Besara

Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes

• Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
• Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
• Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
• The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
• Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.

Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.

Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth 73 recipes

• It is held below a rolling boil for the whole time. Agitation drives fat and fine protein into the liquid as an emulsion, and nothing skimmed afterwards will take them back out.
• The grey foam that rises in the first minutes is lifted off and discarded rather than stirred back in.
• Fat is taken from the surface where it gathers, the pot moved off the centre of the heat if that is what it takes to collect it in one place.
• The liquid is visibly clearer at the end than it was at the start: it is possible to see down into it.
• Nothing lifted off goes back in. What was skimmed is discarded, not tipped back once the ladle is full.

Where it goes wrong The pot was allowed to boil, usually while something else was being attended to. Fat and protein emulsify into the liquid under agitation and cannot be lifted off afterwards, so the finished broth stays cloudy and greasy however patiently it is skimmed from then on.