Christmas is approaching, and with them the hours spent in the kitchen preparing delicious dishes. What to do so that the mayonnaise is not weighed, the sponge cake is fluffy and the jelly is like crystal? And does it matter when we s alt the broth? Here are some culinary tricks to help you prepare wonderful Christmas dishes.

It's time to get ready for Christmas . The friendly smells of mushroom soup, fried carp and yeast dough spread all over the house. The pleasant atmosphere that accompanies the pre-Christmas bustle, however, is usually disturbed by a certain anxiety about everything going well. In order for the borscht to have its intense color and beautiful aroma, the meat was tender and juicy, and the poppy seed cake grew just like last year. When cooking, we usually stick to proven recipes, without thinking about it, thanks to which the dishes have their own taste and look appetizing. And which makes them fail sometimes. But let's try to look at Grandma's recipes through the eyes of a chemist. Understanding the physical phenomena and chemical processes taking place in a pot or pan will help us avoid culinary mishaps.

Advice for holidays: when to s alt the broth

Regardless of what type of soup you make - mushroom soup, red borscht or fish soup - it should be aromatic. You have to cook it in such a way as to obtain the same concentration of all flavors and aromas. Mineral s alts and other compounds that determine the taste of the soup are locked in the cells of beetroot, soup vegetables or meat. So they need time to get into the water and mix. But as the soup is heated, the molecules begin to move faster and faster, bumping against each other. Water then enters the cells through the cell membrane, and then leaches mineral s alts from them. This is until the concentrations equalize. Then we get the full flavor of the stock. The important moment in this process is when you add s alt to the broth. For it to taste delicious, and for all ingredients to be well-cooked (firm and not too soft), it needs to be done in about two-thirds of cooking. If you do this at the beginning, the process of water penetration through the cell membranes will be slow and most of the flavors will remain in the products in the soup. If you add s alt at the end of cooking, the stock will be aromatic, but the fish or beetroot will behard and tasteless.

Advice for the holidays: how to prepare delicious jelly

Gelatin is nothing but collagen, a component of bones. It is made of long threads that can curl. Then they bind water molecules, creating a gel. Heating the collagen solution above 30 ° C causes its chains to break down into shorter fragments, the water is released and the jelly turns into a liquid again. On the other hand, as a result of cooling, the broken particles re-arrange themselves into a chain and the gel slowly hardens. Unfortunately, we often make a mistake when we put a dish of fish covered with jelly in the fridge. And then we worry it's too soft. Why is this happening? It takes time for all the fragments floating in the solution to find and form a gel. And in the refrigerator, the process of cooling down and restoring the structure is too fast. As a result, molecules are only able to reconstruct short fragments of them instead of long, rigid chains. So it is best to put the fish in a cool place, e.g. on the kitchen window sill, where the temperature is several degrees. The cooling down jelly must not be moved, so as not to break the bonds that are being formed and to prolong the hardening process.

You must do it

Bigos

Start cooking a week early. Per kilogram of cabbage, take about 60 grams of various meats (beef, pork, poultry, smoked bacon, sausage), onion and 2 grams of dried mushrooms. Stew the meat and combine the semi-soft with the cabbage and cook over very low heat. Freeze the ready bigos. Thanks to this, it will take on a deep taste.

Buraki

Bake or boil it in a little water. Thanks to this, the borscht will have an intensely red color. Peel them while they are still warm - then the skin will actually come off on its own. Then grate on a coarse-eyed grater. Pour in cold vegetable stock or broth and heat to boiling. Don't cook! Add lemon juice to set the color. One liter of borscht requires approx. 1/2 kg of beetroot and the juice of 1/2 lemon. You can boil the beets a day or two in advance, peel them, put them in a foil bag and store in the fridge.

Advice for holidays: how to clarify the stock

Jelly will be the tastiest if you prepare it on a stock in which fish or meat was boiled. Then, before we dissolve the gelatin in the broth, we first need to clarify it. Put the pot with cold broth on very low heat, add the egg white and cook slowly, whisking it. This ensures that any undesirable solids are trapped in the protein. Beat until boiling so that the protein is evenly distributed throughout the stock and does not stick to the bottom of the pot. Leave the broth over low heatfor 10 more minutes. When it has cooled down a little, pass slowly through a fine sieve. They can be lined with gauze. If the liquid is not completely clear yet, you can strain it again through the same gauze without disturbing the "floaters" on it, which will aid filtering.

Advice for holidays: what to do to make mayonnaise smooth

Mayonnaise is an emulsion of water and oil. However, if we mix them together and beat them vigorously, the suspension will arise, but for a very short time. After a dozen or so seconds, the ingredients will separate again. To prevent this, it is best to start by mixing a drop of egg yolk and a few drops of water, a little acid - vinegar or lemon juice and s alt in a bowl with a whisk. In this mixture, the yolk is a source of both water and proteins, as well as surface-active molecules, i.e. those, some of which combine with water and some with oil. This prevents water and fat from being repelled. Now you can add a few drops of the olive oil and mix it well until it is completely absorbed. Then add a little more, stirring constantly. Oil should be added gradually in small amounts, because then it is easier to break it into particles. If we pour too much and too early, instead of dispersed particles of oil in the water, we will get the opposite effect: water droplets will appear in the oil and the mayonnaise will become moldy. In order for the mayonnaise to be thick, it must be beaten for a long time. Then the oil droplets become very small and take up so much space in the emulsion that they are difficult to move, thus increasing the viscosity of the mass.

Advice for the holidays: how to prepare a tender and juicy roast

The smell of roasted meat and the brown color of its skin are the result of heating it at a temperature above 140 degrees C. Then, as a result of combining sugars and proteins, compounds are formed that give the dish a beautiful aroma. But you can't overdo it. If we exceed 200 degrees C, substances harmful to he alth will be released, and the dish will take on a burnt aftertaste. Baking time can be shortened by marinating meat or fish beforehand. Just brush with olive oil, sprinkle with lemon, cover with onion slices and refrigerate for half an hour. It is easier to fry. The hot oil starts to smoke at 190 degrees Celsius, and when you throw a piece of fish into it, the temperature immediately drops to a safe value. For a fish to have a crispy skin, you need to coat it in flour and fry it in a lot of oil. Then, on the surface, the protein will quickly coalesce, creating a tasty crust. Thanks to this "shell", no oil will get inside - the fish will be moist inside, but not greasy. During baking and frying, do not prick the meat or fish. Our goal is to beheadedproteins while maintaining maximum juices. If you prick the meat, its cells will be damaged and the juice will escape.

Advice for the holidays: what to do to make the yeast dough rise beautifully

Yeast dough likes heat and hates temperature changes. If you want it to succeed, make sure it doesn't "hit it". The yeast we buy in the store is actually a dough made up of numerous single-celled organisms called yeasts (fungi of the bagasse class). When sugar and milk are added in the heat, they multiply, budding, and release carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise. They prefer the temperature of 25-35 degrees Celsius. When it is too cold, their biological power is slowed down, while when the temperature is too high, the yeast is killed. Experts say that the prepared dough with yeast should be kneaded twice. When kneading, stretch them and then roll them up. This is very important. As a result of this, a network of gluten contained in the flour is formed, which retains carbon dioxide, thanks to which the dough grows and is fluffy. Kneading it twice increases its fluffiness and lightness. After the first kneading, cover with a linen cloth and set aside in a warm place for an hour. During this time, the yeast will convert the sugar contained in the flour into glucose and break it down into carbon dioxide and a whole group of alcohols that give the dough its characteristic smell. When it grows, start kneading again so that the multiplied yeast spreads evenly over the entire dough. Thanks to this, further fermentation will be even more intense and the dough will double in size.

Advice for holidays: how to bake a fluffy sponge cake

According to the popular opinion, egg white foam will not be successful if even a little yolk gets into it. You should also not sprinkle sugar before whipping the proteins. This is true, but this knowledge is needed when preparing a sandwich, not a sponge cake. When preparing a sponge cake for a Christmas cake, beat the whole eggs, with sugar. Even though such a mixture prevents the formation of foam! In addition, all ingredients must be steamed for 15 minutes. And this is where the secret of the sponge cake lies. We beat the eggs not to create foam, but to get air bubbles into the mass. You will get a better effect if you tilt the mixer a bit during this operation (risking spraying), in order to facilitate the introduction of air into the dough. You also need to know that the dough rises due to the evaporation of water. Therefore, it should be in every mass that is about to grow. Thanks to such treatments, the sponge cake doubles its volume.

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