[Sca-cooks] Favorite Healthy period dishes, recent study on vitamin absorption
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Mon Aug 14 14:42:52 PDT 2006
On Aug 14, 2006, at 4:53 PM, grizly wrote:
> There is a certain gelatin release going on here as well, when you
> consider
> the your beef and the number of birdies that are being cooked in this
> recipe.
True, especially in the case of recipes calling for certain cuts of
beef or veal (i.e. shoulder, shank, etc.)
> The dense fat and gelatin would tend to generate a certain texture
> that would be like a really dense sausage/forcemeat, I would
> think. The
> gelatin and fat rendered from the birds would surely add caloric
> intake, but
> more importantly, mouthfeel. That rich, decadent mouth texture is
> hard to
> replicate when pulling the marrow and suet out. It can be done,
> but it
> takes an effort if one is looking to recreate the same dish without
> the fat.
> The yolks, if smashed, would tend to be emulsifiers and binders
> along with
> the other stuffe.
>
> What do you use currently to maintain the textural similarity in
> this or
> other dishes, or is that taken as an accepted change as a result of
> fat
> decrease? (asking to gather info and not as a challenge to the
> practice)
You're asking me, right? ;-)
I'd cut down the fat to somewhere near 10%, make sure the meat is
chopped and not ground, and either include some high-connective-
tissue meat like chuck or shank meat (some late recipes might
advocate something like a boned-out pig's foot, boiled and chopped).
Maybe in a pinch I'd add a concentrated, salt-free stock or other
gelatin source (this is apparently a Shanghainese trick for dumpling
fillings -- boil your meat with a piece of skin -- this would be
pork, of course -- take the meat out when it's tender, cool, chop,
reserve, and add it back to the stock which you have continued to
cook down to a small amount of gelatin).
But, again, I wouldn't see any of this, and certainly not simply
leaving stuff out, as not changing the recipe, until I had
established why they were there and what they were supposed to do.
Adamantius
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