[Sca-cooks] RE: What classes would you take/teach?

[Debra Hense]

Olwen wrote:
<<
>10. Substitutions - What are viable substitutions for
>today's cook, especially when some ingredients
>are hard to come by.  How to obtain the hard-to-come
>by ingredients.  Determining exactly what you are
>substituting: flavor, texture, aroma or visual appeal.
>(I used to teach this one.)
>
>Kateryn de Develyn

I would be very interested in this type of class as well.  You don't still
have any handouts do you?
>>

It was essentially a tasting class.  the handouts
simply listed the ingredients that I brought, along
with common substitutions.   The students were
urged to taste each item, then write down their
impressions of its taste - and compare it to a
commonly suggested substitution.  And to also
include in their notes how they might try substituting
for it.   One handout had the following on it:

distilled vinegar
apple-cider vinegar
balsamic vinegar - 4 yr
balsamic vinegar - 11 yr
malted vinegar
red wine vinegar

long pepper
pepper - black freshly grated
cubebs
grains of paradise

(these were all fried in butter)
shallots
leeks
red onions
white onions

(these were mixed in with white rice)
saffron
safflower
cumin
yellow food dye

raisons
currants

Then I did a whole series of shortbread where I used as many different kinds of flour as I could find, along with several different kinds of sugar, and fats. This was to show how big a difference an ingredient change can make - especially if you don't the know the why/what for which you are substituting.

Standard recipe was 1 cup flour, 1 / 2 cup fat, 1 / 4 cup sugar, mix lightly, place in pie tin and bake in moderate oven until just brown around the edges.

So I would have the following:
white flour / butter / white sugar
unbleached flour / butter / white sugar
white flour / butter / honey
white flour / butter / turbinado sugar
white flour / butter / brown sugar
white flour / butter / powdered sugar
oat flour / butter / white sugar
barley flour / butter / white sugar
rye flour / butter  / white sugar
millet flour / butter / white sugar
filbert flour / butter / white sugar (cut the butter in half on this one)
garbanzo bean flour / butter /white sugar (this always ended up tasting faintly of peanut butter) :-0
white flour/ lard / white sugar
white flour / diet butter / white sugar (this one always ended up as goo)

Sometimes I ended up with more flours, sometimes less.

The whole point of the class was to teach that doing substitutions was okay, but you really really needed to know the what and the why you were substituting.   And also to encourage people to delve a little deeper into their research when redacting recipes.  So that if they chose to use a flour other than white wheat, they could choose one that was appropriate to the region and the timeperiod for the recipe they were choosing to recreate.

I give my permission to anyone who wants to recreate and teach this class to go ahead and do so.  It was always well attended.  The handout always changed from class to class depending on the ingredients I had on hand. And how much time I had to prepare everything ahead.

Kateryn