Question re cooking & sugar levels.

Sugar content remains unchanged in absolute terms (it does not evaporate), it adds to whatever sugar was already there, and throughout the various processes (dilution with stock or other liquids, reduction, etc.) the concentration will change accordingly.

Same goes for the acidity (ok some of it may be volatile, if the recipe includes vinegar), except now you have many acids with diffferent characteristic combined.

Except a) Fermentaion - but that seems unlikely unless they are making bread, for example b) Caramelisation - possible

Correct

Would there be a change in the sugar content, unless you go too far and burn it? True when you make caramel those sugar vapours really get up your nose, but is the volume lost significant?

Mike Tommasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

A few years ago, I wanted to do a Pedro Ximenez sauce and tried to do it by using a saucepan and heating it. I did it slowly and all things were great until it started to boil. I got a thick caramel and ruined the teflon coated saucepan (and it was not an el-cheapo saucepan).

With time, I have learnt to do it even more slowly and not allowing it to boil. The water evaporates and the PX thickens. It does not taste like burnt rubber and I can re-utilize the saucepan. It goes great both with desserts and meats.

S.

Hey Santiago

this sounds like it would apply magnificently to magret de canard or, used sparingly, with quickly pan fried duck foie gras.

Mike Tommasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

True, providing you do not over-sauce. Just a little thread on the plate, because the sauce is both sweet and acid at the same time. Do not do it with Venerable, please (though I have done it) ;-)

S.

That reminds me of a confession of Bartholomew Broandbent on the Parker Forum. He once used one whole bottle of his 10 Y.O. Madeira to make a sauce for one steak.

M.

What's likely to happen to some of the sugar is the Maillard reaction, the process that's responsible for the browning of bread and other tasty events. It's also responsible for the brown color of caramelized sugar. However, a sweet wine has enough sugar that I suspect only a fraction will be consumed in the Maillard reaction.

Mark Lipton

Cardenal Mendoza

M.

Duck or goose "fatty liver"

"Ed Rasimus" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Duck? Thought it used to be goose. When I read "fois gras" I think of geese in Alsace, but, of course, you can have the liver from ducks and then will have to call it "fois gras de canard" or something like that. Hello Ian, you there? Anders

Thanks Mike & Bill, I knew afw would hold the answers...:>)

hooroo.....

To be pedantic, it is the oie that gets fattened, not the foie ;-)

Cheers Ian, just kidding...