ellencho

I believe Cook's Illustrated recommends brining and a dry rub for their BBQ ribs. I do that myself, mainly because you'll be smoking them for a while and they're not the thickest cut of meat, so the brining is sort of an insurance policy against overdrying your ribs.

So the boyfriend and I made another trip to the SJ a couple weeks ago. He enjoyed his food but I didn't think it was as good as the first time I was there. We started with wings again. The flavor was fine, they just weren't as falling-off-the-bone tender that they were last time. There was even a bit of blood between the joints when we tried to separate our wings. The bleu cheese sauce was good however. Then we shared a crock of their mac and cheese. Since i'm not a fan of creamy non-curdy mac and cheese, I didn't think it was all that great. It definitely tasted cheesy but I prefer the type of mac and cheese that Delilah's serves. The boyfriend had a chicken dinner that he completely destroyed - meaning he enjoyed it. I wasn't so impressed with my own meal. I ordered their Barbecue chef salad. They describe their salad dressing as a smoked tomato salad dressing, but I tasted nothing. It was absolutely devoid of flavor, and they over-cheesed the salad. It's not like I'm going to stop going there because of this one salad, but it was definitely disappointing, especially after I had enjoyed my first visit there so much.

To be sure about that, someone would have to test it in a lab (Prof. McGee?). I would say it is a likely possibility rather than a certain fact. Ok, since it is quite late at night I'm not sure if I have the mental capacity to really think any of this through, but I actually tested something similar - fresh vs previously frozen egg whites for use in my macarons. I made two batches of macarons last week. One with fresh egg whites that had been "aged" Sunday through Thursday. The other batch was made with previously frozen egg whites that had been also left out Sunday through Thursday. I noticed two sets of differences. Firstly, the whites coming from fresh eggs when whipped, resulted in a sort of lumpy consistency even though I definitely had not over whipped them. The whites coming from the previously frozen eggs whipped up much more evenly and were consistent in texture through and through. However, both batters were similar in texture once the egg whites were mixed in. The second set of differences I noticed were that those macarons coming from the fresh egg whites rose more evenly and had a "dome-ier" appearance than that of the macarons made from the previously frozen whites, which I suppose makes sense, if the fresh egg whites that I "aged" contained more of the heat-stable protein.

Pretty much anyone on my mom's side of the family. They all know what it means to eat well, and no ingredient was used unless it was the best, and no ingredient was allowed to go to waste. In addition to appreciating good food, they are also advocates of healthy living with plenty of exercise.

I made oven baked chicken wings for dinner tonight. Basically, I just salted and peppered some wings, rubbed in a bit of oil, and set them out on that new Reynolds wrap non stick foil - which incidentally, works VERY well. Then I made up some wing sauce and poured it over the baked wings. They turned out pretty good. I definitely didn't miss standing in front of a deep fryer waiting for them to cook. In addition to the oven baked hot wings, I tried using oven roasted pork ribs with the hot wing sauce, and I have to say, it was quite delicious.

This is my latest attempt at macaron. I made a couple of changes to Herme's recipe from his Chocolate Desserts book. First, I don't pipe the cookies out, I actually use a small cookie scoop, and then use a wet finger to smooth out the tops. Then I allow the macarons to dry out for five hours before baking them. For the most part, I'm happy with my results and I've formulated a ganache that works pretty well as a filling (half milk, half dark chocolate).

I brought home a bag of these from a local Vietnamese supermarket to my mom in NY a year ago and I created a veritable muscadine monster. Every week she would ask me to send more up to NY with my brother and was so disappointed when the season ended. Now it's towards the end of the summer and she's started asking about them again like clockwork. And it's not just my mom, my brother and his gf are addicts too as well as my co-worker. I can understand why they're so addictive, they have an almost concentrated grape flavor, but they're really sweet at the same time, somewhat like a cross between a grape ring pop and grape juice.

I enjoyed the blueberry again but with Peach with Prosecco. The prosecco wasn't a very dominant flavor at all but the peach flavor was quite nice. We also brought home two pints - Golden plum and raspberry. Both flavors are delicious, but the plum is exceptional, with tiny flecks of plum throughout.

I'm not Chinese myself, but regardless of what type of food a restaurant serves, I will tip well for good service. Even if the workers pool the tips and then divide them evenly, wouldn't you still rather reward them that little extra bit of money for good service instead of making their overall earnings that they take home lower?

We stopped by for a quick snack today and I enjoyed nectarine and mirtillo with grand marnier. The nectarine was perfect, and the mirtillo (blueberry) was really delicious as well, but I didn't detect any of the grand marnier. Still, it wasn't any big loss, the blueberry taste was bright and fresh either way. My brother had ciocolatto and ciocolatto scuro. The ciocolatto tasted like the finest milk chocolate and the ciocolatto scuro was fudgy and dark tasting like an excellent quality brownie.

Damn, you must be covered head to toe in proteases if you can't get jello to congeal. Either that or you're a fresh pineapple Me personally, I can't make corndogs (even from a mix) to save my life.

Rice is also good if you've got an allergy related itchy throat.

If I am nauseous, I find that a stick of Big Red gum does the trick. For sore throats I go with ginger/honey tea.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of El Rey chocolates too. I especially like their dark milk chocolate which is pretty hard to come by these days.

Fried green tomatoes taste more like squash than they do ripe tomatoes.

Bagel pizzas. Just steal the different bits and pieces for your bagel pizza during the week. Swipe a bagel in the morning, some cheese in the afternoon at lunch, and at dinner most college dorms have some form of pasta with red sauce so take that too. When you're studying later, and hungry, assemble your bagel pizza and toast in a toaster oven.

I had made a doubled recipe for pasta fagioli. I used only the best ingredients that I could possibly get and went out of my way for them. I put the entire recipe together except for the pasta. The single recipe called for half a lb of ditalini pasta and I figured that since I was making a double portion that I could get away with using half. Instead, what I ended up with was a big pot full of inflated ditalini with tiny bits of chopped veggies and pancetta here and there.

Organic fruits and veggies have six digit PLU codes.

Wow this thread has been dead for a while. Anyway, in the past two weeks I've made two batches of ciabatta from a poolish. Although I've made this recipe before, for some reason I only added half the water that I should have (3 instead of 6 ounces) and I ended up with a very tight crumb. This weekend I doubled the water and my crumb came out much nicer and looser. Here is a comparison of wetter vs dryer dough ciabatta crumb. In addition to the crumb's texture being different, I noticed that the texture of the crust is also better when you use more water. It's a thinner, more delicate crust, but definitely crispier than the crust you get when you use less water. Here's a comparison of the outside of the loaves wet dough vs dryer dough. Maybe you can't really tell from those photos but the dryer dough ciabatta has a thicker, more dense crust than the wetter dough.

Anyone else here confounded by the dish Andrew wanted to serve? The braised salmon in a white wine reduction? Why would you do that to salmon? Broiled salmon sounds fine, but what would be the point of cooking the crap out of a piece of salmon? That, and Jessica blowing on the filets that had caught fire? Does it really take much brain power to know to put a lid on it?

i have friends who were born in korea and raised here since a young age. they say karbi.my younger sister, born here, also has a hard time pronouncing things. she says karbi. cant say 'ddeok' either. nothing unusual. yes, their mommies are korean. so are their daddies. is there something so sad about it? wouldnt break my heart. hey, im just glad to know that someone is out there promoting korean food. as for the tumeric... you know that sickly bright yellow second rate takuan that gets served up with your $5 bowl of jjajangmyeon? that is usually colored yellow with tumeric. i prefer different kind of takuan (takuan that has spent months in a nukadoko, MMM BABY), but yeah, all that cheap yellow stuff often has tumeric in it. and, if it isnt yellow enough, they will also add dye. ← Eh, it's my own personal pet peeve. Like I said in my original quote, I knew what I was saying was petty, I apologize if it offended you. I just find it interesting, because all of the Korean I know, I learned from my family. Even when I tell a story about something my parents said or did , I unconsciously replicate their Korean accent when they speak English, and I only realized that I did this when my friends pointed that out I do that. But then again, most folks, even non-Koreans can mimic their parents/family's speech patterns/mannerisms/behavior. And regarding takuan, there's a bit of confusion in my mom's house about whether it's Korean or Japanese. I know a lot of Koreans who refuse to call it takuan and call it norran mu instead.

When I first moved to Philly I thought Wawa was the stupidest name I had ever heard. Now I'm used to it I guess. My cousin-in law (I don't know how else to describe him) volunteered at the Republication Nat'l Convention years ago, sort of just answering questions for the conventioneers who showed up. For those that asked where they could get coffee or cigs or whatever, he was told that if he directed people to Wawa, that he should explain what Wawa was, otherwise he'd get a lot of confused looks.

This will probably clue you into how petty I can be, but I once saw a Tyler Florence Korean food episode and what broke my heart the most was that the Korean woman he cooked with said Kar-bi instead of kalbi. I think she had a Korean mom, but I'm not sure about her dad, so I'll just say she was probably hapa, but still, you have a Korean mommy and you can't say kalbi? In that same episode, he made mu banchan and he used turmeric. I don't think my family has ever used turmeric in Korean cooking, does anyone else's family use turmeric in their Korean food? Here's the link to that recipe.

I first heard of the old movie being a promotional gag when I listened to the commentary on the 25th anniversary edition of the DVD. (The commentary is by the five child actors, now all grown up and working as veterinarians and such - it's priceless.) I think one of them (or maybe one of the accompanying documentaries/making-of featurettes) mentioned the link to the Nestle marketing behemoth. ← I think the best part about those special features is that the interview of the German actor who played Augustus Gloop, and the guy is grown, but still a big guy, and STILL WEARING LEDERHOSEN!

I've frozen both a chimmichurri sauce and pesto and they still tasted garlicky after being frozen. Incidentally, char siu marinade freezes very well. Sometimes I'll even freeze some boneless pork butt in then marinade and by the time it's defrosted it's perfectly ready to go.