The Store-Bought Ingredient Ina Garten Can't Live Without
Ina Garten is known for her delectable recipes and delightful personality. She’s also known for her from-scratch concoctions that are sure to make any mouth water.
With the holiday season upon us, the “Barefoot Contessa” has enough recipes to complete your entire Thanksgiving feast from beginning to end.
One could spend hours in the kitchen cooking up her caramelized butternut squash, turkey meatloaf, roasted carrots and more.
But even Ina Garten knows every good cook is also a fast-thinking one. And sometimes a few choice store-bought ingredients are just what the chef ordered.
According to Food Network, Garten has a couple of tricks up her sleeve when it comes to simplifying certain recipes.
For example, her simple palmier cookies require sugar, salt, puff pastry … and that’s it! But this recipe wouldn’t be so easy without Garten’s shortcut.
She uses two sheets of puff pastry (Garten recommends Pepperidge Farm brand) from the freezer section at the grocery store. “Believe me if you had to make it yourself, you would never make palmiers,” she says.
Store-bought puff pastries aren’t the only food hack Garten uses on a regular basis. She also keeps a fair amount of truffle butter on hand.
For those who don’t know (because I had no clue), truffle butter is exactly what it sounds like — butter with truffles mixed in.
According to Dartagnan, a maker of truffle butter, “It can be used to flavor various dishes and enhance recipes, or on its own, spread on bread or crackers.”
Sounds pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. Garten agrees. “I order like six of these, keep them in the freezer and they’re really inexpensive,” she says of the ingredient she uses in her potato and celery root puree.
She also does a truffle butter roast turkey, perfect for the upcoming holidays! “Wads of butter … always a good idea,” she says. “And it’s Thanksgiving, after all!”
Garten’s website says she uses either Dartagnan or Urbani brand truffle butter. Either can be ordered online.
There are two types of truffle butter — black and white. When asked what the difference is, Garten explained in delicious detail:
“Black truffles have a much more subtle flavor,” she wrote on her website. “But I prefer the strong pungent flavor of white truffles.”
There you have it, folks, truffle butter in a nutshell. For more delicious recipes from the “Barefoot Contessa,” check out her latest cookbook, “Cook Like a Pro.”
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