andiesenji

Hello andiesenji, Because I will have more time and 'mind' space than usual when we are in Utah, I thought it might be a good time to delve into all those things which often get left behind for the ease of the familiar, including now the candying of ginger. However there are no Asian markets where I am going and the ginger will be only what is available in a Kroger's. Would you say that I should forget the idea for the time being? Thanks. ← The stuff from Kroger should work just fine. My recipe/method is specifically for the mature type ginger found in regular markets. It does have to be plump and smooth on the surface, no evidence of drying or wrinkling. It is the steaming until the slices are tender (and you must cut across the grain) that is important. You can steam it for 30 to 40 minutes, take a couple of pieces out of the steam and allow to cook and see how tender it is. The easiest way to do this is to bite on it. If your teeth go right through it with only a little resistance, it is ready to go into the syrup. At this stage it will be opaque. After cooking in the syrup for sufficient time for it to be candied all the way through, it will be translucent and ready to drain and dry until just tacky on the surface (may take a few days if you are in a humid climate - a fan helps if you don't have a dehydrator.) Don't be afraid to try it. Prepare a very small batch to see how it works as it is much easier to "tweak" the small batches if necessary. I make large batches in a big electric roaster, usually 10 to 15 pounds at a time, but have made batches as small as two cups (approximately). Other people who have tried it are always amazed at how easy it is, even if you have to cook it on a stove. I recommend a crock pot because then it does not have to be watched but one friend prepares it in an old electric skillet on the lowest setting and gets good results. She even uses the same skillet to steam it in a bamboo steamer - the skillet has a high domed lid that just fits over the steamer.

If glass jars rest directly on the bottom of the pot, they can develop hot spots and if the jars are not heated evenly, as they are when suspended in water, they can break, sometimes violently. I use only the racks that hold the jars securely and can be lifted out of the water without spilling the jars - mine has the handles that hook on the sides of the pot, suspending the jars out of the water so they can drip dry and avoid scalding me. The same racks fit in my pressure canner. I prefer to do things as safely as possibly. I have used my big electric roaster for canning the smaller, pint, half-pint and 4-oz jars, using the rack that holds them about 1/2 an inch from the bottom and transfer them out of the water with jar tongs. However I have the roaster on a cart that is a foot lower than my cooktop so it's much easier for me to do this. Working with a much deeper pot, on the countertop cooktop is rather awkward for me.

San Francisco's water is heavily clorinated (2.1mg/l ... that's 0.2% chlorine!), ostensibly because of the very old pipes in the system (they just ripped out the last of the cedar wood pipes 7 years ago) but in reality because the Clorox Corporation is headquartered in Oakland and is a big local palm-greaser. The amount of treatment in the water has been quadrupled over the last 10 years. You can taste it. Most San Franciscans, like me, use a filter to remove the taste. Some filters (like Brita pitchers) release a lot of the chlorine through aeriation. It's actually Chloramine rather than Chlorine, but the effect on cultures is the same. I've been using bottled water for my sourdough culture too; I was having trouble with it for months before I figured out the chlorine issue. ← When I travel, I take a water purifier with me, a Berkey stainless steel travel unit, which is not all that small, but does purify the water much better than Britta or the other small units. I refuse to pay the outrageous prices for bottled water, which I don't trust anyway. There have been more than a few investigations that revealed that some bottled waters were not as described or from the sources listed. I have a larger SS Berkey purifier, for a "just-in-case" event when we may have disruption in our water supply because of earthquakes. I had it shipped to a friend in Nevada and drove over there to pick it up because our legislature, for some reason that I suspect has to do with the bottled water lobby in California, has been reluctant to allow the bigger units to be sold in California. When I picked up mine in Nevada, I also transported two others, one for a friend who lives in Lompoc (horrible water) and another in Yorba Linda where the water is also not so nice. Both report a significant difference in various foods, vegetables cooked in the purified water taste better and retain their color better, so there has to be some chemical difference. If interested, you can see all the specs HERE I have not had any experience with the plastic ones, I prefer the SS units. The big one I have is the "Crown" model and I have 4 of the filters in it. With 4 filters, it will purify 12,000 gallons of water. My friends in Lompoc and Yorba Linda both got the "Imperial" size, with the two filters that came with them.

If you have the space, you can grow your own, grows nicely in pots and in mini greenhouses. Otherwise it is available at Asian markets at various times depending on the source area. In the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed - keep this in mind. In equatorial areas it is grown all year. It is sometimes identified as "stem ginger" ...

You can order canning racks without the pots. Amazon has several. They have them at Wal-Mart and at Target in my area. Two sizes at Kitchen Krafts And you can always find anything that is farm and kitchen related at Lehman's.

After the ginger has been candied, I put it into the dehydrators (I have two of the large Excaliburs) to dry until the surface is just tacky enough to pick up the granulated sugar. If I am going to dip it in chocolate, I don't coat it with the sugar. If I am going to use it in confections - as in the ones I sent to New Mexico for the chile fest get together - I put the ginger through a meat grinder using the next-to-the-smallest disc. It is very sticky this way and if shaped and left out to dry for at least 24 hours, gets quite firm and makes an ideal center for chocolates. Much of the commercial ginger is made with young ginger because it is more tender. I stumbled on the steaming to tenderize the mature ginger (and thus get nice, large slices) several years ago and it has the advantage of retaining all the flavor and "bite." When the ginger is parboiled, a lot of the flavor is cooked away in the water.

I've had my Electrolux for several years and use it primarily for dense, heavy doughs (the kind which destroyed two 5-qt KAs, (bowl-lift) which were replaced but I discontinued using them for heavy doughs). It was Peter Reinhart's Struan bread dough that was the main problem. The Electrolux works differently from other household mixers and it does take a bit of learning how to use it. I seldom use the dough hook, generally just the roller/scraper but do use the dough hook for blending ingredients in some recipes (such as fruit cakes, which also strain the KA and my recipes are too large for even the 6-qt KA). I also use it for cookie doughs that are too stiff for the KAs and for blending the ground dried fruit and nut mixtures I prepare for confections. A big plus for me is the TIMER - especially with my brioche dough that has to be kneaded for 12-15 minutes while adding flour a tablespoon at a time, and my favorite French bread that also requires longer kneading. Both these doughs had a tendency to climb up the dough hook in the KA - very annoying, having to stop the mixer and push the dough back down into the bowl every couple of minutes. In earlier posts I have recommended my favorite online vendor of small appliances, Pleasant Hill Grain. I began purchasing from them when they had an online site but only took phone orders (until online security was fool-proof) They have never failed to be extraordinarily polite and helpful, even when asked some rather dumb questions. They are more than happy to answer questions, even if one does not purchase the item and their prices are very competitive. They include optional accessories that other vendors charge extra for. And they ship rapidly and pack securely. (I have no relation to the vendor, except as a customer.)

After thinking about this discussion, I decided to prepare a batch. I came across a mention of this interesting recipe in another (non food-related) forum. It is slightly different than others I have tried (also contains bourbon). I cooked it last night, jarred it up and left them overnight. I opened a jar and tried it on a toasted onion bagel with cream cheese (just a dab of CC) and it is very tasty. It is not as spicy as my old recipe and I think might be more acceptable to people who don't care for spicy stuff. It did not set up as firm as some of the others I have made but is perfect for spooning and spreading. It will go into my "keeper" recipe list.

You can make "pear honey" Pear Honey recipe - old-fashioned type This actually turns out better if the pears are just beginning to ripen - when they are still very firm. You can also slice and dry some of the pears - after they are partly through the drying process you can put them into simple syrup and glacé them. This is only possible with unripe pears - as soon as there is a bit of "give" when you press into them, they are too ripe. They do have to be at least beginning to ripen to have pear butter turn out well. I also make pickled pears from the recipe on this site.

Floating fruit is the bane of every canner, I think, Jane. Best I can tell you is to slowly stir your jam for a full five minutes after you remove it from the heat. That may help. After cooking the jam, I pour it from the cooking kettle to a 3-quart pitcher, skim and stir, then pour into jars. I prefer the pitcher to a ladle and funnel for filling the jars; it's less messy for me. ← My favorite "method" for preserves and jams, so as to avoid the "floating-fruit problem," is to use a slotted ladle and transfer just the fruit into the jars, using the wide-mouth funnel, until the jar is full of fruit. THEN I ladle in the syrup until the fruit is covered. I continue until all the fruit has been jarred. Usually I have some syrup left over and that gets jarred separately. I learned this 60 years ago when watching my grandma prepare cherry preserves, as well as peach, pear, gooseberry, huckleberry, raspberry, strawberry and etc.

I'm bumping up this topic because membership in this forum truly has changed my life in various ways, some quite subtle, others more visible. I'm going on a trip to New Mexico next month to spend some time with my dad and I have worked things out so I can stop off in a couple of places on the way to visit with a couple of eG members and while I am in Deming, will spend part of a day in Silver City and plan to visit the establishment of gfron. (I also plan to visit some Basenji people and at least one person on a forum devoted to Terry Pratchett's Discworld) When I look around my kitchen, I note there are several things that were brought to my attention by posts on eG. (Far too many to list) And those do not include the vast number of wonderful recipes and ideas I have appropriated from various posts on eG. I can truthfully state that my life has been enriched by eG!

I have friends who now live in Grenoble and have an Electrolux. I am sure they bought it in France. I looked in my Electrolux service guide and in the French section (I am not familiar with the language) there is an address in Senlis, France (43 Ave. Felix Louat)

I like the cookbooks published by The Australian Women's Weekly. The inside back cover of each cookbook has conversion tables which are very helpful. In the UK and US a tablespoon is 15 ml in Australia it is 20 ml. Their website has a very useful metric converter here

Yes it will, just as shown in Ricki's demonstration photos. It will stretch to a yard or more. I prefer to form small balls and brine them for at least 24 hours before slicing and serving with sliced tomato and sweet onions on fresh-baked sourdough bread and topped with fresh basil and drizzled with a very green and fruity olive oil.

Note my previous posts on using store-bought milk. It will not make good cheese because of the process of "ultra-pasteurization" and homogenization. You must add something to it to change the way the protein chains react. It isn't difficult or time-consuming, but you do have to compensate for the way it is processed. Read the following, especially the section at the bottom about combining powdered milk with cream. milk and cheese help I use calcium chloride and citric acid (I simply use the "sour salt" found in any market in the section where you find Jewish/kosher foods). I use Ricki's recipe for 30-minute mozzarella and I use Alta Dena milk because it is a "local" dairy in southern California. I have in the past gotten milk from a friend locally who has cows (also goats and sheep) and I have a home pasteurizer and process the milk myself prior to making cheese with it. When I need to use milk with a higher butterfat content, I add manufacturers cream, also Alta Dena and NOT ultra-pasteurized.

Try it in the microwave, in a pyrex pie plate or baking dish. a thin layer of thick simple syrup, lay the lime slices on that syrup in a single layer cover with more syrup and nuke for a minute at a time and allowing it to cool down in between sessions. keep going until the rind is translucent. It will take a while but you should end up with something with good color and nicely candied. Carefully transfer them to a wire rack and allow to dry until just tacky then coat them with the coarsest granulated sugar you can find. (I found some with the label "Florida Crystals" that is much coarser than regular.

I have made a lot of goat cheese. It is easy. You do need both a culture and a coagulant, otherwise it won't taste like anything but cottage cheese and won't form a strong curd. Excellent instructions are HERE and there is explanation of the how and why. You can also find some answers here. as well as supplies and etc. The experts know what they are doing and won't steer you wrong. I don't know where you are located but any health food store will have vegetarian rennet and will probably have a culture that will work - you can use one of the yogurt cultures in a pinch. explaned here

I have had excellent results by combining tomato with apple juice (I make my own with very tart apples, cooked and strained as I would for apple jelly) and a small amount of rocoto pepper. (Also know as Manzano peppers, the ones with the black seeds - they can be quite hot so I do not use a lot.)

I am suspicious of anything that is not going to ship for a couple of months - it may never ship. The only really efficient (and fairly affordable) electric nut butter grinders are the appliances from India that are use for "wet" grinding of spices. Like this one made by Premier I have, over the years, experimented with various cheap versions and have never been satisfied - the Salton one I bought many years ago lasted about a month, as I recall. The hand-cranked Universal food grinders, manufactured from the 1910s until the 1960s often came with a "Nut-Butter" "blade" or disc as a option - many of the "complete" sets included it. They make an excellent product, although it does require elbow grease. Some of the electric meat grinders offered in the '50s and '60s also came with a nut butter blade. I don't know why this option was discontinued but they are often sold on ebay. I can guarantee that one of the early Universal or Griswold or other hand-cranked food grinders will do the job, with some effort on your part, and last into the next century with proper care. And they are inexpensive. The ones in my collection are all in perfect working order and are easy to keep that way. This one has the nut butter "blade" In the bottom two pictures, it is the solid-looking disc at the left of the grinder body. Here are photos of two different Universal grinders to show the difference in size; This is the NO. 1 patented in 1897-1899, mfg in 1903 And the "Nut Butter" blade The bigger No. 3 compared to the No. 1. The nut butter blade for the No. 3. is next to it - the blades are much larger on this unit. There is a size between, a No. 2 They also made larger "commercial" grinders - I have a No. 8 (ca. 1930) but it's too heavy and bulky for me to move easily. It has a "meat paste" blade that works as a nut butter grinder also. (I have 31 grinders like these in my collection.)

I have a "collection" of quite a few different salts and have tried various methods of tasting. I would vote for a selection of melons, tomatoes, and very thin sliced breads, spread with unsalted butter (it must be very good butter). The latter is particularly suitable for the smoked salts and salts that are herb infused. That being said, I just ordered a couple of salt "items" that are offered in the newest NapaStyle catalog.

These books sound very interesting. Who are the authors? ← Just click on the links in my post to see. They are both by Joanna Pruess and John Harney (of Harney & Sons Tea) and Tea Cuisine is actually an updated version of the first book. It was my error to post both of them. I meant to include Cooking With Tea by Robert Wemischner and Diana Rosen. It is out of print but available from ABE Books From Tea Cuisine one of my favorite recipes is Peach and Ginger-Glazed Chicken Legs. A favorite side dish is Curried Potatoes, Cauliflower, and Mushrooms, which is prepared with Lapsang souchong tea. And there is a Candied Ginger and Green Tea Bread that is very easy and very tasty whether made for breakfast, lunch, tea or an evening snack. And for hot weather, there is Buttermilk-Vanilla Tea Sherbet - which requires an ice cream freezer but even the small hand-cranked ones with the bowl that is chilled in the freezer, works very well. There is a Gravlax recipe that uses Lapsang souchong tea, however I'm allergic to many seafoods so have never tried it but one of the people on the tea list did and reported it was excellent. The recipes in the books gave me ideas on how tea could be incorporated into other recipes so I experimented and found several that worked for me. There are other books on cooking with tea, cooking with green tea, but I have not examined them.

I agree. I start with Everclear and after a significant amount of extraction, I top up the jar with brandy. I have found that starting with the higher alcohol content extracts more flavor and speeds up the process considerably. I think I mentioned this in a post much earlier in this thread and posted a link to an article that explained the mechanics of the extraction process.

Was there anything in particular different about it? Was this the article that began with the author talking about how easy she (he?) thought this would be, and then it turned out much more difficult? I don't have the issue handy, unfortunately, so I can't compare it to my other ricotta recipes. ← If you are using commercial milk (the ultra-pasteurized stuff), you MUST add calcium chloride to it or you will not get the proper curd formation no matter what kind of coagulant you use. Check the ingredients at this site.

I think I will do a photo "essay" on the subject and post it in a new topic.

I have been to the Chile Fest several times in the past and some years I recall being better than others, however one day at the festival was always enough for me. There never seemed to be as many variables to it, as compared with the Gilroy Garlic Festival, another "small town event" which I used to attend every year (It would take months to remove the aroma of garlic from my motorhome), and always for the entire weekend. My friends and I could always manage to find something or some place new to try each year. The only years I missed it was when it was in conflict with the annual basenji specialty dog show. I haven't attended for the past three years because the friends with whom I used to travel have retired and moved to Hawaii and there is a limit to how much garlic most people can handle. (as with chiles)!