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saltedgreens

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Posts posted by saltedgreens

  1. I'm talking about picking not in the gardening sense but in the sense of getting the little usable herb part of the thyme separated from the woody stalk part. This task takes me forever. Somebody must have come up with a trick to exfoliate the thyme with little effort. Tell.

    I usually try to hire someone :hmmm:

    however, for stocks, sauces and such, where the presence of the leaf is not important, I either

    a) use the whole sprigs and strain out/remove with tongs, or

    b ) put several sprigs into a teabag, then remove after cooking.

    or, freeze. The leaves will fall off in due time.

    A very practical and wise method indeed.

  2. For more complex events at home I work in batches. I create my mise en place. I get everything cut and prepped. Then I clean down the kitchen and begin the execution of my plan. Then I clean again.

    Like the others, I do not let garbage sit around. I wipe my knives constantly. I use the kids bowls to store all of my mise. I have towels for countertops. I just don't like being messy.

    I'm not always the best at being clean, but I do try.

  3. For my Mac, I've used both MacGourmet and YummySoup. I started with MacGourmet and then tried YummySoup. The one I've stuck with is YummySoup. Their recipe importer is far easier. So if you get a lot of your recipes from Epicurious or FoodTV it does it nearly automatically. If it is a web site that YummySoup doesn't specifically support, it is still more straightforward than with MacGourmet. And as far as adding a recipe from scratch, it's a toss-up. The biggest problem is that it does have a very good Import function, but not an Export to other formats.

    The other thing is that YummySoup doesn't have an iPhone app yet (in the works apparently) and MacGourmet does. So if that's important to you it's something to consider.

    You can download I'm sure both for a trial period and see which you like best. Here's the link for YummySoup: http://hungryseacow.com/

    And here is MacGourmet: http://macgourmet.com/

    It's a real help to use something! For example, I have a Group set up for Thanksgiving that pulls together all the recipes I use. Very simple. And it makes it super simple to email recipes to others.

    I like the above reviews.

    MacGourmet is good. Great for the home. Many features.

    If you want flexibility in layout/design Filemaker is also good. Not many features beyond that.

    I have finally settled with iWork pages for layout/sharing and DEVONthink for search/classification. I don't want features besides a good layout, search, and share features under my design and control.

    Hope this helps.

  4. This is the reason why I keep coming back to eGullet. Pressure cooking stocks. I've so been contemplating goodness of this also. Thanks for the collaborative thought.

    Any leads on a good pressure cooker?

  5. Duck fat

    Rendered bacon and fat

    Garlic and ginger

    Onion

    Short grain rice

    Scallion

    Sesame oil

    Soy sauce

    Brown sugar

    The above is just a single version of many...

    It's been great reading all of your posts.

  6. I don't necessarily go by 4-5" lengths. I usually evaluate every stalk. Some have wide, flared bottoms and narrow tops. I portion accordingly.

    Also, I square it off so that no dice is larger than my intended size. The smaller and less attractive cuts get hidden in the mass of better looking cuts.

  7. I know this will seem unnessary, but we've been having a minor debate in my workplace about soaking wood chips for use in smokers.

    Our thoughts:

    Cold water takes longer to penetrate to the center while hot water is faster? This is difficult to test due to varying wood densities. Also, would hot penetrate faster on the outside while cold would prevent expansion and penetrate better towards the interior or what?

    Hot water leaches "smoke flavors" from the wood like tea thus rendering hot water a flavor killer?

    What temperature water do you soak your chips in and why?

    I use cold water but some cooks have been challenging my reasoning. I tend to fall back on the idea that it works and that it conserves energy.

  8. I like the question. Yet, consider all items and not meats alone.

    It seems that you are asking what the variables are regarding salt and aroma interellations? When are the variables insignificant?

    Below is a random aside about salt I found interesting:

    "In some unpublished work, we chose to thermally process (extrude) low and normal salt (NaCl) lots of a cooked cereal base. We then analyzed the volatile profile of the two extruded products by gas chromatography. We found that the low salt formulation contained substantially less volatiles (quantitatively) than the normal salt product. It appears that the salt levels used in extruded cereal products influenced the rate of the Maillard reaction. This observation is important in efforts to manufacture thermally processed low salt foods. It appears that taking the salt out of a food may influence both aroma and taste (saltiness)."

    -Flavor Chemistry and Technology, Gary Reineccius

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