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Why Some Apples Taste Mealy and How You Use Them

Floury apples are not a great pleasure on their own, but can still be used in many ways in the kitchen. We will explain why apples become mealy, how to store them correctly and which recipes mealy apples are particularly suitable for.

If the apple tastes mealy, that is not a reason for most people to be happy: Many appreciate the popular fruit precisely because it is crisp and al dente when fresh. That can easily change if apples are stored too long or under the wrong conditions. Also, certain apple varieties are more prone to tenderness than others.

By paying attention to the differences between the different varieties and storing your fruit correctly, you can prevent apples from becoming mealy quickly. If it happens anyway, you can still use the mealy apples in many ways when cooking and baking. At the end of this article you will find some suggestions for this.

Are there particularly mealy apple varieties?

By nature, no apple variety is automatically mealy. However, some varieties are less suitable for storage and become mealy faster than others. These include in particular summer apples such as the white clear apple or the Grevensteiner. They cannot be stored for long and should be eaten no later than four weeks after harvesting. After that, they taste less fresh and crisp. The Golden Delicious also takes on a floury consistency if it is harvested late.

But there are plenty of apple varieties that, if stored well, last a long time and have a lower risk of becoming mealy. This applies above all to rather sour representatives, for example Boskoop, Jonagold and Elstar. But even sweeter varieties like Braeburn and Gala don’t become floury as quickly if you store them well.

This will prevent apples from becoming floury

Apples becoming mealy at some point is a natural process. You can therefore hardly prevent it in the long run. However, by storing your apples properly, you can at least slow down the process. You should note the following:

To avoid apples becoming mealy quickly, store them in a cool, dark place. A basement room is ideal for this. If you don’t have a basement, you can store the apples in the vegetable drawer of your refrigerator. However, you should make sure that they do not come into contact with any other types of fruit and vegetables.
Even if you don’t store apples in the fridge, you should store them separately from other fruits and vegetables. Apples give off the ripening gas ethylene, which allows other varieties to ripen faster. Keeping them away from the rest of your fruit will keep it fresh longer. The apples themselves also benefit from separate storage, because other fruits (e.g. bananas) can also accelerate the ripening of the surrounding fruit. This interaction contributes to the fact that apples lose their freshness faster and become mealy.
It is important that you leave enough space for each apple. This allows air to circulate between the fruits and they stay fresh for longer. It is therefore better not to store large quantities of apples crowded together in a sack, but side by side in a box. Ideally, you should also refrain from storing several layers of apples on top of each other: the specimens on the bottom can easily bruise due to the weight of the upper layers. If you cannot avoid stacking for reasons of space, you can prevent pressure points by separating the individual layers with corrugated cardboard. This way the weight is distributed better.

This is how you can use mealy apples in the kitchen

Floury apples may not taste as good on their own as crunchy ones. If they are still good apart from that, you don’t have to throw them away: There are even more uses for mealy apples in cooking and baking than for those with firm and crunchy flesh.

But floury apples are also ideal for other recipes. Among other things, you can use them to prepare the filling for apple turnovers or apple strudel. They also make a good base for apple sauce, apple jam, apple jelly or apple chutney. So by overcooking mealy apples instead of throwing them away, you can try a variety of delicious recipes while avoiding unnecessary food waste.

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Cooking Tips

Christmas Cookies: Store Them Properly, Keep Them Fresh and Use Leftovers Sensibly

Storing Christmas cookies correctly is important so that you can enjoy your cookies for a long time. We’ll show you how to keep Christmas cookies fresh and how to use leftovers sensibly.

Storing Christmas cookies: This is how you succeed

Whether cinnamon stars, vanilla crescents or gingerbread – cookies are part of the Advent season. So that you can enjoy your homemade biscuits throughout Advent, you should make sure that they last as long as possible. Therefore, we have put together the best tips for you on how to store Christmas cookies properly:

Store by type: After baking, all types of cookies should be allowed to cool completely before tinning. The glaze or other decorations must first dry completely. Otherwise the biscuits may stick together. Then store the Christmas cookies according to type in different airtight cookie jars. You should also wrap homemade stollen in a kitchen towel.
Shelf life is related to the type of cookie: The use-by date is closely related to the type of cookie. Dry cookies can last up to eight weeks. However, if your cookies have a cream filling, you should use them up within a week if possible.
Freezing Christmas cookies: If you can foresee that you will not use up your cookies in time, you can simply freeze them. You will need an airtight container to put your cookies in after they have cooled. However, be careful not to freeze cookies decorated with chocolate. Chocolate turns gray in the freezer. If you want to thaw the frozen pastry again, take it out of the freezer and let it sit at room temperature for several hours.

Tips for making good use of leftover pastries

Storing Christmas cookies properly can avoid food waste. But what to do if there are leftovers? With our ideas you will be able to use what is left over. So nothing has to end up in the garbage, but can be used elsewhere.

Second chance for leftover cookies: You can crumble many types of Christmas cookies and use them instead of biscuits for various recipes. In this way you can refine (vegan) tiramisu or other layered desserts, for example. You can also use them to make sprinkles for apple crumbles. You can melt leftover chocolate and use it as a glaze for cakes or fresh pastries.
Utilize expired ingredients: Each food item is given a sell-by date before it is sold. However, this date is not to be taken so strictly for all foods. Because ingredients such as baking powder, flour or spices can keep much longer. Therefore, you can use these basic foods for baking for a long time without hesitation. Read more: Forget the best before date – many foods last longer than you think
Cookies as a gift idea for friends and relatives: What Christmas cookies you don’t want to store with you may be missing from others. How about giving your homemade treats to friends, acquaintances and relatives? Not only do you give your loved ones a little treat, you also don’t have to throw away your leftover cookies.

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Food

10 Common Mistakes When Making Coffee and How to Avoid Them

Brewing good coffee is not that easy – there are many factors that can influence the taste. Some of these are common knowledge, others perhaps less well known. We introduce you to ten common mistakes when making coffee.

Coffee is one of the most popular hot drinks in Germany: For many, the daily cup for breakfast and in the afternoon is a matter of course. Coffee is not only an everyday drink, but also a luxury food.

However, the enjoyment quickly becomes clouded if coffee is prepared incorrectly. It then tastes too bitter, too thin or even burnt. This is due to various mistakes that often happen when making coffee. In this article we will show you which coffee mistakes are particularly common – and how you can avoid them.

Store coffee incorrectly

You should always store coffee in a dark, cool and dry place so that it does not lose its taste and quality. Heat, moisture and oxygen damage it. Many people therefore fill the coffee into a container. It is best to leave the coffee in its original packaging, seal it well and also store it in an airtight container. Coffee isn’t in good hands in the refrigerator if air can get in: it quickly absorbs the smells of other foods and changes its taste.

Caution: Even if stored well, coffee loses its aroma over time. So only ever buy as much as you need and use it up within six to eight weeks.

The wrong type of coffee

If you don’t like your coffee, it might not be because of the machine, but because of the type. Because coffee is not just coffee: there are over 100 known types of coffee with different flavors. For example, Arabica beans have a milder and less bitter taste than the robust beans of the Robusta plant. Robusta coffee usually also has a higher caffeine content than Arabica coffee. You can find out what you personally like best by trying it out.

The wrong degree of roast

The type of bean doesn’t taste like it does in your favorite café? This could be because you use a different method of preparation. Depending on whether you brew your coffee with a filter machine, an espresso maker or a French press, different degrees of roasted coffee are recommended.

For filter coffee, you should use beans with a medium or light roast.
A dark roast is recommended for espresso.
If in doubt, seek advice from a specialist retailer or take a look at the coffee packaging. Often you will find additional information there.

Mistake: Buy conventional coffee

When buying coffee, not only pay attention to the type of beans and the degree of roasting, but also keep an eye on the production conditions. Conventional coffee is repeatedly criticized because it is often contaminated with pesticides. This is doubly problematic: On the one hand, chemical-synthetic pesticides that are spread over large areas damage the environment. On the other hand, coffee contaminated with pesticides can also have a negative effect on your own health.

It is therefore best to buy organic coffee. It comes from sustainable cultivation and you avoid harmful residues because chemical-synthetic pesticides are banned in organic farming. Various test results also suggest that organic coffee is better for your health: Oko-Test, for example, took a closer look at 22 espresso roasts and found that many beans contain critical amounts of acrylamide. The substance is produced during roasting and is considered carcinogenic.

Grind coffee beans in advance

You can get coffee either ready-ground or in the form of whole beans. Many coffee lovers swear by the second variant and like to freshly grind their coffee at home. It should then have a more intense and pleasant taste than pre-ground coffee powder.

However, this is only true if you actually grind the beans right before brewing. Grinding a whole pack of coffee beans in advance may be more convenient, but it makes little sense: ground coffee loses its aroma faster than whole coffee beans. Therefore, pre-ground coffee does not differ significantly from conventional coffee powder.

Grind bean coffee with the wrong degree of grinding

When you grind your coffee yourself at home, it’s not only important to do it fresh every time – you should also consider the correct grind size. If the powder is ground too finely, the coffee releases too many bitter substances into the water, resulting in an unpleasantly bitter taste. On the other hand, powder that is too coarse does not release enough aromas into the water – the result is a rather thin coffee with little taste.

Basically, you should use medium-fine ground beans for the filter coffee machine
and use finely ground beans for hand filter coffee.
A coarser grind is recommended for espresso makers and French presses.

Mistake: Buying unfair coffee

In addition to the organic seal, you should also look out for the Fairtrade seal on the coffee pack of your choice. Poor working conditions often prevail on coffee plantations and local coffee farmers are often badly paid by bulk buyers. Fairtrade coffee, on the other hand, is traded and exported under fair conditions: For example, fair trade sets a minimum price for coffee that is not subject to the usual price fluctuations on the world market. This guarantees that the farmers can cover their production costs and their existence is not threatened. Other goals of fair trade are to enable coffee farmers to receive further training, to strengthen their negotiating position with customers and to combat child labor on coffee plantations.

In addition to the social aspect, Fairtrade coffee is usually also more sustainable, because fair trade focuses on environmental protection and bans certain pesticides. In addition, Fairtrade companies are more careful with valuable resources such as water. Our guide gives you an overview of the best places to buy Fairtrade coffee.

Incorrect amount of ground coffee

Coffee often gets too strong or too weak because you use too much or too little powder. For a pleasant taste you can use the following rule of thumb:

You need seven to ten grams of ground coffee per cup of coffee (125 to 150 milliliters). Ten grams is approximately one heaped tablespoon. For a more accurate dosage, you can also use a special teaspoon to help you measure.

Brew coffee with water that is too hot

You should avoid this mistake especially if you brew your coffee with a French press or prepare Turkish coffee. Boiling hot water weakens the aroma of coffee and more bitter substances are released. Ultimately, the finished coffee tastes much more bitter.

It is better to use water with a temperature below 100 degrees Celsius for these types of preparation; 90 to 95 degrees are ideal. If you don’t have a way to measure the water temperature precisely, you can simply let the water cool slightly after boiling before using it to brew the coffee.

Water quality is also important

What many people don’t take into account: It’s not just the coffee powder itself that contributes to the taste of a cup of coffee, but also the quality of the water. Be sure to use fresh and pure water to brew your coffee and pay particular attention to the calcium and magnesium content. If it is particularly high, we speak of hard water – this has an unfavorable effect on the taste of the coffee and can also calcify the coffee machine. Too soft water with very little mineral content is not recommended either. The ideal water hardness is a maximum of 8 °dH.

If you are unsure about the composition, you can have your tap water tested. If it’s high in calcium and magnesium, you can soften it by using a water filter. Alternatively, you can brew your coffee with mineral water. In principle, however, tap water is better for the environment than plastic bottles.

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health

Storing Lemons: How to Store Them Properly

If you want to store lemons, you have to consider a few things. With the right storage conditions, lemons stay fresh for several weeks – we’ll show you what’s important.

To store lemons properly, you should know their properties. Lemons are the fruit of the lemon tree and belong to the citrus fruits. They require an evenly warm and humid climate and are sensitive to drought and cold. Due to the cold winters, lemon trees do not thrive in Central Europe.

Lemons from conventional cultivation are usually treated with preservatives and wax so that they can be kept for as long as possible. It is therefore better to use organic lemons. Chemical-synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers are prohibited in organic farming. Organic lemons are only superficially cleaned and the natural wax layer of the fruit is preserved. If you buy organic lemons, you can also use the lemon zest. You also support sustainable agriculture.

Unfortunately, lemons are not native to Germany. To avoid long transport routes, you can use European lemons. Organic lemons from northern Italy are in season between November and July. You can buy Spanish organic lemons all year round.

Storing lemons: You should pay attention to this

With these tips you can store lemons properly:

Lemons should be stored in a cool, dark place.
The best temperature to store lemons is between ten and fifteen degrees Celsius.
A cool, windowless pantry or the dark basement is best suited for this.
Avoid storing lemons in the fridge as the fridge temperature is too low.
To avoid mold, you should keep a distance between the individual lemons. Therefore, be sure to remove the shopping bag if you want to store lemons longer. This makes it harder for mold to spread.
Spread an old newspaper under the lemons. The newspaper absorbs excess moisture, which reduces mold growth.
Avoid storing lemons near apples or tomatoes. The escaping ethylene greatly accelerates the ripening process of the lemons.
By the way: Organic lemons go moldy faster because no chemical-synthetic pesticides are used during cultivation. When buying, make sure that the lemons do not have bruises.

There are also a few tips for cut lemons. If you only need half a lemon when cooking or baking, you can store the other half in the fridge for a day or two:

Place the lemons cut-side down on a small plate.
Place the plate with the lemon half on the top shelf or in the refrigerator door. This is where the highest temperatures prevail.
Consume the lemon within a day or two.

Reserve the lemon juice

Store fresh lemon juice in a sealed container in the fridge. Fresh lemon juice will keep for a day or two.

If you want to extend the shelf life of lemon juice, you can freeze it. Even if you only need lemon juice very rarely and in small amounts, freezing is a good solution. Use small jars to freeze lemon juice. Alternatively, you can freeze it in ice cube trays. This way you always have a small amount of lemon juice available.

Lemon ice cubes are a great way to quickly prepare a cool, refreshing drink, especially in summer. Frozen lemon juice has a shelf life of at least six months.

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Food

Chive Blossoms: How to Use Them

The purple chive flowers appear in the herb bed from March to September. Like chives themselves, you can use them as a spice and decoration in the kitchen. We’ll show you how to harvest and process the flowers.

Chive blossoms are not only pretty to look at, they also taste very good. Unlike the aromatic, spicy stalks of chives, the taste of the flowers is milder and slightly sweet. The combination of the chive blossoms with the stalks is therefore particularly tasty. In the following article you will find out how exactly you harvest the flowers and what versatile uses there are for them.

Harvesting chive blossoms correctly: Here’s how

Depending on the weather, you can harvest chive blossoms from March to September. Since the flowers contain a lot of nectar, chives are a particularly bee-friendly plant that also attracts all kinds of other insects. These crawl into the flower funnel in search of food. So that you can pick the chive blossoms without disturbing animal visitors, you should move the harvest to the early hours of the morning. Most insects do not go in search of food before the first rays of the sun. In addition, the chive blossoms in the morning contain a particularly large number of essential oils.

Proceed as follows when harvesting the chive blossoms:

Using a sharp knife, cut off the flower stalks right at the base.
Then shake the harvested chive flowers vigorously so that hidden insects fall out of the flowers.
Make sure that you collect buds that are as clean and intact as possible that you don’t have to wash again. Rinsing vigorously destroys the petals, causing the chive flowers to lose their aroma.
It is best to process the chive blossoms fresh so that they retain their taste.
By the way: As soon as chives bloom, the stalks slowly lose their strong aroma because the plant puts all its energy into the pink-purple chive blossoms. Nevertheless, you can continue to use the straws after flowering. Just note that you should not harvest woody stalks of chives.

Chive Blossoms: Healthy and delicious

Like most edible flowers, chive flowers contain many phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals. Therefore, the freshly harvested flowers and buds are a healthy source of nutrients that you can safely use in salads, soups or other dishes. Chives and their flowers have long been considered medicinal plants in folk medicine, which are said to have antihypertensive effects, among other things.

Use Chive Blossoms: Aromatic Chive Blossom Butter

Chives can be used in many ways in the kitchen. You can sprinkle the flowers decoratively over salads, soups or your daily sandwich. If that’s not sophisticated enough for you, you can also pickle the chive blossoms in salt, oil or vinegar. If you’re a fan of herb butter, you can use the mild flowers along with the stalks to make a flavorful chive flower butter that’s perfect for barbecue season.

Ingredients:

250 g butter or vegan margarine
2 clove(s) garlic
20chive flowers
a few stalks of chives
Salt
pepper

Directions:

Put the butter or vegan margarine in a small saucepan and let it melt over low heat. Make sure, however, that it does not liquefy completely.
Peel the garlic and press it through a garlic press or finely chop it. Then mix it with the softened butter.
Check the chive flowers for stray insects and shake them out thoroughly. Then pluck off the individual petals.
Wash the chives and cut them into thin rings.
Add the flowers and chive rings to the butter and mix thoroughly.
Finally, season the butter with salt and pepper and refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

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Food

Dry Yeast and Fresh Yeast: Differences and How to Replace Them

Whether dry yeast or fresh yeast – you can bake airy pizza dough and bread with both types of yeast. In this guide you will find out what the differences are and how you can use fresh yeast and dry yeast.

Yeast is a unicellular microorganism that belongs to the fungi family. This living organism feeds on the sugars and starches in the dough and converts them into carbon dioxide gas, among other things. This is reflected in the bubbles in the dough, which allow it to rise and make it more airy. We use this property of yeast for many recipes – whether pizza dough, home-baked bread or cinnamon rolls.

You can find yeast in two main forms on the market: as dry yeast and fresh yeast, which is also called block yeast. We will explain how the two differ, what you need to look out for when storing and using them, and how you can convert one type of yeast and replace it with the other.

Dry yeast and fresh yeast: differences in yeast types

Dry yeast and fresh yeast have much more in common than differences:

Both dry yeast and fresh yeast are the same strains of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), also known as baker’s yeast or brewer’s yeast.
Dry yeast and fresh yeast serve the same purpose in the bakery: they convert sugar and starch into gaseous carbon dioxide, allowing the dough to rise.
The yeast cultures were also grown and propagated in the same way: on a carbohydrate-rich culture medium. The exact cultivation form depends on whether it is conventional yeast or organic yeast – but not whether it is dry yeast or fresh yeast. You can find out below how organic yeast differs from conventional yeast.

But there are also big differences between dry yeast and fresh yeast:

While fresh yeast consists of around 70 percent water, dry yeast only contains around five percent residual moisture. Therein lies the biggest difference: For dry yeast, fresh yeast is dried.
As a result, dry yeast has a significantly longer shelf life than fresh yeast. While you can store fresh yeast in the fridge for a maximum of two weeks, dry yeast can be stored at room temperature for between several months and a year.
The fungal cultures contained in the dry yeast are inactivated and are only activated by adding liquid. Nevertheless, they are living microorganisms – only in a “resting state”.

Dry yeast or fresh yeast – which is better?

Both dry yeast and fresh yeast do an excellent job as leavening agents. In the finished recipe, the difference is hardly or not at all noticeable.

The benefits of fresh yeast are rather subjective:

Some (hobby) bakers swear by fresh yeast because it gives the baked goods a rounder, slightly sweeter taste.
Some also report that yeast dough rises slightly better with fresh yeast than with dry yeast.
If baked goods require a particularly long fermentation time or several resting phases to rise, fresh yeast is usually recommended. Because it is said to have a longer-lasting driving force than dry yeast.
On the other hand, dry yeast has prevailed today mainly because of its practical advantages over fresh yeast:

Dry yeast can be stored at room temperature for several months in a closed packet. Once opened, you can store the packet tightly sealed in the fridge for another two weeks. Fresh yeast, on the other hand, must be stored in the refrigerator and used within two weeks of purchase.
You don’t have to stir the dry yeast into liquid beforehand, you can mix it directly with the dry baking ingredients. This makes it a little easier to mix the dry yeast with the dough than fresh yeast.
In addition, thanks to its shape, dry yeast is a little easier to dose than fresh yeast in block form.

Conclusion of the comparison:

Fresh yeast should give the baked goods a slightly better taste and also have a higher raising power than dry yeast. For a few recipes like yeast loaf or Berlin pancakes, this is possibly the better yeast.
On the other hand, dry yeast is the much more practical form of yeast, especially for hobby bakers: it lasts much longer and is easier and faster to process.

Using dry yeast and fresh yeast: tips for the kitchen

If you want to make yeast dough yourself, you should consider the following points when preparing it:

First stir fresh yeast with some of the lukewarm liquid from the recipe and some sugar and let this mixture stand for about ten minutes. You can tell by the formation of bubbles that the yeast have started their activity. After the ten minutes, you can mix the liquid with the remaining baking ingredients.
You don’t need to mix dry yeast with liquid first. Mix directly into the dry ingredients in the recipe. Make sure that the remaining ingredients are not too cold: you should therefore take them out of the fridge some time beforehand.
Whether fresh yeast or dry yeast: yeast has the best raising power at temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees. At more than 45 degrees, the yeast fungi die off, while at less than ten degrees, the metabolic processes run considerably more slowly. That means: The cooler, the more walking time you have to plan.
When baking, you can easily convert and replace fresh yeast with dry yeast:

You can replace one cube of fresh yeast (42 grams) with two packets of dry yeast (fourteen grams).
As a result, one packet of dry yeast is equivalent to about half a cube of fresh yeast (21 grams).
As a rule of thumb, half a cube of fresh yeast or a packet of dry yeast is sufficient for 500 grams of flour. However, this amount varies greatly depending on the recipe.
In principle, you can also mix fresh yeast and dry yeast in a recipe, should this ever be necessary.

Buy yeast: organic quality and list of ingredients

It doesn’t matter whether it’s dry yeast or fresh yeast: we recommend that you pay attention to organic quality when buying. Because there are some differences between organic yeast and conventional yeast:

Growth medium: Conventional yeasts are often cultivated on molasses (a by-product of sugar production), phosphorus or inorganic nitrogen. Organic yeasts, on the other hand, are cultivated on natural raw materials from controlled organic cultivation, often on grain or sugar beet syrup.
Defoaming agent: To prevent growth-inhibiting foam from forming, sunflower oil is added to organic yeast as a defoaming agent. With conventional yeasts, synthetic substances are used for this purpose, which later have to be rinsed out with plenty of water. Therefore, according to the Bavarian Consumer Center, more water is used in the production of conventional yeast than in the case of organic yeast.
Genetic engineering: In addition, no genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are used in the production of organic yeast. Since there are still no reliable long-term studies on the health effects of GMOs, we recommend non-GMO foods.
If you want to buy dry yeast, you should also take a closer look at the ingredients:

Some of the dry yeast contains emulsifiers so that the yeast does not dry out. The most commonly used emulsifier is sorbitan monostearate with the E number 491. There are even some emulsifiers in fresh yeast.
Organic manufacturers in particular usually deliberately avoid using emulsifiers. With their yeast, there is nothing else in the packet but yeast.

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Food

Here’s How You Can Use Fennel Greens Instead of Throwing Them Away

Fennel green is healthy and brings a lot of aroma. Instead of throwing it away, you can use it to flavor many dishes. You can find out how to use it and how to make a delicious fennel green pesto here.

Almost all parts of fennel are edible: apart from the hard stalk, you can use everything it has to offer – even the green fennel. It’s too good to end up in the trash. Because fennel green not only tastes very spicy, but is also healthy.

In Germany, the fennel season runs from June to November. Outside this period, the vegetables come from Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Italy.

Fennel green is so healthy

Fennel is considered an extremely healthy vegetable. It contains many minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium and iron, which, among other things, ensure strong nails, healthy hair and strong bones. In addition, it provides vitamins A, C, and B, as well as essential oils.

A study found that there are even more minerals in the green fennel than in the tuber. In addition, fennel green contains omega-3 fatty acids, including α-linolenic acid, which according to the study should have anti-cancer properties.

Various essential oils have also been detected in fennel greens, including anethole, which is considered to be expectorant and slightly antibacterial.

100 grams of fennel green have the following nutritional values:

Energy: 84 kcal
Carbohydrates: 18.44 g
Protein: 1.16g
Fat: 0.6g

Here’s how you can use fennel greens

Especially in summer you can get particularly fresh fennel from the region. Not only the tuber is then suitable for many delicious dishes, you can also process the fennel green. We present you a recipe for fennel green pesto. In addition to the pesto, you can also try the following ideas with fennel greens:

Use it like parsley and season fish and meat dishes with chopped fennel greens. But the spicy aroma also goes well with salads and vegetables such as kohlrabi and cauliflower.
Top various dishes with fennel greens, for example bread topped with cucumber.
Try a classic Italian dish with fennel greens: pasta with fennel.
Tip: Find out the right dosage of fennel herb. The intense taste can quickly ensure that other flavors are masked.

Save the fennel greens

Like any herb, you should also use fennel greens as soon as possible, because it tastes the most intense fresh. If the herb looks limp and wilted, it is no longer fresh. However, if you have more fennel greens than you can use right away, you can store them for a few days. This is the best way to do it:

Pluck the fennel greens from the stalks.
Fill an oblong container with cold water and place the fennel greens in it.
Seal the container and put it in the fridge – but not in the back where it’s coldest. There it can get too cold for the fennel greens.
Alternatively, you can freeze fennel greens:

Pick off the green fennel, chop it finely and fill it into ice cube trays.
Fill them up with oil and freeze them.
You can thaw the ice cubes for salad dressings, for example.

Recipe for fennel green pesto

Ingredients:

150 g green fennel
3 EL pine nuts, toasted
20 g Pecorino (optional yeast flakes as a vegan alternative)
100 mlorganic olive oil
salt to taste

Directions:

Wash the fennel greens and dry them well with a clean kitchen towel. Pick the fennel greens from the stalks and chop them finely.
Finely chop the pine nuts and grate the pecorino cheese. You can also use yeast flakes as a vegan alternative to pecorino.
Mix together the fennel greens, cheese or nutritional yeast, pine nuts, and oil. Season the pesto with salt.
Pour the pesto into a sealable jar and keep it in the fridge. Tip: If the aniseed flavor of the fennel herb in the pesto is too intense for you, you can replace half with parsley or carrot greens.

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Cooking Tips

Cleaning Mushrooms: Should You Really Not Wash Them?

It is often recommended to only clean mushrooms and in no case wash them under running water. But is that really true? You can find out here how best to clean mushrooms before preparation.

Whether mushroom pan, mushroom cream sauce or mushroom cream soup: mushroom recipes usually recommend cleaning the mushrooms before preparation. This means removing any soil residue with a brush or a special mushroom brush. Cleaning, unlike washing, is a dry process. Washing the mushrooms with water is often strongly discouraged. But why?

Clean or wash mushrooms?

The advice not to wash mushrooms under running water is common. They are said to become soaked with liquid and lose their taste.

In fact, mushrooms absorb a small amount of extra liquid when they come into contact with water. Unlike vegetables such as peppers, aubergines or courgettes, they do not have a solid shell that water could roll off. They can therefore absorb some of it.

However, mushrooms already contain a lot of water – in the case of button mushrooms, for example, it is up to 91 percent. This leaves little room for additional water intake. An experiment by the US author Harold McGee confirms this assumption: According to the British Guardian, McGee soaked 252 grams of mushrooms in a water bath for five minutes. They then weighed 258 grams, just six grams more. Since the mushrooms come into contact with water for a significantly shorter time when rinsing, they should absorb significantly less liquid. You can read about this experiment in McGee’s book “The Curious Cook”.

Still, there is slight disagreement as to whether or not washing affects the taste of the mushrooms. According to McGee, there was no loss of taste in the washed mushrooms. According to the Guardian, on the other hand, the British Mushroom Bureau advises against washing mushrooms for too long: the longer the water contact lasts, the more the flavor fades. Nevertheless, the advice center does not completely advise against cleaning mushrooms under water. Wiping them off with a damp cloth or rinsing them under running water is not a problem.

Cleaning mushrooms: is it even necessary?

Self-collected mushrooms can certainly have heavy soil residues or other dirt. In this case, it is advisable to clean the mushrooms and wash them if necessary.

The situation is different with cultivated fungi: They are usually little or not at all contaminated when they are sold. In the case of slight residues, cleaning with a brush or brush is sufficient.

If you don’t want the mushrooms to come into contact with running water, you can wipe them off with a damp kitchen towel afterwards. You can find more detailed tips and hints in these guide articles:

Clean mushrooms: simple step-by-step instructions
Cleaning porcini mushrooms: 3 tips for mushroom pickers
You should be particularly careful when cleaning if you want to prepare mushrooms raw, for example in a mushroom salad. According to the consumer advice center, you should always heat other types of mushrooms before you eat them. They are more digestible and possible pathogens are killed.

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Cooking Tips

Can Butter Go Bad? Here’s How to Store Them Properly

Butter can go bad – if you store it wrong. We explain how to recognize this and give you tips for the right storage.

Can butter go bad?

If you store it incorrectly, butter can go bad quickly. According to the consumer advice center, butter only lasts a few days at room temperature, for example, while it can be kept for several weeks in the refrigerator and even months in the freezer. If you are unsure whether you can still eat butter, trust your senses.

Signs such as a sour odor, dark yellow discoloration, and rancid taste can indicate the butter has gone bad. If you can identify the characteristics mentioned in your butter, you must throw it away. According to the consumer advice center, harmful decomposition products can arise during the decomposition process.

Note: An expired best-before date alone says nothing about whether the butter is still good. After all, this is not a use-by date like meat, but merely an orientation for you as a consumer.

Storing butter correctly: This is how it works

So that your butter does not go bad, you should store it properly:

Keep the butter as cool as possible, preferably in a sealable container in the butter compartment of the refrigerator.
Alternatively, you can freeze them in small portions.
If you want to spread the butter on your bread, for example, make sure you use a clean knife.
Incidentally, these storage tips can also be applied to margarine.
If you buy butter, you should pay attention to organic quality. This is how you support species-appropriate animal husbandry. The Naturland, Demeter and Bioland seals have particularly strict requirements. You can also make your own butter.

The same applies to margarine, which is even more environmentally and animal-friendly in production because it is mainly derived from plants (and vegan margarine is entirely plant-based). Margarine is particularly sustainable if it contains no palm oil.

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Cooking Tips

Bitter Almonds are Poisonous – So You Can Still Eat Them

Bitter almonds are poisonous when raw due to the hydrocyanic acid. Cooked or baked, however, they are used in many traditional recipes. Here you can find out when you can eat bitter almonds and what to look out for.

Bitter almonds are valued for their intense almond flavor and, despite their toxic effect, are often used as a baking ingredient. This is possible because the toxic substance largely evaporates when heated. In contrast to baking flavors, you get a natural and less dominant bitter almond taste. We’ll show you what you absolutely have to consider when seasoning with bitter almonds.

Bitter Almonds: Inedible when raw

Bitter almonds are closely related to the sweet almonds and like these fruits of the almond tree. Visually, the two subspecies can often hardly be distinguished, with the bitter almond being slightly smaller than the sweet almond. Some bitter specimens can also be found among sweet almonds, which also contain hydrocyanic acid and should not be eaten raw. If you bite into a very bitter almond from a packet of sweet almonds, it’s best to spit it out.

Bitter almonds contain around three to five percent amygdalin, i.e. hydrocyanic acid bound to sugar residues, which is toxic when raw. During digestion, the highly toxic hydrocyanic acid is split off, which can cause serious symptoms of poisoning even in small quantities. In addition to hydrocyanic acid (or hydrogen cyanide), benzaldehyde is also split off. Both substances have the typical bitter almond taste, which is reminiscent of marzipan and is popular in many baking recipes. In contrast to hydrocyanic acid, benzaldehyde is not toxic and is used as a bitter almond aroma (also called false bitter almond oil) for baking.

According to the Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (LAVES), the hydrogen cyanide content of raw bitter almonds is up to 3000 milligrams per kilogram. Depending on body weight, 5 to 10 bitter almonds can be deadly for children. This number is higher for adults, but you should definitely avoid raw bitter almonds. In the trade, the bitter seeds are usually only offered in small packs of 50 grams. You can buy bitter almonds in the health food store or in the pharmacy.

By the way: Bitter apricot kernels also contain amygdalin. Studies by LAVES have shown that their hydrocyanic acid content is comparable to that of bitter almonds. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) warns against eating more than two apricot kernels a day; tolerance is significantly lower in children. The same applies to raw bitter almonds.

Cooking or baking bitter almonds: this is how you can eat them

Since hydrocyanic acid is very sensitive to heat, it evaporates when cooking or baking and only a very small proportion of the toxic substance remains. You can therefore consume small amounts in heated dishes without hesitation. For example, you can use bitter almonds to flavor pastries, liqueurs or other desserts. Traditionally, bitter almonds are incorporated into Christmas stollen, amaretti and liqueurs, among other things.

You can process bitter almonds by grinding them finely or grating them with the other ingredients like fresh nutmeg with a fine grater. The food must then be heated. Alternatively, you can heat the kernels separately in the oven and use them to refine cold desserts. Depending on how intense the bitter almond taste should be, you can calculate around 5 to 15 grams of bitter almonds per 500 grams of mass. This amount is completely harmless after heating.

Below you will find a recipe for aromatic cantuccini with bitter almonds without artificial flavorings.

Cantuccini with bitter almonds: recipe without artificial baking flavors

Ingredients:

250 g flour
125 gsugar
1 teaspoon Baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
10 g bitter almonds
2organic eggs
20 gorganic butter (soft)
0.5 vanilla bean
200 g almonds
Zest of an organic lemon (optional)

Directions:

Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and mix together.
Finely grind the bitter almonds or use a very fine grater to grate them into the dry ingredients. Mix everything thoroughly.
Add the organic eggs, the softened butter and the pulp of half a vanilla pod (alternatively, you can also use a pinch of homemade vanilla sugar) and knead all the ingredients together. For a special aroma you can add the zest of an organic lemon. Knead in the whole sweet almonds at the end.
Chill the dough for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 190°C top/bottom heat. In the meantime, divide the dough into five portions, roll them into four centimeter thick strands and place them on a baking tray lined with a baking paper alternative or baking paper. Leave some space between the rolls as the pastries will rise in the oven.
Bake the rolls for about 12 to 15 minutes, let them cool slightly and cut them into slices about 1.5 centimeters wide.
Place them cut-side up on the baking sheet and bake for another 10 minutes until golden brown. Allow the cantuccini to cool completely before packing in an airtight container.

Alternatives to bitter almonds: bitter almond flavor

Due to the toxic hydrogen cyanide, many prefer to use bitter almond flavoring when baking, which tastes the same but does not contain any of the toxic substances found in bitter almonds.

You can also use bitter almond oil, which is obtained from the kernels of bitter almonds, apricots or other stone fruit. Bitter almond oil consists mainly of benzaldehyde, but also contains toxic hydrocyanic acid. Thanks to the intense almond aroma, it is used as a spice oil in food production but also in perfumery. Important: If you want to use bitter almond oil for food, you must heat it up before consumption.

Tip: The oil can be freed from the hydrocyanic acid using special processes. You can therefore also find bitter almond oil free of hydrocyanic acid in stores.

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