chromedome

Seth: I use a KitchenAid stand mixer as well, and I find it to be rather maddening for bread dough. By trial and error, I've determined that anything more than a modest 600-700g batch of dough (about a pound and a half) tends to be more trouble than it's worth. In my case, the big frustration is that once the dough gets to a certain consistency it climbs the (pick an expletive) dough hook and gets wound around the head of the mixer. I have devised a number of methods for getting around this. One is to do large quantities of dough in small batches, and then combine them in a large bowl for fermentation. Another is to take the dough out of the mixer, hand-knead it to a certain texture (which, alas, I'd never be able to communicate verbally) and then return it to the mixer. A third is to make a lot of "rustic" breads with a rather wet dough, which is easier to mix and does not climb. Another technique, which does not cure the problem but which helps and is always useful, is to give the dough a twenty-minute rest (the "autolyse," if you're a boulanger) after about 2/3 of the flour has been added. Gluten strands don't form, of course, until the flour is hydrated; giving this rest time allows the gluten to form up without giving your arms (or your mixer) quite the same workout. After the resting period, you'll find that the dough comes to the correct consistency with much less work. McDuff, I found your comments about pastry-making quite interesting. After 20+ years as an avid home cook/baker, I am about to graduate from a reputable culinary school here in Canada. Although I've enjoyed baking for years, and have made things like brioches and puff pastry from scratch, I'm finding my time in the pastry lab (two weeks down, two to go) quite enlightening. There are just so many ways to combine the basic techniques into different products! Wrt apples, btw, have you ever tried one of those little hand-cranked jobbies that peel, core, and slice the apples all in the one go? My parents made 30+ apple pies per day at their homestyle bakery in Nova Scotia, and that thing was a godsend. The cheap ones will only last a few months, but the better ones will stay sharp for years (and are adjustable, so you don't lose half of your apple with the peel).

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to taste Alberta AAA beef side-by-side in a blind taste test with beef from New Zealand and Uraguay. The striploins were all grilled to about medium-rare, and seasoned lightly with just salt and pepper. The Alberta beef was certainly the best-marbled of the three, but since the other two were finished on grass rather than grain, this was unsurprising. About 2/3 of those in attendance chose the Alberta beef as the best-tasting, with the remainder about evenly divided. Personally, I found the NZ product to also have a very good flavour, though it was not as tender. The Uraguayan product was bland in comparison, though very comparable to the Alberta beef for tenderness. This is in no way a comprehensive tasting, but I offer it up for what it's worth. As for cattle from outside the province being sent here and then sold as "Alberta Beef", that is quite correct. Under the applicable laws, any beef cattle which are finished for 90 days at an Alberta feedlot may be sold as "Alberta Beef." The feeling is that it's the barley diet which creates the marbling and unique flavour which mark the product as distinctive; hence cattle from Saskatchewan (or Hawaii, or wherever) become "Alberta Beef" as a result of that feeding.

The Persians have a well-established system of hot and cold foods, as well, which arguably antedated and influenced the Greek (Galenic) system. Most likely, this was the rootstock of the Arab world's understanding of the system, as well. I saw quite a bit about it in various Persian cookbooks I was reviewing in November for my International Cuisine class. I'll try to dig up some of those references for you over the next week or so. If any of you have one of Najmieh Batmanlij's cookbooks, check in the back...she usually has a chart or table of hot and cold foods.

Thank you for the welcome! Between working full-time, going to school full-time, studying, freelance research, parenting, and husbanding, I don't have a whole lot of free time...but I expect you'll be seeing a lot of me in several of the forums (fora?), especially those pertaining to Indian food. I've just found this site within the last few days, and have only begun to scratch the surface of what's here. As a student at a formal (and well-regarded) culinary program, though, I'm deeply impressed by the quality of information offered here at eGCI.

For North American participants in this forum, it is well scrutinizing the all-purpose flours available in your region. I live on the Canadian prairies, the very heartland of hard (high-gluten) wheat flours. The all-purpose flour I usually buy has a protein content of 12.5%, which is very much at the high end of the scale for all-purpose. In other regions, all-purpose flour can be in the 10.5% protein range, which is much less suitable for western breads but good for Indian breads. Of course, flours are not usually labelled with their gluten percentages. To calculate the percentage of protein, look at the nutritional information located on the side of many popular brands. This table will list the nutritional values of the flour based on a standard portion size; on my bag, for example, protein accounts for 4.4 grams of a 37 gram serving size. Simple math gives the percentage I'd quoted above. What I've been using in recent months is standard-issue Canadian whole-wheat flour with the larger flakes of bran sieved out; and cut half-and-half with all-purpose flour. I'd culled that idea from one or another cookbook (probably one of Madhur Jaffrey's) and it seems to work well. For anyone who hasn't made these breads before, I'll second the emphasis on observing the resting times for the doughs. Chapatti, puri, and paratha are all breads I make regularly at home; and when I've made them in a hurry (insufficient resting time) the texture is just not the same. I've found that a conventional oven can make reasonably good naan with a bit of help from a cast-iron skillet (an improvisation in my International Cuisine lab at school). Reasoning that heat from the walls of the tandoor was just as important as the hot air (conduction *and* convection), I preheated the skillet on the stovetop; patted the naan into the skillet; and then placed it in a very hot oven. It took some trial and error to find the best temperature for the skillet, but the bread was very satisfactory. This school is a great idea. I've been a dedicated home cook for 25 years or so, and I'm soon to graduate from a more conventional culinary arts program; but I love the free-wheeling atmosphere here! I'm looking forward to exploring more of these courses.