The Cook's Bible of Ingredients

Introduction

Ingredients matter. As the component parts of composite food, ingredients are fundamental to its ultimate quality. Not only should they themselves be of good quality, they should be suitable for their purpose. To cook well, a cook needs to understand the attributes of ingredients he or she is using. The aroma, taste, texture and colour of an ingredient, how it interacts with other ingredients, how it responds to heat, air, liquid or acid, for example, all affect the end result.

With the advent of modern methods of food transportation and conservation, a cook has an ever-increasing, and often bewildering, choice of ingredients; ingredients hitherto only available in their place of origin are now on offer in far flung markets. This affords the home cook much greater scope, and requires more knowledge.

The Cook’s Bible is intended to help the cook identify and appreciate the salient characteristics of a multitude of ingredients. A visual reference, with photographs supported by explanatory captions, it will benefit both novice and more experienced, enquiring cooks. Anyone who has occasion to ask ‘what food is that?’, ‘what is its flavour?’, or ‘how is it used?’ will find it enlightening.

In scope this book is international, catering for cooks world-wide, both in the ingredients featured, and the terms of their descriptions. The world of ingredients is vast. Within the numerous food categories and species, there are many variants and sub-species. It would be impossible to include every known ingredient individually in a single book. However, by featuring representative ingredients from a category, this book is as comprehensive as possible.

Such breadth of subjects necessarily imposes limitations of space. Within this constraint, the maximum of information useful to the cook is imparted in a succinct yet accurate manner. As appropriate, the nature of the ingredient, its particular properties, its place of origin, the way it is prepared, and its applications in cookery are described. Common and alternative names are given, and regional variations in nomenclature are clarified. Flavour profiles can be especially difficult to describe. How flavours are perceived is essentially subjective; the descriptions seek to convey sufficient of an impression to enable the cook to judge whether an ingredient is suitable.

The book is arranged in the order of the recommended dietary food pyramid, commencing with grains and cereals and foods made with those ingredients, progressing through vegetables, fruits, pulses and seeds, dairy products and cheeses, meat, poultry and fish to flavourings and sweeteners. Within each chapter the ingredients are logically grouped by type.

Fresh, seasonal ingredients should form an essential part of daily meal planning. They can be supplemented and enhanced by items from a well-stocked pantry.

Markets always offer the freshest seasonal produce available locally, as well as being a source of less-common ingredients that are sometimes hard to find.

Along with understanding an ingredient, the cook should appreciate the factors which influence its quality. Generally its source is of utmost importance. In the case of ingredients where freshness is vital, such as vegetables, fruits and fish, less time is likely to have elapsed between being harvested and reaching the market with local ingredients than those from further afield. Less time in transit also means that they can be picked riper, and so reach their full potential of flavour and sweetness, as well as arrive in better condition.

Foods raised in their natural environments and at their own pace are usually better. Grown in soil, not hydroponically, sun-ripened, not hot-housed, fruits and vegetables achieve greater depth of flavour. Livestock raised free range, without growth promotants, also develops more texture and flavour. It follows, therefore, that produce out of season is either not local or not naturally grown and, conversely that seasonal food is always likely to be better.

Without detailed labelling, it may be difficult for the purchaser to know where and how an ingredient has been produced. Shopping at local and farmer’s markets, as well as at reputable food stores with well-informed staff will obviate this problem to a degree.

Supplied with good quality ingredients and informed of their salient attributes, any cook can go into the kitchen and prepare meals with confidence. More than merely inform, it is hoped that the Cook’s Bible will encourage and inspire cooks to experiment with the world of ingredients.

Grains & Cereals

Cereals are plants of the grass family. The many separate dry fruits they produce are grains. Certain cereal grains are edible. Used as a food since the earliest times, cereal grains have been hugely important in human history. Their small bulk and excellent keeping qualities made them a crucial survival food. As the first plants to be cultivated, their domestication marked the transition of humans from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists and enabled the foundation of civilizations. Cereal grains continue to be essential human fare and today constitute the most important single class of food in the world.

As a plant’s embryonic offspring, packaged with food for its development, cereal grains are concentrated sources of nourishment. They contain protein and either carbohydrates or fats. However, all grains are deficient in one or more of the essential amino acids, making them an incomplete protein source for animals.

All grains have the same basic structure. Beneath the protective fibrous outer layers, collectively called ‘bran’, is the endosperm, which comprises most of the grain’s volume and stores most of its carbohydrate and protein. At the base of the endosperm is the oil-rich embryo or ‘germ’. Both the bran and the germ contain B-group vitamins and minerals.

Cereals are principally consumed cooked; as grain, they are often eaten in the form of porridge, or as various bread doughs, ground into flour.

Although cereals have many common characteristics, their individual differences have resulted in diverse culinary traditions. Staple cereals differ with geographic zones. Their adaptability to local conditions, yield, and comparative culinary qualities, determined their distribution, as cereals native to one region were introduced elsewhere.

Wheat became the foremost cereal due to the unique quality of its protein. The gluten that forms when wheat flour is mixed with water both resists and stretches under pressure. Because it can expand to accommodate gases produced by yeast, yet contain them, wheat breads can be leavened (caused to rise).

Pseudo-cereals, while not grasses, have a similar nutrient composition to cereals and are treated as such.

Rice

Jasmine rice

A slender, long-grained, aromatic white rice, which clings together slightly when cooked. Grown predominantly in Thailand, where it is the preferred variety, it is also known as Thai or Fragrant rice.

Black Thai rice

A long-grained rice with its black bran intact which, cooked, colours the entire grain purple. Also called Black Sticky and Black Glutinous rice, it is typically used for desserts in SE Asia.

White long-grained rice

Long-grained types of rice from which the bran coat has been completely removed. When cooked, the grains generally remain separate and become fluffy-looking. (See also white short-grain rice on p15.)

Brown long-grained rice

Long-grained types of rice which retain their bran layers. Also called whole and unprocessed, brown rice is often heat-treated to slow rancidity of the bran. It requires longer cooking than white rice.

Basmati rice

An aromatic, narrow, very long-grained variety grown in northern India; valued for its fragrant flavour and firm texture. When cooked, the grains remain separate and dry. The rice for biriani and pilaf.

Wild rice

Now cultivated, a black/brown, elongated, hard seed of a marsh grass native to the Great Lakes region of N. America, distantly related to common rice. Expensive, it is appreciated for its chewy, nutty quality.

Mixed brown and wild rice

A mixture of long-grained brown rice and wild rice, both chewy textured and nutty-flavoured, usually combined to extend the more expensive wild rice. Used in pilafs, stuffings and salads.

White short-grained rice

Round, short-grained types of rice, with the bran coat completely removed. The grains cook to a soft consistency and cling together. Also called pudding rice.

Brown short-grained rice

Round, short-grained rices which retain their bran layer. As well as sharing the general characteristics of unpolished rice, the grains become soft and sticky on cooking.

Arborio

A plump, large-grained, starchy Italian rice, graded superfino. Able to absorb a lot of liquid without bursting, it is particularly used for risotto.

Vialone nano

A plump, medium-grained, starchy Italian rice, graded fino, particularly used for risotto due to its capacity to absorb twice its weight in liquid without bursting.

Carnaroli

Dubbed ‘the king of Italian rice’, this large-grained starchy rice, graded super-fino, remains firm while absorbing much liquid, so is prized for risotto.

Sushi

Stubby, short-grained white rice with a high starch content which becomes sticky when cooked. Flavoured with sweetened vinegar, it forms the basis of Japanese sushi.

Red rice

A hard, unmilled rice, actually russet-hued, due to the colour of the bran layer. The French Camargue variety is short-grained, chewy, nutty and slightly sticky when cooked.

White sticky rice

Mostly short-grained rice that becomes sticky when cooked. Also known as glutinous or sweet rice, it is used mainly for desserts.

Rice flour

Powdery, finely ground rice, non-glutinous or glutinous. Entirely starch, with no gluten-forming proteins, it is used as a thickening agent, to make crunchy coatings and in baked goods for crispness.

Poha

Very light flakes with jagged edges and a rough texture, made by flattening parboiled rice grains with rollers, then drying them. An Indian ingredient, also called pawa or pounded rice, the flakes are fried or cooked in milk.

Rice flakes

Parboiled rice which has been flattened under heavy rollers, then dried. The resultant fine flakes are used by the food processing industry.

Ground rice

Coarsely ground, non-glutinous rice. Used for its crisp granular texture in, for example, classic Scottish shortbread and, for its thickening properties, in the Indian blancmange firni. Roasted, it is sprinkled over Thai and Vietnamese dishes.

RICE BRAN

The outer seed-coat of the rice grain, rubbed off after removal of the hull during milling and processing. Rich in oils and vitamins, rice bran quickly becomes rancid unless defatted. Stabilized, it is used in food manufacture for its foaming qualities.

In Japan, rice bran is roasted to extract the flavour, then mixed with water and salt, before being used to pickle vegetables such as daikon, cucumber and carrot.

Corn

Corn flakes

A breakfast cereal, made by rolling then toasting cooked grits, the coarsely ground endosperm of corn or maize. Light and crisp when dry, they are principally consumed doused with milk.

Popcorn

A variety of maize, the starchy interior of which cooks and swells when heated, the pressure eventually bursting the kernel and turning it inside-out. Typically the light crisp puffy white kernels are salted and eaten as a snack.

Cornmeal

Ground dried maize (corn) kernels, termed cornmeal in the UK and cornflour in the USA. It may be fine or coarse in texture, depending on the milling, and yellow, white or blue, depending upon the variety of maize, blue being softer and less starchy.

Cornflour

A fine powder made from the ground endosperm of maize kernels, known as cornflour in the UK and cornstarch in the USA. Almost pure starch, and containing no lump-forming gluten, it is mainly used as a thickening agent. Virtually flavourless.

Polenta

Cornmeal, fine or coarse, yellow or white. A staple of N. Italy, it is traditionally boiled with water to make a thick porridge, and either served warm, or cooled then fried, grilled or baked.

Rye and Barley

Rye flour

Milled from a hardy cereal grass, rye flour is historically the bread-making staple of northern Europe and Nordic regions and is the defining ingredient in pumpernickel, black bread and crispbread. With a faintly bitter flavour, it is grey in colour, either light or dark according to the amount of bran remaining. Because rye is low in gluten, breads made from only rye flour are dense. A moisture-trapping gum in the grain gives rye doughs a characteristic stickiness and keeps the bread moist.

Rye flakes

Flakes formed by flattening whole rye grains between rollers. Also called rolled rye, the flakes are cooked as a breakfast porridge or toasted and added to commercial breakfast cereals. Due to their unusual configuration, the sugars in rye break down very slowly to simple sugar and thus take a long time to digest, effectively reducing appetite.

Pearl barley

Barley grains with their husks and pellicles (outer layers) removed, then steamed and polished until round and shiny. Pearl barley, the most common form, is used to thicken stews and soups, notably Scotch broth, and has little taste of its own. Pot barley, which has had some of the bran removed, requires long cooking to soften it.

Barley flakes

The flakes produced by flattening whole grains of barley, outer husks removed, between rollers. Used to make milk puddings, porridge and added to breakfast cereals such as muesli, they have a distinct flavour and are slightly chewy. Flakes may be softened by soaking before being used in baked products.

Barley flour

Ground and powdered pearl barley. Because barley contains little gluten, leavened breads made with only barley flour are dense and heavy. Most barley breads are unleavened griddle breads. For leavened breads, barley flour is best mixed with wheat flour. Lacking the water-retaining properties of the gluten network, barley bread goes stale quickly. Barley meal is a wholemeal flour that is coarsely ground from hulled barley.

Wheat

Whole-wheat flour

Milled from the entire wheat kernel, whole-wheat flour contains all of the grain’s bran, germ and endosperm. Also known as wholemeal and, in the USA, graham flour, it is used for baking and general cooking. In unbaked doughs the fibrous bran pierces the gluten network, damaging its structure. Thus breads and cakes made with whole-wheat, rather than refined, flour rise less and bake to a closer texture.

Wheat flakes

The large, thick, firm flakes produced when whole-wheat kernels are steamed, then flattened between rollers. Because the flakes retain the bran and germ, most of the kernel’s nutrition remains, although the oils in the germ rapidly become rancid. Also called rolled wheat, the flakes, like rolled oats, are cooked as porridge or added to baked goods.

Wheat germ

The small flakes milled from the embryo, or germ, which is separated from the wheat grain during the milling of white flour. Rich in nutrients, it is added to baked goods and breakfast cereals, or sprinkled over dishes, adding a nutty flavour. Because the germ’s high oil content causes it rapidly to become rancid, it should be stored airtight, and chilled.

Unbleached wheat flour

Creamy coloured flour which has not undergone an artificial bleaching process. As it ages, wheat flour naturally bleaches from the oxygen in the air, resulting not only in bread with a whiter crumb but also a greater volume, plus a finer, softer crumb. Bleached flour is treated with oxidizing agents to simulate this process, albeit more quickly.

Wheatmeal

Wheat flour containing 80 to 90 percent of the whole grain, the bulk of the bran being removed in milling but much of the germ remaining. In colour, flavour, baking and keeping qualities, it falls midway between wholewheat and white flours. Wheatmeal is also known as brown flour.

White flour

A fine powder, ground principally from the starchy endosperm of the wheat grain, with almost all the bran and germ removed during milling. For baking, flour is distinguished by degrees of hardness; the harder the flour the more gluten-forming proteins it contains. Thus hard flour, called strong flour in the UK, and bread flour or hard flour in the USA, is better for yeast-raised products, while weaker, soft flour, called plain or all-purpose flour in the UK, and cake flour or soft flour in the USA, being more able to absorb fat, is better for cakes and short pastry.

Wheat bran

Flakes, fine or coarse, of the fibrous outer layer of the wheat grain, separated during milling. Consisting mostly of indigestible cellulose, bran is consumed for the health benefits of roughage. However, its consumption does have a negative effect. The fibre renders bran’s high concentrations of minerals and vitamins digestively unavailable and its phytic acid impairs the absorption of calcium. Bran is sprinkled over fruit, or added to breakfast cereals, and baked goods such as breads, biscuits and muffins.

Wheat-based grains

Cracked wheat

Whole-wheat grains broken into coarse, medium or fine fragments during milling. Also called kibbled wheat, it is added, soaked, to bread.

Bulgar wheat

Hulled wheat grains, steamed, dried, then crushed in coarse or fine grades. A Middle Eastern staple, also known as burghul, bulgur, pourgouri and pligouri, it is the basis of tabbouleh and kibbeh.

Atta flour

A fine wholemeal flour made from soft, low gluten wheat. Used to make