Shalmanese
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Posts posted by Shalmanese
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Whew, Australia day was 2 days ago and now it's Chinese New Year, I'm being stuffed with good food. These are all the work of my mother, I was merely a lowly sous chef in this production (sorry about quality of pics):
We ate outside on the (by now) infamous household balcony, looking out at the sunset
Started off with a Pumpkin soup which was my sole individual contribution:
Theres also a Cucumber & garlic salad on the table there as well.
Stir fried Chinese Bean thingie, I don't know what the english name for it is.
Capsicum, Brocolli & Beef stir fry
Coca-Cola Chicken, one of those sounds-so-bad-but-tastes-so-good dishes
Braised Sirloin with Potatos
Fried Prawns on a bed of snow peas
steamed whole fish.
And lots...
and lots...
and lots...
of dumplings (two types, pork & celery and pork & pickled cabbage).
Also not pictured was some stir fried chinese greens and some white rice.
Still have dessert to serve (just some fruit & sorbet) and then there is the live satellite feed from China for the CNY Show. I'm going to sit that one out, I can't stand watching it.
Hope everyone else is having a happy new year!
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Summary of previous threads on the topic:
* Pepper mills on tables is too expensive due to persistant theft
* People have come to expect fresh ground pepper as a bit of cheap theatre when dining out
* Servers can't afford to stand idle while waiting for someone to taste thier food
* The logistics of coming back for a second trip is too complicated and will frustrate some people
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Living in Australia and loving lamb so much, I've been telling myself to eat more lamb, duck and other less vanilla meats for ages now and I'm finally got my freezer stocked to a respectable level.
Heres a rack of lamb on a bed of pureed sweet potatos, sauteed brocolini and mushroom reduction that I made sometime last month:
I've also been doing curries, stews, braised shanks, grilled chops, the works. I don't think I could ever get sick of it.
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I would fry in copious amounts butter with some onions and garlic, add water and simmer for 20 minutes, then blend in a blender and run through a sieve. Let it stand and the shrimp butter should float to the top where you can collect it and mould it into discs, then the stock can be reduced and then frozen.
Spread the shrimp butter of toast and use the stock for soups.
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From my recent extravaganza
Trio of Sorbets, Pomegranite, Pineapple, Mint
Triple Layered Chocolate Mousse - Orange w/ Dark Choc, Passionfruit w/ white choc, lime w/ dark choc, topped with almonds and flaky sea salt.
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What is everybodys opinions on the fattiness of the beef for noodle soups? Well marbled meat can withstand a bit more cooking and is a bit more tender but meat high in connective tissue, if sliced thin enough, provides a wonderful chewy texture and no toughness. Has anybody tried Wagyu ribeye noodle soup? I wager that would be something of an experience.
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The Klamburgers logo looks better in black and white. This can be important if your ever planning on making flyers, coupons, newspaper ads etc. I agree that you should just lighten the yellow just a touch but other than that, it's pretty good.
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My advice: Buy from a Brick & Mortar with good service, even if the price is a bit higher. I find I tend to go through thermometers about once every 6 months, generally from the cable snagging on something and pulling the base onto the floor. I just take it back and they replace it no questions asked.
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Other people lost pens, I seem to lose tasting spoons. I swear, theres an interdimensional time warp in my kitchen that magically whisks away any and all tasting spoons that I use. I find I end up going through 5 - 10 of them every night.
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I have to admit, my first reading came out as "Classic Klamburgers" and I was simultaneously very intrigued and slightly nauseous. Perhaps a different font?
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Anybody got any big plans for Australia Day?
Some friends of mine are coming up from Canberra and we're going to have this for lunch:
Should be fun.
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Whats wrong with Magus burgers?
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Bacon & Eggs with Home Made Sourdough Toast, Vine Cherry Tomatos and Duck Confit
I've only recently tried the french method of cooking scrambled eggs and I really dig it. Rather than light, fluffy curds, you want to essentially cook over very low heat and drive away as much moisture as possible in order to intensify the eggy flavour.
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I had an interesting "experiment" last fall. We were without power for 5 days, and as stuff in the upstairs freezer started to thaw, I pulled out a huge bag of chicken bones, but them in the stock pot with water (I never put veg in when I make stock), set it to simmer, and promptly fell asleep. I didn't skim. The next morning, all of that junk that you would skim had come together and congealed. I ended up with a very clear stock.
Hrmm... I'll have to try that next time. How did it taste?
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That regular chopstick feature must be a California-idea never seen it here at all.
As mentioned most of the world uses disposable units and Health Inspectors generally frown on reuseable wooden utensils for customers.
I'm surpised to hear they allow it at all.
No, the procedure is that you bring in your own chopsticks, often highly valuable. Made of Jade, Pearl, Gold, or other exotic materiels and they will keep it behind the counter for you. I wager most japanese restaurants would be willing to do it for you if your a long time customer and it's usually fairly discreet so if you don't ask, you wouldn't know it existed.
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Taking it to it's logical conclusion, if the scum (including the copious amounts produced upon the first blanch) is indeed the same as the fond from a roast, then collecting the scum and then roasting it in a roasting pan and then deglazing should produce a very quick but very flavourful brown stock.
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I'm not even sure what exactly to call this meat. The shank cross cut? I had about 7 pounds, and after breaking it down by cubing the meat and trimming the fat --
I would call it osso bucco.
Then into the cleaned stock pot we go with lots of cold water, the cleaned meat and bones, and the aromatics. It's going to simmer for a while now.I also thought I'd share a method I came up with for skimming scum when you have aromatics floating around. I use the fine sieve to skim the scum , and of course I inevitably capture some of the aromatics. To save them, I dump them in a coarse sieve and rise them off, then dump them back into the pot:
There are two ways to avoid this. One is to put a metal colander or steamer rack over the top of the bones and push down with a heavy weight (I use a small cast iron pot filled with water). This won't work for particularly fine spices but it will get most of what you want. The second way is to get a special spice infuser. It's a ball with lots of little holes in it which you can seperate into two halves. You dump the spices in there an the flavour goes into the broth without lots of floaty bits.
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this process is called "shocking"
I thought the idea was that shocking made the dumpling skin more elastic ?
like noodles they use this method to give it a more elastic mouth feel.
anyone can confirm this?
There isn't enough water to make a difference, your talking about a 5 degree variance in temps, tops.
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What about the guy on Supersize Me who would eat a McDonalds Big Mac 3 meals a day every single day? That sounds pretty loyal to me.
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Food terminology is often imprecise and confusing but that doesn't mean we should do anything to make it more so.
A saute achieves even browning by the probabilistic effects of constantly moving chunks of food to ensure that all sides are eventually browned. A sear involves a systematic turning of individual pieces of food in order to achieve even browning.
To start using either word in either situation merely serves to confuse rather than clarify when talking about methods of food preparation. Since sear already provides a very clear description of what is happening to a piece of fish, I don't see why one would use saute.
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From what I've gathered, the method of constant quenching does nothing to actually help the dumplings to cook but acts as a crude timing device to allow the dumplings to reach the right amount of doneness. If you have a modern timer, feel free to just time it.
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A while ago, someone came up with a quail egg ravioli which I thought looked absolutely fantastic. It's a bit delicate and tricky but doable.
Basically, you get the yolk of the quail egg and put it in a VERY thin layer of pasta with some sea salt sprinkled over the top and then layer on another very thin layer of pasta. Dip in boiling water for 30 seconds, then serve with a strongly flavoured broth.
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Heres a rather obvious thing to do: skim the scum off the top of stock, deposit it into a bowl. Add 1/2 cup of stock to it and swirl it around a bit. Guess what? It tastes like stock! Then add the scum back in guilt free.
A Diary Of A Life At CIA
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
This totally doesn't make sense to me. Why would you serve food that looks good but tasted flawed in some way if you could make it taste better?