Pie and Pastry Bible (177 page)

PISTACHIOS
Pistachios are a beautiful and delicious nut, but the salted variety, which is most prevalent, should not be used for dessert recipes. Wonderfully flavorful bright green pistachios from Sicily can be ordered shelled and unsalted from Gourmand (page 677) or Keenan Farms (page 676). Blanch the nuts in boiling water for about 1 minute. Drain the nuts and remove and discard the peels by pinching each one gently.

MACADAMIA NUTS
With their slightly waxy, crunchy texture and unique mellow flavor, macadamias are particularly prone to rancidity. (If unsalted macadamia nuts are difficult to find, they can be ordered directly from Hawaii from the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation, page 677.)

NUT PASTES
Nut paste terminology is among the most confusing in the baking industry. Diamond brand almond paste, for example, claims to be 100 percent pure almonds. This actually means that it contains no other nut substance, not that it doesn’t contain any sugar! (In the industry, peach kernel pits are sometimes substituted for almonds to make a less expensive “almond” paste.) Imported almond pastes may contain as much as 50 percent sugar. Distributors such as Albert Uster Imports (page 675), have this information about the products they carry.

Almond pastes manufactured in America usually consist of 25 to 35 percent sugar (some of which is invert) and sweet and bitter almonds. (The bitter almonds are much more intense in flavor than the sweet ones.) Almond paste is used to make marzipan by adding additional sugar. All of the recipes in this book calling for almond paste require the domestic, or 25 to 35 percent sugar, variety.

Diamond brand almond paste is available at some supermarkets and through New York Cake and Baking Distributors (page 677). Albert Uster Imports also carries almond paste in larger quantities.

Pure 100 percent pistachio paste with no sugar added is available in small containers from Albert Uster Imports. This is an excellent product made from the most flavorful pistachio nuts.

Pure 100 percent hazelnut paste with no sugar added is available in small containers from Albert Uster. It is impossible to make a hazelnut paste of this smoothness without highly specialized equipment.

Praline paste consists of hazelnuts or a combination of almonds, hazelnuts, and 50 percent caramelized sugar. (Lesser qualities have a higher percentage of sugar.) I prefer the 100 percent hazelnut and caramelized sugar variety. This can be purchased in small, expensive quantities from Maison Glass (page 677). A small amount goes a long way and it is worth every penny. I have experimented endlessly only to find that homemade praline paste always has a slightly gritty consistency. Nut pastes keep 1 year refrigerated and indefinitely frozen. On storage, some of the oil separates and floats to the top. This can be stirred back into the praline paste.

COCONUT
One average-size coconut weighs about 1½ pounds/680 grams and yields about 4 cups approximately 10.5 ounces/310 grams of finely shredded coconut. One cup of shredded coconut weighs about 2.6 ounces/75 grams.

To prepare afresh coconut:
With a skewer or screwdriver, pierce two of the eyes. Drain the milky liquid. If desired, strain it and use it for cooking or drinking. With a hammer or the back of a cleaver, sharply tap the coconut about one third of the way from the opposite end of the eyes. Continue tapping in a circle around the coconut until it breaks open. Use a knife to divide the coconut meat into portions that can be lifted easily from the shell. Lift out each section. Cut off the brown skin and grate the white flesh into fine flakes. If using a special coconut grater (see page 661), there is no need to remove the shell: Simply insert the head of the grater into the hollow coconut half and turn the crank.

Unsweetened flaked coconut, softer and fresher tasting than most commercially prepared coconut, is available from the King Arthur catalogue (page 676). Excellent-quality coconut in many textures and degrees of fineness is available in some Asian markets and Indian food stores.

PAM
I prefer PAM to other nonstick vegetable spray products because it has virtually no odor. It is composed of lecithin, a natural emulsifying agent derived from soybeans, and a tiny amount of soybean oil.

POPPY SEEDS
These tiny gray-blue seeds are incomparably delicious when fresh but bitter and rancid if held too long at room temperature. Poppy seeds should be stored refrigerated or frozen. They are more perishable when ground, so it’s best to grind them just before using them for the freshest flavor. Penzeys, Ltd. (page 677), carries a top “A-” quality called Holland Blue.

SALT
For savory recipes, I find that people’s taste for salt varies widely and that mine seems to be in the mid-range. Since salt flavors the food more evenly when it is added early in the cooking process rather than all at the very end, I like to give a suggested amount rather than indicating to “season
to taste.” After trying one of my recipes, you will have a reference point as to how my taste compares with yours and you can, if necessary, adjust the other recipes accordingly.

I prefer to use unsalted ingredients, such as broth, because it enables me to use as much of the ingredient as I want without adding more salt than I desire with it. A cup of salted broth contains almost a teaspoon of salt.

There is no difference in flavor between kosher and table salt because both come from the same source. The only difference in flavor will occur in instances where the salt does not dissolve fully, as, for example, in salads. Kosher salt, which is coarser, will still be in granules and therefore has a different flavor perception. If you would like to use kosher salt for the savory recipes, if using Morton brand, use it interchangeably. If using Diamond brand, you will need 1¾ times the volume amount but the same amount if weighing it.

I often use kosher or coarse sea salt to sprinkle on roasts because it distributes more evenly. There is, however, a difference in flavor with sea salt. Although, weight for weight, it is equally salty, it has a “sweeter,” more pure flavor. Different varieties actually have different flavors. I use fine sea salt for all my sweet and savory recipes. Some of the best brands, such as Fleur de sel de Guérande, are available from the King Arthur catalogue (page 676) and La Cuisine (page 676).

STABILIZERS

COBASAN
This is a miracle product from Germany for stabilizing whipped cream and ice cream. It consists of sorbitol and glucose. A minute quantity added before whipping cream, or before freezing ice cream, emulsifies the fat, enabling the whipped cream to hold up for as long as 6 hours at room temperature and making the ice cream smooth and creamy. It does not work, however, with ultrapasturized cream, because the fat molecules have been altered because of the higher temperatures at which this cream is pasteurized. Cobasan is available from Albert Uster Imports (page 675). The plastic bottle contains 1 quart, which will probably last a lifetime unless you open a bakeshop!

SANIFAX
Available from Patisfrance (page 677). This is another excellent stabilizer from Germany that also works with ultrapasteurized cream.

WHIPIT
From Oetker of Ontario, Canada, is an excellent stabilizer more readily available to consumers, as it is available in some supermarkets and specialty stores. It also works with ultrapasteurized cream. Whipit is a powder consisting of dextrose, modified food starch, and tricalcium phosphate. It makes the cream a little less airy and adds a slightly ivory color and a slight sweetness, so the sugar should be decreased accordingly.

SUGAR AND OTHER SWEETENERS

I had long regarded sugar as the one reliably standard ingredient with which it is impossible to go wrong. The only time, in fact, that sugar even nudged my attention was when I emptied a 100-pound sack of granulated sugar into the bin and
noticed how odd it was that a substance that contributes the lovely quality of sweetness has such an unappealing undertone of bitterness when smelled in bulk. I assumed that this quality somehow dissipated when mixed with other ingredients, but only recently discovered the fascinating truth behind my intuition. Apparently, something in the refining and bleaching process does indeed produce an undesirable element of bitterness not present in unrefined sugar. When it comes to light brown and dark brown sugar, however, refining results in flavor differences that are even more significant. Unrefined brown sugar still contains its natural molasses, which offers bright, clear color and rich taste with delicious underlying spice, butter, and caramel flavor components. Refined brown sugar, however, has all the molasses removed and then added back, at the expense of considerable depth of flavor. It is sometimes even darkened with food color to recreate its original brown color.

Unrefined sugar from the tropical island Mauritius in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa is the finest quality. The special flavor of the sugar is said to be derived from the sugarcane grown on the volcanic ash. Billington’s is one brand that is imported from England and available in fine groceries, gourmet markets, and health food stores, sometimes packaged under the name Simpson and Vail; it’s also available in larger quantities by mail order directly from Simpson and Vail (page 677). It is available in four varieties: golden castor (fine granulated), light muscovado (light brown), dark muscovado (dark brown), and amber crystal (coarse granulated). India Tree (page 676) carries the sugar under the names
Golden Baker’s
(equivalent to superfine) and
Dark Muscovado
(equivalent to dark brown). They also carry the most exquisite array of sparkling colored sugar for use as decoration. Over the past several years, I have been using all of these sugars in baking, replacing refined light and dark brown sugars with their unrefined counterparts and refined granulated sugar with the unrefined castor sugar. The only time I use refined sugar now is for meringues, where I want the pure white color, or caramel, where I want to prevent crystallization caused by “impurities.”

HOW SUGAR IS MADE
Sucrose, the primary sugar used in pastry making, is a sugar obtained from sugar beets or sugarcane. There is absolutely no difference between these two sources in the final product if the sugar is refined to 99.9 percent sucrose. A molecule of sucrose is composed of one fructose and one glucose molecule joined together to form a simple carbohydrate, easy to digest and full of energy. Other plants are capable of making sugar, but both cane and beets make it in quantities large enough to support refining. Sugar from the plants is dissolved in water and the resulting syrup is boiled in large steam evaporators. The substance that remains is crystallized in heated vacuum pans and the liquid, now called molasses, is separated from the crystals by spinning it in a centrifuge. At this stage, the sugar is known as raw sugar and contains 3 percent impurities or extraneous matter. The raw sugar crystals are washed with steam and become what is called turbinado sugar, which is 99 percent pure sucrose. Although it closely resembles refined white sugar in sweetening ability and composition, it cannot
always be substituted in recipes. Its moisture content varies considerably, a factor that, coupled with its molasses flavor and coarse granulation, can affect a recipe without careful adjustment.

Refined white sugar is processed from turbinado sugar. The turbinado sugar is heated again to a liquid state, centrifuged, clarified with lime or phosphoric acid, and then percolated through a column of beef-bone char or mixed in a solution of activated carbon. Either of these last processes whitens the sugar and removes all calcium and magnesium salts. Finally, the sugar is pumped back into vacuum pans, where it is heated until it crystallizes. The resulting sugar is 99.9 percent sucrose. Sugar that is less refined may be somewhat gray in color and the protein impurities may cause foaming when the sugar is added to the liquid in a given recipe.

BROWN SUGAR
Most brown sugar is ordinary refined sucrose with some of the molasses returned to it (3.5 percent for light brown sugar, 6.5 percent for dark brown). As mentioned above, I prefer to use muscovado natural raw sugar, such as Billington’s and India Tree. Because muscovado natural raw sugar doesn’t have its natural molasses removed, its flavor seems more pure and subtle.

An equal volume of either type of brown sugar compared to white sugar has the same sweetening power, but brown sugar must be measured by packing it into the cup. Dark brown sugar weighs the most because of the added molasses. Molasses also adds moisture to the sugar. Brown sugar contains 2.1 percent water, while plain white sucrose contains only 0.5 percent. Store brown sugar in an airtight container, such as a canning jar, to keep it from losing moisture and solidifying. If this should happen, place a slice of apple on a small piece of waxed paper on top of the sugar and cover the container tightly. After about 24 hours, the sugar will have absorbed enough moisture from the apple to soften.

If you run out of brown sugar and have white sugar and molasses on hand, it’s easy to make your own (see Substitutions, page 655).

MOLASSES
Containing 24 percent water, unsulfured molasses such as Grandma’s has the best flavor because it is refined from the concentrated juice of sugarcane. The sulfured variety is usually a by-product of sugar making and tastes of the residues of sulfur dioxide introduced during the sugar-making process.

REFINER’S SYRUP
Containing 15 to 18 percent water, this is a delicious by-product of sugar refining. When the sugar syrup, after many boilings, ceases to yield crystals, it is filtered and concentrated into this golden-colored syrup. Lyle’s, a British company, packages it as Lyle’s Golden Syrup. It can be used interchangeably with light corn syrup. Refiner’s syrup is carried by supermarkets and specialty stores such as Dean & DeLuca (page 676).

CORN SYRUP
Containing about 24 percent water, corn syrup consists of glucose (from corn sugar) with fructose added to prevent crystallization. It is susceptible to fermentation if contaminated, so be sure not to return any unused portion to the bottle. Fermented corn syrup has a sour taste and should be discarded. If used in low concentration, corn syrup has, by volume, half the sweetening power of
sucrose, but in high concentration it is about equal. It can be used interchangeably with refiner’s syrup.