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lexy

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Posts posted by lexy

  1. Maybe escabeche de zanahoria y jalapenos -- those pickled carrots with peppers and onions that the Mexicans love.

    A homemade pickle would be nice - especially if you can get ahold of some nice young spring vegetables. Or an olive/herb/marinated vegetable mix.

    What about soup, maybe served in a cup if people are going to be mingling?

  2. unfortunately, i think pistachio is one of those flavors that really doesn't come out very clearly in pastry.

    Pretty much exactly what I was going to say - even eaten on their own, pistachios aren't terribly strongly flavoured. Maybe you could break the idea down into a pistachio component and a saffron component served together (say, saffron cake and pistachio ice cream), so that the pistachio can stand on its own a little more.

  3. I don't believe I've seen anything like it here, but then again, I haven't exactly been looking.  Any Canadians know which section of the grocery store I might find this in? :blink:  I did however manage to find something resembling sugar chips.  I got something called Amber Sugar Crystals.  Will that do?

    I've definitely seen some in Toronto, in a store in Kensington Market, I seem to remember. If you have a big-ish Loblaws (or similar) near you, there's some chance they might carry it, but you might have to hunt since for it since I find that Loblaws sometimes puts things in unexpected aisles (I'd start with the baking aisle and then the preserves aisle). Otherwise, you might try a health food store, or a gourmet food shop (probably pricey though).

    If you're really keen, preserved ginger is actually quite easy to make. I'm sure I saw a recipe posted on eGullet some time ago, but in essence:

    • make a simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water)

    • slice ginger root into thin (around 1/4 cm) disks

    • steam or boil the disks until just tender

    • drain, and cook in the syrup until they're soft and they've lost their harshness

    Then you can either pour the syrup along with the disks into a jar and refrigerate, or you can drain the disks and roll them in granulated sugar to make the more candy-like version.

  4. What is syrup from the ginger jar?

    You can buy two kinds of preserved ginger. One is more candy-like, has a coat of sugar crystals, and looks like this. The other is similar but rather than being 'dry', the chunks of candied ginger float in the simple syrup used to preserve them. So for the recipe, buy the kind that comes in syrup and save some of the syrup.

  5. The good thing with it is that even though it looks very advanced, the recipe is very well divided into subtasks, and each of these subtasks are quite easy to do

    I haven't made anything out of Chocolate Desserts, but I did have a look through one of his french cookbooks (sorry, can't remember which), and made a pie crust from it (very nice - quite easily the best I've ever made). Anyway, the same thing struck me - the desserts are often multi-layered and elaborate, but a lot of the complexity is in assembly. The components are often quite manageable for the home baker, and many can be made in advance. Somehow I found the recipes more admirable because of this - Herme struck me as an organised, efficient, and logical baker.

  6. And I guess I'm going to have to go making nanaimo! Never heard of it, but that is a tempting recipe all right! I haven't seen graham crackers around this part of Ireland, but will have to try to lay my hands on some. If not, is there a substitute I can use?

    Regular digestive biscuits would make a fantastic substitute, or those digestive-like Hovis crackers. You want something that's a little buttery (not dry like crackers) - maybe even stale cake crumbs in a pinch. It's a base very similar to the base for american-style cheesecake.

  7. In the bigger picture (and I'll probably start a new topic on this) is that to be a bartender doesn't require an special training. Most people just walk off the street and start pouring beer, learning as they go.

    Very true. Around here a lot of the bars (especially college bars) are manned by students. Most of them are friendly and fairly keen on their jobs, but there's no way you're going to find any interesting mixed drinks in most local places - people just don't know how to make them.

    In some cases it's perhaps not an unwillingness to make a drink as lack of knowledge. A friend of mine took a bartending course, and she said they had to memorize something like 80 or 90 drinks - something someone who just walks into the job is unlikely to pick up.

  8. This topic reminds me of something I'd been wondering about.

    I remember reading that salmonella (from eggs) was to do with the contamination of the outside of the shell, not with the contents. So if one were careful about washing eggs before using them, would that more or less cancel out any risk of salmonella poisoning? (Not that I plan to start washing all my eggs - I cheerfully lick beaters, eat bits of cookies dough, and enjoy un-cooked mousses)

  9. I'm very unimpressed with Air Canada's transatlantic meals - especially their vegetarian options (cold, stale roll with margarine and cold 'roasted' peppers is a meal?) :angry:

    I like to pack a lot of little things, but I generally only eat in airports, not in the plane (I have a tendency to get motion sickness :wacko::sad: ). On the flight itself, water only, and maybe a few melba toasts. Favourites for waiting lounge snacking (dependent on my stomach of course): olives, nuts, crunchy raw veggies, cherry tomatoes, a nice cheese, apple, dried fruits, a nice roll, and copius amounts of tea.

    Another complaint about Air Canada: just about the only food of their's I liked were the packets of salted nuts (can't really mess those up), but they've replaced them with horrid soy (or sesame?) snacks. ugh.

  10. I've never put saffron into Kulich, or any other pastry come to think of it.  Any recommendation on how much I would need to add for one loafs worth? 

    I sometimes put saffron in my raisin bread. For one normal-sized loaf, a pinch of saffron (1/8-1/4 tsp) does the job. Remember that you need to let the saffron steep in a bit of hot liquid first, and then add the liquid and the saffron to the dough.

  11. Here in Portugal the most common cakes during Easter are the FOLAR (please don't read it as if it was a spanish word...), which is a sort of sweet bread, with a little taste of aromatic herbs, which is baked with one boiled egg (or more, depends on the size) as if it was a nest.

    How does one eat this? Do you remove the egg before eating the pastry, or do you cut right in and then pick out bits of eggshell?

  12. I was recently in Amsterdam and stopped in at the Haagen-Dazs located in the shopping mall on Kalverstraat. They had one particularly interesting flavor which I had not seen before in the US, and so I was forced to try just one scoop in a cup. The exact name escapes me, but it was something like "Banatoffini" or thereabouts. And to think they say smoking marijuana causes memory loss! Bah! However, I do remember clearly it was banana ice cream with a macadamia nut and toffee swirl. That ice cream flavor was really, really, really delicious!!!

    That sounds like it was probably Banoffee (banana + toffee)

  13. when I saw this I thought to myself "Wow! what a great idea, why haven't they done this before?!" Then I came home and looked on the net and it seems it has been done (outside of Japan) quite a bit, and it seems to be especially popular in Cananda.

    my first thought was, 'Yes! Canada beats Japan to the punch for bizarre foods for once!' :raz:

    what did you think of them? I don't really like Canadian ketchup chips - I find them weirdly sweet

  14. The 'glass of water per unit of alcohol' is key: I may still get drunk, but I've yet to get a hangover if I follow this guideline. Of course the downside is that you spend the whole night running to the toilet because of all the liquid you're drinking :biggrin: It helps to put a big glass of water on your nightstand if you're planning to go out and get lashed.

    I also find a run in the morning to be very helpful. Yes, the first ten minutes you just want to die, but if I'm shipshape enough to run (ie not too queasy), I feel more or less back to normal once I've finished a run.

    And finally: avoid boxed red wine and cheap sherry at all costs.

  15. I decided to do a little baking in order to celebrate Oxford's victory in the boat race today :smile: (not that I really need an excuse to bake …)

    I pulled out my mum's recipe for gingerbread cake, but I probably should have checked the cupboards before I started, instead of just assuming I had what I needed … this became the gingerbread-cake-of-many-substitutions.

    First I didn't have enough golden syrup (even though I opened a new jar for this cake, it still wasn't enough!), so I made up the difference with some molasses. Then I realised I was nearly out of all-purpose flour, so I subbed in cake flour. Then I found out I only had about half the powdered ginger required, so I threw in some fresh grated ginger as well. Phew! Oh well, all's well that ends well.

    gallery_22182_2693_109120.jpg

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