Shalmanese

My understanding with caramel was that the only purpose of the water was to dissolve the sugar. Caremalisation doesn't actually start until all the water has evaporated. Your meant to stir the sugar at the beginning to get it all dissolved, it's only afterwards when all the water has disappeared that you should be careful shaking the pan as the sugar can spontaneously crystallise with agitation.

Definately wasabi, I don't know if it's a gaijin pissing contest to see who can stand the hottest taste or the kitchen trying to pass off bad fish but every time I've dined out, even using 1/10th of the wasabi provided leaves me tasting lumps of interestingly textured wasabi. Nowadays, I just poke my chopstick into the lump of wasabi and use whatever sticks to the chopstick. Are you talking about raw red onions in salads? I've never seen any other type served raw.

I think we've had a couple of threads before about things that otherwise talented cooks just. couldn't. get. right! But, in this thread, I want to discuss things that by all rights, should end up as a disaster but somehow, leave you with a dish so stunningly spectacular, all you can do is look at your hands and wonder "I made these?" For me, it's: Souffles, by most accounts, souffles are notorious for being almost impossible to make for an amateur. The first time I made it, I got a golden, beautiful souffle that was meltingly airy inside. Baked goods, I am not a cake person so I rarely ever eat cakes/muffins etc. and even more rarely make them. When I do, it's almost always a completely spontaneous, spur of the moment type thing where I make substitutions willy nilly depending on what I have in the pantry at the time. However, all my baked goods that have come out of the oven leave me completely floored as to how good they are. It's as if the batter could read my mind to find out what I thought the perfect cake should taste like and re-adjust it's makeup to please me. For the record, I am completely incompetant at: Fish, Pate a choux, pancakes and marinades.

Okay, not strictly dinner but I wanted to share anyway: My first ever chocolate cake.

BTW: Does anyone have tips on storing the cake? Currently I have it wrapped top and bottom in some clean greaseproof paper and then placed inside another baking pan with some plastic wrap on top and left on the counter overnight. Is there a better way to keep it fresh?

Here it is: I'm usually a very anti-cake person but this is something I would make an exception for. There wasn't as much chocolate oomph as I had hoped, probably because I used chocolate instead of cocoa. The chocolate taste was just on the edge, I would say almost a chocolate flavoured cake rather than a chocolate cake. If it had a few more main flavours to riff off each other, that would have been perfect. Perhaps some nuts or dried fruit. Oh well, next time. Anyway, this cake was impossibly moist and impossible soft, nice, big crumb that disintegrated in your mouth. The crust on top provided just the hint of texture to offset the softness. The perfect cake to have with a nice cold glass of milk. The baileys flavour was almost completely missing from the end product so I ended up sprinkling the rest of my baileys (about 3 shots worth) onto the top and letting it seep in. By tomorrow, it should be even more moist. The salt and baking soda upset didn't affect the flavour much. You could definately taste the salt if you looked for it but I think it was just on the boundary between being complex and being salty. Previously, I had been sceptical of salt in baking since I couldn't discern much difference but I can definately see with this one how it opens up the palate. Oddly enough, the cake almost had no rise at all, maybe my baking soda is too old. I would say that this was an astounding success given my inexperience and complete random diversions from the stated recipe. Thank you egullet!

Well, my first ever chocolate cake is in the oven. I doubt this will be much use to you as a) I deviated significantly from the recipe and b) I'm a very inexperienced baker, I've only made 2 baked goods in my entire life, blueberry muffins and a chocolate mousse. I took your base recipe as an inspiration but I unfortunately deviated significantly since this was a spur-of-the-moment type thing. I have some 70% Lindt chocoalate that was nearing it's expiration and I needed to make something with it. I'm not a big chocolate fan at all but I'm meeting a friend tomorrow who has done a lot for me lately so I thought this would be a nice gift. Everything else was cobbled together from stuff I had lying around. I also had a limited amount of butter so I cut the recipe by 1/3rd. Heres the recipe: Dry ingredients: 240gm AP flour 200gm White sugar 60gm Dark brown sugar (I thought the brown sugar would add a interesting depth to it) 1 tbsp baking soda (oh shite, I realised the original recipe was for 1 1/2 tsp :o) 1 tsp salt (same here :o) Wet ingredients: 120gm chocolate 70gm vegtable oil 120gm butter 100mL milk (not buttermilk because I didn't have any) 60mL Baileys (needed to be used up) 2 large eggs, seperated 2 tbsp vanilla 1 cup boiling water. Procedure: melt choc and oil over a bain. Let cool to body temp. Cream egg yolks and sugar and add to choc mix. Cream butter with sugar and add to mix. heat milk and baileys to body temp and add to mix. whip egg whites to medium peaks, fold into mix in 3rds. sift remaning sugar with flour, baking soda and salt, fold into mix. Add cup of boiling water, mix, spoon out into greased, lined baking pan. Bake at 150C (300F). Pics will be up in T minus 45 minutes or thereabouts.

IM very humble O, japanese plating demands more geometric precision than your typical plate. If I were you, I would have paid very careful attention while cutting to make sure that the pieces stuck together while cutting so you could deposit an entire filet onto the plate at once. Also, I don't know if you've experimented with this but I like the little dome of rice you get from inverting a rice bowl onto a plate.

I wager it's so expensive in HK because Vanilla isn't used in asian cooking so the only people who would buy them are rich expats/locals who want to show off. It's funny, doing a google on Australian grown vanilla and I only get that plantation site. No press release from the farm, no govt news pamphlet. Usually, when trying to souce local ingredients (Australian truffles, Australian Wagyu, Australian cheeses etc.), I can get at least a few clues from google.

I know this goes against almost every culinry rule, but about 6 months ago, I whirred some basil, parsely and garlic in a blender with some EVOO, S & P and put it in a little jar in my fridge. Last night I was making roast chicken and finally found the jar and I swear, there was no degradation in flavour or colour.

Possibly related to how it feels in your mouth? MSG gives the sensation of something coating the mouth.

I've never noticed any particularly unpleasant smell.

I ALWAYS add MSG and Gelatin to my stocks and it really makes a world of difference. I don't bother much with this "all natural" stuff, Sure, I could boil veals feet and parmesan rinds in my stock, but the artificial versions work almost as well for far less effort. I find that with MSG in stock, it manages to work itself into nearly every dish that calls for it. The exceptions are generally sauced with soy anyway. The key is subtlety, a very small amount goes a long way. Usually, I use about a heaped teaspoon for every 20L or so of stock.

The main advantage of rendering your own is you get lovely cracklings afterwards. I always done it on the stovetop but I hear that you can put it in a low oven with 1 inch of water and it will render without intervention after a few hours.

If you know where to look, you CAN get copies of it off the internet. The Economisthad a very insightful article on it this week. I think it's free for non-subscribers but heres the main gist of it:

I'm relieved to see that you haven't been taken into a recent trend of placing very tiny blobs of sauce or powder on the plate in such a fashion that it's impossible to eat. Sure, thin lines of powder and sauce LOOK pretty, but that sauce was expensive and I want to taste all of it dammit. The big problem I have when plating at home is that often, my portions are significantly bigger than restaurant portions since I serve fewer courses but my plates are probably slightly smaller. This makes it hard to plate without having the plate feel eqtremely busy or crowded. Any suggestions?

Since confit doesn't reduce nearly as much as stock, I lightly salt at the beginning. I find that the salt seems to be more evenly integrated this way.

The reason you shouldn't refreeze meats is because the cells get damaged every time you freeze. Since stock has no structure to damage, you can freeze it as many times as you like.

I imagine the reason is the unlike flour, the precise quantity of nuts is usually not that important. A +-20% varience either way is not going to significantly affect your dish.

Apart from the weight/volume issue, wouldn't pickling salt be better than table salt since it has a finer grain?

I imagine the rather obvious reason why roast chickens are not a part of the standard french technique is simply because french restaurants don't have an easy source of roast chicken carcasses, at least ones that haven't been knawed on by customers.

Chinese who prefers to cook French. I love the refinement and subtle layering of flavours only achieved over multiple days and multiple steps. I still can't "get" italian. I'm less enamoured by "perfect" ingredients that good technique. Indian is something I would love to get but I haven't had time to study in depth. The role of spice as the centerpoint of cuisine is interesting.

You want to repressurise the pan, not depressurize it. Insert something small and sharp into a crevasse of the lid and pry it a bit to get an airhole. It's sort of the same principle as getting a plug out of a full bath.

Slightly OT: but what about clarified butter, butter for cooking or any other purpose where it has been subjected to considerable amounts of heat? I would assume that the flavour is really in the milk solids and it should taste identical.

I would put the distinction at whether any liquid is expressed. With liquid in your pan, the highest temperature you can get up to is maybe 120 - 130C which means that no browning will occur. With a saute, your heat is high enough such that any liquid expressed turns to steam and the temperature can remain much higher. Anybody who claims you can't sweat meat hasn't cooked in a thin pan over a wimpy burner :P.