Secret Cooking Ingredients

[SpringJim]

After years of making chili we had a local chili eating contest....a friend brought a dark chili that had cocoa powder in it. I've put some in my chili ever since. (it's a missing ingredient on the JBeans recipe too) chocolate is a very interesting flavor ....might mix well with the chili pepper ala Chocolat!

Anyone have some more secrets to share?

[Ken524]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Sounds like a Mexican Mole sauce.

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

I like anchovies in lots of things...tomato sauces, soups, gives a salty richness.

I swear by chocolate chips in my banana bread (ok maybe not secret, but it sure improves the mix.

Must put a pork rib or two in my basic pasta sauce.

My Mom says celery seeds are the key to potato salad.

[brokencookie]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Cinnamon in the spagetti sauce. My wife thought I was nuts until she tasted it.

Bruce

[james]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

I like anchovies in lots of things...tomato sauces, soups, gives a salty richness.

Definitely. I read in a cookbook somewhere that you can try to add enough anchovies just to where they enhance the taste, but no one knows they are there. :-)

Fish sauce. It's the same idea.

Do you play name those ingredients with the kids? Very fun. Make something pretty wild and see how many different things they can ID.

James

[gjbingham]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Try the tubes of anchovie paste available at your local grocer. It is goes absolutely unnoticed in the taste, but adds and undescribeable something. It is a standard in Italian cooking from what I've seen, read, and heard.

[SpringJim]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Yeah, we're back to the Roman Garum fish sauces and worscheshire with the anchovies....interesting

Cinnamon sounds interesting too.

An old chef told me to add sweet to my tomato sauces because they can be "sour" so I often add honey to spaghetti sauces.

[Frances]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Bit of a contradiction here, but I always add some balsamic vinegar to my bolognaise sauces - this was after I made a delicious sauce out of left over tomato salad...

[gjbingham]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Good idea - honey instead of sugar. I'll try that one!

[asudavew]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

An old chef told me to add sweet to my tomato sauces because they can be "sour" so I often add honey to spaghetti sauces.

I heard somewhere....
that a great addition to spaghetti sauce is grape jelly....

Ancient Italian secret?

It would seem to make some sense though.

[PizzaJNKY]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

I've heard that another way to sweeten spaghetti sauce is to add carrot juice to the mixture. I've never tried it though. I will definitly try Spring Jim's honey secret. I have a freind that's in the honey business, so I have a great supply line.

[SpringJim]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

I heard somewhere....
that a great addition to spaghetti sauce is grape jelly....
seem to make some sense though.

that's the honey and red wine recipe

Grated carrots in the chili will give you a nice sweetness there....

[Orrin Dean]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

An old wives secret is add a little sugar to everything to bring out the flavor like salt. I haven't tried it in everything but it works in a lot of things.
I've tried cinnamon in more mexican dishes like red sauce and enchalada sauce.
Chocolate is good too!
I'll have to make chili with the carrot juice, cinnamon, cocoa and anchovie paste. Oh yeah and honey! I think the key to good chili is the carmalization of the meat, anyway.

[gjbingham]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

Orrin,
How do you carmelize the meat in chili? I always just throw it in the mix. No carmelization there? Do you cook it prior to adding it?

[Orrin Dean]

Re: Secret Cooking Ingredients

I brown the meat first. Not dried out just good and brown - Maillard reaction. Then I add onions, tomatoes and peppers to get the brown off the bottom of the pan.
I guess I used carmelization because I want to get those sugars out, like you do in carmalization, and I couldn't think of Maillard reaction at the time. I think you can brown meat without getting the sugars reacting to the recipe. We just had some nice beef patties at work, that were ruined in a inch of water in a half pan covered with foil for a hour.