In Italian, whenever you see “un cucchiaio di aceto dolce” (1 teaspoon of aceto dolce), what is meant is “sweet vinegar.” This can be a fruit vinegar — say, Raspberry Vinegar — or even Balsamic Vinegar. Italians would regard the Japanese wine vinegar, “Mirin”, as “aceto dolce.” Otherwise Aceto Dolce refers to a pickled mixture…
Preserves
Acetomel
Acetomel is a sweet and sour syrup made from vinegar and honey and is used to preserve fruit. Fruit such as apples, grapes, pears and quinces used to be preserved this way. The combination of flavours reflects older tastes surviving from the Middle Ages. The syrup can be used to make “Aceto Dolce” pickles. Language…
Acidulate
Acidulate Acidulate means to add acid in small amounts. In cooking, the acid can be a vinegar, a citrus juice or even wine. It will always be an acid that is food safe, and have levels of acidity that are low enough to be safe for people to touch and consume. Normally, the acid used…
Canned Vegetables
Canned Vegetables © Denzil Green Canned goods are all processed by machines. Machines fill the empty tins with the vegetable, then top them up with liquid that includes salt, then seal the tins and cook the vegetables right in the tins. When cooked and cooled, they are stored, then the correct label applied to them…
Canning Funnels
Canning funnels are designed to rest securely in the mouths of canning jars. They allow an easy, precise flow of semi-solid or solid food stuffs through into the jar while keeping the rim and neck of the jar clean.
Canning Tongs
Canning tongs are used to put filled preserving jars into canners, and remove them after heat processing. They are specially designed to be able to fit around the wide necks of preserving jars, and grip them enough to lift them securely.
Curing
Curing, whether done to meat or olives, means treating something with salt to help preserve it. When curing meat or fish, the salt draws the moisture out, leaving bacteria less moisture to grow on. It also penetrates the meat, making an inhospitable environment for bacteria. Curing must be done in coolish places or the meat…
Frozen Vegetables
Frozen Vegetables © Denzil Green As one American advert said in the 1950s, we can now eat better than any King ever did, because frozen vegetables allow us to enjoy the vegetable of our choice at any time of year, no matter what the season. To make frozen vegetables, vegetables are blanched, then packaged and…
Funnels
Funnels are tools used to transfer food items into containers with narrow tops, usually for storage. The purpose of the funnel is to minimize spillage and wastage during transfer of the food item.
Gelling Sugar
Gelling Sugar is special sugar for making preserves from fruit. Gelling Sugar contains pectin in it, so you don’t need to buy additional pectin. The ingredients in the sugar are white sugar, pectin, and citric acid. Some brands may also include sodium benzoate as a preservative. There are different “strengths” of Gelling Sugar. The stronger…
Jam Sugar
Jam sugar is a mixture of sugar, pectin and citric acid for making jams and jellies with. It is popular in Europe. There are also now low-sugar and sugar-free versions. The package directions will tell you what ratio of fruit to use to jam sugar.
Lime (Chemical)
The chemical lime in the form of Calcium Hydroxide (aka Edible Lime, Hydrated Lime, CaH2O2) is used in some food processing, and has been for millennia.Lime (in the form of Calcium Hydroxide) is used in South America in processing corn. Corn is soaked in water to which Calcium Hydroxide has been added. The corn swells,…
Nitrite Pickling Salt
Nitrite Pickling Salt is ordinary salt with .4% of Sodium Nitrite (NaNO²) added. Generally, the salt used is non-iodized, but some brands might have iodine in them. Nitrite Pickling Salt helps to fix colour, and preserve food. It also helps protect against botulism. When used, the nitrite forms into nitric oxide, which is the colour…
Paraffin
Paraffin wax is a white wax with no smell or taste. It is not a true wax. Food-wise, it is used for a variety of applications such as waxed paper, coating fruit or root veg to extend storage life, adding a sheen to chocolate coatings, and making candy toys such as “wax lips.”
Parboil
Parboil is to boil a food just until it is partially done. What “partially done” means depends on the food item, and the use it will be put to in a given recipe. It generally implies a longer cooking time than parblanching or blanching, though sometimes the words are used interchangeably, and less of a…
Pectin
Pectin is a naturally occurring carbohydrate in fruit that is concentrated in the fruit’s skin and the core. When cooked, Pectin solidifies to a gel, causing fruit preserves to set. Fruit uses Pectin to build cell walls with. Generally, unripe fruit will have more Pectin than ripe fruit. Fruits that are high in Pectin include…
Pickling Lime
Pickling lime is calcium hydroxide. It’s also called “food-grade lime”, because in making the calcium hydroxide the processors make sure that the process remains pure and doesn’t introduce anything untoward (e.g. it’s not done in rusty old bins.) Pickling lime helps to improve the firmness of pickles by introducing calcium that reinforces the pectin in…
Pickling Salt
Pickling Salt is a very fine grained pure food-grade salt used in pickling. It is as fine as table salt — in fact, it is table salt, but without any additives. Additives in table salt, such as iodine or anti-caking agents, would, if used in pickling, turn pickles brown and make the brine go cloudy. The…
Potted Meats
Potted Meats is a generic term used to mean meat that is canned, or meat or pieces of meat preserved in a savoury jelly.The term broadly includes items such as Brawn, Spam, tinned or jarred meat spreads, baby food, devilled ham, canned chicken spread, confits, rillettes, and beef paste. It also includes canned meats, anything…
Preserving Sugar
Preserving Sugar is white sugar that comes in crystals larger than those in granulated sugar. The idea is that because the crystals are larger, they will take longer to dissolve completely, helping to prevent sugar congregating at the bottom of your pot, or rising up as froth to the surface. Because it minimises scum, it…
Pressure Cookers
A pressure cooker is a pot to cook food in under pressure. The presence of pressure can reduce both the cooking time and the energy used to cook something by as much as 50%.
Rumtopf
Rumtopf (literally “rum pot”) is a large sealable container holding fruits preserved in alcohol. The idea was that you added layers of fruit as they came into season. For that reason, strawberries usually constituted the first layer. They are placed in a large glass jar or earthenware pot, sprinkled with some sugar, and then covered…
Saltpetre
Saltpetre is naturally occurring nitrate crystals that are soluble in water. It is found in surface deposits in many countries, or can be induced by mixing decaying organic matter with lime or through chemical solutions.Saltpetre was used in curing but is no longer used commercially (though apparently trace elements are allowed in some jurisdictions) because…
Sodium Nitrate
Sodium Nitrate is a white solid powder that is soluble in water. It is a food preservative found in processed meats, and used particularly in curing meat such as Italian salamis. It preserves the colour, keeping meat pink or red. More importantly, though, it helps to inhibit the development of botulism. Sodium Nitrate occurs naturally…