"ingredient" news and stories

While the name gets thrown around a lot, especially with the ever-increasing discussion of shopping at local farmers markets and avoiding conventionally grown, mass produced produce, many consumers still wonder what heirloom tomatoes really are.

While some feel that a set, defined time limit of 50 or 100 years must be included in the definition of an heirloom plant, the short definition of an heirloom tomato is that it is an open-pollinated tomato plant, meaning that it is naturally pollinated by exposure to birds, insects and animals. Hybrid plants, the commercially grown tomatoes, do not always produce reliable, viable seeds due to the fact that some (if not most) of the crosses used to generate the plants were done artificially.

The more traditional tomatoes, those that are often seen in supermarkets and the majority of restaurants, have been bred to enhance certain characteristics besides flavor. For example, many have been selected for disease resistance or for having a slightly thicker skin, which makes them hold up better during shipping. Most of these conventional tomatoes are close to spherical and very red in color. Their flavor is ordinary, with little "wow" factor.

I love to use vanilla when I bake. It mellows some flavors and brings others out, not to mention that it adds a wonderful flavor of its own. I have many kinds of vanilla, including extracts, beans, powders and sugars.

One of my favorite types of vanilla is vanilla bean paste, which is a mixture of vanilla beans with a little sugar, water and a thickening agent. It can be used interchangeably with vanilla extract, but it gives the look of having used a real vanilla bean and seems to add an even stronger flavor. It is perfect for custards, puddings, ice cream and even plain vanilla cakes, where you really get to showcase the little flecks of vanilla bean.

I have had difficulty finding vanilla paste in nearby stores lately, but I came across a similar product: Sonoma Syrup Co.'s Vanilla Bean Crush. This is vanilla extract that has the vanilla seeds reserved and added back into the finished product. With a quick shake of the bottle before using, you get some of those tiny, lovely seeds into whatever you're making. It isn't quite as strong as vanilla paste, but it is much nicer than some generic vanillas that I have had recently. Unfortunately, it's not much easier to find than the vanilla paste, but since the bottle is quite large, it will probably last for some time.

The vanilla crush is $17 for 8-oz. and the vanilla paste is $12 for 4-oz. Both are worth every penny.

Chipotle chiles are not a unique chile, but are actually dried, smoked jalapeno chiles. They are dark brown and wrinkly, in sharp contrast to the glossy look of fresh chiles, but have a wonderfully rich flavor. Most of the heat of the jalapeno is retained when the chile is dried, so chipotles are fairly spicy, falling in the middle ranges of the heat scale. They have smoky overtones, but the real flavor of the chiles is complex and earthy. Instead of causing a sharp and immediate heat, the heat grows gradually as you eat it and takes time to fade away.

In truth, most kinds of chilies can be smoke-dried and sometimes they are all called "chipotle" no matter what they started out as, but the vast majority of the chipotle chiles on the market were originally jalapenos.

While once it seemed as though the only onion options were the generic sounding yellow, white and red, each variety of onion in the market is now labeled clearly - and there are a lot of them, in addition to those three standards. But what is the difference between them? The primary difference is sweetness, with some onions, known as sweet onions, lacking the sulfuric bite that most associate with an onion.

Sweet onions usually are available in summer and have a higher water content than so-called "storage onions", which contributes to their mild flavor. It also means that they have a somewhat shorter shelf life and are more delicate, prone to bruising, than their less-sweet counterparts. They can be used interchangeably with regular onions in cooking, since they will handle almost identically, but they will impart slightly different flavors to the finished dish. Many people prefer sweet onions in dishes that call for raw onions, such as salads, or for use on burgers and hot dogs.

A woman checking out at the grocery store commented to the clerk that she had mixed emotions about Rainier cherry season. On one hand, she adored the fruits, but she said that she couldn't stop eating them. The cherries are quite expensive and, even though she was a cherry lover, she was glad that the season for Rainiers lasted a brief period so that she could enjoy looking forward to them and enjoy eating them, while not breaking the bank.

Rainer cherries are one of the sweetest, most prized types of cherries there are. They are primarily grown in California and the Pacific Northwest and are distinct from other cherries in that they have a creamy, yellow flesh and a yellow and red exterior.  While they are still one of the most popular eating cherries, some consumers are put off by their coloring, prefering all cherries to be a bright, deep red. They're missing out.