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Make Matcha Tea: It Tastes Best with this Technique

Make matcha tea perfectly is considered a high art in Asia. Because green tea is very healthy and is becoming more and more popular with us. Here’s how to brew it properly.

Making matcha tea: This is how the powdered tea succeeds

Brewing Matcha tea is a little more complex than with conventional teas. In order for the tea to be nice and creamy, there are a few things to consider. Because to be able to prepare it, you need a bamboo spatula, a bamboo whisk and a matcha bowl (a set is available from **Amazon, for example).

For the matcha tea you also need:

two to four bamboo spatulas or one to two heaped teaspoons of matcha tea powder
75 ml hot water (about 80 degrees Celsius)
1. Soak bamboo whisk

The bamboo broom, called “chasen” by professionals, should be placed in warm water for a few minutes. This makes it smoother and the tea can be whipped better.

2. Matcha powder sift

Matcha tea is only available as a powder. So that no annoying lumps form during the preparation, you should first pass the powder through a fine sieve. This way you can be sure that the tea will have a nice consistency and an even taste.

3. Mix the paste

Now put the powder in the bowl. The more tea you use, the thicker and creamier the matcha tea will be in the end. Pour in some of the hot water. With the Chasen you start beating the tea into a paste.

4. Brew tea

You don’t stir the matcha tea, but open it in a W-shape. To do this, draw a W in the matcha bowl in short, quick movements. Keep your wrist as loose as possible. Gradually add the rest of the water.

5. Enjoy

The matcha tea is ready when the consistency is even and the surface is creamy. Finally, carefully guide the chasen along the inside of the bowl. Now you can enjoy the tea.

That’s why matcha tea is so healthy

Unlike classic green tea, matcha tea uses the entire leaf. During production, the tea leaf is ground and pulverized. In this way, important nutrients are retained that are lost in conventional tea during production.

Matcha tea is particularly rich in antioxidants that protect cells from free radicals. It also contains a variety of vitamins. These include vitamin B1, B2 and B3, but also vitamin C, E and K. Nutrients such as calcium, potassium and beta-carotene also make it so healthy.

Matcha tea has a distinctive green color that can vary somewhat depending on the variety. You can recognize high-quality tea by the fact that it does not taste bitter, but rather has a slight sweetness.

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Food

Calabash: This is How You Can Plant and Use the Bottle Gourd

The gourd is a real eye-catcher in the garden because of its special shape. We will show you how to plant and use the bottle gourd.

The calabash belongs to the climbing plants and is also called bottle gourd because of its unusual shape. This shape is mainly created when the pumpkin grows hanging down. The gourd originally came from North and South America. There, the pumpkin species is not only used in various recipes. The dried skin of the gourd is good for making various vessels and even musical instruments.

Planting calabash: this is how you do it right

The bottle gourd thrives primarily in countries with a Mediterranean climate. If you want to plant gourds in your own garden, it is best to prefer seeds to plants indoors. You will find a large selection of organic seeds for the calabash in well-stocked gardening shops.

Preparing calabash from seeds: From April you can germinate bottle gourd seeds in small flower pots with a diameter of about ten centimeters. You should only plant the early seeds in the garden when there is no longer any danger of night frosts, which is usually the case at the beginning of May.

Fill the flower pots with plenty of potting soil. Make sure the soil is peat-free to protect the bogs.
Put one seed in the center of each pot and cover it with a thin layer of soil.
Then place the growing pots in a bright and warm place, for example on the windowsill. Always keep the soil slightly moist for the next few days.
After a week you should be able to see the first cotyledons. Now move the calabash seedlings to a slightly cooler spot where the temperature should be between 16 and 20 degrees Celsius.
Before you plant the little bottle gourds in the garden, you should harden them off a bit. To do this, place the pots outside on warmer days.

Before you plant the calabash in the natural garden or vegetable garden, you should observe the following information:

The right location: A sunny and warm location is a must if you want to successfully establish the bottle gourd in your garden. For example, a garden bed in front of a hedge or a stable fence is best. Especially the latter can be a practical climbing aid for climbing plants.
The right soil: gourds need a lot of nutrients to develop their fruit. You should therefore dig up the soil at the location one to two weeks beforehand and dig up plenty of compost under the soil.
Planting calabash in the garden:

First dig sufficiently large planting holes for the young gourds. Leave at least 40 centimeters between each hole.
Lay a drainage layer of pebbles at the bottom of the holes so that the irrigation water runs off better later.
Now place the pumpkin plants that you have brought forward in the holes and fill everything back up with soil.
Finally, water the gourds with plenty of rainwater.

Proper care for the gourd

The bottle gourd is quite undemanding in its care and therefore also well suited for gardening beginners: inside. So that you can bring in the first successful pumpkin harvest from the end of August, you should consider the following tips:

Watering: Even if the gourd needs a lot of water, you should definitely avoid waterlogging. Especially on hot summer days you have to water the pumpkin plant, preferably in the cooler evening hours. Always aim the water jet directly at the roots, because wet leaves and flowers can quickly become moldy. You can also mulch calabashes from mid to late June so that the soil at the location retains moisture better.
Fertilizer: In order to be able to develop its flowers and fruits properly, the bottle gourd needs many additional nutrients. Therefore, enrich the soil at the site with compost every two weeks if possible. Horn shavings or plant manure are just as suitable as fertilizer.
Climbing aids: Even though gourds are climbing plants, they need some support to climb up. Therefore, put a stable climbing aid in the ground shortly after the harvest, to which you can tie the pumpkin plant.
Be stingy: The fewer flowers there are on your pumpkin plant, the larger the fruits that will later develop from them. So if you want to grow particularly large bottle gourds, you should remove some flowers. Concentrate on the first flowers at the ends of the shoots.
Harvesting: When the annual pumpkin plant slowly begins to wither at the end of August, you can harvest the bottle gourds. If you want to be on the safe side, you can tap the pumpkin’s skin lightly. If the tone sounds dull and hollow, the calabash is ripe. In the last few weeks before harvest, you should protect the pumpkins from the blazing sun with a damp cloth. This will prevent the shell from getting unsightly cracks.

You can use the bottle gourd in so many different ways

In their countries of origin, the calabash has long been used as a container for liquids or even as a musical instrument. If you want to paint and carve the gourds, the first thing to do after harvest is to dry them.

Drying and processing bottle gourd:

Find a warm, dry place for the gourds where they can air dry. Do not use additional heat sources such as fan heaters.
Place pumpkins that will stand on their own on a firm cloth-lined surface.
All other gourds should be hung up by tying some gardening raffia around the neck.
As soon as the seeds rattle loudly when you shake them, the pumpkin is dry.

You can process the dried bottle gourd into various items:

drinking bottles
vases
lamps
Musical instruments for children, for example rattles

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Food

Frothing Almond Milk: This is How It Works

Unlike soy milk, for example, almond milk does not froth well. But with a few tricks or special barista versions, it still works. We will explain to you what is important when it comes to almond milk foam.

Almond milk is particularly popular among allergy sufferers because it is free of lactose, soy protein, milk protein and gluten. However, due to the cultivation of almonds, almond milk is not the most environmentally friendly milk alternative. Because of the taste, many still use almond milk. The problem: it usually doesn’t foam well because it lacks enough fat and protein.

There are now special barista versions of almond milk on the market that are suitable for frothing. We present selected products to you. We will also explain how you can make your own almond milk and how you can use a few ingredients to make it a barista edition.

Froth almond milk – you can do it with special products

In general, normal almond milk is not well suited for “latte-style” coffee: either it cannot be frothed at all or it forms unpleasant flakes in the coffee.

In the meantime, however, the trade has followed suit and offers some barista versions of almond milk that are especially suitable for frothing. However, most of these products contain additives and are not available in organic quality:

For example, there is Joya’s barista almond milk, which contains maltodextrin, the stabilizer gellan and lecithins as well as dipotassium phosphate as an acid regulator.
Alpro also has a barista almond milk in its range, but it also contains other additives: In addition to sugar, fructose, acidity regulators and the stabilizers gellan and guar gum, it also contains flavors.
EcoMil’s barista almond milk is available in organic quality and with higher-quality ingredients: it contains cane sugar, tapioca starch, sunflower oil, pea protein, natural vanilla flavoring and the stabilizer gellan gum.
The fact that Barista almond milk products require so many additives shows that “normal” almond milk is otherwise difficult to froth. With a good milk frother, you can also achieve good results with the spelled-almond drink from Natumi or the almond drink from Alnatura. Both products contain no unnecessary additives and are available in organic quality.

The most important tip: Only cold almond milk can be frothed at all. Almond milk is best straight from the fridge.

Make barista almond milk yourself: recipe ideas

If you want to froth regular almond milk, a few other ingredients can help. As a basic ingredient, you can either use store-bought organic almond milk or make your own almond milk.

To add more proteins and fats to the almond milk and give it more stability, you can try the following ingredients:

About 50 grams of soaked cashew nuts or a heaping tablespoon of cashew butter in one liter of almond milk give the vegan milk alternative more protein and fat. Then, blend the milk in a high-speed blender and strain it through a nut milk bag. Then the almond milk can be foamed a little better.
Alternatively, you can also add vegetable cooking oil. But it takes quite a lot for that – about 90 milliliters of oil to 1 liter of almond milk. Rapeseed oil or sunflower oil are suitable.
To increase the protein content, you can add a tablespoon of protein powder to the almond milk – preferably in addition to the vegetable oil. Pea protein or hemp protein, for example, are recommended.
Additionally, you can add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of guar gum, locust bean gum, or gellan gum to almond milk as a stabilizer. This makes the almond milk creamier and easier to froth.
Tapioca starch, locust bean gum or psyllium husk powder are suitable natural thickeners.
You can also add lecithin to prevent the frothed almond milk from flaking in the coffee. This emulsifier prevents the individual ingredients from separating from each other. In addition to soy lecithin, you can also use sunflower lecithin.
It is also important that the almond milk is as cool as possible before frothing and that you use a good milk frother (e.g. from Memolife**). With the appropriate ingredients such as cashew butter, oil, protein powder and stabilizer, the almond milk should also be frothed with an ordinary mini milk frother.

Alternatively, you can also switch to another plant-based milk as a milk substitute: soy milk and spelled milk are particularly easy to froth. Oat milk is also available in selected barista editions that use few additives.

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Cooking Tips

Open and Core the Pomegranate – This is How It Works Without Mess

Opening a pomegranate doesn’t seem that easy. We’ll show you how to open and core a pomegranate without the mess – and thus benefit from the vitamins and minerals it contains.

Perhaps you have left numerous stains on your clothes or on the wall when opening a pomegranate. The bulging pomegranate seeds explode when you try to loosen them from the shell; stubborn red stains on clothing, furniture and walls are therefore not uncommon.

We’ll show you two methods on how to open and core the pomegranate – without any mess.

Open and core the pomegranate: the tapping method

For this you need:

a sharp knife
a spoon
a bowl
cutting board
With this method, you place the pomegranate on a cutting board and carefully cut it in half with a sharp knife.
Take one half and hold it cut-side down over the bowl.
Use the round side of the spoon to tap the shell vigorously (!) until all the seeds have come loose. This way the kernels won’t get crushed and will keep their shape.

Open pomegranate underwater

For this you need:

a sharp knife
a cutting board
a bowl of cold water
Halve the pomegranate with the knife.
Hold one half in the water.
There you carefully remove the cores with your fingers. Should a core explode due to the pressure when removing it, the water prevents the hard-to-remove juice from sticking to the wall and clothing.

Pomegranate: ruby red vitamin bomb

Once you have opened the pomegranate, its ruby-like pits are not only beautiful to look at, they are also very healthy. This is due to the ingredients, which – as with pineapple or cranberries – not only have an anti-inflammatory effect, but also have an antioxidant effect. You can enjoy the seeds, which are 85 percent water, raw or process them into juice.

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Cooking Tips

Roasting Coffee – This is How it Works

The classic brown coffee bean that we are familiar with has come a long way before it finally ends up in our coffee.

How is the typical brown coffee bean made? In our article we tell you everything about the individual roasting stages and how the process works.

One of the most important steps on their journey is the so-called roasting. But how exactly can we roast coffee and what happens in the process? The roasting – also called “refining” – ensures that the coffee bean receives a flavor profile. A consistency is thus created that can unfold during later grinding. In the following we will go into the roasting process in more detail and describe how to roast coffee optimally.

The roasting process and its subtleties

The roasting of coffee beans creates a multitude of aromas and gives the coffee its unique taste. A single bean alone contains between 300,000 and 400,000 thousand cells. If heat is now applied to this, a chemical reaction occurs. The amino acids and sugar acids contained in the coffee bean are completely reassembled during roasting. Up to 1,000 aromas can be created from one cell. The roasting process makes coffee one of the most aromatic drinks of all. And this is how the roasting works in detail:

A classic and also extremely gentle roasting process is carried out with the so-called drum roaster. Up to 30 kilograms of coffee can be roasted at once. For this purpose, the coffee beans are placed in a drum that has been mounted on a corresponding roasting machine. The roasting drum then rotates for up to 20 minutes. The internal temperature is raised to around 200 degrees Celsius. The green raw beans are roasted piece by piece and get their classic brown color. After the roasting process, they must be quickly cooled down again so that there is no further change in consistency. Since the beans lose some of the oil and water in the roasting machine, they weigh up to 20 percent less in the roasted additive than before. However, roasting coffee is not nearly as easy as it sounds. The taste, variety of aromas and appearance of the roasted bean can vary greatly. This is where the subtleties of drum roasting come into play.

After just a few minutes, the slightly yellow color of the beans changes to light brown. This creates a smell as if you were preparing fresh popcorn. Since the beans still have a lot of water and fat in this state, they appear slightly wrinkled.

Probably the most important event in the roasting process is the “first crack”. The coffee beans increase in volume during the roasting process due to the gases produced and the water evaporating, which cannot escape. Until, after about nine minutes, the pressure is so great that the cell walls of the bean burst and the water vapor can escape. The color of the bean has evolved from its previously pale green color to a yellow/brownish color by this point. Once the “first crack” has taken place, the roaster must be extremely vigilant from now on. Now the coffee beans begin to unfold their aromas and form their typical, tasty character. Chlorogenic acids are broken down piecemeal, the cell structure decomposes, and sugars caramelize inside. The longer the coffee is roasted, the more acids are broken down. At the same time, more and more roasted aromas unfold. A coffee that has been roasted for a long time has a much stronger and more bitter taste. Those who prefer it more individual can rely on short roasting times and thus enhance the coffee’s own taste.

The individual roasting stages

As already mentioned, the roasting time plays a decisive role in the final coffee taste. The degree of roasting varies depending on the heat input and the duration of the roasting. In the following we will show you the individual roasting stages for the coffee beans:

Cinnamon Roast: Probably the lightest of all roasts. A light tan ensures strong acidity and a minimal aroma profile. This state arises directly after the “First Crack”.
City Roast Plus: The medium-brown bean has reached its perfect roast point about two minutes after the “first crack”. There are light roasted substances to taste, but very acidic.
Full City: The bean is a bit dark brown. For this, almost four minutes must elapse after the “first crack” has started. The coffee bean smells spicy and hot and tastes of bitter and roasted substances. The acid takes a back seat.
Continental (French roasting): Shortly before the second crack, the bean is already dark brown. An oily consistency emerges and the taste is dominated by strong roasted aromas.
Dark French (Heavy): After the first half of the second crack, the caramelized sugar is broken down. The bean keeps getting lighter. The taste focuses entirely on roasted and bitter aromas.
Spanish Roast: At the end of the second crack and beyond, the bean is blackish-brown. It shines and has hardly any ingredients left. The taste is slightly burnt and can only be perceived through some bitter substances and roasted aromas.
Roasting coffee can be a real craft. Master roasters train on new variations every day and thus learn more and more about the variety of aromas in coffee and how this can be best brought to light.

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Food

Bitter Almond Flavor: This is the Difference to Bitter Almond Oil

Bitter almond flavoring is a popular flavoring for baking and cooking. The aroma contains no animal ingredients and is therefore also suitable for vegetarian and vegan recipes. But is bitter almond flavoring also recommended?

Bitter almond flavor is one of the typical baking ingredients. It smells and tastes like marzipan, almonds and sugar. The aroma is highly concentrated, so just a few drops are enough. For this reason, bitter almond flavoring is almost always available in small bottles that allow you to accurately measure the flavor on the drops. Bitter almond flavoring is popular as an ingredient in sweet recipes:

Marble cake and other sponge cakes
coconut macaroons
amarettini
nut snails
Recipes with marzipan
jams
But what is the bitter almond flavor made of and how does it differ from bitter almond oil? We explain this in detail in the following sections.

Bitter almond flavor: These ingredients are in the bottle

Bitter almond flavoring is not typically a natural flavoring, but is almost always created in a lab. It consists of two substances:

Benzaldehyde (about 20 percent)
Vegetable oil (about 80 percent)
Benzaldehyde is a clear liquid that is transparent to light yellow. Their smell and taste are reminiscent of bitter almonds and give their name to the bitter almond aroma. Real almonds or rum, on the other hand, are not in the baking aroma. The bottle with the bitter almond flavor does not contain sugar either, so you have to sweeten your recipes yourself.

Benzaldehyde is officially approved as a food additive. In addition, it is often found in perfumes and essential oils and naturally in the pits of peaches and apricots, explains the Federal Environment Agency. According to Stiftung Warentest, it is also found in food as a cherry flavoring substance. It can be produced naturally (“natural aroma”), but is usually produced chemically in the laboratory (“aroma”). In large amounts, benzaldehyde can be toxic, causing damage to the nervous system and respiratory problems. According to Stiftung Warentest, the European Food Safety Authority has classified benzaldehyde in small quantities as non-critical.

Tip: In many cases, you can simply omit bitter almond flavoring. If you still want to use it, pay attention to the addition “natural aroma” and use it sparingly.

Bitter almond flavor or bitter almond oil?

Bitter almond flavoring and bitter almond oil are not identical. The important difference is in the composition:

Bitter almond oil can also be made naturally or artificially. However, it contains highly toxic hydrocyanic acid, while bitter almond flavor does not.
If the hydrocyanic acid is removed from bitter almond oil, the chemical can be used as a fragrance in perfumes and as a flavoring for liqueurs. The bitter almond oil then contains 99 percent benzaldehyde.
Bitter almond oil is also not identical to almond oil. So it cannot be used as a care product for external use.
Note: Untreated bitter almond oil is not commercially available. Bitter almond oil without prussic acid is much less common than bitter almond flavoring and should be used with caution because of the high benzaldehyde content. Bitter almond flavor is easier to use.

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Cooking Tips

To Peel Persimmons or Not? This is How You Eat Them Properly

Whether or not it is necessary to peel persimmons depends on several factors. In this article you will learn how to best consume the sweet exotic fruits and what you should bear in mind when doing so.

Whether you peel persimmons or not depends on your preferences. Basically, the skins of the persimmons are edible and you can eat the orange fruits with their skins.

Unripe persimmons do not taste good due to the high tannin content. Therefore, when shopping, you should consider whether you want to eat the persimmons right away or in a few days. In this article, you will not only learn how to eat persimmons correctly, but also how to recognize and influence the right degree of ripeness.

The persimmon is the sweet fruit of the persimmon tree and originally comes from Asia. Persimmon trees need warmer growing areas because they are not frost-resistant. There is therefore no significant commercial cultivation of the orange fruit in Germany. Most of the growing areas are in China, Korea and Japan.

There are now also European kakis on the market, for example from Spain. In order to avoid long transport routes, you should prefer these fruits to those from Asia. If possible, buy kakis in organic quality: they are free of chemical-synthetic pesticides.

Peeling persimmons: you should know that

You don’t have to peel persimmons to eat them. However, there are a few basic things you should keep in mind if you want to eat persimmons with the skin on.

Use organic persimmons as their skins are untreated. In principle, however, you can also eat the skin of conventionally grown fruits.
You should always wash fruit thoroughly before eating. More about this here: Washing fruit properly: What to do about pesticides on the skin?
Depending on the type of persimmon, the skin varies in thickness. Thick-skinned specimens taste better peeled.
This is how you eat persimmons correctly

Wash the persimmons thoroughly with cold water.
Halve the fruit lengthwise.
Remove the hard carpels and the light-colored base of the stalk.
Cut the fruit lengthwise into four or eight wedges.
Whether you peel the kaki or eat it with the peel is up to you. If you want to peel the persimmons, cut the flesh off the skin, similar to a melon.
Scoop out persimmons

When persimmons are fully ripe and very juicy, they are easier to spoon than to cut:

Wash the persimmons thoroughly with cold water.
Halve the fruit lengthwise.
Using a small spoon, scoop the insides of the persimmon straight out of the shell.

Recognizing the right degree of ripeness of persimmons

In order to withstand the long transport routes, the harvested persimmons are usually still unripe. Unripe persimmons contain a high proportion of the vegetable tanning agent tannin. When you eat them, this gives you a furry sensation in your mouth. However, tannins are not harmful to health. As it ripens, the sugar content in the persimmon increases and the orange fruit tastes juicy and sweet.

In addition to the actual kaki, you will also find the cultivated forms in the trade

honey apple
persimmon and
Sharon.
The cultivated forms contain significantly less tannin and you can therefore eat them in a harder state.

This is how you can tell that the persimmon is ripe

The persimmon is ripe when it is very soft. The persimmon has reached the perfect degree of ripeness when the pulp shimmers through the skin with a glassy sheen. Fully ripe persimmons yield slightly when pressed lightly with your fingers. The shell should not show any brown spots or dents.

Transport and store ripe persimmons

When fully ripe, the persimmon is very sensitive to pressure. Therefore, make sure that you pack ripe persimmons to protect them from pressure when you buy them, so that you can transport them home safely. Store ripe persimmons refrigerated and eat within a day or two.

Allow unripe persimmons to ripen

If the persimmon is not yet ripe, you can store it next to bananas or apples for a few days. These secrete ethylene, which stimulates other fruit to ripen faster.

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Cooking Tips

Heat Olive Oil: You Have to Pay Attention to This

Olive oil is a healthy and tasty Mediterranean cooking oil. It just can’t get too hot. Here we tell you what you should pay attention to when heating olive oil.

Heat olive oil: tips for cooking, braising, baking and frying

Whether you want to fry onions until translucent, season a pasta sauce to taste, or brush a pumpkin in the oven with the popular oil in autumn: you can use most olive oils – including good “extra virgin” quality olive oils.

As long as the olive oil is cooking, stewing or baking in the pot with vegetables or other water-containing foods, it hardly gets hotter than 100°C.
You can even fry in olive oil as long as you use a temperature controlled fryer and don’t set it above 180°C.

Be careful when frying: do not let the olive oil get too hot

In fact, there are few situations where olive oil can actually burn and lose both its great taste and health-giving properties. For example, if you want to sear something to create roasted aromas.

The so-called smoke point of olive oil is around 180°C. Beyond this temperature, the oil burns and not only loses its healthy components – dangerous and sometimes carcinogenic by-products such as the toxic acrolein are also produced.

If it must be olive oil, only hot-pressed, refined olive oil would be suitable for searing. This is heat-resistant at temperatures of up to 220°C. During hot pressing, however, a large part of the aroma and the health-promoting properties of the oil are lost.

In summary – what should be considered when heating olive oil?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when heating olive oil:

Combined with vegetables or other water-containing foods, olive oil does not burn.
With a temperature control, you can even use olive oil for frying at a maximum of 180°C.
For temperatures higher than 180°C, you should use hot-pressed olive oil or other cooking oils.
If you want to get the most out of your olive oil, both in terms of taste and health, you can add it at the end of the recipe to refine it. Organically grown olive oils from cooperatives are best for the environment and producers. However, since it is such a coveted raw material, consumers are often misled.

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Food

Cooking Spinach: This is How It Works

Spinach is a vitamin bomb and a source of protein at the same time. We will show you how to cook spinach properly and what you should pay attention to.

Spinach contains many important vitamins and minerals, including folic acid and vitamin A. You can use it in salads, smoothies or vegetarian dishes, for example. Many use ready-made spinach from the freezer, but you can also easily cook fresh spinach yourself.

The basic rule for fresh spinach is that it should only be stored at room temperature for as short a time as possible. This is because spinach contains nitrate, which turns into nitrite at room temperature – nitrite is toxic in high concentrations. So if you bought spinach, put it in the fridge. You should also keep leftovers in a cool place. Then you can warm up spinach without hesitation.

Blanch, boil or puree spinach

How to cook fresh spinach:

First, you should remove stems that are too large or woody. You can then wash the spinach in a bowl of cold water. You should be thorough here: there is usually a lot of sand from the field in the spinach. Once you have washed the spinach, you can drain it.
Caution: Do not leave the spinach in water for too long when washing, otherwise it will lose too many vitamins.
Then you can briefly boil the spinach in a large pot with salted water. The easiest way is to add the spinach to the pot in batches and cook for a minute at a time.
Keep an eye on the spinach to make sure it doesn’t get too soft. The leaves should still be a little firm to the bite.
To blanch, put the spinach in ice water for a few minutes. This step is optional.
So you can already eat your spinach. You can also add spices like pepper and salt to make it taste better. More about this here: Seasoning spinach: This is how it tastes best.

If you want to puree the spinach, you should let it cook a little longer so that it can be processed more easily. After about five minutes you can shake it off, let it drain and, depending on your taste, refine it with a little (vegetable) cream before crushing it with the hand blender.

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Food

Drying Sourdough: This is How You Make It Durable for a Long Time

You can simply dry sourdough and store it for a long time. We will introduce you to three methods of preserving sourdough: by crumbling, drying and freezing.

You only have to prepare sourdough once and can then “feed” it again and again with flour and water and thus multiply it. This makes it last forever. The sourdough contains microorganisms (such as lactic acid bacteria and yeast) that form during the fermentation process and make the dough slightly acidic. However, if you don’t bake regularly or want to send the sourdough to friends or relatives, you can preserve the sourdough by drying it. The shelf life of the sourdough varies depending on the method, ranging from three months to several years.

For each of the three methods, you must first prepare a sourdough. You can find instructions here: Prepare the sourdough. We strongly recommend that you buy the ingredients in organic quality. Among other things, you avoid residues of chemical-synthetic pesticides and support ecological agriculture.

Method: Crumble sourdough

The first method is the “crumbling” and subsequent drying of leaven:

Pour your prepared sourdough into a bowl.
Gradually add the flour and mix everything together with a wooden spoon. Use enough flour so that the dough is only slightly moist and crumbs can form.
Gradually rub the dough between your palms. This creates crumbs. Do the same with the entire dough.
It is best to spread the crumbs on a baking sheet and let them dry for several hours. This way you prevent mold.
Fill the so-called Krümelsauer into a lockable screw-top jar. You should only close the jar loosely or drill a hole in it if the dough continues to ferment a little. Alternatively, use a cloth bag. The dried sourdough can be stored in the refrigerator for about three months.

To use the dough again, add enough water to the crumbs until it becomes a paste. Store the dough at room temperature for about 2 to 8 hours. It is then activated again and can be processed further.

Method: Dry sourdough as flakes or powder

The second method involves making flakes or powder from the sourdough:

Spread the sourdough thinly on half of a sheet of baking paper and fold it over. If you have more dough, use a second sheet of baking paper.
Allow the sourdough to dry at room temperature. This takes about a day or two. The dough needs to be really dry, otherwise mold can form.
Dried, sourdough is lighter in color, cracks, and breaks easily when touched.
Note: You can usually reuse the parchment paper. To do this, carefully peel off the dry sourdough so that the baking paper does not tear. Or you can use a sustainable baking paper alternative.

Break off small pieces of the dried sourdough. Now you have two options:

For tiles: Place the small pieces in a sealable container, cloth bag, or paper bag.
For powder: grind the small dividers into powder with a mortar or grinder.
Dried sourdough lasts for several years. You can store it in the fridge or at room temperature in a dark place (for example, in the pantry).

To reactivate the leaven, you need to add water and flour. First add the same amount of water to the dried dough (ratio 1:1). If he starts blistering at room temperature, you can “feed” him with more water and flour. This can take several hours.

Note: Since most microorganisms die off during drying, the sourdough may not always start to ferment. This is always the case when there are no or no longer sufficient microorganisms in the dough.

Method: Sourdough Freezing

Pour your sourdough into a sealable container that is freezer-safe. Alternatively, you can fill the batter into an ice cube tray. Place the dough in your freezer or freezer compartment.

Freezing disrupts the fermenting properties of sourdough, as some of the microorganisms die off. So give the dough 1-3 days after defrosting to recover slowly. You can add some flour and water and activate it at room temperature. You can then feed him more flour and water.

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