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Balearic Cuisine
Balearic cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine as cooked in the Balearic Islands, Spain. It can be regarded as part of a wider Catalan cuisine, since it shares many dishes and ingredients with Catalonia and the Valencian Community. Others view it as part of a more global Spanish cuisine. Traditional Balearic cuisine is rich in vegetables, cereal and legumes as well as being low in fats. A succinct selection of the primary dishes would be '' ensaimades'', seafood and vegetable stews, '' sobrassada'', '' coques'', '' tombet'', Maó cheese, almonds, and wine. Bakery and confectionery *Unsalted bread *'' Ensaïmada'': a lard-based pastry sprinkled with powdered sugar, "the Balearics' gastronomic pride and joy" *''Flaó'': Cottage cheese tart. The recipe includes eggs, cottage cheese, sugar and mint. The mixture of savoury and sweet flavourings may reflect Arab influence from the Islamic past of the islands. *''Coca'': Similar to Italian pizza but without cheese. Typically, Majorca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Cuisine
Mediterranean cuisine is the food and methods of preparation used by the people of the Mediterranean basin. The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine originates with the cookery writer Elizabeth David's book, ''A Book of Mediterranean Food'' (1950), and was amplified by other writers working in English. Many writers define the three core elements of the cuisine as the olive, wheat, and the grape, yielding olive oil, bread and pasta, and wine; other writers deny that the widely varied foods of the Mediterranean basin constitute a cuisine at all. A common definition of the geographical area covered, proposed by David, follows the distribution of the olive tree. The region spans a wide variety of cultures with distinct cuisines, in particular (going anticlockwise around the region) the Maghrebi cuisine, Maghrebi, Egyptian cuisine, Egyptian, Levantine cuisine, Levantine, Ottoman cuisine, Ottoman (Turkish cuisine, Turkish), Greek cuisine, Greek, Italian cuisine, Italian, French cuisine, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made from grapes, and the term "wine" generally refers to grape wine when used without any qualification. Even so, wine can be made fruit wine, from a variety of fruit crops, including plum, cherry, pomegranate, blueberry, Ribes, currant, and Sambucus, elderberry. Different varieties of grapes and Strain (biology), strains of yeasts are major factors in different styles of wine. These differences result from the complex interactions between the Biochemistry, biochemical development of the grape, the reactions involved in fermentation, the grape's growing environment (terroir), and the wine production process. Many countries enact legal appellations intended to define styles and qualities of wine. These typically restrict the geographical origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flavouring
A flavoring (or flavouring), also known as flavor (or flavour) or flavorant, is a food additive that is used to improve the taste or smell of food. It changes the perceptual impression of food as determined primarily by the chemoreceptors of the gustatory and olfactory systems. Along with additives, other components like sugars determine the taste of food. A flavoring is defined as a substance that gives another substance taste, altering the characteristics of the solute, causing it to become sweet, sour, tangy, etc. Although the term, in common language, denotes the combined chemical sensations of taste and smell, the same term is used in the fragrance and flavors industry to refer to edible chemicals and extracts that alter the flavor of food and food products through the sense of smell. Owing to the high cost, or unavailability of natural flavor extracts, most commercial flavorings are "nature-identical", which means that they are the chemical equivalent of natural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sweet
Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones, and sugar alcohols. Some are sweet at very low concentrations, allowing their use as non-caloric sugar substitutes. Such non-sugar sweeteners include saccharin, aspartame, sucralose and stevia. Other compounds, such as miraculin, may alter perception of sweetness itself. The perceived intensity of sugars and high-potency sweeteners, such as aspartame and neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, are heritable, with gene effect accounting for approximately 30% of the variation. The chemosensory basis for detecting sweetness, which varies between both individuals and species, has only begun to be understood since the late 20th century. One theoretical model of sweetness is the multipoint attachment theory, which involves multiple binding sites be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umami
Umami ( from ), or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It is characteristic of broths and cooked meats. People taste umami through taste receptors that typically respond to glutamates and nucleotides, which are widely present in meat broths and fermented products. Glutamates are commonly added to some foods in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG), and nucleotides are commonly added in the form of disodium guanylate, inosine monophosphate (IMP) or guanosine monophosphate (GMP). Since umami has its own receptors rather than arising out of a combination of the traditionally recognized taste receptors, scientists now consider umami to be a distinct taste. Foods that have a strong umami flavor include meats, shellfish, fish (including fish sauce and preserved fish such as Maldives fish, '' katsuobushi'', sardines, and anchovies), '' dashi'', tomatoes, mushrooms, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, meat extract, yeast extract, kimchi, cheeses, and soy sauce. In 1908, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mentha
''Mentha'', also known as mint (from Greek , Linear B ''mi-ta''), is a genus of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is estimated that 13 to 24 species exist, but the exact distinction between species is unclear. Hybridization occurs naturally where some species' ranges overlap. Many hybrids and cultivars are known. The genus has a subcosmopolitan distribution, growing best in wet environments and moist soils. Description Mints are aromatic, almost exclusively perennial herbs. They have wide-spreading underground and overground stolons and erect, square, branched stems. Mints will grow tall and can spread over an indeterminate area. Due to their tendency to spread unchecked, some mints are considered invasive. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, from oblong to lanceolate, often downy, and with a serrated margin. Leaf colors range from dark green and gray-green to purple, blue, and sometimes pale yellow. The flowers are produced in long bracts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae d ..., fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double sugars, are molecules made of two bonded monosaccharides; common examples are sucrose (glucose + fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose), and maltose (two molecules of glucose). White sugar is almost pure sucrose. In the body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars. Longer chains of monosaccharides (>2) are not regarded as sugars and are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Starch is a glucose polymer found in plants, the most abundant source of energy in human foo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egg (food)
Humans and other hominids have consumed eggs for millions of years. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especially chickens. People in Southeast Asia began harvesting chicken eggs for food by 1500 BCE. Eggs of other birds, such as ducks and ostriches, are eaten regularly but much less commonly than those of chickens. People may also eat the eggs of reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Fish eggs consumed as food are known as roe or caviar. Hens and other egg-laying creatures are raised throughout the world, and mass production of chicken eggs is a global industry. In 2009, an estimated 62.1 million metric tons of eggs were produced worldwide from a total laying flock of approximately 6.4 billion hens. There are issues of regional variation in demand and expectation, as well as current debates concerning methods of mass production. In 2012, the European Union banned battery husbandry of chickens. History Bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tart
A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with custard. Tartlet refers to a miniature tart; an example would be egg tarts. The categories of "tart", "Flan (pie), flan", and "pie" overlap, with no sharp distinctions. History The French language, French word ''tarte'' can be translated to mean either pie or tart, as both are mainly the same except a pie usually covers the filling in pastry, while flans and tarts leave it open. While many tarts are also wikt:tart, tart, in the sense of sour in taste, this appears to be a coincidence; the etymologies of the two senses of the word are quite separate. Tarts are thought to have either come from a tradition of layering food or to be a product of medieval pie making. Enriched dough (i.e. shortcrust) is thought to have been first commonly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cottage Cheese
Cottage cheese is a curdled milk product with a mild flavour and a creamy, heterogeneous, soupy texture, made from skimmed milk. An essential step in the manufacturing process distinguishing cottage cheese from other fresh cheeses is the addition of a "dressing" to the curd grains, usually cream, which is mainly responsible for the taste of the product. Cottage cheese is not Aged cheese, aged. Cottage cheese can be low in calories compared to other types of cheese — similar to yogurt; this makes it popular among dieters and some health devotees. It can be used with various foods such as yogurt, fruit, toast, and granola, in salads, as a dip, and as a replacement for mayonnaise. History Origin A popular story on the origin of cheese was taken from Homer's ''Odyssey'', in which the poet describes how the Cyclops, Polyphemus, made cheese by storing milk in animal stomachs. The enzyme rennin from the stomachs of nursing animals induces a coagulation process separating the curds f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flaó
Flaó (plural flaons, ) is a cheesecake or tart found in Spanish cuisine popular from Levante. It is claimed by Majorca, Ibiza and Formentera, with some controversy. Traditionally flaons were part of Easter family celebrations in Menorca, but now they are available all year round. In some regions flaons are a type of crescent-shaped pie filled with jam and honey in Calasseit, Tarragona, or some type of cheese, varying according to the location. Honey was used traditionally, but in modern times sweet flaons are usually sweetened with sugar. Historically, the first recorded mention of these cakes is from 1252 and they are mentioned as well in Ramon Llull's book '' Blanquerna'', written in 1283. Variants Alt Maestrat In the Alt Maestrat and Ports areas the cake has a semicircular shape and it is filled with a mixture of local cottage cheese ''( brull)'' and ground almonds flavored with aguardiente and mistela. The flaons of Morella are the gastronomic icon of the ancient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensaïmada
The ''ensaïmada'' is a pastry product from Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, commonly found in southwestern Europe, Latin America and the Philippines. The ''ensaïmada de Mallorca'' is made with strong flour, water, sugar, eggs, mother dough and a kind of reduced pork lard (called '' saïm'' in Catalan) which gives the pastry its name. The handmade character of the product makes it difficult to give an exact formula, so scales have been established defining the proportion of each ingredient. The pastry apparently has a Jewish origin, deriving from '' bulemas'', using lard instead of olive oil as a means of escaping the suspicions of authorities during the Inquisition. The first written references to the Mallorcan ''ensaïmada'' date back to the 17th century. Though wheat flour was mainly used for making bread, there is evidence this typical pastry product was made during that period for festivals and celebrations. In Mallorca and Ibiza, a sweet called '' greixonera'' is ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
