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k43

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Everything posted by k43

  1. The Sainted Julia said a pinch of salt is as much as you can pick up out of a bowl with your thumb and TWO fingers. To me, it's closer to a teaspoon than 1/4 teaspoon. When you watch Lidia, that's how she adds "a pinch," too.
  2. k43

    Key Limes

    Any savory dish where you would use a splash of vinegar or lemon juice to cut the richness or bring out the flavor is a candidate for some key lime juice. However, key limes have a very distinct flavor, so you need to cut the amount approximately in half. In fact, use a quarter as much and add a few scrapings of the zest. I use a little when poaching fish and add a bit to the butter or olive oil I put on steamed vegetables. When I pan-fry pork chops, I usually deglaze the pan with vermouth, but sometimes I'll use water and a few drops of key lime juice. The important thing is to add the zip but keep the flavor submerged, so you taste only that it's lively, without knowing why.
  3. k43

    Montilla wine vinegar

    The 25-year sherry vinegar is good, but the 50-year is much better, and still a lot less expensive than Balsamic Traditionale. I think what will fill the bill is Noble Sour (Edelsauer), vinegar made from sweet Pedro Ximenez grapes, from Werner Essig/Brauerei Gegenbauer, http://www.gegenbauer.at -- $37.46 from http://www.mackenzieltd.com/mackenzie/Item...egar_NSV17.html and more conveniently but for a higher price from Dean & Deluca.
  4. A china cap will have holes that are too large. A chinois will be problematic, since it has two or three layers, and the medium size crumbs will get caught in between. An easy home-made solution would be to get a 1 foot square piece of screen-door screen, make two 1 square foot wood frames out of 1" x 2" lath, put the screen between the two frames and nail it together. That will let you gently shake out the smaller crumbs. Or you could use a coffee grinder.
  5. This works for winter squash: The stem (which should always be present) should be dry and corky. This tells you the squash stayed on the vine until it was almost ready to fall off, which happens at full maturity. (This don't work for sumer squash, which just get huge and tasteless.) The color of the rind should be deep and vibrant, which shows the full development of the pigments that come with maturity. And for the same reason, it should be matte rather than shiny. It's normal for watermelons to have a pale stripe where they rested on the ground. Like you, I get bad and good hollow-sounding watermelons, and shape -- sphere, zeppelin, pear -- also seems irrelevant. Obviously, I avoid anything with soft spots. Small and medium ones seem better for me, but a big one is too much for me and my wife.
  6. See this French interactive illustration. The hanger (onglet) is area 20. The meat is naturally dark, so don't worry if it's not bright red. Skirt steak (bavette d'aloyau) is area 22. Flank steak (bavette de flanchet) is area 23. The hampe, area 21, looks like it should be good, but I've never seen it in a butcher shop. Google Translate renders it as "pole" and says it is "characterized by long and very apparent fibres," like flank steak.
  7. k43

    Cooking With Tea

    Tea leaf smoked duck is one of my favorite Chinese dishes. A duck is rubbed with browned Sichuan peppercorns, black peppercorns and salt and refrigerated for a day. The next day, it's steamed and then smoked in a foil-lined wok over black and jasmine tea leaves, a little rice and brown sugar. It's then refrigerated for a couple of days and then deep fried and chopped into serving pieces. It's really only for banquets, since it's cloying to eat as a main course, but a couple of pieces are an amazing part of a mix of dishes.
  8. It goes further and further downhill, while the prices go up and up. I use to go fairly often for the New England Clam Chowder, which was rich, well flavored and not expensive. Alas, I got it yesterday and my last reason to go there is gone. The price was $2.00 higher, and the container was 20% smaller. It used to have several clam bellies, but this time it was only tiny chopped bits with the texture of shoe leather. The liquid was OK, but it was WAY too salty. Farewell GCOB.
  9. IAAL. Intellectual property law is in ferment today, and lawyers are working very hard to expand what's eligible for the legal monopoly created by patent and copyright protection. Among the things being submitted for patents are food products that no one would have thought to claim a few years back. Claimed inventions that are "obvious" to those of "ordinary skill in the field" are not patentable. However, the US Patent and Trademark Office has been very generous in granting patents, and things that IMHO are glaringly obvious have sailed through. However, recently, the US Supreme Court broke up the feeding frenzy, holding that there should be a much stricter test for obviousness. The patent world is in an uproar, and I think one of the first things to go will be the sort of "invention" made by adding an extra ingredient to a recipe. Time will tell.
  10. k43

    Maine Diners

    The Maine Diner on Highway 1 in Wells is both famous and good. Their Clam Chowder is quite a bit better than good.
  11. k43

    Ox-Tongue

    The tongue in the pictures hardly looks like it came from a full-grown ox. I think it would be almost twice that size. My Jewish mother made tongue maybe four times a year. I have no idea whether her Viennese mother taught her or my father's Lithuanian mother taught him to like it and he asked my mother for it. As a kid, I didn't take the name literally. I thought it was some cut that happened to have an odd name, like eye of rib. My mother made a "sauce" of coarsely chopped hard-boiled eggs, mustard, chopped scallions and mayo that went very well with the meat. After two meals, she would make a cracker dip/sandwich spread of the rest by putting it through a meat grinder and adding LOTS of horseradish, mayo and black pepper. I add capers and chopped cornichons. Unfortunately, my wife can't bear the thought of offal, so I have to get tongue in deli sandwiches. Like any good New York Jewish boy, I prefer the fattier part maybe 2/3 of the way back. Tip is too dry for me.
  12. k43

    Easter Ham

    I use this for leftover tongue, but it works well with ham: Remove most but not all of the fat. Put through a meat grinder with the medium or coarse plate. Mix with mayonnaise, lots of freshly ground ground black pepper and 10 times as much fresh, strong horseradish as you imagine possible. Serve with substantial crackers, such as Triscuits. No matter how much you make, your guests will gobble it up and beg for more.
  13. k43

    Pan Reduction Sauces

    I put a little Old Bay in the cooking liquid -- only about 1/2 a teaspoon to avoid overpowering the delicate flavor of shrimp. When the sauce is reduced, the Old Bay greatly improves the flavor.
  14. Formaggio Kitchen makes excellent powdered demiglace, which reconstitutes instantly. It's not listed on their site, because, they say, they sell as much as they can make without advertising. Call them at 800/212-3224. I found it through an article in the NY Times several years ago and have been using it ever since. (You need a NYT subscription to view it.) It's at least as good as More Than Gourmet. Of course, home-made is better. I use Robert Farrar Capon's method, again from the Times website.
  15. Quattro Farms at Union Square on Saturdays usually has them.
  16. k43

    Pork Cracking

    When I slow-roasted a picnic shoulder, the butcher scored the skin in 1" diamonds. It's a good thing, too, since it was delicious but, in the spots he didn't score, I had to use pliers over a potholder to break the pieces off. The fat under the skin was amazing, but probably excessive. Unless you like your double-sauteed pork extra fatty and warn the pastrami slicer not to lose any fat, it's better to follow davecap's advice and render some of it out. Not all of it, though.
  17. The Quattro Farms stand at the Union Square greenmarket almost always has duck eggs. I wasn't wild about them. You practically needed a hammer to break them, and at least the ones from Quattro weren't that "interesting."
  18. I'd say no to butter, even clarified. The flavor is too distinct, and it overlays the delicate shrimp flavor. Leaving the shell on increases "shrimpiness." Open them up the back with a curved serrated vegetable knife and devein, but leave as much on as you can -- even the heads. For sauteeing shrimp, I usually use a just a little mild EVOO plus some dry vermouth, and a smidgin (1/8 teaspoon) of Old Bay.
  19. Here's my very easy Chinese Oxtail Stew. Trim off as much fat as you easily can. Blanch the pieces for 5 minutes. Even though it smells great when it's done, it's very important to refrigerate the meat and the liquid separately overnight. When you remove the really thick layer of fat the next morning, you'll see why. This one perfumes the whole house.
  20. Which sugar substitutes work best for cooking? I've found out a little, but need some expertise. I've found the following: Cyclamate – any word on the current status? Equal (Aspartame) is said to break down in heat, so it's not suitable for cooking. Erythitol – browns like sugar. The FDA rates it as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe), but that means the FDA hasn't evaluated it. Their site here, but it's a health food manufacturer, and I'd like a neutral evaluation. Saccharin Spenda (Sucralose) -- OK for cooking, but is said to have an "artificial" aftertaste. How strong is it? Stevia -- OK for cooking, but not approved by the FDA for food use. Sunett (Acesulfame potassium) is said not to break down in cooking. I assume any of them could be sprinkled on cooked food before serving where necessary, but how about, say, pork roasts to create a lacquered surface or in most Indian and Chinese dishes?
  21. k43

    "Overreduced" balsamic

    Been there, done that. It's almost impossible to get the bitterness out once you over-reduce. I hope it was supermarket balsamic, not the $50 a bottle stuff. You might try adding a little brown sugar.
  22. k43

    Tough Skins

    Lightly brown them all over in a skillet. That will crisp up the casing and give it a good flavor. Or you could just peel the casing off, like you do with a liverwurst.
  23. Cut off the blue stuff, making sure you get a little bit below the surface if the mold has clumped up. (By then, it's also grown a bit into the interior.) Then go ahead and eat it soon. Cheese mold isn't poisonous. It just tastes bad.
  24. Most pink grapefruits are seedless, or nearly so. White ones have lots of seeds. That may account for the difference in popularity. I prefer the white. I peel them, slit the narrow end of the interior membrane on the wedges with a serrated vegetable knife and pull it off, but I'm peculiar. At least get all the peel off to avoid bitterness. I've had white grapefruit right off the tree in Florida, and it's a different world -- extremely sweet. It keeps this flavor for less than a week and then turns into the more sour ones you get in supermarkets. The recent ice storm has ruined this year's Florida grapefruit harvest, so get them while you can.
  25. k43

    butter cheese

    I've bought it several times. It's mild and very rich. It's not particularly good plain or on crackers, but comes into its own when melted, and all the butter comes out. It makes great toasted cheese sandwiches and is also great in an omlette, but you need to melt the cheese first and use what comes out of it instead of putting butter in the pan. Otherwise it's cloying. I think it would be fantastic in a fondue.
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