In cooking, there are several terms that are not always clear to a novice home cook who has just entered this blessed path. In complex and simple culinary recipes the word "passerovka" is often found. This is one such way of preparing a product that requires more careful consideration. What is it - frying, stewing or some other process of heat treatment of a dish (usually one of its ingredients)? Let's get it together.
Passer is extraction
The term itself comes from the French word passer, meaning "skip some time." The essence of the process is the processing in fat, oil, in which the product (mainly vegetables) is subjected to extraction. What does this mean? Coloring and aromatic substances during the extraction process turn into fat (for example, vegetable oil), and the product itself (for example, onion) undergoes softening and becomes tender and tasty, as if revealing all its internal advantages. If we talk about sauteed onions, then excessive pungency and bitterness disappears from it, and it becomes soft and delicate in taste, acquires a special, refined aroma. That is why this process is often used in high European cooking.
Passer and passer
Sometimes in recipes the term "passivation", "passivate" is found. But this is a grammatical mistake, since this word is from the category of sports terms and means in acrobatics, for example, "prevent a fall, insure when jumping." In the first case, when the letter “e” is used, it is a culinary term.
Value definition
The most accurate definition of the meaning of the word can be seen in the culinary dictionary of William Pokhlebkin, a famous historian and practitioner of cookery. Stewing is frying over a low fire in a rather large amount of oil or fat of finely chopped vegetables until the product is soft. It is important to avoid sharp frying, burning, crusting.
What passer
This heat treatment is mainly subjected to root crops, in particular carrots and beets. Onions are no exception. But they do this for the sole purpose of identifying and emphasizing the characteristic taste and color (remember the extraction), which are intensified during such frying, as was noted in ancient times. For example, sauteed onions are used in many European dishes, pastries, and side dishes.
Example: onions and carrots
Take a frying pan with well-heated vegetable oil (up to about 120 degrees). We use sunflower, olive, corn. We clean a couple of medium onions and chop finely. Put in preheated oil. Fry for a couple of minutes over moderate heat. Enter the grated carrots there. We make sure that the vegetables do not burn, but softly soften (but not cooked) and “open”. When the onion becomes transparent and a little gilded, and the carrot soft, then it's time to turn it off. Vegetables in this form can be added to soups, toppings, and other dishes.
By the way, passerization is a universal process. This effect can be subjected to fish cut into small pieces, as well as other products that have the property of instant cooking.
How to pass flour?
In some recipes of various varieties, the flour also undergoes a similar heat treatment. This is done for dressing soups or sauces. Distinguish white, red and cold passerovka:
- White. Flour during frying and languishing does not lose its natural (white) color.
- Red Flour takes a darkish, golden color (usually goes for dressing red sauces).
- Cold Flour is mixed with butter without heating and frying.