Mas crujiente

  Before we get into specifics, let's start with an overview. The plan is to think of cooking as (amongst other things) transforming raw ingredients into something tasty and enjoyable. As has been a theme recently, a lot of ingredients are quite bland and need help. Flavour has been the obvious solution but it's important to recognise that texture is also an element that can improve things. Think of creamy, crunchy, crispy etc.

  You may have heard that we have five flavour groups; sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami. They may get referred to later but for now let's just stick with the idea of transforming the texture of food and what techniques there are.

Pavement pizza or sumptuous sauce?

  As far as flavours, I don't need to list all the ingredients you can add so your bland mush comes to life as that's quite obvious. Instead something you may not have thought about is what techniques there are that can help. Take that pot of goop above for example.

  While carbs are mostly off the menu, there are loads of opportunities for me to fanny about recreating recipes. This feels like an opportunity to solve food related problems and I love it. Tonight's conundrum was how to make a carb free fish pie. Normally flour is mixed with butter and milk to make a creamy sauce but is there a carb/grain free alternative?

  The casserole got filled with loads of leeks and onion which were allowed to sweat slowly with a pool of olive oil. Chopped mushrooms and carrots were added when the leek and onions were very soft, then, before the fish was added, I blended about a third of the softened veg with a stick blender. If I had served this to you and not said anything, you wouldn't have noticed it was in any way out of the ordinary. Think about this as you go about your cooking and try to become aware of the way textures are effected or created by cooking. 

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com