Smithy

Well, FWIW, I'm not intereswted in minced garlic, just the whole cloves. I've always been disappointed with jarred, minced garlic. ... Shel Ah! I misread "jarred, peeled" as "jarred, minced". Never mind...

With all due respect to Cook's Illustrated, I disagree with their findings regarding jarred minced garlic when cooked. I decided years ago that it never measured up to the fresh stuff, even after cooking. Perhaps the stuff has improved since then, or I was using a substandard product. I don't know about canned or frozen brands, but Amore makes a concentrated roasted garlic paste that comes in metal tubes that roll up like toothpaste tubes. (Refrigerate after puncturing the seal!) I like their products: sun-dried tomato paste; basil pesto; anchovy paste and roasted garlic paste are all in my convenience-food stock.

I find it very difficult to document as I go, unless there's a period when something simmers, rests, or otherwise gives me some down time. Otherwise I have to wait until I'm done, then write it down to the best of my knowledge, then write impressions and suggestions for change the next time around. My husband has a good palate and often has suggestions for additions or changes. Since our flavor profile preferences are slightly different (he'll add sweet, I'll add sour) we end up with a pretty good balance.

Make a roux and add it. Use tapioca flour as a thickener. 1) There's a really good discussion about seasoning cast iron pans over on the Kitchen Consumer forum; although the title refers to "re-seasoning" the discussion comes around to seasoning as well. I think one of the best posts actually points to a blog post that's especially enlightening - sorry if this looks like a runaround - but the link to the post on this forum is http://egullet.org/p1903103. 2) Another possible way to thicken a stew - this is how I typically do it - is to dredge (lightly coat) the beef chunks in flour before browning the meat at the beginning of the stew cooking. I usually end up with a good thick stew as a result. <Edited to add: wish I'd realized before posting that the original question was from 2004!>

Not at all. They were thick chops and were slightly pink in the middle when I cut into them. Yes, they were still mostly crispy. But I found the snow white crumbs a little too stark for my liking. I guess I was expecting them to brown more after baking (darn you Shake 'n' Bake for skewing my expectations after all these years! ). Thanks to all the responses. I will give some of the suggestions a go the next time I bake more chops. Toliver, we use about the same temperature and time for our pork chops - actually it might even be 375 for 25 - 30 minutes - and get the good results you describe. As far as the browning goes: another possibility is to coat the chops as you describe and then give them a squirt with an olive oil mister, or with Pam. I don't know for sure that it would work - our chop coat involves corn meal as well as panko and seasonings, so I'm not sure we've tried your method - but the "squirt with oil" technique has helped us crisp a few things.

Thanks for that link, Kerry. It's an excellent article and fascinating reading! I learned a lot from it.

You might reconsider the liver bit. I was surprised to find that it thickened the sauce and improved the texture without shifting the flavor noticeably. When I say "surprised", I mean pleasantly so.

I'm not sure that the butane has lead contaminants in it; the way the California law works, that warning may apply to the butane canister and not the butane itself. I can't think of a reason for butane to contain lead, whereas steel can have lead added to improve its properties for some applications. I looked at a couple of Material Safety Data Sheets for butane and did not find lead listed as a trace contaminant. I admit that may mean I didn't look hard enough. Suppose there is lead present in the butane. If it's in elemental form it'll be solid in the canister, and probably stay there - or else get spit out via the nozzle without igniting. You asked whether heat does something to lead. Basically, it can make it change from solid to liquid to gas. Lead melts at 327C / 621 F and doesn't turn to a gas until it gets up to 1749C / 3180F. Your canister is at room temperature and the released gas doesn't start getting hot until it ignites in the outside world (hopefully in the torch flame!). In turn, that flame may be getting hot enough to melt lead - I'd guess that it does - but it can't be turning the lead to gas without incinerating your food in the process. I think it's very unlikely that you'll get lead contamination of your food via that mechanism, even if there's lead present in the butane. The paragraph above describes what would happen to elemental lead inside the canister. I haven't been able to find a listing of lead compounds that might be gaseous and present in butane. Again, that may mean I haven't looked hard enough. With all due respect to California's interest in environmental health and safety, I think they went overboard with the current system of warnings they have in place. As Baselerd notes above, pretty much everything has a warning of some sort to satisfy the state's regulation. In my opinion it dilutes the utility of the warning system, a la The Boy Who Cried Wolf. In the interests of full disclosure: I have investigated and thought on this topic for, oh, about an hour. There may be someone who works or has worked in the field with better information; if so, I hope he or she chimes in.

Thanks for that explanation about the glaze and crazing, haresefur. I have to admit that I'd only thought about glaze in terms of porosity and lead content; I hadn't thought about the glaze acting as a moisture trap for the internal pottery. Furthermore, I had no idea that crazing was due to a difference between the thermal expansion coefficients of the glaze and the underlying clay. Fascinating!

What do you mean exactly? I mean that you described at what point you'd have the PID controllers call for "on" but you didn't state when they'd call for "off". Without setting the "off" parameters you'd have an overheat. It might have been an oversight in your description instead of in your plan, of course!

I wonder, what does the vinegar do, and why? Does it work on all potato types, or only the waxier potatoes? WOW. That sounds delicious!

Have you allowed for upper limits on each of the PID controllers?

No offense intended (I'm probably missing something) but the pitcher of smoke sounds like an unnecessary step to me. Why not put the plate of material to be smoked inside the pot that contains the smoking material? For instance: put the chips or tea leaves in a foil packet on the bottom of the pot, then put the food to be smoked in a steamer over the pile, and put the lid on the pot? Sally Schneider advocates something along those lines for smoking in a wok. Edited to add the pot lid.

Add my congratulations! It's great to see Rancho Gordo / Steve get good recognition for his work and his products!

Glazed tagines may be intended for serving, rather than cooking. That's been the case in the handpainted Moroccan tagines I'd admired. That may be the reason for people paying more attention to unglazed terracotta tagines than the glazed ones. Back in 2005 we had a free-for-all here with experiments comparing the results of cooking in unglazed vs. glazed pots, and heavy vs. lightweight pots. (To start the search, go to the EGCI course titled "The Truth About Braising - discussion and questions" and then follow the link where the discussion split off into the importance of the cookware's material. As I recall, we participants agreed that the massive pots with tight lids were much better for a braise than the lighter pots or pans with foil covers. In addition, a number of us thought that the porous materials - i.e. unglazed clay - produced better results for a lot of slowly-cooked dishes. With that in mind, I've been leery of the enamel-clad tagines - Le Creuset makes them, and I think that's the structure of the Emile Henry tagines although I may be mistaken about that. (If I am, somebody please correct me!) Having said that, I'll also note that I've made a number of Moroccan-recipe dishes in heavy casseroles - no tagine shape in sight - and been very happy with the results. The amount of liquid needed for unglazed clay is different. Hmm. Maybe we should re-open this line of inquiry and do a number of comparisons? I think Syzygies' points above about pan geometry and flavor mixing are good ones. The geometry can be important, and that would account for the tagra shape. (I don't have a tagra and haven't missed it, for what that's worth.) I'm not such a purist that I want a special pot for each meat or each cuisine, but I don't cook fish in my unglazed cookware; that flavor might be with my chicken or beef or pork for a long time. Duck, chicken, pork, beef and vegetables are pretty compatible. Salmon with those? I dunno about that. It seems as though you *should* be able to broil the bottom part of your tagine if it's already hot. On another topic someone noted that they've heard of tagine bottoms breaking under such usage. I think it depends on so many variables - including the clay, and how well the tagine was originally fired, and how hot your broiler gets, that it's difficult to predict the outcome. Remember that the Moroccan "broiler" consists of a plate of coals set atop the cooked dish. That's a lot less heat than a modern oven would produce. Sorry I can't give a more definitive answer. Maybe somebody else can.

I understand and appreciate the reservation expressed above regarding the use of commercially-grown and -packed lemons. Speaking as a child of a California citrus rancher, however, I'd like to add these points: 1. The pesticides approved for use on crops in California (and, I think, in the USA) break down after some period of time - and they must be applied well in advance of when crews would be present to pick the fruit, in order to allow the pesticides time to break down before humans are exposed to them. After the crops are picked they're sent to a packing house where they get the bejesus washed out of them before they're sweated, treated with a fungicide, and packed. Maybe when people object to pesticides they're really worrying about fungicides, now that I think of it. Either way, I wouldn't worry - and I don't - about the trace residuals that *might* be present in the peel. 2. If you are still worried about pesticides, buy organically-grown fruit. According to my friends in the business, the certification is rigorous enough that it should give you peace of mind about the lack of chemical application. When I have a choice I take fruit I've picked myself from the tree, but that's because I think the quality suffers in the packing house - more's the pity! But that's another discussion topic.

*bump* Someplace up-topic, a few people have asked whether there's any use for the brine of the lemons. I use a small amount of brine to add a kick to sauces or vinaigrettes. I also use the pulp in skillet-style dishes (stovetop cookery); the pulp adds flavor and a bit of texture. I don't know why people say to stick with the rind only.

I found the link to the discussion on preserved lemons: it's http://egullet.org/p76944, over in the Middle East Cookery section. Rather than try to point to a specific method or recipe - there are several - I'll let the interested reader go through the 6 pages (and counting) of fun discussion and notes. Having said that, I'll also note that there's a recipe for preserved lemons on page 21 of _The Food of Morocco_ (at least, it's page 21 in my copy) and that there's a 5-day hurry-up version on that same page.

I have the book (as well as many of Paula's other cookbooks) and like it. I agree with most of what's been said here: her recipes work, but can seem a bit intimidating; you can usually get good results - perhaps not the perfection she intends, but still good - without following every single step listed; you can get good results without investing in a tagine right off the bat; and there aren't many specalized spices that can't be used in other cookery. I also agree that the spices can be adjusted to taste, and you have to develop your own sense of what works for your tastes. Incidentally, you can make your own preserved lemons - there's even a hurry-up recipe or three so you don't have to wait 3 or 4 weeks. Depending on where you are, making your own may be easier then buying. I haven't seen the book's bread mentioned yet, so I'll note that recently I tried the Marrakesh Tagine Bread, without benefit of food processor for mixing the dough. It was dead-easy, quick, delicious, and made me wish I'd cooked a tagine of some sort for the bread to accompany. That particular bread is the first in her section on bread, and I'd recommend that for serving with a tagine if you have time.

You raise an interesting series of questions, but I think that the results may need a very narrow interpretation. I think it's likely that protein fibers (as in meat) will react differently than starchy carbohydrates (as in potatoes) and that the non-starchy carbohydrates in things like green beans may react still differently. Therefore, your chicken tests might give results that apply to poultry but not be helpful for vegetable cookery. I'm not sure that boiling chicken - or any meat that isn't commonly boiled during cooking - is a fair test. What about trying this same series of tests with green beans, peas, squash, carrots? Vegetables that might be boiled but don't need to be dehydrated (such as dried beans) to be edible. Hmm. It would be nice to work out a way to visualize the extent to which salt penetrates the food during cooking. Colored salt? Food color in the water? Food that changes color when it reacts with table salt? Then you could cook something and slice into it to see how deeply the salt penetrates. Hmm. What an interesting line of questioning!

That all looks wonderful. By coincidence I was thinking this morning that I might, after a couple of years' lapse, order a lamb (or half) from one of the local farmers. I think this post pushed me from "might" to "will". Care to share your recipes for merguez, loukaniko and perhaps even gyro?

I love the idea of getting the digital version along with the print copy. That would be a worthy value-addition for me, for travel purposes. Grant Achatz is doing this with the quarterly Next ebooks. Each ebook is $4.99 IIRC. I see the economic incentive for self-publishing, but I wonder to what extent overall quality would suffer if this became the norm. The (admittedly few) writers I know, some of them cookbook writers, give a lot of credit to their editors. Photography, layout and indexing are also factors I can think of in producing a high-quality book in print or e-book format. There must be some writers who can do it all on their own and get it right, but I doubt they're in the majority.

Very true. Another option is to compromise: cook most of the sorrel but reserve some to chop and add at the last moment, or as garnish. Sorrel and chicken are also complementary.

I've been playing with the app a bit this morning, and have some comments and questions. Further to your Question #2 above: I still can't say how many other people would be interested, but now that I've pIayed with it I find the information very useful. I tend to cook from scratch, so it's useful to me to see how different treatments of an ingredient affect the nutritional value. (If you find information for "eggplant, roasted, drained" and "eggplant, roasted, undrained" - however they would be abbreviated - please add it!) I *love* the "weight" feature that automatically scales the portion size as I request. "Zink" is misspelled; in English it's "Zinc". It's unfortunate but explained why the breakdown of calories from fat, carbs, protein don't necessarily add up. However, I don't understand why the units listed are kcal. Aren't those the same as Calories? I think I'll be using this a lot. By the way, I'm using a 10" ASUS tablet and it looks great. Edited to add: on the cover page that features asparagus, the title word "Asparagus" is missing the second 'a'. I like the look of those photos and quick summaries of featured foods.

I've been thinking about this too, since my sorrel bush is flourishing this year. Salmon with sorrel sauce works for a grilled or pan-fried salmon. Somewhere I have a recipe for salmon that's been coated with crushed pecans and something else, and a sorrel sauce as an accent. Another of my favorites is a panade from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, where fresh sorrel is mixed into the bread, cooked onion, cheese and broth mixture. If either of those sounds interesting, ask and I'll summarize the recipes. While I was looking for the salmon with sorrel sauce recipe, I stumbled over this untried but interesting-looking recipe at the Splendid Table's web site: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/splendid-table/recipes/fish_salmonbenedict.html One caution: make very sure you devein the big leaves! I ignored that cookbook advice and found my food riddled with sharp little spears from the larger veins. The smallest "capillaries" aren't an issue, but the central veins and (as I recall) some of the larger side veins are.