Monday, July 6, 2009

One Cup Does NOT Equal 8 Ounces


Most people assume a recipe calling for one cup of an ingredient means the same thing as eight ounces of that ingredient. Or recipes calling for eight ounces can always be measured by filling a measuring cup to the full line. In most cases, this works but, in other cases, it's the reason a recipe fails.

Eight ounces of lead do not take up the same space as eight ounces of goose down. I've never seen a recipe calling for either lead or goose down but I use those two substances to illustrate the point.

Eight ounces of water at room temperature at sea level will fill that measuring cup just fine. That's the standard from which the connection comes. But not every ingredient used in every recipe has the same density as water. Not every ingredient starts out at room temperature and there are millions of people cooking at altitudes different from sea level.

Most liquids weigh about the same as water but, when I was a pastry chef, I often used sweetened condensed milk. This luscious goo is much heavier than water. A cupful of it weighs 14 ounces, not eight. One can of it, the size you usually see at the grocery store, weighs 14 ounces. One can of this stuff does equal one cup.

All-purpose flour is a bit heavier than cake flour. Most cooks wouldn't notice the difference but pastry chefs rely on precision. A difference of one ounce per cup isn't much when a recipe calls for one cup of either but every baking perfectionist will notice a textural difference, lighter or heavier, in the finished product. The more servings a recipe or batch makes, the bigger the difference.

A cupful of chopped nuts weighs more than a cupful of the same nut measured whole. A cupful of whole pine nuts weighs more than a cupful of whole walnuts.

It's these weight differences, and many more, that send me to professionally written recipe sources because I know the testers behind the recipes will have known the difference and the recipes will use accurate weights, measures, and terms. Some recipes written by home cooks or passed along from friends, family, and co-worker were written by cooks assuming everything that fits in a measuring cup weighs eight ounces. Since the measures aren't always interchangeable, be mindful of this common error when trying a new recipe. If your own version doesn't come out as good as someone else's version, this may be the reason.


Concasse


From the French verb, concasser, to crush or grind.

To concasse a tomato, dip the whole thing into boiling water just long enough to make the skin around the stem pull loose. Dip the hot tomato into ice water to cool it off and stop the cooking.

Take those loose flaps of skin around the stem and gently pull them away from the tomato. Peel the entire tomato this way. (NOTE: Some pros will slice a very shallow 'X' mark, just deep enough to break the skin, at the end opposite the stem, too, to speed the peeling process.)

Cut the peeled tomato in half, horizontally, then squeeze out all the seeds from inside.

You will be left with just fresh tomato meat, no seeds or stems. This process works great for sauces, salsas, soups, stews, and all other dishes where fresh tomatoes are used. Once done this way, the tomato will lie flat on a cutting board, making slicing and dicing much easier than if the skin were still intact.