andiesenji

You don't say where you live, Chihiran. It all depends on the type of flour you use and you have to be very sparing in mixing the dough - just mix till blended or they will be tough. Like biscuits, you have to use a very sharp cutter to get the most rise. My great-grandmother taught me a little rhyme about 60 years ago. "If it sounds like stone, it's 'neath the Scot's throne. If it rhymes with gone, its a proper scone!"

I measure cornstarch by spooning it into a dry measure and leveling it if I am use volume measurement. However, most of the recipes in which I use corn starch are measured by weight.

My new Chef's Catalog arrived today. Checking at the web site, I find that they carry the smaller (shallot/garlic) version of the Alligator chopper.

The green plum tomatoes (paste tomatoes) are excellent for chutneys and all the other things you do with regular green tomatoes or those beginning to turn, (or "halfers" as a friend's father, Dominic Campagna - who made the wine I tood to Tejon's going-away party, calls them). Dominic likes to make pickles from the half-green, half-orange tomatoes, split in half. I don't have his recipe but it is not quite as sour as dill and not as sweet as bread and butter. It is similar to the brine found in the sweet Italian peppers.

The best way to avoid this is to roast the garlic for about 20 minutes before you mix it with the other ingredients, particularly any acid.

This brought back memories for me also. I have posted many times in the past about my enthusiasm for cornbread, especially the "southern" type. I also love cookbooks like this. I have Ernest Matthew Mickler's "White Trash Cooking" cookbook and his second cookbook, "Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins". Which was re-issued as "White Trash Cooking II" A subsequent book "More White Trash Cooking" authored by Trisha Mickler, after Ernest passed away in 1988, has not been quite as well received but is still worth having, if one loves the foods of the plain "down-home" folks. Thanks for posting about this. I just ordered it.

Habaneros can vary in heat with the most Scoville units ever recorded in a Red Savina habanero. It was a chance mutation story here that has made news around the world. There are innumerable sites devoted to chile peppers and there is an email forum if you get hooked. Of course there is Chile Pepper magazine. and our guru, Dave Dewitt Incidentally, I know someone who tried to drive birds away from his small patch of corn by spraying the corn with home made pepper spray, made with habaneros. Birds do not have receptors for capsaicin, in fact they eat the little "bird" peppers such as pequin and tepin. Even following several heavy rains, some of the corn, when harvested, was so hot it was inedible.

I got a pepper at the farmer's market that looked like either a really big habanero or a smallish, bendier-than-usual red bell pepper. I wanted it for a garnish for my gazpacho, so didn't want something really hot. The person I bought it from assured me that it was a sweet (I took that to mean 'not hot') pepper. I cut the top off to pull the seeds out, and took a big bite of the stuff around the stem--flesh with some seeds and white pithy stuff--and it was incredibly hot. Way hotter than a jalapeno or a serrano, so I think it must have been a habanero. I ended up cutting it into very fine dice and using it on my gazpacho, warning the wimpy-tongued to leave it off. I'm not one for super-duper hot stuff, but I think I could have eaten the whole thing without fainting or anything. ← I doubt it was a habanero. The Red Savina contains enough capsaicin to cause blisters if bitten into as you describe. There are several varieties of chiles that look very similar to the habanero. The Aji Dulce 2 can double for a hab but is very sweet and can vary in heat from mild to medium. Another is the Chile Uanero which is also sweet and medium to hot. One that has begun to show up around here, but has been available in the east, according to other chile-heads, is the "red squash" and it has the lobes and other characteristics of the hab but has medium heat. I have grown a lot of habs, experimenting with differernt growing conditions, in a greenhouse, outside in pots, in the ground, less and more water, etc., and the constant traits were thin walls, deep lobes, a burning in the nose as soon as the pepper flesh was cut and the fact that a tiny bit went a long, long way in flavoring a dish. I have also grown Scotch Bonnet which I find "milder" than the hab, and Thai peppers, the very long, thin varieties that are between the SB and the hab. And one odd pepper plant that produced multicolored peppers that was some kind of hybrid that did not breed true. That was by far the hottest pepper I ever came across. I shared them with other chile-heads who also found them incredibly hot. I saved seeds from fruit that I left on the plant until they dropped off and which I shared with others but very few of the seeds sprouted and the plants never produced flowers. You didn't mention the color of the seeds. If it had black seeds, it was one of the Rocoto or Manzano peppers which can vary in heat and are also very sweet, with an apple-like flavor, very fruity. It looks like a small bell pepper, has thick fleshy walls. Red Rocoto from UK Chile-Head database. If you want to try to identify a pepper and the seller can't tell you anything about it, you can check in Graeme Caselton's very extensive UK Chile-Head database. It is the most extensive list that I know of. UK Chile-Head Once you get to the database page, click on a letter to go to the list of pepper names that start with that letter. pepper database and scroll down the list which includes many photos.

Pie crust? Unless I am baking for people who have dietary restrictions, religious or otherwise, I use lard. This has always produced the flakiest and most tender pie crust for me. However, I do render my own or buy the lard that is produced in small batches by specialty producers.

Actually it wasn't so much the substitution of BUTTER that was the concern back then for most home bakers. Butter was expensive (we weren't that long out of the depression and butter was rationed in WWII) and margarine was still iffy, in fact it was still sold in bags, uncolored and with a food colorant "bubble" which one had to massage into the white goop. If you check many cookbooks printed in the 40s and 50s you will see that many of the cake recipes were made with LARD. Charleston Receipts is an anomaly because almost all the recipes it contains were from an earlier era when butter was less expensive and for farm families, homemade. In fact, some of these cookbooks have instructions for beating lard (by hand, no less) in a bowl set in icy water which would have the effect of making it more fluffy and whiter because of the air incorporated into the mass. Many homemakers found shortening to be an acceptable substitute and the fact that it did not become rancid rapidly (as did lard) and the cakes and cookies had a texture similar to those made with butter, was a plus for them. Butter may seem expensive to us today, but if you consider the price in relationship to take-home salaries in those years, it was far more costly back then. I remember well the early '50s when butter was 60 cents a pound while a dozen eggs was just 29 cents, a loaf of bread was 14 cents and a pound of "ground round" was 35 cents. (I have a newspaper with a grocery ad with these prices.) When you consider that the average annual salary for a single earner household was less than 3000.00 that is a significant cost for an ordinary family. At one time margarine was half the cost of butter, the prices have gotten closer together over the years and now the price of margarine is only about 30% less than the price of store brand butter. Of course, the premium butters are more expensive.

I certainly agree with Patrick - Not only in puff pastry but in Danish pastry, in crossiants and other goodies. In fact, I am presently making some whole-wheat shortbread, using the Kerrygold Irish butter (found a place that will ship it in one-pound blocks) and whole-wheat pastry flour. Butter is the ONLY thing to use in this context.

Cookies made with butter spread more in the oven. Cookies made with shortening seem to retain their crispness longer. There are certain advantages to each and this has been debated by cooks and bakers for 50 or 60 years. I just know that there are some cookies I make with butter and some I make with shortening. In all of these cases I have tried both and I came to the conclusion that the recipe authors knew what they were doing when they composed the recipe. This site has answers and advice. Also, certain ingredients have a significant effect. Sugar will keep any bakery item moist and will retard staling. If you can't use sugar, you have to make some adjustments. Oatmeal helps retain moisture - it is the nature of the grain. If you use a sugar substitute - grind some dry oatmeal (or steel-cul oats are even better) in a blender until nearly flour-like in texture. Substitute this as part of the flour, up to 1/4. You will have a result closer to the original and really won't taste the oatmeal.

Not all of Terry Pratchett's books are written for adults. Several are considered for young adults, but they are all extremely funny. I have been a fan for many years. I really haven't noticed any bad puns, per se., the stories certainly are parodies and there is a great deal of satire all in good fun - and the stories are funny. There is a certain amount of interest in the foods of Discworld. Some of the foods have a close relationship to the stories: For instance, Banged Grains was a central theme in Moving Pictures. Dwarf Bread was integral to the story in The Fifth Elephant. And Wow-Wow Sauce has been a constant in many of the Unseen University stories. The newest heroine, Tiffany Aching, is a talented cheesemaker and is serious about it. (The Wee Free Men, Hat Full Of Sky and just published: Wintersmith. A Discworld cookbook has been published - titled Nanny Ogg's Cookbook and I think it is hilarious. It contains real recipes, sage advice, distilled wisdom and funny bits. The recipes are in metric and are aimed at the British so people in the US won'd recognize some of the ingredient names. It can be found on eBay and at other internet vendors Nanny Ogg's Cookbook There has even been some discussion of "Burnt Bown Crunchy Bits" which have certainly had their share of several lengthy discussions here at eG! It just goes to show that there are connoisseurs of certain foods in fantasy worlds such as Discworld as well as in roundworld. There is this site that is dedicated to sugarcraft work - talented people.

I originally posted the following a couple of years ago. Since then I have also posted it in RecipeGullet, with some corrections. I was fortunate in that several of my ancestors were avid collectors of receipts and stories about foods from earlier times. The great-grandmother I knew well as a child, came from England. The great-grandmother who found this recipe and adapted it to "modern" measurements around 1880, was born in Charleston and was decended from some of the early colonists.

This is the thread about the "MeeMaw" Pork Cake adventures of Viva and her fine photos.

I have a large collection of excellent knives, including one that was custom made for me. There was a time that I could cut anything into perfect dice of whatever size required. This is no longer true. I can't hold on to the handle of any knife with a firm grip because I have arthritis at the base of my thumb. There is no knife in the world that can work when one has no grip strength. "A good chef's knife" is not the answer for people who are handicapped or for children.

Soon after I joint eG, this somewhat similar topic came up. This one has some mention of childhood favorites. and yet another topic referencing childhood food memories. and this one has several pages of memories of foods past.

Great A'Tuin cake. Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors. Apparently there are a great many more who love the books by this best-selling author. There are many parties with Discworld themes but I think this cake is a first.

I have now tried the Piave several ways. First with fruit - especially good with apples and pears, in a panini sandwich with some shaved ham and sun dried tomatoes, melted on top of poached eggs on toast, eaten plain, out of hand and chopped with pimentos and ONE rocoto pepper to make a nice spread. Delicious in each and every combination and all by itself. This "young" cheese has the same texture and mouth feel of a medium-aged provolone but a much more complex flavor. Sweet, nutty, only faintly salty and it stays tender when melted - does not become gummy.

I bought both the "Chop Wizard" from this vendor here because it came with two different sized cutters, and also bought the mini slicer, which I have used only for slicing those little balls of mozzarella which always give me fits when trying to slice evenly. I bought the can opener too..... and the "Alligator" which works in a similar way, but sort of backwards to the other one. I bought the latter because one place had a "deal" that included a smaller one listed as a "garlic chopper" or dicer, or whatever. various onion dicers I have absolutely no shame........I like gadgets. I found my invoice - I ordered the Alligator chopper from the UK from Pro-Idee

A couple of years ago I posted some tips on how to make the preparation of fruitcakes in particular a bit easier by doing all the tricky bits in steps over a period of days: I used to make 20 or more fruitcakes every year and having all the detailed stuff preped ahead of time saved a lot of mistakes. These do not need to be refrigerated. When I say cool, I mean not near a heat source. Don't put them on top of the refrigerator which produces heat. It is usually cooler near the floor so if you have a kettle or stockpot that is big enough to hold the cake, wrap them well put them into the kettle and cover it and place it in a low cupboard or on the floor in a closet. (That is as long as you don't have radiant heating in your floor.) Have you ever noticed how cold cast aluminum pots always seem to feel? I think the aluminum acts as a heat sink, (in fact, I have an aluminum stand for my new MacBook Pro to pull the heat away from the bottom). So, I have two of the largest of the old Magnalite roasters and find that each one will hold two large fruitcakes in the bottom with the roasting place set on top of these, two more can be stacked on them and the lid effectively seals it. Placed on the clay tile floor in my pantry, the temp in these roasters remained less than 60 degrees, even during the hottest days. This morning the temp was 50. Now here is my suggestion for making cakes like these that include a lot of ingredients. Do not try to do it all at once, it seems like a really big job. Instead start out with measuring out the fruit, set it to soak. On another day measure out ALL of the dry ingredients, place in ziploc bags and store in a large bowl, a bus tub or bin, or one of the jumbo ziploc bags along with a copy of the recipe. Chop the nuts and store them in a ziploc bag (in the freezer if it will be more than a few days). Drain and measure the fruits that have been soaking and store them in ziploc bags or a container that will seal tightly. Then when you are ready to assemble the recipe all you have to do is get out the perishable ingredients and mix eveything together, then bake. I do this with the many cookie recipes I do each year. I have a bunch of bus trays and totes. Each one is for a particular recipe. I line them up and measure out all the dry ingredients, and store in ziploc bags, along with any special utensils needed for a particular recipe, put the tray or tote in a large plastic bag and stack them in the pantry. This way I do not get into the middle of a recipe and find I am missing an ingredient and it just generally makes things go so much faster It helps to make a copy of the recipe or if you have a scanner, scan and print it in larger type and use a highlighter on every other line of type, particularly for the ingredients. It is very easy to miss an ingredient in a long list of items and the results can be disastrous if you omit an important ingredient. If you wear reading glasses, the half-lens type, having the alternate lines highlighted is especially important. One of my neighbors noticed that she had missed three ingredients in a 31-item list because some of the lines effectively seemed to dissapear when she looked down the list because the top edge of the lens (rimless) caused distortion. She only caught the omission because she had her daughter read off the list to her while she checked the little cups that held each ingredient. Some ingredients are not critical, but some are absolutely essential. Incidentally, I have made and canned 6 quarts of the port mincemeat. I have plans.............

Great description of your experiences. I will second the motion for adding cracklins to cornbread. Cracklins (or cracklings, if you will) are also good added to beans of any variety - green snap beans, or green beans with "shellies", butter beans, kidney beans or great northerns or navy, etc., etc. Also good on/in waffles. First pour the waffle batter onto the iron, sprinkle on the cracklins and close the top. ditto pancakes or flapjacks, pour batter on griddle, allow to cook a bit then sprinkle on the cracklins and flip them over. One of my cousins (long, long ago when we were children) used to take a small dish of cracklins, peel a banana and dip the end of the banana into the cracklins, take a bite and so on. It never tempted me to try it, but I was reminded of it years later when I heard of some of Elvis' odd eating habits. Oh! I forgot, toss some into a tomato salad. Lovely!

I forgot a couple: The Red Hat Society Cookbook, Recipes by members of the Red Hat Society Magic Beans by Patti Bazel Geil The Daily Bean by Suzanne Caciola White

Yes, it is probably a serving tagine. There are some cooking tagines with colored glaze, but unless they are specifically labeled for cooking, do not cook with them. You should warm the tagine before placing hot foods in it. Simply run very warm to hot tap water into the bottom of the tagine (that will come in contact with the food) and allow it to warm completely then pour the water out just before you add the food. Just dry the outside. This will keep the food warm longer also.

I bought one because the arthritis in my right hand has gotten so bad that I have difficulty doing repetitive knife work. Not everyone is capable of learning knife skills that will allow them to chop onions (or anything else) rapidly. This is a handy (and safe) gadget for those that have disabilities or who are not well coordinated. They work and do the job quickly and neatly. I think they are worth the money.