Nutmeg is the seed of nutmeg, a tropical evergreen tree. Grows up to 12 meters, lives up to the 1st century. The fruits resemble an apricot in shape and size. If you break the yellow pulp, a bone is found inside, the core of which goes to the production of spices.
What is the taste and smell of Nutmeg?
The spice has a tart sweet aroma. It is very stable, so it is recommended to have a separate dish for grinding whole kernels. It tastes hot and spicy, astringent.
How to Get Nutmeg Seasoning?
When the nutmeg fruit ripens, it bursts and its bone is exposed. On top it is covered with a thin skin – macis. First, the bones are dried in the sun to separate the film, which is later also ground and used as a spice. Finish drying over a wood fire.
Then the bones are split to get the core. Nutmeg is sold whole or ground into powder.
How to Use Nutmeg Seasoning?
Powdered nutmeg is added to the food. Professional chefs prefer to keep whole kernels in the kitchen, which are ground on a grater just before seasoning the dish. So the spice preserves the taste and smell as much as possible.
How to Choose Nutmeg?
To assess the quality of the spice, you should pour it in a thin layer on a white sheet of paper, press another sheet on top and look at the result. The presence of large solid inclusions indicates the presence of shells and other plant waste in the seasoning. The color should be uniformly brown, gray-green shades indicate poor product quality. The sour taste indicates the addition of nutmeg fruit pulp to the spice.
What dishes Can Nutmeg be Added to?
The universal aroma of spice will emphasize the taste of a wide variety of dishes. It is added to desserts: jams, pastries, puddings, sweets. Especially successfully complements the natural taste of cottage cheese and cheeses.
Traditionally, spices are used for the preparation of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. There are lovers of tea and coffee with ground nutmeg, it is indispensable in mulled wine and ale.
In Oriental cuisine, they are seasoned with rice, meat and fish dishes. Europeans like to add nutmeg to sauces and salads, mushrooms and vegetables.
In the culinary industry, this seasoning is used in the manufacture of sausages, canned fish and meat, chocolate and cheese, ketchup and mustard.
When using nutmeg, chefs are advised to focus on their own taste and consistency of the dish. The spice emphasizes the tenderness and lightness of purees, pates, souffles, sauces.
When and How Much to Add?
In the dough, nutmeg is added during kneading. For other dishes, it is recommended to pour the spice at the end of cooking, otherwise it will be bitter.
To avoid toxic effects, the amount of seasoning should not exceed 0.1 g per serving of the product.
How to Replace Nutmeg?
The unique taste of nutmeg is difficult to replace with anything. If it is not, it is better to simply exclude it from the list of ingredients. In some cases, you can try to experiment and replace the spice with cardamom, freshly ground allspice or a pinch of curry.
Combination with other Spices
Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, pepper, bay leaf, suneli hops are most harmoniously combined with nutmeg.
For Breakfast, lunch and dinner! The dish is so versatile that it will look beautiful and elegant on the festive table if you serve it in small tartlets and decorate it with sprigs of dill and parsley, slices of quail eggs and canned peas.
Homemade recipe for chicken pate, simple to prepare, but with excellent results. It is suitable for Breakfast, a snack, or a festive table, if it is decorated accordingly or placed in tartlets. Again, on a budget, the output of the finished pate justifies the costs. Tender, with a nutty note, a little sweet from carrots… recommend.
This is my fourth year on the site, but this is my first recipe. This is one of our favorite holiday dishes. I hope you will like it too. I went through the site, but did not find such a recipe, I invite you to the table.
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I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes for cooking chicken liver – liver in a sauce of madeira and cream. In this way, you can cook not only chicken, but also turkey liver. The dish is prepared very quickly, and the taste is exquisite and delicate.
This salad can be used as a side dish or as an appetizer. The main thing is to choose the right spinach for the salad, because it goes into the salad without heat treatment.
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Meatballs are a universal work of culinary art. The history of their origin is interpreted in different ways, and it is attributed to both Persia (Iran) and Ancient Rome. I suspect that the idea of chopping meat with spices, and sometimes cereals (kufta, meatballs – the same meatballs, only larger) was in the air on different continents. There, on the other, and settled.
