Smithy

I like Patak and keep it around, but in side by side tastings I've found I prefer Maya Kaimal sauces when I can find them. The Maya Kaimal Chicken Tikka Masala is our house favorite. Maya Kaimal doesn't seem to be as widely distributed as Patak's. Dejah, that cod looks excellent. We've been on (entirely too often) a fried fish-and-chips meal. Thanks for a good-looking alternative.

The followup question to that would be whether your Parisian starter, if it tastes different due to different yeasts, will continue to taste different if you take it back home with you. I've heard that starters change over the years, but I don't know to what extent.

Thank you for posting that Amazon link. I particularly like the 'Safety' section from that writeup: "Safety : The product gives utmost priority to safety for it utilizes high pressure steam for double boiling. Germanium pots provides antibacterial and deodorizing actions and dilute to drop residual agricultural chemicals, and they also emit far-infrared rays during cooking." I had no idea germanium could do so much. :-D

I got not quite half of my itty bitty apples prepped: to produce somewhere between 4 and 6 cups of chopped applet. I seasoned some of that with sugar and cinnamon, in preparation for making small pies or hand pastries, and left the rest to make a relish. Then life got in the way...and the night before we left on a glamping trip, the whole lot went outside. The assorted wildlife around our house are feasting. Ever the optimist, I picked a smaller batch and brought them with me: That black thing is a lens cap from my camera, for size comparison. These applets are from a different tree. Perhaps this time around I'll manage to cook them.

Let me add my welcome to the others'. It sounds as though you'll have a lot to contribute, and it's nice that you've decided to join us. I too have been interested in the changing thoughts about the influence of diet and dietary fat on heart disease, and will be interested in your thoughts, should you choose to share them with us.

Welcome, Deryn. I'm glad you've come out of lurker mode, and glad to know that we've snared another gadget lover. ( Insert evil laugh like 'Bwaahaahaa!' here. ) I know my kitchen stock has burgeoned since I joined eGullet. It makes moving painful, but living fun.

Welcome to eGullet, Matt. Thanks for chiming in.

Thanks so much for persevering, and for posting your results! Question: if using green cherry tomatoes instead of the little white eggplants (admittedly rare), do you still pierce and/or cut the tomatoes, or leave them whole?

Your comment about 'intensely sour and apricoty' brought me up short, because I never think of a good ripe apricot as 'sour'; at most (to me) a good apricot may have the barest hint of a slightly tart note. Your avocados did something unexpected also. This makes me wonder: does the freeze-drying change the flavor profile by removing some flavor compounds more than others? As an example: if a food has some flavors that are water-soluble and others that are alcohol-soluble, what happens to the balance between them when you freeze-dry the food in question?

You might consider splitting a set with someone (or several someones) else: WTS/WTB: Sharing Modernist Ingredients

Hmm. I may have to give blondies another try. Those look irresistable.

Is there a scale upon which you could put the stirrer and the flask, so you could measure reduction on the fly? I don't know how much your apparatus already weighs, nor how much it vibrates. That onion jam looks and sounds delicious.

IME cavitation happens in a blender, but only when the mixture is too thick for the blade speed. Then the blades spin madly in an air pocket of their own making, and there's an audible pitch change. It's as undesirable and ineffective with a blender as with an outboard motor.

What did you put under the tomato squares, dcarch? My best guess is an oil and balsamic dressing with a comb dragged through it, but it could just as easily be part of the plate. ;-D We've had our first frost warnings. Mr poor leggy cherry tomato is finally loaded with green fruit, and just about to lose it all.

I wish I had such a problem as a lot of credit at BBB. :-) Here's a recent topic on the Demeyere that includes some discussion about Mauviel: Demeyere Skillet for Birthday Gift. You may find some useful information there, and of course we can hope for more responses from people who've used both these lines. Welcome to eGullet!

Weight of the finished product Some measure of balance - I don't know whether or how that's quantified for knives, but it's an important aspect for the user Warranty? This is a good idea, gfron1. There should be some enterprising genius hanging out here who could start up such a web site.

Bitter dark chocolate sputtered onto a crisp layer of raspberry glass (freeze dried but not powdered raspberry coulis). Hmm, you may have to start a topic on vacuum sputtering.

I see what you mean now, Blether. Thanks for the clarification and the links. Those lamb shoulders are *beautiful*!

It's so nice to see water getting more environmentally friendly.

I love the looks of that turquoise-colored plate. It reminds me of pottery I'd find somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona.

That sounds very tasty, Norm. Have you tried not bothering to boil it, and baking instead? I generally slice and scoop as you describe, score the interior, stuff with a savory meat/tomato/onion sort of mixture, bake covered until the squash is soft, then finish with grated cheese. It has to bake longer than when the squash is boiled first, but to me the flavor is more intensely squashy. I love those Carnivals! Well, tell him to smoke more, and pronto! That meal looks wonderful. Our tomato season is winding down (first frost tonight, maybe) and the sight of those beautiful tomatoes gives me a pang of mourning. Boy, do I feel your pain. I did the same thing to a finger tip last month, slicing onions, and spent 3 weeks typing and cooking without that finger. Maybe you and I need to enroll in a remedial knife skills class.

Ribs I cook low and slow. I haven't seen much difference between searing first or letting them brown by themselves, so I avoid the risk of toughening them by cooking too fast. By 'low and slow' I mean slightly below 200F for several hours, covered until the last half hour or so. I've generally cooked thicker cuts of meat - prime rib, tri-tip - by searing quickly in a good hot pan to get a good browning reaction and then finishing at about 200. Based on Blether's post I may try the low-slow method and see how that works. If the surface is adequately dry, there should be good browning even without the searing step. And yes, the business about 'sealing in the juices' has been pretty thoroughly debunked. (I have a friend who still believes it, however, and I don't try to convince him otherwise. He's a good cook, he knows what he knows, ...and he's a bar bouncer. )

That may explain why the tree I enjoyed so much last year is almost bare. The strange thing is that I thought it had had a generous compliment of blossoms this spring. Was it only wishful thinking that turned those blossoms into the green fruit I thought I was watching, or did some very ambitious person or birds harvest when I wasn't looking? At any rate, when I checked it last week there were 2 fruits, way out of reach, and nothing on the ground. I think of crab apples as being very tart / sour, and coming from the large trees with showy (often dark pink) blossoms. I may be making an incorrect distinction. The trees I'm referring to as wild apples are relatively small - say, 20' high - with miniature apples ranging in size from 1 to 3 cm. All the trees I've watched have white blossoms, but the fruits range from yellowish to the brilliant deep red of a radish. Most of the trees produce essentially spherical fruit, but a few put out oblong fruits. Some trees are loose in the brush by the roadside, but others were obviously planted; this year's 'favorite' set is arranged in a row on what we think is an old farmstead, overlooking a creek. The fruits of one tree are very different from the fruit of the next. Some may have sprouted from seeds, since (according to the University of Minnesota web site linked below) apples have to be grafted to run true to the parent. My term 'wild' refers to their being untended, probably not worth cultivating (because of size, texture, shelf life, etc.) and ignored except by wackos like me who go pick the fruit and try to do something with it. In 2011 the University of Minnesota rediscovered a test orchard that had been planted in 1911 and abandoned sometime in mid-century. Records unearthed (that led them to go find it again) indicated that seedlings were distributed from the test orchard to homeowners in the area. I suspect most or all of these trees are from that source, but there's no way to be sure. They ran a genotyping project to which I submitted leaves, but no match was found. Some other trees were identified as old and rare breeds.

Yes, do please stay in touch. The precision burner control mentioned by Shalmanese a few posts ago sounds very attractive. I have a few questions: 1. Is this strictly for iPad users at present, or are you also planning an Android interface? 2. You mention 'less' smoke and grease because of containment. That sounds good, but doesn't there still have to be some escape of steam, oil or smoke out to the kitchen? If not, it seems likely you'd be steaming meat instead of getting a good sear. 3. The photos of your cooked steak look very pretty, but I'm skeptical unless you have a way of maintaining a low interior temperature (for rare or medium rare) while high heat is applied to sear the surface. Please explain the process a bit more.

Yes, I'm curious about whether some volatiles end up in the water - enough to give it useful flavour. If it's more like distilled water I could imagine using it for watering plants or other household uses in an arid climate, but that hardly applies to your part of the world.