Smithy

Carving Swedes' skulls? Oh, so THAT's what Adam meant! What a relief! Thanks for the translation for our side of the pond!

*Groan* you mean there's a technique to this? Here I was, all set to try something 'foolproof'. Care to share the secrets ahead of time, or do we have to find all the pitfalls the hard way?

This has been a lovely, loving and luscious blog. Thanks for all your wonderful photos, loving food descriptions and luminous descriptions of family life. Thanks also for a look into Filipino food, which I've overlooked until now. More specifically, I've gotten at least 2 new uses of tamarind! Yippee! Hugs all around to you and yours for an excellent blog. Job well done, Moosh! Many, many thanks! Nancy

Wow, that chicken adobo looks and sounds wonderful. It happens I have some cane vinegar in my cupboard. I think I'll have to arrange a certain vinegar and chicken rendezvous in my LC before long.

I used 400g unbleached pastry flour, 4 large eggs, 1 T EVOO, pinch of salt, and a spot of semolina for dusting. It looks like my dough is still more limp. Yours has to be contracting somewhat to get those upturned edges. Is that a protein content thing? Still, the filled parts of both sets show voids in the filling and places where the dough collapses or puffs up to follow the contours of the filling. Maybe I'm closer than I think. Next time I'll try all-purpose flour instead of pastry flour for the slightly higher protein content, and see what that does. The tears were all little pinholes that sprang when I was tamping the top layer down over the bottom. There weren't as many as the last time - you're right, I'm learning! - but I still had to double the top layer of quite a few. None of them sprang leaks in the pot, anyway. I keep thinking about the non-lumpy, full-stuffed pillows of ravioli I had at that restaurant. Russ wondered whether they'd been baked instead of boiled. Is that possible? Or, as I'm starting to think, does having a mold make all the difference in the world for getting a well-stuffed raviolo? Those little pillows had minimal edges, and as I recall were roughly 2" diameter and 1/2" thick. I wish I'd taken a picture. Meanwhile, there's Adam: That is thunderstrikingly gorgeous even discounting the special appeal of a dish that can be made well ahead. After the last couple of nights, the advance preparation carries extra weight.

I'm down 2 books because of the Free Cookbooks! thread, but since they went to other eGulleteers the overall count should be unchanged. I don't know whether either of the recipients has already weighed in here. I forgot to ask them to.

Tonight I made ravioli stuffed with braised beef with sauteed onions, dry-fried mushrooms (THANK YOU, CHUFI!) and assorted seasonings, in a mustard cream sauce. Mindful of the past lessons and MobyP's comments both here and on the eGCA stuffed pasta Q&A, I made the dough stiffer than last time around. I think I may be at the point where it would help immensely if someone were physically at my elbow, saying "Here, poke this. Now try that. See what I mean?" Alas, all I have are photos and suspicions. (Sounds like a murder mystery, doesn't it? ) I just have to keep experimenting. The good news is that it all is edible, and far better than edible - just not the quality I'm after. My dough was stiffer than last time. It rolled out pretty well, but it tore in places it hadn't before. I think that means it was still wet! Yes or no? See below for photos. I rolled it out to #8 on the Atlas, being more daring than last time, but I ended up with tears in the top layer of the ravioli that had to be patched with double layers. Not all tore. When you look at the photos, you'll see where some stuffing showed through and some didn't. The stuffing was braised beef ribs started last night, allowed to rest, defatted, recooked. In the meantime I sauteed some onion, ground up some horseradish and celery, and dry-fried some portabellas. It all went into the food processor and then was adjusted for seasoning (a bit of Worcestershire here, a touch of pepper there, etc.) The beef, chopped and simmering the second time: The portabellas, dry-fried (what a marvelous truk) and quartered: The stuffed pasta before cooking: MobyP, or anyone else, does this texture look right? It isn't as flaccid as last time, but still may not be as firm as Moby's in the course photos. You can see in a couple of ravioli where I had to double the dough; that's a patch. Dinner! Beef ravioli with mustard cream sauce, scattered with chives. Ground pepper came after the picture. This was supposed to be on a bed of greens, but it got too late and too disorganized. The sauce broke, too. Looks pretty good, in an amateurish way, doesn't it? It tasted pretty good, too. There were a couple of quibbles with it. Aside from the missing bed of greens, the sauce was too oily. The first helping was fine, the second helping we could both tell it was oily. Didn't stop us from finishing it off, though. The other problems were more subtle. Russ said the pasta was soggy, I thought it didn't have the firm pillowy shape, with the wonderful al dente resistance followed by a firm tasty filling. See how flat and rumpled the ravioli are? Is that because the filling was too lumpy, there were air pockets, the pasta was too limp, or something else? Would these be more firm if they'd been packed with the use of a mold? The broken sauce annoys me, but that's beside the point, although it's related to being too oily. I'm more intent on the pasta right now. I have in mind an ethereal meal I had recently at an Italian restaurant. A number of us had ravioli of various types: smoked salmon, some beefy thing, lobster. In every case the little pillows were perfectly al dente: just a slight resistance, then the filling was revealed in all its smooth perfection. In every case the sauce was the perfect balance. I want to know how to do that, starting with those nice symmetrical fat pillows. Help!

... Dry-frying mushrooms is my favorite way of treating them before adding them to any dish that calls for concentrated mushroom flavor: Put mushrooms (whole is best, but you can chop them up if you are in a hurry) in a large frying pan. They should be in a single layer. Don't add any fat. Put pan on high heat and fry the mushrooms over high heat until they are completely brown, collapsed, and wrinkled. Shake the pan occasianally (which is when you will hear that funny squeaky sound of the evaporating liquid). It's amazing how long they can take over high heat before burning. When they're done, they are dry - so you don't have to worry about the wet filling ← This tip, alone, is worth its weight in the time and trouble I've put into cooking since I discovered eGullet. I've never heard of dry-frying mushrooms before tonight, much less tried it. The aroma was fabulous, the flavor even better, and the squeaks were high entertainment unto themselves. Thanks, Klary!

What johnnyd said, and I should have known, because I know they're related to gooseberries and I've even seen them growing in California. I can't BELIEVE your blog is almost done! The time goes quickly, no? I'll probably be back before you sign off, but in case I don't, thanks so much for a great virtual visit to Vancouver, as well as a reminder of Mushmouse, whom I'd forgotten. I've really enjoyed this blog. Any more ideas for tamarind? Right now I'm contemplating making a tamarind sauce to toss with stuffed pasta. The question is, with what should I stuff that pasta? Or should I mix the tamarind with the stuffing? Or is this just too weird an idea?

I can't answer any of your questions, of course, and I hope someone else can because I'll be interested in the answer. Based on my experience to date I'd take your tack: MUST do the searing in that hot roux to get the heavenly smell and all the associated interesting flavor compounds. However, this caught my eye and brain: If you could swing it, don't you think that stirring a giant pot with a boat paddle would connect wonderfully with rescue from the flood?

My cubes last a year, easy, and I can't detect deterioration in the quality. I suspect some are over a year old, just because I forget they're there. I use cubes for herb mixes that are likely to go into a stock or sauce in tablespoon quantities; it's really easy to pop 1 or 2 cubes into whatever I'm mixing without having to break off a chunk from a large frozen mass. With basil, since I use a lot of it as pesto, I tend to freeze it in larger quantities (like the mason jar, or the bags, or the logs). Actually, I've done that with the chive oil also, using the little 1-cup mason jars, on the theory that I could just thaw the jar slightly, scoop out what I needed, and return the jar to the freezer. Somebody had reported that the stuff never froze harder than the slush stage with that setup. I haven't found that to be true, and this year I may do chive oil in cubes also. Adding to what Snowangel said: the other thing the EVOO does (or butter would do) is help protect the herbs from freezer burn. You want enough fat to coat the herbs, hence her paste analogy.

Fifi, how big CAN you scale it up? I'm assuming the pot as the limiting factor, so I'm really probing into the equipment: type, size, that sort of thing. Glad you could Texans could hold up your end of the show.

My best friend and her husband came to visit me and my then-boyfriend one January in Duluth. They had been living in Malawi, but were touring the USA to catch up with friends and family. When they arrived and I went to answer the door, they were standing there with eyes as big as saucers. "Nancy," they exclaimed, "we love you dearly, but we are never visiting you in the winter again because it's TOO **#@!%* COLD!" True to their word, they've only come in July since. Back to the blog: Moosh, I know all about the time-lag of the blog (believe me, it looks worse from inside) but I still want to know about your screen name. ...and again, what a terrific cutie Noah is, and how wonderful that he's an enthusiastic eater!

Well, it's hard to find xantham gum, guar gum, and red food dye #2 (among others)....

Moosh, your photos are wonderful and I'm drooling over your dinners. I'm with the others, cheering you on for the way you're raising Noah with regard to food...and yes, he's a real cutie! If you've explained your screen name anywhere, I've missed it. Why Moosh? Why mouse? I'm really loving this blog.

Nope... See's Candies and Fanny Farmer are two totally different companies. The candies just seem similar! See's Candies was founded in Los Angeles in 1921 by Charles See using his mother Mary's recipes. The shops were designed to resemble her black-and-white kitchen. The company was bought by Berkshire Hathaway (owned by investment guru Warren Buffett) in 1972. Fanny Farmer was founded in Rochester, New York, in 1919 by a Canadian candymaker who named it after Fannie Meritt Farmer of the Boston Cooking School (she had become famous for developing level spoon measurements). It was acquired by Archibald Candy Corp. of Chicago (which owned competing brand Fannie May) in the 1990s. Fanny Farmer and Fannie May are now owned by Alpine Confections, Inc. of Chicago. ← Ah, another urban myth shot to smithereens! Thanks for the facts, Suzi.

Thanks for your comments and compliments, MobyP! I was hoping to try a new batch tonight, but got home too late. It's a shame - you should see the lovely summer squash sitting in the refrigerator, and the beef ribs waiting to be braised. I'm really keen on these stuffing ideas. To answer your questions, and exchange more ideas: I did use your recipe, with the exception that I had pasta flour (not 00) and used semolina only as a dusting agent. The funny thing is, it didn't stick to itself unless folded too long, and it never stuck to my hands or to the pasta machine, so it didn't seem damp to me. That must be one of those 'feel' things. I'll still try it a touch drier next time. Although you wrote "God forbid" about my getting those results with your recipe, your recipe and instructions have provided me with the most satisfactory results ever in my attempts. That pasta maker has sat unused in the cabinet for over a year, intimidating me every time I open the door. Good on ya, Sir. I don't think resting time was more than 1/2 hour - more like 15 minutes - in either case, so that may not have been a factor. However, the first night's batch (1/2 hour resting) was rolled more thinly than the second batch (48 hours' resting). It sounds as though that was backwards. The doneness test and the draining are welcome pointers. I forgot, both times, to keep the liquid to a simmer. My electric stove is on the wimpy side, and so a full boil went rapidly to no bubbles at all when I add a few pasta pieces. I'll remember that next time. It's good to know that the shape isn't all that important. I want to duplicate some fabulous ravioli (various stuffings) that some friends and I experienced last weekend. Those little round pillows were just perfect, but had these teeny margins, barely noticeable. There's hope that I won't have to get it so good...once I get this technique, and then the stuffing, and then the sauce.. Thanks so much for your comments. I'll report back on the next attempt(s). This is *really* fun! Edited to add: I just looked back at the photos in the first Stuffed Pastas lesson. You're right, my dough DOES look wet and flaccid. I'm glad you posted those photos. I'll use them as a gauge next time.

Marlene. Chive oil. Wash, drain a bit, then chop the chives until the food processor can do the rest. Do the same with garlic, if you're a garlic fan. Whirr it all in the food processor with EVOO, and salt to taste. You now have a fine, beautiful chive oil that is wonderful drizzled over, oh, scalloped potatoes or baked potatoes or, um, eggs or broiled fish or, um, use your imagination. This stuff freezes wonderfully, also. Oh, did you do dill? Imagine dill and chives together, with garlic, salt and olive oil. I hope you did dill this year. My usual trick for end-of-season herbs is to wash and drain, of course, then whirr them together in a combination I think will be pleasing, along with a bit of salt, garlic, perhaps pepper, and enough olive oil to get it all liquid, and then put the mixture into an ice cube tray to freeze. I've done this with varying combinations of parsley, oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, chives, basil. (I usually keep the basil separate for pesto jars, but not always.) This year I'll have tarragon to try that way, but I haven't tried it before. Can't see why it wouldn't work. Once the cubes are frozen you can break them out of the tray and pack into a smaller container or bag, then stuff in the freezer. Voila! Instant wonderful herb cubes for soups and sauces through the winter...and more winter...and then spring...until finally you have the fresh stuff again. It's a lifesaver up here. I generally do basil, garlic, salt and olive oil in the appropriate proportions for pesto and then stuff those into larger containers, enough to make a goodly portion of pesto when the winter blahs set in. I read somewhere that the nuts and cheese shouldn't be added until everything is thawed lest it all go bitter, but I haven't tested that meself. Andie addressed bay leaves above, and I have no experience with trying to freeze them although I know they dry just fine on a dying plant. Finally: I've heard that most of these herbs can be frozen as is, then broken off as necessary, just as Snowangel mentioned wrt her rosemary. I suspect the oil in the oil cubes I discuss above will help preserve some of the herb oils, but I really don't know that. I do know that random cubes are easier to locate in my freezer than random flat freezer bags.

Too hot yet, although that's a poor excuse given just how hot it is down there. We did red beans and rice, though.

Well, Hellman's is what I grew up with. And of the prepackaged mayos I've tried since, it's pretty much the one I like best. Although recently I've gotten very fond of Trader Joe's mayonnaise--it's got a nice sorta lemony tang to it, and a looser consistency than the Hellman's--or Best Foods as they call it out here. Not sure how the same product wound up having two different names depending on which side of the Great Divide one is on, but if you go to either product's website you'll see they look fairly similar except for the logo, and a little statement at the bottom linking to the other site: Best Foods Hellman's ← I've noticed other splits at the Rockies, but never known why. It seems to be some corporate thing. The only other example that comes to mind is See's Candies, known on this side of the split as Fanny Farmer...but I'm pretty sure I've seen others. The major mayonnaise manufacturers (Miracle Whip does not count, and I truly detest the stuff, but I know many people love it) seem to be Hellman's/Best Foods and Kraft. The Kraft doesn't taste nearly as good to me. As I recall it's too heavy on the garlic (dehydrated and powdered, no doubt). There may be other ingredients throwing it off for my tastes. ...and that, my friend, is one of the most compelling reasons for convenience foods. If I made everything from scratch, all the time, we'd eat a lot of cheese and crackers ...no, wait - those are all convenience foods too, aren't they? I haven't a clue.

Chris, whenever I need justification for another kitchen tool, I'll think of you and look no farther.

Because there were chives in the stuffing, I think melted butter with snipped chives and lemon juice would have been nice. They look great though! My first guess would be that the dough had been around too long. But also, maybe you did not cook them long enough? I know fresh pasta does not need to cook very long but I have found that they always take longer than you think. I keep testing them while tey're cooking, because the amount of time they have to cook seems to vary a lot. But, far, far more addictive. I just made a batch with pressed parsley leaves for tonight's dinnerparty. Stay tuned... ← Thanks Chufi. That raises a related question: how does one know when these things are done, and what happens if they're overcooked? In other words - when in doubt, is it better to leave them in longer or pull them out early? I kept trying to finger them (ouch!) or poke the edges, but really was guessing about the "al dente" feel. The snipped chives are a GREAT idea. I thought they needed something green. Looking forward to your photos and results!

I'm doing a slight cross-post with my questions, so that I catch a broader audience and so later readers can find the other thread. Over on the Fresh/Stuffed Pasta and Gnocchi, Cookoff XIII thread a bunch of us have been learning to make stuffed pasta. I've found MobyP's instructions to be invaluable, far better than anything in the books I've tried. So far I've made stuffed pasta twice and been gratified with the results, but I came away with some questions. For background, I should explain that I made one batch of dough, used a quarter of it the first night with a smoked fish filling, and used half of it 2 nights later (48 hours) with a crab cake stuffing. In between times the leftover quarters were tightly wrapped and stored in the refrigerator. Questions from both sessions: 1. How do you know when the pasta is done? 2. What happens if you overcook the pasta? 3. How careful do you have to be with it when you're draining it? I've been fishing the pieces out, one by one, and setting in a colander. They haven't been well-drained, perhaps because I didn't give them long enough. I was afraid they'd stick together, although they haven't so far. The second time around, I noticed that the dough contracted slightly after I'd rolled it out - I hadn't seen that the first time. The finished results were also, well - doughier, or gummier, or tougher, or something. Still good, still much better than anything from the store, but not as good as the first time around. I can think of some differences between the two nights, but I'd like to know which really influenced the final results. 4. Why was the dough not as good the second night? - Dough doesn't really like "resting" 48 hours, even in the fridge? - Dough wasn't rolled out as thinly, and seemed tougher? - Dough was wrong shape for this filling (round pillows, small edges first time, triangles with unstuffed corners the second) - Difference in poaching liquid (broth the first time, water the second) - Some other reason I haven't thought of I have a full-blown lab experiment going in my house now, but if someone else already knows the answer, I can get on with other experiments, like changing the flour type, etc. Final question: how does one determine the optimum shape for a stuffed pasta, given a particular filling?

I'm starting to believe that! That's good encouragement, and I already believe you. Even with my cavils about the dough thickness and toughness, I went to bed last night thinking that this was STILL, by a long shot, better than anything I've ever bought fresh in the grocery store. And as for those dried tortellinis, stuffed with dried pesto or chicken or whatnot: well, they've just been relegated to camping food. I still have some specific questions that haven't been addressed. I logged on this morning planning to go over to the Q&A session and repost them there, but hey - since you're looking in, MobyP, and I raised them here, I'll repeat them here first. 1. How, and for how long, does one drain these beauties? With store pasta I'd just empty the pot worth into a colander and let it drain. I'm afraid these are too tender and/or will stick, although they haven't shown signs of doing that yet. I've been handling them gently (fish out one at a time, set lovingly in the colander) but they aren't sitting long enough to drain well. Am I babying them too much? 2. Why did the dough seem tougher the second try than the first? It was the same batch. Here are the (known) differences between the uses: - Dough used the first night had maybe 45 minutes to rest, wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator; leftovers sat wrapped in same plastic another 48 hours - Dough not rolled out as thickly the second time (1 gauge thicker on Atlas); - Pillow shapes different, so second night's pasta had more unfilled dough than first night's. Enquiring minds really want to know, and all that. I noticed that the dough was more elastic - that is, shrank slightly after rolling - the second time. Maybe the gluten had developed more. I used pastry flour (low protein). MobyP, your course and Chris, this thread have really fired me up. I had some wonderful stuffed pasta last weekend that I want to try duplicating. Thank you so much.

Tonight's experiment: pasta stuffed with crab cake mixture. I mixed up some crab cake, er, mixture based on a recipe from Frank Stitt's Southern Table. The general ingredients were crab, lemon juice and zest, bread crumbs, shallot, other seasonings, and egg. I made a few adjustments to his recipe - more lemon, a touch of vinegar, some chives - no doubt to compensate for the fact that I was using cooked shredded crab from a foil pouch instead of really good stuff. By the time I was done messing with it, the mixture tasted pretty good. I whirred it to a fine grind in the food processor. The pasta dough was left over from my attempt 2 nights ago. It's been sitting in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly in Saran Wrap. Rolling went smoothly. In accordance with my lessons learned last time around, I cut each dough quarter into two pieces, so I was working with 1/8 of the original recipe at a crack. That made the dough MUCH more manageable as I got it rolled down to the thinner levels. I also took a note from the previous lesson and only rolled it to level 7 on my Atlas, instead of level 8 as recommended. I tried two shapes, and if I'm reading my book right, they qualify as pansotti (pot-bellied dumplings) and cappellitti (little hats). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Here's how they looked before cooking: Into the boiling water they went. They were well on their way to being cooked before I remembered that the instructions said to simmer, not to boil. I don't know whether that mattered. They never stuck together. As before, I didn't have time to do an interesting sauce, so the cooked pillows were tossed with melted butter, and then given a grating of freshly-ground pepper and salt. I didn't even think of cheese! I thought of herbs, but couldn't be bothered. Behold: crab-stuffed pasta tossed with melted butter. Here's a closeup, so you can see what the interior looked like: The flavor and texture of the stuffing were good. I was pretty happy about that. The sauce wasn't bad but could have been better. What would y'all have done with that, both for flavor and for looks? Now, here's the kicker: the pasta was tough and, well, doughy. It wasn't bad where it encased the crab mix, but those long triangle points were a bit much. It wasn't quite as noticeable with the hat shapes. I have 3 guesses as to why the pasta was different than last time around, since it was from the same batch. I may find the answers through experimentation, but I always favor the lazy approach: if someone already knows the answer, please help me out! Guess 1: Pasta dough likes to rest a bit, but not for 48 hours. It got too tough. I did notice, when I got it rolled out to the final setting (7), that it contracted slightly on the board when I laid it out. I didn't see that the other night. Guess 2: I really did need to roll the pasta out thinner, to level 8, even though I might have had to double in some portions because of tearing. Guess 3: The shape makes a difference, and the round pillows I made the other night didn't have large enough expanses of sealed pasta (as with tonight's points) for me to detect the toughness. What do you think?