Tellicherry Peppercorns: What Are They and How Do I Use Them?

Black pepper is simply black pepper – right?  Actually that’s not true, but I only recently realized it.  When I first began cooking, black pepper was not a spice I gave much thought to.  My only concern was that I not add too much of it and ruin the dish. 

Then as I became more familiar with Indian cuisine and new flavors, I began building up my spice rack.  That’s when I discovered Szechuan Peppercorns.   I used them sparingly because they were expensive, and also they provided a distinctive taste that I didn’t want every day.

More importantly, though, I became more aware that black pepper wasn’t just a generic spice. 

Noodles and Sauce: Finding the Right Combo

In my youth, noodles cooked at home always meant spaghetti.  In Italian restaurants, I could order lasagna, ravioli or macaroni and cheese.  But I’d never heard of the intriguingly-named penne, farfalle (butterflies or bowties), linguine, bucatini, rotini, rotelle, rigatoni and maybe 100 more served in Italy.   This list doesn’t include Asian noodles.

My mother’s go-to cooking guide was “The Settlement Cook Book,” which had the curious subtitle “The Way to a Man’s Heart.”  It was initially published in 1901.  Her copy, the 22nd edition, was dated 1938.  Noodle recipes took up just a few pages, and you had to make your own noodles!  I don't remember her trying any of those recipes. 

Instead she reached for the canned spaghetti. 

Question for Mom

Foods That Cannot Be Frozen Successfully

What foods cannot be frozen successfully? – Oliver K.

A few foods are totally ruined if you freeze them:

* Raw eggs in their shells might explode because liquids expand when frozen.

* Lettuce, whole avocados and vegetables or fruits made up of a lot of water (celery, cucumbers, radishes, raw potatoes, melons) are virtually inedible after freezing.

* Any salad that includes mayonnaise

Foods That Can Be Frozen 

Foods you can freeze but in order to enjoy eating them, they must be cooked after they defrost:

Mom Cooking Tip 142

Pizza Dough with Oregano and Minced Dried Onions Added

Want to impress your friends and family with your cooking prowess?  Here’s an easy trick.  If you’re making a pie crust or pizza dough, add chopped fresh or dried basil, oregano, dill, celery seeds, chopped garlic, zatar or minced dried onions to the dough as you are mixing it.  Add 1/2 teaspoon per pizza or pie crust for extra flavor.

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Why Reinvent the Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie?

Chocolate Chip Cookies Using Only Brown Sugar

I have often wondered why there are so many different variations of chocolate chip cookies.  After some considerable thought, I have come up with a simple answer.  Bakers don’t like to leave well enough alone. 

I grew up on chocolate chip cookies.  It was the one dessert my mother prepared flawlessly.  She never told me where she got the recipe, but I imagine it came from the back of a package of chocolate chips.  

The ingredients are simple: butter, flour, sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips.

Mom Cooking Tip 141

If your bananas or avocados are taking too long to ripen, put them in a paper bag, close the bag and set aside for a day or two.  Check occasionally to make sure they’re not over-ripening. 

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Mom’s Basic Bootcamp: Corn

Until recently I took corn for granted.  I kept a can or two on hand to serve as an emergency vegetable but seldom actually did so.  Occasionally I’d buy a box of frozen corn and then forget it was in the freezer.

I have always favored fresh corn.  It reminds me of summers in Western Pennsylvania.  My father was a big corn lover, and being in a semi-rural area we often bought a dozen ears from a roadside stand and ate them all in one sitting.

Back in those days

The Joys of a Food Scale

During my 20s, if the recipe said 3 ounces of sugar or 450 grams of flour, I automatically thought to myself, “I’m not making that.”  I didn’t know how to measure 3 ounces or 450 grams because I didn’t have a food scale and I was too lazy to get one.

This went on for years until I moved to London, where the Metric System was in full swing.  If I hoped to follow any recipe exactly, I had to invest in a scale.  The only downside was that the scale took up a lot of cupboard space. Digital models were not yet available, so I had to buy what was out there.

Goat Cheese – How to Use It

 Occasionally my bargain-hunting outruns my common sense, and I buy way too much of an ingredient because it’s on sale.  About a week ago an irresistible double package of goat cheese landed in my shopping cart.

Once I got it home I began to wonder what I was going to do with 20 ounces of this soft white cheese.  I took one package to a dinner party.  The other sat forlornly in the cheese drawer for a week until I remembered a quiche recipe an English friend sent me.  Conveniently it called for goat cheese.

The directions said

Question for Mom

Why does chocolate sometimes have a grayish cast or gray streaks when I take it out of its wrapping?  --Fred B.

Most likely there’s been a big change in temperature in the area where you’re storing the chocolate.  Experts call this color change “chocolate bloom.”  Technically the cocoa butter in the chocolate rises to the surface when the chocolate gets warm.  When it cools, the cocoa butter turns gray.  Another cause can be sugar rising to the surface of the chocolate when there’s high humidity.  When any surface moisture evaporates, the sugar crystals are visible.

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Emergency Chicken Soup

Whenever I think of chicken soup, I think of my grandmother.  She served her homemade version to the family every Friday night.  This was back in the days when whole chickens, not beautifully prepacked chicken parts, were sold in grocery stores. 

One of the most exciting aspects of her soup was the possibility of tiny cooked egg yolks popping up in the soup bowl.  At the time you could get real chickens seemingly straight from the farm, and these chickens had unlaid eggs in various stages of development inside them.  The downside was you had to gut and clean the chickens yourself.

Mom Cooking Tip 140

Don’t cover chocolate when you’re melting it.  Drops of condensation may fall into the chocolate and ruin it.  Instead, put the chocolate in a thick-bottomed frying pan over very low heat and stir until the chocolate is about half-melted.  Turn off the heat and let the chocolate sit in the pan.  The residual heat of the pan will cause the rest of the chocolate to melt.

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Feta Cheese: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

When I was growing up, the only cheese regularly in my family’s refrigerator was a block of processed Cheddar.  It felt like modeling clay, and it was fun to play with.  I ate it and liked it because I didn’t know what else was out there.

Occasionally my father would ask my mother to buy Swiss cheese, but I never really cared for it.  Then I spent a summer in Greece as an exchange student and discovered feta cheese.  It was very salty, but it was the perfect accompaniment to a dish of sliced ripe tomatoes.

When I came back to my Pennsylvania small town,