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Archive for category the ingredients

Frozen Chillis

Feb 16

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Not everyone has a chilli plant growing on their window sill, or on their roof (you know who you are). Better still not all of us have access to a garden to plant our veggie stocks. But this is not a reason to cringe at every recipe that has a chilli in it. I’ve been freezing fresh chillies in my freezer for years, four or five at a time will do you, but the variety is good to have as well, and they do last as long as you don’t defrost them and refreeze them.

Next time you’re at the supermarket, or you have a friend that’s a chilli freak, toss a handful in a container or bag, and keep it in the freezer for future use. You would be surprised how many dishes you’ve missed out on due to the lack of that elusive chilli.

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Bottled Water vs Tap Water

Feb 15

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Bottled Water vs Tap Water

Bottled water’s environmental impact:

  • 60 million plastic bottles a day are disposed of in America alone!
  • Massive amounts of greenhouse gases are produced from manufacturing the plastic bottles.
  • Millions of gallons of fuel are wasted daily transporting filtered tap water around the world.
  • It requires three times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill it… it is an exceptionally wasteful industry.
  • Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.
  • Plastic bottles take 700 years before they begin to decompose in a landfill.

Using Brita filters is really a second safety step if you’re concerned about pollutants in the tap water.  In terms of taste as being a deciding factor, use bottled for your drinking water if you’re having it plain; if you’re mixing it with other things like squashes or fruit juices, filtered or straight from the tap will suffice.  But yes, the salty taste of our tap water due to the reverse osmosis plant puts people off, but as safety is concerned, water services corporation run hundreds of tests, and keep our water clean and safe, so much so, that it has more regulations of control and safety on our tap water, than what goes in European and local bottled water.

Resources : http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/08/30/t9.html / http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/10/25/t12.html / http://www.insidethebottle.org/malta-tough-questions-about-plastic-bottles /

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Tomatoes for Healthier Skin

Feb 10

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Recent studies including a paper from the British Society for Investigative Dermatology, have shown that a component of tomatoes could protect your skin from UV damage such as sunburns, it’s the known antioxidant lycopene.  According to ststistics, approximatly 85% of lycopene in the western diet comes from tomatoes only, and the best place to find it is in tomato paste.
The BBC documentry ‘The Truth About Food’ conducted tests to establish whether eating tomato paste could help protect the skin from UV damage and UV-induced reddening. They took 23 women who were used to burning merely at the sight of the sun and asked half of them to eat 55g of tomato paste every day for 12 weeks (giving them 16mg of lycopene).

“an unbelievable 30% increase in skin protection”

After 12 weeks of rigorously following the tomato paste diet, the women were retested through a re-exposure test. The results showed that the volunteers on the lycopene diet had a 30% increase in skin protection.

This doesn’t mean that you should stop using sun block but it’s good to know that simply by increasing tomatoes in your diet you can help protect your skin from the daily sun damage which happens without us even realising.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7370759.stm / http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/young/tomatoes.shtml

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Basil Pesto

Feb 2

Posted by the editor in italian, pasta, the ingredients, the recipes, vegetarian | No Comments

“Basil is so easy to grow on a window sill, and if you seem to have outgrown your window make some pesto to cut back the growth”.

  • 40 g basil leaves, Stalks Removed
  • 6 tbsp. Olive Oil
  • 2 Garlic Cloves
  • 50 g Pine Nuts
  • 50 g Parmesan Gran Padano, Grated

Whizz the ingredients in a food processor to a smooth consistency.  Serve as a pasta sauce, or as an ingredient for other recipes, Basil Pesto is a great base ingredient for other dishes.

Source : The Editors Recipe, with ideas from different sources and advice.

Servings/Yield : 4 servings

Rating : 4 out of 5

Difficulty : Easy

Course : Main depending on what you use it with.

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TransFats in Malta

Jan 25

Posted by the editor in the health, the ingredients, the politics, the products | No Comments

In recent years, trans-fats have risen to the top of the food-and-health agenda. A number of studies have linked trans-fats to coronary heart disease and, as a consequence, food manufacturers, governments and consumers are increasingly concerned about trans-fats: what they are, which foods they appear in and how consumption of them may affect health.

Trans-fats: a brief history

About 100 years ago the discovery was made that liquid oils could be converted to solid fats (which were more useful in food manufacture) by a procedure called hydrogenation. As hydrogen was added to liquid unsaturated oil it gradually became a solid saturated fat (also called a hydrogenated fat).

After the Second World War the process for making hydrogenated and hardened fats from cheaper sources of vegetable oils was widely adopted. Margarines were developed and marketed as alternatives to butter, and vegetable shortenings increasingly replaced the animal fats in cooking.

As early as 1975 a group of scientists led by Mr Leo Thomas at what is now the University of Glamorgan in South Wales suspected that eating partially hydrogenated fats had a connection with death from coronary heart disease. The suspected link between the consumption of trans-fats and this illness was subsequently investigated at the Harvard School of Public Health in the US. It is now generally accepted that trans-fats are actually worse for the health than the saturated animal fats they were designed to replace.

Food-labelling and trans-fats

There has been increasing acceptance by governments that the risks to consumers of eating trans-fats in quantity cannot be ignored. In 2003 Denmark became the first country to introduce laws to control the sale of foods containing trans-fats. In the same year, Canada required that the presence of trans-fats be shown on food labels, and in the following year the Canadian government essentially banned the use of trans-fats in food altogether.

In January 2006 it became law in the US that the content of trans-fats has to be specifically listed on food labels. There is a complication to this, however, because foods containing less than 0.5g of trans-fats per serving can be labelled as being free from them. Furthermore, the regulations only apply to food labels: food sold in restaurants and canteens are not covered by this law.

However, in December 2006 New York City’s Board of Health ‘banned’ many trans-fats from the city’s restaurants, prompting similar moves in Philadelphia, Montgomery County in Maryland, and the Boston suburb of Brookline. The first phase of the regulation applies to oils, shortening and margarines used in cooking and as spreads, in recipes that contain more than a half-gram of trans-fat per serving.

The second phase, in July 2008, extended the ban to include trans-fats used in bread and cakes, prepared foods, salad dressings and oils used for deep-frying or in dough or cake batter. Similar ‘bans’ are being proposed in a growing number of cities, towns and states across the US.

What are trans fats?

Trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid.  Another name for trans fats is “partially hydrogenated oils.”  Look for them on the ingredient list on food packages.

Why do some companies use trans fats?

Companies like using trans fats in their foods because they’re easy to use, inexpensive to produce and last a long time.  Trans fats give foods a desirable taste and texture.  Many restaurants and fast-food outlets use trans fats to deep-fry foods because oils with trans fats can be used many times in commercial fryers.

How do trans fats affect my health?

Trans fats raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol levels.  Eating trans fats increases your risk of developing heart disease and stroke.  It’s also associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Why did trans fats become so popular if they have such bad health effects?

Before 1990, very little was known about how trans fat can harm your health.  In the 1990s, research began identifying the adverse health effects of trans fats.

What foods contain trans fats? and how do I avoid them?

“In the UK and many other European countries the situation is complicated. Although there is no specific requirement for the labelling of trans-fats on food labels, some manufacturers have started to do so voluntarily. Most of the margarines and vegetable shortenings on supermarket shelves now show the products as being ‘virtually free of trans-fats’; on the other hand products such as cakes and biscuits that include hydrogenated fats in the ingredient lists do not often mention trans-fats. Food manufacturers and suppliers are increasingly turning the absence of trans-fats into a marketing claim for their products. In the UK, in February 2006, Marks and Spencer announced in full page adverts in the national press that they had removed all hydrogenated fats from their ready meals.”

Trans fats can be found in many foods – but especially in fried foods like French fries and doughnuts, and baked goods including pastries, pie crusts, biscuits, pizza dough, cookies, crackers, and stick margarines and shortenings.  You can determine the amount of trans fats in a particular packaged food by looking at the Nutrition Facts label.  You can also spot trans fats by reading ingredient lists and looking for the ingredients referred to as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats or shortenings.  When cooking at home use liquid vegetable oil for frying and only margarines and shortenings that are labelled trans-fat free. If you can check these details with the managers of restaurants or takeaways then even better for you.”

Are there any naturally occurring trans fats?

Small amounts of trans fats occur naturally in some meat and dairy products, including beef, lamb and butterfat.  It isn’t clear; though, whether these naturally occurring trans fats have the same bad effects on cholesterol levels as trans fats that have been industrially manufactured.

How much trans fat can I eat a day?

The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of trans fats you eat to less than 1 percent of your total daily calories.  That means if you need 2,000 calories a day, no more than 20 of those calories should come from trans fats.  That’s less than 2 grams of trans fats a day.  Given the amount of naturally occurring trans fats you probably eat every day, this leaves virtually no room at all for industrially manufactured trans fats.

How can I stay within my daily limit for trans fats?

Read the Nutrition Facts label on foods you buy at the store and, when eating out, ask what kind of oil foods are cooked in.  Replace the trans fats in your diet with monounsaturated or  polyunsaturated fats.  For practical tips, learn how to Live Fat-Sensibly.

Foods in Malta that contain Trans fats:

Hopla Golosa e Leggera – Spray Whip Cream

Calve Peanut Butter – Both Crunchy and Smooth

Mill-Kcina taz-Zija (Torta tat-Tigieg)

Kuchenmeister Tiramisu Cafe Venezia 400g

KuchenMeister Herren-Kuchen (Chocolate Cake) 400g

7 Days ‘Bake-it’ Frozen Pastries

Nick The Easy Rider Peanut Butter

Elmlea Single and Double Cream

This is not a complete list, but a growing one, that will hopefully one day inspire the Maltese Government to join the growing list of countries in Banning Trans fats.

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The Cost of Living in Perspective ‘Groceries’

Jan 5

Posted by the editor in the environment, the health, the ingredients, the products | No Comments

There has been many an argument about the cost of living in Malta, and how high food prices are these days, I’ve heard the comments on the situation, that we are now paying the lowest we have ever paid for food in history, now these statements can ring true when you take in certain factors, such as cost of living in comparison to years ago when milk, bread, and other staples were half the price as it is now.

The reality of the situation is that it has gotten cheaper

The reality of the situation is that it has gotten cheaper.  The difference is that we have a wider variety now which is due to certain business factors, such as ’supply and demand’, and the dreaded ‘competition’. If we went and purchased ‘like for like’ as we bought 20 years ago, you would probably notice a reduction in the cost, without exaggerating at how cheap things used to be, as we are in a habit of making up crap such as “my weekly shopping only cost Lm1 back then”.

My point is that the variety is there because retailers can no longer compete on a carton of milk, or a loaf of bread, in fact they can no longer compete on a frozen pizza Margherita, having to offer you a different product to hide their margin.  You can compare a frozen pizza funghi from Goodfellas to the same pizza from McCains, but can you compare a frozen Pizza funghi to a Frozen Pizza Funghi ‘Stone Baked’ like for like? probably not, justifying a price hike on the ’stone baked’ pizza.

This is nothing to complain about, as retailers constantly have to innovate to compete, and to offer more ‘value’ to you the consumer.  This is why we find it easy to say that our weekly shopping was expensive, look at that ‘Austrian bourbon and Honey Glazed canned ham’ that you really had to have because it looked so tasty, or that ready made pizza that costs a quarter of the price to make it yourself.  Being more intelligent about your shopping habits, is not about being frugal, it’s about budgeting yourself.  I’ve seen so many people with deep cupboards containing remnants of that luxury porcini whole wheat pasta that “I’m going to make someday, as soon as I find a good recipe to make it with”.

To get to my second point about groceries and the cost of living, let’s get things into perspective.  The above picture is a pile of groceries that I picked up from the local grocer in Sliema.  This is NOT my weekly shopping, or my monthly shopping, these are just a few things to throw into soups, pastas, pies and whatever floats my boat that week.  Even though this won’t be all the ingredients I require, it’s just an example.  Stuff for sandwiches, pastas, and some fruit in the evening, I can squeeze out around 3-4 dinners out of all of this; with a good imagination, and if I really planned it, I could squeeze out a weeks worth.  The value… 11.38 Euro (Lm4.89)  I’m not breaking the bank, nor am I starving myself, and I’m certainly not a gourmet chef that can turn an onion into a soup that would wow patrons across europe.  I’m just giving you food for thought (pardon the pun).

Looking at this picture, one thing comes to mind, “@%&£!!! I forgot the eggs again”.

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What in the hell is… Pancetta

Dec 11

Posted by the editor in the ingredients | No Comments

pancetta

I love Pancetta, but what is it?  The variations and it’s comparison to bacon can be described and debated in hundreds of ways, leaving that task to a better writer than I, especially ones with more time and patience.  That being said, I’ve listed excerpts and links to a number of articles that could better explain it.  Just to put one thing into perspective, I only use 2 variations of the Italian Pancetta, Pancetta affumicata cubetti (Cubed Smoked Bacon) and the thinly sliced version for frying like regular bacon strips.

Pancetta vs. Bacon by Jennifer Armentrout

“Bacon makes everything better.” That’s one of our favorite sayings in the test kitchen, and it helps explain why our recipes frequently call for it, or for its Italian cousin, pancetta. Bacon and pancetta are both made from pork bellies; the difference between them lies in how they’re prepared and cured. To make bacon, pork belly sides are brined and then smoked. Pancetta, the Italian version of bacon, is made by seasoning a pork belly side with salt and lots of pepper, curling it into a tight roll, and wrapping it in a casing to hold the shape. It’s cured, but it isn’t smoked.

“Bacon makes everything better.”

Most people should have ready access to bacon in its various forms—thin-or thick-sliced, slab (unsliced)—but pancetta can be harder to find. Ask at a deli, particularly one that specializes in Italian foods. If they have it, some delis sell it in slices; others might insist you buy a minimum quantity (which they then should be willing to slice). If you can’t find pancetta, you can substitute bacon, but blanch it in boiling water first to reduce its smoky flavor since that isn’t characteristic of pancetta. Unused bacon and pancetta freeze well; wrap a few slices together in individual packets so it’s easy to thaw only the amount you need.

What is Pancetta?

Pancetta is a type of Italian meat, also common in Spain, that is made from pork bellies. It is often called Italian bacon, and has many differences from typical American bacon. Chief among these is that most American bacon is smoked. Italian bacon, on the other hand, is cured meat with salt and several sweet and savory spices like fennel, nutmeg and black pepper. After curing occurs, the bacon is slowly dried.

You’ll note a few forms of pancetta, mostly available in stores that stock a wide variety of meats, especially Italian meats. One form looks like a slab, which can be cut to lengths desired by the customer. Most of the pork belly fat sits on the top of this slab and both top and bottom may have a dark auburn color. The slab version is called stesa in Italy.

Another form of this ham is called rotolata, which is rolled and has a more even distribution of fat and muscle. This type is appropriate if you want to use extremely thin slices of the pancetta for frying. Thin slices could also be placed on a pizza, prior to cooking it. Rotolata is more often used in Spain than Italy.

Stesa is often more commonly found in the US and is usually the preferred form in Italy. It tends not to be served in thin slices, but is instead diced up to add to a variety of dishes. It will add a little fat, salt, spice and flavor, without the smokiness of traditional American bacon.

One of the classic Italian dishes that utilizes stesa is pasta or spaghetti carbonara. Sometimes people refer to this as the Italian bacon and eggs dish. Normally recipes for carbonara call for a small amount of diced pancetta to be added along with ingredients like scrambled eggs, parsley, garlic, parmesan cheese and cooked pasta. In order to prepare the sauce for carbonara, pancetta is usually cooked first. As with most types of bacon, you should cook stesa or rotolata fully.

Also note that a little of this flavorful ham goes a long way. For a carbonara recipe that serves four people, you’d probably use no more than approximately an ounce (28.35 g) of pancetta per serving. Due to the fat content in this Italian meat, you’ll also note that small pieces cook down pretty quickly.

Cubetti di pancetta cod. 0593_l

Note : There are two types of the pictured pancetta cubetti (above) available in european supermarkets, one is the aforementioned ‘PANCETTA AFFUMICATA’ and the other is ‘PANCETTA DOLCE’ .  Dolce being the mild version, I still have no idea to this day why this is on the market, and what it’s used for.  The majority of my recipes call for the saliva-tingly Affumicata for soups, pastas, and whatever else floats your culinary boat.  Please do leave a comment if you have an idea of what the Dolce is good for.

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Sell-by dates past their sell-by date?

Oct 21

Posted by the editor in the environment, the health, the ingredients, the politics, the products | No Comments

expireddate

As part of the publicity surrounding yesterday’s launch of the DEFRA report and public consultation on food security, Hilary Benn suprised (and no doubt outraged) a lot of people by suggesting that shoppers should ignore “best before” dates on food to reduce the amount thrown away,

Checking the original DEFRA announcement (July) on its food labelling review (being conducted with the FSA and WRAP), these statistics caught my attention in particular:

“consumers often lack confidence in date labelling: 53% of consumers would never eat fresh fruit and vegetables past the “best before” date; 56% would never eat bread and cakes past the “best before” date; and almost 10% leave a day’s ‘buffer’ before any date. 21% would never “take a risk” with any food close to its date, even if it appeared fine.”

It appears that a lot of us get confused between best-before dates, use-by dates, sell-by dates and display-until dates. And so we throw away food, which goes into landfill and generates harmful methane, and also puts pressure on farmers to produce more than is actually required (and that’s before you start taking over-eating into consideration).

With the world looking ahead to serious food security issues created by climate change and population explosion, the last thing we need is needless waste increasing the amount our food producers need to provide.

“Use by” dates indicate time during which food is safe to eat. “Best before” dates indicate a period in which food is of optimum quality and after which it is may still perfectly edible but may decline in quality. These are mandated by law. Sell-by and Display-until are stock control dates used by retailers and are not mandated by law.

So should the Government insist on labelling changes? Not according to Stephen Robertson of the British Retail Consortium, who said “Scrapping best-before dates won’t reduce food waste. Customer education will.”

via Sell-by dates past their sell-by date? by VegBox Recipes – ooffoo.com .

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Basic Chili Recipe

Oct 19

Posted by the editor in the ingredients, the recipes | No Comments

ChilliConCarne

This chili is basic but tasty; add chopped green chile peppers or your own favorite chili seasonings.

  • 450 g Beef, Ground
  • ½ cup Onion, Chopped
  • 400 g Tomato Polpa
  • 400 g Kidney Beans, Drained
  • ½ tsp Chili Powder (See Recipe Below)
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • ½ tsp Black Pepper, Ground
  • 2 tsp Oregano
  • 2 Garlic Cloves, Sliced

Brown ground beef with onion. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Notes: Originally had 1 Tbsp of Oregano, but we felt it dried out the chili and you could taste the oregano in it. This has been reduced slightly to 2 Tsps.

Chili Powder Spice Mix from the Joy of Cooking:

  • 3 Tbsp Paprika
  • 1 Tbsp Tumeric
  • 1/8 Tsp Cayenne

After making a batch of this Chili Powder, store it in a jar, and keep for future use.  It’s great to have around the kitchen and you can play around with it until it matches your taste.  Secondly, you can confidently walk down the supermarket aisle and snub your nose at the Chili Con Carne packets lining the walls.

Source : Combination of Joy of Cooking, common sense, and staying away from pre-packed Sauces.

Servings/Yield : 6 servings

Rating : 5 out of 5

Cuisine : North American : Mexican

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Sour: It’s What Carbonation Tastes Like

Oct 16

Posted by the editor in the health, the ingredients, the technology | No Comments

adamcomerford/Flickr

The carbon dioxide in your favorite soda pop tastes sour to your tongue, thanks to an enzyme that converts CO2 into protons that sour-sensing cells can detect.

That means your Coca Cola isn’t just packed with high-fructose sweetness, but, perhaps counterintuitively, its carbonation delivers a delicious squirt of sour too, according to a new study in mice, published Thursday in the journal Science.

“The same taste cell has all the machinery to turn carbon dioxide into protons and then detect the protons as sour taste stimuli,” said Alexander Bachmanov, who was not involved in the study.

The discovery is of particular interest in the food and beverage world, Bachmanov said, because carbonation has long been recognized as a complex phenomenon for the mouth. Even if the sour-sensing cells signal that the carbonation is sour, there are more elements to the process of actually tasting, say, soda water.

“If you think about carbonation, it has more than one attribute,” he said. “One is sourness, which we perceive, but there is probably also some tactile sensation how the bubbles form and burst, tickling the tongue.”

The researchers, led by longtime taste researcher Charles Zuker, now at Columbia University Medical Center, conducted the study using mice that had been genetically altered to lack sour-sensing cells. They found that such mice could not detect carbon dioxide, as seen in the chart. While the study was carried out with mice, the mechanism is expected to have been preserved in other mammals.

Zuker and his colleagues posed a natural evolutionary question: Why would mammals have developed such an excellent carbon dioxide detector?

“CO2 detection could have evolved as a mechanism to recognize CO2-producing sources — for instance, to avoid fermenting foods,” they wrote.

One happy irony of such a hypothesis is that the very same mechanism that allowed our deep ancestors to recognize and avoid fermentation allows modern humans to intentionally create the fermented beverages beer and champagne.

Or, our carbonation-detecting skills could be an accident. The sour-cell enzymes might be maintaining the pH balance of the taste buds, and the tang of soda water is just fallout.

Accident or adaptation, from sparkling wine to Coca Cola to energy drinks to the carbonated yogurt popular in Iran called doogh, humans love carbonation in its many forms. Though their share of the beverage market might be slipping a bit, the world’s population still spends half its drink money on carbonated quenchers.

Zuker’s company Senomyx develops artificial flavors, and have disclosed that they have a partnership with Coca Cola, among other companies.

via Sour: It’s What Carbonation Tastes Like | Wired Science | Wired.com.

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