EXTRACTING FLAVORS

Sauces form the foundation of Western cuisine,and stocks form the

foundation of most sauces.Making a stock is all about extracting flavors
andaromas from meat, seafood, vegetables, or somecombination of
these ingredients. Despite manyrecent high-tech advances in the
kitchen, cooks have come up with few truly new methods to mine flavor
from food since the early 20th century, when the iconic French chef
Auguste Escoffier codified a stockmaking process that became the
standard of haute cuisine. In most contemporary kitchens, stocks remain
as central to the food as they were in Escoffier's own kitchens, including
the one at the Ritz Hotel, where he laid much of the groundwork for the
classic dishes that would make French cuisine famous. Escoffier made
sure that he appointed only the most talented staffer to be his saucier
and stockmaker. A high ratio of surface area to volume, in other words,
can save a falling animal's life if air resistance, which goes in step with
surface area, slows its descent enough. That ratio has deep implications
for the preparation of stocks as well, affecting not only their cooking
time but also how completely flavor is extracted from the ingredients.
Size matters
The fact that surface area and volume scale differently (as scientists say) explains why we grind
coffee beans. To apply Haldane's reasoning, if you were to divide a roasted coffee bean by a factor
of ten in each spatial dimension, you would get a thousand tiny coffee grounds, each having one-
thousandth the volume and one-hundredth the area of the intact bean. The total volume of the
1,000 grounds equals that of a single bean. But if you add up the surface area of the particles, the
sum is 100 times that of the original bean. Grinding the bean is therefore like installing a hundred
extra little doors through which flavor can exit from the bean's once-inaccessible interior. And the
more finely you grind the bean, the more total surface area emerges.

Extracted under pressure

The fact that surface area and volume scale differently (as scientists say) explains why we grind
coffee beans. To apply Haldane's reasoning, if you were to divide a roasted coffee bean by a factor
of ten in each spatial dimension, you would get a thousand tiny coffee grounds, each having one-
thousandth the volume and one-hundredth the area of the intact bean. The total volume of the
1,000 grounds equals that of a single bean. But if you add up the surface area of the particles, the
sum is 100 times that of the original bean. Grinding the bean is therefore like installing a hundred
extra little doors through which flavor can exit from the bean's once-inaccessible interior. And the
more finely you grind the bean, the more total surface area emerges.
How to pressure cook-stock
Cooking under pressure
Stock
flavored liquid preparation. It forms the basis of many dishes, particularly soups, stews and
sauces. Making stocks involves simmering animal bones or meat, seafood, or vegetables in water
or wine, adding mirepoix or other aromatics for more flavor.
Determining What Tastes Best

Detecting a difference and measuring a preference are harder than

you might think. Cognitive scientists have shown that human
perception is naturally biased by the order in which the alternatives
are tasted. So unless you follow a tasting protocol that compensates
for these biases, you could easily fool yourself into thinking that
some subtle addition makes a real difference when it actually
doesn't-or even that an addition was a mistake when actually it was
an improvement. Detecting a real difference requires a triangle
tasting test of three samples; see How to Set Up a Triangle Test,
page 4·336. When we were comparing stock recipes and
stockmaking methods, we measured our preferences by using a
slightly more complex procedure with four samples-sometimes
called a ranking test.
 How to make stock sous vide
1. Prepare ingredients. Grind meat finely, and sli ce vegetab les thinly.
Use ratios recommended in th e table of Best Bets for Stocks on page
296. Ro ast bones.
2 .Vacuum seal ingredients together.
3. Cooksousvide in 85 "C/ 185 "F bath for3 h.
4. Cavitate in ultrasonic cleaning bath for 30 min (optional). If the
ultrasonic bath ha s a t e mpera ture setting , put it at the highest degree
available, typically 60 "C / 140 "F.
5 Refrigeratefor12 h, then strain.
6 Vacuum seal again, and refrigerate orfreeze until needed
Broth
a savory liquid made of water in which bones, meat, fish, or vegetables have been simmered.[1] It can be
eaten alone, but it is most commonly used to prepare other dishes, such as soups, gravies, and sauces.

Making a broth
1. Select a broth from the table.
2. Prepare and scale the liquid,meat, vegetables, and
aromatics. Weights in the table are proportional to the
liquid scaled to 100% .For example, to make dashi , for
every 100 g of water used , add 5 .2 g of bonito flakes and
2.5 g of kombu.
3. Pressure-cook (set to 1 bar / 15 psi), or vacuum seal and
cook sous vide . Recommended cooking methods ,
temperatures, and times are given in the table.
4. Sieve
Flavor infused liquids

Measuring Salinity
Seasoning with salt "to taste" is an unavoidable
directive, but one with some surprising pitfalls. Not
only do individual tastes differ, but the same person
can perceive saltiness differently in different situations,
depending on factors as varied as the sugar
content of the food or the taster's level of hydration .
Salinometers allow cooks to quantify the level of
salt in that momentary taste and thus help to make
recipes more consistent and reproducible. Salinameters
are also convenient tools for gauging whether
brines are reusable.
PARAMETRIC RECIPE
ACIDIFIERS
Sourness is one of the basic tastes and is as essential as saltiness
for balancing the seasoning of a dish. But it is too often underused.
Including an acidifier among your ingredients won't necessarily
make the food sour-it can instead add brightness. An acid
also can activate the salivary glands at the sides of the diner's
mouth, helping to distribute flavors more throughout the palate.
The end result is a dish with greater depth and intrigue.
Measuring pH
A pH meter that inexpensively and quickly measures the acid content of liquids is a convenient
way to ensure that acidity is consistent from one batch to the next.
Instructions vary from model to model, but the basics involve
dipping the probe in the liquid you wantto measure and waiting for the
reading to stabilize, which can take up to a minute. The meters must
be recalibrated regularly (ideally daily in a busy kitchen) by using
solutions available from the manufacturer. To avoid cross-contamination,
clean the probe as recommended after every use.
You can buy solutions formulated to pH values of exactly four,
seven, and 10 to use in calibrating your pH meter. Refer to the manufacturer's
instructions to calibrate your meter. Most devices have a
special calibration mode. To use it, you typically dip the probe into
one of the calibration solutions, wait for the reading to stabilize
(indicated by a beep or flash), then rinse the meter quickly in tap
water. Repeat with the other preformulated solutions, then reset the
meter to measuring mode for use.
SEASONING WITH WINE, BEER, AND SPIRITS

To cooks, wine and other beverages containing

alcohol can be a type of seasoning. They use them
to awaken the palate or to help liberate aromatic
compounds. The addition of just a tiny shot can
add depth and character to dishes. Because of the
tremendous variety of bitter, sour, and sweet
profiles availab le in wines, beers, and liquors, they
serve an important role as multidimensional
flavoring agents. How to choose the perfect
alcoholic beverage to match a particularfood is a
subject complex enough to fill its own book. Go
with your own personal preferences, or follow the
lead of geography or history as well as flavor. The
right Scotch whiskey adds mossy flavors of the
field to wild game stock, for example
 INFUSING ESSENCES
These concentrated olfactory essences can be .
especially useful in the kitchen because it is the
aroma that gives a food most of its characteristic
sensory signature; any response our tongues have
to the sweet, salty, savory, or bitter tas te of the
food only contributes to the overall flavor. What
we smell in our nose is as important or more so
than what the mouth tastes to the flavor of food.
Aromatic essences offer limitless ways to enhance
the overall flavor. Add a few drops of the essential
oil of coriander to the vinaigrette in a crabmeat
salad, or dribble a bit of spearmint oil into a
mojito, and you can inject surprise and intrigue
into the resulting gustatory experience. The
aromas of ylang ylang or orris root can imbue a
dish with an exotic flavor that is haunting.
Getting at the Essence
Citrus peels and other plant tissues that are
rich in volatile oils will give them up when
pressed while cold. Steam distillation is more
common for spices and works with a wider range
of fragrance materials to yield essential oils from
botanical sources. The distilling apparatus sends a
flow of steam through a tube and into a vessel
containing the target plant tissue, which may
include roots, stems, leaves, seeds, petals, or other
components. The steam vaporizes any volatile
chemicals that boil at a temperature lower than
that of the steam. The hot water vapor then
carries the liberated volatiles into a water-chilled
coil, where they condense from vapor back to
liquid form. Finally, the liquid condensate drips
into a collection container.
This condensate is a mixture of two parts,
which gradually separate from one another. An
aromatic hydrosol contains some of the more
water-soluble volatiles and settles to the bottom.
. At the same time, the second part, consisting of the
actual essential oil that is much richer in those
aromatic compounds that don't dissolve in water,
rises to the top . You can use a pipette, dropper,
siphon, or laboratory separatory funnel to isolate
these two fluids from the mixture. Industrialscale
steam-distillation systems often have valves
at the top and bottom of the collection vessel to
allow for easier separation.
Steam distillation works well in many circumstances,
but it does have a drawback: the high heat
involved can alter or even destroy some of the
more fragile aroma molecules. Technological
solutions to this problem, such as a rotary evaporator
or a vacuum condenser, are now available,
albeit expensive.
Solvent extraction offers a way to extract a
botanical essence without heat. This method uses
solvents, such as ether or hexane, that are nonpolar
and usually hydrophobic ("water-hating")
and thus reject contact with water. Most of the
organic volatile compounds in plant oils also are
relatively nonpolar, and they typically dissolve
readily in a nonpolar solvent.
Going Supercritical
A still more challenging approach to extraction
avoids both heat and the need to use (and later
remove) a petroleum-derived solvent such as
hexane, which is mildly toxic . The method is called
supercritical fluid extraction-"supercritical"
referring to the special state of matter in
which a substance behaves like both a gas and a
liquid at the same time.
When carbon dioxide is pushed into a supercritical
state by the right combination of temperature
and pressure, it infiltrates food deeply. Once
inside, the carbon dioxide functions like a liquid
solvent and extracts organic flavor compounds as
concretes. The supercritical solvent can then easily
exit the food, gas-like, carrying the extracted
aromatic compounds with it.
Because so many desirable aromatic volatiles in
foods dissolve in fats and oils, many cooks often
inadvertently remove these substances when they
skim fat off stocks. Fat washing can work well in
these circumstances.
The general idea of fat washing is to mix the
flavor-rich oil with alcohol and then shake the
mixture to emulsify the two temporarily (see How
to Wash Citrus Oil, next page). While the alcohol
and oil are in intimate contact, some of the flavor
compounds migrate from the oil into the alcohol.
After a resting period of several hours or longer, the
two phases naturally separate again, just as oil and
vinegar do, but now many of the flavor compounds
have been dissolved in the ethanol. You can add the
flavored alcohol to your dish and just apply a little
heat to drive off enough of the ethanol to ensure
that the result doesn't taste of booze.
Working with Essences
Essences are to flavor what Klaxon sirens are to
sound. Skilled flavorists know that essences can
Be powerful tools for intensifying flavor, but they
must be wielded with finesse. Essences can be
deceptive because in such a concentrated form,
many substances smell nothing like they do when
they are highly diluted in food or drink. The
essential oil of black pepper, for example, does
notsmell like black pepper. In fact, it doesn't even
smell particularly spicy. Similarly, the odors of
essential oils that are derived from coffee and
chocolate are so potent that, when these oils are
undiluted, they can be nauseating. You need
experience with proper dilution to use them well.
Chefs who often cook with essences usually
predilute the essences in alcohol or oil and then
Sometimes they may ask servers to add such oils
In sparing quantities to dishes right at the table.
One common use for essential oils it to replenish
flavors lost to heat during reduction. The more
ambitious cooks use them to propel dishes into
culinary terra incognita. Adding a single drop of
the essential oil of ginger to a chilled carrot soup
can give the dish flavor dimensions entirely
different than freshly grated ginger alone could. A
touch of tarragon essence can do the same for
white chocolate. Pioneering cooks who
experiment with essential oils think like
perfumers,
mixing and matching flavor components to
construct novel flavors. Learning to control the
diner's flavor experience by using these intense
essences takes patience and a considerable
amount of trial and error.
Enfleurage

One of the oldest (and most laborious)

techniques for extracting fragrances from
botanical tissues is enfleurage. Smear a
framed glass plate with a thin layer of a few
millimeters of solid fat such coconut fat or
lard, then press the botanical material into
the fat, and let it sit for several days.
The fat absorbs organic volatiles from the
plant matter in a process similar to the way oil
in a stock latches onto fat-soluble flavor
compounds. You can swap out the plant
tissue for new material to add additional
layers of flavor in several cycles of
absorption.
EXTRACTING FLAVOR WITH ALCOHOL

FLAVOR INFUSION INTO FATS

JUICING
Nothing is more fundamental to classic cuisine
than making stocks. Chefs use the flavorful
extracts of meats, fruits, and vegetables for everything
from soups to sauces. But despite all the
slicing, chopping, and simmering involved,
stockmaking is a relatively gentle way to retrieve
the flavor that plant and animal tissues have to
offer. If you want the richest flavors, you need to
do real violence to the biological building blocks
of food in order to unlock the liquid essence
within. That means rupturing cells-in other
words, juicing.
Gentler juicing Through
Chemistry
Brawn and blades are not the only foundations for
effective juicing. Chemistry works as well. You
can add pectinase enzymes to fruit, for example,
to break down the tough polysaccharides in the
plant cell walls. Treating even hard-textured
fruits such as apples, pears, or pineapple with
pectinase will make them go soft, thus boosting
the juice yield.
Enzyme treatments also work on meats. Apply
the proteolytic enzyme bromolain (a naturally
occurring component of pineapple juice) to the
meat before you press it to double the yield of
natural juices extracted.
Squeezing by Ice and Fire
.
When a fruit freezes, minuscule dagger-like ice
crystals form inside, puncturing the cell walls. As
the ice crystals grow, they force sugars, flavor
compounds, and other juice components into the
remaining liquid juice, which lowers the freezing
point of the sweetened juice. So if you freeze the
fruit, then thaw it, highly concentrated juice
emerges first; less concentrated juice follows as the
crystals of ice melt. This approach is very well
suited for juicing sweet fruits, such as raspberries
and blueberries
JUICING STRATEGIES
HOW TO Extract juice From Plants with Pectinase

1. Peel the fruit and vegetable.

2. Puncture the skin with needles (optional). Th e perforation will
acce lerate the infusion of th e solution and thu s sp eed ex tracti on.
3. Add pectinase enzymes to water atthe concentration recommended
by the manufacturer.
4. Vacuum seal the food with the enzymatic solution. Use as littl e water
as poss ibl e to avo id diluting the juice.
5. Refrigerate until the juice has been expressed. Several hours to
seve ral days of chillin g may be required, depending on the size a nd the
durability of the fruits or vegetables. For faster results, warm the bag in
a water bath at a temperature below 50 •c I 122 • f for up to 4 h.
6. Strain, pressing lightly on the solids to yield more juices.
 One simple way to extend the freshness
It's one thing to extract an intensely flavored juice,
window of some juices is to add a little freshly
but it's quite another to keep that juice fresh and
squeezed juice. This strategy provides fresh
appetizing until it reaches the table. The cellular
material for the enzymes, inducing them to
destruction that occurs during juicing both helps
unlock a new wave of flavor. A few just-juiced
and hinders freshness. Many of the flavors we like
strawberries will
in fresh juice form only as the cells fall apart,
leftover strawberry juice that's been sitting in the
flavor-creating enzymes that previously had been
fridge., for example, renew a bowl of
locked inside cells. But the tissue damage also
Browning is actually a defense mechanism. If a
sometimes releases destructive enzymes that
plant gets scratched, smacked, or otherwise
wreak havoc on flavor, aroma, and pigment
injured, it becomes vulnerable to infection. To
compounds.
defend against germs, it raises antimicrobial
The distinctive aroma of onions, garlic, and
defenses. In particular, the tissue releases the
cabbage, for example, come into being only as a
enzyme polyphenol oxidase, or PPO, which leads
result of enzymatic transformations that occur
to the production of protective compounds such
when the cell walls are ruptured. The same is true
as tannins and to brown color.
of the characteristic flavors of fruits like strawberries
To prevent discoloration, therefore, one strategy
and tomatoes. Because enzymatic reactions
is to restrain the activity ofPPO. You can
occur over time, the flavor of some foods, say, a
destroy PPO with heat, but even at a boil this can
ripe strawberry, is the result of rapidly changing
take minutes and is enough to wreck some of the
concentrations of various enzymatically created
fresh aromas. Chilling the juice, in contrast, slows
aromas .
the browning almost immediately because
enzymatic reactions slow down drastically as the
temperature drops.
Jus, not Stock

Despite their central role in commercial kitchens, In everyday home cooking, you can typically
meat stocks are in reality something of a cheat. harvest enough jus from a roast chicken or leg of
Stocks were developed as substitutes for an even lamb-some of it as classic, superconcentrated
more fundamental and desirable essence of fond, otherwise known as pan scrapings-to
cooked meat: its juice, or jus . prepare enough gravy or soup for the dinner table .
The main advantage of a stock in which flavor is But busy commercial kitchens must settle for an
pulled from meat and vegetables using slow heat approximation of jus; stocks represent the only
and water, is that it secures a substantial portion of practical and affordable means to produce rich
the flavor that jus provides without the need to cooking bases in sufficient volume to meet the
roast lots of animals. Stocks simply cost less to desires of the diners and the needs of the market
make than jus does, and they yield much larger
quantities.
A stock does not taste like a jus , however, because
the two contain different molecular ingredients.
Analyze the composition of a jus, and you' ll
find countless cellular constituents that saturate the
water in meat, among them large protein molecules,
savory peptides, and amino acids, sugars, salts, and
myriad oily compounds, including lipids and fatty
acids.
FILTERING
Much of what goes on in a kitchen revolves around
separating the components of mixtures. When a
cook pours a pot of pasta into a colander, the water
runs out through the holes as the colander retains
the steaming pasta. When a winemaker removes
yeast particles from wine, the segregation process
is more involved, requiring a filtration system that
pumps the wine through a series of cellulose pads
that trap the solids.
But not every cook has the room or the budget
for a centrifuge. More conventional separation
techniques can be faster and easier to use. So we
begin by looking at the simplest and most widely
used filtering technique: the basic sieve.
Straining and Sieving
Any home kitchen has a colander and a wiremesh
strainer. These common implements are
handy for separating large, solid pieces of food
from a pot of water or a newly prepared stock.
But they represent the coarser end of a range of
separation methods. At the other extreme are
tools for extracting "fines," which are considerably
smaller particles.
One step down the separation spectrum from
the standard strainer sits the cone-shaped chinois,
whose supposed resemblance to a Chinese peasant's
hat earned it that name. The mesh of the
chinois is finer than that of a household strainer.
Cooks seeking even smoother, clearer liquids can
line the conical bed of the chino is with cheesecloth
or muslin sheets, which catch even tinier
particles in their cotton-fiber meshes.
STRATEGIES FOR FILTERING LIQUIDS AND CLARIFYING
CONSOMMES

Filtering by Push and Pull

The key to vacuum filtration is the removal of
air from the flask by the suction pump (see page
356). The higher atmospheric pressure above the
funnel pushes down on any liquid it contains-or,
looked at another way, the vacuum below sucks
the liquid through the filter.
The setup looks a bit like a chemist's version of a
drip coffee maker, and it is about as simple to
operate. The first step is to place filter paper in
The funnel. It must completely cover the bottom
Plate and the holes . Wet the paper with some
water, then turn on the vacuum pump. The filter
Paper should be sucked flat against the frit. Then
pour in the liquid to be filtered, and wait for it to
drip into the flask.
HOW TO Clarify Juice With A Buon Vi no
Pressure Filter
HOW TO Vacuum filter
Consomme
Consomme is a soup that has been clarified which means all of the meat and veggies
that it has been made with have been strained out and a lot of the fat from that has
been skimmed out as well leaving you with just a broth.