Vanilla... raw?

[Troyanne]

I wanted to buy some vanilla today and the bottle though it said organic, I don't know if it was 'raw' or not. The store employees didn't know either. I saw some of the dried vanilla bean stalks and thought about using those, but don't know how to use them. Do I soak them first? Or do I actually steep them and then use the vanilla 'liquid' that comes off of the long steeping process? That would for sure be raw! Can I just add some vanilla bean stalk to my smoothies directly?

[freebird]

i use the dried vanilla pods, I just split them length-ways with a knife and then scrape out the seeds and use them. I'd be interested to find out other methods of usage though.

[trinity082482]

I buy vanilla beans and scrape them,they are an actual bean.. not a liquid in a bottle.

[Troyanne]

Seeds? Scraping? lol can u two be more specific?

How to use 'just seeds', freebird? In what ways? And how do you 'scrape' the vanilla beans, trinity?

[Dr. White]

Jackie Graf has a recipe for vanilla powder made from ground buckwheat and ground vanilla beans. I'll have to look up the proportions.

[baltochef]

Troyanne

Vanilla beans are a seed pod from a particular species of tropical orchid..

They are usually between 5-9 in. in length..

The fresher they are, the better..A fresh vanilla been will appear "moist" to the eye, & have a "greasy", shiny sheen to it..You will NOT be able to break it by bending it back & forth..

Dried out beans will break, & have MUCH less flavor

To use the beans in traditional cooked foods, a chef would lay the bean down flat on a cutting surface..

Taking a sharp paring knife, slice down into the bean pod at a 45 degree angle, turning the blade of the knife parallel to the direction of the bean as quickly as possible after reaching the center of the bean..

What you are trying to do is split the bean into two equal halves, lengthwise..

When you get the beans halved, you will notice hundreds of very tiny seeds on both of the split vanilla bean halves..

The seeds are where the majotity of the vanilla flavonids are located..

Scrape the seeds off of the two halves & use to flavor your food..

Take 3-5 scraped, split vanilla beans & chop them into 1/2 in. pieces..

Place the chopped beans into a quart of agave syrup, & allow to macerate in a cool, dark place for a month or so..

The bean pieces will transfer their flavor to the syrup, giving you vanilla agave syrup..

I like to buy my beans from www.penzeys.com as they have a high turnover, with very fresh beans..I purchase 25 beans at a time, which allows me to use them more liberally; which brings the price down to 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of a single bean from most other sources..

Bruce..

[Troyanne]

Wow! Thanks Bruce. That was a step by step guide, very informative. I'm already overwhelmed a bit with all the preparation the food in this lifestyle potentially incurs lol Does penzeys sell raw vanilla powder or raw vanilla liquid by any chance also? Or just the beans.

And thanks, too, Dr. White; I need to purchase a coffee or spice grinder. I live on a below-poverty-level budget so all I've been able to purchase so far is a $25 food processor and a used $6 blender. Will have to plan for the coffee grinder, which is about $15 I guess.

[freebird]

Bruce is the best!!! Great instructions.

[Diana Cda]

Scrape the seeds off of the two halves & use to flavor your food..

Take 3-5 scraped, split vanilla beans & chop them into 1/2 in. pieces..

Place the chopped beans into a quart of agave syrup, & allow to macerate in a cool, dark place for a month or so..

The bean pieces will transfer their flavor to the syrup, giving you vanilla agave syrup..
Bruce..
Whoa!! Bruce, if you're still around, this is just such a fantastic idea although a bit hidden in with all the rest of the great information above, I felt I had to single it out.

How many times have we thrown away the vanilla bean "husks"??!! So, if it's okay, thought I'd label the above process as something like:

VANILLA HUSK SYRUP (or Vanilla Husk Agave Syrup, whatever works!)

No more thrown away husks for me, that's for sure!!! :)

[Diana Cda]

If it's okay, I'm posting what I wrote and put in my recipes folder re the above vanilla syrup process:

2009-10-24 06:13:56 (http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=33301&highlight=vanilla)

VANILLA HUSK AGAVE SYRUP BY BRUCE
*********************************

3-5 vanilla bean "husks", after splitting and scraping the beans which were then used in another recipe

1. Chop up the vanilla bean leftover "husks" into ½-inch long pieces.
2. Place the chopped husks into a quart (4 cups) of agave syrup.
3. Allow to macerate ** in a cool, dark place for a month or so (fridge?).

The bean pieces will transfer their flavor to the syrup, giving you vanilla agave syrup.


-----------------------------
** Verb: MACERATE [WordWeb.info]
1. Separate into constituents by soaking
2. Become soft or separate and disintegrate as a result of excessive soaking
3. Soften, usually by steeping in liquid, and cause to disintegrate as a result
4. Cause to grow thin or weak

I have a package of beans that I've been hoarding - but with this process, I won't be so stingie with them since I know I'll get double the mileage with the beans! <g>

Thanks, Bruce!

(p.s., I didn't know what "macerate" meant so after looking it up in my dictionary program, I copy-pasted the definition and stuck it at the bottom of the recipe. <g>)

[revdrcyn]

Seeds? Scraping? lol can u two be more specific?

Here's a great Ani Phyo video (YouTube) in which she shows you step-by-step how to scrape a vanilla bean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2sc1miEZI

[raweater]

There's no raw vanillas, even the beans are boiled in hot water to pasteurize them so they don't spoil, so you can't have any raw vanilla unless you live where it grows.

Liquid vanilla extract is even more cooked than just the pasteurized beans.

I find the scraping to be way too much trouble, here are much, much simpler ways of using vanilla beans:

For recipes used in the blender, just cut the bean into half inch long parts and blend with the recipe, for recipes in the food processor, also cut the beans into half inch long parts but then grind them in a coffee grinder, you can grind a few beans at a time and store this powder for use in recipes (in both cases cut the ends of the vanilla bean off and discard them first).

[Diana Cda]

The website on vanilla says that they're not boiled or anything, just put in boiling water and that they are "raw".

Actually, that brings up an interesting point that people take opposite sides of the fence on, it seems - boiling water. To me, cooking in water that is boiling is one thing. Pouring boiling water over something is something else altogether. Esp. since in one of my books, Jareth and Kim (names??), said that they later went on to sprout seeds that they'd poured boiling water over. That tells me that since they sprouted, any damage was minimal so boiling water that has stopped boiling, is "okay" in my books.

So I guess it all depends on whether or not it truly is just a fact of them pouring boiling water over the vanilla beansor if they repeat that process more than once, etc.

Anyway, another factor is that they're not "cooked" in the strictest sense. And being a condiment makes it just something to be aware of, I think (meaning it probably shouldn't make us worry like something truly cooked would).

But that's my view. I've had to come a long way from Natural Hygiene that it's even harder for me to balance things out. But I've learned. I still use Natural Hygiene as a starting point and then decide how far I'm willing to end up away from it.

:)

[raweater]

The vanilal company said they where put in hot water for several minutes, not that hot water was poured on them. About the seeds that had boiling water poured onthem and still sprouted, that doesn't surprise me at all, the water was likely only on the seeds for 2-3 seconds which isn't enough for the heat to properly transfer to the seeds. Put the same seeds in boiling water for probably even just 15-20 seconds and they are almost sure to be unsproutable.

In any case as you said it's just a spice used in small quantity and I don't care that it's put in hot water and not truely raw, it's miles better than artificial vanilla made fom petroleum.

[Diana Cda]

Nope, sorry I wasn't clear enough and you misunderstood. They poured the boiling water on them and they stayed in that water and they still sprouted. Until someone comes along and does the same thing and gets no sprouts, I think that that anecdotal evidence can stand as is.

Re the vanilla, well, of course completely raw would be best, but putting in boiling water for a few minutes (I don't recall it said that they put the vanilla over HEAT for that length of time, only that the water was boiling) is probably not going to be as damaging as one might think at all. The outer skins and probably a bit underneath might have some damage but it isn't cooking by any means where a high temperature is _maintained_ and the item is placed and kept there at that temperature. It's like the Excalibur high temperature thing then reduced to low. Boiling water is not cooking. It's not 100% but then I don't consider dehydrating to be 100% raw, either. Just approximating it.

But probably would be best to get the vanilla company to spell it out, exactly.

[raweater]

I really don't agree that boiling water is not cooking, boiling water is 212 degrees, raw stops at 118 degrees, so boiling water is about 100 degrees over raw temperature. That's like saying boiled potatoes are raw which they certainly aren't.

And what the vanilla bean company says is that the beans are soaked in hot water for several minutes to prevent the growth of mold.

[Diana Cda]

Well, that's fine. You follow the raw path that you choose. You're just missing the point. We're not saying that boiled potatoes aren't boiled. They are. If you stick potatoes in boiling water and keep them over heat, of course they will be boiled.

But the act of pouring boiling water over raw potatoes isn't going to cook them. It's been so long since I've cooked any that I don't remember the time involved, but it takes 12-15 minutes at least OVER HEAT, depending on how many are in the pot.

Yet sprouts were poured with boiling water and they still sprouted. They were not kept in water that continued to boil, merely that that what was poured was boiling hot water.

The act of the air, the sprouts and container probably cooled the water considerably just in the first few seconds, to begin with.

But enough. We'll just have to agree to disagree re this. We've each chosen what we can live with and that's fine. To me a bit of boiling water over something is nothing compared to other things that are out there. We dehydrate at high temperature then reduce the temperature; same type of principle here, is all.