[Sca-cooks] Novice Saffron User

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hey all from Anne-Marie

On maximizing Saffrons effect:

When I make my darioles, or any dish that I want to have flavor and am
not so focused on keeping the threads distinct, I'll take my pinch and
put it in a cup with a bit of hot water or broth or wine (whatever the
recipe is using) and sit down for 15-20 minutes, watch some TV and moosh
them with a spoon. The threads will get lighter colored and the liquid
becomes a glorious shade of red-orange.

For a stew or other dish that is going to simmer or boil for a good long
while, I don't worry about it so much as the threads will release their
saffronny goodness all on their own without my help.

On the reverse side, of course, if you're interested in keeping distinct
threads with their flavor isolated (can be a cool effect), just toss
them in with a minimum of stirring.

I've also found the freshness of the saffron to be a major variable. If
the stuff is the old shriveled stuff you get from the back shelf of most
grocery stores (ie low turnover), you need a lot more vs the stuff I get
from Tony at WorldSpice or the Spanish Table here in Seattle which is
positively damp still its so fresh...I find I often only need five or
six threads of juicy stuff vs a much larger quantity of the older stuff.
I never use the pre-powdered stuff...its oomph seems pretty much gone by
the time it gets to the store.

Hope this is useful,
--AM

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Stefan li Rous
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 10:57 PM
To: SCA-Cooks SCA-Cooks maillist
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Novice Saffron User

Ana replied to me with:
> In the recipes I know and in the houses in Spain I have seen the
paella
> being made the saffran (the pisties, the threads) were crushed when
the
> seafood and the fish was almost done. But I dont know if it was
because
> they didnt want the taste of the saffran became too penetrant.
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."

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.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****

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