The Kitchn Archive: Jan 2012

Lemon, orange, and other citrus zest is a favorite around here; we use it to brighten everything from pasta to cakes and salads. With the abundance of citrus this time of year, it’s an ideal time to freeze zest for later. Lately, any time we’re about to use a lemon, lime, grapefruit, or orange for juice or segments, we take a few seconds to zest it first and pop that in the freezer.

I’m in a sublet situation, so my stand mixer and hand mixer are packed away in storage for a little while. This means that whenever I need egg whites or cream beaten stiff, I have to do it by hand. It’s really not that hard and doesn’t take as long as most people think. Read on for a few tips on how to whisk by hand.There are a lot of reasons why you may want to whisk by hand besides lack of equipment.

When you stop to sample dates at the farmers market and the man selling them has a protective hand over a small piece of cardboard hiding two baskets of small, round dates which, when you ask him how they taste, he describes as “butterscotch candy,” you go home with those dates, obviously. He wouldn’t lift up the cardboard to give you a taste before you handed over your cash, but he is right: these dates taste like butterscotch candy.

Faith’s wonderful post on My Favorite Balsamic Vinaigrette yesterday reminded me of vinaigrette question I’ve had for quite some time now. It involves an unusual vinaigrette technique that I’ve only seen on occasion, but whenever I have, the results were spectacular.A good friend makes the best vinaigrette I’ve ever tasted, perfectly balanced and unctuous. What is her secret? She uses a touch of mustard, true, and has an excellent instinct for salt.

When I think of flavored coffee, I think of road trips and gas stations. College cafeterias and airports. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a hazelnut coffee gal, through and through. But it’s not an everyday thing for me although it could be more and more now that I know how to make my own.In the February issue of Martha Stewart Magazine, there is a little piece on making flavored coffee at home the easy way. The gist?

We’ve been on a chocolate cake bender around here. Last week Leela shared her decadent Double Chocolate Sour Cream Birthday Cake, and now we’re talking about another intense chocolate cake from Serious Eats that we made last week. It’s also to die for—thanks to 1 1/4 cups of, yep, mayonnaise. Has anyone ever tried a mayonnaise chocolate cake?

Did any of your parents try to dye eggs green when you were little as a nod to Green Eggs and Ham? The results were always gross. These green eggs, however, we’ll take any day—a simple egg salad with mashed avocado mixed in. Turns out it’s healthier than the original, too. You use half the mayonnaise.

What’s your favorite last-minute dinner? Mine is scrambled eggs. I like them soft as possible, with plenty of butter, eaten on crisp toast at 7 p.m., taking comfort in a simple, hot meal after a scattered day. If scrambled eggs are your idea of easy comfort food, when it’s for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, these five tips will make them even better. Scrambled eggs are one of the few foods that it doesn’t pay to get too much of a head start.

Mushrooms have a permanent place on my shopping list. I don’t always have a plan for using them, but I know that after a week of slipping them into frittatas and stir-fries, I’ll be ready to buy more. For longest shelf-life, I use two different methods for storing my mushrooms.For commercial mushrooms that I buy plastic-wrapped at the grocery store, I keep them in their original packaging in the refrigerator.

The first time I took my paring knives to a knife sharpenerI’d wager that paring knives are the real workhorse of many kitchens. I know my three spend more time in the dish drainer after being cleaned than they do in the drawer with the other knives. Cheap paring knives aren’t that sharp to begin with, and months of slicing apples, cutting sandwiches in half, and sawing through plastic packaging (What? How do you get the plastic ring off the mayo jar?) don’t improve anything.

We had never heard of ashanti pepper until we visited The Meadow in Portland but once we brought some home, this West African spice quickly became one of our favorite alternatives to common black pepper. Ashanti or West African pepper comes from the Piper guineense plant, a relative of black and cubeb peppers. Although common in medieval Europe, ashanti pepper fell into obscurity, overshadowed by the more popular black pepper.

Happy New Year! The holidays are over. It is January, a month much associated with cutting back and shopping more wisely. Still love your wine? Read on for some great wine shopping tips to help you find the best deals, and save a few dollars.Tip #1 – Buy By the Case and Not By the BottleI have mentioned this a number of times in previous posts. While it might seem extravagant to order a case of wine, you generally get a discount of anything between 10% and 15% by doing so.

There’s a new spice shop that just opened in my Oakland neighborhood, and from the moment I walked in I was intrigued. I’d never encountered so many different varieties of one single spice or herb. When it came time to choose cardamom, I was stumped: which color pod was the most fragrant or flavorful? Cardamom pods come in three colors: black, green and white. It turns out that each color has a distinct personality, flavor-wise.

This square of rubber may not look like much, but in the last few weeks, it has quickly become one of my new favorite kitchen tools. It has single-handedly transformed the task of peeling persnickety cloves of garlic from annoying to easy-breezy.This garlic peeler is genius in its very simplicity. Bundle the cloves inside the rubber mat and roll it back and forth against the counter a few times while pressing down on the cloves.

When you open a bottle of red wine, it often needs a little time to open up and breathe. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, but what if you simply don’t have that long? Perhaps you forget to open it and then find the wine is too tight, or you have a guest drop by and want to pour out the wine right away? Well, an unexpected kitchen tool can help you out.First, why aerate your wine in the first place?