It's Rhubarb season!
To me, this means that spring is well underway and it's almost time to rejoice in the produce that is summer. Before we get there though, I want to take some time to enjoy this under-appreciated and tasty treat. For those of you unfamiliar with this food, rhubarb can be considered either a vegetable or a fruit. You can cook the stalks of this perennial plant as part of many desserts or sometimes as a tart addition to savory dishes. Thus, it is anatomically like most vegetables - part of the vegetative growth not the tissues associated with the reproductive organs, like most fruits. However, in terms of culinary application, rhubarb is generally treated like a fruit. (Note: if you are preparing rhubarb for yourself, remember to remove all of the leaves since they are high in toxic oxalic acid!)
In the past, I have used rhubarb in pies (especially with strawberries - the famous partner of rhubarb) or as a tart addition to muffins. This year, I splurged on some extra rhubarb and I decided to get creative with how I used it. So far I've made a really tasty, non-pie dessert and wonderful chutney.
The dessert is a recipe given to me from my sister's mother-in-law. It consists of a shortbread crust covered in a rhubarb and egg yolk custard and topped with a meringue. I was a little nervous about the meringue since I haven't made one in years, but it was surprisingly easy and came out really tasty. It also made me wonder if you could replace the rhubarb with some stone fruit - I think peaches would be especially tasty although you would need to cut back majorly on the sugar.
My second rhubarb adventure was a riff on a dish I had in a restaurant earlier this year. That dish was a grilled pork chop with baby turnips and beets, fried onions, and a plum rhubarb ginger compote. For anyone who has put applesauce on their pork, it was a similar taste although even more tart. For my version, I glazed a pork loin with lemon juice, honey, olive oil, sage, and garlic. Once it was cooked, I caramelized some onions in the pan juices. The rhubarb was mixed with some dried apricots, triple sec, a little sugar, a little applesauce, and fresh ginger. I cooked that down until the rhubarb started to fall apart. It came out FANTASTIC! The leftovers were even better in my opinion - I put slices of pork, some onions, and chutney between two slices of whole wheat toast. It was reminiscent of 'day after Thanksgiving' sandwiches - savory meat mixing with tart fruitiness all contained in a sandwich. I will definitely need to make some more of this chutney. I'm thinking it could be great as part of stuffed french toast as well as a great component in other pork or lamb dishes.
In the next week or so we should start to get strawberries at which point it will be pie season. But I'll try to remember that deviations from what I always do can turn out quite tasty, not to mention fun to make.
Sunday, June 5
Sunday, May 15
Wheat Germ and Wheat Bran - Are They Different?
Good eating and 'heathly' food seem to be topics that keep popping up in my life, so I thought I'd touch on my discoveries regarding wheat grains today...
I think I've wondered about the difference between wheat germ and wheat bran whenever I'm working on a recipe that requires one or the other. I always thought the authors were just being pretensions and that wheat germ and wheat bran were the same thing.Then, I ran out of my wheat germ and went to the local co-op to buy some. While searching through the bins of bulk goods for the wheat germ, I found bins of both wheat germ and wheat bran. Even more interesting, only the wheat germ was stored in the fridge, while wheat bran was stored at room temperature. This started me re-thinking my idea that the two grains were the same. (Perhaps some of you are wondering why this realization took me so long - it does seem rather obvious in retrospect.) The storage methods gave me my first hint - if wheat germ requires cool storage, it would suggest that it has higher fat content that wheat germ and the cool storage delays the fats going rancid.
My next step was to check out the ever trusty Joy of Cooking, which told me that wheat bran was ground-up version of the bran portion of the wheat kernels. This sent me in search of information of the parts of a wheat kernel (Wikipedia is my friend), and low and behold, wheat kernels have a bran, or outer sheath, an endosperm, making up the bulk of the kernel, and a germ, the portion of the kernel that will germinate and form a new plant. So, rather obvious now, wheat germ is made of ground-up germ while wheat bran is made up of ground-up bran. Interestingly, I've also found that most flour is made of ground wheat kernels after the bran and germ are removed.
Now to the question of why the wheat germ needs to be refrigerated while wheat bran does not. As I suspected, the fat content differs between these two cereal products. Wheat germ is relatively rich in omega 3 lipids. To keep the omega 3s fresh, you need to put the wheat germ in the fridge. Wheat bran is relatively rich in fiber - not surprising for the ground bits of a kernel husk. In addition, both wheat germ and wheat bran are good sources of vitamin B, iron, and other micro-nutrients. These nutrients are part of why whole wheat flour is better for you than regular flour - whole wheat flour includes the bran and the germ while regular flour does not.
In conclusion, wheat germ and wheat bran really are different. You need to store them differently, and that is because of differences in content - the wheat germ is richer in fats and the wheat bran is richer in fiber. However, I'm still not sure this means that I'll pay any more attention to my recipe directions than I have before. Both have some fiber, some protein, some lipids, and more nutritional value that all purpose flour. I'll make sure to pay attention to how I store them, and I'll probably put more wheat germ than wheat bran on my oatmeal in the morning since I'd rater add more omega-3s than fiber to my breakfast, but otherwise my cooking choices are unlikely to change very much. On the other hand, I'll now feel oddly informed when shopping in the bulk cereal section and when baking.
I think I've wondered about the difference between wheat germ and wheat bran whenever I'm working on a recipe that requires one or the other. I always thought the authors were just being pretensions and that wheat germ and wheat bran were the same thing.Then, I ran out of my wheat germ and went to the local co-op to buy some. While searching through the bins of bulk goods for the wheat germ, I found bins of both wheat germ and wheat bran. Even more interesting, only the wheat germ was stored in the fridge, while wheat bran was stored at room temperature. This started me re-thinking my idea that the two grains were the same. (Perhaps some of you are wondering why this realization took me so long - it does seem rather obvious in retrospect.) The storage methods gave me my first hint - if wheat germ requires cool storage, it would suggest that it has higher fat content that wheat germ and the cool storage delays the fats going rancid.
My next step was to check out the ever trusty Joy of Cooking, which told me that wheat bran was ground-up version of the bran portion of the wheat kernels. This sent me in search of information of the parts of a wheat kernel (Wikipedia is my friend), and low and behold, wheat kernels have a bran, or outer sheath, an endosperm, making up the bulk of the kernel, and a germ, the portion of the kernel that will germinate and form a new plant. So, rather obvious now, wheat germ is made of ground-up germ while wheat bran is made up of ground-up bran. Interestingly, I've also found that most flour is made of ground wheat kernels after the bran and germ are removed.
Now to the question of why the wheat germ needs to be refrigerated while wheat bran does not. As I suspected, the fat content differs between these two cereal products. Wheat germ is relatively rich in omega 3 lipids. To keep the omega 3s fresh, you need to put the wheat germ in the fridge. Wheat bran is relatively rich in fiber - not surprising for the ground bits of a kernel husk. In addition, both wheat germ and wheat bran are good sources of vitamin B, iron, and other micro-nutrients. These nutrients are part of why whole wheat flour is better for you than regular flour - whole wheat flour includes the bran and the germ while regular flour does not.
In conclusion, wheat germ and wheat bran really are different. You need to store them differently, and that is because of differences in content - the wheat germ is richer in fats and the wheat bran is richer in fiber. However, I'm still not sure this means that I'll pay any more attention to my recipe directions than I have before. Both have some fiber, some protein, some lipids, and more nutritional value that all purpose flour. I'll make sure to pay attention to how I store them, and I'll probably put more wheat germ than wheat bran on my oatmeal in the morning since I'd rater add more omega-3s than fiber to my breakfast, but otherwise my cooking choices are unlikely to change very much. On the other hand, I'll now feel oddly informed when shopping in the bulk cereal section and when baking.
Friday, April 29
The First Post
So this is my first post ever!
I think I must first admit, that I was never the type to think I'd start a blog. I'm not really the creative writing type. Nor am I really big on new technologies - I'm still really unclear about the point and purpose of Twitter. However, I am a graduate student who realized that my writing skills are not what they once were; I'm hoping that a blog is a way to push myself to practice this important skill.
As for what this blog will be, the description pretty much covers it - I don't want this to be a diary-like set of postings. I want an outlet where things that are on my mind can make it into prose. In fact, I very much doubt that many people will read this, but I'm okay with that too.
Sadly, I think this is it for the moment - I've been putting most of my brain power into a paper for school, but I wanted to get the ball rolling on this project so everything is ready the next time I have a thought.
-Peace
I think I must first admit, that I was never the type to think I'd start a blog. I'm not really the creative writing type. Nor am I really big on new technologies - I'm still really unclear about the point and purpose of Twitter. However, I am a graduate student who realized that my writing skills are not what they once were; I'm hoping that a blog is a way to push myself to practice this important skill.
As for what this blog will be, the description pretty much covers it - I don't want this to be a diary-like set of postings. I want an outlet where things that are on my mind can make it into prose. In fact, I very much doubt that many people will read this, but I'm okay with that too.
Sadly, I think this is it for the moment - I've been putting most of my brain power into a paper for school, but I wanted to get the ball rolling on this project so everything is ready the next time I have a thought.
-Peace
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