andiesenji

I like your story about the woman with the pot roast. However, I think the story goes back much further than that episode. I first read it in The Grit, a rural newspaper very popular in western Kentucky where I grew up and it was probably around 1950. A woman had written to The Grit with an amusing story about having always sawed the shank end off a ham before roasting it because that was the way her mother taught her. She finally got around to asking her mother the reason for this at a family gathering and when the grandmother was asked, replied, "a big ham wouldn't fit in the side oven so to close the door I had to saw a few inches off the shank." For those unfamiliar with this term, old wood/coal kitchen ranges had two ovens. One was the regular baking oven and could attain higher temperatures. The smaller "side oven" was for long, slow roasting at a lower temperature. (On the other side of the "pond" the AGA and similar kitchen ranges had this same type of oven.) Over the years I have seen this story repeated numerous times, usually with a ham because of the size but other things too. It's still a fun story and I'm sure the same phenomena has happened to many cooks. There are just some things that don't fit comfortable into a certain vessel and one has to make do. I once had a Garland range in my home and it was a wrench to leave it but it actually sold my house. The first people to look at the house, 40 minutes after the Open House started, bought it without quibbling about the price and before they even looked at the rest of the house. The gas company inspected the installation and my insurance agent made sure all the safety factors were in place. It was costly but I wanted it and by gad, I had the same type range as Julia Child.

I posted in the "What's In Your Cream" topic the link to my blog page where I made butter with regular supermarket heavy cream. 4/21/2011 butter making It works! And almost as well as with the manufacturing cream.

I promised that I would make a batch of butter this morning with regular supermarket heavy whipping cream and so I did. I have posted the results Here on my blog. I took the cream out of the fridge and left it on the counter overnight. I know most people insist that cream whips better if cold and in a cold bowl, but for making butter I have not found that to be so. Room temp cream whips up nearly as rapidly and it "breaks" more rapidly. I have made small batches of butter in the TMX (with manufacturing cream) and when it is chilled, it takes almost 4 minutes to break. Obviously this took less than half that time. You can do the same process in a mixer - use the whisk for beating the cream until it breaks and use the paddle for rinsing with a minimum of three changes of water. The TMX just speeds things up. I usually use an electric churn and the minimum I can put into it is half a gallon and it works better with a gallon. Also I had not cultured the cream, or allowed it to "clabber" usually the first step in making butter the old-fashioned way.

More copper. It's solid - 3 mm thick. The 9 x 9 one weighs 52.25 ounces. Either side can be up or down. The side next to the burner does get a bit discolored but copper cleaner or to clean the business side of this one I used half of a squeezed lemon and some salt. The top view was the side I cleaned just now. You notice that unlike many online vendors, their phone number and address is readily seen on the "Info" page along with the note that custom sizes are available. I simply phoned and told them the size I wanted and the gentleman told me the price and I ordered it and had it two days later but I live close by. I know other people who have ordered custom sizes and I don't know of anyone who hasn't been extremely happy with the results. One of my friends, who does catering has two of these LPG double burner stoves and after having problems with some pots not sitting securely on the burners (scalded her arm when one tipped) she ordered the copper plates to fit across both burners. They were costly but she feels that not having to worry about an employee or a client at one of her events being harmed, is well worth it.

I just came across this Le Creuset pot and lid on ebay with the loop-type lid handle. There is also this one. Occasionally there are lids only sold on ebay. It might be possible to pick up a vintage lid with this type of handle for your modern pot. It's worth a try.

My gas burners have been calibrated and adjusted so they burn evenly. However, I still have some very wide cooking vessels that do not themselves heat evenly across the entire bottom. (15 inch cazuela with the flat bottom being 10 inches in diameter. Even my largest gas burner does not heat the bottom evenly (surface temp of bottom measured with an infrared thermometer after heating water in it and dumping the water.) I have copper pans that heat evenly no matter what size the burner although they heat more rapidly on the higher output burners. Same with All Clad and other fully clad cookware. Most of my cast iron heats evenly across the bottom but some pieces not as well as others. I also have several pieces of glass cookware that I feel much more confident using on the copper plates, although they were designed to be used on a gas burner. There are just some things that I like cooked for a long time over very low heat and these things allow me to do that. I'm pretty sure that Paula Wolfert recommended the use of a Simmer Mat Diffuser when using a tagine on a stovetop and I think it was in a post here on eG. I do have one of these and it is a very good product but it just isn't large enough to make a secure base for some of my pots. I learned to cook on a wood/coal stove where the entire top of the cast iron stove was hot, hotter in some places, less hot in others. At one time I had a stove with a "French top" on which to cook and learned to slide pots and pans from spot to spot to find the optimal temperature. (I would have killed for an infrared thermometer back then but they were far in the future.) It's all in what you are used to and what allows you to be comfortable while cooking. My heavy copper plates suit me but others should use whatever they like, or omit them altogether if they don't think they are necessary.

I have a quart of regular store bought heavy cream in my fridge (Alta Dena) and with the "extra" ingredients. I need to make some butter and really don't feel like trekking down to Palmdale to the nearest Smart & Final so will make a half-size batch tomorrow with this 'ultrapasteurized" stuff to see how different it is to the manufacturing cream. First thing in the morning I will do the routine, taking photos as I go.

This method works great for regularly sliced bacon but I find it makes shoe leather out of the thicker stuff. No way! This is a huge waste - no drippings for use in various applications, such as cornbread and flavoring green beans &etc. I will stick to my old fashioned method which gives me both the bacon and the drippings.

Could the cream you got hold of be specially intended for coffee? I've never heard of stabilizers being present in other sorts of cream (I just took a look at the supermarket cream we have in the fridge, and it contains only cream [38% fat]; I always have to be careful to not turn it into butter when I'm whipping it). Although it may not be the only culprit, it seems to me that carageenan would definitely interfere with breaking, since that's part of the reason it's there. Carageenan is also a thickener, which suggest that the fat level is fairly low, making it less than ideal for butter production. Almost all supermarket heavy cream has carageenan in it where I live. I intentionally looked for cream without it but it was nowhere to be found (even in the "gourmet" stores). Do you have any wholesale grocers/small restaurant supply that are open to the public? Here in California, Smart & Final sells manufacturing cream, which is where I buy mine. Trader Joe's house brand heavy cream has no additives. Other California dairy products that are "pure" are Straus Family Creamery carried by Whole Foods.

I buy manufacturing cream, an Alta Dena product, at Smart & Final. It comes in half gallon cartons and is much cheaper than buying heavy cream in the smaller containers. I use it to make butter, clotted cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese &etc. Works like a dream and has no additives.

I have used the regular flame tamers and they work okay but I wanted something more and found this company that makes a product that is rather expensive but I have found so many uses for them that I feel they have more than paid for themselves. BellaCopper I have two Medium (9x9) plates that work on just one burner but I also have 2 larger ones (10 x 18 & 11 x 18) that cover two burners and are ideal for use with a long oval or rectangular pan that would ordinarily not be stovetop friendly, i.e., one of the lighter weight roasting pans. I also use it when cooking with a large cauzela and other pottery pots, tagines and etc. The little one (6x6) lives on the "simmer" burner on my cooktop to keep butter, lard, bacon dripping or syrup warm. Obviously, it need polishing but I seldom bother. Another important advantage to me is that I can put several small sauce pots, butter warmers, metal milk pitchers etc., on the double plate and maintain them at the temperature I want. I do have electric warming trays but they have an arbitrary heat setting that is not adjustable. The two largest, 10 x 18 & 11 x 18 were special orders they made for me, one for my regular cooktop and the bigger one for the larger two-burner grate I have outside. Here's a photo of the 10x18 one in use under a batch of clotted cream in '07. I realize these are expensive and not for everyone but they certainly work well for me and they will also last for generations. Their prices reflect the price of copper and currently are less than which I purchased a 9inch in 2007: Thank you again for your order from Bellacopper You can always find out the current status of your order by going to http://order.store.yahoo.com/OS/stat?bellacopper+1146+fa30ef4c943cc0479cef Name Code Qty Each Options -------------------------------------------------------- 9" Medium - Gourmet 002 1 65.00 copper heat diffuser / defroster plate (Will ship within 24 hours) Subtotal 65.00 Shipping 9.00 Tax 4.71 Total 78.71

If they are too pointy at the ends I just trim the points off - the pith is extra thick there so the juice does not escape. I had breakfast with a neighbor down the road this morning. Her husband moonlights as a bartender (regular job CHP officer) and she showed me the ones he uses on a regular basis. This one can squeeze slices, quarters or half a lime, most lemons are too large to squeeze a half: But you need strong hands because the handles are short. He uses one similar to the one I pictured but it is stainless steel. It is like this one but he bought it at a restaurant supply. She says he bought two because he wasn't sure if the welds would hold but so far it has been in use for a couple of years with no problems. He has a collection of vintage squeezers, several wooden ones from England, France, Germany, one from Hawaii carved from Koa wood and several from the Carribean Islands - one from Cuba someone got in the early '50s, that is shaped like an alligator. I had no idea they were so varied in design.

I still don't understand the problems you folks are having with the lemon squeezer. So, I'm sacrificing my hands and enduring a little pain for this set of instructional photos. Here's the way I do it and the juice does not come out of the sides - in the next to last picture you can see that the rim is dry. All the juice went into the bowl (except for the tiny puddle from when I cut the lemon)

I have one like this which is difficult for me to grip. That is the type that most people operate incorrectly if they have not seen one in use. They put the cut side of the lemon or lime up and not only is less juice extracted, it does squirt out the sides. I bought this one which is a little easier to use because the handles are longer but it still bothers me and I've long had one like this stand type like this works okay but is a pain to clean and not handy for just one or two fruits. I have two or three electric reamers that really haven't been up to my standards so I recently bought this cute little juicer from Tribest - I was ordering yogurt supplies and an extra 2 quart container anyway. And I really love it. It works much better than the Cuisinart and to me is certainly worth the extra cost. I can juice one fruit or several and it is super easy to clean.

That sounds tasty. But I don't think you can solve a problem caused by overuse of antimicrobials with more antimicrobials; that way lies madness. The inertia of the system works against change: the food producers have designed their system to be able to process meat as quickly and cheaply as they can, pretty much regardless of any consequence. Introducing quality or safety controls slows the process and hence increases costs; the processors will fight tooth and nail (or hoof) to resist. And they have a lot of power to do so, with friends in Congress and the agencies that are supposed to oversee them. The main problem with government oversight is that there just are too few inspectors, stretched way too thin and the operators of these corporations know it! And even worse is that some in congress (I'll allow you to form your own opinions) believe that what little oversight there is, is still TOO MUCH, and they want to cut funding further and reduce the number of personnel that do the inspections. One congressman received a hefty chunk of money from one of these multinational corporations for his campaign fund. He is just about the loudest proponent of "less government overreach" and "keep government out of "small" businesses." As this business could not even remotely be considered "small" you can easily guess where this is going. This is the same man who believes the oil companies need more subsidies and should be paying less taxes!

I never had a problem with them when I was able to use one. I have arthritis in my right hand, base of the thumb, severe and can't grip tightly. If you have the citrus half position correctly, the juice can only exit through the holes. You have to put the cut side down, against the holes and when you squeeze, it turns the fruit inside-out.

dill fronds and lemon juice can be substituted for sorrel and you have to do it to taste. Sorrel grows like a weed in my yard so I generally have plenty but it did freeze and die back this past winter but the dill in the greenhouse kept on growing so when I made a carrot sorrel soup, I used a cup of dill fronds, blended with a bit less than 1/4 cup of lemon juice and the zest of one lemon. The flavor was pretty much the same. I use dill and lemon juice in a cream sauce for fish - salmon, etc., you have to mix it and allow it to set for about an hour for the flavors to blend well.

Perhaps "Griddled Cheese Sandwich" would be more appropriate. I prefer the classic version: Just generously buttered white bread and cheese, heated in a skillet on the stove until brown and toasted on one side, then flipped to brown the other side of the sandwich. By the time the second side is done, the cheese should be melted and gooey. If you're using Velvetta (which we had when I was growing up), you were guaranteed it would be melted and gooey by the time side one was browned. Once plated, I pry open the sandwich and insert lengthy slices of dill pickle all the way across the inner cheese. Close up the sandwich and enjoy. When I was a wee lad, a cousin once bought me lunch at a Woolworth's-type lunch counter. Whoever was behind the counter made the grilled cheese sandwich with mustard. Boo hiss. I just couldn't eat it. You are correct and I often forget to add the "flat" to a sentence in which I use grill in this context. There are many confusing cookery terms and grill is certainly one - I always called a flat grill ad griddle (grew up in a house where a round griddle was called a spider, making it even more confusing) but when I attended a cookery school, I was told to call the "griddle" a flat grill. I did what I was told because the chef instructor was not open to what he considered stupid questions. There was an "open grill" and a salamander under which food was also "grilled" so I was totally confused and usually just pointed to the object in question when the testing was on. I have a friend who owns a bakery and a small cafe and whenever I go in for breakfast and order an English muffin, he asks if I want it toasted or grilled, the latter is the flat grill and I know that now but others are unsure and look confused when this question arises. I like your nomenclature of "griddled" to define the procedure. Perfectly clear meaning.

I have one that I bent a bit more (very carefully) and which I use to remove the choke from raw artichokes. (I use a spoon for the cooked ones.)

I would notice the difference and so would many people. But not everyone is as discerning as you and I. I've known people who buy meat that is past the sell by date because they just don't pay attention. One of my neighbors, who worked as a lab tech for forty-some years, has no sense of smell. A couple of years ago I was at her home when she opened a package of ground beef that looked fine but from across the room it smelled bad to me. I looked at it and there appeared to be two layers of wrap on the bottom, only one on top. It looked like the package had been re-wrapped with a new sell-by date. She had purchased it as one of the discount "4-less" markets. They wouldn't take it back because she couldn't find her receipt. There are markets who are willing to fool the public, not all do but there are some. A little knowledge is not always a bad thing.

I use it, after a bit of "parboiling" in the microwave, in dishes with beans (baked especially), beans and beans (dried beans and green beans) combined with rice or pasta. I use it in greens, usually rendering it a bit first. I chop it in very small dice and use it in any recipe that calls for pancetta because it is a lot easier to find. I also chop it fine and use it with ground beef and/or ground turkey in meat loaf to add both flavor and moisture. I slice it and use it for barding on game and on meat roasts that don't have a lot of internal fat - on turkey. (Yesterday America's Test Kitchen roasted a turkey exactly this way.) I use a larding needle to insert it into those denser roasts, venison, bison, elk, beef round, etc. You push the hollow needle into the salt pork, rotate it if it doesn't go all the way through, to separate the piece, withdraw it, stick it into the meat your are larding and push the thumb piece on the side as you withdraw the needle.

The segment that was shown on the Channel 9 KCAL news showed a chef taking stew meat, treating it with the stuff, wrapping it in plastic and putting it in a fridge for several hours. There was also a note that shrink wrapping it could help with "forming" before chilling. A package that had previously been prepare and packaged was unwrapped, sliced into ovals that looked exactly like the "normal" Chateaubriand steaks next to it and then both were cooked in side by side frying pans. The treated "steaks" did not fall apart and when finished and cut looked as one would expect a steak to appear. The news segment was ten minutes, quite long for most news bits on local stations. However KCAL has a news hour at noon and then starts at 2:00 P.M with a full hour - 3:00 to 3:30 and back again at 4:00 to 5:00. Unless there is a Laker game, the news resumes at 8:00 p.m. and goes to 11. So they have more time to spend on stories that they think are important.

That is the exact reason that I stick to my vintage Descoware, Dru, Volrath, Copco and Griswold. Here's the lid from a Descoware (Belgium) oval pot I purchased in 1968. Obviously Le Creuset knows how to make the integral loop handles because here is one on a terrine. I like these because when they are super hot, from being in a high temp wood-fired oven, I can use a hook to lift the lid. And here's a casserole on ebay with the loop handle.

It's normal for salt pork to exude some liquid while it sits in the fridge. Slice it into pieces and rinse well in cold water when you are ready to cook it. However, it keeps better if it doesn't sit in the exuded liquid. I have two or three of these also one like this larger blue one I put it inside a zip type plastic bag, place the salt pork on it and seal the bag, squeezing out as much air as possible. I use them for a couple of other things that tend to weep during storage and which I want to keep out of the exudate. I wash them in the dishwasher, top shelf. The large blue one is also handy for a couple of other tricks.

I'm not worried about the health aspects of inhaling the powder. I just don't want to be spending my dollars on inexpensive meat scraps that have been formed into something that looks like a tenderloin. Frankly, I think I will stick to meat with bones that is in a form that is less likely to be "manufactured" or otherwise manipulated, with or without meat glue. Although I'm sure that some unscrupulous person will find a way to produce even these but probably not immediately.