All Activity

went Schwaebisch - Jaeger Schnitzel / spaetzle / etc....

Can I be your neighbour, @Steve Irby ?

Broiled spiny lobster tail with the pasta with fresh corn, jalapeños and brown butter from Six Seasons of Pasta Not exactly my plan but I got home late with fresh corn, peppers and basil from the farmers market for the pasta recipe and had to deal with the live spiny lobster in my weekly fish share so this happened. The pasta recipe needs fresh corn but should accept all sorts of other proteins.

I started dessert prep earlier in the week with the intention of making a raspberry tart. However the week got away from me and the raspberries were getting soft. The raspberries are now in the freezer destined for smoothies and have been replaced by strawberries and blackberries. Here's a few desserts that will be given to the neighbors. The fruits are glazed with homemade pear preserve syrup. I ate one blackberry tart for QA/QC purposes and it was delicious.

The cod and clam tasted fine in the sauce but the off flavors were evident in the jonah crab, scallops and shrimp. They had that kind of "gray" flavor from being stored improperly.

Just exactly what I was hoping for. Firm yet tender crumb, medium crust and great flavor. I'm happy!

Possibly the buzziest pub restaurant in London at the moment is The Devonshire. I heard the chef owner on a podcast mention the sticky toffee pudding, and was curious to give it a go (recipe here)... Oops, forgot its bonnet... I wasn't sure what to make of the texture; very light and moist, and not really like a traditional STP sponge. I thought it was operator error on my part - the batter didn't look right - but I found a couple of instances online where you get a decent look at the crumb, and mine doesn't look too dissimilar, so maybe that's how it's supposed to be. I still can't decide if it's actually great, or just a bit weird. (Interestingly, a Tom Kerridge recipe I made a couple of years ago is remarkably similar but employs a different procedure and baking method, as well as having a bit less liquid and using suet as the fat rather than butter.) The toffee sauce was good, the gelatine giving it a really nice gloss and body. Purely for illustrative purposes I mocked up another plate but didn't eat it, obviously...

Let: A = % fat for half-and-half B = % fat for the other milk C = desired % fat x = the proportion of half-and-half 1-x = the proportion of the other milk Ax + B(1-x) = C Ax + B - Bx = C Ax - Bx = C - B (A-B)x = C - B x = (C - B)/(A - B) Algebra is rusty but that should be correct. If not, just run to the store. 😆

I made a fortuitous discovery this week. While cleaning the freezer I discovered this. It seems that at some point in my sourdough endeavors, I saved some backup starter. I had no idea how old it was but I thought I would give it a try reviving it. It didn't look too good the first day. But the second day I knew that I was back in business. I fed it once again and used the discard to bake my first batch of sourdough in a couple years. I haven't cut into it yet but I'm pretty happy with the results. The little jar is going back in the freezer. @TdeV and @MaryIsobel don't give up yet. Just remember to save a backup.

The Cook's Illustrated how in thhe url above is now a dead end. But ATK shows it hear: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/how_tos/5524-how-to-substitute-dairy-products?queryID=8ea54ee587d7fb7b3eb464131e2f2b7a&indexName=everest_search_cortado_production Also found this yesterday: https://www.quora.com/Can-I-just-add-milk-or-water-to-heavy-cream-to-make-it-light-cream

Mellow out the two large jalapenos lol Also, chile Poblano rajas and sliced onions with herbs and cream is a Mexican thing, riffing on that

What's the purpose of the half and half?

First meal home after a 2-week vacation and I wanted something . . . green. Fortunately Mrs. C had thoughtfully restocked groceries. Roasted Poblano chiles, green beans, and leftover half-smokes with sauteed onion, garlic, and sliced jalapenos. Seasoned with parsley, thyme, and Mexican oregano, finished with a splash of half-and-half, and topped with diced avocado. Hit the spot.

This was an online order. I can find the Callol Serrats tins (medium size filets) and small glass jars (small filets) at a couple of local places but for these bigger jars (large filets) I ordered from Beaune Imports. They’re probably available elsewhere as well. I started ordering from Beaune during the pandemic when they were offering good prices on wines and other products that would normally have gone to restaurants. They’re not doing that anymore but still retail a few products like the anchovies.

I certainly do recall from the 1960s/1970s. But I admit my recall of that time period may be fuzzy. I have a memory of spaghetti with sauce on top and the waiter putting the parmisian on top with a heavy hand and a flourish. I think people tend to go quickly from "what we do now" to "this is how we have always done it" ymmv eta: and I wasn't necessarily referring only to what they do in Italy, but old style, what my parents always did. I actually often like having a bit of variety between forkfulls of past with sauce and forkfuls without for some dishes. I'm probably in the minority on that one.

Hi! Was this an online order or purchased locally? I really want to try these!

Sardines were replaced by the Tin of the Month folks. They were gracious and generous. Had the tin for breakfast with some crackers they shipped with them. Excellent tin. Very fresh. Very mild, non fishy. But they were in tomato sauce, so ya know. If they were affordable (I haven’t checked prices) would make a fine daily driver.

They look good to me. I need to try and make English Muffins one of these days. Made two doughs on October 3rd, both the same. Each had a mini biga/starter (95g) and 1g of yeast, and the starter was made with the scrapings in the bottom of the jar with about 22g of discard. One batch was baked on October 5th and the second one was taken out of the fridge Wednesday night and baked yesterday morning. So it had a 6 day fermentation. Baked 12 small sourdough rolls.

@blue_dolphin you bet ! the worlds only two page cookbook : page 1 : Linguini a la Campari page 2 : Linguini a la Pork 'iPot' Ragu. Fasta would send me DelCecco linguini for life and cover any tariffs on Campari tomatoes.

@chromedome you are a very strange person. Definitely my kind of people.

The video I didn't know I needed this morning was a time-lapse of a slug eating a strand of spaghetti. The video runs 1:23, though it took the slug 34 minutes in real time. And it's got 25K views! Clearly, it resonates with other weirdos besides me. I hesitated over where to put it, but settled on here because a) spaghetti, and b) I found it strangely funny.

@rotuts, it sounds like you've developed a “build it in the bowl” method that works really well for you with Fasta-cooked linguine. Maybe the Fasta people would be interested in commissioning you to write a cookbook featuring their product? Sell it!

Got an absolute behemoth of a quail egg, last night. The biggest one I've ever seen, and it's not even close. Here's an image to illustrate what I'm talking about (this is an ordinary side plate, for scale, maybe 6 or 7 inches?): The one on the left is as small as we ever get. They don't crop up often, mostly just when we have adolescent quail rounding into full maturity. Second is a normal-sized quail egg, the kind our quail-egg containers are sized for. Third is a large egg, which we get a number of. Those have to go in the middle row of the egg containers (the ones we buy are 3 rows of 4), because the containers won't close if they're in the "hinge" row or the "latch" row. Those two are what we almost invariably see, at a ratio of roughly 60% #2 and 40% #3. ...and then, on the right, we have last night's egg. You can see pretty clearly that it's vastly larger than #3, the one that barely fits the standard-sized egg containers. It's huge! My cheapie Starfrit kitchen scale (accurate to a gram or so, it claims) has it at 22g, or roughly 3/4 ounce by weight. A quick search of a few homesteading/poultry sites tells me that 10 to 15g is the usual range, so I'm guessing that #2 hovers around the 10g end of the scale and #3 at the 15g end. So yeah... 50% larger than "large" is quite an outlier.

1) I cook my linguini in the Fasta 2) After draining , and saving the pasta water ( 1 cup ) I plate the pasta in a warm dish w sides 3) Immediately add the tomato jus // then the beaten egg , mix. Then add the EVOO//butter . Mix again 4) then add the tomato/spinach or Pork ragu . the cheese looks like this : eats like this as tasty as tasty can be. But its not Italian . there are more that one way to skin that Pasta that are not Italian , but many stared.

@weinoo fine potato ref. thanks