andiesenji

Perhaps this site will help you. http://www.personalchefsnetwork.com/ I would have given my favorite knife to have had this kind of resource when I was in the business. Much of my work involved work with people in the entertainment industry in the L.A. area and there were some monumental egos to stroke. Often they wished to serve a meal and pretend they prepared it themselves so I needed to actually train them on the finish and presentation. I shopped with them for the meal and had to explain why one ingredient was preferable over another so they could answer these questions if their guests asked. I had to be totally discrete. No one has ever heard from me the name of any of my clients. I never had to advertise, it was all word of mouth. When I began I took all my equipment with me and had a complete array of herbs and spices, condiments and staples in my battery. As I did repeat work for clients they learned to stock their kitchens to expedite my work. There were times that I had to be very diplomatic and explain to a client that they would have to ratchet back their plans for a particular meal because it would have been unlikely that they would have been able to prepare a particular item without help. I enjoyed the work, however I did have a steady day job 4 days a week to cover my basic needs. In some ways I taught my way out of a job because with my training some of my clients became excellent cooks in their own right, took cooking classes and no longer needed me. It was fun while it lasted and I don't regret a moment of it.

It was only passed back and forth among 20 people, and I have had sit-down dinners for more than this without any worry about sanitation. The Greek place of which I wrote, had three long tables set up, each seating 20 people. Each of these three tables were served identical dishes, which were all of their regular dinner items and sides with occasionally a specialty item added. It was a very popular place.

My mouth is watering........ Need I say more??

Consider it is like making jelly, simply without the pectin to make it jell. I have been using a Mehu-Liisa juicer/steamer for several years (made in Finland). It is much easier and takes less work than the convential method. In particular it takes 80% of the work and the mess out of making pomegranate, blueberry, raspberry, etc., juice/syrup. Anything with tiny seeds... I also use it for steam extracting flavor from herbs, edible flowers, etc. (roses) The process is by steam extraction. http://juicer-steamer.com/ I have never used it for anything but juice I have the 10-Ltr. juicer but the 8-Ltr. will probably be large enough for most. I have a very large garden and fruit trees and process a lot of it into juices and jellies, which is why I have the larger one. http://www.ezjuicers.com/mehuliisa.htm

The thing to do with the black cake "batter" is to bake it in the mini loaf pans. I have this silicone one from kitchencollection.com. Don't ice them. If you double wrap them in foil after they are completely cool, then place them in a large freezer bag, you can freeze them and take out only one or two when you want to serve it. Each slice is two bites, easy to eat and is really good spread with cream cheese, or if you like it, mascarpone. The same for "regular" fruitcake - I make three varieties. Some go into mini muffen pans, also silicone, like this: I wrap them individually in colored cello to tuck into gift baskets. It is odd that people will eat these when they wouldn't touch a standard fruitcake.

No, but take a look at Ms. Victoria's blog - I suspect her husband Keifel would have to be voted the reigning expert on it, and he waxed lyrical about his grandmother's. We all drooled. I came across the recipe in Laurie Colwin's book "Home Cooking" at least fifteen years ago. After the first time I made it, it was an instant "keeper" and has been one of my regulars ever since. The fact that it keeps practically forever is a big plus.

If you need more weight than in a regular straight pin, try to find a hardwood dealer who carries maple bannister stock. These are larger in diameter than a regular rolling pin, you can get the exact length you want and all it takes is a bit of sanding on the cut ends to round them slightly and you have a pin that will last a lifetime (or two). The one I have is 2 1/2 inches in diameter (standard for bannisters) is 22 1/2 inches long (it was a scrap. And it cost me $5.00. I sanded it, finishing with 600 grit, then washed it, let it dry completely then oiled it with food grade mineral oil, (the stuff in the drug store next to the Milk of Magnesia.) I use it to beat stiff dough fresh out of the fridge, puff pastry, etc., and the extra weight really helps. For really big jobs I have a commercial stanless steel pin with ball-bearing handles, but I doubt you want to spend that much on something unless you will be using it constantly. I could do without it but at the time I bought it I thought I needed it.....

"Fancy" "Gourmet" bread crumbs. At some ridiculous price. How much energy, or for that matter, intelligence, does it take to allow bread to dry then pop it into a food processor and let it run until the crumbs are the way one wants? I bake an artisan-like asiago cheese bread which makes outstanding bread crumbs with just enough flavor to make things interesting, but not overwhelm....

I am very disappointed about this. I had read that sucralose or Splenda would be the sweetener in this product and was hoping I could go back to drinking Coke, my favorite. I can't have aspartame in any amount, any form. In me it causes cardiac arrhythmia. When it was first used in Diet Coke I drank it for several months. During that time I developed arrhythmias and was tested over a period of several months, and nearly had surgery to implant a pacemaker. Stopped drinking anything containing caffeine, etc. By chance I noticed, after not drinking any soft drinks sweetened with aspartame for several months, and having no arrhythmias, I ate a container of sugar-free yogurt, sweetened with aspartame and twenty minutes later my heart began beating erratically. Scary. When I reported this to my cardiologist he wanted to do a test so I reported in for a treadmill test and did fine for 12 minutes. He then gave me aspartame dissolved in water (1/2 one of the little packages) and less than two minutes later my heart rate went up and I was having skips and runs, again, very scary. I read every label to be sure and avoid it and the darn stuff is in so many things it is difficult to avoid. Even the high-fiber cereal, Fiber One, contains it. Since my experience more than a decade ago, I have met several people who have had similar episodes. Why is this stuff still on the market? Sodium cyclamate was taken off the market because it might have produced bladder cancer in rats when they were fed in their daily diet more than a human would consume in a day.

The thing to do is to make two separate syrups, then combine them in a ratio that allows you to retain the flavor of each in a blended product. However, you should not taste the syrup undiluted as you will rapidly lose discriminating sense and not be able to tell the true flavor. If you dilute it 10 to 1, you should have enough to taste the flavor and not overwhelm your taste sense.

I make my own candied peel for fruitcake also - have been for many, many years also candied ginger and several types of glacéed fruit. On that note, I have finally pefected a way to candy peel in the microwave. I have my step-by-step method, with the timing of each step, on a bunch of cards with corrections written in where necessary until I got it right. I have to input it into the computer and then I plan on taking photos of each step and also making a video and putting in on DVD. I tried out my method demo on a group at the local Senior Citizen's center and they thought it was interesting (and liked the candied peel, particulary the ones I dipped in chocolate.) Have you ever made Jamaican Black Cake? It's a type of fruitcake but is different enough to make it interesting. Andie

My most successful chicken salad is simply a classic Waldorf salad with chunked chicken added just before serving. You can even divide and flavor half or less with a dressing made with curry paste. Not everyone likes curry so do allow for people who do not care for it. I make my own pita, baking small ones, but you can buy small ones (4 inch in diameter), which are easy to eat while holding with just one hand. You can fill them or allow guests to fill the pita themselves. Far too often chicken salad causes the sandwich bread to become soggy and difficult to eat, falling apart, etc. The pita solves this problem.

This site has a detailed recipe for grilling duck. He does say to bring the temp to 170 degrees. However I don't. If you want to be sure, you could cook one exactly as directed here, and hold one at the lower temperature. You can always cook it longer, however it will continue to cook after removed from the heat if wrapped as I noted. The wild ducks that I cook weigh less than the ones he describes in his recipe. The ones I did last weekend weighed 3, 3 1/4 and 3 3/4 pounds each. Anyway, take a look at his recipe and cooking directions. http://melindalee.com/recipearchive.html?a...124&item_id=542

Just a quibble, but I believe this is incorrect. Meat nearest the bone is actually cooler than meat away from the bone (which is why you're not supposed to insert meat thermometers near any bones since you will get an incorrect reading). Because of the internal structure/density of the bone, it actually acts more like a heat dissipater than a heat conducter. It does, however, add more flavor to meat than if you had deboned the meat and then cooked it without bones. Why? I haven't a clue, but it does. You can check it for yourself with an instant read thermometer. The next time you roast a chicken, stick the thermometer into the thigh meat, and read it. Then push it further in so it touches the bone. The temp will read higher. This is why they always tell you to keep the probe from touching the bone.

Is 135 really the temp - I want fall apart tender duck and although I like breasts med. rare if cooked alone but I was thinking along the 170 degree lines. If you let duck go to 170 it will be like leather. I don't know why I typed chicken instead of duck. Brain slipped, I guess. You can check by inserting a sharp fork into the thigh area. The juice should appear amber with a hint of red or pink. Unless you have a very large duck, the ratio of meat to bone is much less than that of chicken. The bones transmit the heat into the meat. It takes much less time for a duck to cook than a chicken of comparable weight. Look at the way the duck is structured and you will understand. If you remove it from the rotisserie when it has reached 135 to 140, and immediately wrap it in foil, it will continue to cook for some time. This allows the juices that have been forced toward the skin to be reabsorbed into the meat and will make it juicer and allow the connective tissues to relax. I cook a lot of ducks (wild) because I have hunter friends whose wives will not cook game of any kind. In return for preparing some of the birds for them, I get some for my efforts. A good trade. Last weekend I cooked three for duck tacos.

You would be in Heaven at the annual Sons of Norway Lutefist celebration at the lodge in Van Nuys, California. Huell Hauser, who does PBS documentaries around California attended one of the celebrations and filmed the preparation and the serving of it. They said that luckily there were other foods available for those who didn't care for the lutefisk (but they still had to smell it.)

I make pesto with cilantro instead of basil. This paste, spread on sourdough bread then topped with a slab of cold pork roast, a slice of onion and another slice of sourdough spread with the paste is soooo yummy. Geez. now I am hungry. Well, at least it is lunch time so I have an excuse. I spent two hours in the garden, pointing out where I needed things done, and generally getting in the way of my gardener and finding more things for him to do. Picked some green tomatoes that are going to be fried this evening. I do love green tomatoes, and corn bread - real corn bread, not the cake stuff.

Oh yeah, me too. It doesn't taste soapy to me (or to my husband, thank God), but I have to check myself if I'm cooking Mexican or some sort of Asian dish for others. I forget that so many people hate it (or are just eating it to be trendy, you know).l I never, ever eat anything just to be "trendy" because I approach food as a way of satisfying myself, not trying to impress others. If I like something I will prepare it for myself whether or not other people like it or not. When I entertain I do enquire if my guests have some dietary restriction, an allergy or if they have a special food that they would like to try and have never had the opportunity. There are some things that I do not care for but will prepare for other people, however I fix someting different for myself. My friends understand. I love truffles but they have to be very fresh, the oil and the canned are worthless. Some people do not appreciate all the subtle flavors because not everyone has the same number of taste buds. I also like Sap Sago cheese grated into soft butter which is then stirred into hot vegetables. I especially like it on sautéed summer squash. Many people think it also tastes like soap, but not to me. My housekeeper once threw out a brand new cone because she thought it had "gone bad" because it is green. When I explained that was the way it was supposed to be she just shook her head muttering that I was loco........ Maybeso, but I like it..

For my rotisserie I found an old fish poaching pan at a flea market, it has handles at each end. I simply put an S-hook over each end of the rotisserie shaft and suspend the pan from the hooks. It hangs directly below whatever is on the rotisserie and it doesn't interfere with the heat radiation inside the cooker. I happen to have a cooker/smoker with a separate firebox at one end but the heat circulates so well that the temps easily can get over 500 degrees with the vents fully open. When I had a gas grill/rotisserie I simply turned off the center burner and cooked with the back and front burners lit. They produced plenty of head with the hood down to cook just about anything. With that one I hung a drip pan from the underside of the grill rack itself with bindery clips. Because they are made of thin metal, they would become brittle after a time but are cheap enough I buy them by the dozen. (They have a lot of uses in the kitchen, especially the big ones with a one inch "bite".)

Me too!! I grow a lot because I use it in a lot of things. I also grow the Asian Rau Ram which tastes like cilantro but is a perennial and does not "bolt" when the weather is very hot. It is so easy to grow, I bought some at an Asian market, put in in a jar of water on the window sill and within three or four days there were rootlets at every segment. I broke the stems into segments, planted then and every piece sprouted a new plant. Great stuff.

Stinky cheeses. Yes!! There was another thread about stinky cheeses. I order brick cheese from Wisconsin because it doesn't seem to be available outside the state and it is soooooooo good. Sliced thinly and wrapped around a slice of apple or pear...... yum. I also like it with apricots, especially my dried and glacéed apricots. (the apricots on my tree are ripening three weeks earlier than usual because of the extereme heat we had last week and the week before. Now the "June Gloom" is with us and it is much cooler.

Those "instant-read" thermometers are not meant to be left in the meat while it is roasting. A regular meat thermometer is all steel and glass with no plastic parts. I have a couple that are at least 15 years old and still work just fine. They are is much larger than the instant-read thermometers, the shaft is almost as big as a pencil. They have a read pointer that can be moved around the rim to set at the temperature you want. (Realizing that a lot of people have difficulty reading the numbers but can see the needle line up with the pointer just fine.) They are practically indestructible unless one forgets and grabs it without something to protect the hand and throws it across the kitchen,meanwhile plunging hand into ice water to stop the burning of three fingers............. I don't know where you live but there is a very inexpensive instant read thermometer for meat that is longer than the regular ones, looks like a fork with a thick handle that is easy to grasp and the window to read the temp is near the end of the handle so you don't have to singe your eyebrows trying to read the thing. I found one at Walgreen's Drug store. Otherwise get one of the Polder thermometers with the probe extension. Stick the probe in the meat, lead the wire cable out of the oven (the door will close just fine) and the thermometer itself has a magnet on the back that will hold it to the oven door. You can set it for time or for temperature. When the meat reaches the set temperature the alarm will sound. It is loud enough to be heard two rooms away in my house. I also have one with a true remote, the probe stays in the meat and you can wear the timer around your neck. I am not convinced this one will actually work so have not relied on it. (it was a gift from a friend who knows my penchant for gadgets) If I am roasting a large piece of meat, I use the old reliable meat thermometer.

The coffee with the lowest acidity available commercially is Mexican. I am not a coffee drinker, being totally addicted to tea, however I have a friend who has been in the coffee business for 40 years and he talks about it a great deal. (Whether I am interested or now, but I listen because he listens to me natter on about teas.) I saw this question yesterday and called Mark last evening. He said that low grown coffees have less acid in the bean, thus there is less to be cooked away in roasting. Longer roasting removes more of the inherent acid and dark roast coffees have less acid than the lighter roast coffees but there is a point beyond which the flavor is not enhanced but simply charred into dreck. (his words) The ones with the lowest acid currently available ready roasted in the (coffee) market are from Mexico, Sumatra, India and Brazil, all low grown - and medium dark to dark roast. Avoid Kenya, Kona, Blue Mountain, Yemen and light roast coffees. He also said the cold-brewed method is the best way to get coffee with the least acid. He also said you do not need one of the special gizmos for making it. Place a cup of freshly ground coffee in a quart jar. Fill the jar with cold, filtered water, tighten the lid, shake vigorously. Place the jar in the fridge for 24 hours. Remove the lid, stir throughly then strain through a double layer of coffee filters. This will give you a concentrate which you dilute with hot water. This should give you enough concentrate for 20 to 30 cups of coffee at regular strength.

Cilantro is an interesting herb. You are part of the population to whom it tastes like soap. To others, it doesn't taste at all like soap. It has a sort of minty/parsley flavor. There have been a number of studies done on different types of flavors and how people perceived them. To me, and to many others, Rau Ram tastes exactly like cilantro. To the people who sense cilantro as tasting soapy, Rau Ram tastes just fine, nothing like cilantro. I like cilantro, carnitas isn't authentic without it. However I can't stand radicchio, or the bitter lettuces. They leave a very bitter, metallic taste in my mouth that is difficult to eradicate. I also do not care for raw spinach, cooked is fine. Again, I get a metallic taste that is unpleasant.

You can't cook it directly over the fire. You need to bank the coals on one side or on both sides if you have room. Place a drip pan directly under the birds to catch the rendered fat and for goodness sake save it. Duck fat is precious stuff. Actually you are best served by marinating the duck overnight, then draining it and wiping it dry, stuff half an onion and half an orange (or half a lemon) inside the duck. Make small incisions in the skin all over the duck and start it on the rotissiere. About half way through the cooking you should recover some of the drippings, maybe 1/2 a cup or so, and in a small saucepan bring the drippings and some of your spices/herbs to a simmer. Then begin painting onto the duck every 20 minutes or so. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature when it nears 135 pull the chicken off the grill. It will continue to rise several degrees as it coasts.