[Sca-cooks] New Grits use OOP
Nick Sasso
grizly at mindspring.com
Fri Jan 5 19:54:54 PST 2007
I had necessity tonight that led to inspiration. I had a pot of tomato
sauce simmering with less attention that it needed tonight, and it began to
scorch . . . a little scorching is my desired effect to add depth to my
sauce, but this get a little too far. We did not have a complete layer of
carbonized sauce, but more than browned bits. I removed the sauce and
immediately ran water to begin dissolving what I could with dish soap added.
When soaked for 3 hours or so, some of it softened to come off, the rest
adhered with some tenacity and resisted the plastic scrubby. I reached for
salt to use as an abrasive. No dice. Only a 1/2 cup left for cooking. So,
I reached for the stone ground grits. I figured it would have some abrasive
property, and not scratch my stainless pan. 2 Tablespoons worked great. If
you try it, I recommend going as dry as possible. Damp sponge or rag at
most. I had a little too much moiosture, and the grits tended to soften too
quickly for the duration of scouring I needed to do (about 10 to 15
minutes).
Sure, you could use steel wool or Brillo, but the natural grit is what I had
and it worked . . . safer on the hands, pan and environment as well! You
might try coarse grain of any sort as well, but be sure it is a hard grain.
Also check your price per pound before dumping in some heirloom cracked
grain of some sort.
niccolo difrancesco
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