Apple Snow: Golden and Delicious

October is not just a bacchanalia of overflowing beer in pubs, bars and festivals. October is certainly the time of the year where you can keep the doctor away. Why? October in the United States is National Apple Month according to the U.S. Apple Association. As autumn starts to shed the leaves of the deciduous trees, apples also become ripe for picking in fruit orchards. Because it’s the season of the apple, they will also cost cheaper in groceries (at least here in the United States) and they will also taste a lot better than apples picked “outside” of its season.

If you are a fan of mythology, literature, the classics and arts, you would probably notice that apples typically have become either a sacred, indulgent or seductive symbol. The golden apple of discord caused three Greek goddesses to clash and compete in a beauty pageant title of being the “fairest one”, indirectly precipitating into the Trojan War. The “tomboy” Atalanta lost to Hippomenes in a race after the latter threw three irresistible golden apples of joy in order to outrun her in exchange for her hand in marriage. The golden apples of Hesperides/Hisbernia bestow immortality in Greek mythology and eternal youth to the gods of Norse and Celtic mythology. Renaissance painters use apples in their paintings as emblems of condemnation and redemption in their re-imagination of Biblical stories from the fall of man to sin to the salvation by Jesus’ loving sacrifice- depending on the persona who holds the apple.

As of this month, there are 7,500 cultivars of apples based on the place of origin and their ancestors. This does not only mean that there are 7,500 apple genomes out there but this may also imply that if your tongue has a has a detection limit of 1/7500, then tastewise, it would be able to distinguish how subtly different the cultivars are. Of course there is no human tongue that is gifted enough to achieve that feat! That is why these apple cultivars are gastronomically classified according to their use – eating, cooking and cider. Not that you have to be anal retentive, but you need to plan ahead what apple cultivar you are going to use in your recipe before you buy them in the grocery.

I must confess though that I am not much of a fan of apples, I had only come to appreciate them during the celebration of National Apple Month thanks to this marvelous recipe – Apple Snow. This dessert is simply a combination of applesauce and egg whites as the latter are beaten into stiff peaks. What’s pretty slick about this dish is how the applesauce and egg whites complement the taste and the texture. The applesauce gives the mildly zesty flavor and the sweet taste while the egg whites are responsible for the creamy texture. The addition of caramel sauce finally enhances the rich taste.

But how do you address the issue of apple cultivar for the applesauce? I highly recommend the Golden Delicious (United States) which according to the U.S. Apple Association is third most popular cultivar. While the Granny Smith (Australia) is ideal for withstanding the cooking temperatures, it is not suitable for this dessert because of high malic acid content, resulting to a sour taste (Wu J, Gao H, Zhao L, Liao X, Chen F, Wang Z, Hu X. "Chemical Compositional Characterization of Some Apple Cultivars" Food Chem., 2007, 103, 88-93. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2006.07.030). In fact, I learned this the hard way from the first time I tried preparing the applesauce from Granny Smith apples. Golden Delicious is also advisable for the applesauce not only because its low malic acid content has been consistently reported from literature but also because it contains a high sugar content in comparison to sorbitol-devoid apple cultivars like the Gala (New Zealand) and the Gravenstein (Denmark) (Hecke K, Herbinger K, Veberic R, Trobec M, Toplak H, Stampar F, Keppel H, Grill D. "Sugar-, Acid- and Phenol Contents in Apple Cultivars from Organic and Integrated Fruit Cultivation" Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 2006, 60, 1136-1140. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602430). Finally, it just makes the experience of enjoying your apple snow both golden and delicious!

Apple Snow (taken from “The Way To Cook” by Julia Child)

Ingredients:
6 to 8 Golden Delicious apples
1 medium lemon
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup sugar or even less
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup homemade caramel sauce

1. Wash, quarter and core out the seeds of the apples. Keep the peel in the apples to retain the flavor and the body of the sauce.
2. Place the apples in the saucepan along with the zest of the lemon and the cinnamon. Sprinkle the apples with lemon juice. Cover the pan and soften the apples under moderately low heat for 30 minutes. Make sure to stir and mash them frequently.
3. Remove from heat. (If you are using the cinnamon stick, remove the cinnamon from the saucepan) Transfer the apples into a food processor, purée and return the applesauce into the pan.
4. Boil the apple sauce, gradually adding the sugar. Stir in the vanilla.
5. Cover and chill inside the refrigerator for at least one hour.
6. Set the electric mixer at moderately low speed and beat the egg whites until they start to foam. Add the cream of tartar and increase the speed until stiff shining peaks are formed.
7. Reduce the speed and add the apple sauce into the beaten egg whites. Raise the mixer speed again until the mixture is stiff enough to hold its shape.
8. Drizzle or layer with caramel sauce any way you like it

Caramel Sauce
1/3 cup sugar
5 teaspoons water
1/3 cup cold heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Salt

1. Blend the sugar and the water in a saucepan and let them simmer.
2. Remove from heat and swirl to completely dissolve the sugar.
3. Return the pan to the stove at moderately high heat and boil for several minutes. Make sure peek into the pan. Once the bubbles look thick, uncover the pan and swirl it by its handle.
4. Boil for a few more seconds. Remove from heat and continue swirling.
5. When caramel has cooled but remains in the liquid state, add the heavy cream.
6. Whisk over moderate heat until the congealed caramel dissolves. Stir in salt and vanilla.

 

Hamburger Science: Why I Will Probably Never Eat At Another Burger Joint (Unless Starvation Calls For Desperate Measures)

If you were asked to name the ultimate American food or fast food on the game show “Family Feud”, there’s no doubt that hamburgers will probably be the top survey answer. Perhaps to the food amateur, he/she will be looking for the ground “ham” component from the burger patty even though the former is a slab of salt/sugar-cured pork while the latter comes from minced beef chuck. Hamburger was actually a German word coined after the city of Hamburg which served as an important Russian trade center of steak tartare (but that’s another recipe) during the last century of the Holy Roman Empire.

Even before I became a Julia Child fan, I had this curiosity on preparing and cooking hamburger patties. Most people consider the simplicity of its preparation because you just mix ground beef, onions, salt and pepper and fry them on a thin film of oil. Voilà! You have a burger!!! One of my friends gave me an account that her mom used to prepare hamburger patties before but they had a tendency to contract even before cooking that you don’t get your appetite’s worth at all. I had also made several food trips in the Philippines (where I come from) to search for the best burger joint. I even watched an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show just to find out the The Top Ten Best Burgers in the U.S. (If my memory serves me right, the best burger in America comes from a sirloin burger joint somewhere in Chicago)

Aside from simplicity, students like myself take into account the cost of a homemade burger versus a burger ordered from a fast food chain or restaurant. Assuming you don’t have to pay any state tax, service charge or value-added tax from your restaurant bill, the cost will still be at least thrice the price of making your own hamburger sandwich from the convenience of your own home.  But, here comes a big (and all-caps) BUT!!! Advantages of simplicity and cost obviously compromise the ideal flavor, texture and taste. The patties greatly contract even before frying as mentioned above. They dry up by losing their juices upon frying. No matter how iconic the hamburger is to U.S. culture, Americans (no offense) have probably underestimated its simplicity. So where does the problem lie? Lipid/fat biochemistry.

Fat inside the ground beef works two ways. Being hydrophobic or water-fearing, the presence of fat retains the moisture and juices inside the meat, therefore slowing down the dehydration/contraction process. It also adds flavor to the meat during heat-induced hydrolysis and/or oxidative cleavage.  However, if fat degradation takes place at a faster rate before or during cooking, then dehydration will occur quickly too because water is less trapped due to reduced fat levels. To solve this problem, fat content of the meat is increased by adding sour cream, thus, keeping your meat swollen and moist during cooking. This is the scientific basis behind Julia Child’s hamburger recipe from The Way To Cook.

I have a confession to make. I was pretty unsure of what might happen while I was preparing the entire hamburger meat based on Julia Child’s recipe. It turns out the result was awesome. The patty itself was so thick and fat as seen on both pictures. If you ask me about the taste, it was juicy and mouth-watering that I have to fry another patty to satiate my appetite. Honestly (and I don’t mean to brag), the burger was a lot better than the burger joints here in the U.S. or those from the Philippines. Also, if you are cutting costs, hamburger is probably the practical way to go. I finished the entire hamburger meat for 6-7 dinner meals at an estimated total cost of 10 USD. That’s spending around 1.50 USD for one night of fine dining without sipping a glass of red wine.

Now that’s a HAMBURGER!!!

Burger Patty Recipe (taken from “The Way To Cook” by Julia Child)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds (681 g) of ground beef
1 egg
2 tablespoons of onion, grated
2 tablespoons of sour cream
1 teaspoon of thyme (fresh or dry) or Italian seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Cooking oil
Flour

1. In a large bowl, season the ground beef with egg, grated onion, sour cream, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly.
2. Divide them in any way you want to and shape them into round patties.
3. Film the frying pan with cooking oil under moderately high heat.
4. As the pan undergoes heating, lightly dredge each side of patty with flour. Fry each patty two minutes in one side and two minutes on the other.
5. If hamburger is squashy, then it is rare. Once the meat starts to bounce when pressing with a turner or your finger, it is medium rare. The hamburger patty is well done when it doesn’t bounce/spring back.