Breaking
FoodNerdy Recipes Management System
Tag

black

Browsing
Food

Black Rice: Peculiarities and Nutritional Values of The “Forbidden” Type of Rice

Black rice is a rarity among rice varieties – not only because it is also called “forbidden rice”. Here you can learn more about black rice and what makes it so special.

Black rice has been cultivated in China for centuries. There it is also known as “Forbidden Rice”. In the past, its cultivation was so complex and delicate that for a long time only the emperor was allowed to enjoy it.

Black Rice: Origin and Cultivation

In addition to China, the main growing areas for black rice are Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. But black rice is now also being cultivated in Europe: Black Venere rice or Venus rice grows in the Italian Piedmont region. This is a cross between Chinese black rice and a native Italian variety adapted to the European climate. Black rice grows even closer in the Austrian Burgenland – even in organic quality.

Black rice is often confused with wild rice or paddy rice, which is also black. But wild rice is a different plant species. Botanically, wild rice is an aquatic grass species and belongs to the genus Zizania, while black rice belongs to the genus Oryza.

Taste and Appearance of Black Rice

There are slight color gradations among the black rice varieties:
Vietnamese black rice has a slightly red shimmer.
Indonesian black rice has a brown tinge.
Chinese black rice is the only one that is truly black.
Black rice is always whole grain rice. Because it gets its extraordinary color from a natural pigmentation of the outer grain layers. The plant pigments anthocyanins, which give plants an intensive red, violet or blue color, are responsible for this. If you peeled the rice, it would be white. It is usually commercially available as brown rice. That means it has been dehulled, but not sanded or peeled.

In terms of taste, the black rice offers a mixture of nut and cereal aromas. Black rice is quite aromatic in taste and still has a crunchy bite after cooking. In Asia it is often used in the sticky rice variant for desserts, for example for rice pudding made from black rice with mango. You can also use black rice as a side dish for stir-fries or as a filling for hollowed and baked butternut squash.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Black Garlic: What’s Behind The “Black Garlic” Trend

Black garlic is touted as the culinary delicacy in some delicatessens. In addition to the unique taste, “Black Garlic” is also said to be extremely healthy. We’ll tell you what’s up.

Black garlic – what is it?

Black garlic is not a separate plant species, but ordinary white garlic (Allium sativum). The bulb gets its black color from a special fermentation process.

To produce black garlic, it is exposed to a temperature of 60 to 80 degrees for several weeks at a high humidity of 80 to 90 percent. This fermentation process is often used in food production and is responsible for turning garlic black.

Incidentally, black garlic has long been popular in Asian cuisine. Now he is penetrating more and more into the European market.

Taste and uses of Black Garlic

Black garlic is mainly advertised because of its extraordinary taste: in terms of taste, it has very little to do with ordinary garlic. Instead, the Black Garlic comes up with sweet and sour nuances of liquorice, balsamic vinegar and plum compote. The consistency is soft, almost jelly-like.

You can use the black garlic in many different ways: it goes well with pasta and rice dishes, dishes with meat and fish, but also various salads. It is also well suited for marinades. Thanks to its unusual appearance, Black Garlic is also a great garnish.

The big advantage: Black garlic does not produce the typical garlic-like bad breath and – unlike fresh garlic – does not have a pungent taste.

Black garlic is so healthy

It seems like a marketing gimmick that the industry wants to sell us the Black Garlic as even more healing. But actually: numerous studies have now researched how and why black garlic is so healthy.

The health-important ingredient allicin is hardly present in black garlic, as it has been converted into antioxidant compounds by fermentation. These include bioactive alkaloids and flavanoids.
The antioxidant effect of black garlic is significantly higher than that of normal garlic.
In addition, black garlic is considered anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-allergic. Black Garlic can also be more effective than its usual form in type 2 diabetes.
Since the fermented garlic also contains fewer fructans, it is also easier on the stomach and intestines.

A culinary delicacy with a poor eco-balance?

Compared to garlic in its usual form, black garlic has a number of advantages: it is easier to digest, can be used in many ways, does not cause bad breath and also has health potential. You should have tried it at least once because of its very special aroma and taste combination alone.

In addition to all the good aspects, we only see the downside of black garlic in its eco-balance: The Black Garlic offered in this country mostly comes from southern Spain, sometimes even from China or Korea – even though garlic is native to us. Due to the long transport routes, you should make sure that you use regional providers if possible.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Black Garlic: Kiss-Proof Health Bomb

At my harvest, nothing works without garlic (Allium Sativum) – the widespread tuber, which is actually an onion or leek plant, is used in our team on an inflationary basis because of its taste and its extensive powers. When you get a cold it is eaten raw before breakfast, it is almost never missing from lunch and some of us would like to smuggle it into dessert. No wonder we delved deeper into the world of garlic. We made an exciting discovery: “Black Garlic” is the name of our new favorite.

The variant, which is still rarely found on the vegetable shelf, is not a separate garlic genus, but “normal” garlic that has gone through a complex process of refinement. This refinement has properties that are praised in terms of appearance, taste and health and scores with understatement for sensitive noses.

Garlic: Health Benefits and a Small Catch

If for some it is indispensable in the kitchen, for others it is an absolute NO GO – the garlic divides minds.

The health properties of the spice plant are clearly convincing. The so-called toes of the plant from Asia have a proven antibacterial, blood pressure-lowering and blood-thinning effect and are used in many cultures around the world, e.g. B. by the ancient Egyptians or Romans, used as a medicinal plant for a long time. It is also said to have preventive and soothing properties for colon cancer.

While the smell of raw garlic is usually despised, fried or baked it can make you want more. However, when consumed, garlic can put the olfactory buds of the social environment to a severe test, which is why many people wave their hands at an important appointment or at a romantic dinner. Who would want to chase their opponent into the distance with acrid vapors or garlic flags?

The reason for the unpleasant smell: It is precisely the health-promoting, organic sulfur compounds that are produced by the starting material allicin that are responsible for the fact that garlic often leaves a “lasting impression”.

The “little black one” is always convincing

Knobi fans have reason to be happy thanks to the “black garlic”: After the conversion through the so-called “Maillard reaction”, the black bulb does not produce stubborn vapors or odors and shines in this area with restraint – rating: kissable.

The chemical reaction that occurs when the garlic is stored for four to six weeks under heat (55-65°C) is also beneficial for the other senses: the garlic shines elegantly in a dark robe and surprises with subtle, sweetish notes of liquorice and balsamic vinegar -, preserved plum, fig and caramel notes – a taste adventure for every palate. Sugars and amino acids are responsible for this, which produce yellow-brown to black nitrogenous compounds during the long fermentation process, similar to fried onions. Another plus point: According to scientific knowledge, black garlic has a higher antioxidant content than white garlic and is recommended for oxidative stress, such as during the menopause.

The purchase price, which at first glance is a bit high, is due to the complex finishing process, which is practiced worldwide above all by the Koreans and South Americans.

Already knew?

Some people experience digestive problems after eating regular garlic.
Steffi’s tip: Before processing, take out the strand in the middle of the toe if it is green and pronounced, this has proven to be helpful 😉
In order for it to develop its full health effect, the cell walls of conventional garlic have to be destroyed. It is advisable to “bump” or press and then take a ten-minute rest before processing. Incidentally, garlic does not like high and long heat.
As with almost all foods, most of the nutrients are ingested in their raw form – this is much easier to absorb with black garlic than with white garlic.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Black Ivory Coffee

The trend towards exclusive fine coffees continues: After “Kopi Luwag”, the coffee produced in Vietnam and Indonesia, which gets its special taste from the digestion of viverrid cats, which eat the beans and then excrete them, there is now “Black Ivory” – ” black ivory”. The variety obtained in Thailand, on the other hand, migrates through the digestive tract of much larger animals. As the name suggests, in this case elephants are the purveyors of good taste. The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation runs the production of the luxury coffee in Chiang Saen, in northern Thailand, on behalf of the Canadian Blake Dinkin, where former working elephants are kept as part of a sanctuary. This “retirement home” has set itself the task of offering the animals a protected habitat. A mahout, a caretaker, is responsible for each pachyderm, who takes care of the care and food of the respective elephant. The process for obtaining the “Black Ivory” is a lengthy one: the Arabica beans harvested at 1500 meters are processed in a mixture of fruit and rice for the animals and fed to them. Some of the beans eaten in this way, however, are chewed up by the elephants.

Around 33 kilos of raw beans are therefore required for one kilo of “Black Ivory”. The animals allegedly do not feel the effect of the caffeine, as this can only unfold when the finished coffee is brewed, it is said. The coffee doesn’t harm the elephants otherwise, according to John Roberts of the Elephant Foundation. During the digestive process, special proteins contained in the beans are broken down in the stomach of the pachyderm, which ultimately decomposes and reduces the bitter substances in the coffee. This is also the reason for the particularly mild, almost flowery taste of the coffee. The beans take about a day to cross the elephant’s gastrointestinal tract. When the animals excrete them, the beans are painstakingly harvested from the dung by the mahouts and their families.

The precious commodity must then be washed, dried and roasted. Of course, this complex process has its price: a cup of the fine coffee variety costs around 34 euros. For a kilo of “Black Ivory” the connoisseur has to shell out around 850 euros. This year they received a good 50 kilograms of coffee produced in this way, but this turnover should be increased in the next few years.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Cook Black Salsify: Tips for Healthy Winter Vegetables

There are a few things to keep in mind when preparing salsify. Read our step-by-step instructions to find out how to properly prepare the winter vegetables.

Used in the Middle Ages as a remedy for snake bites, black salsify is now a popular winter vegetable. Due to its similarity to asparagus, it is colloquially called winter asparagus.

For example, you can serve salsify as a side dish, baked or as a soup. But no matter how you end up preparing them – in most cases you have to cook them first. There are a few things to keep in mind. Below you will find out how best to proceed.

By the way: Black salsify is in season from October to April, making it the perfect winter vegetable.

Cook salsify: tips

Preparing salsify takes a bit of work. But you shouldn’t let that put you off, because they provide a lot of fiber and important vitamins that strengthen your immune system.

Preparation: Peel the salsify

Wash the salsify under running water and thoroughly remove dirt and dirt.
Peel the stalks until the brown skin is completely removed. Important: Black salsify contains a sticky, staining liquid. Therefore, wear old clothes or an apron and peel them in a bowl of water.
Attention: As soon as the black salsify is peeled, it will turn brown relatively quickly. Therefore, after peeling them, leave them in clean water and add a little lemon juice or a dash of vinegar.
Boil salsify

Cut the peeled stalks into bite-sized pieces.
Fill a saucepan with water and lightly salt it.
Add the salsify pieces and let them cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. When they are soft, you can take them out of the pot and serve or process them.

Tip: Black salsify will keep in the fridge for about two weeks. It is best to wrap them in a damp kitchen towel. If you have a basement, you can also store them just like carrots. Place the salsify in a box or bucket and cover them generously with sand. They will keep like this for several weeks.

Keep Reading
By
Cooking Tips

Pink is The New Black – Pink Coffee

Pink coffee is not only a great splash of color, thanks to the healthy ingredients, the colorful coffee variant is also a fitness booster.

Pink coffee – a colorful trend drink

The times when coffee was only drunk black are finally over. Not long ago, the Matcha Latte with its greenish color was an absolute must for every trendy café. In the meantime, the color palette has been expanded and pink coffee is conquering the cafés. Its strong pink color makes it a real eye-catcher on the coffee table. But is it just a colorful gimmick? Or what is behind the pink variant of coffee?

The success story of pink coffee

The USA are regarded as absolute trendsetters, especially in the food sector. How surprising that the pink coffee does not come from the land of unlimited opportunities, but from Down Under – Australia. Here the “Beetroot Latte” conquered the Australian cafes. The trend spread via Instagram and social networks, especially among health-conscious food bloggers. These posted colorful snapshots of the trend drink. In the meantime, the pink coffee has also arrived in Germany and inspires with its appearance, taste and healthy ingredients.

The question arises as to where the pink coffee got its striking color from and why it is considered particularly healthy. The Australian name “Beetroot Latte” already provides information about the special ingredients of the coffee specialty: It is made from beetroot. It can be prepared with fresh beetroot or with finished beetroot juice. The other ingredients include espresso, hot milk (also with plant-based milk) and honey. No wonder, then, that pink coffee is rich in vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin C, iron and folic acid. The pink coffee variant thus strengthens skin and hair, supports blood formation and strengthens the heart.

This is how the pink coffee succeeds

Many lose their appetite at the thought of beetroot. But it’s worth trying the pink alternative to black coffee. In fact, it’s very easy to make at home. With the following recipe, the pink coffee is conjured up in no time at all:

Just peel a beetroot and juice it
Add some grated ginger to the juice. But be careful: It’s better to add a little more afterwards before it gets too spicy!
Mix this mixture in boiled almond or soy milk.
Finally, you can add some agave syrup for sweetness.

The trend drink is even faster with ready-made beetroot juice. The pink coffee looks like a latte macchiato or cappuccino, but the recipe actually doesn’t contain any coffee. In principle, however, it can be converted into a caffeinated drink with an espresso.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Black Radish: Cultivation, Use and Cough Syrup Recipe

Black radish tastes sharper and more aromatic than other varieties. You can grow it yourself – find out here what you need to look out for and how you can use the winter radish.

Also called winter radish, black radish is a particularly undemanding type of radish. It has a thick, mostly dark brown or almost black skin – hence its name. Inside, however, the root vegetable is white.

You can use black radish both as a food and as a home remedy for coughs. Since it is quite easy to care for, you can also plant it as a beginner when growing vegetables. To ensure that it thrives in your garden, you should follow a few tips.

How to grow black radish

Plant black radish: Depending on the species, sow the black radish from mid-June to August. You can find out the exact time from the seed packet. Preferably buy organic seeds. Proceed as follows when sowing:

First, make furrows in the soil into which you will later scatter the seeds. Keep a distance of at least 20 centimeters between the individual rows.
Now scatter the seeds in the rows of plants.
Cover round seeds very lightly with soil. If you bought a species with elongated seeds, you need to sow the seeds about two centimeters deep.
Finally, water the seeds generously.
The right location: Similar to white radish, black radish prefers full sun to half shade.

The right soil: It is best to plant black radishes where the soil is nice and loose, deep and rich in humus. Mix some compost into the soil about a month before sowing.

The right care for the black radish

Black radish is quite easy to care for. With a few tricks you will soon be able to harvest the first tubers:

Watering: Water regularly, because the black radish needs a lot of water, especially during the growth phase. Rainwater is best; you can, for example, collect rainwater.
Weeding: Black radish grows relatively slowly. To ensure that it always gets enough sunlight and water, you should regularly loosen the soil and remove weeds.
Fertilizing: If you have fertilized the soil with compost before sowing, you do not need any further fertilizer. After a month you can mix some horn shavings or other organic fertilizer into the soil if needed.
Harvest: Depending on the variety, you can harvest the first radishes after eight to thirteen weeks. It is only important that you do not leave the black radish in the ground for too long, otherwise it will become woody. First loosen the tubers with a digging fork before you pull it out of the ground.

How to use black radish

You can use black radish in different ways:

In the kitchen: Similar to the white radish, black radish is particularly popular as a raw vegetable. Peeled and finely grated, you can eat it as a radish salad or on a piece of bread. If you sprinkle it with salt, you reduce its sharpness a bit. You can also pickle black radish or cook it in vegetable soups. For example, you can replace the horseradish with black radish in this recipe: Horseradish Soup: Easy Recipe and Tasty Variations.
As a medicinal plant: Black radish contains a lot of vitamin C, mustard oils, magnesium and potassium. These and some other ingredients make it very interesting for medicinal and folk medicine. It is used there, for example, to alleviate the symptoms of rheumatism, gout and respiratory diseases.
As a cough syrup: black radish gets its typical spiciness from the mustard oils it contains. These have an antibacterial effect and can help with dry coughs, for example. Therefore, you can make an effective cough syrup from the tuber.

Black radish cough syrup recipe

For the black radish cough syrup you need:

a black radish
honey, sugar or rock candy
This is how you can use the cough syrup in the quick version:

Halve the black radish with a sharp knife.
Place both halves in front of you with the white insides facing up. If the halves wobble a bit, cut off a small piece at the bottom so they stay put.
Take a teaspoon. In the center of each half, dig a hole about two inches wide and one inch deep. You can eat the inside of the radish right away or use it in a dish.
Place each halves in a small bowl. Now put your sweetener in the hole.
Leave the bowls for a few hours until the sugar has drawn liquid out of the black radish. Then you can spoon out the cough syrup and enjoy!
Then enlarge the hole to continue using the halves.
If your black radish sits small and shriveled in the bowl, the sugar has drained all of the liquid and it’s time to discard it.

This is how you prepare the cough syrup a little more complex:

First, use a sharp knife to cut the top of the black radish straight off. The upper end must later act as a “lid”.
Now scoop out the radish with a teaspoon or knife in a cone shape. Finely chop the radish insides and set aside.
Now poke a few holes in the bottom of the radish. It is best to use a skewer or a knitting needle for this. The cough syrup later runs through these holes.
Now fill the hollowed-out radish halfway with honey and add the remaining radish pieces.
Give everything a quick stir and put the radish “lid” back on.
Place the stuffed radish on a plate or in a jar and let it sit for a few hours.
Pour the reserved syrup into a clean jar and store in the refrigerator.

Keep Reading
By
Cooking Tips

Black Coffee: What Makes the Drink Without Milk

Black coffee is better than its reputation. We explain what black coffee is and why it can also be good for your health.

What is black coffee?

Very simple: A coffee prepared without milk or milk alternative and without sugar is a black coffee.
It doesn’t matter whether you prepare the caffeinated drink in a French press, a fully automatic coffee machine, with a hand filter or in a conventional coffee machine.

How you drink the coffee is of course up to you, but some people say they don’t like black coffee. This may be because coffee tastes more bitter on its own than if you add milk, for example. This makes the drink milder. However, you only get the unadulterated taste of coffee if you drink the drink “black”. Black coffee also has many health benefits compared to the variant with milk. You can read exactly what these are in the next section.

Is black coffee healthy?

The effects of coffee on the body have already been investigated in numerous studies. The general tenor:

Regular consumption of coffee is healthy and can have positive effects on the body.
For example, black coffee contains antioxidants that can help prevent disease. How many antioxidant properties a coffee has depends, among other things, on the degree of roasting of the beans. It also has anti-fibrotic effects on human organs such as the liver.

What is also true are the following statements:

Coffee strengthens long-term memory: researchers at the University of Baltimore found out in a study that people were able to remember something better if they had consumed caffeine afterwards. However, the effect cannot be increased at will. There was a habituation effect among consumers.
Coffee promotes mental performance: According to a study by brain researcher Prof. Bernd Fischer, enjoying one to three cups of coffee should increase the speed of information processing by ten percent. In addition, coffee consumption increases sustained attention. Tip for employers: If you provide your employees with coffee, this has been scientifically proven to increase productivity.
Coffee lowers cancer risk: Four cups of coffee can reduce the risk of skin cancer by 20 percent. That’s what scientists at the Yale School of Public Health found. The researchers drew their findings from a study that proves that some coffee ingredients can protect against cell damage from UVB radiation.
Coffee drinkers live longer: From an American long-term study, a team from the Harvard School of Public Health drew data from which it can be seen that coffee drinkers live longer than people who avoid the caffeinated drink. Before they now increase their coffee consumption every day: Of course, this was not the only factor, the living conditions of the individual test subjects also have to be taken into account.
Black coffee detoxifies cells: According to a study by the University of Graz, black coffee in its original state promotes what is known as autophagy. This is a kind of “self-digestion program” in the body that cleans and detoxifies cells.

Why you should drink a coffee black

Unfortunately, animal milk in coffee reduces the positive properties and effects of the drink mentioned in the previous section. Researchers at the University of Graz have discovered that animal proteins can inhibit the process of cell purification. They therefore recommend drinking coffee black or, if you don’t like this variant, with plant-based milk.

The body’s reactions to black coffee vary from person to person. Therefore, you should only drink it in moderation at first to find out how wholesome it is for you. The roasting of the coffee beans produces acid and bitter substances. These can have effects on the gastrointestinal tract, for example attacking the gastric mucosa on an empty stomach. However, it is not 100% proven which substance in coffee causes stomach pain. For a long time, chlorogenic acid was considered responsible. In the meantime, however, this theory has been refuted. Likewise, according to the German Coffee Association, it has not been proven that drinking coffee increases the risk of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

How much coffee are you allowed to drink in a day?

According to the German Institute for Human Nutrition, four cups of normal coffee reduce the risk of developing liver cancer by 75 percent. However, not much more should be consumed. This is due to the high caffeine content in coffee.

Excessive caffeine consumption can be harmful to your health. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) cites increased nervousness, insomnia and tachycardia as consequences. As a rule of thumb, about 5.7 mg per kilogram of body weight is fine. So for a woman who weighs 60 kilograms, that would be around 342 mg. That roughly equates to the four cups of coffee per day mentioned above. For pregnant or breastfeeding women, about half of the value is considered harmless to health.

Although one cannot speak of a dependency or addiction to coffee or caffeine, according to the German Coffee Association, there are habituation effects after regular consumption. Caffeine does not target brain regions known to be addictive. However, it can happen that headaches occur, for example, when coffee drinkers abruptly forego their daily coffee dose.

How much caffeine is in black coffee?

The caffeine content in coffee generally depends on several factors. First of all, what beans you choose. Arabica beans have a lower caffeine content (average 1.2 percent) than Robusta beans (around 1.7 – 3.6 percent). However, these values ​​also vary. You have to consider how hot the beans were roasted, how finely ground the coffee is, and how long you let it steep while preparing it. Simple guidelines: the finer the beans are ground and the longer you let the coffee steep, the higher the caffeine content. According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a black coffee has around 90 mg of caffeine per 200 ml, which is about the same as a normal coffee mug.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Black Ivory

The Black Ivory Coffee from Thailand is made in a similar way as the Kopi Luwak in India. Its price – around €35 ​​per cup – is similar to that of cat coffee. However, the background to the production is different. The elephants responsible for processing the beans live at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, a camp where rescued pachyderms live.

Eight percent of the proceeds from the Black Ivory go back to the Elephant Foundation and are used for feed and veterinary costs. Only 100% Thai Arabica beans are used to produce this exclusive coffee. To produce 1 kg of this coffee, about 30 kg of coffee must be fed to an elephant. The Black Ivory is only served in selected 5-star hotels. But not only the processing of the coffee is something special, but also the preparation in the hotels: the coffee is brewed directly at the table with a French siphon brewer.

Keep Reading
By