indiagirl
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Posts posted by indiagirl
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OK, so my serious answer, it's taken me days to come up with this and I'm still not sure:
Leonardo da Vinci
Runners Up (or should it be Runner Ups) - Machiavelli, Toulose Lautrec and ...
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DavidJS, to answer your question about using Ghee in Indian cooking.
First, if you slowly heated butter until the milk fat solids came to the surface and you skimmed those - what you would be left with is ghee, clarified butter. The kind you get in the stores is a little pale for my liking, I prefer a slightly more caramelized version, but you can always caramelize it slightly as you use it to cook.
If you cook Indian food, you know that the basis of most dishes is to heat fat of some kind, flavor it with spices and then adding the main ingredient. For example, you heat some canola oil, add mustard seeds, dried red chillies, asafoetida, fresh green chillies, turmeric, cumin seeds, etc, until the mustard seeds splutter, then you would add, say, potatoes and you would have the beginnings of a potato curry. The first step is called a "tarka", also spelled tadka, or called "tempering".
Using Ghee for this process would be similar to substituting butter for canola oil to fry onions or something like that. It has a lovely lovely flavor but the milk fat also burns at lower temperatures and so a little more care is required. It is easier to make a cumin seed based tarka with ghee (since they fry faster and release their flavors to the fat at lower temperatures) than say mustard seeds.
Some Indian dishes, such as say a dal, also taste great with some cilantro and green chillies fried in a little ghee, being poured on top like a garnish just before serving. Even adding a teaspoon of ghee to a finished dish also smooths out the flavor quite nicely.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg, it is also used on desserts (a la butter) and to deep fry.
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Never had the time to go the Master Chef School? Depressed? Think of foam as something in your bubble bath? Have the sinking feeling that your dinners just ain't cutting the moutarde? You need a De Rigeur Plotnickizeur.
How does it work, you ask? Like Magic. Cook dinner as usual. Toss it all into the De Riguer Plotnickizuer. Add some truffles in the truffle charger. Add a quart of cream, a stick of butter. Insert plates and bowls. Hit the button. Whizz, Whirr and Voila!
Could that really be your meatloaf? Is that an entree or art? Artistic dribbles of sauce. A delicate shaving of truffles. Parsley chiffonade garnish. A chilled foam soup. Your friends will think you just came back from Gay Paree.
Haute Cuisine right in your kitchen for a mere $29.95!! And we'll throw in the shipping for free!! Available in a faux french oak finish!! And the good stuff does not end there!! If you order NOW, we'll throw in two bonus CD-ROM's - "Teach Yourself French in Two Hours" and "Quick N' Easy Insert Yourself Here CD-ROM of Class Photographs at Cordon Bleu"!!
And a final goodbye tip from your friends here are at DRP, remember the H in Haute is silent. 'Appy 'Osting, Mon Ami!!
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Blimpy Burger is Ann Arbor's oldest burger joint.
Ultimate Cheese Sandwhich
Onion Roll
Grilled Onions
Grilled Banana Peppers
One Fried Egg
Five Kinds of Cheese - one of which is Blue Cheese
Optional - Lettuce, Fire in your Brain Mustard
Fat bomb but so so so so good. All for a mere $3.50. I was feeling virtuous so I passed on the fries and/or onion rings.
Tonight, had a dessert invitation at the neighbors so dinner was a quickie. I was offered the left over rice from last night's rice tasting (Bhutanese red, Bangaldeshi KaliJira, Chinese Forbidden Rice, Jasmine Rice all mixed together in a ziploc bag)
Stir fried some red chillies, sesame seeds, scallions, poblano peppers and thinly slices mustard greens, added the rice, cracked an egg on top. All those different rice flavors.
Dessert - Lemon Meringue Pie, Apple Tart.
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Myself, 16 years ago.
I got some things to tell me.
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Ann Arbor, MI. One university. Buzillion students.
Pizza, Korean, Italian, Indian, Ethiopian, Sandwich deli type stuff, burgers, Brewpub food, Chinese, Thai
Dearborn, MI. Ford Motor Company. Largest concentration of people of Arabic descent in the US.
Hummus, Falafel, Mjaddra, Ghallaba, Shish Kebabs,etc
Dearborn, MI. Ford Motor Company. Buzillion engineers packed lunches.
Sandwiches. Lousy Sodexho Marriot cuisine.
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Excellent story, that.
BBhasin, Anil, do you know how they got to Bombay? They seem more concentrated there then anywhere else in India. Was it just a natural migration to a trade center? It almost seems too concentrated for that.
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Oh come on. Considering we're straining the fucking solids in a chinois can't we have the pissing in the FL bushes story posted here too?
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Hey, I went to a rice tasting hosted by Lotus Foods and Marie Simmons (who wrote a book on rice which I have not read but whose talk last night I was not at all impressed with).
I learned about sticky starch (in sushi and risotto type rice) and non-sticky starch (in basmati) and about how some esters are what makes some rice aromatic and how typically short grain rice comes from cold climates.
She also kept saying rices - is that the plural of rice?
Lotus foods is trying to bring in hierloom variety rice from various countries to the US. I tasted the following:
Bhutanese Red Rice
Grown at very high altitudes, nutty flavor, smallish grains.
Forbidden Black Rice
Chinese, Purplish black, again nutty and fairly chewy when cooked. I liked the flvor. Short grains. It is supposed to be rich in iron and is called Tribute rice in China because it was used to pay tribute to the Emperor. Is this the purple rice that has been referred to on this thread?
Kalijira Rice
Bangladesh. Gorgeous. Little fine small grains of rice that are the size of cumin seeds. The name means Black Cumin. A yellowish white in color. Nice flavor. Fairly aromatic but not like basmati. I really liked this one.
Organic White Jasmine Rice
Lowell farms, El Campo Texas. This was not as aromatic as I would have expected. Nice flavor. A little chewier than I liked.
The whole thing was a lot of fun.
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Top O the Mawnin' to You, Mr Plotnicki.
Looks like we were cross posting.
Just wanted to tell ya-
I ain't clinging to nuthin'.
Off to work.
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Macrosan, J Acord, when you start that new thread will you invite me?
Also, J Acord, welcome to the Mobius Strip.
Finally, to slightly modify what you said you thought this thread was about so that it now describes what I think this thread has become (see how careful the Mobius teaches you to be? Especially when you can look below and see Plotnicki watching you type
)I confess with pride to speaking the words that drove FG nuts:
Good presentation can make good food taste better.
I'm sticking with it and I think most people here agree. FG vehemently did not but I think he's left.
So, now, I believe the thread has become a discussion about:
1) Those who think presentation affects the way we taste food and believe we have little or no control over the sensory reasons that it can
2) Those who say that presentation affects the way we taste food and believe that we have complete control over which sensory input we choose to add to our tasting function.
With the follow up conclusions that only untrained palates allow their minds to be lulled by distractions other than taste.
Macrosan, do you still want my answer to the Bresse chicken question? By the time I saw it and your "pout" moment a few million pages later, the thread had taken another twist.
Also, then the new million $ question:
food tastes=taste food?
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Ate out again tonight.
But, I went to my first Slow Food meeting so it was a worthy cause, no? The meeting was very focussed on sustainable agriculture (as opposed to the hedonistic part of the slow food movement!). A woman, whose name I cannot remember and who had written a book about rice made a little presentation on it - I must confess to not being at all impressed with her. There were also two people there from a company called Lotus foods - they are importing different kinds of heirloom varieties from Bangladesh, Bhutan, etc. Wonderful, wonderful rice.
Thanks for the fish tips, Xanthippe and Jinmyo. I'll report back here, fer shure.
Dinner tonight : Ultimate Cheese Sandwich from Blimpy Burger. Sigh.
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Food : A culinary history - Jean Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari
Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
Fabulos French Food - James Peterson (don't tell Plotnicki)
A Cook's Tour - Anthony Bourdain
Last book I finished
Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry
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That's my issue, anyway.
You won't talk about my issue, so I won't talk about yours. Yah boo sucks
Now, now, Macrosan. Does it really befit someone your age to behave this way?
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So it doesn't really make a difference that taste isn't finite, or that you taste things differently then I do. The differences between us are so small that we manage to like the same restaurants.
But the *real* question is, do you and Lizzie taste things differently, slightly or otherwise, because of how they look?
I think it's the end of my shift.
edited grammar
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I'd hoped that we could come here and reason together. And as a reasonable man I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to find a peaceful solution to this problem.
Vito Corleone
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Just when I think I'm out, they drag me back in.
-Michael Corleone
It's not. Taste is about the ability to notice things properly. I can't stress the word properly enough, especially the ability to notice which elements are present and work in harmony with other elements. And while that might include noticing and appreciating enhancements, which change perceptions, it will always be about the ability to notice what is actually there, not what is only percieved to be there.Scenario 1 - A molecule of food is brought to your table. It smells divine. It looks gorgeous. Your mouth waters. Being a responsible taster, you note your mouth is watering. You think - a ha, clever chef. He/She is exploiting the capacity to enchant all my senses, not just one. You put the molecule in your mouth. It tastes divine, helped along by your watering mouth.
Scenario 2 - A molecule of food is brought to your table. It smells divine. It looks gorgeous. Your mouth does not water. You think this chef is trying to harness all my sense but it ain't working. I wonder why? You analyse the reasons. You put the molecule in your mouth. It tastes divine, but not the same as when you were helped along by your watering mouth.
Scenario 3 - A molecule of food is brought to your table. It smells divine. It looks gorgeous. Your mouth waters. Being a responsible taster, you note your mouth is watering. You think - a ha, clever chef. He/She is exploiting the capacity to enchant all my senses, not just one. You put the molecule in your mouth. It tastes like crap. You never go back to that restaurant.
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p2, they may be the same - what anna n and i have described.
the paper to absorb any moisture, which is what causes the rotting and the ziploc to keep the flavor. see, i just put mine in the drawer thingy in my fridge, which would have a similar effect.
good luck
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Whole Foods. Yaay. Got one of those in my neighborhood - I'll check it out. Thanks.
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Thanks, Xanthippe. I just downloaded the Right Bite card. An extremely useful reference for someone like me - it teaches me the types of edible fish there are and the ones I should not eat!
What's a good substitute for chilean sea bass in terms of being similar in flavor but not endangered?
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Wow, this has just grown into a fascinating thread - I never thought of trying to buy fresh turmeric in an Asian grocery store - but I will seek it out the next time. Indian ones almost never have it.
Pan, making a paste and sauteeing it sounds lovely. I've never seen anyone use it that way as a substitute for powdered turmeric. I must try that some day. That and Malaysian food, which sounds excellent ....
The use of a little bit of turmeric as a base ingredient (as opposed to because of it's specific flavor) in a lot of Indian food, I think, was based on it's medicinal/antiseptic properties. I remember having had wounds filled with turmeric when I was a kid - and being really ticked off because I did not want a boring old yellow stain but a neon orange mercurochrome one!
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Saturday night:
Mixed Spring Green and Frissee Salad
Lemon and Chive Risotto
Baked Whitefish, brushed with Parsley, Sage, Rosemary Crushed in EVOO
(non vegetarian dish experiment #2)
Ratatouille
Savarin with Raspberries
Sunday night:
Potato Tikkas served on a bed of
Basmati Rice with Onions and Green Peppers
Monday night:
Feeling kind of
and so I experimented with making the strangest soup I could think of. It contained:Caviar lentils, Onions, Radishes, Cabbage, Garlic, Coconut Milk
Herbes de Provence, Garlic
Garnished with Parsley and a bit of Trader Joe's Black "Truffle" Oil
It tasted dissapointingly "normal" - husband loved it.
PS - Is it bad to consume Chilean Sea Bass? I tasted some for the first time in my life recently and loved it. What's a good substitute?
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sigh. one of the many reasons i love eGullet.
International Potato Chips
in Ready to Eat
Posted
Used to love Dirty Chips but can't find the brand in our local store anymore. They had a Cajun flavor that was oh-so-good.
Like Kettle Chips habanero ginger and NY cheddar and herbs.