Remember the saying “good things come in threes?” All over the world there is a belief that 3 is a magic number. There exists a “rule of three” based on the belief that things are best remembered if presented in groups of three. Although this rule of 3 is best associated with superstition and religion, a little know fact is that it is also applied to many cuisines. A holy trinity of cuisine you could say named after the Holy Trinity of the Christian faith but referring to trios of ingredients that crop up in cuisines from around the world and are quintessential to its basic flavour.
Cajun cuisine
The most flavourful holy trinity is that of Cajun cuisine, the trio that forms the flavour base of almost every Cajun (and Creole) dish. Consisting of green chopped bell peppers, onions and celery the Cajun Holy Trinity might vary from region to region with tomato or garlic being substituted for celery occasionally, it’s the most apt example of how essential certain ingredients are to a specific type of cuisine.
Cajun cuisine is the cuisine of the French-speaking Acadian or "Cajun" immigrants that live in the Acadiana region of Louisiana, in the USA. Cajun cuisine evolved out of necessity with the Acadian refugees, (farmers rendered destitute by the British expulsion) having to learn to live off the land. They adapted the French cuisine they brought with them to local ingredients such as rice, crawfish, and sugar cane and cooking large quantities to feed large families that led a physically hard life and required a lot of food. Cajun cuisine grew out of supplementing rice with what meat, game or other proteins were available. Cajun cuisine is very basic and based on locally available ingredients and simple recipes. An authentic Cajun meal would usually be based on three pots affair; one pot dedicated to the main dish, one to steamed rice, cornbread, or any grain dish, and the third to whatever vegetable is plentiful or available.
Jambalaya (Rushina's recipe)
1 chicken, cut up,
paprika
3 tbsp olive oil
1 c chopped onion
1 c chopped green bell pepper
2 sticks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup diced cooked ham
1 kg cooked tomatoes
2 c chicken stock
1 c long-grain rice
2 tsp leaf thyme, crumbled
1 ½ tsp salt, or to taste
¼ tsp pepper
1 tsp Tabasco
500 g prawns shelled and deveined
Clean, wash and dry chicken then rub with the paprika.
Heat olive oil in a large pan; add chicken and brown on all sides and set aside
To the same pan add onion, green bell pepper, celery, and garlic. Sauté over low heat until onion is tender (10 mins).
Add ham, tomatoes, chicken broth, rice, thyme, salt, pepper, and hot sauce.
Then add chicken piees and turn well to ensure they are well coated with sauce.
Bring Jambalaya to a boil lower flame cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, (your chicken should be tender. Stir in shrimp and cook until shrimp turns pink.
Capsicum fruits and peppers can be eaten raw or cooked. They are also frequently used both chopped and raw in salads, or cooked in stir-fries or other mixed dishes. They can be sliced into strips and fried, roasted whole or in pieces, or chopped and incorporated into salsas or other sauces. They are also delicious stuffed with cheese, meat or rice.
French Mirepoix
Onions, carrots and celery form the trio commonly referred to as a mirepoix in French Cuisine. Named after an actual French town, mirepoix has evolved into an iconic flavour base for a whole lot of soup, stew and sauce recipes. The classic mirepoix consists of Onion Carrot and Celery in a ratio of 2:1:1slowl simmered in butter to bring out the sweetness of the vegetables.
Braised Lamb Shank With Vegetable Ragout Chef Frédéric Molinie Executive Chef Le Royal Meridien Mumbai
Serves 1
250 g lamb shanks, trimmed, bone cut on the saw
60 g onion, cut into big dice
60 g carrot, cut into big dice
30 g celery root, cut into big dice
30 g leek, cut into big dice
1 whole clove garlic crushed
50 ml white wine
40 g tomato paste
30 g vegetable oil
80 g lamb glace
1 lemon
1 sprig basil
1 sprig thyme or rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
For the Vegetable Ragout:
40 g zucchini, cut into 1cm cubes, lightly sauteed
40 g bell peppers cut into 1 cm cubes, lightly sauteed
40 g onion, cut into 1 cm cubes, sauteed
100 g tomatoes, cut into ½ cm cubes, added at the end
60 g carrots, cut into ½ cm cubes, blanched and added
60 g white beans, soaked over night and cooked softly
1 tsp chopped Garlic
50 ml white wine
1 sprig basil julienned
100 ml lamb Braising Jus
salt and pepper to taste
For the Vegetable Ragout
Cook all vegetables as indicated and mix them together ones they are cold. Season to taste add the Lamb jus just when you serve it in order to maintain the consistency
For the Lamb
Sear off the lamb shanks and set aside
In a large frying pan sauté the mirepoix (onion, carrot and celery) until the colour lightens.
Add garlic and tomato paste and sauté until the tomato paste looses its sweetness
Deglaze the pan with the white wine, simmer the resulting liquid until it is reduced to nearly dry. Now add the soft tomatoes and cook until liquid has evaporated. Then add the stock from the shanks, basil stems and lemon skin.
Braise the lamb shanks, covered with an aluminium foil. Ensure that the shanks are always half covered with liquid, and cook them very slowly in the oven, also during the Braising process keep turning the shanks as often as possible to assure an even cooking process.
When the shanks are soft, remove them and strain the sauce,
Reduce the sauce to wanted consistency, and season to taste.
To serve - reheat lamb shank covered in the Oven, glaze with the sauce and serve it on the Vegetable Ragout, garnished with a Rosemary Sprig.
Celery occurs wild in Europe, the Mediterranean region and in Asia west of the Himalayas. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians cultivated celery first as a medicinal plant, later for the leaves as flavouring. The most common use of celery is for its thick, succulent leaf stalks that are used, often with a part of the leaf blades, in soups, cooked dishes and salads for the Western style kitchen. The type known as Chinese celery has thinner stalks and a stronger flavour and is rarely consumed raw, but often added to soups and stir-fries. There is a common belief that celery is so difficult for humans to digest, that it has 'negative calories' because human digestion burns more calories than can be extracted, however at only 6kcal per rib, the effect is negligible. Celery is still valuable in diets, where it provides low-calorie fibre bulk.
Thai Trinity
Although not always sautéed in oil like the other trios, the trinity of galangal, kaffir lime and lemon grass is essential to Thai Cuisine and is perhaps the most aromatic of all the trios of ingredients. Thai cuisine is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal - hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter (optional). Thai dishes use a wide variety of leaves rarely found in the west, such as kaffir lime leaves whose characteristic flavors appear in nearly every Thai soup (e.g., the hot and sour Tom yam) or curry frequently combined, galangal and lemon grass, Fresh Thai basil is also used to add fragrance in certain dishes such as Green curry.
The Kaffir lime, is native to Indonesia but widely grown worldwide as a backyard shrub. The leaves are also popular in Cambodian, Vietnamese, Malay, Burmese and Indonesian (especially, Balinese and Javanese cuisines which use them sporadically with chicken and fish. The leaves can be used fresh or dried, and can be stored frozen. The fruit of the same plant, the Kaffir Lime is an important ingredient in a number of Thai dishes.
Besides Thai cuisine Lemon grass is widely used as a herb in other Asian cuisines like Philippino, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and even Caribbean cooking. It has a citrus flavor and can be used dried and powdered, besides fresh. The stalk itself is too hard and fibrous, and has to be peeled down to the softest inner bulb, to be eaten. Ideally to flavor curries and soups, it should be bruised and added whole since this releases the aromatic oils from the juice sacs in the stalk. It is also delicious finely sliced and sautéed before adding other ingredients, especially in stir fried dishes.
Galangal, also known as blue ginger, is a rhizome with culinary and medicinal uses, best known for its appearance in Southeast Asian cuisine is also popular in recipes from medieval Europe! Although it resembles ginger in appearance the two have nothing in common, Galangal has a pine-like citrusy flavour.
Coconut Chicken Soup by Chef Jimmy Wong Chinese Chef, Imperial China Le Royal Meriden, Mumbai
6 g Kaffir Lime leaves
A pinch of galangal
A pinch lemon grass
50 g each of mixed vegetables (broccoli, button mushroom, spinach, baby corn & cabbage)
10-15 g chicken breast
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp Curry Powder
1-3 tsp Coconut Milk
½ tsp turmeric powder
Fish Sauce/Salt To taste (few drops /pinch)
1 tsp Cooking Oil
Place vegetables in a pan and and bring to boil – set aside.
Take a bowl and boil sliced chicken and keep it aside
Heat oil in a wok, add Kafir lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal and sauté till aromatic.
Add boiled vegetables and chicken then slowly pour coconut milk and stir until thickened.
Finally add Fish Sauce / Salt and check for seasoning. Serve.
Italian Trinity
Italian Cuisine
Tomato, garlic and basil make up the trio of ingredients essential to Italian cuisine. Typically used to create a marinara sauce, oregano and/or onion are often incorporated into the basic trio. Another trio popular with Italian cuisine is the “soffritto” in which onions, carrots and celery are sautéed in olive oil.
Basil should be used fresh, and added at the last moment to cooked recipes, as cooking destroys the flavor quickly. Fresh Basil can be stored for a short duration in plastic bags in the refrigerator, or frozen for longer periods after being blanched quickly in boiling water. Another great way to store it is by grinding it into a Pesto sauce an Italian oil-and-herb sauce from the city of Genoa. Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai cuisines also use fresh basil in soups and other foods. In Taiwan cuisine it is added fresh to thick soupseaten deep fried with fried chicken.
Italian Tomato Sauce - Basic Recipe
1 kg ripe red tomato
4/5 pieces of garlic, chopped or whole dependin on how strong you want the flavour of garlic to be.
6/10 fresh basil leaves
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
Wash the tomato and then cut into 8 , heat 1/2 of the oil in a pan, add garlic ( whole for mild taste and remove it when golden; chopped for strong taste to be cooked with the sauce) add the tomato, simmer for 5 minutes, add basil and cook for another 5 min. If the tomatoes are ripe the sauce should be ready; add the remaining oil and the sauce is ready to be used.
DID YOU KNOW!!!!
When soaked in water the seeds of several basil varieties become gelatinous, and are used in Asian drinks and desserts such as falooda or sherbet. Such seeds are known variously as sabja, subja, takmaria, tukmaria, or falooda seeds and are very cooling to the system in the summer. They are used for their medicinal properties in Ayurveda, the traditional medicinal system of India.
Middle Eastern triumverate of flavour
Although they are not sauted in oil like the other trios, the trinity of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil is essential to Lebanese Cuisine.
Feta Pomergranate Salad Zenzi
300 g feta
A splash of lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, crushed
110 g flaked almonds
4 small handfuls of mixed rocket leaves, spinach and watercress
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pomegranates, seeds only
Put the feta in a shallow dish, squeeze over the lemon juice and scatter over the garlic. Leave to marinate for about three hours.
Toast the almonds under a medium grill until lightly browned.
Toss together the rocket, spinach and watercress in a large salad bowl with the olive oil, sesame oil and salt and freshly ground pepper.
Crumble in the marinated feta, and scatter the pomegranate seeds and toasted almonds over. Serve straightaway.
Garlic, belongs to the onion family and is related to the pnion, shallot and leek. Garlic has been popular throughout recorded history for its culinary and medicinal properties. It has a characteristic pungent, 'hot', flavour that mellows and sweetens considerably with cooking. The leaves and stems are sometimes eaten, particularly while immature and tender. It is very widely used in Lebanese cuisine.
DID YOU KNOW???
For best results you must be mean to your garlic! The phytochemicals responsible for the sharp flavor of garlic are produced when the plant's cells are damaged by chopping, chewing, or crushing. Enzymes stored in cells trigger the breakdown of several sulfer -containing compounds stored in the cell fluids and it is the resultant compounds that are responsible for the sharp flavor and strong smell.
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the olive (Olea europaea), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean and is considered on of the most healthy oils due to a high content of monounsaturated fat and polyphenols. Accordint to Wikipedia, The several oils extracted from the olive fruit can be classified as: Extra-virgin olive oil which comes from the first pressing of the olives, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. Virgin olive oil which has an acidity of less than 2%, and is judged to have a good taste. Olive oil is a blend of virgin oil and refined virgin oil, containing at most 1% acidity. It commonly lacks a strong flavor. Olive-pomace oil, a blend of refined pomace olive oil and possibly some virgin oil. It is fit for consumption, but it may not be called olive oil. Olive-pomace oil is rarely found in a grocery store; it is often used for certain kinds of cooking in restaurants.
Sautéing is cooking food in a small amount of fat over high heat. Considered a dry heat method, sautéing is perfect for recipes in which one needs to sear or brown food, a process that imparts a lot of flavor. For this you need high heat and patience – DO NOT introduce food until your pan and the fat have been heated first because adding them to early will result in improper searing, sticking or absorption of fat. Your fats for this are usually oil and butter or some combination thereof. Just keep in mind butter will burn quicker!
Cajun cuisine
The most flavourful holy trinity is that of Cajun cuisine, the trio that forms the flavour base of almost every Cajun (and Creole) dish. Consisting of green chopped bell peppers, onions and celery the Cajun Holy Trinity might vary from region to region with tomato or garlic being substituted for celery occasionally, it’s the most apt example of how essential certain ingredients are to a specific type of cuisine.
Cajun cuisine is the cuisine of the French-speaking Acadian or "Cajun" immigrants that live in the Acadiana region of Louisiana, in the USA. Cajun cuisine evolved out of necessity with the Acadian refugees, (farmers rendered destitute by the British expulsion) having to learn to live off the land. They adapted the French cuisine they brought with them to local ingredients such as rice, crawfish, and sugar cane and cooking large quantities to feed large families that led a physically hard life and required a lot of food. Cajun cuisine grew out of supplementing rice with what meat, game or other proteins were available. Cajun cuisine is very basic and based on locally available ingredients and simple recipes. An authentic Cajun meal would usually be based on three pots affair; one pot dedicated to the main dish, one to steamed rice, cornbread, or any grain dish, and the third to whatever vegetable is plentiful or available.
Jambalaya (Rushina's recipe)
1 chicken, cut up,
paprika
3 tbsp olive oil
1 c chopped onion
1 c chopped green bell pepper
2 sticks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup diced cooked ham
1 kg cooked tomatoes
2 c chicken stock
1 c long-grain rice
2 tsp leaf thyme, crumbled
1 ½ tsp salt, or to taste
¼ tsp pepper
1 tsp Tabasco
500 g prawns shelled and deveined
Clean, wash and dry chicken then rub with the paprika.
Heat olive oil in a large pan; add chicken and brown on all sides and set aside
To the same pan add onion, green bell pepper, celery, and garlic. Sauté over low heat until onion is tender (10 mins).
Add ham, tomatoes, chicken broth, rice, thyme, salt, pepper, and hot sauce.
Then add chicken piees and turn well to ensure they are well coated with sauce.
Bring Jambalaya to a boil lower flame cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, (your chicken should be tender. Stir in shrimp and cook until shrimp turns pink.
Capsicum fruits and peppers can be eaten raw or cooked. They are also frequently used both chopped and raw in salads, or cooked in stir-fries or other mixed dishes. They can be sliced into strips and fried, roasted whole or in pieces, or chopped and incorporated into salsas or other sauces. They are also delicious stuffed with cheese, meat or rice.
French Mirepoix
Onions, carrots and celery form the trio commonly referred to as a mirepoix in French Cuisine. Named after an actual French town, mirepoix has evolved into an iconic flavour base for a whole lot of soup, stew and sauce recipes. The classic mirepoix consists of Onion Carrot and Celery in a ratio of 2:1:1slowl simmered in butter to bring out the sweetness of the vegetables.
Braised Lamb Shank With Vegetable Ragout Chef Frédéric Molinie Executive Chef Le Royal Meridien Mumbai
Serves 1
250 g lamb shanks, trimmed, bone cut on the saw
60 g onion, cut into big dice
60 g carrot, cut into big dice
30 g celery root, cut into big dice
30 g leek, cut into big dice
1 whole clove garlic crushed
50 ml white wine
40 g tomato paste
30 g vegetable oil
80 g lamb glace
1 lemon
1 sprig basil
1 sprig thyme or rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
For the Vegetable Ragout:
40 g zucchini, cut into 1cm cubes, lightly sauteed
40 g bell peppers cut into 1 cm cubes, lightly sauteed
40 g onion, cut into 1 cm cubes, sauteed
100 g tomatoes, cut into ½ cm cubes, added at the end
60 g carrots, cut into ½ cm cubes, blanched and added
60 g white beans, soaked over night and cooked softly
1 tsp chopped Garlic
50 ml white wine
1 sprig basil julienned
100 ml lamb Braising Jus
salt and pepper to taste
For the Vegetable Ragout
Cook all vegetables as indicated and mix them together ones they are cold. Season to taste add the Lamb jus just when you serve it in order to maintain the consistency
For the Lamb
Sear off the lamb shanks and set aside
In a large frying pan sauté the mirepoix (onion, carrot and celery) until the colour lightens.
Add garlic and tomato paste and sauté until the tomato paste looses its sweetness
Deglaze the pan with the white wine, simmer the resulting liquid until it is reduced to nearly dry. Now add the soft tomatoes and cook until liquid has evaporated. Then add the stock from the shanks, basil stems and lemon skin.
Braise the lamb shanks, covered with an aluminium foil. Ensure that the shanks are always half covered with liquid, and cook them very slowly in the oven, also during the Braising process keep turning the shanks as often as possible to assure an even cooking process.
When the shanks are soft, remove them and strain the sauce,
Reduce the sauce to wanted consistency, and season to taste.
To serve - reheat lamb shank covered in the Oven, glaze with the sauce and serve it on the Vegetable Ragout, garnished with a Rosemary Sprig.
Celery occurs wild in Europe, the Mediterranean region and in Asia west of the Himalayas. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians cultivated celery first as a medicinal plant, later for the leaves as flavouring. The most common use of celery is for its thick, succulent leaf stalks that are used, often with a part of the leaf blades, in soups, cooked dishes and salads for the Western style kitchen. The type known as Chinese celery has thinner stalks and a stronger flavour and is rarely consumed raw, but often added to soups and stir-fries. There is a common belief that celery is so difficult for humans to digest, that it has 'negative calories' because human digestion burns more calories than can be extracted, however at only 6kcal per rib, the effect is negligible. Celery is still valuable in diets, where it provides low-calorie fibre bulk.
Thai Trinity
Although not always sautéed in oil like the other trios, the trinity of galangal, kaffir lime and lemon grass is essential to Thai Cuisine and is perhaps the most aromatic of all the trios of ingredients. Thai cuisine is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal - hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter (optional). Thai dishes use a wide variety of leaves rarely found in the west, such as kaffir lime leaves whose characteristic flavors appear in nearly every Thai soup (e.g., the hot and sour Tom yam) or curry frequently combined, galangal and lemon grass, Fresh Thai basil is also used to add fragrance in certain dishes such as Green curry.
The Kaffir lime, is native to Indonesia but widely grown worldwide as a backyard shrub. The leaves are also popular in Cambodian, Vietnamese, Malay, Burmese and Indonesian (especially, Balinese and Javanese cuisines which use them sporadically with chicken and fish. The leaves can be used fresh or dried, and can be stored frozen. The fruit of the same plant, the Kaffir Lime is an important ingredient in a number of Thai dishes.
Besides Thai cuisine Lemon grass is widely used as a herb in other Asian cuisines like Philippino, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and even Caribbean cooking. It has a citrus flavor and can be used dried and powdered, besides fresh. The stalk itself is too hard and fibrous, and has to be peeled down to the softest inner bulb, to be eaten. Ideally to flavor curries and soups, it should be bruised and added whole since this releases the aromatic oils from the juice sacs in the stalk. It is also delicious finely sliced and sautéed before adding other ingredients, especially in stir fried dishes.
Galangal, also known as blue ginger, is a rhizome with culinary and medicinal uses, best known for its appearance in Southeast Asian cuisine is also popular in recipes from medieval Europe! Although it resembles ginger in appearance the two have nothing in common, Galangal has a pine-like citrusy flavour.
Coconut Chicken Soup by Chef Jimmy Wong Chinese Chef, Imperial China Le Royal Meriden, Mumbai
6 g Kaffir Lime leaves
A pinch of galangal
A pinch lemon grass
50 g each of mixed vegetables (broccoli, button mushroom, spinach, baby corn & cabbage)
10-15 g chicken breast
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp Curry Powder
1-3 tsp Coconut Milk
½ tsp turmeric powder
Fish Sauce/Salt To taste (few drops /pinch)
1 tsp Cooking Oil
Place vegetables in a pan and and bring to boil – set aside.
Take a bowl and boil sliced chicken and keep it aside
Heat oil in a wok, add Kafir lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal and sauté till aromatic.
Add boiled vegetables and chicken then slowly pour coconut milk and stir until thickened.
Finally add Fish Sauce / Salt and check for seasoning. Serve.
Italian Trinity
Italian Cuisine
Tomato, garlic and basil make up the trio of ingredients essential to Italian cuisine. Typically used to create a marinara sauce, oregano and/or onion are often incorporated into the basic trio. Another trio popular with Italian cuisine is the “soffritto” in which onions, carrots and celery are sautéed in olive oil.
Basil should be used fresh, and added at the last moment to cooked recipes, as cooking destroys the flavor quickly. Fresh Basil can be stored for a short duration in plastic bags in the refrigerator, or frozen for longer periods after being blanched quickly in boiling water. Another great way to store it is by grinding it into a Pesto sauce an Italian oil-and-herb sauce from the city of Genoa. Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai cuisines also use fresh basil in soups and other foods. In Taiwan cuisine it is added fresh to thick soupseaten deep fried with fried chicken.
Italian Tomato Sauce - Basic Recipe
1 kg ripe red tomato
4/5 pieces of garlic, chopped or whole dependin on how strong you want the flavour of garlic to be.
6/10 fresh basil leaves
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
Wash the tomato and then cut into 8 , heat 1/2 of the oil in a pan, add garlic ( whole for mild taste and remove it when golden; chopped for strong taste to be cooked with the sauce) add the tomato, simmer for 5 minutes, add basil and cook for another 5 min. If the tomatoes are ripe the sauce should be ready; add the remaining oil and the sauce is ready to be used.
DID YOU KNOW!!!!
When soaked in water the seeds of several basil varieties become gelatinous, and are used in Asian drinks and desserts such as falooda or sherbet. Such seeds are known variously as sabja, subja, takmaria, tukmaria, or falooda seeds and are very cooling to the system in the summer. They are used for their medicinal properties in Ayurveda, the traditional medicinal system of India.
Middle Eastern triumverate of flavour
Although they are not sauted in oil like the other trios, the trinity of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil is essential to Lebanese Cuisine.
Feta Pomergranate Salad Zenzi
300 g feta
A splash of lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, crushed
110 g flaked almonds
4 small handfuls of mixed rocket leaves, spinach and watercress
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pomegranates, seeds only
Put the feta in a shallow dish, squeeze over the lemon juice and scatter over the garlic. Leave to marinate for about three hours.
Toast the almonds under a medium grill until lightly browned.
Toss together the rocket, spinach and watercress in a large salad bowl with the olive oil, sesame oil and salt and freshly ground pepper.
Crumble in the marinated feta, and scatter the pomegranate seeds and toasted almonds over. Serve straightaway.
Garlic, belongs to the onion family and is related to the pnion, shallot and leek. Garlic has been popular throughout recorded history for its culinary and medicinal properties. It has a characteristic pungent, 'hot', flavour that mellows and sweetens considerably with cooking. The leaves and stems are sometimes eaten, particularly while immature and tender. It is very widely used in Lebanese cuisine.
DID YOU KNOW???
For best results you must be mean to your garlic! The phytochemicals responsible for the sharp flavor of garlic are produced when the plant's cells are damaged by chopping, chewing, or crushing. Enzymes stored in cells trigger the breakdown of several sulfer -containing compounds stored in the cell fluids and it is the resultant compounds that are responsible for the sharp flavor and strong smell.
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the olive (Olea europaea), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean and is considered on of the most healthy oils due to a high content of monounsaturated fat and polyphenols. Accordint to Wikipedia, The several oils extracted from the olive fruit can be classified as: Extra-virgin olive oil which comes from the first pressing of the olives, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. Virgin olive oil which has an acidity of less than 2%, and is judged to have a good taste. Olive oil is a blend of virgin oil and refined virgin oil, containing at most 1% acidity. It commonly lacks a strong flavor. Olive-pomace oil, a blend of refined pomace olive oil and possibly some virgin oil. It is fit for consumption, but it may not be called olive oil. Olive-pomace oil is rarely found in a grocery store; it is often used for certain kinds of cooking in restaurants.
Sautéing is cooking food in a small amount of fat over high heat. Considered a dry heat method, sautéing is perfect for recipes in which one needs to sear or brown food, a process that imparts a lot of flavor. For this you need high heat and patience – DO NOT introduce food until your pan and the fat have been heated first because adding them to early will result in improper searing, sticking or absorption of fat. Your fats for this are usually oil and butter or some combination thereof. Just keep in mind butter will burn quicker!
