1. Homemade Vanilla beans should be a staple in every kitchen. Vanilla beans can
be used in many different forms for cooking. With little effort you
can make pure vanilla extract out of vanilla beans. With leftover
vanilla bean pods you can add a sweet and delicious flavor to sugar.
Vanilla Another great trick is to turn fresh vanilla pods into vanilla paste.
In extract form vanilla is an essential ingredient in cooking. It is
used to add a rich, subtle flavor. Vanilla is so versatile that is can be
used in treats like cake and ice cream, coffees and hot chocolates,
even meat sauces and marinades. Extract is sold in a few different
forms: pure vanilla, vanilla and imitation vanilla. For an extract to
be called "pure" it must contain a minimum of 35% alcohol and
13.35 ounces of vanilla bean per gallon. Some chef may use
extracts with double, triple or stronger extracts to carry a bolder
flavor. Imitation vanilla is a cheap knock-off mad by soaking wood
containing vanillin (the source of what you know as the vanilla
flavor) in or to pull out the flavor. Imitation vanilla is then
chemically treated with 100 or more ingredients to round out the
flavor and mimic the taste of natural vanilla.
The vanilla plant is normally grown in tropical climates and is
extremely labor-intensive. In order to produce vanilla pods the
vanilla flowers must be pollinated. Growers must walk their plantations daily looking for open flowers since each flower
must be pollinated with 12 hours of opening. With the help of the Melipona bee found in Mexico where vanilla
originated the flowers must be hand-pollinated. Care must be taken to only pollinate so 5-6 of the flowers and this only
begins the process. The bean must then mature for 9-10 months before it can be hand-harvested which also must be
done with similar effort to the pollination. The beans are harvested as the beans begin to split at the end. With such
effort it involved it is easy to see why the cost of vanilla beans are high.
Swim of crawfish to fennel, vanilla and vervain
Ingredients:
16 peeled crawfish
3 dl of vegetable stroke
1/2 split vanilla bean, divided into 4 parts
1 whole fennel
12 finely chopped sheets of lemon grass
80 G of hard butter of small pieces
pepper, salt
a small amount of powder of Cayenne point of garlic
1 star anise
juice of a lemon-yellow half
1 C.
Method:
The stroke: Do not detail vegetables(poularderecette), but wash them carefully, put them to cook with grasses and the
condiments in 5 liters of water, during 50 mn at low heat. Salt slightly then pass to the sieve. The fennel: Remove the
fennel pallets, peel them and cut them as fatty Julienne of 1 cm of width and 3 cm length. Poach fennel in the vegetable
juice, with 1 star anise, a few drops of Pernod, a point of chopped garlic knife and the lemon juice. Cook al cogs