Easy Recipes and natural Spice Stories from the Sunday Art of Flavour Post.

This may come as a surprise but our passion for great food flavour extends beyond the best herbs and spices in favoured recipes.

Our reader Rebecca T. Brisbane noted in a previous Readers Comments that her family have made our recent recipe Pan Fried Chicken Cutlets very much part of their evening recipe selections.

Checking the recipe, you will see that the ingredients include a wonderful selection of spices and Creme Fraiche. So, we thought it might be interesting to have a closer look at Creme Fraiche for this Sunday's chat. With not a spice in sight.

Your Dinner Guests

To start Creme Fraiche has a nice ring to the name. Important if you're explaining a recipe with Creme Fraiche to dinner guests.

Or, over dinner, you could go further and add that Creme Fraiche probably happened by chance around the 1700's in Normandy, France.

All a nice dinner conversation. You could also continue, assuming your guests are interested in the technical side of things, that Creme Fraiche (like double cream) will not curdle. For all home chefs this is more than a blessing.

A Moment With The Science

And being a bit sciency for a minute, cream is made from an emulsion of fat and water along with milk proteins. You will have curdling from heat when these proteins coagulate and separate from the water.

With Creme Fraiche there is a higher amount of fat and consequently a smaller amount of proteins, protecting it from curdling when added to a hot mixture during cooking whereas sour cream will almost certainly curdle.

Thus, Creme Fraiche may be added toward the end of the cooking cycle, giving you the desired balance, glossiness and rich thickening to the sauce while adding a lovely nutty flavour note. Most desirable.

Stay well everyone Arthur Huxley www.spiceroadspices.com.au