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Just in case you don’t get the comments from LJ transferred here, I will re post it here. How timely.

I want to know where the line is between soup and broth. What ratio or heat or SOMETHING is it that makes the flavor of the food move into the liquid (to make broth) or to have the flavor remain in the food.

A lot of the recipes that I have tried lately for soups (my favorite food form) have resulted in an edible substance, but it all tasted the same. The meat tastes the same as the nuts tastes the same as the veggies. That to me is flavored broth, with.. you know, chunks in it.

I have a lot of successful soup recipes where the entire thing is flavorful, and each chunk tastes like what it is. WHERE/WHAT IS THAT LINE?

I’m interested in two things:

Easy, simple ways to cook/prep vegetables to be tasty. Trying to eat more of ’em, but getting tired of salads/simple carrot or other single veg preps and the like. Diversifying from basic stuff like celery, carrots, and salad greens would be great, too.

I’d also be interested in fun stuff with pressure cookers; they’re almost never covered in cooking sites.

Cooking oil. I’ve noticed an awful lot of recipe books pick a type of cooking oil, vegetable, sunflower or olive (typically) and then stick with it throughout. But how might you go about deciding which one is appropriate for what sort of dish?

Full disclaimer: I live alone and like to do a lot of my own cooking when I have the time. That tends to result in a lot of bulk-preparation and storage (mostly freezing).

So here are some things I might find interesting, if not useful:

Is there a better way to preserve food (cooked and raw)? Should I be salting things or adding preservatives?

If you have some food that’s about to go out of date, and you cook it, that should kill off most of the bugs — so can you then keep it past its eat-by date? If so, for how long?

What effect do fridges and freezers have on the taste or texture of food?

My name is Yossef [Yossi] Gofer. I am an electrochemist and surface science spectroscopist in Bar-Ilan University, Israel. I am also an enthusiastic cook, in particular Thai and south-east cuisine and Italian. However, I love experimenting with all sort of unusual cooking, especially those things that are made commercially and often seems beyond the scope of home kitchen.
There are two enigmatic goods that I have never been able to unravel its secrets, but I’ve got the feeling that the key to the mystery shouldn’t be anywhere as hidden as the Stone of the Wise. The two intriguing goods are Halva and Humus. Interestingly, both foods are interconnected through one of their key ingredients: sesame tahini.
I will start with the more enigmatic and intriguing one, Halva.
Halva [also named halvah, helva, helwa, helvah, etc.] is a Mediterranean sweetmeat made almost entirely of sugar and sesame tahini. The later is basically ground and milled sesame seeds paste (either raw or slightly roasted), the sesame analogue of peanut butter. The very best Halva’s are made in Turkey and in Israel, both by Israeli Arabs or Israeli manufacturers. I consider the high-end Turkish halva made by “Koska” to be the best.
As to halva, the world is divided into two types of humans (just like the case of okra…) those that are addicted to this heavenly stuff, and those that can’t stand it. Most humans belong to the first group, provided that they got acquainted with this delicious invention.
Before I continue, I’d like to emphasize two very important aspects: first, I am interested ONLY is sesame halva. There are other dishes called halva, mainly from India, Iran, some of the ‘stan’ nations east of Russia and Greece. These other dishes are very simple and web and cookbooks have all the information needed to prepare them. Second, REAL halva worth its name ONLY of it acquires the solid-crumbly dry consistency. There are a vast amount of recipes that use tahini and sugar (or, worse, honey), both is popular and professional cooking books, as well as on the web, but unfortunately, without exception, they result is a sweet and gooey mass. They usually boast, indeed, the flavor of halva, but without the crumbly-gritty texture it’s like eating sweetened butter instead of enjoying fool bodied whipped cream…
For those who are interested, I will draw an overlook of information I gathered regarding real halva, although, obviously it lacks a secret essential ingredient, most probably concerning the preparation method.
Ingredients:
• Sesame tahini
• Sugar
• Water
• Saponaria extract
• Flavors
• Nuts

• The sesame tahini must be very fine milled/ground to the consistency of thick flowing paste. Standing undisturbed for a white, some oil will be segregated, covering the paste. Mechanical stirring returns it to the initial condition. The sesame seeds are used either raw, or slightly roasted. They must be hulled, white in appearance.
• I believe that the sugar used to make the sugar syrup make use of regular white sugar. I don’t thing corn syrup is being used here, as it is the partial crystallization of sugar that contributes to the desired texture. It might be that during the sugar cooking into syrup acid is added, like lemon or tartaric acid, but I doubt it.
• Old fashioned manufacturers use saponaria extract as an important additive. Saponaria, as it name implies, is kind of a natural detergent, or a surface active agent, extracted from the roots of a perennial herb called saponaria, soapwort, bouncing betty, Sweet William or helwa-root. Its role is critical in the halva manufacturing, presumably emulsifying the oily sesame paste with the sugar syrup, thus both imparting appealing light color to the solid “emulsion” and somehow creating the desired texture. I have noticed that some modern manufacturers substitute other emulsifying agents, such as mono and diglycerides for saponaria. Some amateur recipes call for egg whites for this purpose, but I wouldn’t take this substitution seriously.
• Most Halva’s are flavored with Vanilla, cocoa or rose-water.
• High-end halva may contain pistachios, walnuts or almonds added.

The most probable preparation method scheme should be something like this: sugar syrup is boiled to the appropriate temperature (or water content) like in candy making. Usually the texts indicate something around “soft ball” and “hard ball” stage. In some cases the text indicates that the sugar syrup is whipped with the saponaria extract, obtaining thick foam. Then, the tahini and the hot sugar saponaria syrup/foam are mixed by beating thoroughly, until some stage, at which the viscous mass is poured to molds for hardening. I don’t know the appropriate ratios of sugar to tahini, although the lower the sugar content, the higher ranked halva is obtained. Also, I don’t know is the tahini added at room temperature, or heated, and if the sugar syrup-tahini is cooked together while beaten.

Anyway, I guess that somewhere here, in the preparation section, the key to the ancient secret is missing…
I have some PDF documents dealing with Halva prep, if you are interested. Also, I have a bag of powdered Halva-root (saponaria) that I am more then wiling to share for the experimenter.


I apologize for the length of the email, however, I couldn’t find better way to convey all the essential information.
Thank you in advance,
Yossi