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ravum

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Everything posted by ravum

  1. I tried the pineapple nopale juice using raw nopales and it was quite good.
  2. The salad tastes really good and I wish i'd tried nopales before!!. Boiled for 15 mins and then drained,the insides are soft but the skin still has a crunch.There is a little bit of stringiness though,should it be boiled more?
  3. Thank you Rancho for the answers.I'll be making a salad with onions,avocados and nopales tonite.
  4. I just found a bag of diced nopales at the local Mexican grocery.I havent cooked with them before and a search on egullet gave a link to an interesting article about them.HereThis is the only place I have found where raw nopales are used.Will that work?I also plan on making the salad.I'll boil them with onions and cilantro as Marlena suggested in an earlier post.Does the water have to be salted?Can it be boiled in advance and refrigerated?I wouldnt have bothered to pick up the cactus if I wasnt sure that I could find out what to do with them on egullet!! Thank you.
  5. Thank you all for the suggestions.We had a great time in vegas and I shall add to all those singing praises of Lotus of Siam.The staff was very helpful and recommended suitable choices.The spicy soup was great for 2 of us with colds,even though we were almost crying cleaning out our bowls. The surprise for me was the sticky rice with mango.Crunchy and a little salty,it was the perfect partner to the sweet and slightly sour mango. I only wish we could have dined there again
  6. I made the french banana split over the weekend.I wanted to try the Ice cream as it was very unusual.Once i made it,I had a few bananas and decided to give the split a try. It is better than any split I have ever had.I did caramelise the bananas over high heat as he suggests,but they still were a little mushy.The ice cream is like creamy sorbet but very very chocolatey and light.Along with the rum soaked raisins and chocolate sauce, its very delicious and yet not too heavy.
  7. I used to face a similar problem...breads turning to fluffy foccacias . What worked for me was a combination of turning(at least two times) and creating a "gluten cloak" on the bread. This is explained in detail in the "Laurels kitchen " book.Basically,form the dough into a ball and holding the ball in both hands, keep tucking the surface of the ball into the bottom using the sides of your hands.The ball should look very taut at the end of it.It takes some practice but its fun and I do think it helps to restrain the dough from spreading.
  8. ravum

    Dough seal on claypot

    My pot is unglazed on both sides.I will positively oil it the next time around.PAM sounds like a great idea..
  9. ravum

    Dough seal on claypot

    thanks for the pointers,paula and fifi I did use a about a tsp of oil and Did try chiselling,didnt work.I ended up taking it to the sink.The seal came off but I noticed there was a gap big enough to put my finger through in places.I managed to not get too much water in there but a little still got in.All in all,pot and chickpeas saved The chickpeas were still wonderful (inspite of getting diluted).I plan to make Indian style Chana masala using this method.I wont add anything acidic but all spices will go in. I'm not sure why the dough stuck but will try once more.
  10. I made the claypot chickpea soup from Paula Wolferts Slow Mediterranean. I used a claypot and sealed it with dough.After baking, the dough has formed a rigid seal that cant be prised out.Its as hard as a stone.I tried to hit it with a knife,but am afraid of breaking the pot. How to get to the soup in there?Please help.
  11. I usually tell people it should look like it is made of stained glass. Then you know it is finished. ← Stained glass is the perfect description.I made them again and they are delicious!!It did take an hour and a half.I hadnt cooked the previous batch long enough. Cant wait to try the ginger....
  12. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    Shelora,this recipe appears in her book "My mexico" pg.519. I will check out the mexico forum and use the anchos agin....have a big bag of them lying around.I will try the recipe from regional cooking too.
  13. Andie,I candied navel oranges using this method and it is wonderful.Slightly bitter and moist,it is miles ahead of any purchased peel.Thank you very very much for sharing this.I now chop up the peels whenever the oranges are juiced!! Although I loved the final outcome,I'm not sure I did it right.I simmered it in the syrup for 15 mins.It did look transparent to me by then but is it enough?Or should it take a few hours? Just brought a big knob of ginger to try the candied ginger recipe.Any particular reason to use the 7up?Can it be substituted with anything else?
  14. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    Shelora,thank you very much for tthe trouble shooting.I did fry it a bit but not much.As you pointed out,the pasta was cooked thru before it could fry properly.Maybe frying the sauce separately first and then adding the pasta and some water might work? I didnt type out the instructions verbatim and that explains the short directions in the recipe.The actual text of the recipe can be found here [http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/mex_classics.html#Angel_Hair_Pasta] I am a little wary of cooking with anchos now.Do you have a recipe using anchos that you could share? Now that I know it is called sopa seca,I have found another recipe for it on food network and plan to try that.That calls for chipotles in adobo,though.
  15. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    I did try to take out the seeds but was not very fussy about it.Some of them were stuck to the chile and I left those on,but these were few. There is no mention of what this might be called in Spanish.It is from the April 1996 issue of F&W.I got it off their website. Here is the recipe: Angel Hair Pasta with Ancho Chile Sauce 4 ancho chiles--stems, seeds, and veins removed 2 1/2 cups chicken stock or water 2 whole cloves 1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped 1/8 teaspoon cumin seeds Salt 1/4 cup vegetable oil 4 ounces angel hair pasta or very fine vermicelli, preferably in nests or skeins 1/3 cup finely grated queso añejo or Romano cheese, avocado slices and quartered limes 1. Cover chiles with water and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let soak 5 more minutes. Drain. 2. in a blender, add the cloves, garlic and cumin seeds and blend until smooth. Add 1 more cup of the stock and drained chiles, a few at a time, and blend until smooth, 3. Heat oil . Add the pasta and fry, turning, until golden. 4. Add the blended sauce to the pasta in the skillet and fry in medium heat .Cover and cook over low heat, until the pasta is just cooked through . 5. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with the cheese and serve with the avocado and limes. I used water and omitted the cloves.Otherwise,followed the recipe to the letter.It tasted bitter even before frying and frying didnt change anything.
  16. Real Vegetarians who have never eaten meat or fish in their lives. I would love to go to Lotus of Siam but isnt fish sauce omnipresent in thai food? Thanks a lot for all the suggestions.
  17. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    I will try that. Some recipes call for toasting and grinding the chile,how is the bitterness taken care of in that case?
  18. Four of us will be in Vegas for a few days at the end of this month and we are all vegetarians. I know that it is a "meat rules" place but are there any restaurants where we might find decent options?
  19. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    It definitely tasted tannic.Will rinsing under running water and squeezing dry solve the problem?
  20. ravum

    Bitter Ancho Chili

    I made them within a few days of buying the chiles but I have no idea how long they sat on the shelf. Can old chiles actually taste bitter?
  21. I found a bag of Ancho chiles at a mexican grocery and made "Angel Hair Pasta with Ancho Chile Sauce".This is a recipe by Diana Kennedy which appeared in food&Wine. It calls for soaking the chiles and grinding them with garlic and cumin to make a sauce in which the pasta cooks.The sauce turned out terribly bitter. I have read that burning the chile can make it bitter,but there was no toasting involved in this recipe.Boil chiles in water,drain and grind. What could have caused this?
  22. Thank You!!.I have started making a batch of yogurt for this.I cant wait to try it....
  23. Paula and Swisskase,thanks a ton for the suggestions. I used homemade whole milk yogurt.Do I have to use goat/sheep milk yogurt? Should the cheese be refrigerated covered or uncovered on the paper towel?Still on the strainer?Should the balls also be covered when refrigerated?
  24. I love the balls of labneh in Olive oil from middle eastern stores. I attempted to make them using a recipe from Sonia Uvezian. It was to drain the yogurt in musin for 48 hrs and then form balls and dunk them in Olive Oil.I've drained it more than three days but they are still not rollable.I just used them as is. It is still delicious but would love to get it right.Is anything added to the yogurt to make it firmer?Any Ideas/tricks?
  25. This is the same recipe from Usha Prabhakrans book called fenugreek sprout pickle,which I make. It's a wonderful book and anyone who likes pickles/chutneys will definitely enjoy it.
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