FOOD and photos of FOOD

[afuna]

Hi everyone! Meet Flammable Mickey:



He has nothing to do with this entry, but a warning is always appropriate when you're dealing with flammable things.



I've become interested in playing with food. My ultimate goal is to able to make things like these:



In the meantime, I'm having fun baking and sharing cookies! I need to find time to make some again soon; these are the ones I brought with me when I went to London *g*

I'm not sure what happened to that last batch to make them so dark. Oddly, I think those might even have been the ones I undercooked.



Sometimes, I make an Everything Salad (tm). Which is basically a bit of everything in my refrigerator that looks even vaguely like it could go into a salad. The more I read food blogs, the more I've come to realize that almost anything can go into a salad, so maybe I should dub it the Everything I'm in the Mood For Salad, or maybe I could call it the Anything Salad, instead.


Occasionally, I watch MasterChef and feel the urge to play around with appearance. That, of course, leads to things like these:


I cut the tomatoes in half, sprinkled dried thyme on them, and then grilled until tender and the skin was almost coming off. That took longer than I thought it would -- I was beginning to worry I'd done something wrong! But eventually it finished, and I had an awesome salad: sweet, sour, and juicy from the tomatoes, balanced by the crisp coolness of the lettuce, and a bit of brown rice. Very simple, but very good.


I've made a variation on these which also has grated cheese, and I'm still not sure how to do it without making a mess of the cheese. Maybe if I don't flip it over...?


My latest project is candied orange zest. I, um, recently discovered that orange zest is just orange peel, and candied orange zest is just orange peel cooked in sugar syrup. I honestly thought that you needed a special machine to make zest / candied zest. Either that, or it would take half a day to make a batch.

Turns out it can be done in about an hour.

Of course, just because it can, doesn't mean it will. My first batch, from a couple days ago, failed in being candied orange zest.



There are many things I may have done wrong; the ones that are different from my next (successful!) batch were that: I used brown instead of white sugar, I cooked for a longer time, but I cooked at a lower temperature, and I had different proportions (1:1 water/sugar). After simmering for 20 minutes (ten more than the time in the recipe I was using!), it got slightly translucent, but it just looked... muddy, and not anything like the orange zest used in garnishes.

It does, however, taste good eaten straight up :-) Orangey, slightly bitter, not very sweet.


Today, I used a different recipe for candied orange zest. From the instructions, it looks like it should take an hour, an hour and a half -- I took three hours, but that was mostly because the sugar syrup crystallized (eek) and it took me an hour to clean that up once it had hardened. I only spent about thirty minutes cooking in syrup, and it actually seemed to me that the orange peel had turned translucent within fifteen.



It's stiffer, sweeter, and actually looks like it could be used as a garnish. It's not perfect; it's a bit hard to chew on, but it's pleasantly sweet and acidic and I love it.

And, and bonus! the leftover syrup (now a big lump of crystal) tastes like orange; I want to use it somewhere else, not yet sure what. (I wonder if it would be a bad idea to try to use it for baking cookies? once I can figure out how to uncrystallize it anyway). Otherwise I'll try mixing it into teas and stuff like that.

I'm not sure what I did wrong: Maybe I had it on too high heat? or left the water boiling too long? or didn't put in enough water? I used eight oranges, and it seemed ridiculous to use four cups of sugar and 1 1/3 cups water; instead I used two cups of sugar to one cup water. So, hmm.

Anyway, I'm still rather pleased at my cooking efforts today. My sweet tooth is rather pleased as well >_>

Comments

[synecdochic]

Simple syrup (which is what the sugar/water syrup is technically called) is generally a 1:1 proportion, 1 cup water for every 1 cup sugar, etc. The trick is to mix the sugar into the water first, in a large saucepan (should be at least 4 times taller than the height of the water; that shit bubbles once it gets going), bring it just to a boil, then -- stirring constantly, and I mean it; you can put the spoon down for like 30 seconds to get something else in the kitchen or whatever, but don't leave it unattended for more than about 2-3 minutes -- simmer it at *just* simmer level for about half an hour. (I haven't done orange zest with that -- I use simple syrup in drinks and desserts -- but I'd say the addition of the orange zest would make it require about 45 minutes or so.) If it starts frothing and the froth won't go down when you stir it, the heat is too high; take up the pot for 20 seconds or so until the froth stops frothing quite as much, turn down the heat a tidge, and keep going.

Brown sugar will thicken faster, but the addition of the molasses makes it easier to scorch/crystalize if you stop stirring for too long, if you let it froth up for too long, or if the heat's too high. Keep a careful eye on it.

(My favorite thing to do with this basic concept: 1 c water, 3/4c white cane sugar, 3/4c brown sugar, 1/2 c pomegranate liqueur or pomegranate juice, add a splash of pear juice if you have it around. It makes the most awesome pomegranate reduction sauce for meats, cheeses, or desserts; I stuff phyllo dough cups with blue cheese, melt in broiler, top with pear slices, and drizzle the reduction over it. sooooo good.)

[afuna]

I love you and the breadth of your cooking knowledge, just so you know ♥

And ohh okay, so it's not a matter of the proportions that was causing crystallization. That's one variable down! Reading between the lines, I wonder if it might have been that I was stirring it too little, instead of too much. I thought, from what I've read about making caramel, that stirring it too much was what would cause it to crystallize, but looks like I got it the wrong way around. Thank you, this is totally helpful!

(Totally going to apply everything you've said here to some kind of food at some point *g*)

[kateshort]

Oooooh, that'd be even better than orange blossom honey in your tea...

[afuna]

Hmph, now I want orange blossom honey *_*