andiesenji

I am surprised that no one has listed, probably my favorite cobination. Pork chops and applesauce!

Manufacturers cream is not ultra-pasturized so it can be used for anything for which you use heavy cream. It is better for use in sauces because it does not "break" as easily as the other types of cream. I buy it to make cheeses as it works where the ultra pasturized will not. I use it all the time and get it at Smart & Final, the brand out here is Alta-Dena which is a local dairy with excellent products. I also use the "Grade A Table cream" sold in Mexican markets - this is sweet cream, not the "Agria" sour cream also sold in a similar container. It has some additives but I like it as it is extremely thick, spoonable more than pourable and whips up beautifully and holds well for long periods. I use it in cooking all the time with excellent results. I avoid the "ultra-pasturized" products as much as possible.

Make a large batch of lemon curd and jar it up in quart jars and process as you would any canned fruit (hot water bath). You can use this for pies or mixed half and half with heavy cream that has been whipped with just a tiny bit of sugar for stabilization, served as a mousse or airy pudding in a margarita glass (or just a bowl). Remove the zest, allow it to dry a bit, then freeze it. Freeze the juice in ice cube trays and store them in ziploc freezer bags (doubled). I buy lemons by the box when the Mexican market has them at a super sale price (5 pounds for a dollar), and do all of the above. Preserved lemons are of course an option and very good to use in may dishes, not just the Moroccan. I recently cut one into quarters and put it in with my onion confit (removed the seeds first) and the confit was very good, just a bit different, not quite as sweet.

I was not referring to culinary school books in my post. They give details of formulas or recipes that are not found in many "regular" cookboos. The cookbooks I described are the ordinary ones seen in any bookstore until the 80s, with the exception of the more techinical books, such as Julia's and Joy of Cooking, which did explain about the differences between salted and unsalted butter. I have been collecting cookbooks for more than 40 years and have cooked from many of the more than 1000 that I have now. I looked through several last evening and other than in very rare instances, the only reference in a recipe was to "butter" or "butter or margarine" and there was no glossary that described what type of butter was usually called for in the book. The rare instances which I noted were references only to "clarified" butter.

I would like to see a photo of the machine that they use at the grocery store.

Any American cookbook with a mention of butter in a recipe, prior to the mid 1980s, would be referring to "regular" salted butter because that was the American standard. It kept longer and was more stable, or at least that was the idea put forth by the various dairy boards. Prior to that time it was rare to see a recipe call for unsalted or "plain, unsalted, sweet cream butter" which is the way it was usually described to make sure that the reader got the message. About that time one began to see more mentions of unsalted butter and the product began to show up more readily on market shelves. So for about 20 years recipes have been altered to accomodate the popularity of unsalted butter but if you have old American cookbooks, you can be sure that butter means salted butter. If you read these recipes carefully, you will also note that there is less salt added to the recipes than in the more recent recipes that require unsalted butter. If you use unsalted butter in one of the old recipes, the product will taste "flat" because the salt in the butter was factored in by the originator of the recipe. Some friends and I had a discussion about this a few years back when we were helping set up a cooking program for a center for abused and abandoned women and children. It was simply teaching moms how to easily cook economically and nutritionally sound food and avoid the more expensive fast food stuff. It was interesting that those of us who were my contemporaries (over 45-50) assumed that recipes meant salted butter unless unsalted was specified and the younger people assumed recipes meant unsalted, unless salted was specified. It was at that time that we examined a lot of cookbooks of various eras and discovered what I mentioned above.

I like Barilla okay. For some recipes I like Creamettes. I also like the bulk pasta available at many Italian grocers, can't recall the name at the moment, the ziti is particularly nice. I recently tried Trader Joe's brand "Florentine" and I really like it. The shape is interesting and the tiny ridges on the pasta really holds onto sauce.

One of the doctors here in the office just told me about seeing a cook at the hotel where he stayed in the Yucatan, using a variable-speed battery-powered drill with a hole saw on the end, using that to grate the meat from inside coconuts. He says he had cut the top off with a hacksaw and was working the coconut over the hole saw (the drill was clamped to the table at an angle so the end that he was working on was hanging over a bowl). He not only was going to use the coconut meat, he was also going to use the shells to serve some kind of drink. Doc remembers that it was about a 2 inch hole saw and the drill was a Black & Decker. Apparently a lot of people have tried to solve the problem of the coconut not wanting to give up its meat easily.

I have tried to get hold of a friend who is Vietnamese and whose husband made her an electric coconut grater from an electric juicer, the kind with the revolving cone-shaped reamer. She hasn't yet answered my messages but hopefully I can get hold of her in the next couple of days. As I recall, he cut slits into the plastic (or whatever it was made of) reamer and epoxied in short curved blades which may have been serrated, but I can't say for certain. I have been at her home and watched her (and him) use it but other than it being white with black trim and having a switch to change from low to high speed, I can't remember much else. As I recall, she said he got the idea from an Indian or Indonesian coconut grater which was apparently hand-cranked and was in the center of a wide, shallow bowl. (It has been a couple of years and my memory isn't what it used to be.)

There are three Asian markets here in Lancaster and all carry the Thai frozen coconut "milk" which is thicker than the canned stuff and much fresher tasting. The huge Mexican supermarket also now carries it along with other tropical things that are cross-cultural. Frozen coconut milk. At least one regular market has also added it to their "ethnic foods" frozen section. Look for a small market that carries asian foods. They are tucked away in many cities and towns now as the Asian population has spread everywhere.

You can try one of these. Or, if you are handy, you can make your own. You need a small round saw blade, take it to a metal shop or welder and get it cut into segments and get two holds drilled into it. You then take a board, mark it where the two holes are, allowing the toothy part to extend 3 inches beyond the end of the board. Use two bolts with washers on both sides of the wood and wing nuts to tighten to bolt the blade to the wood. You cut crack the coconut into halves and work from the inside toward the shell. It goes quite fast, much easier than the method you are using. There are other types, favored by peoples in Africa but this is the simplest to make.

Regarding metal in the microwave. Both my Sharp Convection/Microwave and my friend's Panasonic convection/microwave that is built in, allow the use of a certain amount of metal. For instance when using the "combi" feature, which is a combination of convection and microwave, a metal rack is okay as long as the volume of meat is at least 5 times the volume of metal. That means that a roast or a whole chicken can be combi- cooked on the wire metal rack but you can't cook something as thin as steaks, chops or chicken pieces. The Panasonic has a ceramic base plate however my Sharp has a metal (enameled steel) base plate that is 15 inches in diameter and will hold a round pizza stone for use while cooking with the convection only. I don't leave it in the oven if I am going to be using it as a microwave. (I have another large microwave only, also a Sharp, so don't have to use the combination as much as a microwave as I do as a regular oven. My "regular" oven is a large commercial oven which uses a lot of gas and is only practical to use when I am doing a lot of baking or baking or roasting things that are too large to go into the smaller oven.)

When my friends remodeled their kitchen 3 years ago, (all electric home) they were talked into an Advantium oven by the contractor. After 4 months they had it taken out and a combination convection/microwave made by Panasonic installed instead. They found it was difficult to clean, had hot spots so that parts of a dish were overcooked and other parts undercooked and the same problem with cookies, some would be burnt while others were barely baked. When I used it while visiting that Christmas, I found that it was not as efficient as my Sharp countertop combination oven (that I had taken with me as we had a lot of food to prepare and knew the size of their oven was not enough for all of it.) I cooked two large prime rib roasts and the one in the Sharp, using the combi feature, was perfectly done but the one in the GE was getting too done on one end and was still blood rare on the other. I had to take it out, cut off the cooked end and finish it in the Sharp. For the price they paid, they thought it was vastly overrated. At the end of January they had it replaced. They may have corrected the problems by now, however I notice that while Sears still carries them, they no longer push them as they were a couple of years ago. At the store that is local to me, they only have one on display whereas they used to have 3 or 4. I personally know one other person who has one but they rarely cook, it is more a conversation item for them.

It certainly seems a bit simplistic. How can the subtle flavors develop in such a short amount of time? It takes me much longer just to prepare the ingredients for this type of dish. The cooking takes much longer.

As an interesting side note, I just got the February issue of Sunset magazine and on page 78 is a recipe "Tagine in no time" subtitled "A rich Moroccan stew –in half an hour." By Emma Smith, it is a recipe for Moroccan lamb chops to be served over couscous or have a baguette on hand. Also includes mention of harissa. I thought it was interesting that just when we were having this discussion, a recipe would be printed in this magazine. O.T. In addition there is an article with lovely photos, of a garden at the Benziger Sonoma vineyard, Glen Ellen, not far from you.

Our brief winter is on hold for now down below in the Valley and L.A. basin. Up here the overnight low is supposed to be 32 and the high should be 61 tomorrow. However, in West Hills, where I work, it is supposed to be 80. Quite a change from a week ago when it was rainy and cold and we even had snow for a little while. At this altitude we are much colder in the winter (and hotter in the summer) than down below. I like to bake when it is cold, and I agree that braising is comforting when the temps are low. At the present time I am baking scalloped potatoes with wafer-thin pork chopped layered in with the potatoes.

Get a suribachi. They do a great job and weigh much less than stone mortars so shipping is reasonable. They are also great for pulverizing sesame seeds. suribachi at The Gadget Source

The seasonings can be anything that suits your taste. The way I was taught to do it originally called only for tarragon, salt and pepper. But that always tasted a bit "flat" to me, and I tried adding additional herbs and some spices and substituting others and finally settled on the herbes de Provence as an all-round solution. One of my friends adds some mild chiles and cumin to it because that is the way he likes it. It is very versatile and you can make it a personal thing by "customizing" it to a particular season or to accompany a particular food. It is fun to experiment.

I love kitchen gadgets and appliances and am always happy to try something new. I have or have had just about every kind of electric rice cooker on the market. I have the aforementioned copper couscousier and a stainless steel one with a magnetic bottom that works on my induction range. I also have a charcoal-fired cooker/steamer that is vaguely like a Mongolian hot pot only has more parts and is larger. It can only be used outdoors and is somewhere in my storage building. I have used it to cook rice at picnics and other outdoor food events. I have made duck confit in the traditional method and had planned on using the legs from a Rouen duck this past week to try the sous vide method which I too have been following. However I ended up simply roasting the duck and rendering the fat, which was considerable, compared to other ducks. I had part of one breast and it was very good, darker meat than other ducks. My housekeeper took the rest of it to school to share with her classmates and apparently they were enthusiastic about it. (She is in design school half-days.) Even though I no longer have family at home, I still love to cook and love to try new things.

I do love the traditional couscous pairings. However I am so fond of couscous that there were times when I wanted some for a meal but did not have the necessary ingredients for preparing a traditional meal. So, rather than forego having the couscous, I simply prepared it and had it with something else. I didn't deliberately try to bastardize the food, I simply made a substitution that I found to be most enjoyable. I was born and raised in a portion of the south where sometimes you hear someone say "we never serve that with that" - however in my grandfather's home, we had a large extended family, half from England, half from the American South, his cook was a Gullah woman from the Carolina lowcountry and he had spent time in India and Egypt in the early part of the last century and had come to enjoy those foods also. The selection of foods was extensive and often unusual. Neighboring farmers considered us "furriners" and rather odd and I don't think any of them were ever very comfortable when visiting. I learned to make mustard, the way my granddad liked it, when I was about 10 and still make it that way. His cook learned to cook curries and other foods he discovered on his travels. I don't recall having couscous as a child, it may not have been available commercially in that area at that time (1940s). However we did have a lot of rice and pasta, including orzo and a homemade pasta which was forced through a potato ricer and cooked while very fresh. Growing up in such a household resulted in my being rather adventuresome when it came to food.

I don't know why I have not bothered to mention this earlier, however, I bought one of the enameled cast iron oval covered roasters made in China, at Marshalls a while back. I got it to use in my barbecue, right in the firebox where the temperatures get rather high. (Reluctant to use my Le Cruset in that extreme heat.) Other than a chip in the enamel from being dropped on the pavement, it is in great condition after several months of being subjected to a lot of abuse. If someone wants to go with the enameled cast iron and can't afford Le Cruset, this looks like it will be a good deal. There are several pieces available from the large oval to a small, shallow, covered casserole. There are fewer colors and they are primary colors, rather than fashionable shades, but that should not deter anyone.

I have to confess that I often use couscous in a totally non-traditional way, paired with foods from other cultures. One of my favorite Asian dishes is orange chicken, very spicy. I think it tastes better with couscous than it does with rice. I have also paired it with Mexican foods, Indonesian foods and regional American foods. I think it is far too versatile to limit its use to the traditional middle eastern table. A couple of weeks ago I made a version of Ayam Panggang Klaten, from Java, chicken in a coconut milk/nut sauce that is fairly spicy. It is cooked until almost all the liquid has been reduced and the sauce is very thick and creamy. It is very good with steamed rice, but with couscous it is sublime. I should add that I began doing "fusion" cooking long before anyone ever mentioned the term.

Where do you get Middle Eastern groceries in LA? I usually go to the Pakistani store on Vermont Blvd for spices and couscous. I finally found a really good kefir at an Iranian market. They sell bulk couscous at Whole Foods. My favorite packaged brand so far is Rivoire & Carret. ← I live up in Lancaster and we have a great little market (Saving Land) that has lots of unusual produce, often at great prices (Meyer lemons 69 cents a pound, Persian "baby" cucumbers, don't recall the price, tiny pears that are perfect for candying whole, green almonds in season, etc., as well as many staples, spices of the middle east as well as Indian spices and staples. Unfortunately it is a long way from you. Have you tried in the Glendale area and the East Los Angeles area next to it? I have friends who live in Burbank and shop down that way. They are in Egypt now and will be gone another few weeks, otherwise I would ask them. They are archeologists and are there with a film crew to record exploration of some newly discovered tombs.

I was fortunate in that my first experience with recipes from Australia were from the cookbooks published by the Australian Woman's Weekly and the inside back cover included all the conversion factors for U.K., America and OZ. However many of the recipes were by weight so I tended to avoid the ones measured by volume. Have you posted your recipe?

I finally found where my housekeeper had put the canisters of couscous I buy at the local middle eastern store. I buy in bulk as they sell it loose, by the pound. One type is the regular, pinhead size, golden in color. Another is one that they have labeled as "maftoul" (at least that is what I wrote down on the receipt so I would remember it". It is like little beads, ranging in size from pinhead size to the size of a BB. It is a tan color and actually looks slightly toasted. It is much smaller than the "Israeli" couscous or the Moughrabiah which is the size of a pea or larger. I like the flavor, it has a deeper flavor than regular couscous, almost like a brown rice and seems to have some flavoring in it, when I taste it plain. The ingredients or grain source is not listed in the store and we have a bit of a language problem when I try to ask what things are made from.