minoanmiss | An edible Rosetta stone

You're viewing

minoanmiss's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

I find this series a bit fascinating: something I know well discussed in terminology I am completely unfamiliar with. This is the kind of thing the Internet is for. [1]

Watch on YouTube

[1] After all we can use this to make various sorts of food porn.

Current Mood: amused

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

acelightning2

A bechamel sauce is the base for most baked souffles and some kinds of puddings or custards. I have seen recipes where they saute aromatics in the melted butter before adding the flour and milk. And if you cook a bechamel long enough, it becomes a roux. And even the way my aunt made turkey gravy resembled a bechamel - saute flour in the greasy pan drippings, then liquefy it with broth, and you've got basic homemade gravy. And a bechamel made with broth, wine, or other flavorul liquids becomes one or another of the classic French sauce bases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_mother_sauces)

Don't think of plain white bechamel as a sauce in itself; thing of it as a technique, a way to make different sauces out of simple ingredients.

From:

petra

This is a pretty good translation of the video, yes.

From:

acelightning2

You need to know basic techniques, like how to thicken a sauce or how to fold whipped egg whites (or whipped cream) into a batter, just like you need to know "reading writing and 'rithmetic" to do basic schoolwork. It helps if you learned to cook by hanging out with someone who was very good at it, watching their hands. Sometimes my mom and my aunt would put their hands over mine and make my hands move in the right ways for kneading bread dough or making pie crust. After I had the stroke, I tried to make baking powder biscuits for dinner, but my hands had forgotten how. I asked the spirits of my mom and aunt to put their (spectral) hands over mine, and it worked. The lost muscle memory reasserted itself. Physical technique is the most important part of activities like cooking, drawing, sewing, and woodworking.

(I can't draw any kind of representational art. My people look like rag dolls, my animals like plastic toddler toys, my plants like plastic flowers, and my buildings like wooden blocks. )