tamiam
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Posts posted by tamiam
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My personal menu description favorite was at a pub not known for its cuisine. I don't recall the dish, but I do remember that it contained "carmelized cheese".
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It just so happens that we made two pozoles in the past week or so, one excellent red, and a green that was pretty good, but not inspired. Part of it is that the tomatillos were fresh, but not real juicy, as it is wintertime.
Does anyone have recipe suggestions or ideas for a truly awesome green?
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I use my olive pitter to pit cherries. Or is it my cherry pitter to pit olives?
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I'm less enamored of this method now than I was when I started trying it. Yes, the loaves are beautiful, with lovely holes. But I have two main complaints: first, the floury mess I always seem to make of my kitchen, mainly in the process of transferring the proofed dough into the pre-heated pot; and second, the continued lack of bread flavor.
I dont end up with any mess at all when I make this bread. If you are enjoying this otherwise, please dont let the mess stop you - just change your technique a bit. My dough never touches a countertop, and I dont wreck my towels. Here is what I do:
1. Weigh ingredients directly into my mixing/rising bowl.
2. Stir well with a wooden spoon. Leave the spoon in place.
3. Place towel over the top and rise for about 18 hours (my challenge is keeping an even 70 degree temp)--my bowl is big and the towel doesn't touch dough. If it did, I would place loose plastic over the top instead.
4. Stir down with the spoon, while adding a large pinch of flour--could do this with hands or spoon, but either way, there is not much excess flour,
5. Cover and rise another 2 hours or so at a bit warmer temp (my oven with the light on is a steady 80 degrees)
6. Preheat oven with my cooking pot inside. Sometimes I grease it, sometimes I don't.
7. Dump, slash, cook with lid on. I am going to start adding toppings. At first I worried about losing heat, but cast iron holds its heat pretty darned well.
8. Finish cooking with lid off.
As to flavor, increasing the salt and substitutng some of the white flour for semolina, wheat, etc. is the way to go. The basic recipe is very bland. I find that a shy 2 t salt is good, except when I use wheat flour, when that is a touch too salty.
Good luck
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I just opened a can of my first ever homemade ketchup with a recipe from New Basics. Boy is it good! Even thought I made it, I don't actually have a lot of uses for ketchup--not a big burger and dog eater. But in a side-by-side taste test comparison with some Heinz, it made me wonder how they can call it tomato catsup when there is no tomato flavor in it
I need ideas for using my excellent ketchup. And for using the mushroom ketchup above, which sounds like fun. I made an excellent cocktail sauce by mixing it with sambal oelek, fresh horseradish, and lime.
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Out of curiosity, what are your favorite uses for it?
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Thanks for blogging SuzySushi. It has been so fun to see your family celebrate together, and to see how you have incorporated dietary restrictions into a life that still revolves around good eating.
We stayed near Kapolei a few months ago and loved it. Our biggest frustration was wanting to buy all the wonderful produce and seafood in the Chinatown markets, but not having a kitchen to cook in. Still we managed to eat well, to enjoy pineapple and fresh cold coconut almost every day. Now I want to go back and visit Marukai, as well as more Chinese and Japanese restaurants.
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One favorite and very simple way to cook shrimp is to roast in the oven. Just peel them (or not, depending on what you want to do), toss with olive oil, salt, and spices, and roast about 2-3 minutes per side in a 350F oven.
I like to throw in some chopped garlic and either pimenton or cumin, but you could really flavor it any way you dream up.
These make great shrimp cocktail or appetizer shrimp, but you could use them for anything that does not call for more cooking.
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Got snowed in this morning, so the Orange Berry Muffins are in the oven. The house is smelling wonderful. The advice to rub the zest and sugar together to release the oils was great. Once I read it, it was so incredibly obvious, but I had never done it, or even thought of it, before. I love learning another new tip.
Mott Mott--Please do tell how your chestnut cake comes out and what you discover. I haven't done much with chestnuts and am curious.
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I love stew, and am in total agreement with those who have already mentioned buying a known cut and cubing it yourself--that is the only way you know what you've got, and you can ensure that all of the pieces will respond to cooking the same way. I like chuck.
Agree also with those who say no flour before browning. It tends to muddy the flavor. Not said, but equally important is (1) salt the pieces for 30 min or so before browning, and (2) brown in as many batches as it takes to brown, and not stew your meat. You aren't cooking it at this step, just quickly browning the outside to develop flavor.
My other suggestions are to stop your veg from turning mushy, you can separate them by cooking time. Long ones in the stew for the full treatment, medium ones, cook separately or add in the last 30-45 min or so, short ones, like peas go in at the last minute so they dont turn grey and ucky (technical term). Personally I would steam rather than saute, because more of your flavor is going to come from the stew pot, not whatever seasoning or fat you cooked the veggies in--they are going to get diluted anyhow.
Once you perfect your technique, flavors and combos can be varied pretty much endlessly. Choose a base, like wine or stock, that sets the tone, then spice according to where you want to end up--Belgian, Morrocan, Vietnamese, Brazilian, etc. Plain old fashioned beef-potato-carrot-pea in a red wine/stock base might be "basic", but it sure is tasty when it's done right.
Oh, and it you have a pot that can go in the oven, cook it low and slow. Seems to cook more evenly than stovetop.
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I just made my best loaf yet. I had the pleasure of weighing my ingredients (inaugurating my brand spanking new scale
). I basically used Bittman's revised printed recipe, but replaced about 1/2 C with whole wheat flour,. That in turn, called for more water, for which I used appearance, not weight. The dough fermented over 18 hours or so, and I gave it a long second rise, about 3 hours, per SparrowsFall. The dough rose well, and got a lot of small bubbles, but never had more than one or two large ones. Oddly enough, I find that if I use whole wheat flour, then 2 t salt is too much, but if I use 100% white, then it really needs the exra salt. Not sure if that makes sense, but it is what I am finding.
I really like this loaf.
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Mmmmmmm. Hepburn goo-ey Brownies.
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What’s the big deal about tweaking some spice or other. Recipes are not magic formulas. They’re merely guides to achieving a certain kind of result. When we don’t get the result we want, it may be as much our fault as the recipe.
Many variables can get you there - or somewhere else. Some elements of a recipe are what I consider essential: ratios of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, liquid and the order in which you combine them and the technique you use to do so. What and how much of various flavorings are peripheral to the recipe and can often be altered without changing the basic outcome even though the effect may be quite different. For example. I made the All In One Holiday Bundt Cake. Loved it. Everyone loved it. Last night I made the Double Apple Bundt Cake. It was only while I was making it that deja vu struck. When I checked, sure enough: the basic ingredient ratios, technique were the same, all the flavoring ingredients were not. Result? Two different delicious cake.
Now, truth to tell, the Apple Cake was not as successful. Both recipes called for 1 or 2 medium apples. No volume or weight measurement. The apple cake was a touch too moist and slightly undercooked in the bottom of the pan. Maybe because my medium apples the second time were actually a bit bigger? Maybe because grating them instead of chopping them made them more juicy? We’ve discussed to death the dearth of weight measurement in US recipes, so in their absence I say suck it up, make a note and correct it next time if all else satisfies you. (Though I confess to grumbling about their absence under my breath.)
Don’t like the level of spice in a recipe? Ditto. My taste for spice or sweetness and yours may be quite different. What one person finds bland may strike another as subtle and restrained. My own preference runs to spicy, so I often up the amount of cinnamon or ginger in a recipe, throw in some lemon zest, etc. None of those things will do more than tweak the flavor.
All this before we get into the issue of the quality of the ingredients, their source and type. When a particular flavor is the main player, I get a different result when I use Ceylon cinnamon (floral) or Vietnamese (spicy), or when I use a more floral Tahitian vanilla instead of Madagascar. Now that may not show up much in a spice cake, but makes all the difference in a custard. And that’s before we get into the question of how fresh they are, whether I used powdered out of the jar or ground my own, etc. Maybe the store bought apple butter was the culprit, a bit too liquidy? Or perhaps the difference between the two versions of what is essentially the same cake is that the first time I took the trouble to whizz the already granulated sugar into fine sugar. Or maybe it was because one cake used all granulated sugar, the other part brown sugar. Or maybe because, preferring a less sweet cake I slightly reduced the sugar in the apple cake. Or perhaps the more liquidy grated apples really called for an extra 5 minutes in the oven over the chopped apples in the holiday cake. None of these decisions reflect on the person who wrote the recipe unless one feels that every recipe dictate on all these issues.
Well said.
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Here is some scale talk, from the nice folks at Will Knott Scales. They sell at their own website as well as on eBay, but with slightly different pricing and shipping charges.
Hi there,I am interested in a My Weigh DX 7001 scale. Question for you: Of all the scales you carry, are there any others I should consider if my primary use is for cooking, weighing dry and liquid ingredients, converting lbs to g, etc.?
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Tamara,
This scale would work for you, if it is within the accuracy you need and the capacity is okay. Here is another scale I would suggest.
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/index.as...PROD&ProdID=309
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/index.as...PROD&ProdID=310
Also the shipping charge for the two items would be just $9.90 because the adapter has free shipping.
And, if I include the AC adapter, do you consider that one or two items ($9.90 or $9.90 + 7.92) when calculating shipping on our eBay site? It looks as though it does not add shipping cost if purchased thru your regular site.
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Jennifer—Thanks for your response. Both of those other scales look like good candidates too, so now I have more thinking to do. I am wondering if you recommended the Salter’s because you thought they would fit my needs better, or just as other alternatives to look at..
The Salter 5007 sure is pretty for a scale. It looks like it might be hard to use a bowl other than the one that it comes with because of the oval shape of the weighing platform. Would that be an issue, or is that just a trick of the photograph? I imagine that I would want to measure into whatever mixing bowl I was using, and that I might also want to weigh odd shapes, like big hunks of frozen meat.
Your website has more description of the My Weigh DX 7001, so I know a bit more about it. I liked the ease of using the tare, converting g to lb quickly, showing pounds + ounces instead of just ounces, and remembering the last weight measured. Do the Salter’s do those things well too?
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Tamara,
I just recommended those scales just to look at. I think they are pretty scales. All the scales that have been mentioned are great scales. Like you said about the Salter 5007 scale the bowl that it comes with is recommended to use. I think any of these scales would work for you. Including the 7001DX.
The Salter 5007 does weigh in pounds-ounces, grams, fluid ounces, and milliliters.
The Salter 5100 does weigh in pounds-ounces and in grams
Thanks,
Jennifer
OldWillKnott Support
Email: support-jc@oldwillknottscales.com
Phone: 1-866-867-5400
Fax: 580-233-5402
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Thanks for your help.
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The folks at Willknot are very helpful. They showed me two Saltons that are worth a look. One is +/- 1 g and the other +/- 2g.
When I return home to a good internet connection, I'll try and post them for posterity.
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I know this thread has been dormant for a while, but I am posting in the hopes that someone might respond. I am shopping for a scale, and am curious if anyone has experience with the MyWeigh 7001DX. It sells for approx $35 wherever I can find it.
It has a capacity of 15 lbs (7,000 g), accurate to 1 g, seemingly nice tare and g to lb conversion, and I like the low profile. Cook's Illustrated likes a Soehnle that cost 80 bucks, and the small weighing platform is elevated in a modern looking cool way that looks to be a pain in the arse.
Would you recommend another for my shopping consideration? Any ideas welcome.
(edited to correct accuracy
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Mystery solved?
I made the Cranberry Upside Down Cake again, and it came out perfectly. I used regular frozen cranberries instead of the big giant fresh ones, and I do believe that is what made the difference.
The fresh berry cake, where my berries all floated into the cake instead of staying separate, had a LOT of goo when I unmolded it. I think that there were fewer berries, and becasue they were so big, they exuded a lot more juice than "normal" berries. The added moisture must have changed their behavior in the cake.
(Oh good, I'm not a failure anymore
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But, isn't that yeast pretty well used up and dead?
It just finished fermenting all the beer. (well, obviously it is working for you) -
I made the Cranberry Upside-Downer yesterday using the almond flavor variation. Once again, the flavor was spot on. It has a lovely buttery, slightly sweet flavor with a perfume of almond essence, punctuated by tart cranberry power.
But I did have a problem. The cake is designed as an upside-down cake--fruit is placed on the bottom of the pan in a butter-sugar mixture, batter spread on top, then baked. When you unmold it, the bottom becomes the top. It is supposed to end up as a fruit layer on top of the cake layer, but in my case, the fruit sunk into the batter. Tastes great. Looks ugly.
I could fix it by making a cranberry compote topping, but I am trying to figure out what went wrong. I used a springform pan instead of a cake pan, because that was all I had in the correct size. It is a dark color, so not a favorite. Here are my theories:
1. The cranberries I used were fresh, and quite large. Bigger than any I've seen before. Maybe my cranberries produced more liquid than the recipe intended, and this made them mush in. This theory is supported by the fact that there was a lot of goo when I unmolded the pan (no berries left ont he pan though). Or,
2. My oven temp wasn't hot enough, so the batter didn't quite set. In support of this theory, my cake is not nearly as tall as the photo. It is maybe 1" high. Or,
3. I unmolded the cake too soon, and should have left it sitting bottom-side down for while to cool. The instructions dont actually say "let cool", and I took that as meaning unmold forthwith. Maybe I was wrong.
4. I could've coated the berry bottom/top with a dusting of flour like you do with blueberry muffins to stop them sinking, or perhaps set the bottom/top by baking it briefly before adding the batter. This is not in the instructions, but maybe it would help keep the layers separate.
Your thoughts and diagnoses are most welcome. I always learn more from "failures" than from easy successes. Meanwhile, I'll have another bite.
I made the cranberry cake twice. My guess is that you did one of two things. Firstly, you may not have cooked the sugar mixture enough to turn it into the glue that holds the cranberries together. Reread the recipe. Secondly, perhaps you were too vigorous when you spread the rather thick, viscous batter over the berry/nut layer, scooping some of them up into the batter.MottMott--thanks for your thoughts. I posted a few theories about the Cranberry Cake upthread. I dont think that vigorous spreading was the culprit. Your idea about not heating the butter mixture is another one I'd considered, though two chefs I was lucky enough to speak with at the time leaned in a different direction. Mysterious, still. Since I have some "regular" sized bagged cranberries on hand, I think I'll just try again. Because the cake, as Dorie says, is definitely delicious.
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It isn't just beer that got added... it was 2cc of the thick cloudy yeast slurry that accumulates at the bottom of beer fermentation chambers. (Homebrewing has its privileges!) Beer all by itself may not have any yeast still in it... lots of commercial breweries filter it all out.
Darn, we just tossed out most recent beer sludge. Guess we'll have to make more.
I am confused. Are you using the sludge as a yeast source or as the flour? We'd love to find a way to bring our beermaking and our breadmaking together.
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Mott Mott raises an interesting question--try again, or move on? One thing to figure out when something doesn't come out right is whether it was the fault of the recipe, or of something about your own technique, oven, or ingredients. There are bum recipes out there, but these seem to be really well tested. I still dont know why my Cranberry Upside Down Cake ended up with the berries floating up into the cake. Several other folks here made it with great success, so the one thing I do know is that the answer is in my kitchen. I'd love to crack the mystery.
With the Coffee Break Muffins, at least two folks had trouble, but mine came out beautifully. The ones that came out "dry" could've been over-mixed, which is pretty common, even in bought muffins. When add my mixed wet ingredients to my mixed dry ingredients, I use a folding motion with wide rubber spatula, and give it maybe 12-16 turns, no more. The batter is fully moistened but still lumpy. Even though it is tempting to smooth the batter out, that turns out to be the wrong thing to do. Do you remember how you mixed them?
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An Oregon Pinot Gris is great with snoked salmon
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Put up some Tomato Chutney!! Mmmmmm.
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The Caramel Peanut Brownie Cake was beautiful, ColleenD. The texture was not gooey, even though it is in a chapter about gooey cakes. More fudgy than gooey, if that makes any sense. It is dry enough to crumble when I tried to cut a thin slice, but a thick slice stood tall and proud.
I did learn something funny about caramel (you can tell I am so inexperienced). I unmolded the cake at home after it had sat overnight. Had to cut around the springform mold and use a hot washcloth to set the pan free without stretching that pretty caramel right off of the cake--no big, that was easy. I had nutty caramel on top, and pretty clean sides, with a couple of those cool drips, just like the picture. But then, while I was grabbing wine and loading the car to leave, the caramel started to slump over the sides and puddle around the base. As we drove to our destination, the cake sort of frosted itself around the sides. I turned on the air conditioner even though it was a gnarly nasty day outside, but that caramel wanted to flow and it was gonna do what it was gonna do.
Anyhow, it was fine because there was plenty on top (perhaps I overdid it), but I did rush that cake into the fridge and out of the hot crazy Thanksgiving kitchen.
Now I am eyeballing the Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart. Has anyone played with that yet?
Cooking Classes in Seattle
in Pacific Northwest & Alaska: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Here is another opportunity to take classes with Chef Hope. I've heard that the Renton facility is really nice, though I haven't seen it myself. The class sounds awesome and you can't beat the price for a four-part series:
CULINARY TREATS OF OLD ITALY
Join Chef Hope Sandler, a nationally recognized culinary educator,
food writer, and professional chef, in this inspirational 4-part series
where you’ll learn about the old culinary traditions of Italy-specialty
foods prepared from scratch, by hand, using traditional techniques,
and enjoyed among friends. With Chef Hope as your guide, you will
explore sfogliata-stuffed breads; tortas-layered tarts, pies and cakes;
calzone-individual stuffed dough’s resembling turnovers; timpano,
or timballo-a complex drum-shaped dish of pasta-filled pastry; and
pizza-round savory tarts made with crisp yeast dough covered with
cheeses, vegetables, and meats. Chef Hope will coach you through
blending, kneading, and rolling out dough’s, exploring an enormous
range of filling possibilities, and inspire you to express your culinary
creativity. She is accomplished at teaching traditional Italian cooking
and baking skills while still making it possible for even a novice to
create delicious, high quality dishes. Supply cost is included in the
tuition fee. NO CLASS ON 2/20/2006
CULS 104 8215 12 hrs/1 credit Fee: $101.60 I107
2/6-3/6 6:00PM-9:00PM T SANDLER
Renton Technical College
3000 NE Fourth Street
Renton, WA 98056-4195
(425) 235-2352
http://www.rtc.edu/StudentServices/ClassSc...es/Winter07.pdf