SEC-S19 / W2 | Culinary terminology and proper use of herbs and spices.

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Herbs and Spices have over the years been the secret to most delicious meals, it's flavors Keeps the nose locked up in desire to have a taste, but the proper use of these herbs and spices are of great importance. I have learned a lot from the week's teaching.

Hello Teachers,

Below, I present all I have learned within the week!

TO KNEAD: TO WORK A DOUGH

Kneading means to work out a dough using the hands. To knead a dough is using the heel of your palm to fold the dough over itself and with your fingers you pull it back.

This is a simple process of working out the dough into a small ball and kneading it to avoid lumps. In the above images, I worked out a dough for my chinchin and buns

JULIENNE: VEGETABLES OR MEATS CUT INTO THIN, LONG STRIPS

This is a process of using a chopping board and a kitchen knife to cut veggies . It's process has to do with holding the vegetables in one hand and a knife in another hand, then by placing the vegetable on the chopping board, the knife slice through the vegetables giving it a thin or long strips.

I love cutting my veggies into thin strips because this helps my dish look neat.

TO BIND: TO THICKEN A PREPARATION BY THE ACTION OF A BINDING ELEMENT SUCH AS STARCH, FLOUR, YOLK, CREAM, AMONG OTHERS

To bind is to hold together. This is a process of using a thickener such as flour, starch, cream, yam, African seed to bind or hold a food preparation. These thickeners helps the mixtures the stay together and avoid separating.

In the images above, I used a flour as my thickener to bind my sauce. It was the first time I tried it out and it was nice. We also use yam here as thickener for soups.

I noticed that I am familiar with 50% of the spices shared in the course because in my country home, we are familiar with almost the same species and herbs here. But joining this course has helped me developed more IQ in the use of various spices and their names.

spice onegrain of selim (uda)

This image shows grain of selim (uda). This is a spice used in preparing pepper soup. The scent is out of this world. In Africa, uda is used vastly especially for nursing mothers in preparing their meals. It helps the breast milk in pumping really fast and also help in washing off all the blood clots away.

Uda is my favorite spice because I love it natural and it also serve as herb. Cooking with it leaves the food spicy, aromatic and flavoured.

spice twouziza seed

Most times uziza seed is mistaken as black pepper seed, although they look alike and have aromatic spice with similar flavor, however, uziza seed has a stronger scent and flavour than black pepper.

Uziza is mostly used in traditional African dishes while Black Pepper is used more in continental dishes.

spice threeAidan fruit

This is Aidan fruit used in preparing soups. Pepper soup, white soup or any soup at all. It has the finest flavor you can imagine and gives an amazing taste to soups.

It's majorly for traditional dishes and it's also medicinal that is why I enjoy using it in most of my soups.

white soup prepared with combined spice

In most of my dishes, I combine white pepper, uziza seed, grain of selim, ginger, garlic, and others.

Just like this meal above, I prepared white soup and it's the combination of all my spices. This spice is best for Palm oil rice and soups.

When it comes to jollof or fried rice, I have other combined spices for them but my dishes are majorly traditional dishes.

This is my specially prepared spice used in Nina's kitchen. I love my spices local because I'm not a fan of extracted spices.

These spice gives me the best aroma, flavor and taste in all my local dishes. I learned the mixture from my mom but I decided to spice mine a little with other condiments.

I have learned so much so far. I am grateful for this lecture, in fact I have other mixture of spices I would like to try out.

All images are my property!

I am inviting @ruthjoe @eliany @patjewell