Question
Cecilia Litvak
I was interested in trying a recipe which is a lentil ragu with veggies and tomatoes but it adds 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar. Why the vinegar? Are there other dishes you would add vinegar to?
Answer
Good afternoon. I loved this question for a couple of reasons. One being if you all think back to the recipe for the simple cabbage soup, although I've always thought it's not really a simple recipe, it should just be called cabbage soup. And, uh, the last thing that you have to do in that assignment after it is all made is that you layer the flavors without adding extra salt. You add vinegar to the soup. And what happens is that it enlivens the flavor of what you're eating. Remember back from the lemon assignment that your receptors in your tongue for salt and lemon are located in the same place. So you're kind of like tricking your brain that you are adding salt, but you're not. But more than anything, it's going to just layer the flavor without adding salt. Uh, and that's why we use it. So this recipe that you're using, lentil ragu, by the way sounds fabulous because one of the reasons why I love lentil so much is that you don't need to soak them and they create such a beautiful, beautiful texture. So I prefer using apple cider vinegar, that's just me, but a teaspoon of red wine vinegar. I would say this, if you're not used to using an acid as your, uh, flavor enhancer, start out with a half a teaspoon first. And if you think it needs a little bit more than you can do that. And I ask you sometimes people will add a little drop of wine to the end of a recipe to layer of flavor, and its first cousin vinegar is right there. So I think that that's a really good way to see how well that the vinegar will work. So that is a great question. And I love, I think tonight I'm going to make a lentil ragu just from that inspiration. That would be really, really good. So are there other dishes you would add vinegar to? Well, you know, uh, if you're making, for example, if you're making our tuna list salad and at the end, uh, it calls for some lemon juice, if you don't have lemon juice, you could use a nice vinegar that would also enhance the flavor as well. And a lot of people are using, um, vinegar as a condiment and putting it on their table. And I can tell you that my latest enjoyable lunch is a rice cake smeared with a nut butter. And then instead of using jelly or jam, I'm using a balsamic glaze. And so you have the sweet and the sour of the balsamic and it really adds a lot of flavor to that lovely nut butter and rice cake. So I say hail to vinegar and enjoy making your lentil ragu.
