Answer: Grater
It seems quite amazing that the grater has been around for such a long time and the name of its inventor is not really known. Other than grating cheese for Welsh rarebit and potato for rosti, the grater is also used in many dishes.
It can be used to grate coconut, ginger, nutmeg, carrots and chocolate, among many other foods. Now if only I could think of a recipe involving all those ingredients.
From Quiz: Back In the Kitchen
Answer: honey
Also known as Pfefferkuchen (pepper cake), Lebkuchen (etymology uncertain) is a sweet of ancient origin, having been first created by 13th-century monks in the historical German region of Franconia (now part of the federal state of Bavaria); the most famous producer and exporter of these cakes is the city of Nuremberg. Lebkuchen is generally soft and cake-like, and comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Its basic ingredients are flour, honey and eggs (sugar also features in many recipes), to which spices, ground nuts (almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts) and candied lemon and orange peel are added; the spices may include cinnamon, cloves, ginger, aniseed and cardamom. Lebkuchen dough is often placed on thin wafer rounds (Oblaten) to prevent sticking, and glazed with dark chocolate after baking. A harder form of Lebkuchen is traditionally made into heart shapes decorated with icing that are sold at fairs and Christmas markets. There are also other regional variations, and similar treats are found in neighbouring countries such as Belgium and Switzerland.
Treacle (molasses in the US), maple syrup and grape must are all used as sweeteners for baking and other culinary purposes.
From Quiz: Sugar and Spice
Answer: egg whites
Meringue is a preparation made essentially of beaten (whipped) egg whites, sweetened with sugar or honey, acidulated with lemon or vinegar, fixed with gelatin or cornstarch. It is commonly flavoured with vanilla or almond extract. The egg whites are beaten to stiff peaks and then baked. If thoroughly baked, they are crispy all the way through. If baked briefly, they are crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. In Europe, meringue is used to make cookies. In the USA, lemon-meringue pie is ubiquitous. It is also an important component in Baked Alaska.
From Quiz: Foods that Take a Beating
Answer: Oxford
The original scone is believed to have originated in Scotland and was made from oats. Although there are variations to this, most scones today use a basic recipe of flour, milk and butter - to which assorted other ingredients of your choice can be added to suit your taste. First mentioned in the English Oxford dictionary in 1513, the problem with this product seems to be more to do with the pronunciation rather than the ingredients. It is partly described as the following:
"There are two possible pronunciations of the word scone: the first rhymes with gone and the second rhymes with tone. In US English, the pronunciation rhyming with tone is more common. In British English, the two pronunciations traditionally have different regional and class associations, with the first pronunciation associated with the north of England, while the second is associated with the south".
From Quiz: Romancing the Scone
Answer: Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray is famed for its pork pies. They are filled with uncured pork and surrounded by hot water crust pastry which is hand formed around the filling. Only pies that are made within a limited area around the town are allowed to carry the Melton Mowbray name as the product has been granted Protected Geographical indication status to ensure that larger commercial companies cannot cash in on its success.
From Quiz: A Culinary Trip Round England
Answer: According to its optimal humidity level
Crisper drawers allow you to control the humidity, or water content, of the air that your produce is stored in. Usually, you want one high-humidity drawer and one low-humidity drawer; many modern refrigerators have toggles so that you can open or close ventilation gaps to set the humidity level. A drawer that's entirely closed off to air flow is high-humidity, because of all the water in the produce; a drawer with air flow will have lower humidity.
So, what belongs where? In general, it depends on how the item goes bad. If it tends to rot (like bananas or apples), it belongs in the low-humidity drawer. The flowing air will help carry away the ethylene that fruit naturally produces as it ripens, slowing the rotting process.
Meanwhile, anything that tends to wilt (like salad greens or citrus fruit) belongs in the high-humidity drawer, so that it won't lose too much moisture too quickly. These items are also often sensitive to ethylene, so it's also helpful to isolate them from the ethylene producers in the low-humidity drawer.
From Quiz: Help in the Kitchen
Answer: Twine
Grandma was one of the early 1900's Texas ranch generation that ran outside, grabbed the oldest hen and did the deed because the family must be fed. To truss the chicken (or turkey) means to bind the legs and/or wings of the carcass with kitchen twine to allow it to bake in a compact unit (i.e. no burnt bits.)
Rosemary and thyme are superb seasonings and fancy paper "hats" on the legs are lovely additions when serving if one wants to impress the neighbors. Usually, I am lucky to even get the chicken and side dishes on the table before Hubby, Swimgirl and (boyfriend) Trapshooter dig in. I guess that's a compliment to my cooking if not my dinner presentation skills!
From Quiz: Grandma tries to teach Swimgirl how to cook!
Answer: Great Britain
Mention of bread sauce can be dated back to medieval times in Great Britain, but it has probably been around for a lot longer than that. It was created as a means of using stale bread during the times when wasting food was simply not acceptable. The basic recipe calls for stale bread or breadcrumbs, milk, onion and a bit of butter, but of course any other ingredients could be added to this as took the cook's fancy. This even includes fat or dripping left over from roasted meats. Sounds quite yummy really. A good, plain simple food to stick to the sides of hungry hard-working bellies.
From Quiz: May The Sauce Be With You
Answer: Magnesium, Carbon, Oxygen
In 1858, John Mason created an interesting "jar" it consisted of a jar and a cap made of tin with holes on it. But, there was a problem, because the salt got stuck on the cap and very few dropped through the hole. The Morton Salt company solved this problem by using magnesium carbonate (MgCO3) to decrease the friction and made the salt shaker more effective.
From Quiz: Kitchen Delights!
Answer: The water in the raw meat is evaporated off.
Raw meats contain approximately 75% water, and heating the meat during cooking causes the water to turn to vapor, reducing the volume of the meat.
From Quiz: The Chemistry of Cookery
Answer: wheat
Wheat originated in or around Asia Minor and was among of the first grains ever cultivated. Its ease of cultivation and high yield make it one of the most popular grains today, and are also believed to be a major reason that civilization itself flourished.
As a grain, wheat is classified into six types. Wheat has a higher protein content than other major grains. Its flour is used in a great variety of breads, biscuits, cereal, and pasta, and comes in many varieties (such as all-purpose, bleached, and self-rising).
From Quiz: A Bunch of Flours
Answer: A toothed edge
Grapefruit spoons are used to puncture the grapefruit flesh and to extract the inside for consumption. The edge is toothed or sharpened to facilitate this. The grapefruit spoon is often also used for kiwis, but is not a utensil that comes standard in a cutlery set.
From Quiz: Ladles and Jellyspoons
Answer: Buttercream
Buttercream may also be made with other fats such as margarine or shortening but most dessert chefs prefer butter. Typically, the ratio of sugar to fat is 2:1 and the flavorings added will identify the dessert such as chocolate when making chocolate cake.
From Quiz: Icing, Icing, Baby
Answer: Gingerbread
Gingerbread got its start during the Crusades, when sugars and spices were first introduced to Europe. During the reign of Queen Victoria, gingerbread became a Christmas tradition.
From Quiz: Sweets Around the World
Answer: Twice baked
As their name suggests, biscotti (or more properly known as biscotti di Prato) are baked twice. Initially, the biscotti dough is rolled into a long sausage and then baked.
Whilst still warm, the cooked dough is cut into slices and the individual biscuits baked again, with this second baking determining how hard the biscuits will be. The hardness of biscotti makes them ideal for dipping into coffee and dessert wine.
From Quiz: Baking Bonanza!
Answer: Garlic
This classic French gratin dish is cooked in a shallow oven proof dish without a lid so the top turns crunchy and golden brown. Dauphinoise gratin originates from the Dauphine region of south-east France. The traditional cooking method asks for garlic to be rubbed on the inside of the shallow dish before other ingredients are added
From Quiz: All You Need is Food
Answer: You handled the crust too much.
You should handle the crust just enough to bring the ingredients together and chill before baking. Although some experts say shortening is better than butter because it is lower in water content, over-handling the dough is the most likely cause of very tough crust.
From Quiz: Can You Bake A Cherry Pie?
Answer: Avocado cutter
Your avocado should be soft to the touch before trying to slice it. If you only use half of the avocado, leave the pit in the half you are wrapping up and refrigerating and it will last longer.
From Quiz: Kitchen Alphabetics
Answer: Refrigeration
In 1756, William Cullen demonstrated the first known method of artificial refrigeration. In 1758 Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley found that by evaporating volatile liquids, the temperature of objects could be reduced quite rapidly - even past the freezing point of water. The first commercial refrigerated shipping occurred when a refrigeration unit was fitted to a 'Dunedin', a New Zealand vessel, in 1882 - this lead to a boom of dairy and meat between countries in the southern hemisphere, such as Australia and South America.
Refrigeration helps to preserve fresh foods by slowing the growth of micro-organisms that cause food to rot.
From Quiz: Lyophilize - Freeze or Preserve?
Answer: Scrambled
If the heat is too high when cooking scrambled eggs, liquid will separate from the curds.
From Quiz: I'll Have Mine Over Easy
Answer: A fine dice cut
This cut would be used for things like broths. It's important to have each cut uniform and even.
From Quiz: Knife Skills in Cooking
Answer: He included the hooves and bones as well
Benoit's fame rests primarily on his "use of cider and apple brandy in food" as his main "contribution to French cuisine", but it was this dish that he was also famed for. The recipe included "all four chambers of the cow's stomach...part of the large intestine...plus the hooves and bones". I feel ill. To this he added a whole pile of vegetables, an entire bottle of cider, and a glass of apple brandy. A pile of fat was also added, and then the contents were covered in a layer of dough and cooked on a low heat in the oven for an astonishing fifteen hours! You'll be pleased to know the hooves and bones weren't served up at the table. They were removed prior to the dish being presented. Thank goodness for that. Otherwise, I would have to moooooove back from the table.
From Quiz: I Love a Soufflé!
Answer: stir frying
The wok can be used for all of these purposes, but stir frying is the most common.
From Quiz: Wok This Way
Answer: Raw Ground Beef
You take a patty of raw ground beef and marinate it in wine for a time, then serve it with garnishes, possibly a raw egg yolk or tartar sauce. If you aren't into possible food poisoning, this will probably not be the thing you wish to order. It has been around for a long time, but if you're nervous, I would order from the cooked part of the menu.
From Quiz: What's That?
Answer: lemon zester
A lemon (or citrus) zester is a utensil which, when scraped over the peel of the fruit, removes the zest in thin ribbons, leaving behind the pith.
From Quiz: I Sure Wish I Had a...
Answer: Chocolate gravy
Chocolate gravy is served at breakfast time. Chocolate gravy is thought to be a Mexican dish, originating in Spanish Louisiana.
From Quiz: This Time, I Didn't Forget the Gravy
Answer: thermometer
Internal temperature of meat determines whether it is safe to eat or not. A thermopile converts heat into electricity and a calorimeter measures heat, not temperature.
From Quiz: Science in Cooking
Answer: Shrimp Tempura
Tempura is a Japanese dish that consists of a light, crisp batter coating any number of foods. Wedges of sweet potato, carrots, pepper, green beans, and shrimp are commonly served this way.
From Quiz: What Am I Eating ?- Part 2
Answer: Cream of Tartar
A pinch of cream of tartar added to vegetables whilst cooking will also help them retain their color.
From Quiz: A Tasty Sampling
Answer: Serrated knife
While you could chop through bread with any of these, a serrated knife would work the best. The edge of a serrated knife is notched like a saw and that allows it to easily cut items which have a hard outer surface and a soft interior, like bread and tomatoes. These knives come in all sizes and the largest is also commonly known as a bread knife.
From Quiz: Do You Know Your Kitchen Equipment?
Answer: 8 fl oz
Just to help confuse Doublemm, not all cups are the same. A Canadian cup is equivalent to 8 fl oz (UK), but only 7.7 fl oz (US). A metric cup is equivalent to 8.5 fl oz (US) or 8.8 fl oz (UK).
From Quiz: How much? Cups, ounces and spoons!
Answer: Molasses
This is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch pie. It gets its name because the molasses attracts so many flies.
From Quiz: Bakin' It Worse
Answer: layer pineapples and glaze on the bottom of the pan, and pour batter over it
The trickiest part is inverting the cooled cake onto the plate without losing a piece. The pan is usually buttered and sugared heavily before ingredients are placed inside.
The French Tarte Tatin is also made the same way with apples.
From Quiz: How's It Cooking?
Answer: Croquembouche
A traditonal French wedding cake. The Croquembouche (sometimes also spelled croqenbouche) is made by assembling tiny profiteroles into a cone shape with spun sugar.
From Quiz: Baking and Pastry
Answer: Hot and Cold
Hot smoking can take six to twelve hours between 120 degrees and 180 degrees. This yields a drier product. Cold smoking is done at temperatures of 70 and 90 degrees for one to three weeks.
From Quiz: Smokin!
Answer: cookies
When doubling a cookie recipe, it usually doesn't hurt to add an extra egg.
From Quiz: What am I Cooking?
Answer: two
A lot of people eat the whole thing by themselves!
From Quiz: Making Ramen Noodle Soup
Answer: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
From Quiz: Joy of Cooking
Answer: Crock pot
Nachumsohn based his invention on the practice in his family's native Lithuania of Jewish families using bakery ovens, slowly cooling overnight, to cook stews, known as cholent, for the Sabbath.
Although Nachumsohn was born in the USA, the period following WWII was an uncomfortable time for many Americans with German sounding names, so he changed his name to Naxon between the patent being granted and his invention hitting the market. The Naxon Beanery wasn't a huge seller, but when Naxon retired in 1970, he sold his business to Rival Manufacturing, who rebranded the Beanery as the Crock Pot and began a large advertising campaign.
This took sales of the Crock Pot from $2 million in 1971 to an incredible $93 million by 1975, and it can now be found in homes throughout the world.
From Quiz: Back In the Kitchen
Answer: oatmeal
Parkin in a dark gingerbread cake from the northern English counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes' Day, or Bonfire Night (5 November). First mentioned in the 18th century, but probably older, parkin is made with oatmeal, since oats were the staple grain of the local population, and sweetened with black treacle (molasses in the US), a by-product of sugar-making. Though lard was originally the fat of choice, modern recipes for parkin replace it with butter, margarine or oil; self-raising flour is added to the oatmeal for a fluffier cake. Many versions of parkin use only ginger, but others add other spices. Oatmeal-only parkin tends to be dense and chewy, while the ones made with the addition of self-raising flour, sugar and eggs are more cake-like. Like other spice cakes, parkin is said to improve with time, becoming softer and moister.
From Quiz: Sugar and Spice
