scott123

Speaking of Fairfield, there's a place in the Calandra Bakery mall (forget the name) that's dirt cheap, greasy as heck, incredibly tacky interiour, cafeteria style, completely unsuitable for a date, but man is it delicious. How pretentious is your date? Could she handle the Chinese American equivalent of Micky D's? I still can't get over the freshness of the chicken/broccoli in the Chicken and Broccoli. That's my favorite Chinese restaurant in Morris County.

Thanks! I just called to check up on the price. The guy first said "uh, I think it's 4.99" and got really irked when I asked him to find out for certain because I'd be traveling a distance. He then yelled to another guy and HE said it was $3.39 a pound. I asked if it was on special and he said no, that was the regular price. His flippant attitude/relaying of information didn't instill a lot of confidence in his answers, but if 3.39 is indeed the price, wow. Sorry Brooks, at some point I'll be doing my part to help the Southeastern American economy (and get some kickass sausage!), but for the time being, 3.39 is the magic number. Besides, even though the public has awoken to many of the culinary delights of Cajun/Creole cuisine, I don't think they've even begun to scratch the surface of the culinary Mecca that is New Orleans (and the surrounding areas). Once people really get clued in, watch out, you guys are be flooded with tourist dollars. Enjoy whatever empty highways you have will you can. $3.39... *rubbing my hands together* Ooooh boy, gumbo here I come!

Thanks, that looks like a winner. I had read here that nitrates AND smoking were a bit redundant so I wasn't sure if the recipe I found was up to snuff. Thyme isn't in Poche's andouille, but I think I'll like some thyme in mine.

I have to admit that Poche's price is a lot more reasonable than I expected, but like I said, $8/lb. is too rich for my blood. For special occasions, abosolutely, but for an everday andouille- can't do it. Thanks, though! P.S. That price really is amazing. It's the last time I shell out $9+/lb for the Whole Paycheck andouille I get occasionally.

I love gumbo. Oh how I love gumbo. My favorite part of gumbo is the andouille. It fills me with such glee If the andouille wasn't so darn expensive I'd eat it every week. In the interest of budget, I've tried swapping kielbasa and that was sorely dissappointing. I was getting andouille from Trader Joes for a reasonable price (can't recall the brand, just that you had to peel it), but they stopped carrying it and now all they have is crappelgate. Whole paycheck has a couple of brands, but at $9+/lb. that's way too rich for my blood. Ideally, I'd like to find andouille for 4 bucks/lb. Not great andouille but okay quality. I know this is a pipe dream, but I thought I'd throw it out there just to see if anyone had a cheap source. Most likely, I'll end up making it myself.

It's official. I do NOT like kielbasa as a sub for andouille in gumbo. NOT at all. The whole coriander hot dog note drives me bonkers. At around $2.50 a lb. it's a shame I can't work with it. I can get okay andouille, but it costs me around $8/lb. It's my favorite part of gumbo but that's a little too rich for my blood. As I can get pork butt for practically nothing, I've been considering making my own. Anyone make their own andouille? What do you think about this andouille recipe? Any tips/tricks you'd recommend?

Blackstrap is just basically super potent molasses. Watering it down with a neutral tasting syrup should work perfectly. Can you get your hands on corn syrup? Glucose syrup? A thick sugar syrup might crystallizae on you. That might not be a problem depending on the recipe. I'd give half bs molasses and half syrup a shot for making regular molasses. If the molasses you have on hand is dark but not really dark, then I'd say 2/3 that and 1/3 neutral syrup. Caramelized sugar will also give you some molassessey notes.

I'm not saying that over time cooking variables cause bacon to go from good to bad, or even good to mediocre, just different. Unless you burn it, bacon is always great. Occasionally I get melt in your mouth mind blowing bacon. I've given this many many hours of thought. I've come to the conclusion that it's the net effect of a multitude of variables. Teensy weensy relatively uncontrollable variables. A cut from a different location in the animal, an extra couple of days in the package, a degree hotter, a degree colder, increased fat content, decreased fat content, an extra second in the oven. It's like trying to hit the lottery. It's always great but once in a blue moon the bacon gods shine down upon me and I end up with a mind blowing experience. I don't think there's anything else in the kitchen that's as fleeting and unpredictable. Choosing the right brand or the right style won't guarantee it. I wish it would. Buy the exact same brand of bacon with two different sell by dates. Bake them up and serve them. 100 bucks says that your tasters will swear that they're eating different brands. 100 bucks. If the same brand is that inconsistent, how can taste testing produce useful information?

It certainly looks like fun, but I think a bacon tasting is inherently flawed. Flawed for two reasons. First, bacon lacks the quality control required to stage an effective/useful tasting. The amount of marbling changes from belly to belly, it's ability to absorb the marinade is altered, the length of time in the package impacts the marination- the variables impacting the taste of bacon are numerous. If I open two packages of the same brand I get two completely different tastes. These are packages I've purchased at the same time from the same store. A particular brand may taste phenomenal one week and only good the next (bacon NEVER tastes bad ). I guess you could track bacon over a few months and zero in on brands that taste good consistently, but a one shot deal, nope. Second, you could never recreate the same cooking conditions/degree of doneness for every batch of bacon. Without perfectly consistent cooking conditions, the bacon can't be judged fairly. I can't fit a whole package of bacon on the same baking sheet, so I break it up into two batches. No matter what I do, the second batch NEVER tastes the same as the first. Slight changes in temperature/doneness creates a different end product. It's like the difference in taste between a white and a blond roux. You're talking only seconds difference but the taste changes drastically. With bacon the window is just as small, maybe even smaller because of the sugar involved. 5 or 10 seconds longer and you're talking about a completely different tasting bacon. I guess you could put all the types of bacon on one cookie sheet, but even then, if you're oven has hot spots, the results will be skewed.

Grub, did the sauce have the bitter taste or did the meatball have it? The ground cumin is indispensible. The bitterness could be coming from the black cumin seeds. I'm not sure. They've been discussed quite a bit in this forum, but I'm still not certain what they are. It's also possible that the half and half might have curdled on you (vinegary). Just another guess, but this recipe seems like it has a lot spices. Cream helps to mellow flavors. By subbing half and half the spices could have ended up too strong tasting. Unless, of course, the spices were roasted/ground before beginning the process. But the recipe doesn't state that. Although sugar (or honey) is a common doctoring agent in a lot of restaurants, the bulk of the sweetness should come from the onions. 10 minutes is too short for sauteeing the onion and too long for the garlic/ginger. The secret to any good meatball, chicken included, is fat. Fat also helps to temper the bitterness of spices. Adding fat will improve the texture and taste immensely. The next time you make stock, freeze some of the chicken fat and use it when you make meatballs. Honestly, I think there's better kofta recipes out there. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I've always perceived koftas to be a lesson in subtlety. This isn't a subtle amount of spices.

How many years did the culinary community subscribe to the concept that searing 'sealed' the juices in meat? Although we've made great strides in understanding the underlying science of cooking, I think there continue to be many unanswered questions. I'm frequesntly encountering rote techniques that I can't seem to justify from a scientific perspective, techniques that I feel warrant further investigation. In your vast experience, have you come across any particular long standing established method/practice that you feel warrants closer scrutiny, a practice that the food science community might have overlooked?

Reduced wine and stock freeze wonderfully. I freeze everything in baggies. They're permeable as heck, but I don't keep stuff frozen for that long. If I do run into stock that's been frozen for a while/burned, I'll wash off the outer 1/8" with warm water. I lose a little this way, but what's leftover is flawless.

Adding more sugar will help to temper the acidity. And I also agree about the cream cheese brand. I bought some supermarket brand cream cheese a couple of days ago and it was horrible.

Maybe I'm the minority here, but I don't believe in pre-chopping chocolate. Cocoa butter absorbs odors very easily. By chopping it, you're exposing so much more of it air.

The French chefs of history are reknowned for using every part of the animal. For creating masterpieces of everything. Nothing wasted. The innovation and creativity has been astounding. And yet... this part of the animal, this tasteless yet nutritious component, they stick up their noses at. Pourquoi? Sure, for clear stocks, skimming is critical. I'm not questioning that. If a stockmaking manual recommends something to the effect of skimming for clarity, I'd have no problem with that. But skimming for clarity AND palatability? No.

I've always considered fond to be the dried on bits in the roasting pan which are then used for sauce making. Stock is the liquid left over from simmering meat/poultry. In essence they are the same- the same sauces one can make with fond can be made with stock. Stock, reduced enough, will crisp up and stick to the pan, just like fond will. But I wouldn't classify stock and fond as the same thing. You exclude roux based sauces. Are you saying that roux/slurry based sauces, because they are unskimmed, are dirtier tasting than flourless sauces? As far as the increase in gelatin is concerned... I can't see the science behind that. Skimming doesn't add collagen to stock. If anything you might be taking collagen away. ←

I remove the fat. I don't skim it though. I chill it and take the fat off the top. As far as fat emulsifying as you simmer stock... that I have yet to see proof of either.

I'm not equating fond with scum. I'm saying that fond contains the exact compounds that create scum and it doesn't seem to be impaired.

I'm been pondering scum as of late. Specifically stock scum. Everybody and their brother skims the scum off of stock. Well, anyone respectable, at least. Not skimming appears to be stockmaking sacrilege. Don't defile your stock with impurities they all cry. How impure/impalatable is scum? Sure, it looks nasty as heck, but does it really taste bad? If scum really does ruin the taste of stock, shouldn't it ruin anything else it's in? Case in point, fond. The exact same scum that is released from a chicken during boiling oozes out during roasting. Fond contains scum. Although roasting does involve dry heat, inside of the bird you have water. When the water is released, it carries the impurities with it. In fact, if you add fond to boiling water, you'll see the scum rise to the surface. The question I pose to you is this. Is fond impaired by these 'impurities?' Would fond somehow be improved if you skimmed the scum, reduced it and then made your sauce/gravy? Of course not. The thought is ludicrous. Fond is one of the best tasting foods on this planet. As is. 'Impurities' and all. Why is unskimmed fond revered and unskimmed stock despised?

The chef at my favorite Indian restaurant and an interpreter.

*sigh* That's what I feared. Thanks.

Does shoyu go bad? Okay, I went to my local Asian grocer today and picked up KIKKOMAN TOKUSEN MARUDAIZU SHOYU. They had two brands of Marudaizu on the shelf, Kikkoman and Yamasa. On the label, the Kikkimon had printed 2004.3 I'm guessing that this is a 2004 expiration date. The bottle was squeezed in a little (as if it had lost air) and there was a little cloudy sediment on the bottom. The Yamasa Marudaizu had "2007.3" written on it. I bought the Kikkoman both because it came highly recommended and because it appeared to have more body when I tilted the bottle from side to side. Did I make the right choice? Shoyu should have enough salt in it to preserve it for quite some time, right?

I happen to be in the "little water" for cooking pasta camp and I'm still skeptical. First of all the ad says: What?!? If you put a handful of spaghetti in hot water and walk away, in 8 minutes you're talking one single clump of spaghetti. So, the water isn't even at 212 degrees when the pasta goes in?!? If it's a cold day, that canister is going to drop the temperature a bit initially. If a lot of pasta is used, the temp will drop substantially. I don't know the exact temperature at which proteins set, but if you fall below it, you're talking about warm, slightly dissolved raw pasta. Even if it does successfully cook the pasta, how hot is the pasta going to be when plated?

Here's a few theories of what may occured: 1. I can't tell by your recipe- did you saute the garlic? It could have been oversatueed. It's really easy to do. If the garlic starts taking on color, it's gone too far and will give your sauce bitter notes. If you know you're going to be braising the dish for 4 hours that's more than enough time to mellow the garlic- no need to sautee. 2. How closely did you watch your onion? Onions can take on some color (obviously) but if you walk away and end up with a layer of brown/black on the bottom of the pan, regardless of how thin, you're talking bad news. Bitter city. Toss and start again. 3. What color was your roux? The darkest I go with this would be blond. 4. This is a huge long shot, but was either your onions or garlic old/sprouting? Some people cook with/adore garlic/onion scapes, but I find them bitter and grassy tasting. Not my bag. Honestly, these scenarios are fairly unlikely. You sound like your skills are well beyond these potential pitfalls. More likely, though, it was the lack of water that created a more concentrated broth, which, in turn, sped up maillard reactions. When that happens I wouldn't call it bitter, persay, just 'dark' tasting and overcooked. I get that when I try to reduce poultry stock too far. Speaking of reducing stock, you did taste your demi before you cooked with it, correct? If the omission of the sugar is the problem, then adding the sugar back at the end should have solved it, which, from what it sounds like, did not.

Freezing prevents the butter from melting as fast. This results in less spread. Same technique works for chocolate chip cookies. Maui420, the commercial outfits get a lot of their crumbliness from using shortening. For health reasons I wouldn't recommend this. Green crisco (palm oil) might work, although if I wanted the crumbliest streusel possible, I'd probably use clarified butter. I think I'd also opt for a lower gluten pastry flour.