scott123

"Great" is a pretty strong word! Indeed, declaring a New Jersey ethnic restaurant "great" on a board like this is like throwing a lighted match into a pool of kerosene. ← The Indian restaurants in New Jersey are some of the best in the world. Where's the controversy in that?

Moghul in Morristown has been consistently top notch since it opened 10+ years ago. Because of this track record, I'm certain that Moghul in Edison (with the same owner) has also continued it's commitment to excellence.

Would you (or anyone else) happen to know which North Jersy TJs sell wine? I know mine (Florham Park) doesn't.

Pansophia, From a flavor perspective, it helps to cook the roux to toast the flour a bit, but as long as the flour is well mixed with the butter, even if you don't toast it much, the texture of the sauce shouldn't be compromised. Grainy cheese sauce is not a result of a poorly made roux, it's almost always a sign of curdling. Here are some traditional ways to help prevent curdling: 1. Once it's fully thickened simmer your bechamel for 5 to 10 minutes. Too long and the milk starts getting a cooked taste, but too short and the starch particles don't absorb enough liquid/swell. 2. Before adding the cheese, whisk the bechamel aggressively. Whisking helps break down the swollen starch particles, which, in turn, helps to create both a smoother and a more stable sauce. 3. Add the shredded cheese off the heat The residual heat of the bechamel should be sufficient to slowly melt the cheese. If additional heat is necessary, put the sauce back on very low heat, very briefly. Never let your sauce come anywhere near a boil. 4. Additional fat - fat (in the form of whole milk/cream) is a powerful stabilizer. Be careful with the cream, though- too much and it starts to mask the taste of the cheese. 2 parts milk to 1 part cream is about as high as you want to go. 5. Use fresh milk - old milk curdles more easily than fresh milk. 6. Use younger, less sharp less aged cheeses - acid curdles milk. Older cheeses have a higher acid content. Until you've mastered stable cheese sauces, stick to mild cheddar and colby. 7. Use sealed cheese - opened cheese has a tendency to dry out and be harder to melt 8. Watch the salt content of your cheeses - salt can be a destabilizing factor. Blue cheese is especially salty. 9. Add a small amount of American cheese - it contains chemicals that prevent it from curdling. Kraft Deli Deluxe is better than most. Some less traditional ways of preventing curdling involve: 10. Hydrocolloid gums - xanthan, guar (these are especially useful for providing stability but not masking flavor like starch does). If you use too much the sauce can get slimy, but in small amounts they work beautifully. 11. Mustard - mustard contains emulsifiers which help stabilize sauce, but... I don't think it brings that much stabilization to the table nor is the taste favored by everyone. I'm not a big fan. 12. Milk proteins - dried milk/whey is sometimes used commercially in cheese sauces, but, like mustard, I'm not a big fan of the taste. For an unbaked mac & cheese, following tips 1-9 will pretty much guarantee you a smooth, uncurdled sauce. Baking exposes cheese sauce to pretty extreme temps and pushes the stabilization envelope. The starch from the unrinsed pasta helps a bit, but not much. For a guaranteed not to curdle, baked mac & cheese, I'd incorporate a gum (or two) into the mix. Whole Foods carries xanthan. Can you ignore all these recommendations and still make an uncurdled cheese sauce? Of course. Each of these tips, though, improves your odds. Curdled cheese sauces are the worst. Anything you can do to help prevent curdling is well worth the effort, imo.

Chickens are not fed grain that contains hormones. At least not in the U.S. Feeding chickens hormones has been illegal since 1952. Gold Kist Farms

From the research that I've done, it seems that the general consensus is that soy protein concentrate/isolate based products (shakes, veggie burgers, protein bars, infant formula etc.) are much more potentially harmful than less concentrated forms like tofu, tempeh, edamame and soy sauce. The more concentrated forms are what people need to be more aware of. So watch those boca bars, power bars and smoothies. Especially if you're a man. Men definitely don't need to be consuming natural forms of estrogen, even weak ones. ← Now, now, don't leave the other half of the population out. Millions of women are in the same boat I am, with family history documented that both indicates and contraindicates hormone replacement therapy. Osteperosis AND HRT related breast cancer, in my personal case - but there are others. Never try to tell a woman that estrogen is no big deal. You would do so at your own risk, and are catching me on a "good" day! ← Okay, you got me

Those are dosa. I haven't seen chickpeas in any dosa recipes- it's usually a combination of other legumes. Urad dal is a popular choice. Even if you find a good recipe, you'll need the right equipment (a cast iron frying pan works well) and lots of practice to spread the batter thinly, quickly and evenly. It's not easy to do.

We here! We eat tofu! Get used it! Nope, doesn't rhyme That soy could impact sexual orientation is, obviously, ridiculous, but Anthony's right about the dangers of soy. People do need to be more aware of the potential negative health impact from consuming too much soy. From the research that I've done, it seems that the general consensus is that soy protein concentrate/isolate based products (shakes, veggie burgers, protein bars, infant formula etc.) are much more potentially harmful than less concentrated forms like tofu, tempeh, edamame and soy sauce. The more concentrated forms are what people need to be more aware of. So watch those boca bars, power bars and smoothies. Especially if you're a man. Men definitely don't need to be consuming natural forms of estrogen, even weak ones.

There's one upside to the Noka fraud. It's a great barometer for revealing how media conscious (or media unaware) and/or discriminating (or undiscriminating) a person is. All someone pretentious has do is say, "isn't Noka wonderful" and all of the rest of us can point and say "ha ha, look at the ill informed, taste impaired idiot!" I get the feeling the Noka myth will survive for quite some time. Which is great, because we always need people to laugh at.

Re: South Street Creamery. It has a lot of fans, but I'm definitely not one of them. I went twice and on both occasions the ice cream was a disappointment. I'll take Maggie Moos (on rt 10) anyday. Coughy, you'll need to call all these places, but I'm sure at least one on the following list will serve you a dessert until 11:00 (on a weekend night). Famished frog/The Office - cheap, typical, mass produced Bennigans, Hoolihans over the top/big desserts. Settebello - I forget the name of the company (they drive a little freezer truck), but I believe Settebello imports all of their desserts from Italy. They're all very good. I like the semi-freddo. I think all the desserts will be in the $5 range, but, unlike the Famished Frog/The Office, they won't be $5 and gargantuan. Good expresso as well. Moghul - it depends on your taste/taste of the kids, but Moghul is open until 10:30 on Friday and 11:00 on Saturday/Sunday. I haven't been eating desserts for a while, but I have had their paneer on many occasions as a part of the Sunday buffet. It's the best paneer I've ever had and I've eaten at least 100 Indian restaurants in NJ and NY. Cheesemaking and dessertmaking are very closely tied (many desserts contain cheese), so if their cheese is that phenomenal, I'm sure their desserts are top notch as well. Are you in the mood for some gulab jamun? Valentinos- it's been many many years since I've been there, but I distinctly remember being there late and having a very rich very decadent and extremely expensive chocolate cake. And some armagnac... all while being surrounded by some dim lighting Who's to say what they're like now, but if it's anything like it was, I'd place it as one of the posher possibilities for late night dessert in Mo'town. Valentinos is within walking distance of the Community Theater while Settebello, Moghul and Famished Frog are right off the green. I would call Settebello first. They're very friendly and the desserts are good. They're also BYOB so you won't run into a loud drinking crowd like you might run into at places like the famished frog/the office. Other than these... I think Hoolihans (rt. 10 Livingston) might be open until 12:00. Also, possibly Macaroni Grill on 10 (and maybe Chilis). All of these are going to be pretty standard mass produced fare. If you're looking for something really safe for 16 year olds, though, I think hoolihans will be your best bet. I'm sure the waitstaff would probably even sing your son some hokey birthday song. Alright, maybe not Hoolihans

I read the thread, but I'm afraid I can't agree. Gelatin is a breakdown product of collagen, but from what I know, gelatin itself is not heat labile; it survives heating quite nicely. If it didn't, glace would not be as thick as it is... Looking through McGee on the subject: - i.e., classic espagnole based sauces would be aided by starch, and the imperfect proteins found in flour. But today's reduced stocks are almost entirely thickened by the gelatin present; even moreso, for true glace. ← Gelatin slowly breaks down/loses it's ability to gel/thicken when heated. When exposed to the higher temps involved in reducing demi-glace and glace, this process is accelerated. Yes, demi is thick and glace is thicker and both do get their body from gelatin, but neither have the totality of body of the stocks from which they were made. A substantial loss of body/viscosity occurs. Split a stock in half, make a demi with one part, then dilute that demi with enough water to match the volume of the other half. Chill. The water diluted demi will have a fraction of the gelling ability/mouthfeel of the unreduced stock. The idea that prolonged heat damages gelatin's ability to gel/provide body is fairly well known. This is why you should simmer stocks until all the collagen is extracted but no further. If you keep simmering them indefinitely, the collagen will continue to break down and body will be lost. From Dr. Bernard Cole, Food Scientist and Gelatin Specialist From the Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe

Maybe you've been exposed to better recipes than most, but the majority of people do NOT like the taste of nutria. At least not the one's I've come across. The general consensus is that it can get incredibly gamey tasting based upon the fact that they eat all sorts of garbage. Maybe if they started farming grain fed nutria, they'd taste better, but... farming them would sort of miss the whole 'invasive species' point.

The diet of the duck affects the make-up of it's fat, so there's some variation between fats from different ducks, but... even the lowest smoke point for duck fat is still higher than butter. If you can make a roux with a fat with a smoke point as low as butter, you can definitely make a roux with unclarified duck fat. Are you certain the rec.food.cooking discussion was centered on white/blond roux and not darker Cajun roux? In a very dark Cajun roux, the solids in butter will burn before the flour has taken on enough color. I probably wouldn't use duck fat for Cajun roux either. If it truly took you 20 minutes to make a white/blond duck fat roux for bechamel... either you weren't turning the heat up enough or I'm guessing your duckfat contained a great deal of moisture. Water will keep the starch at 212f. until it is cooked off.

I'm not sure about my 'neck of the woods' but I use the term 'foam' to describe 'foam.' To combine the meaning of the two words would make describing ice cream chemistry close to impossible, as ice cream is both a foam and an emulsion.

Scott, my apologies if you were offended; the reason I didn't quote you by name is that your quote was on a previous page when I was posting, and I couldn't figure out how to scroll back to see your name (and I don't know how to do the multiple quotes thing). No rudeness intended; you're reading a negative tone into my post that I assure you isn't there. Regarding the quote from Bone Appetit (which I will read, thanks for the recommendation), every C. perfringens outbreak I've read about was related to improper cooling/holding, usually of big roasts, rather than prolonged storage of liquids at fridge temperatures followed by full re-heating. Here's the most similar case I could find, this from the US FDA's 'Bad Bug Book': "In November, 1985, a large outbreak of C. perfringens gastroenteritis occurred among factory workers in Connecticut. Forty-four percent of the 1,362 employees were affected. Four main-course foods served at an employee banquet were associated with illness, but gravy was implicated by stratified analysis. The gravy had been prepared 12-24 hours before serving, had been improperly cooled, and was reheated shortly before serving. The longer the reheating period, the less likely the gravy was to cause illness." (italics mine) This shows that properly reheating liquid does kill this bacteria, even in an extreme situation where the product wasn't cooled fast enough and the bacteria multiplied to dangerous levels - something that's not the case in my kitchen. Labensky's 'On Cooking' textbook also says C. p. can be prevented by re-heating to 74c or higher. So while I don't wish to dispute Wolke on C.p. possibly being able to survive boiling, from a practical as well as historical standpoint, re-boiling does seem to work. ← Dave, I did read a dismissive tone into your post, and I also flew off the handle (just a little bit ), which I apologize for doing. I can now see that you weren't being dismissive at all. I think it's important to convey the fact that I don't see the perpetuation of the re-boiling myth as a public health crisis. I don't think x number of people are dying every year because of consuming re-boiled stock. Or even x number people are getting sick. Re-boiling probably does kill off quite a few bacteria, and, although many people subscribe to the re-boiling paradigm, I get the feeling that very few people actually re-boil stock, and, those that do probably don't re-boil it more than a couple of times. The chance of getting sick from re-boiled stock is probably extremely low. My guess is that it's far less than getting sick from a raw egg and that's 1 in 10,000 (if you live in the NE US and even less elsewhere). It could very well be in the realm of 1 in 100,000 or even 1 in a million. My point is 'why take the chance?' Do you really want to be that millionth person? Would you want your loved ones to be? Your restaurant patrons? If you freeze the stock, the threat is removed. For me, the autoclave example is especially compelling. If boiling kills all the nasties, why do hospitals use autoclaves? If re-boiling was portrayed as a last resort, I think I'd be okay with it (I found some stock in the back of my fridge that's 10 days old, what do I do?). My problem is the perpetuation of the idea that stock can be re-boiled indefinitely. Months, years, decades. That concerns me- the portrayal of this repercussionless utopia where stocks live longer than we do

Reefpimp, the bacterial spore threat relates only to the myth that re-boiling stock every few days will maintain it's freshness/edibility. The initial process isn't in question. It's the post-cooled stock we're talking about. During cooling, micro-organisms from the air take root. This is where the threat stems from. Re-boiling it every few days does nothing to remove that threat.

Would sanding the rough parts of a tagine be that bad of an idea? I had some rough parts on some fire brick I was using for a pizza oven and, although it chewed up the sandpaper, I found sanding helped to smooth things out a bit.

Could you elaborate? How does ten minutes of simmering not kill bacteria? I know it's traditional in French kitchens to keep stock pots going for days at a time, getting depleted and replenished (but not completely changed). And it's also pretty normal procedure for certain soups and stews (like a pot au feau) to be kept going almost perpetually through refrigerating, replenishing, and simmering. I haven't seen any science related to this; if you know of any I'd love to check it out. ← From Bone Appetit by Robert L. Wolke Quoting guidelines prevent me from posting more of the article- I highly recommend reading the whole thing as it goes into far more detail regarding the ways in which these bacterial spores can survive boiling temps.

Is that who I am? The 'other poster?' Well, since quoting etiquette seems to have gone out the door, tell 'that guy' who said re-boiling stock 'works in the real world' that 'working' is subjective. Sure he survived boiled stock and maybe it didn't taste terribly off, but the bacteria were there- in very 'real' way. Why take unecessary chances with food? Freeze it. P.S. If you work in a kitchen, don't get caught by the health inspector doing that 're-boiling' bullshit.

You haven't lived if you haven't tasted the *real* thing. ← I'm not a big fan of the dark irony note that browned/long cooked tomatoes get nor do I enjoy the alcoholic bite of uncooked sherry (or madeira, port, etc.).

I've never seen scientific evidence that supports this contention. I'd also point out that though most other tastes disappear when the olfactory system is impaired (something that applies to anyone who has the common cold, as well as many smokers), salt comes through loud and clear. You might be able to make an anecdotal case that links overseasoning to smoking, but not when it comes to salt, I think. ← A cold impairs the olfactory system, whereas smoking impairs both the olfactory system and the nerve endings on the tongue. Salt is perceived through the tongue. From Taste acuity of the human palate. III. Studies with taste solutions on subjects in different age groups. (bold mine):

Don't forget a control- a third demi with neither everclear nor salt. And must you use duck demi? A chicken demi would reveal the same keeping capabilities without sacrificing your precious duck stock.

I am in complete agreement.

Example A. Yet another taste-impaired chain-smoking celebrity chef perpetuating the myth of brining. ← wow, that must be true. but what does that mean about all the good recipes i've cooked from that book? am i a latent smoker? ← Wow, then I must be wrong. If you like the recipes, and you don't smoke, then they must be good recipes. I stand corrected. There's no way that a chain smoking chef would ever oversalt their food.

Why is it so salty? This quote about Henderson tells the entire story (bold mine): Example A. Yet another taste-impaired chain-smoking celebrity chef perpetuating the myth of brining.