[Sca-cooks] Weird Kitchen Science: Fascinating color-shift phemonenon...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Bill Fisher:
>On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 22:33:44 -0500, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
><adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>  So, there I am caramelizing twelve pounds of onion/garlic/ginger
>>  puree, and as I say, when I make a pint of this stuff I'm used to the
>>  various sulphur compounds in the onion reacting with either the
>>  ginger and/or the iron pan to produce a slight bluish-green color
>>  which goes away as the product cooks (it turns grey, then brown, then
>>  sorta reddish). I left the kitchen for a few minutes with my pans on
>>  low heat, and came back to find an astonishingly bright aquamarine
>>  blue-green stuff in the pans.
>
>Thanks for the curry building blocks....I will use that this weekend.

There used to be a tiny Burmese take-out food shop -- I can't even 
really call them a restaurant, and I don't even remember if they had 
even one table for eating, but I doubt it -- in my neighborhood, and 
I learned a lot from watching the [usually only one] cook at work. 
One was that while there're a million curry variations, this was 
probably my favorite, and the basis for a family of curries that they 
produced (and then there were several others that were totally 
unrelated). This basic paste seemed to be used for shrimp, cod or 
other firm fish, tomato, and, I think, maybe spinach (which latter, 
as I recall, probably had a little tamarind in there, too). The 
shrimp curry totally kicked keister, though, although the shrimp were 
always more well-cooked than I liked them... sort of stewed, but this 
was probably more a desired effect from the cook's standpoint than 
any competence issue. Rather hard and rubbery in texture, but a 
wonderful, concentrated flavor. You sort of have to understand the 
cuisine, and not necessarily employ the typical Western standard 
which says that shrimp should be briefly cooked and there should not 
be oil pooling on top of your food. These were both definite pluses 
in this case, because a half-cup of this stuff with a bowl of white 
rice was pretty much a flavor explosion.

>Hrm, blenderized onions plus water = sulfuric acid + iron pan....
>
>I don't have a clue......
>
>Maybe the onions came from an area with really high soil sulfur content?
>
>Do other onions turn colors in your pans?
>
>Do they do that in other pans?......do you have other pans?

Actually, I was planning on leaving it all in the crockpot overnight, 
but there was more mixture than the crockpot would hold, so I started 
some in more traditional fashion in an iron skillet (and I suspect 
iron pans in Myanmar would not be unusual). The crockpot is the usual 
glazed stoneware, and I got that effect (I have photos!) in both 
vessels, so I'm now down to assuming iron is probably not an issue. 
I'm thinking the ginger now, since I;ve never seen anything like this 
in simple onion-garlic combinations.

>Were you wearing pants?

Yep. I learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago... besides, 
I've been a parent too long to do that sort of thing.

>Did they change color?

Nah, I lucked out, in spite of not wearing an apron. But then I have 
not yet added turmeric to the paste, and it is the Traditional Oily 
Turmeric Explosion that comes with most of my curry experiences that 
has the R&D divisions of the big laundry detergent manufacturers 
staying awake nights.

>  > I haven't seen any evidence to suggest this is either unnatural or
>>  dangerous (if I'd been using an unlined copper or aluminum pan, I'd
>>  be worried), but man, this was bright for a food product not
>>  deliberately colored that way.
>>
>>  Will advise if there's an explosion or anything...
>>
>>  Adamantius
>
>I'm curious how they turned out...

Well, as far as I know, no neighbors have complained to building 
management or contacted the police about Disturbing Odors, but it 
could come at any time. I have the air conditioner exhaust fan on...

My goal state is to have about two gallons of reduced curry "sauce" 
(no one who is not a European really admits to the existence of such 
a thing -- well, maybe some Chinese cooks -- but you don't make a 
sauce, you make a paste, and the sauce makes itself when you cook 
juicy foods in it) in an intermediate stage between generic paste and 
finished seafood curry. I figure I can safely pressure can this: it's 
low-acid even with tomatoes added. The plan is curry in a hurry: 
empty the jar of sauce base into a pan with some oil, bring to a 
simmer, add raw shrimp or fish, or veg, and "fry" all until cooked.

Adamantius
-- 






"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If they have no bread, you have to say, let them eat 
brioche."
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", pub 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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