning, your oven thermostat may simply be off - buy an oven thermometer, which hangs from your oven rack and displays what the actual internal temperature is.
If the muffins are heavy and dense, a number of things may be at fault. First, check your baking powder's use-by date. Always buy it in small batches and use it within a year (or better still, eight months) of opening it.
Second, make sure your wet and dry ingredient mixtures are very well mixed before combining them - stir the dry stuff together for a good minute, and beat the liquids until blended and frothy, then pour one into the other.
Lastly, never overmix the batter - beating it until smooth will give you a tight, dry and leaden crumb. Most recipes tell you to stir only a few times to yield a lumpy batter, which is perfectly right.
---------------------------------
Q What's the difference between parsley and Chinese coriander?
Ivy S. L. Lim
A People tend to confuse Chinese parsley, parsley and coriander, perhaps because their leaves look superficially similar. They aren't good substitutes for each other.
Coriander is also known as cilantro, wan sui, daun ketumbar or 'Chinese parsley' (left, in photo).
Its juicy stems hold soft, feathery leaves that can vary a fair bit in size. It is an invaluable garnish and sauce ingredient across Asia, South America and the Middle East.
Coriander's aroma combines grass, flowers, maybe hints of citrus and pine. Its fresh and forward character makes it always a co-star, never an extra.
Chinese celery, also known as qin cai or kun choi, is a cousin of thick-stemmed Western celery (right, in photo).
Its flavour is flatter and less complex than coriander, with a strident celery note.
This herb is useful for adding zingy pungency to soups, stir-fries, and stews built with bland legumes or red meats.
Flat-leaf Western parsley, xiang cai in Mandarin, has a less floral and more herbal snap than coriander.
Use it raw or barely cooked to maximise its aroma. Simmer it in stews and soups for a pleasant, mellow freshness. Its clean brightness makes it a great unifier of other herbs, such as chives, dill and thyme, in herb blends.
----------------------------------
Q Red wine is used to cook red meats and white wine for white meats. Can you use red wine for white meats and white wine for red meats?
Cecilia Ng Li Cheng
A Matching red with red and white with white is an old-school and rather too restrictive rule for choosing wine to drink with food.
Choosing wine to cook with is a slightly different matter - one that is more simple and also more complicated.
More simple because the heat of the cooking process blunts and changes the profile of the wine, especially if prolonged. This both blurs the fine details and mellows out any rough edges to all but the most pernickety palates.
Fatty ingredients like butter and cream and aromatic ingredients like herbs will further disguise a wine's subtleties.
This means that if you need, say, a white wine for a sauce, almost any white wine will yield an adequately tasty result, the exceptions being those at the extremes of the taste spectrum, such as the very sweet or very acidic.
More complicated because you should try to match the weight and character of the dish with the wine's qualities. For instance, a simple citrus-scented sauce would benefit more from a light, bright sauvignon blanc than a big heavy red, and a hearty stew of red meat and game needs a robust red, not a minerally white.
You can see how the colour-matching rule can break down here: a rich seafood, like roasted salmon, may go with a reduction sauce of a soft, fruity red as well as or better than one of white wine.
Fortified wines like sherry, marsala and port have nutty, caramelly nuances that, at least to my palate, complement ingredients high in umami (savouriness), like tomato, soy sauce and seafood.
Lastly, two things to beware of: Never use 'cooking wine, basically cheap plonk with salt added; and don't cook with very tannic wines, as cooking can concentrate tannins to a mouth-imploding harshness.
No comments:
Post a Comment