They aren't scraps; time to enjoy kitchen treats

A friend once ordered a roast suckling pig for Christmas — only to recoil when it came with its head intact. I carved it up and claimed the head as my reward (there wasn’t much competition). The cheeks and jaw muscles were fabulous, meaty yet laced with melt-in-the-mouth fat.It was a cook’s perk or a kitchen treat, a titbit relished in the kitchen itself because there isn’t enough to be served at the dining table, or because it’s too odd. Chicken liver is a classic example, or the two small meaty chunks from the chicken’s back called “oysters” or the revealing French term sotl’y-laisse — ‘only fools-leave-it’.The fact is fools often disdain offal or are ignorant of how delicious these scraps are, so they leave them to cooks.Cook’s perks prevent waste. To clean the last smears from a can of condensed milk, just pour in hot milk, shake well and drink the densely sweet dregs. When making sandwiches, if you trim the edges in elegant style, you are entitled to enjoy the crusts with their slivers of fillings.Rubbing bread over a used baking tray cleans away the juices — and gives you a flavour-soaked morsel to eat. Many diners disdain fish heads, but cooks know they are delicious, so often cut them off before serving, to be savoured later.Salvaging a failure also gives cook’s treats. The first dosa or pancake you make is often a mess, but you can still enjoy the warm, doughy mass doused in a flavouring of your choice, as you start frying up more perfect ones. Cooks learn to actually like the intense taste of slightly burned cakes or charred meats or the fresh, crunchy taste of raw vegetables, which they snack on as they clean them.Cook’s perks are encouragement to cook for yourself, since there’s usually no other way to enjoy them. But the constant search for new, more intense taste experiences sometimes results in perks becoming the main flavour themselves. When cakes or cookies are baked at home, kids love scraping the remnants of the batter from the mixing bowls.But then, Ben & Jerry’s cashed in on this nostalgic appeal and Cookie Dough ice cream was born. (In reality, because of potential health risks from raw eggs, the cookie dough used in these commercial offerings is not the real thing, but reengineered to taste like it).Among the many cook’s treats from Indian kitchens, there is one which deserves such commercial treatment. When ghee is made, after the clear liquid is extracted, the pan is left with ghee solids. Many people have dreamy memories of eating these scrapings which are intensely rich tasting from the fat, but given more depth from the caramelisation of milk sugars. They are usually eaten at home mixed with sugar or rice, but commercial ghee makers could sell them. Imagine puff pastry, biscuits or brownies made extra rich with ghee solids — it’s a cook’s treat that needs to escape the kitchen.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2Vyh1YT