Wizard Recipes

In principle, roasting meats is a simple procedure. The prepared cut of meat is placed in an oven at a selected temperature, and it is removed when done. What could be easier?

However, there are many variables, and chefs often disagree about proper roasting procedures, especially when it comes to the fine points. In this article, you will learn a roasting procedure that you can apply to most meats. But first we discuss in more detail several of the points of disagreement and some of the possible variations.

SEASONING

Salt added to the surface of meat just before roasting will penetrate the meat only a fraction of an inch during cooking. The same is true of the flavors of herbs, spices,and aromatics.

In the case of smaller cuts of meat, such as beef tenderloin or rack of lamb, the seasoned, browned crust that forms during roasting is an important part of the flavor of the finished dish. Although opinions vary, many chefs advocate seasoning such roasts immediately before roasting so the salt doesn’t have time to draw moisture to the surface, which inhibits browning.

In the case of large roasts, such as beef ribs and steamship rounds, there is so little crust in proportion to meat that seasoning before roasting has little effect. Also, if the surface of the roast is mostly fat covering or bone, the seasoned fat and bones may not even be served, so the seasoning has little effect.

With roasts of any size, two alternatives to seasoning just before roasting are often used:

• Marinate the meat or apply seasonings in advance, to give the time for flavors to penetrate.
• Serve the meat with a flavorful sauce, gravy, or jus. The sauce serves as a seasoning and flavoring for the meat.

Another way to add flavor to roasted meats is to smoke-roast them. Commercial smoker ovens roast meats in the same way as conventional ovens, except that they also have a smoke-generating unit that passes smoke through the oven chamber, flavoring foods as they cook.

The flavor of wood smoke in cooked meats is so popular that some restaurants have even installed wood-burning hearth ovens to bake and roast meats, pizza,and other items.

Stovetop smoke roasting is an alternative to smoker ovens.

TEMPERATURE

Low-Temperature Roasting

It was once thought that starting the roast at a high temperature “seals the pores” by searing the surface,thus keeping in more juices. We now know that this is not the case. Repeated tests have shown that continuous roasting at a low temperature gives a superior product with

1. Less shrinkage.

2. More flavor, juiciness, and tenderness.

3. More even doneness from outside to inside.

4. Greater ease in carving.

Low roasting temperatures generally range from 250° to 325°F (120° to 160°C), depending on

1. The size of the cut. The larger the cut, the lower the temperature. This ensures that the outer portion is not overcooked before the inside is done.

2. The operation’s production schedule. Lower temperatures require longer roasting times,which may or may not be convenient for a particular operation.

Searing

If a well-browned, crusted surface is desired for appearance, such as when the roast is to be carved in the dining room, a roast may be started at high temperature (400° to 450°F/200° to 230°C) until it is browned. The temperature should then be lowered to the desired roasting temperature and the meat roasted until done, as for low temperature roasting.

High-Temperature Roasting

Very small pieces of meat that are to be roasted rare may be cooked at a high temperature, from 375° to 450°F (190° to 230°C).The effect is similar to that of broiling :a well browned, crusted exterior and a rare interior. The meat is in the oven for so short a time  that there is little shrinkage. Examples of cuts that may be roasted at a high temperature are rack of lamb and beef tenderloin.

Convection Ovens

If a convection oven is used for roasting,the temperature should be reduced about 50°F (25°C).Many chefs prefer not to use convection ovens for large roasts because the drying effect of the forced air seems to cause greater shrinkage. On the other hand, convection ovens are effective in browning and are good for high-temperature roasting.

FAT SIDE UP OR FAT SIDE DOWN

Roasting meats fat side up provides continuous basting as the fat melts and runs down the sides. This method is preferred by perhaps the majority of chefs, although there is not complete agreement.

BASTING

Basting is unnecessary if the meat has a natural fat covering and is roasted fat side up. For lean meats, barding has the same effect. Barding is covering the surface of the meat with a thin layer of fat, such as sliced pork fatback or bacon.

If a roast is basted by spooning pan drippings over it, use only the fat.Fat protects the roast from drying, while moisture washes away protective fat and allows drying. Juices used in basting will not soak into the meat.

Basting with drippings or juices may be used to increase the appetite appeal of the roast because it enhances browning. Gelatin and other solids dissolved in the juices are

deposited on the surface of the meat, helping form a flavorful brown crust.

This does not increase juiciness, however. Some cookbooks claim that basting forms a waterproof coating that seals in juices, but this is not the case.

Basting sometimes produces more tender roasts for an unexpected reason: Frequent basting interrupts and slows down the cooking. Every time the oven door is opened, the temperature in the oven drops considerably, so the roasting time is longer and more connective tissue breaks down. Thus, it is not the basting but the lower temperature that increases tenderness.

Baking seems simple to us: put the well-risen, proofed dough in the hot oven and take it out when it is fully baked. If all went well (and there is no reason why it shouldn’t), we place a still steaming, irresistibly-perfumed, brown-crusted, mouth-wateringly beautiful loaf of bread on a wire rack, and we are ready to cut into it after a short cooling period.

But the baking process is anything but simple. There is a series of very complex chemical reactions and physical processes that happen during bread baking, so complex that even food scientists who have studied the baking process for decades are far from fully understanding it.

For our purposes as home chefs we don’t need to know more about these complex reactions than the very basics which are simple. In a nutshell, here is what happens in the oven. There are three stages of baking.

1. The first stage covers the first quarter of baking time, until the temperature of the dough reaches 140°F (60°C). That is the temperature when the yeast cells die. Up to that point the rising heat keeps the yeast more and more active to produce a great amount of carbon dioxide gas.

All the gas trapped in the dough now expands rapidly as we still remember from our physics class-heat expands gases. Another thing happens, too. The by-product alcohol the yeast produce after gobbling up the sugar evaporates and turns into gas in the hot oven.

The result? Even more gases in the dough. As a consequence, the dough expands rapidly. Bread bakers call this process oven spring- the bread dough springs up. Anticipating oven spring is the reason why you don’t let the dough fully double in the last rise.

If you allowed the dough to rise too much, the expanding gases during oven spring may rupture the barely solidified gluten structure, and the loaf may partially deflate. Also, if you let the dough rise too much, its structure becomes too unstable, and even such last-minute action as slashing and glazing may partially deflate it.

Should that happen to you, don’t trash the bread-it is still edible but a little dense and too firm. It may still be fine for toast. At the end of this first stage the gluten begins to coagulate and the starch to gelatinize.

Both processes are changes from soft, flaccid phase to firm and solid, and both occur at close to the same temperature, about 145°F (63°C). Once both gluten and starch are solid, the oven spring ends, the structure cannot expand any more-but by then the yeast cells are dead and they cannot produce more gas anyway.

2. During the second phase of baking, that makes up about one-half of the total baking time, the structure becomes more solid, progressing from the solidified crust toward the center. This phase is over when the center finally also turns solid. In the same time, near the end of the phase, the top crust begins to brown.

3. In the third phase, the final quarter of baking, the top surface dries out and turns brown.

These two processes form that splendid crisp crust of a fresh-baked bread. Even though browning only takes place on the thin outer surface, it affects the flavor of the entire loaf because the flavors (produced by the browning reaction) disseminate inward.

To prove the importance of this stage, try baking one light-colored and one dark-colored loaf from the same dough. The darker one will have noticeably more flavor. When knowledgeable housewives bought their breads in European village bakeries, they always asked for the darker loaves.

Cakes are favorites in all western cuisines, while tortes are just as popular in pastry kitchens with French culinary influence. The difference is small but significant-tortes are cakes with little or no flour. They acquire their bodies from ground nuts and plenty more eggs.

Some tortes may have a small amount of flour to thicken the batter, some have dry bread crumbs. Tortes use 2 to 4 times the number of eggs that most cake recipes call for. Both cakes and tortes receive high esteem on dining tables, and when it comes to a celebration or a festive occasion, one or the other is unquestionably the choice as the last course in our dining rooms.

The selection may be as simple as a home-baked cake from a mix, or a basic inscribed supermarket cake in technicolor or elaborate, exquisite torte from a high-end pastry shop.

The name torte has been misused by fashionable menu writers to enhance the image of a simple cake. Torte connotes something rich, European and elegant. Now airline meal menu may denote “torte” as one item on your crammed tray of food for the small piece of simple, unpretentious white cake topped with a strawberry-flavored sugar syrup.

The high reputation of tortes is well-deserved. Not because cakes cannot be equally sumptuous and elaborate and just as difficult to produce. Yet, a humble home baker can bake a simple, easy, almost foolproof cake, but any true torte takes meticulous care, some knowledge and baking experience before you can serve it with pride. And they are anything but foolproof.

Tortes don’t have a flour matrix to give them strength, and are particularly sensitive to collapse if you dare to disturb them before fully set in the oven. They rely entirely on solidified egg white foam structure for support, which is considerably weaker than a combination of flour and egg white. There is no starch that gelatinizes on heat to give the body extra strength.

Perfect cakes and tortes are light and tender, with moist body, just the opposite of good yeast bread where the goal is a chewy and firm texture with strength provided by the gluten structure. The trick to a light cake is not allowing the gluten to develop, the arch enemy of all sweet baked products. Since tortes have no flour, gluten problems don’t exist. Cakes do have flour but you can do two things to reduce the chances for gluten development:

1. Use cake flour which has minimal protein (that produces gluten),

2. Stir the batter as little as possible to discourage gluten formation. The high fat in cakes is helpful-fat coats flour particles and insulates them from moisture. Without moisture, gluten cannot develop.

Planning ahead

Before you start the baking project, decide if you want a layer cake and if so, how many layers. You can have a two, three or many layers. The authentic, glorious Hungarian dobos torta has seven bread-slice thin layers. There are two ways to make layers.

Either divide the cake batter into as many portions as layers in the cake and bake each in separate pans, or bake the cake in a single pan and cut the cooled cake with a serrated knife into layers. There is a difference. If you bake in a single pan, the cake bakes longer and you have more chance of a collapsing catastrophe. But with a serrated knife you can cut even, flat-topped layers.

In single pans you are safer when baking, but you may need to trim off the domed tops for even layers, and the cake tends to dry out more in the shallow pans. For 2 or 3-layered cake, the choice is yours. For a 7-layered cake you need seven cake pans-it is very difficult to cut a single cake into seven thin, equal layers.

Have sets of good-quality, heavy pans and torte pans (with removable bottoms), preferably in more than one size. Light, inexpensive aluminum pans will not help for even baking. You can grease the pan either with solid fat (butter, vegetable shortening) or, for convenience, with oil spray, both produce identical results.

Dust the greased surface with flour and shake off excess to assure that the cake will release easily. For additional insurance, cut a round of waxed or parchment paper to fit the bottom. Fit the paper into the pan after greasing and flouring both the pans and the paper’s surface in contact with the cake. You will have virtually no chance for the dreaded stuck-to-the-pan cake.

And here is another professional trick that is an extra step for you but helps baking professional-looking and high quality cakes and tortes. The sides of cakes and tortes brown faster than the rest because they are in direct contact with the hot metal.

Home bakers generally leave the over-browned layer on the cake and cover it with frosting. If too brown, they may trim it off. Many professional bakers, on the other hand, want to avoid too much browning.

They wet a kitchen towel, fold it until it is a long, thin narrow strip and tie it around the cake pan. The moisture in the towel slowly evaporates in the oven, cooling the metal just enough to reduce over-browning. An extra step but it is worth it.

Vegetables are extremely versatile in the kitchen. We may use any of the following cooking methods to prepare them:

1. Boiling, blanching or parboiling. All these terms refer to the same cooking method- cooking in briskly boiling large amount of salted water, akin to pasta cooking. The reason for large amount of water is to keep it at boil as much as possible when you add the vegetables.

A large body of liquid keeps its heat better than a small amount. When you add the vegetables, it returns to boil relatively quickly. Large amount also helps to dilute accumulating leached-out acids that would change the color.

Blanching and parboiling are the same things. The terms imply cooking in boiling water until nearly cooked but still quite crisp. Once you remove the vegetables from the boiling water, you quickly immerse them in cold water to stop the cooking process (iced water, that some cookbooks suggest, is not necessary-cold water instantly stops the process and you avoid an unnecessary step of ice water preparation).

Then the vegetables are ready for a next cooking step, for cold storage or as salad ingredient. Boiling is a term that implies cooking to a softer stage than blanching. Today many cooks prefer to serve freshly-blanched crisp vegetables instead of boiled.

You always add salt to the water to cook vegetables. The amount is about ½ teaspoon for every quart (liter) of water. Without salt the boiling water leaches out the vegetables’ natural salt and the flavor becomes flat.

Blanching produces the brightest colored vegetables of all cooking methods. They become brighter than their natural colors. Why? Vegetables are made up of tiny cells that contain the coloring pigments.

There is a thin layer of air that surrounds each cell and that layer slightly mutes the color in living plants. It is similar to looking through a fogged-up windshield. The heat in blanching removes that thin air layer from the surface cells, and the muting effect disappears-the colors become brighter, like if you had put on the defroster for your windshield.

2. Steaming is a slower process than boiling or blanching requiring nearly twice the cooking time. Many cooks swear by steaming as the method for best-tasting vegetables. But thers (myself included) disagree. When you steam and blanch the same vegetable to the same degree of doneness, you notice a slight but distinct difference.

Steaming does not bring the flavors out as fully as cooking in boiling water does. You may want to try it yourself and decide. You don’t need to salt the water when steaming in spite of some cookbook directions. Salt does not evaporate with the steam and the vegetables remain unaffected.

3. Stir-frying, sautéing and frying are closely related methods. All use high heat and oil or fat to prevent sticking to the pan and to develop the flavor by the browning reaction In stir-frying you add just a film of oil, in sautéing somewhat more and you fry in deep, hot oil. When frying in a lot of oil, the cook needs to coat the vegetable with a batter, or the fast-escaping steam from the vegetables makes a terrible spatter in the oil. The coating moderates the direct contact of the hot steam and the oil, resulting in plenty of hissing and sizzling but less spattering.

4. Baking or roasting is suitable for many of the sturdier vegetables. Those with particularly high moisture content, such as cucumbers, are not suitable-by the time they are finished roasting, not much more than a brown pellet left. You always stir in a small amount of oil or fat with baked or roasted vegetables to help them brown and inhibit sticking to the pan.

You may also add seasonings with the oil. Add robust herbs and spices early in the process but subtle-flavored herbs lose too much essential oil during the baking process, so it is best to add them late. For baking or roasting, use whole vegetables or large chunks. If you cut them into too small pieces, they dry out too much.

5. Broiling and grilling vegetables are just like broiling or grilling meat, except it is necessary to add some oil or fat to avoid sticking and promote browning. For this method the vegetables are often in thick slices.

6. Microwave cooking is very popular because of its speed. Many cooks believe in this method yet it is so fast that overcooking is a real danger. You leave the vegetables in the microwave oven just 30 seconds too long, and you end up with a product ready to be puréed for baby food. Microwave cooking doesn’t brings out flavors, either. Test it for yourself and compare. Cook, say green beans, in the microwave to the same doneness as green beans you cook in boiling water or in a steamer.

My memorable microwave cooking lesson was at a good friend’s summer dinner party at the height of the corn season. He was a first-class gardener and his wife was a third-class cook. Unfortunately, she was the designated cook in the house. Minutes before dinner he picked fresh young corn in his backyard garden, handed them to his wife while us guests looked on in an expectation for fabulous culinary delights.

Fresh-picked corn is a rarity in most of our lives and the flavor is often ahead of caviar and truffles. The corn cobs were ready in record time-she microwaved them. Instead of culinary delight it was a struggle to chew and swallow the tough, flavorless kernels. The microwaves totally annihilated them. It was a pure waste growing them since in this case frozen corn would have easily surpassed the fresh.

Appearance and presentation are all-important in contemporary North American dining rooms. The truth is, we consider bread almost like a glass of water by our plates, a standard fare.

You can bake a wonderful bread that looks like a showpiece in a classy baker’s window, yet few of your guest stop dinner conversation to ooh and aah when you bring in the bread basket filled with a spectacular, warm Italian Tuscan bread you just pulled from the oven. Few even ask if the bread is your own.

But a perfectly arranged and color-coordinated dinner on a plate, an artistically composed salad or a simple decorated poppy seed-chocolate torte will stop the most heated discussion, even if only for a moment.

A major reward you do get from baking your own bread is satisfaction in performing this seemingly demanding task and, of course, savoring it.

As far as difficulty is concerned, if you are organized, you keep your basic staples on your shelf replenished, and have a basic kitchen experience, you can assemble a quick bread batter in 15 to 20 minutes.

By the time you pour the batter in the pan, the oven is hot, and in 40 minutes you have the loaf cooling on the counter. It is ready to cut, butter and eat in another 15 minutes. Actual work time is 25 minutes, including slicing and cleanup.

Yeast breads take a considerably longer time, but surprisingly not much more total work time once you are a regular bread baker.

To assemble the ingredients and knead the dough takes 15 to 20 minutes, less if you use a food processor or mixer. The first rise takes about 1 to 1½ hours.

It takes only a few minutes to punch down the dough, shape it and place it in a pan for the second rise, which takes some 40 to 50 minutes. A bread bakes in another 40 to 50 minutes, rolls 15 minutes.

Total time is over 3 hours, but your actual working time, including slicing and cleanup, is about 25 minutes when hand kneading or 15 minutes when using a machine. Is this realistic? Once your bread baking is routine, it is and you can prove it to yourself.

Is yeast bread worth the wait? You bet! Other culinary achievements that rival the satisfaction of baking a great bread is stirring up a wonderful, hearty soup or baking a spectacular cake.

PERHAPS it’s the weather, the twitter of springtime. But the approach of Easter has never inspired cooks to stay in the kitchen and light the oven with the fervor that accompanies the Christmas holiday season.

Decorating eggs and buying chocolate ones, not baking rafts of cookies and soaking dense fruitcakes, are what Easter is about.

Even in Italy, the country with perhaps the richest and most varied Easter baking traditions, some of the pies and savory pizza rusticas are meant for a picnic, the Easter Monday outing. And these specialties are often purchased in bakeries, not made at home

Fabio Trabocchi, the chef at Fiamma, who is from Osimo, a town in the region of the Marche in central Italy, recalled that as a child, he and his sister would go to the bakery to pick out the pizza al formaggio, a kind of rich, eggy cheese bread that was served with scrambled eggs seasoned with mint for Easter breakfast, and with salami for lunch.

”In the old days women would bake the pizza al formaggio at home,” he said. ”But mostly you buy it. Modern life is everywhere.”

In the limited Swiss repertory, there is a custard tart, with rice, lemon and almonds in the filling, which is served only at Easter. ”It was called gâteau de Pâques and I remember it very well,” said Gray Kunz, the chef who was born in Singapore but grew up in Geneva and Bern. ”There would be a bunny in icing sugar stenciled on top. It was something from the bakery.”

During Lent, Christian families traditionally did not eat animal products, even eggs, making these foods all the more important for Easter celebrations.

The cook was kept busy preparing for an Easter table laden with lamb and pork, cured meats and egg-rich dishes, often brightened with spring greens and herbs. Dessert was secondary to the indulgence of the meal.

Today, generous pastries and pizzas layered with meats, cheeses and vegetables meant to anchor a lunch emerge from Italian ovens. Breads golden with egg yolks, sometimes baked with dyed hard-cooked eggs embedded in them, are typical not just of Italy, but also of many other countries, including those that, like Greece, celebrate Orthodox Easter.

For cooks who insist on doing their own baking, cookware shops have lamb-, fish- and dove-shaped pans for cakes and sweet breads; flower molds for cupcakes; cookie cutters in the shapes of bunnies and chicks; and bakeware meant for hot cross buns.

But going beyond these clichés is not a challenge. Take that Swiss tart, for example.

The ingredients, including almonds, often show up for Easter, frequently in the form of marzipan. The rice might be the equivalent of the young wheat that is soaked and folded into an Italian Easter pie called pastiera di grano, from Sicily, the part of Italy where bakers are often busiest.

Dorothea Cvijanovich, a native of Bern who now lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she does catering and teaches baking, said the tart can be made with farina or even bits of brioche soaked in milk instead of rice, and that traditionally it was made with hazelnuts, not almonds.

”Hazelnuts are very much more Swiss,” she said. ”Maybe the rice or wheat are used in place of all nuts because nuts were so much more expensive.”

She also said that light or dark raisins can be added to the filling, and that her father liked it rich, with more eggs and some cream.

Nick Malgieri, the baking teacher and author, discovered the tart when he was in Switzerland and based his somewhat lighter recipe on several he found there.

A Finnish rye and wheat Easter bread, paasiaisleipa, which also calls for almonds, eggs, cream, raisins and lemon zest, is seasoned with cardamom and is baked in a milk pail.

One of the most famous of all Easter breads is the Russian kulich, a tall but delicate sweet yeasted bread that is sugared and decorated with the initials XB, which stand for ”Christ is risen.”

In England and Ireland, hot cross buns are typical of the Easter season, and remain popular in America, too. Simnel cake, a kind of light fruit cake that is made for Christmas as well as for Easter, is an English confection that dates back to Medieval times. It is blanketed with marzipan and decorated with 11 marzipan balls that represent all the Apostles except for Judas