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Shalmanese

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Everything posted by Shalmanese

  1. How is low too hot? As long as there's water remaining, the temp won't get above 100C. As long as it's below 100C, there shouldn't be any issue with brown flavors developing.
  2. The amount of water it can hold at temp is based on the insulative properties of the container, not the power of the circulator. You could theoretically keep a hot tub heated with just a single stick (although it would take days to get up to temp). If you're cooking in a cooler or other well insulated container, 40L shouldn't be a problem. If you're using a cambro or a pot, wrap it in an insulated blanket or just put two circulators in there. The Anova Pro looks to be the best combo of features/price/noise at the moment. I'd go with that if you have the option.
  3. Instead of soaking in water, soak in white wine of vodka instead. The alcohol will help pull out more of the saffron colours and flavors. I put whole saffron threads in a bowl with enough alcohol to cover, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds at the start of prep and then leave it to stand in the microwave until I'm ready for it in the dish.
  4. Is your meat very cold? Ideally, it should be slightly frozen and stiff but pliable as it goes in. Also, if you want to incorporate fish sauce but not mix it in, toss the cubes of meat in fish sauce before it goes in the grinder.
  5. Why would there be spattering oil? Put a piece of fried chicken in an open pot and put your hand above the pot, do you feel any oil spatter? Unless you're frying incorrectly, there should be no oil spatter. Also, the worst case scenario for a gasket failure is exactly the same as if you opened the release valve. A loss of pressure in a PC is not dangerous, it's a valve failing and an increase in pressure that is what you should be worried about.
  6. The gaskets are only exposed to steam which will be the same temperature regardless of whether you're using water or oil. The valves may malfunction but there's an equal risk of them malfunctioning using water.
  7. Hefeweizens occasionally have a banana note to them due to the fermentation process so maybe think about classic pairings with bananas like peanut butter or chocolate.
  8. Often, when dealing with a recipe for a foreign cuisine, you want to know to what degree the recipe has been adapted to local ingredients and tastes. It's usually pretty easy to tell quickly skimming the recipe as there are certain tell tale ingredients or techniques that give it away. This is what I dub the Shaoxing/Sherry line. For Chinese recipes, the choice of wine in the recipe reveals a lot. Some recipes will simply call for Shaoxing wine and rightly recognize that dry sherry tastes nothing similar, some prefer Shaoxing wine but admit dry sherry can be used as a substitute and some only use dry sherry and don't even acknowledge that Shaoxing wine exists. If I see a recipe calling for dry sherry, I'm going to look at the rest of the recipe more closely to figure out what else is tweaked. Whereas if I see one for Shaoxing wine, I'm more inclined to trust that I can make the recipe unaltered and come close to what would be served in China. Similar distinctions exist for other cuisines. For example, for Thai cooking, there's the galangal/ginger line as well as the mortar & pestle/food processor line. For Mexican, there's the lard/vegetable oil line. For Italian, there's the pancetta/guanciale/bacon line. For Indian, there's the whole spices/curry powder line. What are some other examples of this?
  9. There's not many recipes that utilize cut up chickens anymore. Breasts, thighs and wings all cook very differently and any technique that cooks one well is likely sub-optimal for another. Back when only whole chickens were sold, cut up chicken recipes were a way to be thrifty with all the parts. But now that chicken parts are readily available, almost any recipe involving cut up chicken would be better served using only a single part.
  10. Pretty simple: Ask for permission first. Personally, if it's a standard contract, I'd welcome the publicity more than I feared details getting out.
  11. I was going to compare this cookoff to the one last fall but they're really just apples and oranges.
  12. All ovens convert energy to heat at 100% efficiency so once an oven is up to temp, the power usage is determined solely by how much energy is lost to the room. The power of the heating element is irrelevant as long as it can maintain temp since a more powerful heater will simply be turned on for less time.
  13. Get a thermometer. Turn the toaster oven on for an hour, then turn it off. Turn the gas oven on for an hour, then turn it off. Whichever heats up the room more is the one using more energy. But unless your gas oven is using an order of magnitude more energy than your toaster oven, you're talking about pennies per month worth of difference. edit: Alternatively, preheat your gas oven, then turn it off and put your toaster oven *in* your gas oven and turn it on with the door open. Once it's back up to temp, check using the kill-a-watt how much electricity it's using. If it's less than the toaster oven out in the open, then the gas oven is better insulated and thus, using less power.
  14. There's no way an oven would have a steady state duty cycle of 75% for the simple reason that such an oven would take hours to get up to temperature. You say you have a kill-o-watt, why are you guessing?
  15. You could also considering buying a membership to their website as all the recipes are online. They also have mobile apps that allow you to access the recipes on the go if you have a membership. I have the cookbook but I find myself reaching for the online versions more often as they're occasionally newer and also far more convenient and often come with videos.
  16. It tastes like if liver and bone marrow had beautiful, beautiful babies.
  17. Yes, I meant the English account of Chinese culinary history is inaccurate because of this. The book was published in 1976 when MSG was still a fairly recent invention. Perhaps that's why? I don't know what Chinese cooking was like then. Still, it doesn't justify the more modern books on the list omitting it. Doubtful, MSG powder is widely available in the west, it's no rarer than say, shaoxing wine or doubanjiang.
  18. I'm sick of even purportedly "authentic" Chinese cookbooks engaging in a culinary whitewashing by completely omitting MSG from their recipes. It reinforces the stereotype that MSG is dangerous, unhealthy or a crutch for low quality cooking. More importantly, it causes dishes you've tasted from authentic Chinese eateries impossible to replicate. By omitting MSG from the culinary lexicon, there's no way to teach how to use it properly, how to diagnose improper use, where it's regarded as essential and where it's regarded as optional. Hunting through my stack of Chinese cookbooks, I find: Barbara Tropp - Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Says she doesn't use it, doesn't include it in any of the recipes. Irene Kuo - Key to Chinese Cooking: Finds it "distasteful", doesn't use it. Fuchsia Dunlop - Assorted: Admits that most Chinese cooks use it but avoids using it as she finds it "at best unnecessary and at worst, a cheat" Ken Hom - Taste of China: Mentions it negatively 3 times, no recipes include it. Kenneth Lo - Chinese Regional Cooking: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find. Robert Delfs - Good Food of Szechwan: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find. Ellen Schrecker - Mrs Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook: Is actually honest and admits MSG tastes good. Justifies not including it by saying it's a restaurant technique, not a home cook one. Pei Mei - Chinese Cookbook Volume I: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find. So there you go. I consider myself to have a pretty deep bench of Chinese cookbooks and I couldn't find a single one that includes MSG in a single recipe. Oddly enough, my 1961 copy of the New York Times cookbook includes 9 recipes with MSG, not all of them Asian. It's not even that I use MSG that often or disagree with most people that it can be a crutch. It's just that I find the complete elimination of it from Chinese culinary history disappointing.
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