MaxH

Presumably you'd start with the official national cookbooks from the period that celebrated Chinese culture, prior to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. There are multiple many-volume versions, all titled Famous Dishes of China when I last heard. Don't know if they've been translated completely into European languages, however some were, in the 1970s, in a small book mentioned several times in this thread, Kenneth Lo's popular paperback Chinese Regional Cooking, one or two hundred recipes IIRC. Recipes from Famous Dishes, translated by an expatriate mainland Chinese (with personal observations added). Some have titles like Braised Noodles of People's Public Dining Room #22, and they reflect what I saw of Chinese practice when I first went there nearly 30 years ago -- inexpensive ingredients, sparing use of animal protein, skillful use of natural flavor enhancers ("umami") -- not to mention Lo's tirade in the introduction about MSG, aka "flavor powder:" Other books in this thread are also recipes from China, including Yan-Kit; and the unusual Mrs. Chiang: oral recipes and recollections recorded and translated by Chinese-studies scholars who brought her with them to the US. I know her Sichuan book, something of a standard in the US, it helped spread that cuisine, now taken for granted in US, and it was so popular that used copies are steadily cheaply available. If Chiang is less well known in US today than in past years, it shows the result of newcomers depending too much on just-published or "in-print" titles. The far larger pool of books not currently "in print," but easily available (used), includes many more with timeless value, which may have been widely known when new, but before the memory of someone new to the cuisines.

What?! I haven't seen her newer titles (which include new ed. of her famous US books Classic... and More Classic ... combined -- books that popularized northen Italian cooking in US as Julia Child did for Guide-Culinaire French repertoire*). But part of the fun of her classics was the spirit and wit, as in that quip above. I suppose next I'll learn that the priceless iconic scene from Rouff's Passionate Epicure, where an ostentatious food snob learns a valuable lesson, is no longer quoted in her section on Bollito Misto ? Say it ain't so. First a side point. Preserved "summer truffles" (in jars or cans) often come with some juice of the stronger, traditional black truffles to add flavor, or they might even have one of the synthetic truffle flavors that "truffle oil" uses (separate threads on eG and elsewhere after Daniel Patterson's 2007 NYT exposé) which would appear on US labeling as "flavoring." Historically, much of the US truffle use (and all out-of-season use everywhere, which means most of the year) was in preserved form, which means they were pressure-cooked and lost some flavor as canned foods do. But good classic black truffles gathered in peak season (early Winter) are so fragrant and powerful, even a little slice of canned truffle -- an amount widely affordable -- could enliven a meat dish, omelette, etc.Now on your main and great question, the central question on this whole subject today, IMHO. Think of a continuum from mild mushrooms to the best fresh classic truffles. In the middle are some aromatic above-ground wild mushrooms that begin to show hints of the sharp, indescribable truffly scents (more widely familiar today than earlier, thanks to "truffle oil"). All of these vegetables are used exquisitely in similar ways: garnishing delicate meats, cooked into omelettes or scrambled eggs, with pasta, etc. I've done some of this with the milder truffle species and they were not bad (and you can always tart them up a little with "truffle oil" in moderation). So I'd try Marcella's pasta with ground black truffle and (good!) olive oil if that's appealing. No substitute for trial and error! As Julia Child once wrote, "Now you are really cooking." If you want to try more things, preserved summer trufs are not hard to find or expensive in the US today, at specialty food shops and even good supermarkets (the kind that have dried porcini in the aisles). A favorite use I have for any trufs or wild mushrooms is an aromatic pasta casserole using piece pasta layered with sautéed ordinary fresh mushrooms, the truffles, shredded Gruyère cheese and Madeira sauce, the truffles previously heated through either in the sauté pan or in the hot sauce. More including origins, from 2004, Here -- note that the original foie gras is not needed for a good dish. Another fine way to show any flavorful shrooms is to slice, cook down in mixed Sherry and Madeira until almost dry, add a little heavy cream to make a thick binding sauce, salt to taste and serve on triangles of toast. * Aside: If they make a movie out of a US home cook trying 500 of the Guide Culinaire recipes as adapted by Julia Child, what would they do if someone actually cooked 5012 recipes in the original text? ("Adam and Eve sold themselves for an apple. What would they have done for a truffled fowl?" -- J.-A. de Brillat-Savarin)

Important truffle background for anyone be aware of, unless you've been dealing with truffles for a long time (at least 10-15 years) in which case you know this already: Until a few years ago, the "truffle" of cooking literature and fame was normally Tuber melanosporum if black (from the Périgord and elsewhere) or T. magnatum [pico] if white (from Piedmont in Italy and elsewhere). These are the famous rare, expensive fungi, extremely aromatic and flavorful if good. Secondary or minor species have always existed in much larger quantity, and many are good to cook with, but they are not the famous ones and not equivalent in cooking. That's the key point: A recipe published before, say, 1995 (and many after) will normally assume the potent species I just mentioned. I have a few hundred examples going back to the 1800s which includes Marcella Hazan's "Spaghetti alla Nursina" in the US title More Classic Italian Cooking (Knopf, 1982, p. 140), opening unforgettably: This dish should be reserved just for lovers. Some pleasures are too keen to be shared with a crowd. And in this case, too expensive. Hazan mentions black truffles available only in winter months, i.e., T. melanosporum. Some years after that was written, amid rising prices for the famous black and white truffles, firms knowing the difference began shrewdly marketing minor species to US consumers who didn't. In some cases this meant outright fraud (labeling something "black truffle" that isn't T. melanosporum), otherwise just similar-looking names (the "summer" truffle, T. aestivum, which looks similar outside but different, paler and more translucent, inside, and is typically 20-40 times cheaper, and in my experience less flavorful and aromatic by similar factor.) Other minor species, including from China and the US, also are sold. Minor species are fine at minor prices, and if you keep in mind clearly that you are not using the fungi that all the fuss was about, and if you experiment a little to get the best flavor from these milder but still interesting mushrooms. Over the years I've posted tutorials about truffle history, species, and cultivation. Couldn't locate on eG, but a 2005 example from another site is Here.

Thanks Conal. Since you're interested, I'll elaborate: the US has five or six formal categories of "cream," each with a range of butterfat content (I recall that within the H&H definition, 10.5% actually is at or near the lower end). "A light cream" is a generic rather than regional label, fairly self-explanatory I hope to people unaccustomed to "half and half." ("Light cream" itself has formal definitions, varying by country). In particular, several years ago on a different and much older food-discussion forum (rec.food.cooking), English speakers outside US (I think Australia or UK or India or all three) questioned the idiom "half-and-half," which may have caused the phrase's addition to a FAQ file of such regional terms in recipes (another famous example is US "Graham crackers," resembling but less fatty than the Commonwealth's "digestive biscuits," for instance). UK's formal definitions include "half cream" which sounds similar to US "half-and-half" but IIRC has a different, higher, butterfat content. US "non-dairy creamer" historically was built on powdered hydrogenated vegetable oil sweetened with things like corn-syrup solids. Coffee-Mate ® was a dominant brand. That may have changed lately with the denigration of artificially hardened fats and their trans-fatty acid content, but many people will still associate "non-dairy creamer" with fat content, inconsistent with "nonfat" half-and-half. I'm sure we can all agree that the point of creams is butterfat, as the point of vodka is alcohol, so a "nonfat" cream of any kind is a close cousin of "alcohol-free" vodka. I hope some enterprising psychologist has studied the mental processes that happily accept such contradictions in terms. (Years ago, more darkly, Orwell described a fictional[ized] totalitarian state with agencies like the Ministry of Truth, "which dealt with lies." Regrettably only partly fictionalized, because some people at that time faced realities not too different. Example: The "We live more joyfully!" propaganda theme, USSR 1938, which saw widespread public acclaim and approval. Since those who spoke up against it disappeared, support prevailed. Today in the US and other places, such contradictory euphemisms seem to be alive and well in commerce.)

The context is cooking in kitchens, full of hazards for foot injuries. Unless you're prepared to expand the offer to things like boiling sauces, or knives and forks falling from table height, I think the point is moot and not worth belaboring. (I've always worn closed shoes when working with LN2, btw, in labs with safety standards. Flip-flops would not be allowed or sensible, for the same reasons as kitchens.)

Mikels is right. LN2 is used all over as a source of cold. (I've used it in various kinds of laboratories for many years.) It's fairly benign stuff if you follow the simple precautions, which are second-nature for people who work with it. Note that anything that builds pressure can cause an explosion if you put it in a closed container (I've seen it happen with "dry ice" -- LN2's solid cousin -- and even beer). Actually there are even other, rare dangers with LN2 because some solid objects, if they freeze in it, form internal stresses (rather like Prince Rupert's tears, or Bologna bottles -- both made from molten glass suddenly chilled). In LN2, pink rubber erasers, for use with pencils, become like little ceramic bricks, but when taken out and left to warm up, they can fly apart from the internal tension. A favorite prank of graduate students. (Or so I hear.) I've been wondering if the same thing will happen from someone freezing solid food in LN2, who doesn't know about that effect.

Vision, I've previously posted (here and elsewhere) upshots of more precise, authoritative sources such as the US FDA: Certain strains of C. botulinum ... can grow and produce toxin at temperatures as low as 3.3°C ... Other strains of C. botulinum (type A and proteolytic types B and F) can grow and produce toxin at temperatures slightly above 10°. 3.3° C is just under 38° F, the traditional, nominal US refrigerator temperature, but not all refrigerators run (or run consistently) at that temp. Advisories related to that above characterize "refrigerator temperatures" as 0°-8° C (32°-46.4° F). Refrigeration provides no assurance of safety. I urge people to be more careful about defending practices that happen to be familiar. (Another example surfaced in the parallel thread.) Compare the consequences of being a little too careful vs. a little too careless. When I learned about botulism (around the time of the Bon-Vivant soup scandal, which ruined that firm), mortality rate was one-third. It has gone down a little but it's still grave. Also Vision, I'm sure you (or your source) meant to write for a low-acid environment "above 4.6." The lower that number, the higher the acidity. (pH is a log scale of ion concentration, neutral water is pH 7. Long ago I measured fresh lemon juice at about 2.0, which approaches some concentrated mineral acids, by the way.)

dougal's point on refrigerated storage time accords with what I saw when researching official advisories on the subject of anaerobic (e.g., in oil) storage of foods not processed to prevent anaerobic bacteria. A "Few days" time frame is recurrent in the advisories. Even if activated, C. bot bacteria take time to grow and develop toxin. And not every bit of food comes with the spores on it, or we might see shocking headlines about people following suggestions like those below, posted on another popular food site. As dougal said, it's a small risk of a deadly serious consequence. i always have some garlic confit on hand ... and think it is fabulous! I use a slow cooker to make it about once every two months Another posting offered a simple recipe for making confit from frozen ducks: season for a day, and slow cook in oil for 12 hours. Nothing there (or in the surrounding thread) about type of seasoning, or its relation to anaerobic hazards. The writer characterized the recipe as "dead easy." I posted a little more background on eG's sous-vide thread. Very recently, US Food and Drug Administration completely revised its Web site (voiding many useful links). A relevant resource is its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), formerly http://www.cfsan.fda.gov -- that link at least still does something, it forwards to a new general food page http://www.fda.gov/Food/default.htm . Every few years, CFSAN has released the comprehensive US "Food Code" (in pdf format) aimed mainly at businesses, with information on practical situations where food poisoning is an issue. Here is a new index of food guidance documents. FDA corresponds to the Health Ministry in many coutries. International bodies such as WHO also have guidance documents about botulism prevention; Google finds them. In a parallel thread here about a questionable New York Times recipe, which I linked a few postings ago, is more on modern confits, the unpublicized risks they raise, and the skepticism that sometimes greets raising this issue.

I think that the question I asked above is answered in the current review of Vefa's Kitchen on Gastronomer's Bookshelf, which displays OK at the time I write this, and was interesting reading. It includes the statement Vefa’s Kitchen is probably the best large volume Greek cookbook since Nikos Tselementes’ Greek cookbook was released in 1910 (known as the Greek cooking bible). While Vefa’s Kitchen cannot replace the Tselementes, it should still be in the posession of any serious Greek cook. I'll add, in several years of working with some Greek émigrés in US, few things would bury their habitual political arguments better than recalling traditional dishes they grew up with, which their mothers made in a certain way, unequalled by anyone since. This nostalgia could interest anyone in Greek cooking. (Someday I'll post about Operation Orzo, one of the results.)

Just got the copy this week... ← C. Ruark, thanks for the comments. This new book, and its comparison to Silver Spoon from Italy, indirectly prompts a related question about Greek cookbooks. In the 2005 thread here about it, Silver Spoon got serious criticism, including from the likes of Mimi Sheraton and Russ Parsons (widely respected veteran food writers, for those of you outside US), for compromises, mediocrity, attempts to be international, etc. etc. It was contrasted with Ada Boni's Talisman, the classic Italian work with something of an iconic national-cookbook status (as Escoffier, Molokhovets, Duch, Mrs Beeton, etc. have in their respective cultures). What these books all share is that they're not recent, just important. They may or may not be "in print" in a current reprint at any moment, but they're always available used, and sometimes in translations. It leads me to ask anyone reading this, who is very knowledgeable about Greek cooking, if a recognized classic cookbook from Greece exists, as they do in several other countries? It need not be "in print" (to be accessible). (Most of the outstanding cookbooks I've bought over the years were neither new nor "in print.") Silver Spoon thread

FYI, background -- degrees Baumé was common for chemicals and industrial products, including in North America, I've seen it on older bottles. Brix is associated more narrowly with things like fruit juices, and gets a lot of US mention among people making wine or growing fruit. (Optical test for Brix is approximate, uses relation of refr. index to specific gravity for sugar solutions, not always an accurate model for fruit juice.) Wiki link below for what it's worth. Certain good older beverages books had handy charts in the back for converting among these and other, even more arcane measures. Wikipedia on Baumé I wish they'd just give weight recipes: self-explanatory and unambiguous. (Weight is the true measure of materials. Volume may or may not be well correlated -- like optical behavior of fruit juices.)

There's actually a market for limited-production spirits in small sample bottles, like 50ml. They are like the US single-serving bottles of mass-market liquors, sold at some retailers and used on airlines, but what I refer to are rarer, artisanal spirits. The place I saw them regularly was the small luxury-food retailers, especially Caviar House, in Heathrow Airport's long-haul terminal (terminal 4) generally used for long international flights. These shops have sold a unique range of food delicacies in small packaging. (Smoked fish, ocean or freshwater: plain, with dill, with black pepper; foie gras, goose or duck, with or without truffles; all in refrigerated blister packs just like Oscar Meyer sliced bologna in US.) Along with teas, wines, fancy cookies, etc., there was a section with 20 or 30 small-production malt whiskys, and I think other specialty spirits, in tiny bottles. With the rise in absinthe interest in recent years, I would not be surprised to see some of them too. Of course this retail source is in Britain, again inconvenient from North America (but worth remembering if you happen to be there), but it demonstrates that even small labels are bottled that way. I'd guess the individual absinthe firms would respond to emailed or telephoned query regarding availability of their products in such packaging.

There was a medication in Canada a few years back called Colpramine - peppermint oil in a capsule... ← Not to belabor this side aspect of peppermint, but I find it interesting and informative, and learned about it from reading older scientific reference books. Other sweet spices like anise played similar roles. Remember that from ancient times until 40-50 years ago and the rise of synthetic medications, most of the practice of pharmacy was built on herbs. Oils of various familiar sweet spices had mild beneficial medical effects and were mainstays until displaced by later drugs that were more effective, had fewer side effects, or (as some of my worldly medical friends point out) were more profitable. I suspect that "after-dinner mints" may have had semi-medicinal origin: the peppermint was known to reduce gas and have other calming effects. Such oils are still components in the central-European digestive bitters (Underberg, Wonderlich, etc.) consumed medicinally after big meals as a digestive aid. There's even the memorable history, learned I think when I studied organic chemistry aeons ago, of a researcher who dissolved menthol in vegetable oil, swallowed it, and by noting the cooling sensation, mapped where his digestive tract had sensory nerves!

Couple points that may be useful here. I'm not a peppermint-extract expert but ordinary good commercial ones I've seen were alcoholic dilutions of the pure oil. I don's know if there's a standard strength. However, this may be moot because pure peppermint oil is easy to get, so you might instead offer ways to get it, as follows. First, pharmacies sometimes carry it (along with clove oil and other traditional herbal principles), not to mention restaurant and "foodservice" suppliers many of whom are delighted to sell to individuals by the way (because, unlike restaurants, people pay cash). In past years I've gotten both the pure oil and what's even stronger, pure menthol which is its main active component (but useless for flavoring because it's missing the full complexity of peppermint) at retail pharmacies in California. (Peppermint oil is listed as a mainstream medication in older chemical reference books, as well as a flavoring -- it's an old "carminative" and still used sometimes to calm digestive tracts.) But even those routes may be unnecessary: googling on "peppermint oil" yielded many firms offering it retail. So it's not hard to get, nor expensive.

Earlier: "It" above seems to refer to better stuff that you're finding occasionally dubbed "pepperoni." You very clearly argued against that. My point is, why does the problem arise in the first place? "Pepperoni" and "sopressata" have long-established understandings in the US. Where have you seen sopressata labeled pepperoni on a US pizza without that causing gross confusion? (I don't mean among salumi connoisseurs.) I posted there not about this article but about W. as a food-history source, whose pitfalls many people have noticed, as in the recent linked threads. Sorry if that was unclear. But were someone to read into that W. article more linkage between the terms sopressata and pepperoni than is usual in the US, it might encourage the confusion we're talking about.

How do you folks compare or contrast it to the corresponding sections of the Guide Culinaire?

Certainly. Kent's quality US source Creminelli also describes his own Sopressata (flavored with garlic "dissolved in" wine). But I hope we answered Kent's questions above about why not call quality pepperoni "salame or soppressata." To millions of folks in the US, those terms denote things very different from the pepperoni (cheap or artisanal) that I understand Kent to be referring to, and those meanings were established long before the fashion began (a few years ago) to talk about artisanal "salumi" on the Internet.

And even longer, popular eG contributor!

← Nota bene, I can imagine it's a descendant, but the language here may be confusing. Modern Italian salami products at premium delis in my region often include Sopressata, and there are different producers, the grain's coarse and the seasoning varies, but characteristic flavoring is wine. (That and Finocchiona, with fennel seed -- both thin-sliced -- are almost fixtures among post-tasting snacks the last 10-15 years in local blind wine-tasting groups I know -- along with other cold meats, cheeses, artisanal breads -- this is making me hungry.) But those products would be immediately recognized by most people in the US as "salamis," as are cheaper generic "salamis" -- commonly a US pizza topping too, but all very distinct from "pepperoni." Like Steve I think US "pepperoni" has its place, and not all satisfying foods need to be "artisanal." Related threads about food content on Wikipedia appear here and there. Being self-edited, W. is good at presenting its contributors' convictions, but their relation in turn to real food facts and (especially) histories varies.

I too suggest Escoffier's Guide Culinaire, it's the standard reference for classic French professional recipes. The Cracknell/Kaufman English translation has gone in and out of print, last few decades; even when out of print it's been readily available used. Much of the post-1900 writing about French recipes is traceable to this book. The 5012 recipes begin with basic stocks. Sauces start simple ("Foundation or Basic sauces -- Espagnole (brown sauce), Velouté, Béchamel, tomato") and proceed to a few hundred progressively more complex variations. Posted further comments on Amazon listing. Ranhofer's Epicurean (note spelling) is a US book, vast and idiosyncratic, subject of a separate thread here. Which cites a 1992 Evan Jones essay giving the story of the book's creation. The contrast in genesis of these two compendia is remarkable. I gather the GC's origin was at least partly defensive (against bogus or short-cut French recipes), while the Epicurean was a work of revenge (publishing the recipes of the then-dominant US restaurant family).

Fair enough. Keep in mind though that this thread was my introduction (as it may be also to other people) to "no-knead" dough, also generally "wet" in the descriptions.In making pizzas (and other baked goods) for about 40 years from various recipes I didn't run into a dough as wet as those described here. (The long cold rising I cited earlier yields a relatively "soft," moist dough -- always as moist as possible! -- but dry enough to be handled in a blob, tossed if desired, etc. Often I do the final shaping with olive-oiled hands -- no fat in the dough itself -- leading to the pleasant effect of a pizza surface lightly brushed with oil.) But for other recipes like dinner rolls, I've made dough in a bowl that, even after sitting, was never dry enough to handle. Never made a pizza with it, so far anyway ... Threads like this can generate deep cravings for fresh-cooked pizzas. (The photos don't hurt a bit.) Please start new ones periodically.

Thanks for the further comments, I understand now that it's not just about eliminating kneading per se. I referred only to points raised in this thread. E.g. current post numbers 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13 ("two sets of challenges" -- S. Shaw), 15 (Dutch oven for wet dough), 16 (your own "wet dough can be difficult to work with"), 20, 21. Handling of wet dough; special cooking methods (which launched the thread). Agreed that any time between wetting flour and cooking lets gluten develop (just as with noodle dough, or crêpe batter or semolina dumpling batter --customarily "rested" before final shaping and/or cooking, for that reason). Note though that my cookbooks and experience always made think that kneading -- and re-kneading, after rising -- does other things too, including spreading the leavening ultra-uniformly, leading to small consistent bubbles which as others mentioned, is less important (or desirable) in pizza than in bread.

Not entirely all. If you'll forgive an ignorant question (ignorant because I haven't tried it), other than evident novelty, why use "no-knead" dough? I ask because (1) fine pizzas can be made with relatively little kneading (compared to bread), (2) the kneading is a tiny part of the total dough-making time and (3) based on this thread, even if the no-knead method eliminates one issue, it adds others. (For many years I've just made a simple pizza dough, as described in Italian cookbooks for generations. I'd often slow-rise it in the refrigerator, in an oiled metal bowl, and make plenty of extra, freezing one-pizza portions, which works out fine -- they can stay frozen for weeks or months and then "revive." With the right amount of water, and the resting that rising implies, the dough is soft and elastic and easy to shape.)

Incidentally either egg OR meat alone will bind a cooked ball, for the same reason either can clarify a meat stock: They're both albuminous materials, they have proteins that harden on cooking. The egg of course more liquid, so it permeates. Bread etc. is not so much a binder as an extender or lightener. Meatballs without crumbs or grain are denser, tighter (and of course, more expensive). The more bread you add, the more you need further binder such as egg. Bread crumbs or flour plus egg, WITHOUT meat, = dumpling, in classic US sense. (Meatball's vegetarian cousin, a high art form around Austria, Bavaria, and Bohemia. Some dumpling types have meat too. They're all related.)

If by anyone you truly mean anyone , yes I know plenty of people that advocate frying, including some restaurants. ← Sure, but restaurants do that with everything -- finishing water-cooked vegetables in butter, and all that. (Or pancetta or bacon fat, if they're from Europe.) And for sheer flavor it might be best.* I wondered if home cooks with good experience roasting meatballs return much to frying; Chris cited a good reason I'd forgotten. Firing up an oven just for a small batch would give me pause (especially in summertime). * "digestive biscuits taste better than Graham crackers. This is almost certainly because of the extra fat, since we all know that calories are the fundamental medium of flavoring." -- Brian Reid in alt.gourmand, 12 Nov 87. http://tinyurl.com/225glq