Shalmanese

← There may be possibly some valid concerns with preventing GM food from entering your diet but this is ridiculous. HFCS doesn't contain any actual genes. Its a conversion from a starch to a sugar, neither of which actually contain any genetic material. The components of HFCS are just simple chemicals. Both Glucose and Fructose are just 6 carbon, 12 hydrogen and 6 oxygen atoms arranged in a ring shape. Regardless of whether the corn was GM or whether the bacteria were GM, you still end up with 6 carbon, 12 hydrogen and 6 oxygen in a ring shape.

I was surprised when visiting the US that labels are only required to contain per serving size information. In Australia, all labels are required by law to have both per serving size and per 100gm information which makes it quick an easy to figure out the percentage fat/sugar in foods. Off the top of my head, I can think of very few foods that I buy nowadays where I don't know basically pretty much exactly what is on the label. This is not especially hard when a lot of what I make is from scratch.

A friend of mine was wondering whether any chocolate bars contain MSG. A quick google indicates that this seems to not have occured but I was wondering exactly what would happen if you added MSG to chocolate. What would it taste like? Has anyone tried it?

What a coincidence, we just made some boiled ones last night. Two different fillings, Chinese pickled cabbage and Celery/Cabbage with homemade wrappers. I'm absentmindedly munching on some cold ones right now while surfing eG. Homemade wrappers make a world of difference for potstickers. Just make a simple dough from AP flour and water with the consistancy slightly stiffer than a pasta dough and knead well. Split into little balls about the size of a die and roll with a rolling pin into a circular pattern. I suppose you could run it through a pasta machine and then use a ravioli cutter as well if you have those in your house. It wouldn't be traditional but I'm betting it would still be good.

Meats and fish become "done" at various sub-boiling temperatures. For example, beef is medium rare at 65C and salmon is cooked at 40C. The theory of sous vide is that if you immerse food in a waterbath set at your desired temperature, the food will stay at that temperature for the duration of the cooking process. Sous vide foods are sealed in waterproof plastic bags with various flavouring ingredients and then cooked in either water or steam for prolonged periods of time. Food done sous vide tends to be more evenly cooked and usually more tender since there is more time for the connective tissue to break down (as in a braised dish) but is not well-done like braised meat.

The noodle joint I mentioned earlier in the thread is right next to Carlton Crest. Not with the little cluster of chinese places but on the right side of the road as you turn left from the hotel. Try it next time your in Sydney.

Due to a sudden change of plans, one of my3 hour leg of lambs became a 27 hour leg of lamb a while back. It held itself at 65C all through the night and most of the next morning. We go to the beach and come back and it's shot up to 85C . Meat was ruined. It was very tender though.

Leftover beef from beef stock makes a really great shepards pie but I'll have to try the ravioli sometime.

My solution to the vegtable problem is to do 2 seperate stock renderings. First I fill the pot as full as possible with chicken bones and simmer for 3 - 6 hours, strain and defat. Then, I put it back on the stove with the vegtables and let it go for another 30 - 40 minutes and strain again. The vegtables aren't over cooked so they can be reused in another soup, the stock tastes more green and fresh, I get a nice clean layer of chicken fat without any vegtable flavour to it and I get more stock to boot. Seeing as I like to reduce down my stock to ~1/2 it's original volume anyway to save freezer space, this doesn't take much more time than the conventional method and probably much less time on a per litre basis since I get ~ 25% more stock.

If I could only have one salad, it would be loaded with all the good stuff. Steak, Grilled Chicken Breast, Shrimp, Seared Tuna, Avocado, Cheese Shavings, Garlicky Croutons, Bacon, Pancetta, Heirloom Tomatos, Cherry Tomatos, More Bacon, Shallots, Red Onion, and a handful of Cos Lettuce. Probably with a thick, creamy dressing. Sure ascetism and a careful balance of minimal ingredients is nice once in a while. But not if it were my only option.

Contrary to popular opinion, risotto doesn't require *constant stirring*. Once every 5 minutes or so is enough in the early stages and 2 - 3 minutes near the end. When your risotto is about 2/3rds of the way there, start your steaks. Flip them once when your almost there and then take them off and rest them while you add the cheese and finishing touches to the risotto.

BTW: the bacon has 310mg of SODIUM so it has 750mg of SALT per serving or 7.5 grams of salt in a pound which brings the total to 12.5 grams. I've found as a general rule of thumb, the salt content of a dish should be around 1.5 - 2% by weight. Assuming you end up with 1 kg(2lb) of food in total, you need 15 - 20 grams of salt roughly so just a tad more than what you have.

Some ideas: Use pancetta rather than bacon, cook the pancetta first, take it out and use the rendered fat to cook the mushrooms. When serving, crumble the pancetta over the top. This way, you can get away with cutting the fat down and have an attractive presentation as well. Cut the mushrooms finer to get more surface area to brown. Use shallots rather than onions Add the white wine before the beef stock and let reduce by 1/2 before adding the stock. Add salt all through the cooking process rather than just at the end. Salt encourages mushrooms/onions to give off their water. Maybe squeeze just a touch of lemon juice over before serving.

I've cooked a 10 course meal thats taken 5 1/2 hours. Started at 6, finished at 11:30.

Does she have arborio rice? I love using risotto to mop up the spare little tidbits when the fridge is getting mighty bare.

Eh, its fine. I leave garlic oil with a few bulbs in out for weeks at a time with no ill effect. The oil protects it from any nasties and the cooked garlic kills all the botulism.

Eh, if it doesn't taste good then restaurant patrons should be able to detect it and avoid restaurants that use it and it'll die it's natural death. If it does taste good, then I don't see why it can't be a legitimate tool in the kitchen. I don't see much difference between this and me slipping in some tomato paste into my pasta sauces because the canned tomatos I'm using are weak and anemic. Or what about throwing in a cube of demiglace into a batch of onion confit to boost the flavour?

Huh, how odd that nobody seems to have heard about this before? I would totally buy some of those aromas and play around with them if they're good enough for restaurant use. David Burke released some aroma sprays a while back but all indications were that they tasted horrible.

I tried that at first, it didn't work. For whatever reason, the cut I had was far too stiff to wrap around anything.

Although I hesistate to come after mizduckys inspired attempt, I just finished clearing my digital camera and came across: It was salmon marinated in a mixture of teriyaki and sweet chilli sauce and then seared. It tasted good but oh my, it looks bad.

And strawberries. I remember you weren't too impressed with Australian strawberries. ← Oh, that was just the start of the list. If you want me to go on, then well... berries, smoked products, flour, herbs, clams, cheap cast iron... Thats whats off the top of my head. I'm not saying these are impossible to get, it's just inconvenient and overpriced for the above-average shopper from common sources.

I would hope so, otherwise who would do the tour? ← Well, the 12 course would have more food per plate but less plates, the tour would have more plates with less on them. So if you wanted to taste a greater range of the chefs ability, you would do the tour.

Oh right, I assumed that if you were considering building a PID, you had a bit more electronics knowledge. in order for the alarm to beep, obviously some electricity has to be going into it right? So what you do is you find the speaker or whatever is producing the sound, and then you find the wires leading to that. If you had a multimeter, I guess you should find out what voltage and current it's sending out. Actually, thinking further, it's probably sending a pulsed signal to the speaker which may or may not be a problem. Does the alarm shut itself off after a few minutes of beeping? If so, then it wont be usable. Anyway, regardless of the voltage you can buy a simple electric component with 4 connections that basically says IF the voltage on C0 is LOW, then connect C1 with C3, IF the voltage on C0 is HIGH, then connect C2 with C3. So what you do is you patch the alarm signal into C0, then connect the mains power directly to C1, connect the dimmer switch modulated mains power to C2 and connect C3 to the crockpot. If the alarm is not beeping, it acts like a normal crockpot, if the alarm is beeping, it goes through the dimmer switch. Unfortunately, I learnt all my electronics via osmosis and not by actual experience so I don't know what the thing is precisely called or how to find one but I'm sure someone else can chime in.

Interesting, does he list how ordinary home cooks can get the same supplies he does? If theres one thing Australia is lacking in, it's good mushrooms.

I've never heard of kangaroo shoulder being cooked, only loin. From everything I've heard, other parts of the kangaroo are too tough and lacking in fat to be worthwhile culinarily.