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Monday, September 24, 2018
All the Spoons You Didn’t Know You Needed in Life
When you think of the superior utensil, you think about spoons. Or at least you should. Their shape has so many applications that dozens of specialty spoons are available for niche use cases.
Of course, at home, you’re in charge, so feel free to eat cereal with a demitasse spoon. Also, take pictures because that sounds equally impossible and adorable.
Cooking and Serving
2018 will go down in history for many culinary reasons and the “year of the egg spoon” is certainly one of them. There are two kinds of eggs spoons when it comes to cooking eggs.
Alice Waters’ egg spoon, Permanent Collection
One is the frequently fought about hand-forged iron spoon that you ideally slide into the fireplace/wood-burning range—which you definitely have—to cook a single egg. You could also just use a camping skillet. The other is essentially a slotted spoon with one or more holes that nestles boiled or poached eggs.
The slotted spoon is a type of skimmer, a broadly interpreted sieve tool for removing solid foods from water or broth. Slots can be rectangular or circular with a wide variety of opening widths.
Mixing spoons can have round or flat tips, but they usually have shallow bowls for tasting. On the other end of the spectrum, you’re familiar with ladles serving up portions of soups, stews, and chili.
Serving spoon (aka tablespoon), Sur la Table
Serving spoons are also known as…tablespoons. Yep, everything you know about spoons is a lie. Tablespoons specifically hold three teaspoons and are great for dishing out foods at the table. Tablespoons originally had some soup eating and dessert applications, but have fallen to the wayside of smaller, mouth-sized spoons.
You have a few different options when it comes to sauces. The more common sauce spoon is a shallower serving spoon (but bigger than a tablespoon) used to disperse sauce over a dish. A French sauce spoon, used to scoop up the sauce from a meat dish, is fairly flat with a notch on the side. A saucier or spoon drop has a spout which funnels sauce for more precise plating of savory and sweet foods.
Amuse bouch spoons, Sur la Table
An amuse-bouche spoon’s design often sits in between a saucier and a Chinese spoon. It’s technically a plate and a spoon, and you only really use it for these one-bite appetizers.
Dining and Soup Spoons
A place spoon can be used for anything you want. No rules. Pure anarchy. Okay, it shines with cream soups and desserts, but really, go wild! It’s a little bigger than a teaspoon, but smaller than a tablespoon. You’re probably thinking of a place spoon or a soup spoon when you think “tablespoon.”
Teaspoons are fairly informal, often used to stir tea and coffee, but they can also be used as a dessert spoon in a pinch. Dessert spoons are the precise volume midpoint between a tablespoon and a teaspoon, and they are used for their named purpose.
Bouillon spoon, Amazon
In the world of European soup spoons, you have three essential types: a bouillon spoon, soup spoon, and a cream soup spoon. Bouillon spoons are round and have the shallowest bowl because they’re used for light soups. A soup spoon (or dinner spoon) has the deepest bowl to help it handle foods like vegetables or ravioli, and it’s oval-shaped, so you can put the entire bowl in your mouth. The round cream soup spoon’s bowl depth and handle length sit in the middle of these two.
Bouillon and cream soup spoons are usually sipping spoons, but the latter are sometimes called gumbo spoons (used for chunky dishes like gumbo, chili, and chowder).
Chinese spoon, Crate & Barrel
In Asia, two spoons dominate: the Chinese soup spoon and the Korean spoon. The Chinese spoon is used in several Asian countries and is easily recognizable by its flat-bottomed bowl and hook handle. These spoons can be used for soups or to hold foods like dumplings.
The Korean spoon can also be called a sujeo, but that term often refers to the common metal spoon-chopstick set. The Korean spoon has a bowl similar to a bouillon spoon with a longer handle, finding its home in soups or rice.
Beyond the Teaspoon: Beverage Spoons
When it comes to cold drinks, you’re dealing with two very similar spoons featuring shallow, teaspoon-capacity bowls and long handles. The iced tea spoon is a summer staple in the southern states, allowing guests to adjust the sweetness of their drink, but also works in tall parfaits, sundaes, floats, and thick milkshakes.
Bar spoon, Williams Sonoma
Bar or cocktail spoons facilitate the pouring and stirring of alcoholic drinks with their (usually) grooved handles. They occasionally have bowls that sit at a 45 degree or less angle to the handle for swizzling rum cocktails.
After dinner or at your local small coffee shop, you can find a demitasse (a.k.a. espresso) spoon. These little spoons can also be used to stir in sugar and milk into tea cups. Speaking of sugar, sugar spoons tend to look like a sea hell or a little shovel. You should never use them to stir because they have to return to the sugar bowl!
Demitasse spoons, Amazon
Very Specific Spoons
Grapefruit spoons, can actually be used for any citrus fruits, but they are most often carving into their namesake with their serrated edges.
Guess what? There’s another type of egg spoon! This one is for eating soft boiled eggs out of the shell. This dining habit has gradually fallen out of style, but some people still swear by it.
Eating bone marrow has had waves of mainstream popularity over the centuries and it’s back in the culinary lexicon. Marrow spoons have long, shovel-like bowls on both ends—one for larger and the other for smaller bones—for easy scooping.
Sur la Table
Speaking of scoops, the ice cream spoons have more rounded, shovel-inspired bowls with long handles (but not quite as long as an iced tea spoon). These spoons are used with ice cream, gelato, and shaved ice.
Silver baby food spoons are still gifted, but practically speaking, there are some pretty cool options for the littlest mouths these days. You can get a spoon that dispenses puréed food from a reservoir for one-handed feeding or fun silicone spoons for when your tiny tykes start wanting to feed themselves.
Related Video: How to Peel Hard Boiled Eggs with a Spoon
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Rethink Fall Produce With These 11 Slaw Recipes
Fall produce works its way into farmers’ markets and grocery stores pretty quickly: one moment you’re feasting on summer corn and tomatoes, the next, it’s all about roots and cruciferous veggies. And in the same swoop, you find yourself transitioning from bright and cheery salads to stew-y and roasted dishes to go along with the sudden change in seasons. The months ahead promise a parade of gratins, bakes, and mashes worthy of a hibernation diet.
But while autumn’s harvest may seem best suited for being cooked into oblivion, it’s actually hiding some great fresh veggies in its midst. It’s just that they need a little coaxing. A slaw can turn even the hardiest roots and stalks into something vibrant and pleasantly crunchy: just shred and slice your produce thin and let it pickle slightly in vinaigrette, then watch any cases of the cold-weather vegetable blues slip away.
To get yourself out of a fall produce funk, you can turn to one of these seasonal slaws—here are eleven recipes that keep things bright and fresh.
1. Fennel-Apple Slaw
Chowhound
Fennel and apple each bring their own flavors to the table, with fennel’s anise overtones and apple’s signature tartness. With such strong personalities, they only need an extra-light vinaigrette to dress them up, getting just the slightest spike from a white wine vinegar and olive oil mixture. Get our Fennel-Apple Slaw recipe.
2. Kale-Apple Coleslaw with Poppy Seed Dressing
Never mind those leaden, mayonnaise-heavy versions of coleslaw, the ones that usually end up uneaten at the edge of your plate. This perky kale and apple version gives the stuff a long overdue update. Get our Kale-Apple Coleslaw with Poppy Seed Dressing recipe.
3. Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad
Chowhound
Raw Brussels sprouts are nothing like their mushy, boiled counterparts. When finely shredded, they have an addictively crunchy, feathery texture with lots of ridges and crannies that excel at picking up drops of dressing. Get our Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad recipe.
4. Carrot Slaw
Chowhound
For such hardy root vegetables, carrots do an awfully good job of soaking in the flavors of whatever you marinate them in. These shreds are loaded with a kick of mustard, red wine vinegar, and aromatic orange zest. Get our Carrot Slaw recipe.
5. Kohlrabi and Cabbage Slaw with Tahini Lemon Dressing
Dishing Up the Dirt
Kohlrabi and cabbage both have tons of crunch, but they are pretty mild-mannered in the flavor department. A strong dressing, like the sesame tahini one in this recipe, will give them the boost they need. Get the recipe here.
6. Crunchy Turnip, Apple, and Brussels Sprout Slaw
Bon Appetit
Brussels sprout leaves are kind of like the low-budget version of fancy-schmancy microgreens. Toss them with julienned turnips and apples for a dish that blurs the line between slaw and salad. Get the recipe here.
7. Cauliflower Slaw
Smitten Kitchen
Cauliflower may be a surprising choice for a slaw, but somehow it just works, especially with pumped up garnishes like fried capers and dried currants. Get the recipe here.
8. Pear, Gorgonzola, and Pecan Brussels Sprouts Slaw
Orchard Street Kitchen
Pears, pecans, gorgonzola crumbles, and Brussels sprouts are everything you want them to be: a little bit sweet and a little bit salty with plenty of crunch. Get the recipe here.
9. Simple Fall Slaw
Minimalist Baker
Show your love for seasonal produce with this recipe that packs in virtually all of fall’s bounty: carrots, beets, broccoli, apples, and beyond. Get the recipe here.
10. Cilantro Lime Sweet Potato Slaw
Back to Her Roots
You’ve probably had your fair share of baked sweet potatoes and sweet potato fries. Get to know a whole new side of them by trimming them raw into matchstick shapes and allowing them to soak in the flavors of ginger and lime. Get the recipe here.
11. Kielbasa with Warm Apple-Bacon Slaw
Chowhound
Just because slaws are vegetable-based doesn’t mean that you can’t find ways to work some meat into them. This red cabbage and apple version is dressed in bacon fat and topped with pieces of smoky kielbasa. Get our Kielbasa with Warm Apple-Bacon Slaw recipe.
Header image: Kale Apple Coleslaw with Poppy Seed Dressing from Chowhound
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How to Use Crescent Roll Dough for Ultra Easy Dishes from Breakfast to Dessert
There’s a lot to be said for slow food, and even for truly labor-intensive food, but sometimes you just need a shortcut in the kitchen, like Bisquick or boxed cake mix—or crescent roll dough. It stars in all sorts of dishes, from appetizers and breakfasts to dinners and desserts, and is a worthy secret weapon to keep on hand.
The dough bakes up tender and flaky with a crisp golden-brown crust no matter what form you use it in, so you can stuff it, braid it, use it as a crust or topping, take it sweet or savory, fry it, even give it a little baking soda bath to make it more like a pretzel (more on that below).
While many crescent roll dough recipes use butter, Pillsbury—the original refrigerated crescent roll brand, first marketed in the 1960s—actually uses palm oil, so their product is vegan. If you object to palm oil, though, just check the label of whatever brands you find in your store; organic ones usually use butter. In any case, the dough is fairly elastic and easy to roll out or simply stretch into shape if you need a single large sheet, and if it does tear, you can just gently pinch the edges back together with your fingertips.
The hardest part of any of these recipes, really, is working up the nerve to actually pop open the tube. (Seriously, does anyone else flinch uncontrollably before the edge of a spoon even touches the cardboard to break the pressurized seal?) Of course, while it defeats the purpose of quick convenience, you can absolutely make your own homemade crescent roll dough too if you prefer! Your options are practically endless.
Baked Gouda with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
Chowhound
When using the whole sheet of crescent roll dough, just gently press the perforated seams together to seal them up, then wrap the dough around a wheel of gouda (or any other meltable cheese), with the condiments of your choice on the inside too. Here, there’s pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, but grainy mustard and toasted walnuts work well too. Get our Baked Gouda with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto recipe.
Chowhound
Crescent roll dough makes a great quick crust for miniature tarts made in a muffin pan, and each triangle is perfectly portioned for a single cup (if you don’t mind irregular edges; if you do, press all the seams together as above and cut neat squares from the sheet). You can fill the flaky crusts with whatever you like, from raspberry jam to feta and caramelized onions—but these call to mind mini quiches with their bacon, egg, and cheese middles. Get our Bacon Quiche Tarts recipe.
Sizzling Eats
Of course, you can also simply stuff each triangle for individual appetizers, whether you want to roll each one up in the shape of mini calzones, or tuck them into muffin tins with the ends folded over top for petite parcels. Chicken Bacon Ranch Crescents, Sloppy Joe Stuffed Crescent Rolls, and Garlic Butter Cheesy Crescent Rolls are all great choices, but in the interest of eating as much pizza as possible, try tomato sauce, mozzarella, and pepperoni wrapped in flaky dough with a sprinkle of Italian herbs over top. Get the recipe.
Jo Cooks
If you can arrange triangles in the shape of a sun, you can pull this crescent roll ring off with ease. You can also definitely make this into dessert (Ã la the Peanut Butter Crescent Roll video at the bottom of this page, which uses a slightly different technique), or dinner (think Taco Crescent Ring), but if you need to impress some brunch guests, this pastry wreath full of scrambled eggs, bacon, and plenty of cheese will do the trick. Get the recipe.
Cincy Shopper
Get two tubes of crescent dough if you need a top and bottom crust for a casserole, like this easy chicken pot pie for a crowd. It uses cream of chicken soup for a fast filling too, but our Creamed Chicken recipe isn’t that much more involved if you want to make at least some part of dinner from scratch. Get the recipe.
Turkey, Cranberry, and Brie Crescent Braid
Spicy Southern Kitchen
For something a little fancier, braid your crescent roll sheet around your chosen filling—here’s a good visual reference for the easy mechanics of making the braid if you need more guidance. Turkey, cranberry, and brie are a great fall filling option, but it can be virtually anything you like, including sweet ingredients like cream cheese, fruit, or chocolate. Get the recipe.
Plain Chicken
Regular crescent roll pigs in blankets are sure to please your tailgating crew—but if you briefly dunk the dough-wrapped sausages or hot dogs in boiling water with baking soda before you pop them in the oven, they’ll bake up dark brown and taste more like soft pretzels. Get the recipe.
Crescent Roll Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
The Gunny Sack
Shifting to the sweet end of the spectrum, easy cinnamon rolls are a classic use for crescent roll dough (but you can use the same fill-roll-and-slice technique to make savory snacks, too, like Baked Ham and Cheese Crescent Rollups). This autumnal twist includes pumpkin puree and pumpkin spices in addition to the classic cinnamon and brown sugar, and a caramel glaze in addition to the usual vanilla drizzle. (For a larger breakfast spread, keep in mind that crescent roll dough also makes great Danish!) Get the recipe.
Deliciously Yum
While baked crescent roll dough is plenty flaky and crisp, if you fry it—as is true of so many things—it’s even better. These easy glazed cronuts are dangerously simple to make at home, and would be equally great rolled in cinnamon and sugar, or dipped in chocolate. And you can just call them doughnuts if “cronuts” makes you twitchy. Get the recipe.
The Domestic Rebel
Give Saltine-based Christmas crack a bit of competition with this sweet-salty treat that lacquers crisp bacon to flaky dough with an easy maple caramel. Is it dessert? An appetizer? Maybe even breakfast? You’re just four ingredients away from deciding for yourself. Get the recipe.
Mini Crescent Roll Pumpkin Pies
Taste and Tell
Just as crescent roll dough makes great mini savory tart shells, it’s perfect for tiny pies, like these two-bite miniature pumpkin pies. Make easy homemade whipped cream while they’re baking and top them off at the table. Get the recipe.
Nutella and Banana Stuffed Crescent Rolls
The Food Charlatan
This three ingredient dessert (well, five when you count the cinnamon and sugar for the coating) may just be the perfect bite, and it’s a great way to use your homemade Nutella—or a perfect excuse to make a batch in the first place. Get the recipe.
Onion Rings and Things
More cinnamon and sugar on crisp crescent roll dough, but this time it’s sandwiching a creamy cheesecake filling. Try an apple pie variation to showcase fall fruit if you’ve got it on hand. Any way you slice it, this is delicious—and incredibly easy to make. Get the recipe.
Related Video: How to Make a Peanut Butter Crescent Ring
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Your Espresso Addiction Stems from an Ancient Ceremony
It’s hard to imagine life before espresso, but believe it or not, there was once a tired, latte-less time. The first basic prototype for an espresso machine was invented in Turin, Italy in the 1880s, though it looked more like a hot-water heater than the blinged-out coffee hotrods we see in cafés today, and for good reason—that’s basically all it was, a steam boiler designed to heat water in a closed chamber, which would also build up a reserve of pressure that a waiter or bartender could release over a bed of finely ground coffee.
Those early machines, including the 1905 patent by Luigi Bezzera that modernized and streamlined the design and added more functionality for the human baking the coffee (they were not known as baristas until much later), are interesting enough on their own—and we’ll briefly discuss how they work in a moment—but the really interesting thing about the history of espresso comes from tracing the story of coffee drinking all the way from Ethiopia and piecing together how in the world it made its way to Italy.
The Coffee Ceremony
The beverage we know as coffee has a somewhat mysterious origin, but historians know that first the leaves and the coffee fruit were consumed in and around the area now known as Ethiopia, possibly for hundreds of years, before anybody thought to clean and roast the seeds, pulverize them, and mix them with hot water. At some point in the 15th century, spice traders from the Arabian Peninsula, including the area now recognized as Yemen, encountered coffee plants while traveling through Ethiopia in search of trade, spices, and slaves. These traders were found inspiration for creating the hot, bittersweet, and caffeinated elixir we know as coffee most likely in mystical Islamic beliefs about alchemy, the principle of transforming something worthless into something valuable, as a sign of God’s love for humankind. Well, certainly if anything is a sign that God loves us, it’s coffee. Who’d have thunk that these little grassy-smelling seeds could transform into something so miraculous with a little heat, elbow grease, and water?
Shutterstock
This first Ethiopian coffee concoction was originally prepared—and still is, in a traditional service—as a kind of ceremony. It’s conducted by the woman who is the head of a household, and she will call friends, family, and neighbors to join at the table. The coffee seeds are washed and then roasted in a metal pan over a fire, until they turn dark chocolate brown and begin to crackle and smoke. The pan is removed and in its place a pot called a jebena will be filled with water and put on the heat to boil. Often the woman will also toast grains or pop corn to eat with the coffee. While the water heats, she grinds the beans with a mortar and pestle, and then she will add the grounds to the water when it’s ready. The coffee brews for a few minutes before she slowly pours off the liquid in small portions into demitasse like cups, passing them around for the folks who have gathered. In traditional ceremonies, the grounds will be brewed three symbolic times, with each serving poured for the guests; the whole process can take an hour (or more), depending on the company.
Before long, this version of our favorite drink became a staple of social and religious life throughout Ethiopia, Eritrea, and with spice traders and religious Sufi Muslims, but in order for it to really catch on, the process needed a bit of a boost.
Arabic Coffee
Knowing what we now know about the first coffee drink, it will probably be a little easier to connect the dots to what came next: Arabic coffee, sometimes also known as Turkish coffee because of its geographical and cultural associations with the Ottoman Empire. In cities throughout the Arabian Peninsula, then a huge trading hub for the Ottomans, coffee became a staple not of domestic life as in Ethiopia, but in business and political life, outside of the home and in male-dominated spaces. Men would sit in circles on rugs at “coffee houses” and take coffee together to make deals and discuss finances.
Related Video: Espresso Martini Cocktail
Of course, this meant that the men also needed to hustle back to work, so an hourlong ceremony wasn’t going to cut the mustard—even in the days before time clocks and HR departments. In order to speed things up while still retaining some of the legacy and lore of coffee’s alchemical process, a new brewing pot was invented (called an ibrik or a cezve) with a long handle, in which coffee that’s been pulverized to a very fine powder can be boiled in water over a flame more quickly, poured out into small cups, and the grounds re-used as needed. Typically, the slurry of coffee grounds and water were brought to a vigorous boil three times before being doled out to patrons—thereby keeping some of the symbolic aspects of the coffee while also making a faster, stronger drink. The resulting liquid is thick, intense, and very bittersweet—much more pungent in flavor and concentration than the delicate, almost tea-like coffees of the Ethiopian ceremony.
Small portions of coffee brewed strong, dark, and fast: Can you guess where this is headed?
Trade and Industrial Revolution (aka The Need for Speed)
One of the main ports of call along the Ottoman spice route was the Italian city of Venice, which is also a major port city positioned on the Red Sea—a nearly direct route for traders to enter Europe and sell their goods. Starting in the 17th century, Italians would have been exposed to the coffee-drinking cultures that came off the ships, with coffee beans sold as an exotic item alongside garlic and cardamom, etc. Soon, Italians were drinking something like the Arabic coffee, a thick, dense brew that provided a jolt of energy and filled up an empty stomach. As Europe modernized and industrialized, coffee became a necessity to keep production flowing, replacing its status as more of a cultural, religious, or social drink and turning it into fuel for the working classes.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Italy’s industrial revolution was in full force and the urban centers were booming with businesses, factories, and, of course, lots of overworked, underfed, and underpaid employees. Coffee was essential for productivity, but brewing it in the preferred style took took too long and interrupted work too much. Enter Luigi Bezzerra, credited with patenting the first fully functional steam-powered espresso machine. The beast of a boiler was capable of dispensing pressurized hot water over finely ground coffee in a matter of moments, creating a thick, bittersweet brew that immediately became the craze. “Espresso” was born, though whether the name implies the speed or the individual nature of the brews is still debated these more than 100 years later.
Shutterstock
One thing that’s not up for debate about espresso, however—and maybe the only thing that’s not up for debate about it—is that it’s changed the way that people have consumed coffee around the world. Italian immigrants brought espresso along with them as they came to the United States, and as early as 1945 a food columnist for New York Herald-Tribune was describing an “exotic” drink found in one of the cozy Italian cafés of the East Village. “Cappucino [sic] is a cup of espresso with steam-heated milk floating lazily over the surface, and that delicate bouquet is just the merest pinch of ground cinnamon,” she wrote, going on to quote the café owner as saying that the think is something “the ladies like very much.”
Espresso Today
Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, espresso bars became countercultural hangouts where musicians, poets, and amateur philosophers gathered over black espresso to argue, swap ideas, and collaborate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the drink became emerged as a status symbol for upwardly mobile types who had traveled to Europe and brought back “refined” tastes from holiday, flaunting sophistication by ordering espresso at bars and restaurants and paying high prices for what had once been working-class fuel.
In the early 1980s, Howard Schultz—already the major player at a small but growing Seattle chain called Starbucks—took a trip to Milan and fell in love with the flavor of espresso and the local color in the espresso bars. When he came home, he quickly began transforming Starbucks into an Americanized (that is to say accessible, fast-food-like, and both affordable and seemingly “upscale”) institution, playing on the comfort of the coffeehouse and the chic air that Italian-style drinks offered.
The rest, as they say, is history: Today, espresso is everywhere from the most high-end boutique coffee shops to the average corner store. It can be expensive single-origin special-process coffee at a third-wave café, or it can be the base of any number of fast-food milkshake-like treats ordered across a drive-through window. It’s also easier than ever to make at home, with kitchen units costing anywhere from a couple hundred bucks all the way to a couple thousand.
There’s good news, though: If you need to justify your several-shots-a-day habit, just remind yourself you’re partaking of an ancient ceremony and, you know, paying tribute to the mysterious alchemy of coffee. Liquid gold, baby! Liquid gold.
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