by Tom Stobart
*Channa. Large textured and yellowish. Can be made into a simple purée (sar) but is very often eaten parched or ground into *besan flour.
Tur or arhar (tuvaram in the South of India). This is *pigeon pea or red gram. It is usually fairly small and orange-red, but bits of skin may be red or brown, even cream. It is little used in dishes from North India, where it will not grow well on account of frost, but it is the type of dal most used in the south and west, in Gujarat and Bombay. When people from Bombay write about dal, they mean tur. Tur mixes easily with water when cooked, and is light and easily digested. lt is the dal of Parsi dhansak and also of the rasam and sambhar of the South.
Urd, ulutham or mash is *black gram, and a close relative of mung. The grain is small, and the colour white with flecks of black, even of green skin, according to the variety. Dhuli urd, the expensive washed type, is dead white.
Mung or mug. Green dal. The split *mung bean is cream or yellow, not white; the flecks of seed coat in it may be black or green. It is very digestible, perhaps the most digestible of all the dals, and is often given to invalids.
Masur or masoor. Lentils. This is regarded as the most humble dal, but it is much eaten in Bengal and by Muslims. The masur of India differs somewhat from the lentils of the Middle East (such as the small, orange Egyptian lentils) and European varieties, but is regarded as a variety of the same thing. Some varieties cook to a mush, and others do not.
There are dals made from other pulses such as dal moth from the *moth bean, from the cowpea (lobya), the lath, khesari or teora, but they are only of local importance – often in drought areas.
DAMSON. (Prunus damascena). Both the popular name and the specific name of this small *plum go back to the Latin prunum damascenum – Damascus plum. The Middle English name was damascene.
Damsons are small, deep purple fruit with a rich, slightly bitter flavour. Of all plums they make the finest stewed fruit and jam. The traditional damson cheese is a solid conserve of damsons and sugar. Although damsons are not a favourite with commercial growers today, they were a popular fruit in English kitchens in the days before World War II. Some damson trees that grow more or less wild produce outstanding fruit (there was one such in a handy hedgerow when I was a child), but ‘improved’ cultivated varieties are often disappointing.
[Damson – French: prune de Damas German: Damaszenerpflaume Italian: damaschina, susina damaschina Spanish: ciruela damascena]
DANDELION. Cultivated varieties of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) have larger, tenderer, less bitter leaves than wild ones. Dandelion leaves resemble chicory and make an excellent winter salad, while the roasted, dried root is used as a coffee substitute, like chicory, and may be bought from health-food shops.
[Dandelion – French: pissenlit German: Löwenzahn Italian: dente di leone Spanish: diente de léon, amargón]
DASHEEN. See yam (dasheen).
DASHI. A basic Japanese stock, based upon dried *bonito, seaweed, monosodium glutamate and water.
DATE. The sticky objects that reach temperate countries are dried dates; fresh ones are paler, firm and not wrinkled. Date palms were among the earliest trees to be cultivated, having been grown in the ancient civilizations of the Middle East. Iraq is still the most important date-growing country, but the fruit is grown in other suitably dry and hot climates, including parts of the US. The male and female flowers grow on separate trees, and one male is allotted by growers to 50 or 100 females.
There are three important classes of date: soft, which are usually sold in compressed blocks and are intensely sweet; semi-dry, such as those sold in boxes with a stalk (or a plastic replica of one) down the middle; and dry, which are hard and ideal for carrying by travellers or for storage. Containing some 54% sugar and 7% protein when fresh, and higher concentrations when dried, dates are good high energy food, splendid for iron rations on climbs or walks. In the days before oil transformed their lives, the Bedouins of Arabia virtually lived on dates and on the products from their camels and flocks of sheep. H.R.P. Dickson, in The Arabs of the Desert (Allen and Unwin, 1949), describes a sheik’s banquet which included bowls of Ieben (buttermilk) with lumps of rather dirty looking butter floating in it and dates. After the meal of a whole sheep or lamb (with the eyes and tail fat as the guest’s particular right), the guest drinks the buttermilk and eats the dates with the bits of butter. If you care to try, you will find that dates actually do go well with butter and with yoghurt.
[Date – French: datte German: Dattel Italian: dattero Spanish: dátil]
DATE MUSSEL or date shell. See sea date.
DEAD-NETTLE. See spinach.
DECANTING. Red wines, very old wines even if they are white, and vintage port should be decanted. Ordinary red plonk, and wines in restaurants, are normally served from the bottle. In the latter case, you want to see what you are buying. Decanting gets rid of sediment, which spoils a wine’s appearance, and helps the wine breathe by getting air to it and so allowing it to lose any mustiness or ‘bottle stink’.
Decanting is simple for anyone with a steady hand. The bottle should be stood upright for 12 hours or so to let any sediment sink to the bottom. Red wines should be decanted about an hour before serving. There is no rule of thumb here, as the optimum time varies with the type of wine and its year, it is a question for experts to argue about. After wiping the top of the bottle, draw the cork, taking care not to disturb the sediment. Then wipe the inside of the neck and decant the wine slowly into a scrupulously clean decanter. To make this easier, a funnel can be used and the bottle should be viewed against the light so that you can see exactly when the sediment is in danger of coming out of the bottle. Wine does not keep in the decanter, and although port can be kept for a week or more, it gradually loses its best aromas.
[Decanting – French: décanter German: dekantieren, abklären Italian: versare, travasare Spanish: decantar, trasegar]
DEHYDRATION. See drying.
DEMI-DOUX. See herring.
DENTEX. See bream.
DEVONSHIRE CREAM. See clotted cream.
DEWBERRY. See blackberry.
DEXTRIN or British gum. A white or yellowish powder, first prepared from starch in 1833. lt is formed either by incomplete hydrolysis when starch is treated with a dilute acid or by the effect of heat on dry starch. Dextrin dissolves in boiling water – less easily in cold – to make a gummy solution which can be used to glaze bread and rolls in baking. The proportion of dextrin in *malt is an important factor in brewing.
[Dextrin – French: dextrine German: Dextrin Italian: destrina Spanish: dextrina]
DIASTASE or amylase. Class of *enzymes which break down starch to sugar (*maltose). Such enzymes occur in many micro-organisms, especially in yeasts and moulds, and also are formed in quantity when grain germinates as part of the mechanism by which the growing embryo gets at the stored starch. The diastase content gradually increases in sprouting barley, for instance, and this is used to produce *malt. Diastases are also the means by which we digest starch: there is one (ptyalin) in human saliva and a more efficient one which is produced by the pancreas of adults and works in the small intestine. Very little of it is produced by babies – which is why starchy gruel is not very good as baby food.
DEXTROSE. See glucose.
DHAL or dhol. See dal.
DIBS. A household syrup made in the Middle East by dissolving out the sugar from raisins, carob beans or sweet grapes, and boiling down the solution until it forms a thick syrup which can be used as a sweetener.
DILL. The dill plant (Anethum graveolens) looks very like fennel, with the same yellow umbelliferous flowers and feathery leaves, but it is smaller and an annual, not a perennial. When crushed, dill has a quite distinctive aroma with nothing of the anise background of fennel. It is a native of Asia, but has been grown in Mediterranean countries since ancient times and is now naturalized over most of Europe. As a green herb, it is very popular in Scandinavia (e.g. in *gravlax), Russia, Germany, central and south-eastern Europe
, Iran and Turkey. It is not so well known further west, in Italy and Spain, or further east, in India. In Britain, the use of dill (along with most other herbs) almost died out until recently, surviving mainly in dill water for babies. In the US, it is strongly associated with pickled cucumbers – dill pickles. The seed is also used as a spice and has a taste reminiscent of caraway. Good brands of dried dill leaf (dill weed) are quite adequate when fresh but soon lose flavour if open to the air.
[Dill – French: aneth German: Dill Italian: aneta Spanish: eneldo]
DISACCHARIDES. See sugar.
DISINFECTANTS, germicides and antiseptics are almost synonymous; they prevent microorganisms from multiplying, may reduce their numbers by killing them, and occasionally kill their spores. Disinfection should not be confused with *sterilization, which is the total destruction of all living organisms, including spores; disinfection is certainly not that.
In the kitchen, household disinfectants are used for cleaning. There are special disinfectants for treating bottles, casks and jars for home preserving and wine making. In unhygienic places, particularly in the tropics, it may be necessary to disinfect water or vegetables that are to be eaten raw. Occasionally small quantities are added to food. Kitchen disinfectants must be harmless in the amounts used; they must either be flavourless and odourless, or have odours that are quickly dispelled by heat. Disinfectants overlap with *preservatives, as in the case of *alcohol and acids.
Formaldehyde. Formalin is a 40% solution of formaldehyde gas in water and is very active against any organisms, including growing cells and spores. Although it has a strong smell, it was formerly used in minute concentrations as a preservative in milk and cream, but it is now generally forbidden by law.
It makes the eyes water and is potentially dangerous, so if used it should be handled in well ventilated places. But it is much too nasty to find a place among the regular kitchen disinfectants.
Oxidizing Agents. Powerful oxidizing agents are very active in killing germs, especially when they contain chlorine. Well-known substances in this category are hypochlorous acid, hypochlorites such as sodium hypochlorite (bleaching powder), chloramine, which is used in water-sterilizing tablets, and dichloramine. Among the oxidizing disinfectants which do not contain chlorine is potassium permanganate which gives a bright purple-red solution when dissolved in water. It is a powerful germ-killer, especially when combined with an acid (a 1% solution of permanganate containing 1.1% hydrochloric acid will kill anthrax spores in 30 seconds). In the old days, travellers in the Third World always used permanganate to rinse salads, though a quick rinse in very dilute solution was doubtfully effective. In contact with organic matter, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) gives off its extra oxygen atom to become water. It is a good cleaner, because the froth of oxygen it gives off dislodges dirt and gets behind it, but it is not commonly used for kitchen disinfection.
Salt. Brine is not normally thought of as a disinfectant, but salt stops bacteria growing in solutions of 25% and over, and it inhibits many bacteria in considerably smaller concentration.
Soap is an antiseptic as well as a cleaning agent. I was taught by the head of British Army medical services in India in World War II that a pure soap, free from perfume, can with advantage be used to wash the skins of fruit and vegetables when they are to be eaten raw. For fruit, this is probably more effective than washing in dilute permanganate because soap removes grease, a prime protector of bacteria. Naturally, the fruit must be well rinsed, after soaping, in pure water.
Use *Campden tablets in bottling and wine-making, *sodium hypochlorite for swabbing surfaces. A proprietary disinfectant, Milton, includes two disinfecting substances: it contains 1% sodium hypochlorite and 16.5% common salt. Its makers recommend it in various dilutions for cleaning in the kitchen, for use on salads and fruit and for adding to spring and well water. Soap and hot water should be used first on utensils, wherever possible, to remove grease.
[Disinfectant – French: désinfectant German: Desinfektionsmittel Italian: disinfettante Spanish: desinfectante]
DISTILLATION (from the Latin, stilla, a drop) is a method of separating or refining volatile substances by heating them until they vaporize and then cooling (condensing) the vapour back to the original state; the apparatus used is called a still. The ancient Greeks knew how to get fresh water by distilling seawater (that was easy, since the dry salt was left behind) but separating *alcohol from the water in wine or a fermented mash was more difficult, and the technique is probably no more than a thousand years old, if that. When introduced into Europe, spirits were first called by names such as eaux-de-vie, or uisge-beath (whisky), which mean ‘waters of life’, because they were medicinal, and sold by apothecaries, not publicans.
The separation of alcohol from water is possible because it is more volatile than water and boils at a lower temperature: 78°C (172°F) as opposed to 100°C (212°F). A mixture boils at an intermediate temperature (depending on the relative proportion of water and alcohol), and the vapours contain both alcohol and water. The first run-through with a simple still will produce a distillate of between 20-40% alcohol. Distilling this a second time may increase the alcohol content to 70% depending on the spirits being made and the distiller’s technique. Further distillation can increase the alcohol strength to 97.2% (by volume) but never more, as this mixture boils at a lower temperature than does 100% alcohol. The only uses related to cooking for alcohol of great strength are in making liqueurs and alcohol-preserved fruits. It is dangerous and highly inflammable stuff.
In spirits for drinking, such as whisky, brandy, rum, fruit brandies and gin, there are important considerations other than strength. Fermented mashes contain varying amounts of other volatile substances. One such is methyl alcohol, of which very little is produced in the fermentation of sugar solution (or sugar from starch), but some will be formed from woody cell walls and pectin (in stalks and pips) when fruit mashes are fermented. Methyl alcohol is poisonous and can cause blindness, but it will come over in the first runnings (heads or foreshots), which is why these are discarded. At the other end of the scale are the congenerics, which make up *fusel oil. This is a mixture of higher alcohols and other substances, which are less volatile and mainly come over last in distillation. Although the congenerics are removed almost entirely from vodka, some are retained for flavour in other spirits. It is the distiller’s art to leave in exactly enough; with too little there is a poor flavour, while too much produces nasty hangovers.
An important consideration is the type of still. Very fine quality spirits are mostly made in variants of the old-fashioned pot stills, which are essentially boiling pots sealed with a bulbous head and leading over into condensing coils. In these, each batch is distilled individually. More ordinary spirits are made in continuous stills which are complicated in design but cheaper to operate.
In many countries, governments have made laws forbidding the citizen to distil his own liquor, an infringement of liberty which often goes unnoticed. It was, until recently, also illegal to brew beer or make wine at home in Britain, although the law was ignored until even Parliament finally decided it could not be enforced and made home brewing legal. However, if the Briton makes his own gin or whisky, the revenue men will no doubt come elbowing into his castle.
Oil men working in ‘dry’ Arab countries have devised simple rules for making ‘silent spirits’ which have even less hangover effects than bought brandy or whisky. They ferment solutions of sugar, so that only traces of methyl alcohol are formed, and distil the spirit two or three times to eliminate the unpleasant yeasty taste. At each distillation the first and last runnings are of course discarded.
In places where distillation at home is not legal, shops cannot sell safe, properly made home stills. The distillation of over-proof alcohol is just about as dangerous as distilling petrol, and any leak in the system is likely to cause an explosion. lt is best to do it outdoors and never to leave the still unattended or drink while it is in operation. Like eating to
adstools or driving a car, distillation has to be done with a lot of knowledge and good sense or not at all. Oil men have demonstrated that the main danger lies not in blindness, or in revenue officers, but in blowing up the kitchen.
[Distillation – French: distillation German: Brennen Italian: distillazione Spanish: destilación]
DISTILLED WATER. Water which, after distillation, is virtually free from mineral matter and contains very little dissolved air. Although it tastes flat, it is safe to drink, but will need mineralizing if it is to be used for long periods. Water distilled from seawater is increasingly used in waterless but oil-rich regions and on ships (like nuclear submarines) which have to stay at sea for long periods. The only usual use for distilled water in the home – apart from car batteries – is in steam irons. The water ice melted in defrosting the refrigerator can be used for both purposes.
DOGFISH. See shark.
DRAMBUIE. Liqueur based on whisky.
DRAWING. The process of extracting the entrails of birds. Make sure that the bird has been properly plucked and singed. Some Italians advocate washing the skin of chickens with plain soap and water, and they claim that this makes a significant improvement to the flavour. (It could be a sensible precaution.)
The head is retained only in very small birds. Otherwise, cut it off. Heads and combs are used in country cooking, but most people throw them away.
The feet should be cut off just below the joint.
If they are cut above the joint, the thigh muscle attachments are severed and the meat shrinks, exposing the bone on cooking. Remove the claws and dip the feet into boiling water while you count to ten. (If they are kept in the water too long, the job is more difficult.) Immediately, scrape off the fine skin. The cleaned feet are then ready for the stock-pot.
The neck is chopped off near, but not too near, the body; remove the gullet and windpipe. The neck usually goes into the stock-pot, but the neck skin can be used for stuffing, like a sausage.