Shalmanese
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Posts posted by Shalmanese
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You could try reverse engineering the Cambells formua and then making it with higher quality ingredients. To me, it sounds like a veloute sauce.
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I love making coca-cola chicken with just chicken wings. The sauce gets all thick from the gelatine. The next day, I take the left over sauce, scrape off all the fat and then use it as a base for noodles with some left over chicken and some green vegtables.
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And what better thing to try out on your new Weber kettle than a Wagyu brisket? I spoke to the guy at the farmers market and he said he could arrange for a whole, untrimmed brisket. If anyone is interested, I could phone up and ask for pricing.
Shalmanese - who has no barbeque and desperately want's to get invited to one...
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You mean Quenelles? Theres an eGCI lesson that mentions them here
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That lamb sounds grreat but, boy, you are right on in the description...........
Me or Grub?
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THEY'RE not trying quite so hard in Sydney's most admired kitchens these days. Having elevated their city into the ranks of the world's great eating towns, right up there with New York and Paris and London, chefs here have begun to focus on making the most of the magnificent raw materials at their disposal rather than emphasizing the razzle-dazzle of old.
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What about Homer's Space-Age Out-of-This-World Moon Waffles
* Ingredients
+ One bag caramel cubes
+ Waffle mix
+ One bottle Liquid Smoke
+ One stick butter
* Directions
+ Empty bag of caramels onto waffle iron.
+ Add generous portion of waffle batter.
+ Add one bottle of Liquid Smoke.
+ Cook until burnt.
+ Wrap waffle around a stick of butter.
+ Serve on a toothpick.
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Whoo, boy, lets dig into the archives here...
This was at a dinner party I held last christmas. A big extravaganza event involving lots of fiddly cooking just for the sheer hell of it. The dish in the picture was roast leg of lamb atop a bed of grilled summer vegtables (zuchinni, eggplant, bell peppers and tomato I think) with a lamb demi-glace and rosmary infused olive oil.
There are a few technical flaws with the dish that didn't affect the taste but hampered the presentation. At the last minute, without really planning to, I deglazed the roasting pan with my demi-glace. As a result, the demi-glace was rather thin and had... bits floating in it. I should have really strained it. Secondly, the massive oil slick on the side looked very unappealing and from the shot, it looks like it's leaking out of the lamb. The plate should have also been wiped. But most glaringly, the meat looks like... well... tubes and guts and innards. It looks like some kind of offal. The camera turned the most subtle shade of pink into some ghastly hospital gray. I was very ashamed of this picture afterwards. The dish tasted fantastic though.
I think this was meant to be braised short ribs... It just looks like someone shit in a pot.
Meat should not look shiny... ever.
Another braised dish, looks like dog food liberally sprinkled with bright orange bits.
All of these tasted fantastic and some of them actually looked fantastic in person, it's just the camera can do stange things sometimes.
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Yesterday, I decided to spoil myself and make up a lunch (almost) entirely from the farmers market:
A 350gm (3/4lb) Wagyu Sirloin from the wagyu seller sprinkled with a little maldon sea salt (not from the market), a chunk of organic, sourdough baguette from the bread man with a nice chunk of sharp buffalo cheese from the cheese guy. A salad of radishes, cucmbers and apples from the produce girl and the apple dude respectively, dressed very simply with a little cider vinegar (not from the market) and some lime tree honey from the honey man.
A big tall glass of lemonade made from lemons from the lemon, orange & avacado family and some fresh strawberries from the strawberry guy.
All of it bought, cooked and eaten within an hour.
Yum!
It was nice being able to build an entire menu like that from scratch.
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Interestingly Carrot-Top, I have heard that the Wagyu we get and grow here in Australia is not distinguishable from the 'Kobe' beef in Japan despite their massages and beer drinking. In fact Australia has just started exporting the best Wagyu to Japan and is getting top dollar for it.
I don't know about indistinguishable since I've never had proper Kobe but the Wagyu I get is noticably less marbled and less finely marbled that pics of Kobe I've seen on the web/tv. It's still amazingly good though and it's spoilt me for any other type of steak.
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We make birds eye chilli oil at home all the time. Just stick a bowl of peanut oil in the microwave with a dozen or so chillies and zap on high for 3 minutes and then let stand for an hour or so and strain. It doesn't have the green taste of a fresh chilli but it's remarkably good and much easier to use. It's excellent in a dipping sauce.
Otherwise, fresh chillies can be either sundried or stored in the freezer to prolong shelf life.
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Is it just me or is anyone else uncomfortable with the words budget and sushi being used in the same sentence?
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I have about 9 pieces left (from 18), so I have breakfast for at least two more days. Lucky me! Thanks for all the suggestions. I've settled on uncooked sausage meat, no snipping, and refrigerating before baking for my next attempt! And if I can ever stop myself from eating them so quickly (or wanting to eat them so quickly), I'll freeze before baking. But they're sooooo good!
It seems to me like you could parcook the meat, make them in batches and freeze them and then cook them individually in a toaster oven every morning for perfectly fresh sausage rolls.
I don't know if your heart would thank you though
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Whatever you do, don't set up an IV drip of duck fat. It's hard to keep it liquid since the tubing tends to cool it down and it clogs in the pipes.
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Apart from trichinosis in pork and salmonella in chicken, there are very few bugs that can live on the inside of fresh muscle tissue. Generally, bugs are confined to the surface of the meat. If you make the conditions on the outside hostile enough, you kill all of the bugs.
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what is curing and why do it?
ive been searching google about curing and know that curing is to preserve meat, but, "i just dont get it".
you want to keep the meat at a certain temp to facilitate the growth of harmful bacteria..and then after a certain amount of time, its ok to eat?
Well, originally curing was done to preserve meat over the winter months but now, we just mainly do it because it tastes good. Curing removes a large part of the moisture and adds in compounds like sodium nitrate which make it a hostile place for bacteria to live. This keeps the meat safe to eat for a longer amount of time.
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That looks gorgeous. How did it taste?
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We have an electronic pressure cooker and it works very well. It looks like a rice cooker on steroids and it can keep a constant pressure without needing to vent. I don't know if you can get them in the US, we got ours from China.
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Trying not to get too technical, here's a brief discussion of freezing point depression. If you dissolve stuff in a substance, the freezing point of a substance is lowered. The amount the freezing point is lowered depends ONLY on the concentration of PARTICLES of added stuff. Salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) completely ionizes in water to form Na+ cation and Cl- anion. Thus, one unit of NaCl will dissolve in water to make two particles. Sugar, on the other hand, dissolves without dissociating, so one sugar dissolves in water to make one particle. Thus, if you had two aqueous solutions, one of NaCl in some concentration and the other with an equal concentration of sugar, the solution of NaCl would have a lower freezing point than the solution of sugar: even though the concentrations of NaCl and sugar are the same, the solution of NaCl has TWICE as many particles as the solution of sugar. Acetic acid is a weak acid, so some of it will dissociate but some will not. Therefore, acetic acid won't lower the freezing point as much as a salt will, but the freezing point will be lowered. Alcohol won't dissociate when it dissolves in water either.
MelissaH
But sucrose has a molecular weight for 342 while salt has a molecular weight of 58.5 so shouldn't that mean a given weight of salt should be over 10 times more effective at lowering the freezing point than a given weight of sugar?
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Why would it be? As long as the outside is seared and the meat isn't rotten it should be perfectly safe.
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The restaurant is not trying to "make its money on the booze." More than 60 percent of restaurant sales is food, not alcohol; restaurateurs make their money from volume.
Huh? That doesn't make sense at all. When the margin on food is 5% and the margin on booze is 50%, then it's highly disingenuous to be talking about sales volumes. What matters is the percentage profit being brought in from each and most high end restaurants DO make significant amounts of their profit from the booze.
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I was just in Canberra and the Wig and Pen in the city makes the most amazing Porter. A nice strong cocoa taste with just a hint of tobacco in the aftertaste. mmm...
Man, if I'd known there were eG members passing through I would've shouted you a drink!
The Russian Imperial stout is also amazing -- the espresso of beers. I have had a couple of clunkers (whatever their light beer is, and some seasonal one with pumpkin, I think) but overall you can't go wrong, and the wedges are fantastic. Anyone else from out of town should make time to drop in.
Maybe next time
. The dining was pretty mediocre though. A friend recommended the Chairman Yip and it was a mess. I heard the waters edge/watermark are both pretty good but sadly, did not get a chance to go. -
Gyoza from this years Chinese New Year feast.
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I was just in Canberra and the Wig and Pen in the city makes the most amazing Porter. A nice strong cocoa taste with just a hint of tobacco in the aftertaste. mmm...
Tempering chocolate with warm water
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
I'm planning on making chocolate truffles in the near future so I've been reading a bit about chocolate tempering. Now, as far as I understand it, as long as chocolate is already in temper (like most chocolate that you can buy), keeping the chocolate liquid, but in temper is simply a matter of heating it to between 90F and 94F. Conventionally, this is either done by suspending over a pot of simmering water or by using a microwave.
But that always seemed rather illogical to me, if you want something to get to, and stay at 94F, then why would you use something hotter. Whats wrong with simply getting a large water bath, heating it to exactly 94F and then suspending the chocolate in the water until the chocolate comes into equilibrium with the water?
First of all, it allows you to keep the chocolate at a stable temperature for longer, the water has a huge amount of thermal inertia so it can keep within the 90-94 band. Secondly, you don't have the problem of steam condensation like with a bain, water at 94F is less than body temp and wont steam. Finally, as long as you have a good digital thermometer, keeping the water in range is very easy. Just have a large pot of boiling water on hand and just pour some in and stir if it starts dropping.
Is there some hidden flaw with this technique that I am missing? It seems eminently sensible for the home cook who cant afford marble slabs and $10,000 tempering machines.