Smithy

OK, I have 3 recipes for curried lamb from which to choose and will be choosing tonight. (The lamb is already thawing in the refrigerator.) Tomorrow I go to purchase the fresh spices, since my turmeric and cardamom (to name only a couple) are at least a year old. Here are my questions: 1. If I purchase whole spices and toast them, how will I know they're done toasting? 2. Are there certain spices in the typical curry recipe that won't need toasting and that I should purchase ground? (That probably depends on the recipe I finally pick, but maybe I can get some general rules here.) 3. For those of you who make your own garam masala, I'd like to know your preferred mixes. I tried making it once - can't remember whose recipe - and didn't like it, either by itself or in the final dish. I don't like cloves, in any form that I can detect, and I think that's what wrecked it for me. Is it total heresy to leave cloves out of garam masala? Nancy

Re the "neutral white wine" for the aroma kit: in general I avoid cheap California chardonnays because so many of them are heavily oaky. Is that not an issue for the aroma kit? Or is Gallo sufficiently oak-free that it won't matter? Would a sauvignon blanc do as well from a "neutral" standpoint?

I think you should ask that question over on the Lamb Curry, eGullet Recipe Cookoff IV thread in question. Folks over there should know. Besides, if you post your question there, I won't have to. edited for punctuation

How many acres are you working, and how many people are working it? Are you really all volunteers, or do you mean you get volunteer help with the most labor-intensive and time-critical operations, like pruning? (I remember being 'volunteered' to help sucker orange trees in my youth. At age 12 or so, volunteerism is a lot less voluntary. )

I don't remember the Monty Python routine, but how about the James Thurber cartoon caption? "It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."

This is going to be fun! The infusions portion specifies "1 box cherries". I'm a bit confused because I don't normally associate cherries with boxes - except packing boxes, which are much too big. By inference with the box of raspberries and box of blackberries listed above, I'm guessing this is supposed to be about 1 pint of cherries. Is that right, or does it mean 1 box dried tart cherries? Is that the right quantity for the raspberries and blackberries?

Well, I have blisters from last night's Cajun Napalm, and a pot full of my first attempt at Fifi's Gumbo Goddess Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. I had to take a few liberties and make some command decisions due to some unanswered questions. 1. Half the Andouille disappeared at lunch when I wasn't looking. I knew the refrigerator was a safe place to store it, away from the dog and cats. I forgot about the other household member with opposable thumbs. I substituted some frozen old pancetta that had to go anyway, to supplement the remaining andouille. 2. Stung by this comment, followed by yet more discussion in the okra wars, I decided to tempt fate and slice up a few of the slimy buggers and put them in Fifi's precious okra recipe. I note that Fifi didn't scream when Snowangel did it, so maybe she cuts us northerners some slack. It came out pretty good, even though I stopped the roux too early. It had been browning so quickly, I was sure it was about to burn. Since the finished product wasn't as dark as my last attempt, I have to conclude I chickened out. I did notice that it smelled about the same as last time, even though last time I used lard and canola and this time I used peanut oil and canola. (I'm regretting wearing the same jeans today, though.) So, now for the questions. Please forgive me if they're answered above and I missed the answers: 1. If you're going to add okra, at what stage are you supposed to add it? I added it in with the trinity. 2. Is the chicken supposed to be cooked beforehand, or not, or does it matter? Fifi's recipe doesn't seem to use precooked chicken, but a lot of posters in this thread have done so. I didn't. I suspect it makes for a different, not necessarily better, or worse, product. FWIW, the okra was pretty much unnoticeable. I'm reminded of a former acquaintance's comment about his favorite venison recipe. He went on at great length about the marinade, the rum glaze, and so forth, and finished with "It's great! You can't taste the deer meat at all!" The only benefit of the pancetta was that it got it out of my freezer.

They aren't, if you shop eBay with patience. Of course, they're older and not necessarily as fine-mesh or high-tech as the newest ones. So far I've been happy with the one I got that was most like my grandmother's.

What does "3004 aluminum alloy" mean, and might it be less reactive than raw aluminum?

I'm not sure which specific brands are good, but I can tell you what to look for: make sure that the straining disk feels rough to the touch when you run your fingers over the holes on the inside (food holding side). The rough edges of the holes seem to be necessary to grip the food instead of letting it slide around when you crank. I bought a nice-looking stainless steel food mill, brand name forgotten, some inexpensive SS thing made in China. It was big enough to hold a lot of stuff and had 3 interchangeable disks for different straining sizes. It looked great and was easy to clean. Unfortunately, it didn't work worth beans. It just pushed stuff around instead of straining anything through the holes. I hate stuff that looks pretty and doesn't do its job. I went on eBay and picked up a small (1 qt) old Foley food mill. Wonderful. I think it may be tinned steel. It isn't as big as I'd like, and it doesn't have interchangeable disks, but it works. I love stuff that works. Foley is still around. I don't know what their food mills are like now. I do know that you should feel the interior screen before buying. If your fingers run gently over nice smooth holes, with no feeling of resistance (I'm not talking about cutting your fingers, by the way; it's more like very coarse sandpaper), don't buy it. Keep looking. Edited to add: a china hat (chinoise) might work for you, too. You can pick those up on eBay as well.

I should explain that I only know the cooking of the Mediterranean and the French Southwest and their claypot cooking styles. In Morocco, fish is almost always cooked in an unglazed pot called a tagra (see photo below). Not because of fear of flavor transfer but the shape is more 'fish-like' Before I can share what I know about claypot cooking I need to know which pot you were using. So many types of glazes, clays, additions of such minerals as mica, and shapes have a lot to do with the outcome of your braise. ← Well, I can answer some of those questions, but my Egyptian isn't good enough to have all the answers! In Egypt they call this particular pot a tagine, pronounced more or less "DAjin" with a broad 'a' as in 'ahh', and I picked it and the smaller bowls up because I like using them for moussaka. This type of clay cookware is as common as dirt around Luxor, and fortunately as cheap. They're unglazed. I think the clay must come from the stuff mined for the many potteries now - from somewhere near Aswan? can't remember where. Some potters closer to Cairo told me that the present conservation rules forbid using arable land from the Nile Valley for getting clay, so dry material is mined in the desert, brought in sacks of dry powder to the valley factories, and then mixed with water to make pottery clay. The initial cure involves coating the pot interior with molasses ("asl aswad") and cooking it in the oven in low heat for a long time. Temperature and time eluded our language skills. I've managed so far not to break anything. I think really well-seasoned pots may have a heavier coating. Here are a top view of the larger pot that I used as well as one of the individual bowls. That's an orange in front, for size comparison. The side view of the tagine gives a better idea of its shape. And yes, I know this is totally different than a Moroccan tagine. Someday I hope to lay my hands on one of those babies. I've never seen them in Egypt. Edited to correct a trivial detail on the mining and shipping process, and an incorrect pronunciation note.

A friend gave me a copy of this cookbook last year and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. It's huge, it's engagingly written, and it has as many stories as it does recipes. I'm glad to see it recommended, complete with links.

Ducky, as noted in Fat Guy's post to which slkinsey responded in the post right after yours, we all had more satisfactory results in cookware with a higher heat capacity. For ease of figuring you can take that as "more massive" but that isn't the whole story, as slkinsey's explained so well. Beyond that it got down to technique, equipment and to some extent personal taste. I had better results in the oven; a couple of the others did better on stovetop. I think I was the only person who tried a clay pot, and I really liked that too.

I don't know whether you were addressing that request to slkinsey in particular, but if you weren't, I will. I didn't much like my clay pot braising results the first night, but as the nights progressed and I continued recombining the meat and juice and reheating them in their pot, that sample became one of my favorites. I doubt that the clay has either the heat content or heat conductivity of the metals. Therefore I think there must be something else going on to explain the clay pot results, and I'm guessing it's related to the way the pores inside the pot exchange moisture and flavors with the meat and juice. What does the materials expert think? I certainly plan to do more braising in the clay pot vs. the Le Creuset and All-Clad, to see what happens as my technique and control improve. It may be that certain flavor combinations benefit more from the earthy pot flavor than others do. I have a clay pot question right away, for Ms. Wolfert: do they take on the flavors of the foods cooked in them to the point that you reserve some for certain types of food? If so, which do you segregate? Finally, thank you Wolfert for the note above about clarifying the sauce. That's a neat trick, and I have a lot of juice on which to try it.

Heck, who needs adjoining towns? That happens in our household all the time, and we aren't even in Texas!!

The sauce seemed to be different in my test. I plan a more careful series of tests to confirm this, but I thought the sauce from deglazing the stovetop steel (not nonstick) pan was richer, more complex and darker than the other sauces. For that matter, I also thought there were some differences in the meat texture and taste - but they were admittedly minor, not as noticeable as the sauce differences. I'll know more tonight when I reheat the samples. ← It's tonight. I didn't label the samples. One sample is more tender than the others, but I don't know which one it is, except that it is one of the meats that had been browned beforehand. How do I know? By the juices, or sauces, whatever you want to call them. (I haven't bothered reducing them, so they're runny but flavorful.) Three are indistinguishable. The fourth is different in appearance, texture, and to some degree taste. It was like this last night too, and even though I've lost the labels I know that this one dish had the unseared meat. The unbrowned-meat sauce separates readily into two layers, with the top layer a clear, maybe golden, maybe colorless, liquid. (It's difficult to be sure of the color, given the small sample.) It gives the bowl juice a halo effect, of light golden color around the reddish sauce. The browned-meat sauces all are more homogenous, with no halo from having a clear layer floating atop a darker layer. The juices look somehow more coagulated. I can taste the wine, meat juice and spices in all 4 samples, but the unbrowned-meat-braise-juice tastes, erm, lighter somehow. I tried to photograph the differences, but now as I'm previewing the post I don't think they came out. I won't bother casual readers with them, but they're in my Braising Lab 3+ album in case anyone else is interested enough to look. I poured the juices into small glasses to see how they'd separate. The top layer of the unbrowned-meat juice was clearer than the layer below and the top layer of the browned-meat juices was cloudier than the layer below. I haven't a clue of the chemistry behind what I'm seeing, or what it might mean for making a sauce, or what it says about the braising method. Either setup tastes fine, but they're different. Why? Enquiring minds want to know!

Ms. Wolfert, I was wondering today about the tagines. Are there specific cuts of meat that are generally used? You mention shoulder or breast of lamb. Is that because they benefit particularly from this treatment? Are there cuts that do not benefit from tagines?

The sauce seemed to be different in my test. I plan a more careful series of tests to confirm this, but I thought the sauce from deglazing the stovetop steel (not nonstick) pan was richer, more complex and darker than the other sauces. For that matter, I also thought there were some differences in the meat texture and taste - but they were admittedly minor, not as noticeable as the sauce differences. I'll know more tonight when I reheat the samples.

Fiftydollars, are you using gas or an electric stove? If you ever said, I missed it.

Yes, I'd also like to thank Steven and the eGCI team. This has been a very instructive and gratifying class. I've learned a lot of technique this week, raised a lot of questions and answered a few. This has been a great line of scientific inquiry. I've also made some darned good meals this week, applying my new braising knowledge to projects outside the scope of the lab sessions. Thanks for helping me get another cooking method into my repertoire.

Hmm. My results are a bit different than Fat Guy's. The treatment: -Each piece of meat was rubbed with a spice blend of paprika, salt, pepper, freshly ground coriander and some spice I know as bohaar - possibly allspice, but the ground berry doesn't really smell like allspice. -3 pieces of meat were browned in 3 different ways: one in a stainless steel All-Clad pan, one in a teflon-coated skillet, and one under the broiler. The 4th piece was left unbrowned. - The cooking vessels were identical ceramic bowls, approx. 2cup capacity, with foil covers. -1/4 c. wine (merlot, it was the calmest thing I could find around here) was used to deglaze the browned pieces, and was simply added to the unbrowned piece. The deglazing liquid was put with its respective piece of meat. - another 1/8 c. of beef broth (from cubes! I'm out of the weekend stuff!) was added to bring the liquid level up to roughly half the height of each piece. 1 small (1/2") red dried pepper was crushed and added to the broth in each bowl. - The covered bowls were set in the oven on the bottom rack. I did it this way for two reasons: first, I've had better success using oven braising so far, and second, I thought we were again supposed to keep all the dishes separate. - The initial oven temperature was 300F. After 1/2 hour, when nothing was simmering, I stepped the temp up to 350F. After an hour I had vigorous simmering under way so I reduced the temp to 320F, remember belatedly that we'd been using that temperature earlier in the week. -I kept track of temperature, and every time I measured I rotated the bowls to ensure more or less even heating. Results: -The browned meats were done at the same time, 1-1/2 hours after they went into the oven. -The unbrowned meat took more than another half hour to reach the same stage of doneness, based on my (admittedly inexpert) fork testing. 28 minutes after the others were done, it was still not done. I next checked it at 47 minutes after the others were done, and it was done. That may have been 10 minutes' overkill but it wasn't 20 minutes' worth. That's 2:20 total cook time for a 2-1/8 oz. piece of meat! -I agree that there's little to no difference in appearance among the 4 samples. As Fat Guy said, the browned meats had lost some of their brownness in the liquid and the unbrowned meat had gained some in the heat. -It probably won't suprise anyone that the deglazing with wine produced better results in the All-Clad pan than in the teflon-coated pan. The sauce from the AC sample seems a bit richer than from the others. (Yes, I deglazed the broiler pan too, but that was a much messier affair and shouldn't count.) -It's difficult to be sure without a blind taste test, but I think the All-Clad seared meat had a better texture than the teflon-seared meat or the broiled meat. -The broiler-seared meat ws cooked more, and initially seems a bit more chewy, than either of the pan-seared meats. So far the unseared meat seems the loser in terms of texture and flavor. Caveat: I'm discussing very small differences, and as has happened in almost every one of my labs this week, none of the meat has been something to share with company on the first night. Once again, I thank you, Fat Guy, for the insight to the meat cut. It makes me feel good that I've gotten a few good results at all! Reheating experiments: I reheated 3 of my original 6 dishes, and found all three to be drier than they had been last night or the night before although their flavor was still good. The relatively high oven heat (I was doing the braises at 300F at the time) may have contributed to the meat's demise. I can test that tomorrow with the last of my Sunday/Monday samples. Based on what I've seen so far, though, I'd say the flavor and texture improved on the first and second reheatings, and deteriorated on the third.

Yet another reheating experiment: today, out of time and desperate for a lunch to pack, I grabbed the Sunday samples that had lost their labels. These have not been reheated until now since I couldn't be sure of their source. I reheated them, sans juice (because I missed those containers) in a microwave oven at 50% power (sorry, don't know the wattage) for 3 minutes. Folks, even with that brutal treatment they were better than on the first night. Much, much better. Juicier, more tender. Either that, or my senses have been beaten into submission by bottom round.

So far I seem to be the only one whose stovetop braise wasn't as flavorful or tender as the high-temp oven braise. It could be a matter of technique, of course, but I'm wondering whether it might be equipment. Am I the only one working with an electric stove today?

I have probe envy. With only one remote probe that had to be shared among several dishes, I didn't try leaving the probe in place and graphing temperature rise. That's coming up soon. Question for you, Sam: do you plan to do something to seal the gap that the probe wire will leave between the lid and the pot? Or just let the steam escape? Or is that yet another test?

Wednesday night reheating: all Sunday/Monday meats have been stored separately, labeled, with their juices in separate labeled containers. For this experiment they've been reheated in their respective juices. The clay pot meat and juice were reheated in the clay pot. Most others were reheated in ceramic gratin dishes covered with foil; the Ovenshire batch was reheated in a Corning Grab-It ™ pot with glass lid. All were reheated in the top rack of the oven for around 40 minutes while Part 1 (low-temp oven braise) was going on the bottom rack. I should note that the original Corning Ware braised sample got lost in the shuffle and can no longer be part of this test. Ovenshire and All-Clad (both metal, nonenameled): chewy, dry, flavor ok. I don't think I could tell these apart. I don't know that they've improved over last night, but they're better than when they were first cooked. Foil-cooked batch: still unrepentently chewy. I don't think this has improved at all. Le Creuset batch: more flavorful and moist than last night, which was better than when originally cooked. Still not "company" quality, quite, but the flavors show definite promise. That mix of caramelized sauce from the first night with leftover broth from the second night is still paying flavor dividends. Clay pot cooked meat: there's very little juice left, and this is still the best of the bunch. It's definitely more flavorful and tender than last night, which was better than the night before. Based on Sunday's results, I wouldn't have tried braising beef in my clay pot again. Based on tonight's results, I definitely will. I can easily imagine this meat reaching "company" quality with a bit of tweaking. (I'll bet Wolfert could see this coming....) Surprise!