[Sca-cooks] Novice Saffron Use

[KarenO]

    My first experience with saffron was a first experience in a wooden
spoon competition way back in 1993(?).  The dish was redacting a recipe that
was  a bicolor dish with almond milk & rice flour.   I mixed the saffron in
with the almond milk in the very beginning when I heated up the milk to add
the rice flour.   I didn't win, but I impressed a couple judges who sought
me out  -- wanting to know what I had used to get such a rich, deep yellow &
how I had gotten the dish to be so smooth.    I would suggest this recipe
for a good "taste" of saffron, because it is so bland, except for the added
saffron . . . . .but then I'd have to remember which book it's in . . . . .

Caointiarn


> > Okay, but this still doesn't answer my question completely. In another
message in this same thread, Phlip commented "The important thing is to get
the saffron hot and wet before adding the rice, so it permeates the dish."<<
>
> The really important thing is to get the saffron wet- the heat just speeds
up the dispersion of the essence of saffron- basic chemistry.
>
> > So I was wanting to know if the saffron was kept dry until the dish was
almost finished cooking, then crushed and added to the paella as a powder.
Or if it was crushed and then mixed in a liquid and then added to the
paella. From your comments above I think I can rule out the other
possibility that occurred to me, cooking the threads in the dish until the
dish was almost done, straining them out, crushing them, and then adding
them back to the dish.
>
> Yes, the (dry) saffron is added towards the end, so that it adds color and
flavor without dispersing entirely into the rest of the dish. You COULD try
to strain it out, but if you do, I wanna watch ;-) It kinda tends to vanish
during the cooking process. >
> Saint Phlip,