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Avumede

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  1. Harold McGee has an addendum, where he mentions Ligurian techniques as well: http://news.curiouscook.com/2009/02/cookin...er-seconds.html
  2. There was some evidence presented in the article that the cold-start technique resulted in a quality loss. But no evidence that merely cooking in less water results in a quality loss. Indeed, as the article points out, it's a gain because you now have some very nice pasta water. Saving water is good, saving energy is good, even saving the salt would be nice. However, the big gain, in my opinion, is the time to boil the water. Also, it would be quite nice to not have to haul out the stock pot to more than the usual quantity of pasta. All in all, the low-water technique seems like a pretty useful thing to try out.
  3. This article is extremely unconvincing as a rebuttal. The NY Times article is very simple: the bluefin tuna found in sushi restaurants has more mercury that you should eat on a weekly basis. Unless you are in the habit of eating this very expensive fish regularly, there should be little to worry about. The response in this Slate article merely mentions the interesting study that showed that eating fish regularly is not harmful. Not bluefin tuna, just fish in general. I think we can believe both things.
  4. IN a restaurant in St. Louis, a waitress (at some chain restaurant I forget the name of) talked about the desserts made with "homemade cool-whip".
  5. Actually, calling the main course an "entrée" is correct. See Cecil Adam's take on the matter.
  6. I found that if you can get a crispy skin through pan-frying it, it wouldn't be crispy enough to withstand the inevitable steam and moist salmon underneath, so the nice crisp skin would turn soggy. So, although it is a pain, I recommend taking the skin off completely, and cooking it separately. Otherwise, you can't get it crisp to up enough without overcooking the salmon. And you can cook the skin up to a cracker-like crispness very easily (just leave it in a 350 degree over for about 20 minutes). My wife and kids can't get enough of it.
  7. Avumede

    Cooking Myths

    I have heard everyone claim that one should make tea starting with cold water. Most of the time they claim it is because of the oxygen content of the water. However, once you heat up the water, you'll lose the oxygen anyway.
  8. So, as you may have read, Indian Mangoes are now legal to import, and the first shipment has already come into New York! Does anyone know where I can get them? I've been to Patel Bros. in Jackson Heights, but they claim to have no Indian Mangoes and no good idea about when they might get them.
  9. Funny, I always thought the owner Mike is the weakest of the barristas there. However, I've only had his cappucino, so perhaps his espresso is excellent. I know they are religious over there about cleaning and maintaining their espresso machine.
  10. I had one like that a few years ago. You simply cannot use it indoors, a Wok on it will soon fill your house with smoke. Outdoors, though, and it's wonderful. Now that I had one, I can't imagine cooking Chinese without it.
  11. A few years ago in Hong Kong, I picked up an interesting Japanese cooking pot, which was all the rage over there. It it basically a tall stainless steel pot, which fits inside an insulating thermos. The idea is to heat up your stew (or whatever) to boiling, then put the inner pot in the outer insulating thermos. The dish continues to cook at low temperatures because of the good insulation. After 6 or however many hours you have a dish that is cooked even slower than a slow-cooker dish, and without using much power. I used this a few times for Oxtail stew, and it is quite good for pre-cooking chickpeas. However, I haven't used it in a while. Anyone else use one of these things? What do you use it for?
  12. Try Casa, which I blog about here: http://dresese.thehyatts.net/archives/000430.html The barristas, as usual, vary in quality, but the overall quality level is very high.
  13. I thought the food was delicious. However, it's not as good as WuLiangYe or Grand Sichuan (or Spicy & Tasty in Queens). In particular, I didn't detect many or any of the Sichuan peppercorns. However, it may be that the dishes I happened to order did not contain any. If you get a chance, go. It's quite solid.
  14. Now you've piqued my curiousity. Care to share some of your discoveries?
  15. Avumede

    Shake Shack

    One complaint: Their concretes are way too large and expensive. I would prefer getting a quarter of a cup, even if it is as much as half the current price.
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