andiesenji

It could be the type of potatoes you used. I prefer Yukon gold, since they have become available. However, once in a while I end up with a potato soup that lacks "something" in the way of flavor. My "fix" is simply to mix up a batch of herb dumplings - a basic biscuit dough with the addition of salt, pepper and a herb mixture. I scoop it out of the bowl with a #30 disher (ice cream scoop) and drop them onto a sheet of parchment paper until all are formed, it doesn't hurt if the surface dries just a bit. Then I make sure the soup is bubbling, stirring well to keep the bottom from scorching. I then shovel in the dumplings, cover tightly and turn the heat down to a simmer. After 5 minues I uncover, turn the dumplings over, separating the ones that have stuck together, cover again and continue cooking for about 8 to 10 minutes. I have found that the flavor of the dumplings, in the soup, gives it a depth of flavor far beyond that of the basic soup.

It is in the instructions just before "add Port to the mixture"

Duxelles is simply a mushroom/shallot paste that is used to flavor all kinds of foods that are complimented by mushrooms. There are numerous recipes which involve much less effort and cooking time than my version. Whole Foods market has their own version as well as some uses for it. This food glossary link has several sites with various recipes. Here is yet another recipe. If you like mushrooms, you will like this. It has an intense mushroom flavor that lends itself to all type of meats and vegetables and even cheese. One of my friends prepares a brie en croute with a layer of duxelles under and over the cheese before closing the pastry. It is an exceptional combination of flavors. Sublime!

Frankly, I have never considered the meaning, literal or otherwise. I learned to make it 30-some years ago when I took a gourmet cooking class from a French chef in Encino, Calif. His opinion was that the "quick-cooked" method was an abomination and the only way to do it correctly was to cook it for a prolonged period at low temperature. This is the way I have done it and I like it this way. What is the literal translation?

I mentioned chestnut knives in this thread a while back. I was surprised that so few people had heard of them. We had them when I was a child, back in the dark ages. (40s) I have several and find they are handy for other tasks also. I use them for removing the ribs and seeds from very small hot peppers. They work better than a regular knife with less damage to the flesh of the pepper.

We have a middle eastern market here in Lancaster (Calif) and the wife of the owner has given me several recipes. She has a large crock in which she keeps preserved lemons - with a sort of plastic mesh liner with a perforated top that fits down into the crock. She showed me how she lifts the entire thing out of the crock, opens a section at the bottom to extract a couple or more lemons, then put the entire thing back into the crock. She just keeps adding new lemons to the top and it goes on forever. She said she started it when they moved here 4 years ago. She gave me some to try a year or so ago and they were just wonderful so I began making my own. She also gave me a bag of dried lemons to play with. I am a steady customer at the store and they seem to be intrigued by the fact that I try so many "ethnic" foods and often give me samples of new items to try. Sometimes we have a bit of language problem but with sign language we get along quite well. I took them some of my candied ginger as this was a confection with which they were unfamiliar.

Explanation. Yesterday I made a batch of duxelles and took photos of the process. I neglected to upload the photos to my computer yesterday and since last evening, I am at the home of an acquaintence, babysitting a basenji bitch who is ready to whelp at any moment and the owners are away from home, the wife at the dog shows in Palm Springs and the husband, an L.A. County firefighter, on duty because of the storms. I brought my camera along to take photos in case the pups are born on my watch. Unfortunately I needed to clear the memory card to make room so had to upload the photos so put them into image gullet. With not much else to do, I have edited the photos and uploaded them to my album. Fortunately they also have a Mac, and since I had already posted the recipe to my notepad in eG, I have decided to post this now. First the recipe: Duxelles Mushroom paste, a condiment/sauce. 1 1/2 pound Crimini mushrooms or Italian brown mushrooms. Minced finely in food processor or by hand. 6 ounces of butter 2/3 cup finely minced shallots (You can substitute an equal amount of mild onions with a large clove of garlic if shallots are unavailable.) 2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt - use less if you have regular table salt. 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 2/3 cup Port, ruby or tawny are okay, Sherry can be substituted if Port is not available. 1/2 cup heavy cream Mince the mushrooms fairly fine in a food processor - do a small batch at a time so as to avoid over-processing. Line a colander with muslin (or a thin cotton dishtowel) and squeeze the mushrooms to extract as much liquid as possible. Squeeze liquid into a bowl and save for later.. In a large, heavy-bottomed, skillet or sauté pan melt the butter until it just begins to brown. Add the finely minced shallots, sauté, then reduce heat to a low simmer and cook until shallots are translucent and just beginning to show a light tan color. Add the Herbes de Provence and continue cooking for one minute, stirring constantly. Bring the heat up to medium and add the mushrooms. Stir constantly to mix the mushrooms thoroughly with the shallots and until the mushroom began to express some liquid. Reduce heat to low simmer. Continue cooking, stirring well every 5 minutes for 30 minutes. Add the salt and pepper, stir well. Bring the heat up to low medium. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the top of the mushrooms and stir well to mix thoroughly. Continue cooking and stirring constantly for at least one minute so the flour is completely incorporated and browned. Add the liquid squeezed from the mushrooms to the mixture. Add the Port and stir well. Continue stirring often for 2 to 3 minutes, the mixture should be bubbling well. Reduce heat to low simmer. Blend in the cream. Taste and add additional salt and pepper if needed to balance flavor. Continue cooking at a low simmer, stirring at 5 to 10 minute intervals for 30 to 40 minutes, until the mixture has the consistency of a thin paste. It should hold its shape for several moments when scraped into a mound. Cool and transfer to a container and store in the refrigerator. Use within a week. The mixture can be frozen in small amounts in airtight containers for up to 3 months, vacuum sealing is best. This recipe is my own interpretation of several recipes tried over the years and significantly altered from the originals. This condiment can be used as a sauce for meats, spread on toast or crackers. A dollop can be added to hard-boiled or deviled eggs. It can be spread on crepes and rolled up with other fillings. It can be added to meat mixtures for savory tarts. And, when combined with onion confit, is a wonderful complement to just about anything savory. Scalloped potatoes, with alternating layers of potatoes, onion confit and duxelles, is a wonderful side dish for a cold, rainy day. And, you could always use it in the traditional way, in Beef Wellington. And now, the picutres: First the mushrooms, brown Italian or Crimini are the best to use. Mince in small batches in food processor. they should look like this. Now mince the shallots The liquid has to be squeezed out of the mushrooms. It should look like this - save the liquid. The mushrooms don't have to be completely dry. Now melt the butter over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed saute pan: Add the shallots: and the mushrooms after the shallots have been cooked: Watch for the mushrooms to release liquid: Reduce heat - now begins the first reduction - 2/3rds of the way there: First reduction is done and the flour has been stirred in: Now the Port has been added: Now the cream has been blended in: Now begins the final reduction, half way there: Finished! We have achieved duxelles.....

The bread or cracker crumbs are not a "filler" per se. They have a purpose, which is to keep the fat distributed throughout the mixture which makes the product a little "lighter" or more tender, less dense.

No, she gave me a gift receipt so I could exchange it if I wanted to but she bought it at Macy's and the store is just not handy for me to get to. Also, one of her patients is manager of that department so it would probably get back to her that I exchanged it and I would rather just keep it in the office. She also gave me a check, the gift was something she just happened to see while in the store. (Why she was in that department is a mystery to me, she doesn't cook at all.)

This is rather OT, but a short answer is that it is something my great grandmother called Lemon Shandy and had the cook prepare for her in a large crock with a spigot so the liquid could be drawn off the bottom. She had it mixed with seltzer, or plain soda or tonic water. I have been making it myself since I left home, except for my time in the ARMY when such things were not allowed. It is just lemons, cut up and layered with sugar. They give off enough liquid that one rarely has to add additional lemon juice but I have from time to time, if the lemons were not very juicy. I use it as a base for lemonade - I keep a batch going, with the addition of more lemons as the ones in the bottom soften and can be compressed, for several weeks. I have one of those big glass beverage containers (sometimes shown as a "sun tea" container) with a spigot at the bottom which works quite well. It is slightly green and is hexagon or octagon-shaped. It is put away at the moment and I am not sure where it is (housekeeper puts things away quite well.) Anyway, it is barely alcoholic, has more flavor than regular lemonade, in my opinion, and is also handy for flavoring salad dressing, marinades, etc. I scrub the lemons well and dip them in a very mild bleach solution, then rinse. I cut them into thick slices and for every 4 lemons pour in a cup of sugar - in layers. I buy my lemons at a Mexican market as they are far cheaper than at regular markets. Sometimes I throw in a few limes, just to make things interesting.

Well, mine doesn't seem so bad. One of the doctors at work gave me one of the Pizza "Pizazz" cookers that is intended only for baking commerical frozen pizza, 12 inch size. I was really flabbergasted. She knows I have a commercial oven, do a lot of baking and make my own pizza. I have discussed having a brick, wood-fired pizza oven built onto my kitchen. I guess she meant well, but it really floored me. I think I will keep it in the office and the girls can use it to bake pizza for lunch. That is about the only way it will ever be used. Even my housekeeper thought it was an odd gift for a dedicated "from scratch" baker or cook.

Well, if you want a frameless door and maximum entry space, you could always go with one of these. I had no idea they still made them but saw one just a couple of weeks ago when my friend and I went to her neighbor's home. This is not a "hippy" thing. (This is in an exclusive area of Yorba Linda, the house is 7000 plus square feet and was just remodeled in a "country" style) She has a little office off of her kitchen and has one of these curtains, with a rooster pattern, red on natural wood, like the butterfly, reversed color on the bottom half. She had a brochure that showed them with all kinds of pictures, some like Tromp l'Oeil pictures, including one that looked like shelves of books. In her case the doorway is arched and she did not want to lose the arch but wanted to screen her office from people in the kitchen. I had her send me the URL as I think this is a neat idea.

This place has hardware for pocket doors: Pocket door hardware.

Try the one I make with Campbell's condenced Cheddar Cheese soup. My kids loved it and would even fix it themselves. They especially liked it with the small shells, rather than the elbows.

I won a chili cookoff sometime in the mid-to-late 80s, shortly before I moved up here. There were several baking contests back in the early 80s that I won or placed in the ribbons with various breads and rolls. I won a "dessert made with Knudson heavy whipping cream" contest - it was simply my own lemon curd mixed into whipped cream and served in margarita glasses with a slice of lemon decorating the glass and a tiny bit of lemon zest sprinkled on top with a single mint leaf for contrast. The judges all stood around and watched while I demonstrated how I made my lemon curd (after the contest) and all asked for the recipe. One of my competitors, who had made quite an elaborate dessert, cherries, shaved chocolate and other stuff I can't recall, but came in second, was a bit miffed that my "simple" concoction had won. I also won a hot sauce competition back in the days when the hot sauce enthusiasm was just beginning. I think it was sponsored by Rosarita, but after all these years I can't say for certain. Some of the prizes were cash, the Knudson one was cash and a bunch of vouchers for free dairy products. One of the bread-baking contest prizes was a set of specialty baking pans, cylindar, pullman, French and a covered round pan. I still have them all, although they are now a little beat up. I can't recall any other prizes, nothing memorable.

This recipe is very close to the one I use. The only difference is that mine uses less horseradish, 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup (no garnish) and instead of white wine the liquid is beer, preferably one of the Polish beers such as Perla Pils, which I can usually find at one of the shops that carry international beers.

This is more a knock on my own cooking skills, but I made this soup a few years ago and it was one of the worst things I've ever made. I added too much horseradish and/or cooked it too long maybe? It was harsh and bitter and the whole apartment took on the smell. In fact warming it up the next day I just gagged and threw it out. Is there something to be careful about when cooking horseradish? Does too much or too long cooking make it bitter? I've got a whole fresh root in my fridge and a few ideas about what to do but I'm wary after that last incident. ← Making horseradish soup is tricky, getting the right balance between the other ingredients and the horseradish requires a fine touch. I have made my share of blunders. My favorite and the easiest with which to get a good result, is in a cookbook I have had for many years and is probably out of print. I can't find the cookbook at the moment I think it is one I packed away in storage. It is a Polish cookbook with a separate section on recipes for celebrations as the horseradish soup is traditionally served at Easter - it is considered a spring soup. It is served at the end of Lent and the soup itself is prepared separately then added to the individual serving bowls that contain kielbasa sausage and boiled potatoes, sometimes a wedge of cooked cabbage. The horseradish has to be freshly grated, just prior to adding it to the soup. I will try to find a similar recipe on line and will post the link later.

You could always make a mini terrine with the "extra" foie gras. I sometimes do a few with different flavors at a time - chilled, not baked - as it is one where all the ingredients are already cooked. There are numerous recipes for these, I am sure you must have one. The regular terrine molds are too large but I found that the inexpensive plastic butter servers (the tops only) are just the right size for a mini terrine mold. You can find them in any supermarket. After filling them with plastic wrap lining it. I fold the extra plastic wrap over the top and if there is any free space I fill it with folded paper towel to above the edge, then put the top (bottom) on and either tape it or use heavy rubber bands so it presses tightly. Refrigerated overnight, these are just perfect for brunch or whatever.

Another solution, one that I use, also with the Ziploc bags - to avoid the possibility of the water leaking into the lemons. I buy the glass "marbles" one can get at an acquarium store. Before and after use I put them in a mesh bag (the kind one uses for lingerie) and put it on the top shelf of my dishwasher to make sure they are sterilized. I place these in a ziploc bag and use them to weight everything from lemons to sauerkraut, pickles of various kinds or the lemons in the big jar with sugar which are lightly fermenting. These are very handy. I also use them to weight the bottoms of utensil holders or flatware holders. Being glass, they don't retain flavors or molds and spores.

On the onion confit thread I posted about making my last batch of onion confit with the inclusion of a preserved lemon, rinsed and cut into quarters. The flavor of the onions is wonderful.

There is a good article about pocket doors and how much floor space one gains by using one. article here.

You can always go over to Berkeley and visit Chez Panisse! It isn't that far.

People on eGullet lead such interesting food lives! ← It isn't that interesting. I happen to get a lot of wild game because I prepare game for hunters whose wifes can't or won't learn to fix it. (There are a lot of hunters around my area.) I prepare it so they can take it home, put it in the oven (or however it is to be cooked) and in return I get a portion of the game which could be anything from quail to geese and pheasant and then from deer, elk, moose, wild boar and anything in between. The only think I do not do is bear. One time was enough, took me months to get rid of the aroma. The last of a wild boar was prepared as carnitas with verde sauce for an eG potluck last October. The most exotic thing I have cooked is a swan, not game, this one was raised specifically for the table. I didn't particularly want any part of it but tasted it and it wasn't bad.

First, I don't use orange juice in the syrup because I think it makes a less translucent product and it doesn't get dry enough for coating with granulated sugar for eating out of hand. if you are just using it in cooking, it might be fine, but I have no experience with it. I aim for an appearance of something that looks like stained glass. When I make it, I make it in larger batches, using a Pyrex "visions" Dutch oven, the biggest one. However I have a very large microwave, a 2 cf one. I suggested you make a small batch so you can see if you like the texture of the resulting product, prior to making a larger batch. For the blanching, I simply taste the peel to see if the white part is no longer bitter, is soft and beginning to look slightly translucent instead of completely opaque. In the larger batches I cook it for longer as more liquid volume takes longer to come to a boil. 15-18 minutes for each blanching and 15 minutes for each session in the syrup. I buy large navel oranges, with quite thick skin, if I can find them. I prepare them as a production line. First I top and tail all of them them, cutting off the top and bottom about 1/2 to 3/4 inch from each end, then use a soup spoon with a rouded tip and push down between the flesh and the rind all the way around, both top and bottom until the rind is completely free of the flesh - then I make one vertical cut and open the rind up into a long flat strip which is then easy to cut crosswise into uniform strips. I have found that using this method I can prepare more peel than any other method I have tried over the 40+ years I have been doing this. regarding the syrup, you can use whatever ratio works for you. The traditional candying method is to use 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. I have found that 1 to 1 works just as well. However, lesser concentrations of sugar does not completely candy the fruit and does not preserve it as well. If you are not going for complete preservation where it can be stored at room temperature, you will probably be okay with a lower ratio of sugar to water but if you are going to hold it for awhile you should probably use more sugar. When I make candied whole fruits I start with a thinner syrup and work through a series of stronger concentrations of sugar because I have learned that I end up with better preservation. The point is to replace much of the liquid in the cells with sugar and that requires a certain concentration in the liquid.

Try making it in the microwave. I have been doing this for some time and find that the flavor is more intense. Try it with just a small amount, one orange will do. cut the peel as usual, put it in at least a 1 quart pyrex bowl or measure - fill with water to the quart measure. put in microwave and depending on the strength of your oven set it for 8 to 10 minutes, enough to get it boiling. let it set for 5 minutes then pour off the water and refill, and repeat the process. If the rind is quite thick, do it a third time and drain. mix your syrup 1 to 1, sugar to water and pour over the peel. Set the timer for 5 minutes (8 for low-power ovens) allow it to rest for 10 minutes set it again for 5 minutes rest for 10 another 5 minutes now allow it to cool completely - microwave for 8 to 10 minutes. The entire piece, including the white part should be translucent and show orange color. Remove from syrup and place on a rack to drain. Save the syrup to make more peel or use it to make zest syrup, cooking grated zest in the syrup and storing in the refrigerator for flavoring ices, ice cream, in salad dressing or marinades, etc.