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Honey
episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • cooking • 25m
G
episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • cooking • 25m
G
If you think honey is nothing more than a sweet, sticky syrup that you spread on toast, think again. This versatile ingredient has many uses beyond the traditional spread on a slice of soft white bread – and we're not just talking about honey soy chicken chips.
Honey adds moisture to bakes, glossiness to glazes, sweetness to sauces and freshness to fruits. Whether you're a seasoned chef or a beginner in the kitchen, it will take your cooking to the next level.
Baking
Raw honey is a great alternative to sugar. It adds natural sweetness to a range of baked goods and its high moisture content helps to bind batters, resulting in chewier cookies, denser bread and cakes with a tighter crumb. Additionally, honey's organic acids intensify the flavour and aroma of spices, fruits and nuts. These qualities are embraced in recipes around the world, including Polish piernik (spiced honey bread), Greek melomakarona (honey walnut biscuits) and Baltic layered honey cake.
Baltic layered honey cake. Source: Baltic by Simon Bajada
Caramelising
Honey is a match for caramelisation and works wonders in everything from honey-glazed ham to Shibuya toast. When used as a glaze on meats and vegetables, it becomes a crispy, golden crust that is both sweet and savoury.
[Honey] adds a unique flavour and not just additional sweetness.
This reaction is crucial in the preparation of Shibuya toast, a popular Japanese dessert, which the host of The Cook Up, Adam Liaw, describes as "a sundae made of bread".
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Honey toast
At Dopa by Devon, Andrew coats fresh shokupan bread with honey and cultured butter, then toasts the bread until it's crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The glaze "adds a unique flavour and not just additional sweetness, especially if using single-origin floral honey," he says.
Sauces
Honey is not just restricted to desserts; it also brings flavour to sauces and salad dressings. According to Liaw, "the fact that it is liquid-ish at room temperature is really useful for [this] kind of alchemy in cooking."
As a marinade base, honey helps to tenderise meat and elevate its juiciness and flavour. Honey's thick texture also lends a creamy mouthfeel to salad dressings. Enjoy a honey-mustard sauce on baked salmon or a honey dressing on a haloumi and fig salad.
Source: My Market Kitchen
Looking to prevent cut fruit from browning in your lunchbox? Liaw thinks honey is key. "Most of the time we acidulate the water with a squeeze of lemon juice or a bit of vinegar, but honey is very acidic," he says.
To try this technique, simply add a few drops of honey to a bowl of water and soak your apple in it. Adam recommends doing this "for five minutes while you prepare the rest of the lunchbox".
It's safe to say that honey is a kitchen-pantry queen, providing natural sweetness and versatility. Remember, it takes around 12 bees their entire lives to produce just a teaspoon of honey, so use it wisely.
