Shalmanese
-
Posts
3,850 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Shalmanese
-
-
Just a heads up that Coles in Broadway is now carrying Laucke Bread Flour. So far, no other Coles I've been to has it. $7.50 for 5kg.
-
Strawberries with Black Pepper. I finally got around to trying this combo and it really does work.
-
Pancetta, Asparagus, Mushroom & Truffle Quiche
I'm not happy with this shot. I made 3 quiches and they were all of differing heights so we decided to polish off the two smaller ones first and let the big one cool till tomorrow for easier slicing. The smallest one was in the pic and was slightly overcooked so you I didn't get that lovely tender custard. Plus, the lighting makes the mushrooms look awful. I'll take another pic tomorrow morning of the deep one.
Incidentally, this quiche was made with an Oil Crust since i'm too cowardly to make a proper pate brisee (not cowardly technique wise, I'm just afraid of so much saturated fat). The crust was a bit pale on the bottom and probably could have done with a blind baking before the ingredients went in. But the crust was tender and tasty and very easy to make.
-
roasted garlic is fine, it's only raw garlic that can potentially cause botulism. I keep cloves for several weeks with no problems. I like to roast the cloves, mash them up with a bit of butter and put them in squeeze tubes. It's really easy to portion out into whatever dish needs it.
-
I adore deep fried sweet shrimp heads, but I dream of taking semi-frozen uni and dipping it in panko and THEN deep frying it.
You asked me in another thread whether there was anything that I managed to make inedible. Well, let me tell you, never try and deep fry scrambled eggs. The egg poofs up into a giant sponge which soaks in practically all the oil and you get a dripping, greasy mess. Not appetising at all.
-
I'm still convinced that the initial stages of confit do little if anything to develop the confit and should be passed through as quick as possible. While there is significant amounts of liquid in the pan, the temperature can't get much above 100C so there is limited amounts of caremalisation going on. It's only until most of the liquid is evaporated that the cooking should slow down to allow for good flavour development.
From now on, I always run my pan hot until the confit is relatively dry, about 2 hours with frequent stirring to stop burning, then drop it down as low as possible for another hour and, as far as I can tell, the resulting confit is as flavourful as my older 24 hour methods.
-
Just something completely out of the blue:
After reading This NYT Article on Chocolate in Turin, I was struck by this quote:
The old formula has a slight smokiness that Dr. Mariella Maione, in charge of marketing, says comes from the olive wood the company still uses to roast chocolate.A quick search for smoked chocolates indicates a few avant garde chefs smoking finished bars of chocolate but none that I am aware of trying to use smoke in the roasting process. In my mind, smoke and chocolate would seem like a fantastic combination and I was wondering if you were willing to do a bit of experimentation in trying to create a smoked chocolate bar.
-
Glad you started this foodblog Malawry. I was wondering how your cooking classes were going. I hope you go into more detail about some of your classes and give us some insights into how to teach food to others.
Anyway, I put in a vote for "Beyond Mashed Potatos, other mashable vegtables". Sweet potatos, celery root, parsnips etc. All are wonderful mashed and bring something different. I especially love sweet potatos mashed with a hint of chilli.
-
fresh mint definately, whiz the mint with a bit of cream in a blender/food processor, then let sit for 5 mins and run through a sieve.
-
but in a good way!
-
For cooking I use coarse pickling salt as it has no none-caking agents or iodine, it is pure NaCl.
Huh? I thought pickling salt was ultra-fine so that it would dissolve into cold water.
Anyway, to cook with, I almost exclusively use Sel de Guerende which is a Brittany Grey Sea Salt. It's about $6 AUD a Kg ($2 USD a lb) and the amount of salt used is typically so small that I at least allow myself this one small luxury. It might be purely psychological but I find it gives a much more rounded and rich flavour to dishes than pure table salts. It reacts far better to oversalting because it seems to drag all the other flavours up with it. I also have Maldons for use with searing steaks, finishing salads and sandwiches with. It's a bit more pricy at around $25/Kg but I have barely touched half a box in a year and the extra texture is really worth it. I also keep a box of normal table salt around for brining and pasta water.
-
Exactly. Most peanut butters are just peanuts, salt and a bit of lecithin, why go to all that work when you can just buy it. I would also throw in a bit of fish sauce to round out the salty flavours in that dressing.
-
Coming rather late into this cookoff:
Miso-Noodle Soup with Tofu and Shittake Mushrooms
Perfect for when it's grey and drizzly outside and you feel like shit.
-
Sounds good, where are you staying?
-
Ahem, many months ago, where there was an earlier thread that included some discussion about induction burners, I mentioned that I use an iron plate on mine.
The plate started out in life as a cast iron skillet (10 inch) and existed for at least 80 years in that form until, sadly, I dropped it on the patio (concrete). The tip of the handle met the pavement first and it broke out a large crescent from the side, all the way to the bottom.
I took it to my very helpful metal shop (they have re-welded the lift on the back of my van for my mobility scooter several times) and had them cut the remainder of the sides even with the bottom then grind and smooth it nicely. For a time I used it as a diffuser on the gas cooktop, until I got copper plates, then found that it worked quite nicely on the induction burners.
The charge was less than $20.00.
The only caveat is that the plate has to be absolutely flat.
Wouldn't that kill the responsiveness of the burner?
-
on the order of years at least.
-
Sandwiches are works of structural engineering. My two main factors when deciding how to build a sandwich are lateral strain and adequate waterproofing.
Lateral Strain: smooth ingredients should never go next to smooth ingredients, otherwise the sandwich will slip. Always apply a layer of sticky ingredients in between.
Waterproofing: Wet ingredients should never go next to ingredients that suffer when they get wet. Always apply a waterproofing layer in between.
-
To me, shallots are the tea sipping aristocrat while onions are the salt-of-the-earth farmer. Whenever I use onions, I use a LOT of onions to create a rich, deep base to a stew or soup. However, when I use shallots, I like to treat it delicately in a fine mince in a nice sauce or browned slowly to really support a fine sauce. The good thing about shallots is that they don't contain nearly as much of the acrid raw chemicals so they can be cooked much faster and retain more of their freshness. The bad thing is that they seem to loose their taste much more when cooked long and slow as in a stew.
If I had 5lb of shallots, then I would make Shallot Confit by just subbing onions for shallots. If I ever won the lottery, I would celebrate with a meal of Kobe Ribeye topped with shallot confit and french fries fried in Foie Gras fat.
-
I currently have 6 in my collection:
American
Chinese
French
British
Italian
Wines * Spirits
I got most of them off ebay and another few off a 2nd hand bookstore in newtown. But they do tend to be rare. All of my recipe books are spiral bound.
Can you tell me what your fav bookshop in Dunedin is? Is it the one near the university? Which ones do you have? I think my favourite one is the British one, full of 1960's artery clogging, solid british food.
-
I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.
I have never heard of this one, personally, and the specials tend to be in the POS as one price, so that wouldn't be possible, in that instance. I haven't worked at a place with hand-written tickets since I was a teenager.
But you could do something like have the "Sea Bream w/ Spinach" listed as $20 and the "Sea Bream with Spinach" listed as $25. I wager most people won't notice.
-
What? You went to the store on superbowl morning and they didn't have the wings prepared that way, just whole chicken wings? Don't fret, you can do it yourself. I prepped 10 lbs (4.5 kg) this way in about 20 minutes. You just need a sharp chef's knife or boning knife.
I've found kitchen shears actually work best for this. You grip the back indent with one side of the shear and the front with the other and just snip. Much cleaner cut 90% of the time.
When you first put them in, they will occasionally want to stick to the bottom of the basket. Wait at least a minute or two before dislodging the pieces, or you will tear the skin. With a commercial fryer, you can dislodge them by pulling the basket out, waiting a few seconds for it to drain, and bashing the basket against the backsplash of the fryer in a stabbing motion. I don't recommend this with a home fryer. Use long metal tongs.Suspend them in the oil for 10 seconds before dropping them so they form a non-stick skin. Easiest way to do this is to drop them in using the spider.
DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT RANCH DRESSING.I love ranch dressing. Just don't put it on my beloved wings, ok? Put your wife to work and have her make some blue cheese dressing. You didn't go to all that trouble to drench these fuckers in stale Kraft cheese and sodium benzoate, did you?
What if I make my own home-made ranch dressing?
-
I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.
-
Shalmanese - try my strange refrigeration method (toss potato chunks with seasoning and olive oil, throw into ziplock bag, refrigerate for a few hours). I think the salt really does permeate this way, though I don't know why.
That was going to be my 3rd option if this doesnt work but it seems to me that brining leads to a much more predictable product. Do you what seasonings do and do not penetrate the potatos? Since I'm steaming and not roasting, it would be a waste of seasoning if it doesn't penetrate.
-
hrmm... thats a bust. Anybody with a sous vide machine, could you try parcooking the potatos at 65C for 3 hours in a brine and then cooling, storing for 24 hours, steaming and then eating whole? Blumenthal advocates first cooking at 65C in order to create his signature mash since the starch granules gelatinise at this temp but the cell walls do not burst. I am thinking that this may be the way to get the potatos to absorb salt. I am not trying to do this for mash, although that would be nice. What I am trying to achieve is absolutely evenly seasoned chunks of steamed potato.
Where's the Kobe Beef?
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
This is an image I recently found of Japanese Wagyu. Once I eat it, my life will be complete.