2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14
Cinnamon is considered to be one of the oldest spices known to man. Ancestors used it to make drinks, concoctions and many famous dishes, and we continue to add it to our culinary endeavors. You will not surprise anyone with delicious pastries, caressing the sense of smell with a delicate aroma of cinnamon, excellent coffee, and warming mulled wine. Despite the abundance of famous dishes, most cooks are used to seeing the spice in ground form, and not everyone knows how to use cinnamon sticks in cooking.
The birthplace of extraordinary spice
If you look at historical sources, you can find out that Southeast Asia is considered the birthplace of cinnamon, but this is not a guarantee that any spice collected in this region will meet a high quality indicator. The spice brought from Sri Lanka is considered the best product. The second producing country is India. It is important to pay attention to the place where the spice was collected, because the goods from Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam and China are not onlydoes not compete with spices grown by leading manufacturers, but is also harmful to he alth. In these countries, a cinnamon substitute, cassia, is actively grown, if you look at the appearance, it cannot be distinguished from the original spice, and only a person who is well versed in this matter can find differences in taste. Real cinnamon will never negatively affect the body, but in the case of cassia it is possible - the spice contains coumarin, which reduces blood clotting.
What is it used for?
Before you start cooking, you need to think carefully about how to use cinnamon sticks in creating a culinary masterpiece. For baking flour products, it is easier and faster to purchase a ground version of a spicy spice; almost every modern store has this product on its shelves. Powdered product can also be added to coffee. If the purpose of cooking is a cocktail or tea, where it is important to convey not only taste, but also a pleasant appearance, it is better to purchase cinnamon sticks. It does not leave a cloudy residue. Tea with cinnamon sticks is not only original, but also infinitely delicious.
Recipes of some dishes suggest the presence of a flavor left by the presence of spice during the cooking process. The end result is that the spice doesn't have to be in the dish, and here are some experienced chefs who set the example of how to use cinnamon sticks to get out of a sticky situation. They are fried in vegetable oil, and then thrown away, thereby preserving the taste of the spice without finding it in the components of the dish. The powder is thus pulled out no longersucceed.
How many times can cinnamon sticks be used?
Many housewives are wondering if cinnamon sticks can be used several times, or is it right to throw them away after the first use? It all depends on the personal preferences of the hostess. If you cook compote, jam or add cinnamon to mulled wine, then, after cooking, you can safely take it out and use it several more times. However, do not forget that with each new time the cinnamon will give the dish less flavor, and the taste will become less saturated. The opinion of housewives agreed that the optimal number of use of spice sticks is three times.
How to grind cinnamon?
Life brings many surprises: when you come to the store for cinnamon powder, you may not find it, but you can buy spice in the form of sticks. Inexperienced cooks may wonder how to use cinnamon sticks in baking? The answer is quite obvious - grind, but even here a number of technical subtleties warns a person.
It is extremely problematic to grate such cinnamon, trying to do it in a coffee grinder or using a blender is not the best idea, instead of a fine powder you will get large and uneven pieces. The right way out is to dry the sticks in a dry frying pan, which will remove excess moisture from it, which will make it brittle, and the pleasant aroma, for which people fell in love with the spice, will increase several times.
The second step is to place the dried stick in a tight bag andcrushing it with a rolling pin, only after that the resulting pieces can be crushed in a coffee grinder or blender. You don't have to grind all the cinnamon at once, whole sticks will last up to a year, powder only lasts half of that.
Cinnamon oil
The number of essential oils used by humans for cosmetic or medicinal purposes today is of great importance. Cinnamon oil is not popular. Not because the positive qualities of this tool are exaggerated, but because most people follow the fashion, and acquire only advertised trends. History confirms with facts: in ancient times, cinnamon was in high demand, and the cost of the spice successfully competed with gold items. Proponents of Chinese medicine consider cinnamon to be one of the strongest healing ingredients, but despite this, few people purposefully look for this particular essential oil.
Ceylon cinnamon. How to distinguish from a fake?
The best spice comes from the bark of a tree that grows in Sri Lanka or Western India. Today, when many people know stories about how stores deceive customers by passing off cassia, which has a number of negative properties, as a real spice, Ceylon cinnamon is in great demand among lovers of fragrant spices. You can check your purchase in the store in several ways. To do this, you need to carefully examine the cinnamon sticks: the real spice has a pleasant light brown color,fake is famous for its brown-brown tint. Cassia is deformed in the process of delivery from the collection and packaging point to the store, it is very fragile in itself, its surface will always, or almost always, be decorated with a web of cracks. The third way, which allows you to be sure that the purchase is correct: drop iodine on a crushed stick - cassia will turn blue.
Properties of cinnamon
Like any other product, cinnamon has a list of positive and negative properties. By itself, the spice is not capable of harming a person’s he alth, but everything can change if he starts to abuse the spice: you should not eat it with whole spoons, especially several times in one day. Cinnamon promotes weight loss, which leads some people to assume that increasing the dose will help achieve a better result, but this is not the spice that this method will work with a bang. In moderation, the seasoning contributes to the overall he alth of the body, but once you cross the line, the effect can seem inversely proportional to what you want. A small amount of cinnamon will positively affect the functioning of the brain, and eventually the visual system, however, the body will respond to an overdose with a breakdown, the emotional state will become depressed, and severe pain in the head may also appear.
Where to buy cinnamon sticks?
This question is asked by many chefs. Especially those who know how to use cinnamon sticks in cooking, because the flavor of the seasoning,sold in this form is stronger and more pleasant than the powder, which makes people opt for it. Not in all stores you can find this product, but online stores are at the service of users of the World Wide Web.
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