by David Salerno | May 1, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks
Brown food tastes good. Put simply, the Maillard reaction occurs at 250F and above, and is a when the amino acids and sugars in food react to the heat. The most obvious sign of the reaction is the browning that happens to food. The...
by David Salerno | Apr 6, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks, Healthy Recipes
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have a few volunteers come and make pitas with me for our meal. We made 120 pitas, which were then served with roasted spiced chickpeas, a lemon dill sauce, and an arugula salad with pickled radish and onions. So...
by David Salerno | Apr 4, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks, Culinary Anthropology
Al pastor tacos come directly from Lebanese immigrating to Puebla, Mexico. Without going down a huge historical rabbit hole, these immigrants left due to the fall and disintegration of the Ottoman empire. If you’ve ever seen the way the meat is cooked for the...
by David Salerno | Apr 4, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks, Culinary Anthropology
Let’s start with the chickpea. The Latin word cicer refers to the plant family of legumes. Actually, ancient Roman scholar Cicero got his name from the word cicer since his family grew legumes on their farm. This word then led to...
by David Salerno | Mar 10, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks
Gluten is a structural protein that has an elastic texture and is often (but not only) found in grains. When water and certain grains mix together, strands of gluten begin to form. Now, gluten can form in two ways; through time or manually through agitation. For...
by David Salerno | Mar 10, 2023 | Blog, Cooking Tips and Tricks
These tiny little unripe-looking tomatoes are indeed part of the nightshade family and can be referred to as the Mexican husk tomato. If you’ve ever worked with a tomatillo you’ll know that underneath the husk the fruit is quite sticky. That stickiness...
