Apicio

Actually, not the most expensive. I just saw a thread on guitar cutters and J B Prince carries one for $5,000.00. Now, how many pounds of chocolate do you have to sell to recover that cost?

In time it will roll off your work table and instead of cutting a straight line it would leave perforations that you have to separately cleanly with your metal ruler and pizza cutter. Before that happens, the time you saved repeating a procedure will all be eaten up with cleaning your special tool. I am playing the role of devil's advocate here.

It is a lot less here: http://pastrychef.com/Catalog/universal_ad...tter_612543.htm But still pretty stiff. Check out the three other adjustable cutters, they are a lot less. Cheaper still is a metal ruler and a pizza cutter.

To Freddurf: Can you characterize that smell? I came accross a curious observation in the Emperor of Scent stating that the aroma of ripe bananas when blended with the flavour of lemon suggest the scent of jasmine. Thanks to Char, I'll give it another shot and will post if it turns bad again. I think my problem is that I am so accustomed to the Wesson Oil Party Chiffon (from the early sixties) and it throws me off as soon as I depart from it.

To Freddurf, even better flavour if you use bananas on the verge of over-ripeness.

I find that I cannot get around her impressive Sour cream coffee cake and Banana cake with sour cream ganache. They come out perfect every time which is not the case with me with her Sponge and Chiffon cakes although chiffon cakes was all I baked for the first twenty years or so of my baking like.

Any chinese or vietnamese should have it any time of the year.

After addressing the matter of taste and flakiness of the crust and texture and flavour of the filling, another factor that I give consideration to is how a slice or any slice off the pie looks like. I could never get a perfect slice from a traditional pie plate so I started using those crimped tin tart pans with false bottom to make each slice a perfect one. This is also the reason for my quest for controlling the moisture of the pie filling. It cannot be too juicy that it will all spill out when you take the first slice.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, you should check out the home page Torakris. And while you are there and since the dough recipe for the sweet breads seem to be the same, would you kindly translate for us the first one. Thanks.

I have so much objection against pie fillings that come in a bucket that it over-flows to pre-cooking the filling. But pre-cooking, specially of apple filling, is so effective in controlling moisture and doming of the top crust as suggested by Cooking Illustrated and Rose Levy Beranbaum that I am willing to compromise. I pre-cook only half of the filling. It still reduces moisture and doming but it is also an effective way to conserve your favorite pie apples for a few weeks in the fridge.

I remember posting my coffee quest for a set up for the best cup of coffee in a similar thread here. For thirty years I used Melitta cone drip until I tried coffee brewed in a vacuum pot. I then set out to acquire one that I can use on my range top because I did not like those set-ups with their own lamps, they are too slow and looked too dangerous. The new vacuum pots have small openings too so you need a special brush to clean them. I want a pot that I can reach into with a sponge to clean. I got what I was looking for in e-bay with those vintage ones, Cory, Silex, Nicro, etc. Thousands of them must have been given as wedding gifts in the fifties and directly went into storage. They are just coming out now as never-used vintage items in estate sales.

Apparently, inabraw is the Tagalog translation of ulam which, forced in the straight-jacket of western taxonomy, is translated as viand. Viand means meat (specially in French) which both inabraw and ulam, typically, are anything but. In Ilocos, of course, inabraw is almost always dinengdeng and on very special occasions or in all too rare fits of splurging may be pinakbet. Funny enough, we also called turron “lumpiang saging.” It is called pastrak outside our home and valencia if you go as far as the next town. There again goes the moving target of random nomenclature. And your neighbour’s turron, of course, is the real turron, decadent descendant of the famous honey and eggwhite confection of the great almond producing coast of the Mediterranian. I find the Italian version dangerously tooth breaking, a lot scarier than the Spanish version. Our’s of course is the best, just the right balance of chewy brittleness, filled with a far tastier than almond local cashew nuts, and an immaculate wafer not just as liner to prevent sticking but wrapping the thin morsel in its own heavenly host.

I cannot help you with dining out in Leblon because I always stay in Copacabana and do not go farther south than Ipanema. You best bet is by inquiring from your hotel concierge for recommendations. Failing that and if you read Brazilian Portuguese here is a site you can check out, there is a Plataforma in Leblon if you check the churrasqueira section, if the one in NY is any indication, you are in for a treat. Do not drink too many caipirinhas! http://www.riodejaneironow.com/restaurantescariocas.htm

And back to desserts, so what was for dessert when we were young? Usually the different varieties of eating-out-of-hand bananas, that was always in season. Also papaya and avocado. Strictly seasonal were water melon, cantaloupe and the mealy indigenous melon that is made into a cold drink. Fried sliced sweet potato (camote) and cassaba (kamoteng kahoy) quartered cylinders in heavy syrup. Ripe plantain (saba) sliced lengthwise three-ways and fried, sprinkled with sugar and doused with rum (reputed to be MLQ’s favorite), sliced cross-wise and boiled in very light syrup, wrapped in spring roll wrapper and fried (turron, with or without the jackfruit flavoring) or mashed and formed into patties and fried (maruya). Frozen custard apple (caimito), stripped green coconut meat in its own sweet water, or grated and bound with custard and made into bonbons. Candied grated coconut (bukayo). On fridays at lunch time we always counted on iced sweet porridge made out of mung beans unless it was rainy when we got it as a hot sweet soup.

Still in the subject of everyday and feastday versions of Filipino dishes, if you ever wondered what sets apart a common inabraw from dinengdeng, there is a book called Philippine Food & Life by Gilda Cordero-Fernando from 1992 that celebrates the regional culinary cultures of (unfortunately limited only to) the main provinces of Luzon. Profusely and beautifully illustrated too with stylish line drawings of Manuel Baldemor. And then there is also that highly reputed Kapampangan cookbook in the Kapampangan language of Mariano Henson whose recurring mention in every food discussion infuriatingly omits mentioning whether it was ever published.

I have been a fan of bahn mi since the first wave of Vietnamese immigrants started arriving in Canada. But before I discovered bahn mi, I was even a bigger fan of those rolls they use for the bahn mi because it reminded me of the breakfast rolls we have where I came from (the Philippines). My question to you all is, when eating either the bahn mi or the vietnamese rolls alone, did you ever suspect that it contains rice flour or baking powder? I never did and if you tried to persuade me that they do contain these two items, I would tell you that you are pulling my leg because they look and taste exactly like french baguette that by French law should only contain wheat flour, water, salt and the levain. The Dominican pan de agua and the Mexican bolillos are two close cousins that do not contain any rice flour or baking powder either.

If you are french literate there is a thread in the French forum on making croissants at home. Or even if you are not, the photos are pretty informative. Here is the link: http://www.forums.supertoinette.com/recett...lete_photo.html

I started drinking coffee when I was in grade four to alleviate the symptoms of my astma attacks. Ten or fifteen years ago my youthful observation was confirmed by a scientific study. My astma disappeared when I hit twenty one but I continued my two cups a day. With this, I won’t mind having another cup after dinner. Thanks for the good news.

PPPan, a culinary map is what we need. A geography based food nomenclature system that can serve as baedecker for a forager roaming the Philippines because the territory is just riddled with false cognates. Eight years ago I paid a retired friend in Cebu a visit. I know very well that this friend is not into food so he was completely useless as a food guide. You know how you have certain expectations based on names of dishes, well I ordered pochero in one of the better restaurants with my mouth welling with the expectation of a pot of pochero and the accompanying eggplant and/or calabasa with garlic vinaigrette. It turned out that pochero was their term for our nilaga. And you know how travelling antique collectors are always on the look out for what else, antique shops? Well my pilot light is always on for mami and shopao. My one week visit was almost over and I have’nt seen yet any place for mami and shopao. Mmm very strange and as I said my friend was no help at all. I was already sitting in the plane going back when it suddenly dawned on me that that was what all the famous bachoy signs were trying to tell me.

Your mom is likely right stef (and btw welcome). There is always that everyday version and the special treat take in most cuisines and Filipino cooking is specially observant of this due to differences in resources. Kind of squares with our adage “kung maikli and kumot magtiis mamaluktot” (loosely, suffer sleeping in fetal position if your blanket is too short). My family has a solecism for dishes that do not benefit from a complete larder. Pancit moto is a noodle dish with missing ingredients, moto being a literal equivalent of the French manqué. It also kind of hi-lites my strong opposition to the dismissive preconception that any cuisine can only aspire to two stars at most. If that is the case then, why is it that Japanese food which is essentially a cuisine of poverty due to the restrictions imposed on Japanese life by the shoguns achieved the enviable status scaled by Masa? But I digress. You are right too about estofado being another name for a jazzed up paksiw na pata. In most of Rizal and Laguna it is even an indispensable dish for the most festive preparation of the year, the Christmas table. In Bataan where I grew up, however, estofado(a) is invariably linked with lengua. It was this link that made me notice a dish in Simca’s Cuisine by Simone Beck, one of Julia Child’s original cooking partners, called étoufade de trois viande, an estofado (as in lengua) of pork, beef and lamb complete with green olives. I noticed later too that our mechado is but a simplified version of boeuf en daube.

We cook both of them at home observing an ever so fine distinction though. Paksiw na pata has banana blossoms and sometimes even slices of cooking banana (saba) both of which Humba does not have and it, of course, requires a different cut of pork (the butt) and has salted black beans (tausi) instead. The big surprise to me, however, is I thought all along that Humba is Kapampangan instead of Bisaya, well, Waray actually. Nora Daza says its from Leyte. Another obvious close relatives are Pipian and Kari-kari in that both use ground roasted peanuts as predominant flavour. They use different kinds of meat and cuts though and Pipian drops all the vegetables making it a kind of Mexican mole which is probably where it originated. I only hear of Pipian from my friends from Cavite.

Yet more on Filipino terminology for dessert. Himagas is the general term you end a meal with. This includes most fruits in season or drinks made from them, any matamis which includes preserved fruits and (egg and milk based) confections. Ripe or green fruits (usually any of the several varieties of mango but specially the tiny ones called pahutan) you eat with the meal is called pamutat. Let us not forget that even the highly codified French cuisine’s dessert grouping overlaps into their “entre mets” classification. An Alliance Francaise martinet of a professor I had, however, insisted to my class that dessert was fruit and cheese. All the gateaus, tartes and tortes of the patisier’s repertoire are simply “entre mets.” So the large group of rice based sweet baked, boiled or steamed cakes (bibingka) and puddings (kalamay) are actually merienda fare although can sometimes blend in and expand the traditional dessert grouping (specially abroad) and we are not about to complain. (OT) Reynaldo Alejandro btw called his nilaga linaga which I though was kind of illiterate until I came accross a similar locution in Francisco Balagtas. Live and learn.

Welcome to e-gullet PPPans. I hope you keep posting inspite of the lack of response or if it sometimes feel people are posting over your head. That’s the nature of any (web) forum. Since you just joined, you probably missed the spirited discussion about Frank Bruni’s review of Cendrillon in NYC (see the Frank Bruni thread, around page 5-6). Basing on that, it seems to me too that Filipino cuisine suffers from a pityful case of low self-steem. Granted that the thread was about Frank Bruni’s system (or say absence thereof) and not Cendrillon, it still appears fair and sound to me if people recuse themselves from discussion of restaurants they have not personally experienced (or cuisines they have no immersion in). The restaurant in question gets positive press coverage from time to time though, including a brief one from David Rosengarten in the Gourmet magazine hmm a couple of years ago. And going to the matter of Philippine cookbooks, I completely agree with you in your brief assessment of Doreen Fernandez’s compilations of her food columns. I have what I think is the most recent (last, in fact) called “Tikim.” Very informative, specially for someone like me who only gets to visit back very rarely. I hope she relayed the torch to somebody with equal talent and interest. And finally to the matter of real cookbooks, I find the compilation of Enriqueta David-Perez still reliable after all these years (mine is the 19th printing from 1973). She must have aimed it to an audience of already accomplished cooks which at the time of original publication was about right. At that time most good cooks, as my mother was, only referred to cookbooks as an “aide memoire.” In fact, my mother like everybody else cooked extemporaneously, you know, you go to market and pick up what is fresh or cheap and make something delicious or appropriate out of it for the family, the exact opposite of what we do here where we draw up our menu first and then shop for it. The only cookbook in her possession were an early edition of Fannie Farmer’s and a Spanish one. Her generation in our town did not need any. We knew where to go for the best puto, okoy, bibingka and suman, espasol and tikoy, lechon and salsa, bagoong and buro, tuyo, daing and tinapa. Incidentally, I bought a hard-bound copy of Reynado Alejandro’s and immediately passed it on to my sister after reading his recipe for puto using wheat flour.

I hope you are not trying to duplicate at home the commercially baked croissants commonly available in stores. These croissants use a commercial fold-in fat that resembles ghastly tallow in its waxy pliability. Gives you the discreet flakes but I suspect not very good for the health at all. Your home baked croissants did not have this distinct flakes because your fold-in butter blended with the dough. Maintaining your fold-in butter at 60 degrees F will ensure that it is soft enough to roll in between the layers of dough but not too soft to blend into them. Chilling your dough at regular intervals will maintain this ideal temperature and also help it relax which makes for easier rolling. It will also make your rolling easier if you use special high fat butter such as Plugras. Try masterering your favorite regular croissant first before trying the elaborate variations such as danish pastry and whole-wheat ones.

May I remind Bobmac that sugar and carbohydrates are just the food villains of the moment. Remember when butter was bad for you and you were encouraged to eat instead margarine which is just a very nasty substitute as we all know now. Well, Oriental civilisation is built on rice and has survived the rise and decline of various empires in the West. If it survive the current onslaught of MacDonalds, it will probably live on until the disintegration of our solar system.