Coulis

Coulis is a sauce which can be sweet or savory, depending on what it is meant to accompany. As a general rule, coulis is thick and evenly textured, and it can be made from fruits or vegetables. Using coulis can enhance the flavor of food, as well as making it look more sophisticated on the plate. The word is French for “strained liquid,†and it is derived from colare, the Latin word for “strain.†The base of coulis is a fruit or vegetable. Fruits are generally used uncooked, while vegetables may be roasted, blackened, or simmered so that they soften. The base is pureed so that it is creamy and smooth, and then it is usually seasoned. After seasoning, the coulis may be strained to remove things like seeds or chunks of skin. Coulis may be artfully drizzled on a plate, or pooled next to

the food. In some cases, multiple types of coulis appear on one plate, for varying flavors and colors.

Fruit coulis often accompanies desserts. One of the most classic kinds of fruit coulis is a berry coulis, especially raspberry. Fruits are usually lightly seasoned with sugar and lemon juice, to bring out the flavor of the fruits so that they enhance the dishes they are added to. Savory fruit coulis may also be made for things like roasts. Vegetable coulis can include any number of things, although roasted pepper or tomato are two common ingredients. This type of coulis tends to be more savory, and it can be quite colorful. It can be drizzled over roasts, poured into soups to make patterns, or used in any number of other ways to dress up and flavor a dish.

Fennel

There are two types of fennel, both with green, celery like stems bright green feathery foliage. Florence fennel also called finocchio is cultivated throughout the Mediterranean and in the US. It has a broad, bulbous base that’s treated like a vegetable. Both the base and the stems can be eaten raw in salads or cooked in a variety of methods such as braising, sautéing or in soups. The fragrant greenery can be used as garnish or snipped like dill and sued for flavor enhancer, the type of fennel is often mislabeled sweet anise, casing those who don’t like the flavor of licorice to avoid it. The flavor of fennel, however is sweeter and more delicate that anise and when cooked becomes even lighter and more elusive than in it’s raw state. Common fennel is the variety from which the oval, greenish brown seeds come from.

Rice

There are over 40,000 different types of rice, cultivated and wild, grown across the globe.

Over the centuries, three main types of rice had developed in Asia, depending on the amylose content of the grain. They were called indica, long, slender grains high in amylose (a glucose polymer) that cook up into separate, fluffy grains of rice that in more primitive societies can be eaten with the fingers, and in more sophisticated ones work best as a bed for sauces or side dishes; japonica, shorter, plumper medium-grain rice that is low in amylose and cooks up sticky clumps to be eaten with chopsticks (and later, in paella, risotto and sushi); and javanica, with an intermediate amylose content and stickiness. Rice is further divided into long, medium and short-grained varieties; different regions grow different varieties. Within each classification—long, medium and short-grain—there are specialty rices.

            Basmati rice is an aromatic, long-grain, slender, non-glutinous rice from India and Pakistan. When cooked it swells only lengthwise, resulting in long slender grains that are very dry, light and separate—not sticky. Basmati has been cultivated for centuries at the foot of the Himalayan mountain ranges. The rice is long-grain and scented; literally translated from Hindi, it means “queen of scents†or “pearl of scents.†For centuries, it has been exported to the Arab countries, where many traditional rice dishes are cooked with basmati rice