All Activity

Thanks for this thread a really interesting read.

I'd not buy one ... certainly not in my current circumstance ... but it would be really cool to have such a machine. The biggest problem for me is that, in time, the novelty would wear off, the machine would go into storage, and then find its way to my next garage sale. But while the excitement was high, I'd be whippin' up soft serve for friends and neighbors frequently, maybe even have a party. I'm sure you'll enjoy the machine and get good use from it.

Another failure, this time with a large (and expensive) Berkshire rib chop. Most of the porkchop smoking suggestions I found were for 121C for 2 1/2 hours. After just over an hour I went to turn the meat. When I read the temperature it was 75C at the warmest part. My target was 63C. Very sad. Something is going on that I do not understand. On the positive side the salt and spices were just right, and the pork was very flavorful. But frightfully overdone.

How much do such things cost, may I ask?

Got a new toy yesterday - a soft serve machine (also does slushies and other frozen things like milkshakes, but I bought mainly to make soft serve). It's a HiCozy F3 and I ordered it a few months ago on Kickstarter. There a few other mainly similar machines starting to come out, GreenPan is one I have noticed. I fired it up last night and made a simple soft serve vanilla using Frostline mix and Fairlife lactose-free whole milk. I used 2/3 cup of the mix and 20 ozs of mix, which gave me 25 ounces of base (the max for soft serve). It chills and agitates the mix and in about 20 minutes it was ready. Then the machine goes into what they call insulation mode and it keeps the mix churning and cool for two hours. (At the end of two hours you can simply restart the cycle to keep it cool and continue to serve.) It tastes very good, but was a little too soft. You can adjust the firmness (which I assume is just the temperature) which they call gears. Next time I will try a higher gear. With the added air from the process it expanded to about 40 ozs of product. That's a lot for two people! But I did dispense all the leftovers into a container and froze it. We had some tonight and it was just a tad icier, but still very good. The minimum base volume is stated at 22 ozs which is a lot and the biggest downside. I want to try a smaller batch and see what the effect is. It also has a self-cleaning cycle that seems to work, but you have to fill and empty it several times. I will post more as I experiment more. A few pictures, taken hastily.

Sadly, the only anchovies I can find here (apart from other fish mistranslated) are these. These are Italian and not intrinsically bad but I like my anchovies packed in salt, not oil. I did buy a few cans of the salted last time I was in the UK (2019) and smuggled them into China but they now are long gone.

You know I'm always super polite!

I'm kinda sorry I used a translation program for this. I'd expected something more colorful!

I've been using Ruben Porto's "Tres Leche" recipe a lot, adding modifications. It seems like a really good base recipe for the Creami. I scaled the recipe to use one full can of sweetened condensed milk, yielding 40 oz of ice cream base, which I split into two 20 oz Creami Deluxe beakers. It's shy of a 24 oz Deluxe beaker, but it also gives room for add-ins. (My full base recipe is one full 397 g can of sweetened condensed milk plus 507 g Costco whole milk, plus 366 g Costco heavy cream.) 3.8% w/w cocoa powder turns it into a nice chocolate ice cream. (24.1 g in 20 fl oz base) PB2 peanut butter powder makes a good peanut butter ice cream. I have used both 6 tablespoons PB2, and 4 tablespoons plus 1 mL of McCormick Vanilla Butter Nut flavor (sold for baking). The more PB2 powder you add, the more the consistency changes... Even 6 tablespoons is still OK, more than that may be pushing it. I also tried adding about 100 g cherries to the base. This made a clear cherry flavor, but it was not strong enough to carry it on its own, and adding more cherries increased the batch size too much, and would have compromised creaminess as we're getting far away from the correct sugar/fat ratio. I meant to back it up with cherry flavor extract, but I accidentally picked up the Blackberry instead of Black Cherry bottle. This was a happy accident because the cherry/blackberry result was extremely tasty. 0.590 mL pistachio extract in 20 fl oz base made a fantastic pistachio ice cream. I mixed in some chopped pistachio nuts. Loved it. The flavors I am using come from Apex Flavors, they are wonderful. They are broken up by category, some are sold for beverages, some for baking, some for ice cream, but I have had good luck breaking the rules. My last batch also used a stabilizer for the first time. Chris Young commented on ice cream stabilizers in an old ChefSteps thread... I'm going to copy it all here because it's good info that should not be lost. What I did was mix up the suggested 1:1:1 locust bean gum, iota carageenan, and xanthan gum. I applied it to the Tres Leche base at 0.15% w/w. Because LBG needs heat, and iota carageenan needs heat and ideally the absence of sugar, I hydrated this mix in just the milk portion of the ice cream base recipe. I picked 170F for 20 minutes--easy thanks to my Control Freak. Then, I blended the base together. The LIX stabilizer seemed to improve the mouth feel of the final ice cream a bit, and it also noticeably helped to slow melting. I would say my first batch of Tres Leche ice cream (berry flavor), plus 0.15% LIX stabilizer, was the first batch of ice cream I have made that I feel was around commercial quality.

The best pizza I’ve eaten in China was here in town. Many years ago, a Liuzhou native who had lived in S. Korea for many years, retired, sold his pizza shops in Korea and came home to spend his final years. As a hobby, he opened one pizzeria here in town. It was beautiful with an open kitchens where you could see him and his staff making then tossing pizza dough into perfect discs, adding mozzarella they made each morning and adding sensible toppings you would find in Italy. S. Korea knows good pizza. Sadly few people went and, after struggling for a year, he gave up. The premises are now a baby clothes store. A month or so later, Pizza Hut opened and people were lining up round the block to eat crap pizzas shipped in from Guangzhou, 500 km (311 miles away) away, and reheated. I wept. Yesterday, I found this on a delivery listing. Seoul crispy fried chicken pizza! What it has that relates to Korea or Seoul in particular remains a mystery. Obligatory Kewpie squiggles, as usual. Not in Korea. 괜찮아요!!

They really do, I'll dig a photo out for what I can get a hold of Edit: this is about as good as it gets. Note the weight. A mighty 95g! https://www.ocado.com/products/fish-4-ever-anchovies-in-organic-olive-oil/64364011 There's probably an importer for big Spanish/Portuguese specimens (or was, thank you Brexit) but lord knows what the prices are like now. My Ma is off on a cruise round there in a couple of weeks, I've asked if she can grab some (and possibly woken her up which will make her too annoyed to bother 😄)

Yes, they offer smaller jars but I’m pretty sure the bigger ones have fatter fish!

Those are some fatties! I'm very jealous.

Almost ran out of anchovies … Phew - reinforcements have arrived. Crisis averted! I love how nicely packed they are. Edited to add that I just realized there's no tin here so I’m out of compliance with the topic title. Ooops.

Thai shrimp salad (plah goong) with lemongrass, shallot, cilantro, mint, and a dressing of roasted chile paste, sliced bird chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar. Served on leftover Mexican green rice (which was also good with the eggplant). Roasted eggplant brushed with garlic, cumin, and roasted chile powder in olive oil. NYT recipe but I doubled the garlic. Salt would be better sprinkled on rather than mixed in the oil.

We have always had spinach as a stand along veg. Steamed and then sauteed with garlic and a bit of butter. I find that the butter cuts whatever that is that coats your teeeth when eating spinac.

Yes I mean that I think spinach served as a stand alone green vegetable is not ‘traditional’ with a Thai green curry.

One for @liuzhou

Managed to score a bagged, sanitized salad mix. Labeled "Thai" the greens were great, but the dressing was way too sweet. We added siracha and it made a big difference. Bought some arrachera (marinated skirt steak) at a local market and very pleased with both the marinade and its texture and tenderness. It grilled up fast and stayed juicy. Made for a nice Thai-Mex steak salad after a few too many pasta meals at home and some heavy meals at restaurants the past few weeks.

@TdeV, your sandwich ingredients look delicious! I use my panini press on the highest setting on the "Grill-Panini" side; on mine, the hottest setting for that is "Sear". I do always preheat it (with the lids open*) before I put the sandwich in. It's been a while since I bothered to time the process, but I'd guess at about 5 minutes. Keep in mind that my machine is a thrift-store special, so it may not be up to specs. I don't think I've measured the griddle temperature settings. I should do that sometime, I suppose. As I noted for my last sandwich, I have found that I prefer butter on the outside rather than mayo. I don't think the mayo adds much in the way of flavor, and it might indeed give that greasy sense that you had from yours. I do like a fairly heavy coating of butter, probably more than necessary, but it crisps up nicely and gives a good flavor IMO. Incidentally, the longer or hotter you cook the sandwiches, the more you're likely to cook the greens. I like the crispness of fresh greens, so I add them after the pressing is done. I do the same thing if I'm adding sauerkraut for something like a Reuben, though that's more to keep the "good" bugs alive than because of a textural issue. @BeeZee, your idea might work too. I've never tried that. I'm not sure I've even tried brushing the bread with oil instead of butter, much less brushing the oil on the griddle as you suggest. I'm just kindof a butter fiend. 😀 But the oil-brushing you suggest should ensure that all the bread contacted the griddle without soaking up too much. *Lids open, partly to ensure that everything is at max temperature but also to make sure that I've removed the manual and scraper. Ask me how I know.

Two big king oyster mushrooms, a few asparagus stalks, some Muchim brine and a couple of sauces leftover from my Super Upsetting Cookbook about Sandwiches sandwiches assembled into today’s breakfast buffet: Deep fried king oyster mushrooms, roasted tomato mayo, grilled asparagus, egg poached in muchim brine, tots (which appear nowhere in the book but are good dipped into almost anything) and avocado ricotta spread used as a dip.

Thanks TicTac, I think you have to make it to 70 or 75 to get that letter. Moe and I have actually been together now for 52 years. Thanks @rotuts.

Would it perhaps make the bread less greasy, yet still give good grill marks, if you brushed the surfaces of the panini press with a little butter/oil, rather than coating the bread?

@TdeV longer may over cook the filling go hotter for grill marks and try a very small amount of soft butter might give you better color not so much ' fat '