Lauren Saria

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Chimichurri sauce is a variation of green sauce that originates from Argentina. It's served at Orange Table over grilled steak and eggs with two eggs, potatoes and toast, although some customers also like it over their hand-pulled corned beef hash.

Get the recipe after the jump.

wikimedia

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This week we answer the question: I saw tamarind concentrate and tamarind paste at the Indian market. What's the difference? How do I use them?

Don't think you've tasted tamarind? Check out the list of ingredients on the label of your bottle of Worcestershire sauce and you may be surprised to see tamarind. This fruit is often, mistakenly, referred to as a bean because its sweet-sour pulp and seeds grow inside a pod on the evergreen Tamarindus Indica tree.

Native to East Africa, the tree thrives in tropical climates. Found in ancient India and Egypt, tamarind trees also grow in Southeast Asia and were brought to the West Indies, Latin America and eventually southern regions of U.S. during the colonial expansion. The name comes from the Arabic tamarhindi: Indian date.

The unripe fruit is very sour and acidic. As the fruit ripens on the tree, it changes color from green to brown. During the drying process the sugar content increases and the red- brown pulp inside the pod develops its distinctive acidic sweet-sour slightly fruity flavor.

How to find, prepare and use tamarind after the jump.

Jackie Mercandetti

Various pies from Rock Springs Cafe.

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Over the weekend, ABC's Nightline ran a segment on pie, which if you haven't been paying attention is the hyped "next cupcake." The usual suspects were included; Martha, pop ups, and pretty, young pastry chefs. Following the segment, we received a request to roll out 150 mini pies to sub for a groom's cake at an up coming wedding. We'll think about that one.

Not inclined to bake your own pie? There are a handful of places to grab a slice around town. Just be cautious of pie places that over-promise and under-deliver. Take this week's piece about Rock Springs Cafe's pie for instance:

"The crusts are markedly dark brown, an indication of over-baking. The edges are uniformly stamped; only the caramelized spikes of the lemon meringue and thumb indentations on the double-crusted apple have any hint of a home-baked look"...full story

Of course, if you are having your own pie moment, we can't leave you to run off and bake without a few words of advice. 

Learn how to roll out the perfect pie crust after the jump.

Carol Blonder

en papillote

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Forming a tightly sealed packet to hold and cook food is the perfect method for steaming or moist heat cooking. Steam is created inside the packet from an outside heat source and the natural moisture from the food or liquid added to the packet. The tightly sealed packet holds natural juices from food like tender fish, boneless chicken, vegetables and fruit during cooking, adding moisture and enhancing the flavor of a dish.

It's a simple technique that delivers great flavor, aroma, and a "wow" factor in presentation. En papillote is the French term for cooking in a parchment packet. Parchment paper has a silicone coating which prevents food from sticking and can handle high temperatures (up to 450 F) without breaking down or burning.

tips and techniques after the jump

sekimura-wikimedia commons

smoked salmon eggs benedict

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This week's question: How to fix a sauce that has separated or broken?

The challenge: In preparing hollandaise, béarnaise, mayonnaise and even a simple vinaigrette the cook is creating an emulsion-a balanced mixture of two liquid ingredients that do not mix. In making vinaigrette it is the oil and vinegar, in egg based sauces like hollandaise and béarnaise it is the egg yolks and butter, and in mayonnaise it is egg yolks, oil and vinegar that need to hold together.

A broken sauce is a sauce where the oil or butter separates from the sauce.

How it works: Emulsions are accomplished successfully if one liquid is added to the other beginning with small amounts and the addition is done very slowly. The mixture is rapidly whisked as one ingredient is added to the other, literally drop by drop to start.

Whisking adds air and suspends tiny droplets of the liquid being added throughout the other liquid ingredient.

getting in trouble and out of trouble

Carol Blonder

spices and seeds for garam masala

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That ubiquitous bottle or tin of yellow powder from the spice shelf at the grocery store only hints at the flavor delivered by the curry powder found in the kitchen of an Indian cook. In authentic Indian cooking, curry powder is made fresh and often the spices are chosen and mixed specific to a dish it is used to flavor.

Home made curry powder varies by region throughout India and is now used widely in other cuisines. Family preferences add to the variety of curry powder recipes handed down and adapted by each generation.

Traditional curry powder is a blend of 20 ground herbs and spices. The pre made curry powder we are most familiar with is a British colonial adaptation of the complex spice blend.

Curry powder is used as a seasoning, adding flavor and color to a dish. Common ingredients include cardamom, dried chile, cinnamon, clove, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, mace, nutmeg, red and black peppercorn, poppy seed, sesame seed, saffron, tamarind, and turmeric. Madras curry powder packs some heat.

jump to find out what's in garam masala and how its used

Carol Blonder

caramel sauce or butterscotch?

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Caramelpalooza is almost here and Chow Bella (if you haven't noticed) staff, contestants and judges are getting excited.

Caramel brings to mind another simple to prepare, sugar-based sweet: butterscotch, associated more with nostalgic American desserts than fine French sweets. 

The question that came up this week: what is the difference between caramel and butterscotch?

Both caramel and butterscotch making begin with cooking sugar on the stove- top, usually with water. While the sugar-water mixture is boiling, the water evaporates, the sugar dissolves, then melts. As the sugar continues to cook, it passes through various stages, from thread (230 F) to caramel (320-340 F), with gradations of ball and crack, (really those are candy terms!) stages in between.

how to make caramel sauce after the jump

marie carianna@flikrCC

Fleur de Lis shaped King Cake, New Orleans

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Far from Bourbon Street, we desert dwellers limit our thinking of Carnival to one night a year, the night of Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. If you haven't been to the Big Easy for Carnival, the celebration is easily reduced to a night to feast New Orleans style, imbibe without restraint, wear gaudy green, purple and gold colored beads, don a masque and slice into a King Cake to see if you won the prize.

Carnival begins on January 6th, Twelfth Night, and lasts until Ash Wednesday, a fast day. Traditions for Carnival date back to the first celebrations of the feast of the Epiphany and are loaded with meaning. Historians tell us early Christian leaders absorbed pagan rituals of feasting, drinking and a time of disguise into the holiday.

Part of the pagan practice was to choose a king for a day, by placing a bean or a pea representing fertility, a good harvest, health and prosperity into food. The winner of the bean would become King for a year, which sounds like fun, but at the end of the year, the King may have been sacrificed- part of the tradition Christians wisely dispensed with.

more on King cake history and where to buy in Phoenix

Carol Blonder

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Some of you are smirking now, right? How can someone not know how to boil- an-egg? Well, wipe the smirk off your face. You may know how to boil an egg, but how about an egg boiled to perfection? 

What defines a perfectly boiled egg, anyway?

Perfection for our egg question is defined by what results we want for the white and the yolk. A 2- minute egg has a very soft, gelatinous white and a barely cooked yolk. Cooking the egg 5 minutes results in a firm white and a solid, tender yolk. 6-8 minutes on the heat, and the yolk lightens in color and becomes smoother in texture. 12 minutes is hard- boiled in our book, and as far as we like to cook our egg(s). Past 15 minutes in simmering water or cooking at a rapid boil and the danger zone of the grey- green tinged, over cooked yolk is upon us.

how to after the jump

Wiki-Emmanuel Boutet

black pudding

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A few weeks ago we wrote about Hungarian paprika, and a reader left a question: "Where can I find gurkha also known as blood sausage? I live in Phoenix area."

While blood sausage is found in every cuisine from Asia to America, we could not find a name reference for gurkha. In French and Creole cuisine boudin noir and boudin rouge refer to types of blood sausage. Germans have blutwurst, the Spanish- morcilla, the Scots- haggis, the English-blood pudding, or black pudding, and Italians biroldo. There are ingredient differences in each of these sausages, but all traditionally contain meat, animal blood (pig, cow, lamb, sheep, duck), animal fat, breadcrumbs or grain, and seasoning.

where to find after the jump