Glossary of ingredients

Here you can find components from A to Z, ingredients granting a special taste to complicated culinary delicatessen. Extra, you have indications regarding the place you can surely bye them from or how you can replace them with uncommon ingredients.

AJVAR
The paste with spicy fruity taste is prepared by the housewives from the Balkans in their houses (the classic product is made only of stewed green pepper, salt and pepper or sometimes with aubergines, tomatoes or pimiento, with lemon juice, vinegar, olives oil and other spices). Here, in our country you find the pepper paste, which goes along very well with barbecues and you can buy at jar from supermarket or the shops with Turkish food products. Many times you can chose a spicy formula or less spicy.

TURKISH DOUGH
Dough flaky crusts cooked according to the oriental kitchen. The very thin crusts made of flour and water, are easily transformed into crispy specialities. It is used a sweet or spicy filling and they are roasted in oil. When cooked in the oven, if they are buttered, they become crispier. At the Greek food store, you can find the product as rolled crusts, round or rectangular. The sealed packages are preserved in the fridge or they are freeze.

HOT CHILLI PEPPER
The very spicy relative of the green pepper originated in America. The colour sends us a message regarding the maturity stage, but nothing about how hot they are. The dry chilli is always red. The golden rule for the fresh peppers: the smaller their size is, the hotter they are. You can reduce their spiciness, if you remove the seeds and the ribs. Their spiciness is sticking and lasts more time on the fingers. Because of this you should manipulate it with plastic gloves and keep out the peppers of the reach of children. You can replace the fresh chilli with the dry one, or with Cayenne pepper. If you ate too much chilli, a piece of bread will temper the burning taste better than a taste of water.

PEARL BARLEY
The rounded seeds of pearl barley are floating nicely in the soup. The pearl barley with a big grain (like in Austria) needs more time for boiling, until it gets soaked. You can buy preferably the pearled pearl barley, like little balls, which can be boiled in half time and it is more accessible.

BULGUR
For the oriental kitchen, the cereals with tough seeds are boiled, dried up, then peeled and chopped. It is from here that comes the typical and last longing nut flavour. It had been produced since the old Babylonian times. As the bulgur has already been boiled, it is cooked faster than the classical rice.

CARDAMOM
It is used as a condiment, both the green capsule respectively the black one of the cardamom fruit and the seeds inside of it. The strong taste, with a sweet nuance of eucalyptus is proper for meat and vegetables as well as for the sweet gravies. The value of the cardamom powder resides exclusively in the cardamom’s seeds. The cardamom cannot be replaced with something else, so if you do not have it, simply give up.

SWEET POTATOES
The sweet tubercles rich in amylum come from Asia, North America and Africa and are tougher than their European relatives. Their reddish peel is difficult to be removed. The yellow- orange pulp reminds the taste of the roasted potatoes, with a nuance sweeter. The sweet potatoes can be bought from the Asian or ecological stores. Peeled or in their peel, the sweet potatoes are boiled in water and a few salt. They are kept in cold and dark place.

FENNEL
Resembles very much to the European fennel, but it smells differently and its taste differs from the European one. It is hot spicy and extremely intense. The fennel contains ethereal oils which evaporate quickly. That is why you have to buy the whole seeds and in small quantities. The seeds are pounded in the grinding mortar but this operation takes a lot of time. If you do not have a grinding mortar for spices, you should buy milled fennel.

LEMON GRASS.
The lemon grass gives a fine citric nuance to the vegetables and meat products without making them sour. But the reed shaped plant has nothing to do with the lemon, but it owes its name only to the smell which resembles to the lemon one. Only the inferior part is used for the seasoning. If you find fresh stems at the vegetables shop, at the supermarket or in the Asian stores, buy them quickly! What you cannot use at one time can be freeze very well. For the preparation the leaves are removed, the stalks are shortened; the part from the roots is cut. The inferior part, resembling an onion, is cut into medium size pieces, or is chopped and stewed with the other ingredients. In order to aromatize one stalk is boiled; it is replaced with a green lemon or lemon peel.

SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS
Together with the wok, the favourite mushrooms from Asia gained their place in our kitchens. Their intense flavour reminds us the forest mushrooms. One can buy them from the vegetables shop, from the supermarket or from the Asian store. The very fresh of them are very fleshy; they have a golden to dark brown colour and a high cap. The dry mushrooms are found under their Chinese denomination: tongku. In the case of fresh mushrooms, only the tail is shortened. The dry ones are left in hot water to get soaked in hot water for 10- 20 minutes. Then the short tails are wrenched out and they remain tough. The fresh mushrooms deteriorate quickly; the dry ones are best preserved well packed in the pantry.

GREEN CORIANDER
It is also called Asian parsley; it has a slightly peppered taste and a specific perfume. The coriander herbs can be found in the Asian stores all the year, under the form of bunches or in the flower pot, you can also buy them from the vegetables shop or from the supermarket. The sensitive small leaves must not be long boiled but they are spread on the food at the end.

COUSCOUS
This name is given both to the gross semolina and to the North African speciality made from it. In the big supermarkets, in the ecological and Asian stores you can find instant couscous. This is ready to cook, being ideal for the family fast cooking. The couscous prepared will be boiled in water and then left to swell, mixing it with the fork according to the instructions on the pack.

SARDINES FILET
The small fish conserved in salt or oil, in the family of the sardines are also called ansoa. In the Mediterranean kitchen they are used as a condiment. The small fish put in salt must be well washes before using or let in water for one hour so that they are cleared of salt. The sardines in oil are well drained. You can find the sardines pots in the specialities department from the supermarkets. After opening, you must keep them in the refrigerator. If you season a dish with sardines, you should use less salt. Can be replaced by the sardines paste.

THE KAFFIR GREEN LEMON LEAVES
With their help, the cooks from Thailand give to specialities a slightly citric taste without any tint of sourness. The glowing dark green leaves are boiled with the other ingredients as the bay leaves. In our country they are not pretty common in the stores. Buy them when you find in the Asian stores as they can be preserved in the freezer. It can be replaced by green lemon peel.

THE GINGER
The favourite spice of Asian cooks gives to culinary eats a fruity flavour and spicy in the same time. For your family kitchen buy young roots of ginger as they offer a sweeter flavour than the adult ones. They have a tough consistency, a thin cover and a juicy pulp of light yellow colour. The fresh ginger can be found in Asian stores, at the vegetables merchants and in supermarkets. For seasoning, most of the times you need a quantity as a nut. It can be kept around 2 weeks in aluminium foil, unpeeled, or we can peel it and keep in the in freezer and when in need you can grate it.

TENDER WHEAT
This wheat product, relatively new on the market, it boils quickly and it is nourishing. It is made out of boiled wheat grains, dehydrated and decorticated. The tender wheat contains a lot of fibre, vitamins and mineral substances; it can be prepared sweet or spicy. The wheat in the original package is simply boiled in salted water or it prepared like risotto.

CORNMEAL* POLENTA
The Italian cornmeal becomes more popular in our country too. You can buy it from the supermarket, from the ecological stores or from the Italian specialities store. A simple recipe: it is boiled in water in a tall saucepan, the maize is sprinkled and mingled continuously until the composition is thick. It is left roughly 20 more minutes mingling from time to time. Who does not have enough time, can buy instant polenta which is prepared in a few minutes.

CURCUMA
The roots of this plant are yellow on the inside. That is why the curcuma powder which is obtained by over ground dry roots is also called the yellow root. It grants the characteristic yellow colour to the curry powder and the culinary Asian eats have a spicy dry taste, with a slight bitter tent. In our country, the roots of curcuma are rarely found in stores. The powder can be bought at a good price from the spices department from any supermarket. As it is very sensitive to light, you must keep it in a closed dark pot.

COCONUT MILK
The fluid creamy drink from coconut pulp and coconut water has a slightly sweet taste. It can reduce the spiciness of Asian curry dressings; you can find it in big supermarkets and the Asian stores. It is preferred you buy unsweetened coco milk. Before using the recipient is well shaken or the content is mixed. During the depositing the fats and the water are separated as the milk cream in a thick layer, at the surface of the recipient. Use quickly the content of the open recipients and do not get cheated: sometimes, the coconut water, meaning the liquid inside the coconut is called coconut milk.

YOUNG SHOOTS
Be it radishes or green soya, lentils or Spanish trefoil, the young shoots or sprouted germs, as their correct scientific denomination is, contain a lot of albumin, they are abundant in vitamins and mineral substances. They can be bought all year round from the supermarket, occasionally from the vegetables shop or from the ecological ones. Choose only the young shoots without brown or spots or must. Relish immediately the young germs or keep them in the refrigerator for maximum 2 days. You can produce yourselves the sprouted germs. You can buy the seeds for germination from the ecological shops.

MANGOCHUTNEY
From mango, ginger, pepper, vinegar, chilli, sugar or other condiment one can prepare a refined and exotic dressing. In India there are as many chutney recipes as mango sorts. In our supermarkets we can usually choose between two sorts: a very spicy one and a sweet one. Many sorts are found in the Asian products stores and in the specialities stores. The chutney open recipient is kept in the refrigerator and must be quickly consumed.

COWBERRIES
Many fruits shops offer towards the end of the fall cultivated crowberries fruit, imported from America. They are bigger than their relatives which grow in the wild in Europe and not so sour. The tastiest are the mature fruit which are already soft. They have very few acids and their colour is intense red. The fresh bought fruit are consume or prepared in the same day as possible, because they deteriorate very quickly.

RICE VINEGAR
Be it from China or Japan, white or red, the rice vinegar is less sour than the European sorts, as it has fewer acids. The rice vinegar is found in the ecological and Asian stores and in big supermarkets. It can be replaced by light fruits vinegar or white wine diluted with water.

CURRY PASTE
This paste extremely hot coming from Thailand brings the fire into the kitchen. At the basis of the paste there are hot chilli peppers, garlic, coriander roots, red onion, lemon grass, salute paste, a variety of ginger called galgant and other chopped and mixed spices. In our country, in Asian shops or in the supermarket we can find three sorts: the red paste called all round paste, the green paste with aromatic plats, which is considered the spiciest, and the most coloured in yellow, with curcuma which goes along very well with chicken meat. There also is the Indian curry paste, which is also hot but it differs from the one made in Thailand by the fact that it contains dry spices conserved in oil. The curry paste, when roasted, gives a repulsive smell. For those who cannot take this smell, we recommend to incorporate the curry paste later, spoon by spoon. At any moment it can be made extra spicy. It can be replaced by curry or fresh chilli pepper.

CURRY POWDER
In the aromatic mixture of up to 30 over ground ingredients, one plant is always present: curcuma, the one that gives the yellow colour. It is also mixed with coriander, cardamom, fennel, and mustard seeds. Chilli and pepper in abundance are the main ingredients from the extra spicy madras curry and from the curry from Ceylon. Less spicy are the English and Indian mixtures for example the curry from Bengal. When you buy the curry powder do not spare many. The cheap curry has a fade taste and sometimes is made out of amylum, sometimes from African beans flour or dextrose.

PULBIBER
The spicy flakes from the Turkish food stores confer a spicy savour to the Doner product. For this purpose the hot peppers are dried, ground and most of the times are mixed with different aromatic herbs and with salt. You must be very careful when you dose them as they can be extremely hot. They are best preserved in an opaque recipient which is closed by screwing, but do not keep them very much as the flakes deteriorate quickly.

SAKE
The wine obtained from the fermentation of the rice has a bitter tint. In its origin country, Japan, this is not only used for cooking but it also drunk cold or warm. Next to sake, the Asian stores and the big supermarkets also offer a wine from Japanese rice with a sweetish taste, called mirin and the sweet Chinese wine called shaoxing. Sake has an alcoholic content up to 15%. It cannot be replaced with the white wine. Instead of white wine you can use sherry.

SAMBAL OELEK
The hot spice of red colour is produced out of crushed hot peppers, salt, oil and other condiments. It can range from normally spicy to extra hot. That is why you should add in the food in the beginning only a little spoon, to taste and to add more if needed. In its home country, Indonesia, the bottles with sambal are put on the table for individual use. You must close well the bottles after use. Sambal Oelek can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 months. Just like the tomatoes pulp it can get mouldy or sour. That is why you must take the paste from the pot only with a clean spoon.

CASHEW KERNELS
The nuts hang on a thick fruits pear like shaped. In its origin lands, such as India, it is also called the cashew apples and it is consumed as a fruit. In our supermarkets we can only find the kernels having the shape of kidneys, always peeled and fried. They have a slightly sweet taste, resembling the almonds and if the kernels are a little bit older they are slightly fade. That is why the kernels are consumed immediately or they are kept for a very short period well closed in dry and cold place.

PINE TREE KERNELS
The umbrella pine tree grows in the Mediterranean countries. Its kernels slightly sweets confers consistency and taste to the traditional pesto with basil. But they are also good in salads, foods prepared from vegetables and sweet cookies. They are reddened in a saucepan without oil until they begin to steam. They get a nut flavour. The pine tree kernels are difficultly got out of their rind, that is why they are extremely expensive and in the Italian speciality stores or in the supermarket we can only find peeled pine tree kernels.

CORIANDER SEEDS
The seeds of coriander plant resemble the pepper grains but they have a sweet-flavoured taste with a slight note of orange peel, poor spicy. It is used for Asian foods but also for bread and Christmas cookies. At the spices department from the supermarket you can often find milled coriander. For a perfect flavour roast the seeds in a dry saucepan and grind them yourself.

SORGHUM
The sorghum represents a valorous aliment in some African and Asian countries. In our country it is underappreciated and considered bird food. The seeds rich in lipoids and albumin, with a content of valuable vitamins and mineral substances, they can be bought from the ecological products shops, from Asian shops and from the big supermarkets. They are found under the form of flakes or flour. The sorghum can be prepared like the rice, but it does not need that much water.

CHILLI SAUCE
The sweet spicy sauce is frequently used by the people in Thailand and china as a condiment. It is prepared out of chilli peppers, sugar, salt and vinegar. It can be bought from the specialities department of the big supermarkets and from the Asian shops. The chilli sauce gives savour to the spring rolls or to chicken wings. The open bottles shall be kept in the refrigerator.

FISH SAUCE
The clear reddish- brown flavoured and slightly salted sauce is used as a universal spice in the south East Asian kitchen. The sauce is made out of a small fermented fish (the sardines), spices and water and it has a strong enough smell. You can find it pretty rare at the supermarket or in the specialities stores, but you can find it in Asian stores in different bottle sizes and qualities. You should be careful when you doze it and do not add salt. It is replaced by the soya sauce mixed with a little paste of sardines.

SOYA SAUCE
The universal spice from the east of Asia brings an exotic shade in the family food. Most of the time, the Chinese sauces are dark, very spicy and sometimes bitter. The Japanese sauces are finer and the traditional receipt is usually prepared by a laborious process, from soya grains, cereals, water and marine salts. They are also called shoyu. The very spicy Japanese sauce, named tamari, is made from soya grains, salt, water and fermentation products. On the ingredients list must not be burnt sugar, sugar, synthetic flavours or conservation products. Soya sauce has up to 20% salt and that is why you should avoid adding salt in the beginning.

WORCESTER SAUCE
This classical sauce comes from England and has so many ingredients as shades of taste: vinegar, sherry and soya, many spices such as the coriander, the pepper, ginger or mustard. The exact receipt represents the secret of the producer. Before the Worcester sauce is put into bottles it is matured for many years in wooden barrels. With the dark sauce we can condiment the tomatoes juice, the sauce for the salads or the beef soups.

TAHIN
The mild paste has a slightly nut taste and it is made from ground sesame seeds and in the Orient it represents the basis for many sauces. It is found in small size bottles with salted or unsalted Tahin, in the big supermarkets and in the ecological stores. A layer of oil protects the paste against drying and must. Shake well before using and take out by spoon the required quantity of tahin from the receipt. The Chinese noodles with eggs are prepared like our pastas, from white wheat flour. Unlike our noodles, they are usually taken outs of instant type. That is why you can cook them quickly. In the Asian stores and the big supermarkets you can find both thin noodles and in variable widths. They can be replaces by vermicelli, spaghetti or tagliatelle.

TOFU
It is obtained of soya milk. Because of the high level of albumin and calcium, it is part of the base products in many countries from Asia. Tofu can be pickled, boiled, roasted or fried. As it cannot be considered as having its own specific taste you can season it with strong spices. You can find a great variety in the department of vegetables stores, Asian and ecological stores: solid, creamy, fresh, fermented, salted and not salted. Smoke dried tofu has a special spicy taste. If you have opened the Tofu foil under the cap, you can keep the product for a few days in the refrigerator, covered by a layer of water. The water must be changed every day.

SESAME OIL
It is an expensive dark oil, produced from roasted and ground sesame. You can buy it from the colonial, Asian and ecological shops. Pour only a drop of it as it is used as a condiment and never for frying. Keep it in cool and dry place but not for too long. In the supermarket you can find refined sesame oil not made from fried sesame seeds. This one is colourless and it has no smell, it is neuter and in can be overheated at high temperatures so you can use it in the frying pan. It is conserved for a long time, but its taste cannot be compared with the taste of the dark sesame oil.