Behind the scenes of Culinary Word of the Day. Jenn and Alicia discuss the words glaze, deglaze, and sweating.
In this edition, Jenn and Alicia discuss doughnuts, what you use to deglaze foods, and cooking for a date.
Esculentè is a behind-the-scenes conversation podcast hosted by Jenn de la Vega and research producer Alicia Book. For every three culinary words, Jenn and Alicia discuss material from the cutting room floor in a series of bonus episodes. They answer listener questions and dive deep into the words as well as the humanity behind them.
Hosted by Jenn de la Vega and Alicia Book.
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Jenn: Hello, everybody. I am your host Jenn de la Vega, and I'm very excited to talk to
Alicia today.
Alicia: well I love being here that words.
Jenn: We are finally close to a name that we like. For this behinds this is episode 4 of the behind the scenes podcast and we have finally landed on a name that we will now put on all the other episodes. And it's based on a word that I actually used in an essay very early on in my writing career. It's the word echelant. Which is excellent. I think and I was joking last week when we were brainstorming all this and I said eshelente like You know like a ninja turtle
Alicia: it was excellent. It was actually yeah, it was right.
Jenn: I really like that name and I think we're going to stick with it. I’ll back up all back up here. We were brainstorming on a website called Miro which is kind of a visual brainstorming board. We use little Post-its and we had all these entries from patreon, you know, we I'm I'll have to shout out our suggestions again complementary eat and eat emology at yumology. Langiappe. Those are all great words, but we really wanted something that was
I don't know had a lot of fun depth to it. Like we had words like Beyond or verbal our food articulated bottom of the bowl. We had a lot of Latin. We really made a lot of land we dove into a lot of Latin like we were thinking along the lines of prandium prandyl prensor.
And it you know, it sounds really clinical when we when we say it like that.
Alicia: Okay, and we're a little clinical too.
Jenn: So yeah, pretty close friend deal got a little clinical. Excellent is fit to be eaten or it's edible. That's what the word means. It's an adjective or it can be a noun so like a thing, especially a vegetable which is fit to be eaten when you when you look up eshelente or Escalante or if silento it goes into Latin and Spanish for the same to be eaten or bait, which is really fun
Alicia: to think about clickbait, but that's not why we're here we're not here.
Jenn: That's not why we're here. That's not why we're here, but also I learned that eschelan ta is a species of vegetable and it's kind of amazing colocasia as shalenta.
Taro, Taro root.
Alicia: Oh interesting.
Jenn: Yes. Yeah, so that's kind of amazing that a whole species some you know subspecies of vegetable is echolenta.
Alicia: So yummy.
Jenn: Yeah, it's a tropical plant growing primarily for its edible corns root vegetable cut most commonly known as Toro and colocasia echelenda has other names in different language. So the first one is Tagalog amazing Gabby or Ube and it's in Swahili. It's Jim bee it's just got so many great words for it. So it's got like this very deep definition echelenta eshelente echelant. So welcome to the echelende podcast
Alicia: the atlante pastas.
Jenn: It's so I selected love it.
Alicia: It is a cover so much ground, which is what we're trying to do, too.
Jenn: Yeah, transcend a lot of very little time and very little internet. We are named now. We must go forth and explain to people
Alicia: love it. Love it. I think we got there organically too, which is also great. So it is a couple tries we got there.
Jenn: Yeah. Thank you for everybody for your suggestions. We love them. We wish that other podcasts haven't already gotten them. To the meat of the conversation which is our next three words.
Alicia: Like we don't actually we're not talking about a ton of meat. I think oh we're talking about some meat today.
Jenn: I was just making a joke.
Alicia: I just wanted to clarify this is not a meat based one.
Jenn: You're true. You're right.
Alicia: We're gonna be very Focus.
Jenn: This very true.
Alicia: but let's get into it though.
Jenn: Let's we're gonna get into it. We're gonna dig in so our next three words that we're going to discuss today are glaze the glaze
and sweating Huh?
Alicia: So it's funny. I looked at these three words. I was kind of like They don't to me at first glance. They didn't seem that similar together. Mm-hmm. I'm like, they're kind of I think of different foods when I think of them a lot of uglies obviously as you know, not a chef. I'm like ooh donut.
Jenn: I'm a chef. I think a Donuts.
Alicia: Yeah, and then I had a late understanding of sweating but I knew it was generally about vegetables and then deeply is actually new what it was but didn't necessarily know what it was called.
Jenn: Right, that's something a lot of people do in everyday cooking and they don't know what it's called.
Alicia: So which so I kind of as we like I research the words and send it a little bit more. I saw some similarities though come together with them. I realized like two main things or three main things actually.
Jenn: Oh, please hit me with it.
Alicia: Well, we all deal with liquids. Which is sort of interesting which once again, I don't think of glaze donuts and sweaty vegetables as like a liquid-based cooking process
Jenn: not initially initially, right and
Alicia: then deglaze also once again didn't necessarily know what it was then I realized also a liquid based cooking process.
Jenn: Hmm.
Alicia: And then also a big part of both like all three of them are aromatics. Oh, which I thought was very fun and very interesting and kind of ready to like dive into how like aromatics play a part in like each of these three things if you think I'm like kind of spot on with that one
Jenn: the is something I haven't thought about but you are right.
Alicia: Okay, that's so fun. I wasn't expecting that.
Jenn: You're extrapolating information. Look at you.
Alicia: I'm learning. I'm learning as I go. I love it.
Jenn: So at the beginning of this endeavor. I explained that season two is unique from season one in that. It has a purposeful order of the words it is how you encounter them in the kitchen in in the cooking process. So glaze is first because it's the more of a purposeful thing that you do to Foods deglaze is sort of a buy product of cooking sauteing anything where food is likely to get stuck to a pan deglaze in comes into play to bring out more flavor or to remove flavor from the pan and sweating is is not necessarily directly related to these two actions, but it is something that you do in a pan all three of these have to do with frying pants.
Alicia: That's so interesting. I actually did not pick up on that one.
Jenn: Not necessarily frying pans. It could be dutch ovens, but in the course of cooking with a vessel, these three words are are quite related.
Alicia: Physically, so actually my third thing was I thought it was like a I kind of Maybe I'm Wrong in this I think almost a finishing part of a cooking process like it's not the main part of the cooking but it's an element that adds to the cooking.
Jenn: I agree with that last part that they are elements of cooking and not necessarily the end.
Alicia: Okay, right. Yeah, because right okay break a sweating you and not do it the end you're doing at the beginning right
Jenn: sweating is usually a precursor to a larger dish or to a Next Step. It's yeah, it's kind of like preheating the oven but like getting your vegetables ready for a braise or for a later saute or or something else. But let's start with plays
Alicia: get sweet.
Jenn:I noticarily right exactly. That was that's coming up. It's coming up but the first glaze that we thought of obviously what you thought of was donuts and That's kind of the first place that I have ever experienced a glaze like on The Simpsons. Feel like you wrote a note about this
Alicia: I did so I grew up. I was a hardcore Simpsons fan. I'm less so a little bit now but growing up. I was every night every Sunday, but every night at 7pm is on Fox loved it and Homer with his Pink Please donut like that was like if you I see a donut of our keyword glaze automatic Association for me directly his Homer Simpson like no company. No nothing.
Jenn: It's over just Homer Simpsons. Yeah. I was a cake donut kind of kid. I didn't watch The Simpsons until later in life. And now I'll go to the mainstream donut shop and get the pink one because I've seen it on The Simpsons. I mean same influence different times in our lives.
Alicia: And that's the beauty of Simpsons perfectly honest. Like that's it can affect you any time of life. You just have to let you know feel into accept it.
Jenn: This may be for a later conversation. Just real quick. What is your favorite donut?
Alicia: Oh hesitation how Boston cream like off the top of my head, but it's also super messy. So it depends on yeah if I'm road tripping. Oh, no, I can't it's all of them are different scenarios.
Jenn: Like oh true true.
Alicia: They give them in Vermont. I'm getting myself like a cinnamon or an original, you know having it with cider, you know like um,I don't know.
Jenn: I love that you have specific circumstances for your donut consumption. That is an admirable. I love a blueberry cake. I love a honey dip and I love a sour cream which are very close to each other the honey dip in the sour cream, but subtle subtle differences here at Peter Pan donuts and Greenpoint my favorite shoutout local mom and pop business. Very good. Um, but what else is glaze? Let me see. They're in the episode for glaze we start off with the definition of glazing vegetables, which is not what you would immediately think when you think of glaze you think of cakes pies Donuts sweet things but and a lot of French traditional cooking glazing is a kind of Starter Set skill it's you know, chopping your vegetables and uniform shapes and then adding a broth or sugar or butter to glaze the vegetables to give them a nice Sheen glaze comes from it's a 14th century variant of Middle English glossen to fit with glass or to make shine and it's influence or reinforced by Glazier. So it's from Pottery to cover with a shiny or glossy substance around the 1400s. It's an old word. Not as old as others, but older.
Alicia: Yes, it's pretty out there for and you know different things. He's for different things pottery and food.
Jenn: Yes. So in the sauteing process, we can glaze vegetables or Meats with a broth butter or sugar solution and most famously you can glaze a ham around Easter time. You will hear about glaze hams a lot.
Alicia: I have a question.
Jenn: Yes.
Alicia: You were just saying how some chefs like it's one of the first things they do is to chop the vegetables up is that actually like something like a skill that you have to work on to do like me. Is that how you learn how to dice vegetables? Well, it's like also the glaze them well, like that's part of the training.
Jenn: It's kind of The Next Step. Yeah, like what will you do with all these vegetables that you just practice cutting?
Alicia: Gotcha.
Jenn: Okay, so go ahead.
Alicia: No, I haven't really thought about like the treat like some of the training steps like when you're learning how to become a chef. Do you waste food at all, or does it get you know, is that other is there always like a next step? And is there a thought out process to all this stuff like?
Jenn: Oh, yes. Okay. It's kind of like the scientific method that we have. You know, your hypothesis here experiment your results your conclusion. Same thing with recipes same things with cooking school. You will learn how to dice things uniformly and then you start to introduce the Heat and then finishing in some way and then everybody gets to take home food, which is very exciting side note my favorite part of culinary school in my short time that I was there. I actually didn't complete culinary school. Is the giveaway table at the end of the day there is a ton of food left over from classes people doing things over and over again and sometimes people don't want to take their stuff home. So, you know, you bring your to-go box and an extra baggy or so and take home all over bread the class, you know practice. I was always a scavenger like that.
Alicia: I think it's cost effective. I would as soon.
Jenn: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Alicia: And probably pretty delicious.Unless I mean not maybe not it was a great cook at that time in their life. But yeah you hope you hope they're getting there the enthusiasm hopefully is there
Jenn: but getting back to glaze the principle is taking some cooking item. So either it's a pastry or a vegetable or a meat and we're adding a liquid solution to a heat source to glaze it so heat is essential here because it reduces the broth to its Essential Elements. So like those solids the flavors in in a sugar solution if we're glazing a donut we're reducing it enough so that it can stay on there. So some glazes don't need to be heated. So like the very easiest first baking glaze that you've learned is powdered sugar and water. the easiest easiest glaze
it's a higher proportion of sugar to water. You mix it and you can play with the consistency. That was the very very first glaze that I learned when I was a kid. I think I was maybe eight years old when I first glazed the cinnamon roll.
Alicia: I think I made a cake from a box mix and no icing the house and I was like, oh no we can just make icing there you go. And it was the powdered sugar water situation.
Jenn: Mhm. So if you want to make it thinner you add more water if you want to make it thicker use less water or you add more sugar. So that's a very easy thing that you can do right now. If you have that at home and secret, you can instead of water use other substances like lemon juice to flavor the glaze
Alicia: Interesting.
Jenn: Hmm.
Alicia: What's your favorite type of glaze?
Jenn: Oh goodness. I've used a very sweet wine before I've used the muscaday. It's like a dessert wine just a few splashes of that in a small bowl and then like half a cup of confectioner's sugar and that is a lovely like white glaze that you can use for things. You can also use smashed up strawberries or raspberries and and put it in a sieve and smash the juice out of it and then use that so you get like a little pink tinge in your glaze I like to be so pretty. Mm-hmm of things super cute.
Alicia: I never even thought about that like different using different like I thought that maybe something like different liquids but not extracting it liquids from other things to get the supplement that into a glaze that's so fun. I think she's yeah creative like fun thing to do like on the weekend or something like just to try out new recipes, but you don't have to do like a ton of stuff or like learn a whole bunch of new things.
Jenn: Oh, yeah, two ingredient recipe some kind of like tablespoon. Of liquid or juice you can experiment with this or even liquor. Or beer, I don't know beer glaze would taste that great. But maybe you have like a friend blase like a raspberry beer or something like that or without
Alicia: the carbonation the mess that up.
it might
JEnn: I don't know. I've never tried it
Alicia: that might be a fun experiment anybody that I tries this folks report back. I feel like if you're Enthusiast might want to try it. I'm just saying what I'm curious. Yeah over you're making dessert for a beer Enthusiast like, you know how to make a like a even like a Guinness glaze, you know, who loves Guinness or Guinness and Bailey. I don't know. I think there's something in there
Jenn: really is glaze that's interesting because you're introducing like a Milky element without it being milk, right?
Jenn & Alicia: Interesting
Jenn: we jinxed on interest we did we did I look
Alicia: I like we can amuse ourselves like this though.
Jenn: Yeah. Oh my goodness. What else about glazes?
Alicia: So I thought it was very interesting though. Is it so you said just confectioner sugar though? Can you use like can you use anything else though? Besides it can be granulated like gonna be anything you find in the kitchen like sugar in the raw or is it have to be powder?
Jenn: Um, so that for that particular glaze? Yes, it has to be confectioners sugar. I use that on baked goods. I don't use that and heat applications. I don't know why you couldn't but I generally haven't it's very smooth which is ready to use. But when you're getting into the granulated sugar de Mirage sugar brown sugar territory, you want to start applying heat to these glazes so that you don't get that grainy crunchy.
Alicia: That's what I was curious about is that they're gonna ruin the glaze okay
Jenn: very much how in pickling when you make a brine you heat the water with the salt and sugar so that it dissolves and it becomes smooth and so in the glazing we want to make sure that we're whisking the sugar in with the liquids and then applying it to the vegetable or the meat or whatever it is that we are doing in the heat process. But yeah, you can use any kind of sweetener. Really? Okay for glazes. It's it's a matter of reducing the liquid enough to create that shine.
Alicia: Okay, and I think that's where my question it about aromatics came in was that do sometimes glazes ever add to the overall like is it like the last Finishing Touch of a food if you put a glaze on that you've added?
Jenn: Yes,
Alicia: like lemon or vinaigrette or something like that to it because yeah, it really is glazed Savory ever consider that or is it always considered sweet? Or is it
Jenn: I think he can see it sit in both families. I think maybe Savory and sweet glazing tends to be at the end of the cooking process because the sugar otherwise will burn in the beginning. Okay, if you have prolonged contact with a heat Source it tends to burn but there are definitely cooking methods where you add that at the beginning and by the end it becomes a reduction that is a glaze but I can't speak specifically to examples right now. We'll have to dig some up and share some. Okay great, and I love a glaze
Alicia: I feel like everybody loves a good glaze and I have I think you know one more question and that's When you're grilling and you're putting, you know, the barbecue sauce and stuff like that and this might be an easy one. Maybe I should know the answer is that called also? Like if I was grilling, you know my ribs, whatever I'm using the brush. I'm glazing right then right if I'm putting in the barbecue sauce on as I can
Jenn: that no is the act of basting. Yes the active basting but if it has like a sugary majority in the sauce, so I would say like Hawaiian hulihuly chicken tends to be shiny when you grow it right? So that what is what I would say is glaze it's like the visual element the sugar content.
And yeah, it's just like like the pottery if you go back to the pottery definition that we're adding a Sheen to it.
Alicia: Yeah, so there's a visual element to it and
Jenn: Audio-visual sensory. Oh experience It's Glades.
Alicia: With glaze. I love it. It's a delicious dessert and that's probably why it inspires so many other interesting desserts that come from it because you can play around with it and it's a visually stunning piece at the end.
Okay. Yeah.
Alicia: Yeah, they with the marble guy the mirror cakes and stuff like that and oh,
Jenn: yeah, we get into that in the episode for sure.
Alicia: excellent
JennL Mm-hmm.
Alicia: Hello, so we go from glaze then to deglazing wish are similar but not there somewhere but not really that similar,
JEnn: right so but there's okay. They're related. They're really really they're friends.
Alicia: Um, well, like I said, they all three of them stuck out because there's liquids involved. And as you said there's pans involved and it's and declaration though is also sort of it's at the end. It's one of the finishing touches of the meal and like I said, I didn't always realize I was declasing until I really understood the definition was and this
Jenn: is there an item that you deglaze more than others.
Alicia: I think chicken. I feel like I end up deglazing if I'm you know, makes all right.
Jenn: Yeah for me, it's mushroom.
Alicia: Okay, so I end up doing I end up sometimes cooking like chicken in different stage depending on what? I'm doing so I I just take a step a couple steps back. I'm not a great cook. I'm never gonna claim to be that at all or even like I'm like any knowledge. I have was like sort of cell taught during college. So and right now, you know, I'm a husband and I Sky, we're sort of only, you know, semi diets not like a full out diet but like a low sodium like watching we're reading sure and they're kind of situation. So I'm very cooked very basic stuff with a few exceptions but like every so often I try to like I found a couple of different like vegan like salad dressings and stuff like that. I've thrown them in fans with mushrooms and stuff like that. I have a chick talk you and I use oh, right. So I ended up like cooking chicken with some mushrooms and then like using the shiitake vinaigrette thing as like,
Jenn: oh, yes.
Alicia: Yes so which I didn't realize I was doing because I kind of was winging it a little bit because I don't really know what I'm doing. So it was like kind of healthy, but it takes it okay at the end, but all my stuff, please, okay. Entered, you know fine.
Jenn: All right, let's talk about the building blocks of glaze so we have an item that we want to glaze and then we have a heat Source the pan and a liquid solution that we add to it and that liquid solution reduces and becomes the glaze here in deglaze. We've already cooked something. So for example your chicken, we've already cooked it, but because of that keyword my art reaction Browning, you know, you get those brown bits stuff to the bottom of the pan. How do we release that stuff? Because that stuff is Flavor according to our episode about my art reactions that stuff that brown stuff the fond the Dig left side. I think I said that right. Is is flavor and the way that you remove that from the pan and get it back into your dish is deglazing by introducing a liquid at high heat and scraping It Up From the Bottom.
And that is deglazing.
Alicia: Delicious.
Jenn: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like to deglaze with a dry white wine on my mushrooms after I've sauteed them.
Alicia: That sounds very good.
Jenn: Yeah, and they don't get mushy and I read her listener. I was a picky eater. I did not love mushrooms when I was little and it's because I was getting them from cans or they were being steamed which is not ideal. They get really slimy. So I like to saute them until they release their water and they get some crispy edges but along the way, you know, they start to stick to the bottom of the pan even though you're using olive oil vegetable oil. There's going to be a point where there's some my art Browning and then is the release of sugars onto the pan. And so we want that flavor. So what you do is you turn up the heat a little bit more you add carefully your white wine because if you have open flame, it could flambe watch out you might lose an eyebrow.
Alicia: That's what I was curious about. I was like if you're throwing a little alcohol into that pan, could it ever get to explosive?
Jenn: Ah, yes, so that's why we use in small. We use small amounts when we flambe if you're if you mean to flambe, but just be careful any alcohol is going near flame. If you have an electric stove, don't worry. You'll be fine. but yeah deglazing is great because you get all those really lovely flavorful bits from the bottom of the pan and it becomes it's own gravy or the Pan juices and you
Alicia: the question and once again might be silly. But if you're doing the mushrooms, they're sort of sticking to the pan. When do you step in before they might be burning like how do you know? You know what I mean? Like are they too much? Are they undercooked? When do I throw that liquid in? Is it a good is it is it too long? Is it charring? Like I don't know.
Jenn: Oh, yeah as soon as you smell it if it is charring that is too hot remove the pan immediately from the fire Source. There's no turning it down from there. It's just remove the pan altogether put it on an inactive burner, let it cool down. But if it is smoking like if it is burning smoking open a window put that pan outside away from your fire detectors because I've set off so many alarms that way even me, you know, I'm a chef too, but I've burnt things before that is too far. So that's why we stick around the medium medium high medium range so that we don't reach that point. But specifically with mushrooms, I don't deglaze until those edges are crisp that it's sizzling. It's it has to be audio
Alicia: another all-around food. I like it.
Jenn: Yeah. It's a very sensory process. I like some Browning on the edges when it looks like it's that mushy texture. It needs to go a little bit further for me because we want that my yard Browning. That's how we get the good sauce if it sticks to the pan that's that's gonna be delicious but sticking too much is burning so we don't want that. So this is why you watch your food. You can't really leave food on the stove. This is why we watch things and adjust the heat up or down to our needs.
Alicia: Is deglazine essential generally to a meal or is it I know it's a very tasty part of the process. But is there a bird if you are, can you think of a meal where it's like you have to delays at the end or is it kind of always something where it's like a little bit of a I get to it I get to it'll be fantastic if I do but if I don't no one will really miss it.
Jenn: It is a nice to have if you're in the in a if you're in a hurry like you're not gonna die if you don't if you don't deglaze it, but Pro tip, I think that D glazing really helps you with washing the dishes later.
Alicia: Yes, I can adjust that because that may or may not be how it started for me. Yeah, so was that I learned that I was like, oh my non-stick fans. There's no much easier if I just get everything out if I keep adding the liquid to it.
Jenn: And yeah, so if you've run out of liquid and you just want to serve dinner and you're just gonna leave the pan a good thing to do is use leftover wine vinegar or beer straight up water, my, you know warp your pan, but if it's like an alcohol you might be able to just like scrape off some stuff before you sit down and eat and then so your dishes are not a nightmare or later. I keep What is the nickname for beers that are left over at a party that someone opened? What is the nickname for it?
Alicia: I would call the other ones Fallen Soldiers
Jenn: following soldiers. Oh, that is. Okay. That's the one okay, I if I'm having a gathering and people didn't finish the beers. I actually keep those fallen soldier beers.
Alicia: That's smart though.
Jenn: I I deglaze like pans if I'm not using it as a gravy.
Alicia: Interesting. That's great to know
Jenn: that's actually clean.Yeah, that's maybe I'm gonna go to you're like that.
Alicia: But um that makes a lot of sense that I feel like actually people out there like especially if you don't realize you're deglazing or if you're kind of a novice-ish cook, but you would be you might be in the city somewhere like living on your own for the first time and you're gonna have people over having that might be great too like tip for people like say those extra beers and like use those later for cooking purposes.
Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. I try to keep a loose, you know people plastic over it or something or you can refrigerate it, but it doesn't feel comfortable using a beer somebody drank out of I understand if you don't feel comfortable with that
Alicia: I wasn't gonna make a comment on it. So I feel like you know what each their own, you know live in love,
Jenn: you know, you you assess your own safety risk, but also left over wine, and if you don't want to drink it anymore, you can use that for cleaning and declasing your pants. It's great.
But yeah mushrooms are the thing that I deglaze the most
Alicia: I feel like when I cook mushrooms I end up cooking them with other stuff.
I don't know if I'm supposed to do that or not, but she's probably also the one I think I end up doing it's with that's you know specific. It's a shiitake like dressing that I use with it. Hmm. That's okay. It's actually pretty tasty. Yeah, very little it's a low effort meal. It's like a low calorie low sodium dressing. So it's like a very easy. I also wasn't a mushroom fan growing up either. So it's a new taste for me and that's like the ginger and stuff like that. Yeah, so it okay and a lot of flavor to it to like make it less mushroomy, but still pretty
JennL oh, yeah mushrooms or Nature's sponges.
Alicia: They love it. They take half of it. Yeah, whatever you want to throw out them. They're gonna be like, yes, come at me. I will yes.
Jenn: Yes. Yes so with deglazing I love using all sorts of alcohols. So wines beers vermouth even which is really fun. You could use broth, but you know you're adding more of those flavor elements. So you gonna have like more of a really flavorful Savory gravy there. Okay, that's great.
Alicia: Yeah, all that sounds pretty tasty always here. We should probably talk about some now non-alcoholic things in case we have any, you know miners.
Jenn: Oh sure
Alicia: the first time we don't have so much access to you know, extra wine just yet.
Jenn: Yeah any broth or stock will work there you I don't really recommend juices because you end up going into the glazing territory. Okay, because that's a high sugar cover.
Interesting, um, but you could I mean, you know pineapple juice is used in some legalizing but just know that it's gonna contain more sugar so you might end up scraping the pan more than you realize.
Alicia: Okay, so is there any liquid that's an absolutely no to do this with?
Jenn: I don't know.I'm havent tried.
Alicia: I want to say probably Mill right?
Jenn: We're not good. Probably burn the milk solids. Yeah, unless you're doing it a very very low heat.
Alicia: Okay.
JEnn: in scraping the bottom of the pan Yeah, you do like a milk gravy.
Alicia: Yeah and vinegar would vinegar is work as well or is that too bitter?
Jenn; Um vinegars could work. But yeah, it will be very very potent acidic very peacant.
Alicia: I guess so instead of using maybe like a red wine. Would you ever like mix like in apple cider vinegar with like a broth and then possibly you down. I don't know. I don't know how that you.
Jenn:I like that. I want to try it now. Okay. No, no alcoholic because vinegar comes from wines and spirits so mixing it with a little bit of broth could be a great non-alcoholic and a way of the glazing. Yeah.
Alicia: Right yum,
Jenn: cool.
Alicia: I love learning new things. I love it.
Jenn: So creative.
Alicia: That's a fun part of talking with you Jen though. It's like I get to ask you questions and like it's kind of like going to see your doctor or somebody a doctor friend like oh like this weird thing my arm, but I get to ask Jen stuff about like, oh like Jen like I really like effed up and like the kitchen the other day like but I say to her like weird ways that are like, oh, you know,
like oh like and this sorry I go
Jenn: am I Frazier and are you raws?
Alicia: I didn't want to make that comparison, but now that now that it's out there.
Jenn: I mean, I don't love Kelsey grammer's politics, but I was a huge fan of Fraser. Yeah fair play same
Alicia: same boat don't know what's up at him as a person but I will block some of the work. He has done.
Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. yeah, so that's I mean so if there's anything
Alicia: Also, our audience is listening. If you guys have any questions, she's willing.
JEnn: You know, she I love answering this stuff. Yeah, please submit questions to us on Twitter culinary wotd. I don't have a phone number because we're not a radio station, but
So we love we love to hear it.
Alicia: I'd like to people call you the radio anymore. I don't know. I think they do I have I haven't listened to radio.
JEnn: They seems we could do like a twitch version of this where we do this live one day. We put the questions up on the screen like oh so and so asks,
Alicia: That'd be so fun. I think people would really like to ask. Yeah because you're very good. I understand a lot of what you end up saying and that I think that sometimes it can be hard. I think sometimes when you're talking to chefs, they there's a lot of big words that they throw in that's true and you sort of like and if you kind of throw in a big word you also sometimes will like kind of it.
Alicia: Yep. You'll kind of like say like what it is and like how it's applicable in this situation. I'm like she's defining and applying that she goes that's the best favorite.
Jenn: Oh shucks. Maybe this is why we started a podcast. This is it this is why
Alicia: We're high energy today. You know, we are you know, we have we're just I love it.
Jenn: We have a name. It's really energizing to have a name to be named. Yeah. Oh speaking of which we have a third word that we should get to we should get a little sweaty. Um currently I know this will come out at a later time, but it is currently August in Brooklyn and I have my air conditioner off because we are recording audio. And I am sweating.
Alicia: I'm very thankful. You know, it's like it that's all thank Jen for that. I mean she's taking a hit for us taking it AC off.
Jenn: Yeah, I don't have central air don't have central air here in Brooklyn, but sweating is the subject of the next conversation here. Which is, you know, another cooking method.
Alicia: So I thought it was interesting when I first started researching in a little bit. Obviously when you talk about sweating and food a lot of people like to talk about how food might affect humans actually sweating so it took me a couple minutes to get into like the groove and like back to the definition, but I did think it was interesting and I think I saw this comparison You can disagree with me or just person is that one person wrote, you know, sweating vegetables almost looks like human sweaty and the vegetables are supposed to glisten and you know, there's your comparisons. So if you want to know what it's supposed to look like maybe it sounds a little gross but think of it the same way and I don't know if you would agree with this statement or not.
Jenn: I, So humans, do not sweat as much as vegetables do. Scale, you know, okay, what kind of heat would make a human sweat is a significantly lower than that of the vegetables.
Alicia: Right because also sweating you to use low heat.
Jenn: Low heat. Yes, but vegetables are also made up of cell walls, which break down easier than our animal cells do so, you will see more rivulets and droplets on the surface of a vegetable then you would on your own skin. Unless you know you're in a very humid desert, which is not really a thing that happens.
Alicia: To us if you're in that human desert. Yeah. Oh
Jenn: Sure. Yeah, so hot so hot. So sweating as you mentioned is a low heat cooking method.
It is to remove moisture from vegetables. We're not remove. It's more of a
it's in between right like it's it's before you saute something or before it's low enough heat that it's not a stir fryer or a saute sweating is the precursor again. It's a step before something else.
Alicia: So it's our it's our out of these three words. It's our beginning word. It's our beginning food prep word instead of yeah. It's this one we started out with a good sweating.
Jenn: Yeah, so I would say the most sweated vegetable is the onion. And the reason for that is it has a lot of cell walls that need to break down and there are varying levels of breakdown an onion can go through like we start with the sweating and then we get down to as far as caramelization. So that's like the really broken down spreadable Brown Onion make sure over low heat takes a long time. There's a lot of social media chatter about how recipe developers are lying about how long it takes to caramelize and onion. It's not 10 minutes. It couldn't possibly can be 10 minutes friends those onions that are done in 10 minutes are sweat. They're sweated onions.Those are not caramelized onion.
Alicia: So, how long does it take to caramelize a full onion?
Jenn: Um depending on the water content and your heat Source, it could be up to 45 minutes or up to two hours depending on how many you're cooking.
Alicia: Oh, okay.
Jenn: Yeah, it's it's a long time but worth it. I say, oh totally worth the wait worth the wait,
Alicia: but if we're sweating, we're only like the 10 minute range, right?
Jenn: Yeah, we we are softening our vegetables. That's the principle behind sweating it is, you know, if you're gonna be stir frying something or you are par cooking these onions, you don't want to put onion into a dish because it takes the longest so sweating is removing that moisture softening it to a better texture and more desirable texture and then continuing on in the process. So from there you can do braises you can transfer to the oven to roast with other things over a bed of soft and onions. Hooray. It can be a saute it can be the beginning of a soup. And so you don't have you know, a very stiff half ring of raw onion in your soup.
Alicia: Interesting. So I that's sort of where my next aromatics come in is that if you so I was also curious about like the timing of your vegetable sweating. So you'd start if you want to sweat say like three different types of vegetables. You generally would start with your onions because they take longer
JennL there were the one that takes the longest. Okay.
Alicia: So the timing is important in that sense. Mhm.
Jenn: So onions tend to be up there carrots are up there anything that's thick and starchy potatoes not something you sweat.
Alicia: Right? Right.
Jenn: They're just so dense. But this is more of your beans green beans your snap peas your verdant vegetables some peppers.
Alicia: There's some peppers.
Jenn: Yeah. Yeah things that have, you know, very planty cell walls. You wouldn't sweat spinach it takes so it's so fast. Yeah, you wouldn't really sweat that he so things that are more fibrous fibrous, but not starchy. So I colared greens need a long time to cook.
Alicia: Gotcha. Interesting. I guess yes, there'd be fun to take a little scale of like what can be you know, sweating to like I guess caramel that you know what I mean, not like teen caramelize everything but you know what, I mean, like a little graphic of like we're on the like the floor like the flow is like, where do you throw an onion and they're like, where does this change happen to which one?
Jenn: Oh this this could be a fun crowd source project on our patreon since we use that visual board Miro. Mm-hmm. We could do a running spectrum of what you're talking about. We just have a live version of the words we talked about. Where is it on the scale of what is
Alicia: I mean if we're gonna add to a debate possibly about how long something does or does not take to get to its end goal. I mean this could
Jenn: oh, yeah you like
Alicia: let's see what people have to say about it.
Jenn: I will have a research battery of caramelizing onions. That's really fun. Okay reminder to Jen who is editing this later start a mirror board and invite the patreon folks to join in.
Every fun.
Alicia: ; Yeah, first up in like, you know how to cook vegetables.
Jenn: Oh, I love this which I think is important thing. It's like because I think it's actually cute.
Alicia: I think vegetables can be can kind of confusing like meat is confusing. It's own way because is it too cooked to undercooked but I think vegetables like, when do you add them first? When do you add them the order of operations?
Jenn: Oh we should have maybe you should make a visual guide for this. That's there. You're so right. I love that.
Alicia: Your veggies and they're you know, the sort of in our inflated grocery times. They're sort of the cheap thing to buy these one of the cheaper things to buy. So if you're going a little veg a veg diet as opposed to, you know, meet base protein diet. You know, how do you cook those veg you how do you know get those new meals going?
Jenn: I love this interest. They're here to help. We're here to help.
What else is on your mind in terms of sweating?
Alicia: Well, I thought of cooking it. How much oil is it is it you know, is it like a drop a little bit enough to clear the pan? I actually make that mistake a lot about either putting too little or too much oil and things and I'm like am I secretly that? I accidentally just deep fry something.
Jenn: Right. So my default depending on the size of your pan. I tend to start with the tablespoon of any oils and then go from there. The purpose is to just barely coach the entire surface area of the pan any time you're going more than that you start you get into frying to territory. Even you could see, you know, a depth of oil that means that you're about to get into frying territory, but sweating does not require a lot of oil because you were applying low heat and you are just trying to draw out moisture with that heat, you're not necessarily frying or getting a texture on it or you're not trying to get brown edges like the heat is too low for that. You're just trying to soften them.
Alicia: Gotcha, and this is another diligent form of cooking right? Because you you're not leaving these like vegetables or you know anything on there too long, right? So is it sort of the first sign of Browning you want to get them off or do you want to get them off before any signs of Browning?
Jenn: It depends on what you're gonna be cooking?
Alicia: Okay,
Jenn: actually and if you were going to be making a gravy or if it's gonna be part of a soup because I always want Browning if I want deeper flavor in a sauce.
Alicia: Okay, interesting later on is that so just Brian kinda just brings that is that just brings more of the sugar into it or is it just I'm learning I'm learning too as I go along.
Jenn: Yeah, but again sweating is just a pre-step before you move on to something else because you could very well get into a saute or stir fry. After that, so if you've softened this item, you can raise the Heat and then continue into a
Alicia: so it really is like it's a starting point of like you can go in almost any direction if you're confused or you don't know what you want might want to make it's almost like the best first step to do it is like I've got so much
Jenn: just start there.
Alicia: Yeah just start and like see where you're like mine might take you.
Jenn: Yeah, just start sweating some onions peppers and garlic. We'll get into this in some later episodes. But like sofrito is the beginning of a lot of dishes. Yeah. The Trinity is also a good base. Your mirepoix is a good thing that starts to sweat like that's a lot of basis of a lot of French cooking and soups and things like that. So it's it's just the beginning. We're still we're still at the very beginning of cooking experience here.
Alicia: It's good. I actually be a problem. That's actually one of my other weird cooking recipes during the sort of diets we did is I actually took that and started sweating them one day. And I didn't making a buffalo chicken not a stir fry but like I sweated those a little bit took them out of the pan sort of grilling like grilling sauteing. I guess the chicken as like what have I mix these and then you know all together and like a buffalo chicken mix like put it in a lettuce wrap with like a little cheese on top. It was delicious. Actually it worked out very well.
Jenn: You improv why
Alicia: I bought all the vegetables already chopped up and mixed together. So look,
Jenn: it wasn't like a really fine. That's fine. If you don't have time, I'm not gonna waggle my finger at you,
Alicia: but that but that was really an example of like I just started and I was like, I had I had it they were going bad and I was like, what am I gonna do with this? I think I had I was gonna make us like a meat sauce or something like that. I read so but I didn't have all the stuff for that. I was like, let me just start cooking this. I know I have chicken I can figure out something from here.
Jenn: Oh, you're so right. It's a good substrate. Good base. Yeah. Yes.
And that actually I forgot to mention that is. The definition of the word fond like going back to deglaze the definition of the word fond. It's not not being fond of a person. I mean the fond that the small particles of brown food at the bottom of the pan is is the fond and it's like the background the basis of your dish. Okay, that's where it comes from.
Alicia: That's so cool. I I saw the word I didn't I didn't necessarily know what it meant. And then I kind of gathered based on context clues. But that's so cool. That's the background of the dish. That means I love that
Jenn: which is why we always want to save it when we're deglazing. That's why I deglazing is so important.
Alicia: Gotcha. So they really it's really the building blocks of making a great meal, you know, yes learning how to put everything together to really bring out all the different flavors that you don't even necessarily know you're putting together, but it's gonna come together in something great.
Jenn: Love to put a name to a cooking technique love it.
Alicia: I mean, I think that's it's the funnest part about this too is because a lot of people are maybe doing some of these things and it's great to actually know and then be able to talk about what you're doing to other people, you know, and then it's not like, oh I'm trying to explain this weird recipe I threw together like no you're actually doing something like you're doing something real and like making something delicious and you're doing Real Techniques and it's it's interesting. It's very cool.
Jenn: I mean, look at how evolved we are. We are feeding ourselves like this is what sets us apart. Really?
Alicia: Yeah. It's the thumbs that got us but you know the pants.
Jenn: Yeah. There you go. So, Thumbs.
Alicia: I got us the dealers.
Jenn: I'll shoot yes.
Alicia: What it what is your I I'm gonna assume it's something but what is your favorite thing to sweat? Like if you're like, you know onion is probably the favorite it's the base is one it was there a surprise vegetable that you're like, oh, I love to throw that in and like see where it's gonna take me or see what's gonna be in a dish is there.
Jenn: Oh my let's see what has rigid texture that I like to sweat. Goodness, I I mean College, I mentioned it earlier collard greens. They really need to break down before a lot a long cook. Okay, but you you do some onions and garlic before that because it's still you know the base so I would say put those together like I like to sweat my onions and garlic and then steam the collard greens on top of that before. I add my my pot liquor my my lovely flavoring agents.
But yeah, this is you always see onion and garlic at the beginning of a lot of recipes always the onion first and then the garlic because the garlic is much smaller and could burn more easily. So you
Alicia: I think I need to be reminded of that a lot. So I feel like it's good to always reiterate. The garlic is smaller. It'll burn more easily.
Jenn: I mean look at your cutting board when you're prepping figs, like look at like do this test when you when you have different vegetables that you are about to cook or stir fry whatever you're gonna do with them. Just hold them between your your thumb and forefinger and squish it. Honestly, you will learn so much. We like oh, I should cook this first like a carrot. You cannot squish that right?
Alicia: No, I think it's actually a great test.
Jenn: I have no this question the squish test. I invented something.
Alicia: I love that. Yeah, well cooking. You're beginning stages make sure with your veggies go through, you know, yeah potatoes. That's not gonna ever pass that's not going to and it does throw it away.
Jenn: Yes. That's bad. Um, but yeah, like if you have a lineup of vegetables that you've just diced and cubed, put one of each of them between your thumb and forefinger and give it a little squeeze and the ones that give way are the ones that are the put in later.
Alicia: Once again, we could probably make another chart but like another chart.
Jenn: Like a list of the squish chest chart. Yeah. I love it. My goodness, I'll start a Miro board with all of these these charts that we're gonna make and leaking all contribute. It'll be so much fun. But folks I think it's time to start wrapping up Alicia any other additional thoughts you have about these set of words.
Alicia: No, I think I think this is a great set. I think we covered a lot of interesting things once again stuff. We maybe doing or may not have been doing but important tasty touches to food.
Jenn: Yeah. If you think of it consider deglazing folks on your next dinner or lunch or whatever it is that you're cooking. It's a nice to have, you know have to do it, but it'll add a little more dimension to what you're making.
Alicia: It's an easy step and then it's an impressive step especially if you're a novice cook. If you're saying out it's a middle, press people that you're cooking for. If you've been you know in the stages of learning how to cook. It's like a fun New surprise. I feel like yeah, you know, even serving that bland chicken with some veg on top and ooh, but all of a sudden you have a glaze ugly.
Jenn: You know and you have a pan sauce now, you know how to make pan sauces.
Alicia: And I think that's a very impressive skill to have that's a you're on like a second date or first day. You bring them home and you're cooking for them. I should know what date that would be but whatever date it might be and you like you bring off the pan and like pour this off on. It's an impressive
Jenn: Alicia movement fast here.
Alicia: I don't know when you bring them home for cooking for other things maybe but cooking. I don't know.
Jenn: And with that folks if you have any questions for us, please do tweet at culinary wotd comment on our patreon and tell a friend about culinary word of the day. Signing off. I am Jenn and this this podcast is now called Esculenté!
Alicia: Alright, bye everybody,