chromedome

Maybe I'll take a few photos of my apartment's kitchen at some point. Those of you who are currently suffering from "kitchen envy" will be greatly soothed.

Some fat is innately flavorful and some is less so, but many flavor compounds are fat-soluble (not water-soluble) and therefore have little presence in a dish that's very low in fat.

It's from the Portuguese marmelo, meaning quince. That was originally the main ingredient, before citrus spread from the Moorish-conquered areas of the peninsula.

Sorry, I'm late seeing this. Ovens that don't have self-cleaning expect you to use a chemical cleaner, and are made of appropriate materials to withstand the caustic chemicals (as spelled out previously by dcarch). Ovens that do have self-cleaning expect you will use that, instead. This is GE's explanation: https://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=17569 In my case my oven could handle the chemicals but I can't, so I generally use steam to do the job. I set my electric kettle on a sheet pan on the bottom rack position, lift the lid so the auto-shutoff won't kick in, and let it boil for about 10 minutes (it takes 20-ish to boil dry, so I have lots of margin...and I set a timer). You need to block the vent with a kitchen towel, to keep the steam in. Let the steam work its way into the gunk for 15-20 minutes, then just wipe it out. A few nasty stuck-on spots might require a bit of a soak with hot water and dish soap (or scrub baking soda into it and then hit it with vinegar and hot water, if that's your thing), but they'll generally come off pretty easily. If you don't have an electric kettle, just use a different method to steam it up, ie, turn the oven to 225 F, put a roaster on the bottom rack, and fill it with boiling water. Don't fill it first with boiling water and then try to move it (ask me how I know...). There are thousands of these "natural/less harmful cleaning methods" articles online, and I've actually written a fair number of them myself. Steam is one of the more effective options, and I use it in my microwave as well. As the GE link notes, many newer ovens (and microwaves) have this as a built-in feature. (I wrote this a couple of hours ago, but apparently forgot to click "Submit Reply"...)

Salmon and halibut are both denser than the usual haddock, but you can use your regular batter and technique. I was using the tails from 1-1 1/4 lb lobsters, which were about the right size to cook in the same time as the halibut and salmon. I would guess that the standard 3-4 oz tails would be about the same size. If you were doing them alongside haddock instead, or had larger tails, splitting or butterflying them might be necessary. I occasionally split the thick end of a larger-than-usual tail, just the last inch or inch and a half, if the "eyeball test" gave me pause.

At my restaurant I sometimes did "millionaire" fish and chips: one piece halibut, one piece salmon, one lobster tail. It sold well, when I had all three on hand and felt like offering it.

(PS, if you have an interest in history check out her "Queens of Infamy" series on Longreads. They're about notable women through the centuries, and they're a lot of fun to read.)

Well, that's a tough one. Certainly it's not hard to adopt a cynical view, and think of it as a revenue generator for the manufacturer. That being said, manufacturers at the end of the day need to sell product, and that means incorporating features customers want even if they're counter-productive. Self-cleaning was introduced in the days of analog controls, and it's a genuinely popular feature, so leaving it out would cost them sales. Failing to shield the electronics to at least some extent would make them really failure-prone, but that would be a short-sighted way of driving repair revenue. Reputation is an important part of a manufacturer's marketing strategy - hence Dyson selling at a premium over Shark or Hoover, and Wolf and Bluestar over lesser brands - so they need to be mindful of that as well. My feeling (and I'm not an industry insider, and have no stats to back that up) is that manufacturers know self-cleaning increases the likelihood of failure by [x] percent, and are comfortable that it's not a high enough number to significantly impair their reputations.

It's pretty universal advice, yes. Heat is the enemy of electronics, and self-cleaning generates a LOT of heat.

As it happened, I walked into the living room a little while ago where my GF had left Food Network on TV. The restaurant on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives was serving...banh mi pizza. What're the odds?

I routinely season them after the initial sear, and (now that I've had them all plain for comparison/evaluation purposes) usually give them a lick of soy and Worcestershire sauce as well, for added umami. Same thing I did/do with beef burgers, as far as that goes. If I'm working with the loose faux-ground to make my patties, I incorporate those into the "meat" before shaping my patties.

We found we favored Beyond over Impossible, though that may simply be because Beyond has been available much longer in my neck of the woods and our taste buds have acclimated. Both are better than the LightLife, to our palate, though we tend to use the LightLife faux-ground more often for non-burger applications (go figure). No ethical/vegetarian motives at play, just that my GF can't eat red meat because she's on an anti-inflammatory diet for medical reasons. She misses beef more, I miss pork more (I can still eat it, but it hardly seems fair to have the smell of it in the air when she can't partake...).

Yes, but if you're having jim-jams do you butter the toast as well? or is it just toast with jim-jam? My father was not one for the delicately fine scraping of jam over the toast. He grew up in a large family in a remote part of Newfoundland back in the day, and the only sweets they saw with any regularity (jam and molasses) were rationed strictly, as the thinnest manageable scraping over the bread (or toast, or whatever). As an adult, he mounded on as he could fit for that most human of all reasons...because now he could. I fall into the un-triangled camp, myself...on the (rare) occasions when I have breakfast in a restaurant, I'll invariably request that my toast not be cut. The jam (or marmalade), like the butter, must go from crust to crust.

I first encountered those in the pages of "Lorna Doone," when I was a kid. From the description of young John stalking them I drew the conclusion that they were some sort of crawfish, and it wasn't until a few years ago that a chance mention sent me to Google to see what they actually were.

Gotcha. Well, there are plenty of traces of "the old country" to amuse yourself with in Nova Scotia, beginning with the kilted pipers at every tourist attraction. For bonus points, you can always spend a day or two circling the province and taking pictures of yourself near the signs for New Glasgow, Inverness and suchlike, to send to friends and acquaintances in their old-world equivalents. Spoiler...there's not a lot of similarity between New Glasgow and the original.

Kind of a cool place for a small city, if I do say so. There's a fair-to-middling Russian expat community there, too, should that matter.

Standard doner kebab/gyro format, with meat sliced from the vertical rotisserie and browned briefly on the flat-top. The usual additions are chopped tomatoes and onion, and - this is hte distinctive part - a sweet, milky sauce. It sounds bizarre, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. https://www.foodnetwork.ca/shows/great-canadian-cookbook/blog/the-delicious-history-of-the-halifax-donair/

Millionaires shortcake/shortbread, at least as I've seen it, = shortbread layer, dulce de leche layer, chocolate layer Nanaimo bar = crumb crust layer; American/simple buttercream flavored with instant custard powder, chocolate layer In practice ("official" recipe notwithstanding) the "cultured European-style unsalted butter" is regular salted butter (or margarine, depending on the household), and the chocolate layer is generally melted chocolate chips. I've been served renditions where the butter or margarine was replaced with butter-flavored Crisco, as well. In short, they are to millionaire shortbread as Herman's Hermits were to the Beatles.

LOL Everyone knows Canada is made up of two parts, Newfoundland and the Mainland. Toutons are a Newfoundland thing; Nanaimo bars and butter tarts are a Mainland thing. Personally I consider the correct ratio of layers in a Nanaimo bar to be "none for me, thanks," but whatever floats your boat. If served one in a situation where politeness dictates accepting it, I'll nibble a corner and then pick desultorily at the chocolate on top. (...and as a Halifax native, I'll wave the flag for the Halifax-style "donair" as well. Yes, I know it's just another of the infinite variations on doner kebab...but dammit, it's *our* variation!)

Could have been worse...

Oddly, it was my go-to hangover breakfast at a point in my life (late teens/early 20s) when that mattered. There was a little fishmonger near where I lived in Regina's cathedral district, and a chunk of smoked eel and some rollmops somehow made my morning more bearable.

Another take on the controversy, to which I can only reply...most of 'em aren't Stella Parks, or anywhere close to being Stella Parks. But whatever... https://skillet.lifehacker.com/dont-just-skip-to-the-recipe-1846379903

I sent that back down the pipe to my daughter, who received it with an appropriate level of anguish.

My ex used to joke that her own personal guardian angel must be a hulking bruiser named Luigi, or she'd be dead by now...

Yes, I missed that earlier. Pike=jackfish, though my favorite colloquialism for them out West is "slough shark."