"buttermilk" news and stories

Tangy, thick and low in fat, buttermilk's got lots of versatile uses in the kitchen.

Marinating the meat doesn't always yield a tender dish. Try this next time!

• Writer Alex Witchel sheds -- heh -- lots of love on the benefits of grabbing a doggie bag.
• Mark Bittman explores the wonder of Tuscany's Zuppa Arcidossana soup.
• Exploring Cafe Bustelo from its roots to its bohemian fame.
• Adventures in the supermarket's cheap meat bins from beef chuck deckle to loin chops, and new cuts of beef like Sierra and Petite Tender.
• A look into Cruze Farm's cultured buttermilk -- a beverage that's been relegated to "ingredient" but still features a multitude of perks.
• Yankee Stadium -- good with ballgames, bad with beer selection -- and a look at craft pilsners.
• Buzzed-about restaurant Marea, among other soon-to-open upscale eateries, hopes a little opulence can work despite troubled economic times.
• Anthos Upstairs, Halfsteak, DFF and Per Se's new lounge menu: recession beaters for those who want great food in a more affordable package.
• A review for Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio" -- a great book of technique not suited to beginners.
• Balducci's says goodbye to the Big Apple.
• 'Inoteca Vino, Cucina e Liquori Bar offers oversweet drinks but great grub.
• Tequila, meet hibiscus -- all about Gran Centenario's hibiscus-infused Rosangel elixir.
• Products and gadgets: tasty new butters and super-cool salt slabs.
• Restaurant openings: Brasserie 1605, Chocolate Bar, Anne-Sophie Pic, Clerkenwell, Le Magnifique and Sensing.
• The Times' food calendar: from Austrian Vines to dining and donating.

We admit it. After last week we're kinda sick of ham and reached our saturation point with our delicious but waaayyy too plentiful braided baked challah. Still, being loath to toss out any viable leftovers, we decided this weekend's cooking projects should be all about respite and reformatting.

Hence, a Friday night meal of hard-fried leftover Cheerwine ham with freshly-grated parmesan, egg and black pepper over radiatore (crinkly-shaped) pasta for a makeshift carbonara, and finally (for the sake of our sanity and marriage) a furlough in another part of the barnyard. Saturday night's chicken rubbed all over with a lazy pesto -- basil, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil whirred through the food processor -- was delectable straight from the oven. Somehow it was even more satisfying with the leftovers, bones and giblets cooked down for an herbed-up chicken soup with radiatore a day later.

We trotted back to the pig pen with smoked ribs slathered in mustard on Sunday, but that was just to keep us from making an all-day gobblefest of our challah bread pudding buttermilk ice cream. See, our challah recipe (we like Flickr user mollyali's recipe, pictured above) yields two big braids, and though we foist some on friends and flip up plenty of French toast throughout the week, inevitably a portion goes stale, and we were taught not to waste. Bread pudding seemed a simple solution, but we'd had a cup or ten of caffeine by that point and an awful lot of buttermilk on hand from the ongoing Biscuit Mission. So we got to cranking up some ice cream.

Get the recipe after the jump and use the comments to let us know if ramps are up yet where you are, whether you busted out the grill, or tell us whatever else you rustled up this weekend.

Flour is the basic structural ingredient. It's the starch in the flour that will, when mixed with liquid and heated in the oven, gelatinize and set when cooled. Flour also contains the proteins you need to make gluten, which is great for baking bread but not so desirable for making pie crusts. All you have to do is use a flour with a lower protein content, which generally means all purpose flour (cake flour might be too weak).

Fats are considered tenderizing agents for baked goods like cakes and pie crusts, rather than shortening agents like they would be for bread. In pie crusts, fats like oil, vegetable shortening, butter, and lard prevent gluten from getting formed in the first place by coating the flour granules, thus ensuring tenderness. Flakiness is achieved by the way you mix the dough: larger chunks of fat from less mixing make for more flakiness while more mixing and smaller fat chunks make a less flaky crust. They also add a lot of flavor, especially in the case of butter and animal fats. Lard and butter are also generally considered to have a better feel in the mouth, and lard is reputed to create a flakier crust than other fats.

Water and milk are the most common liquids, while buttermilk, eggs, and cream can also be used. Liquids function as a binding agent: they allow all of the ingredients to be evenly dissolved and incorporated. They also hydrate the the starch and protein in the flour and activate whatever leavening is being used. If you're using a liquid besides water, you're also adding fats, sugar, and acidity which is a good thing. The fats add tenderness, the adds to crust color, and the acidity makes the dough more stable and easier to roll out as well as taste better. Make sure to always use a cold liquid to keep the fat nice and cold, so it'll retain its shape/temperature and produce a flaky product.

Eggs are used for hydrating the dough, creating structure, giving color to the dough, and flavor. The whites are 90% water and the rest protein, so that aids in hydration and structure. The yolks are 50% water with the rest being mostly fat, contributing to hydration and tenderness as well as flavor and crust color.

Sugar adds sweetness and contributes the most to crust color. Ths crust turns golden brown because the sugar in the dough caramelizes as it's baked. Also, the texture of the dough can be changed by using sugar ground to different levels of fineness. For instance, powdered sugar makes a dough that is smoother, even if it doesn't taste as good as granulated.