Priscilla
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Posts posted by Priscilla
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Wow do I envy you all your ramps. Very good Bulgarian springtime lamb stew with fresh garlic greens, bet they were Bulgarian ramps, historically, don't you?
Wonder if regular fresh garlic shoots at the farmer's market are comparable. Ain't wild, for one thing. Hmmm.
Last night, quick and dirty, we had spaghetti carbonara from Mario Batali's recipe, which, over years of working on this dish, quizzing Italian cooks and researching and so forth, was almost instantly recognized as the archetype when we first made it--everything one wants in one's carbonara, with a lovely lightness on the palate. I think once again Mario's done all the work for us, like the good teacher he is. Unctuous heavyness is a problem among inferior carbonaras, in my experience, a real flavor-killer.
Salad of cucumber and (peeled) tomatoes, thinly-sliced onion soaked in several changes of water to mildenate it as Marcella instructs, and red-wine vinegar briefly infused with garlic in the dressing. Frenchy-french baguette from the Vietnamese bakery which supplies the Persian market.
Priscilla
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Khare Masale Ke Chaawal, that's what he said.
Over in Cooking's Peppercorn topic, I described a delicious Pakistani dish of rice and meat with whole spices, and Suvir recognized it, and well, now I'm wondering if you could, Suvir, outline a method of preparation.
Could you also briefly, if possible, tell what sort of menu this dish would be a part of, or what it is classically served with? I imagine it's sometimes made without meat? And different kinds of meat?
Priscilla
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That is exactly what we sub-continentals are looking for when cooking the Khare Masale Ke Chaawal (rice fried with whole spices and then steamed). A long wavy afterburn.
Suvir, I have no ethnic claim to, nor anything like expertise in, subcontinental cuisine, but oh I do love it so.
The dish you identified for me (thank you) was yet another revelation! Those whole peppercorns! As you know in Western cuisine, if whole pepper is an ingredient the corpus of the spice is strained out before eating. A dish that leaves them in is a boon to black-pepper eaters.
Relatedly, have you noticed that Dutch people have a special affinity for black pepper? (Other spices too, per the Indonesian connection, of course.) I mean, I have to refill my table peppermill after my Dutch friends eat with us! I attribute it to the Dutch East India Company's historic spice trade as a working theory, and am happy to provide lovely Tellicherry for them to shower on everything.
Priscilla
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I use Penzey's Tellicherry peppercorns. The flavor is so rich and full, and hot, too, but it's the richness what makes it.
White are occasionally seconded, e.g. for Icelandic fish cakes or when their little difference seems indicated, but I do not fret about black pepper bits in a light-colored medium, in fact I like to see 'em in there. Green and pink I like with duck, one or the other or both.
Recently I tried a Pakistani rice and meat dish, sorry I don't know the name, it was not unlike plov, delicious, that had whole black peppercorns (and other whole spices, including cloves) throughout, softened a bit in cooking, providing a surprisingly HOT, sort of fruity flavor blast when encountered, and a long, wavy afterburn.
Priscilla
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Tommy tell us more about equilibrium sometime.
And, it's ALL YOUR FAULT, but I too cooked baby back ribs on Mother's Day, for various and sundry mothers, and the males present, too. It was 100 degrees, good rib weather--one hopes it's good for SOMEthing.
Brined 'em, mopped 'em, as per CK's expert admonitions, slowly cooked 'em on the semi-poxy Weber, provided sauce (which I make, when I'm not looking, according to combining-various-canned-and-bottled-goods tradition). Pretty good results, although inferior to the smoked product, texturally, in my opinion, although I know others who disagree.
Priscilla
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I am interested in searching out Sungold, after reading all the affirmations here. Sweet 100 has been our cherry tomato, the little green end-of-season ones are so good pickled according to Paul Prudhomme's method, used as martini garni.
This year I've planted Roma and Brandywine, and Castoluto Genovese, (which Thomas Jefferson grew at Monticello, I read), like a tomato TREE last year, which was my first experience with it. Hope it thrives again. So much of gardening, for me at least, is luck.
Priscilla
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A sorely belated thank you, Miss J, for the pointer to the kedgeree discussion; I love kedgeree and it was enlightening.
Dinnerwise, it was just me and the Consort, and what I had conceived as a deconstructed Club Sandwich became more of a Cobb salad trip as prep briefly wore on, Gorgonzola turned up in there, and lovely Hass avocado (the BEST variety; hybridized a mere stone's throw from where I grew up), as well as what I'd originally intended, including the first nearly-mature hit of merveille de quatre saisons lettuce from my garden and a tomato the guy at the farmer's market said was called Shady Lady, very good flavor balance and a new one on me. Grilled the chicken, boneless leg meat; even with a pretty good brush fire over the hill there, still grilled, but we are always good-citizen mindful of the sparking-ember mesquite startup. Beautiful warm evening of a hot day, the one cat toying with an energetic, specimen-sized gopher, cold, cheap-ass "Nouveau" Trader Joe's was blowing out for Beringer, just right.
Priscilla
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Panko use always seems like cheating, excepting the dishes I started in on them with, tonkatsu, say, and other Japanese fried items, as mentioned by Jason above.
Every single time I use 'em, seems like cheating. So far this has not been a deterrent to their seeing action in my kitchen, early and often, on account of how GOOD they are. And I can heartily encourage the above Liza suggestion of panko for crab cakes, too, or pan-fried fish, or similar.
I don't use commercial breadcrumbs, well, OTHER commercial breadcrumbs, but The Magic of Panko is sometimes just the thing.
Priscilla
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And the cake that Rilla threw in the creek was, I think, called a gold and silver cake (or silver and gold?). I wonder what that was. The early 1900s must have been the height of popularity for layer cakes. Book characters are always eating them. The Lady Baltimore cake, which was discussed in the New York Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago, was a favorite in the Betsy-Tacy books.
LaurieA-B, silver-and-gold or gold-and-silver, right. My memory was corrupted by a recent piece on black-and-white cookies in my local Newspaper of Record. Thank you for citing the NYT Lady Baltimore discussion, looking forward to looking it up; that's what newlywed Betsy set out to make that sent her back to Anna the cook for advice, isn't it? Seems to me from past research Joy of Cooking may have a Lady Baltimore entry, also a Lord Baltimore as well, but I am not certain without checking.
There is a book of which you may already be aware, a cookbook which is really a reminiscence, (like many of the best cookbooks), called Victorian Cakes, by Caroline B. King. Victorian family culture in a non-fiction mode, gratifyingly similar to the stories of Betsy and Anne, gratifying to me, anyway, since Betsy and Anne are more real to me than many real things.
Priscilla
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I take whatever I'm stuffing the bird with and rub it all over the skin, as it is already all over my hands at the time[...]
Yes. You know how M.F.K. Fisher said when she has cooking fat on her hands, olive oil, butter, whatever, she rubbed it in, for the good of her skin? Course one does have to wash one's hands and get on with other tasks at some point, but I always liked that she said that.
And Priscilla, I heartily encourage the bunging of the lemon.Yes. Far too little lemon-bunging, In Today's World.
Priscilla, who edited in an of
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A home salamander...sigh.
a dream of mine.
Hey! What does it mean if we're all having the same dream?
Priscilla
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Allow me to add my vote to Hazan's method. I can typically stuff up to two whole lemons in my chickens! After roasting though, I deglaze the pan using lemons from inside the chicken (careful to catch the seeds else will impart bitter taste) and add salt and pepper to taste. Also sometimes add butter to emulsify sauce slightly. Makes for nice gravy.
Yes, if I WANTED, I could fit a whole lemon or three inside most chickens I have known. Although some lemons are too big. As in the rest of life, sometimes it's the lemon and sometimes it's the chicken.
The deglazing with the lemons is a good idea. In cutting the lemon in pieces I do lose out on that distinctive cooked-lemon-juice flavor that develops, which I can see benefitting a lot from butter enrichment.
I also have at times used LIMES, subject of a lovefest over on the India board, and it's a whole different head but good in its own way, too.
Priscilla
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I've been pondering since you posted this, Helena, whether it is Pacific halibut or not and whether that would make a tremendous difference anyway.
The halibut I buy, over here on the Left Coast of the U.S., is Pacific, and is so good. Mamster, especially up there, I assume you're working with Pacific, too? Am I misremembering or is halibut what Ivar's uses for fish & chips?
A nice 2-pound piece is the sort of thing we would season and put on the grill, but is actually roasted, with the cover on after stripes are branded, the heat controlled (might go indirect, for instance, if it is too hot in there), and turned only once, or not at all if it's not too thick.
Sometimes I make a strawberry beurre blanc for halibut cooked this way, as strawberry and halibut seasons coincide, at least where I am. And in fact, earlier-season slightly less-ripe strawberries are better for this on acount of their acid. I cook them down with maybe tarragon vinegar or whatever, seasoning, and proceed with the butter addition as per usual.
And Helena, I wonder if you ever make the savory pies, hello Jinmyo, of your homeland. If you do any halibut planned-overs are really good for the rice-egg-fish version, I have found.
Priscilla
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Suvir, thank you so much!
I'm thinking about the the gorgeous dark-pink grapefruit I can get at the farmer's market and how they are going to become marmalade quite soon here. I have made other preserves, but never marmalade, and look forward to this.
The orange rind chutney sounds delicious. Just one question, how should the rinds be cut?
We constantly generate lots of orange rinds, which normally enrich the compost, and we have made a limoncello-like liqueur using oranges instead, but chutney, that's something REALLY useful!
I wonder if the light-colored limes you describe are what I have seen sold as Persian limes. They are very sweet, in fact hardly acidic at all. And hasn't there been a historic reciprocal relationship between Persian and Indian cuisines lo, these many centuries? Hmmmm.
Priscilla
(Edited out a hideous disgusting typo.)
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I love limes, prefer 'em to lemons, although I don't hate lemons. One can't really cook without lemon, anyway. Nice to have the tree outside there, loaded with fruit just now.
Here in Southern California I can often get Mexican yellow limes, which I have been told are the same as Key limes. Maybe somebody knows? Incredible bright flavor, beautiful to look at.
And Suvir, if it is not too much trouble, could you give a recipe or outline for the orange-rind chutney? Dare I also ask for the marmalade you mentioned earlier?
I do not take for granted how there is some variety of citrus or another in season the year 'round. A gift.
Priscilla
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Okay, this has puzzled me for YEARS. I love lemon with chicken, but have never ever seen lemons small enough to stuff even one in the cavity let alone two, so I feel I've never done Marcella Hazan's brilliantly simple recipe justice. Am I missing something here?
Yes, as Wilfrid said, cut the lemon.
Marcella's instructions are to pierce the whole lemon all over with a skewer, which is what I used to do, on account of it being Marcella who said so, but now I cut a lemon in half and bung it in there. Wonderful simple dependable staple, in the best sense.
Priscilla
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So many to cite! Too many to cite.
Yes to Anne and Diana's imbibement of the cordial, Stellabella, but was it cherry or raspberry? And in a later Anne book, Anne's House of Dreams, maybe, little Rilla chucked Susan's famous black-and-white cake intended for the church bake sale into a ditch when she saw her beloved teacher approaching, in a childish panic that she would appear like Old Tillie Pake, a pathetic character in a rhyme children chanted. Of course her beloved teacher was herself carrying a cake to the bake sale and so Rilla not only had chucked Susan's magnificent cake into the ditch but in so doing was also deprived of the chance to walk into the bake sale with her teacher, BOTH carrying cakes. L.M. Montgomery, extremely good at capturing childhood emotions.
And yes, LaurieA-B and ChocoKitty, all the Little House books are chockablock with food and cookery, right outta the gate with the Wisconsin woods sugaring-off. I have been reminded of the crispy-broiled pig's tail that was a treat for the children during pig butchery many, many times since finding eGullet, in fact. I like the Little House cookbook, too, LaurieA-B, bought it many years ago with the hope, the fulfilled hope, turned out, that there would be an investigation into the apples and onions Alamanzo's mother made in Farmer Boy.
The sheer abundance characterizing Alamanzo's childhood is a sharp contrast to Laura's pioneer-hardscrabble own. LIW, or Rose Wilder Lane, depending which biography one accepts, certainly purposefully juxtaposed the two, and returned to it heartrendingly in The Long Winter, when the Ingalls were just about starving and Pa sussed out that the Wilder brothers were storing seed wheat in a false wall. Weren't Royal and Almanzo having pancakes? And then Ma ground the wheat in her coffee grinder to make a rough bread.
And the Betsy-Tacy books--not least when they go over the Big Hill and find Little Syria. And, later, Mr. Ray's Bermuda onion sandwiches, and Anna the cook's teaching Betsy to make a decent meal for Joe. And when Betsy meets Joe, he's reading The Three Musketeers, and eating an apple.
Priscilla
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Roasting chicken is so important, if one cooks at all, if one eats chicken at all, that one ought practice it frequently. I think.
Fantastic straightforward no-muss no-fuss and great planned-overs from Marcella Hazan's lemon-in-the-cavity breast-side-down-to-begin no-basty method. From her first book, I think? Fancier, and with the toothsome crispy skin to show for it, are the various butter-enriched versions, such as have been introduced here.
I know to many it is anachronistic, (wouldn't be the first time I've been called that, would it), but I still like to mostly put the butter on the OUTside of the chicken. Soft butter rubbed on at the start, melted butter basted on during, etc. Oh of course I do the under-the-skin thing, too, and actually, this has been preoccupying me because my sage plant is burgeoning with unusually humunguous very green leaves this spring. I'm a little worried about it, frankly. But this does not keep me from exploiting it culinarily.
I also advocate the cutting-out-the-backbone thing for which I now until the end of time will have a word, a very good word, thank you Jinmyo. Originally got the method from Madeleine Kamman, but I never heard her say spatchcock. However, I can imagine same. Can't you?
And Tommy, I am SO putting honey on during the final minutes of roasting the very next chicken that crosses my purview, I cannot tell you.
And Wilfrid, I have a friend who pours boiling water over the chicken, in the sink, say, prior to roasting, which might be a safer route to your intended destination.
And Liza, the gizzards, when their presence is not required elsewhere, are going right under the dang chicken.
I'm not going for the extra-leg juke, however. Jinmyo put me right off that idea with that KFC reference...brought to mind those three-pronged carrots from the "Gilligan's Island" episode in which they The Castaways planted radiated veg seeds.
Priscilla
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Oh.
Yum yum YUMMY, Priscilla. But...dare I...what I combined both you and Sandra's ideas and ...made a sandwich of manchego and guava pasta, and then grilled it... (sound of head exploding)
All right. What she said. Sometimes there's those things that you just KNOW all at the onct are going to be so good it's not even FUNNY.
Priscilla
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Liza, the experience I have with guava paste is singular, but very good. Are things less good for being singular? Compare/contrast. Discuss.
At a Cuban restaurant we have frequented in the past they make as a breakfast side dish something like French toast with guava paste in the middle of two slices of bread, dipped in egg and grilled. Really really good, may I say. And that's not even to ADDRESS, on account of them being the dread off-topic, the black beans and rice and Cuban coffee.
That the restaurant is on the minty-mint 1880sish traffic circle where Tom Hanks correctly filmed scenes from That Thing You Do, and where one, sitting at a sidewalk table, world-weary as hell in sunglasses of choice, is almost guaranteed the chance to wave at local firemen making the circumlocution in one of their various humunguous rigs, is merely secondary.
Priscilla
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Look at this site:
http://www.cliffordawright.com/
JB award good enough for you?
Sorry, my dash, taxi waiting.
Thank you looks interesting will investigate further.
Guess a JB award is good enough for SOME people. And, safe return!
Priscilla
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Have you got Clifford Wright's book? Utterly brilliant.
Nope. Remember your mentioning it previously elsewhere...dunno where exactly just now. What's so great about it keeping in mind I have very high standards?
Priscilla
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One thing I have always understood to be part and parcel (Tommy's po-mo deconstructionesque usage elsewhere has got me using the word parcel all the time) of Being Confit is the meat or poultry in question is preserved in its OWN fat. (Jinmyo does this make confit itself recursive or just the confit conversation so.)
Which does not dilute my interest in, say, pigeons getting the treatment, nor rabbits, neither, however neither of them has much indigenous fat to contribute. So one COULD say, that they the indigenously low-fat animal products, cooked and preserved in somebody ELSE's rendered fat, risk titular ponceyness in quite the same way oil-cooked tomatoes do.
And, according to The Oxford Companion to Food, Lebanese mountain dwellers traditionally cook and preserve lamb in its own fat, a preparation called qawarma. So, yeah, Adam Balic thinks it and it is so. Interestingly, confit d'agneau is given as an appositive.
Priscilla
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Yeah, but, in GENERAL...general culinary historical investigation, I mean. What one surveys when one is surveying the available literature.
E.g., Marcella Hazan is I think an unimpeachable source, and in recent years it's been a pleasure to incorporate Mario Batali's generously-bestowed tremendous store of knowledge, and I find Elizabeth David's accounts of her Italian research electrifyingly immediate AND satisfyingly chockablock with deep information. Waverly Root's The Food of Italy, which I do not own (I oughta, I realize) but have consulted, not unuseful. There are others.
Priscilla
3-Star Chef in Your Own Home
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Teehee wanted to see what happened if I quoted Jinmyo's latest art installation.
A. Bourdain in his inimitable way discussed the incredibly copious amounts of butter used in restaurant cooking way back in Kitchen Confidential, in a section dealing explicitly with differences between professional and home cookery, or how to make home cookery taste more like restaurant. Implied, I think, was the idea that Steve Klc addresses, that some diners do not consider the amount of butter used to prepare their meals.
(And not just butter, I would submit; people who don't cook, and I further submit that our own extraordinary Cabrales is very much the exception that proves the rule, often don't know what's in their food, sometimes through sheer disinterest, sometimes through assumption. Not a crime, necessarily, but creates a problematically underinformed populace, I think. A topic all its own.)
And I too sorta say what's the big deal. (Course I am down in solidarity with the not missing a chance to talk about butter.) One doesn't need helpers to peel and slice potatoes, and store them refrigerated in cream, and then later re-refrigerate the gratin itself. If these are more than pre-prep steps that any home cook could take I am missing something and would like to have the more part pointed out to me. I do not like to refrigerate potato dishes because of the sweet taste that develops, one of our scientists can probably explain why this happens, but I'm thinking if it's good enough for Liza and good enough for Montrachet I shall reexamine. Cream in critical mass can cover a thousand sins.
Priscilla