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| Saturday, August 26, 2006 |
| Kumkum.. |
Continuing with my experimentations in the kitchenations, here's what I've been occupied with on and off for the past week, when I wasn't busy running to and from college and studying for tests and things..
Kumkum from Pasupu (a.k.a manjal, haldi, turmeric )
Mom used to tell me that the juice of a lemon would convert the yellow turmeric into red kumkum, when given enough time. Man, have I tried that experiment often enough! I figured I always picked the wrong variety of lemon, until recently when somebody at the lab embarked upon the same quest.
They added calcium hydroxide, I think, and the whole thing turned a beautiful pink and showed up clearly against the white filter-paper they were using.
So well, it looks like you've got to add lime not lemon. Slaked lime, that is!
Came home, I, and scoured the net for the how, why and wherefore. Unfortunately, although I did find out that hundreds of papers are published each year on the therapeutic/antibacterial/anticancer properties of turmeric, google churned out very little on how to convert turmeric to kumkum. You know me. I went ahead and experimented :)
#1 Turmeric and vinegar.
#2 Turmeric and Pepsi (acidic..)
#3 Turmeric and Baking powder
#4 Turmeric and Eno Fruit Salt (TM)
#5 Turmeric and ghee
You must be wondering where the last combo popped out from all of a sudden. The thing is, I remember having observed red kumkum on the plate in which the ghee-bottle is placed, more than once. I figured that since the turmeric bottle is usually right next to the ghee, some of it may have fallen into the plate, and some kind of reaction might have occured, though I couldn't figure what.
So any guesses on which one gave me nice red, fragrant kumkum?
Surprise.. it was #4. No amount of baking powder would turn that batch any more than the golden yellow of pasupu, and I really couldn't figure why.
The very next morning, of course, while I was out at college, the kitchen and every used utensil in it got cleaned, leaving me with nothing to show off about.
Tried replicating results a coupla days later. Surprise again, this time none of them worked! I got back to WikiWisdom this time, and discovered that the compound curcumin that gives turmeric its colour, exists in two tautomeric forms, namely the keto- and enol- forms, with the keto- phase being preferred, it said, in the solid or dry state. So assuming that it had something to do with why it turned red the first time (maybe I'd added less water then?) I decided to evaporate some of the water out of this.
Talk about serendipity.. it's not really the Eno or the Baking powder that really makes the difference.. it's heat. Works just as well with either of them. Add calcium carbonate or bicarb to turmeric, with a little water of course, and heat. Voila, kumkum.
So why did Eno powder turn it red the first time 'round? I've got a feeling it's cos of the amount of water I added, which was very little, and the fact that the citric acid present (the ingredients label said citric acid, calcium carbonate, calcium bicarbonate) reacted with the bases and probably produced some heat. That, and the fact that I'd placed the sample plate right next to my laptop cos I was netting as usual. A comment on the sad state of this piece of hardware, it generates enough heat to power the reaction.
So, things to be done now:
#1 figure out the chemical reaction that governs this (or find it, either way suits me fine)
#2 determine the minimum temperature required for the reaction to happen. If not the absolute temperature, then at least the relative one (you know, like 'water bath', 'direct flame', 'laptop heat' etc..)
Right folks, I've got to split now. News of the day - I'm cooking dinner for the dad and me. This probably deserves an entry of its own. Coming up next, my Maiden Dinner. Made-in Kitchen.
forgive me the pun ;) |
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gaaah! green!!!!! lol, talk about overdoses of the colour!!!! hehe.
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| Tuesday, July 11, 2006 |
| Freeze.. |
..put your hands up in the air… if you want one of these, that is. Milkshake; - “you can’t make milkshake without ice cream” says one cook I know  Chocolate, Strawberry, Butterscotch et al apart, Vanilla goes well with a lot of fruit. On the other hand, fruit milkshakes are actually also nice without ice cream, methinks. Mango, Sapota, Banana are my favorites. And hmm. Also see this. Sorbetto : Chill with the ice Summer days are especially conducive to freezer-raids.. the kind where you scrape the frosty ice off the freezer walls.. I discovered kinda recently that there’s amuch more hygenic and creative way that people have already figured out, to do the same thing. Used to think a sorbetto was made from crushed frozen fruit juice. But much easier than crushing is just stirring it every so often (whenever I decide to take a break from my xbox game on a weekend) to break the ice up. Eventually all the liquid freezes, and it becomes powdery. That’s when you scoop it out with an ice cream scoop and garnish with a sprig of mint 
Granitas : Just like a sorbetto. Only, you don’t need to wait till it’s powdery dry if you’re serving it immediately. If you aren’t, then pop the ’sorbetto’ into the fridge for a while, or blend until slightly slushy, serve in tall glass.. I have tried orange, lemon and tea. Will update if I manage to make any others. Would really like to try out an apple  Another ice cream expert says that you’ve got to make sure your ‘fruit juice’ is nice and saturated before you freeze. Fruit puree, more than juice, and Sugar optional, depending on what flavour you use. Fruit juice alsoine, but the fruit part of it melts off into a liquid leaving just white ice, if you don’t gulp it quick enough. I have yet to ask first ice cream expert his opinion, since I haven’t managed to serve him one of these yet. Wiki links : Sorbetto, Granita, Milkshake |
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| Sunday, July 09, 2006 |
| What might have been a beautiful banana smoothie.. |
.. only it's like having all the ingredients and no blender to make it with.
Wordpress is all very nice and has a host of very beautiful templates, but the reason I prefer Blogger is that I can actually tinker around with them. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't seem to have tags. Nor the equivalent of Lj-cuts. What a pity. Can't have everything at once, I guess.
So. Wheeeeee camping out all night at the laptop. Shuttling between here and the kitchen and the tv room, where football is playing. I can't believe I missed Wimbledon. For about the first time, mom isn't asking me to shut down (it's 12:27 am now) and sleep at a reasonable time.. and I've even got a driving test first thing in the morning. I'm guessing it's cos she's as much sick with worry as I am, my grandma's in hospital and all I want now is for her to come home.
Entry the first..
If we can have no banana smoothie, we shall attempt a
Gelato!
(especially since there is a lot of extra milk in the house at the mo.. which will anyway spoil if I don't use it up. So I'm justified in experimenting with it. :D )
Needed:
+milk
+flavouring
+freezer
+whisk (though I prefer a fork, actually)
+blender - if I decide to use fruit as flavouring.
Since the only fruit at home today is unripe mango and Sapota, I think I'll rummage theough the fridge for vanilla flavouring.
Will come back and update once done with preliminaries.. I'm not too good at following recipes myself.
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Ooookay, it takes about 7 minutes for the milk to boil, so before it does I'll fill you in on what I'm planning to do.
Gelato, from what I've been able to read on wiki, random Gelato-manufacturing companies and a couple of stellar food-blogs, is made from thick milk. Some add cream. I have neither, just ordinary toned milk, so let's hope this works.
Once the milk cools down after boiling, I'll add the flavours (which I got to look for) and put it in to freeze.
The thing with making Sorbettos is that unless you have an ice-cream maker, you've got to keep checking in every 20 minutes or so to see if it's partially frozen, and then stir it to break up the ice into smaller crystals. Hopefully this works the same way with milk.
Excuse me, time to monitor the milk.
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Perfect timing. 6 minutes give or take half, for a litre of milk to begin to boil. Will keep that in mind.
The only flavouring I could find was orange. Now come on, who ever heard of orange flavoured milk??!
I decided to add an Indian feel to it finally, with ground elaichi and saffron (the box said 'best quality spanish saffron' but still :) )
Kulfi-Gelato.
Yay for Italy-India. Same colours as far as the flag goes, and if this site is reasonably accurate, same colours as far as behaviour goes too :D
I also added
+Sugar
and left it to cool.
As a side note, here's an opportunity to understand the principle behind shell-and-tube heat-exchangers for fluids - the fluid in the shell and the fuid in the tube are circulated independantly, separated by the material of the container, across which heat is transfered. The fluid to be cooled is circulated because you want to make sure that the heat from all parts of that fluid is drawn away, instead of just one portion or one layer. The fluid that is doing the cooling is circulated because you want to make sure that when a part of it gets heated up from the heat that comes in from the hot fluid, is drawn away replacing it with cooler fluid to draw away more heat.
Makes sense? :). Anyway.
Soon, I'll pop it into the freezer and go back when I get bored of staring at the computer. Meanwhile I'll hunt up what I can find of the small number of other things I've managed to cook. Ciao for now. |
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gaaah! green!!!!! lol, talk about overdoses of the colour!!!! hehe.