[Sca-cooks] Cooking qustion

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

A few things.

First, what is called for here is red saunders, which is NOT true sandalwood. In fact, true sandalwood (Santalum album and other Santalum spp.) is not safe to consume. Red saunders, aka red sanders, aka red sandalwood (Pterocarpus santalinus) can be purchased on-line, so it's not that hard to get.

Second, it has little to no flavor if properly prepared and used. It needs to be a very fine powder, and one should not use giant globs of it. The only times i've heard of problems have  been when either the red saunders was not powdered properly so there was splinters and chunks of it in the dish or when the cook in an effort to get a bright red used huge quantities of it. If you powder it yourself, SIFT IT before using. And don't expect it to be bright red. It will be a brick pink.

Third, since it can be purchased on-line, i don't see a real reason to use red food coloring.

Four, if one is set on going the artificial coloring route, well, common red food coloring is the wrong color. Powdered red saunders is rather brick red, so when diluted in the apple mus it is the pinkish version of brick red, a warm pink without blue overtones.

I have made apple mus colored with red saunders.

Urtatim (that's urr-tah-TEEM)

> A friend is dipping her toe into the period cooking pool and asked me a question that I 
> didn't feel I had a good answer for. So, of course I bring it here. - Hrothny
>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 9:22 AM
> To: 'Terri Morgan'
> Subject: Cooking qustion
>
> This might be odd but here goes…
>
> I found a recipe for something called apple muse, basically an apple sauce/pudding that 
> looks kind of tasty and it’s red!  Yay red! But the red seems to come from sandalwood 
> which I do not have and is (as you know) hard to find.  If I swap out the sandalwood with 
> a little food coloring, is that going to change the taste much?  From what I’ve been able 
> to find so far no one has much of anything to say about the flavor the sandalwood gives, 
> just the color.  The only flavor note I found was “unappealing” which isn’t terribly 
> helpful.  I would assume it would cut the surgery sweet in the same way cinnamon does, but 
> what it would cut it with is the question and whether it makes any difference the issue.  
> Not having eaten anything with sandalwood I’m asking you, who may have ☺
>
> Period cooking is fun.  Chemistry AND detective work!  And shopping.
> Thanks!
> -Oda