Potato starch
The flour extracted from potatoes and milled to a fine white powder has many uses in the professional kitchen. “Potato starch looks almost fluffy when fried and sticks better than cornmeal,” says Christopher Lord, chef and co-owner of Urban Local 613 in Ottawa. For his southern-style chicken, he cuts up whole chickens and cooks the parts sous-vide. For service, he dips them in buttermilk and coats them in two parts flour and one part potato starch before deep-frying them. Inexpensive, gluten-free and kosher, potato starch can be added at the end of cooking to thicken soup, stew and sauce — without the chalky aftertaste. Avoid lumps by mixing 1 tbsp starch with 45 mL water (and don’t add to boiling liquid).
Buttermilk
Buttermilk gets its name from the sour liquid left behind when cream is churned into butter. These days, it’s made from low-fat milk and bacterial culture fermented until thick and slightly tangy. Along with adding flavour to Southern fried chicken, buttermilk makes baked goods lighter and aids browning. Add its buttery flavour to soups, pancakes, mashed potatoes, gelato and panna cotta. For a low-fat salad dressing, substitute buttermilk for oil or mayonnaise. To make your own, fill a jar halfway with heavy cream and tighten lid. Shake it for approximately 10 minutes or until cream thickens then separates. Save the milk and knead butter under cold water to remove any remaining milk, then salt the milk (if desired) and refrigerate until needed.
Capers
The small, intensely flavoured green caper bud, sold salted or in brine, is beloved in Mediterranean cuisine as a seasoning or garnish. The dark green bud is picked by hand from a thorny shrub and cured before eating. Left unpicked, it forms a large pink and white flower, which leaves behind a fat caperberry, revered in Spain for its crunchy, juicy texture and milder lemon flavour. Capers star in tartar sauce, chicken piccata and spaghetti alla puttanesca. Curing releases mustard oil, giving the buds their intense flavour and crystallized white spots (if they appear). Unripe nasturtium seeds have a similar flavour and texture and make a good substitute.
Did You Know?
Ottawa chef Michael Blackie doesn’t just cook rib-eye steaks anymore, he barks them. The technique involves basting steak on a hot charcoal grill with clarified butter and woody herbs such as rosemary. “The fire goes out when you close the dome, turning the grill into a smoker,” says the chef and partner of Next in Ontario. “Because there’s no fat in the clarified butter, bark builds up on the surface of the meat, yet it’s still very rare on the inside. It’s a fairly quick process.” The herbs are chopped and added to a compound butter served with the cooked steak. “It’s an explosion of flavour,” confirms Blackie.
