Khadija
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Posts posted by Khadija
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This is a slight change of topic, but I hate it when dishes are given redundant names. For example, at a local co-op run, university crowd cafe, the eggplant sandwich is called "The Mondragon." The name says nothing about the sandwich; it's of no use to customers.
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I have baked bread occasionally, but never really managed to hone my skills due to lack of proper facilities, etc. Now, I am engaged in a long-term house-sitting gig, with a fabulous kitchen, and I'm currently working on my first batch of sourdough bread.
My favourite bread, however, is Pao de Mihlo (Portuguese cornbread), which I can only get when I'm in Toronto. Does anybody know how to make this stuff?
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How you cook tofu depends on the kind of tofu and what you hope to achieve.
If you want a tofu that will have a "meaty" texture and absorb a lot of seasoning, and you are using a firm tofu, I sort of disagree about adding it to the stir-fry at the end. What you want is to rid the tofu of as much bland moisture (water) as possible (like drying out a sponge), and then rehydrate a bit with flavoured moisture. I've found that the best way to do this is to fry cubes, strips, or crumbled tofu until crispy and golden, in a generous amount of oil. Drain well and season with salt. Lots of people advocate draining the tofu by wrapping it in towels, putting under weights, etc., but I don't bother. If you want other stuff in your stir fry (vegetables), go ahead and start to stir-fry then, add the tofu and then add your sauce. If you want the tofu to be extremely flavourful, you might "soak" the fried tofu in some sauce prior to adding it to the pan. NOTE: I firmly believe that it is a total waste of time to attempt to marinate tofu before frying. There is simply too much water in the tofu, and the marinade will never penetrate very far beyond the surface. Also, marinated tofu will start to steam (and sometimes burn) as soon as it hits the pan this results in a rubbery texture.
If you do not want your tofu to have a "meaty" texture and absorb a lot of seasoning, then there are other things you can do. Let us know.
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Tim Horton's is not coffee I drink when I want to enjoy a coffee. However, there is something strangely curative about a Tim Horton's coffee when one has a hangover.
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A few years ago, I watched her show on the Food Network, every now and then. I found her enjoyable to watch. The food looks beautiful, and she has an obvious passion for cooking. However, I question how practical some of her dishes are for home cooks. She tends to be quite extravagant in her use of ingredients for what are otherwise simple dishes.
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I don't know if using chopsticks for sushi and Thai food is straightforwardly based on Western misconception. I know it's fine, or even traditional, to eat sushi with hands. But, sometimes I eat sushi with my hands, and sometimes I use chopsticks. I also know that Thais use forks, but sometimes I ask for chopsticks in Thai restuarants anyway, because I feel like using chopsticks. My mom is Chinese, and we always ate rice and noodles with chopsticks and a spoon. When rice or noodles are around, chopsticks sometimes seem more comfortable.
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No salt on the table drives me crazy. And, unless the bread is very dense, I don't know what I'm expected to do with cold butter.
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I agree about preheating the oven for a long time, using toppings sparingly, and adding toppings at the last possible minute. Not sure if this info is of any use, but I used to have a particular problem with the centre being too doughy/soggy. I started leaving a very small space free of sauce in the centre of the pizza, and the problem was resolved completely.
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I started making ketchup by slow roasting cherry tomatoes, with a bit of garlic, salt, and balsamic vinegar. The first thing everyone said when they tasted it was: "it tastes like ketchup -- really good ketchup, but ketchup all the same." Now, I make it all the time. You could make a lot and store it in jars.
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I think North Americans usually mean Emmenthal, when they use the term "Swiss," and I think Jarlsberg is an easy substitute. But I think Gruyere is much, much better for Mac n' Cheese. I always try to use Gruyere in Mac n' Cheese, and I have sometimes, in a hurry tried to do my shopping in stores in Canada (from chain grocery stores to otherwise reputable cheese mongers) when Gruyere is not available. The person at the cheese counter always recommends Emmental or Jarlsberg, and the result of this has always been extremely rubbery.
I agree about using Havarti for Montery Jack, though.
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The main thing I look for in a menu is accuracy. It can be long or brief and succinct so long as it accurately describes what I am ordering. The only time I accept otherwise is if I know the restaurant likes to "play" with their food and their descriptions - but even then there should be a basis for a description and not pure whimsy.
Count me in the accuracy camp. I have had consistently disappointing experiences with inaccurate descriptions, whether detailed or concise.
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I recently made bacon-peanut-caramel corn, and handed out small paper bags to guests at a party.
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I am an above-average home-cook, but certainly no baker. I do a few sweet things reasonably well, and that's about it. Whenever I make chocolate chip cookies they get rave reviews (I usually use the CI approach, sometimes the Neiman Marcus).
I am currently making up a cook-book as a parting gift to my recent ex-house-mates. The book will contain almost exclusively savory recipes, based on meals we ate together in our house. However, I want to add a couple of "bonus" recipes. One of my house-mates is a sweets fiend. She loves cookies, in particular, although I've never seen her bake anything. I want to develop a personalised cookie for her, and one for her partner (the other housemate).
For the first cookie, I'm thinking of making chocolate chip cookie dough, and using personalised "add-ins." My idea is:
Cookie #1 (CI dough, no chocolate):
Caramel Candy Bits, Cashews, Slivers of Candied Ginger (room-mate is sweet, understated, elegant, but a bit feisty)
The second cookie, I'm not sure about. Second room-mate is very kind, funny, warm, homey, traditional (in a WASPY kind of way), and boyish. I'm thinking about just making chocolate chip cookies with the addition of peanut butter chips (NM oatmeal-based dough). Or peanut-butter chocolate chip cookies. But these seem boring. Is there any way to incorporate mint? I also might do a peanut butter cookie with bits of bacon.
Advice on this project would be much appreciated!
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I wanted a stand mixer for making bread dough, but my partner bought me a food processor with dough-blade instead. I was perfectly happy with that, though I hear there are issues about the dough-blad "tearing" the dough. I am not an adept enough bread baker to perceive this problem. Then, a friend gave me an old bread-maker. I used this for dough for awhile. I found the dough acceptable, but in the end prefer the food processor. I found I lacked control with the bread-maker (less room to make adjustments for environmental conditions and the features of the particular ingredients being used). I also found the bread maker noisy. One point in favour of the bread-maker is that it was a bit less labour intensive, as it has a self-contained resting place, and timer, etc.
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"Second, you can be sure no actual professional chef really thinks you need exactly .680 kg of asparagus for the recipe that specifies .680 kg. Rather, somebody decided to use roughly 1.5 pounds, and then when they did the metric conversion they got that .680 kg number. Nobody really cares, and it makes no difference to the recipe, if you use .6 kg or .7 kg instead. Needless to say, for the 15 ml, somebody said "about a tablespoon" and that's how it got codified. On any given Sunday, 20 ml would have worked just fine." (Quoted from Fat Guy, above)
I agree completely with the point that cooking rules (i.e., measurements of ingredients, and standardized procedures) are codifications/abstractions of real life cooking practices. That is to say, real life cooking practices come first, and approximate descriptions of such practices come second. One interesting consequence of this point is that cooking rules are always, on an important level, inherently imprecise abstractions of real practices.
And contrary to what some may believe, this point is a serious one. A point touched a few times throughout this discussion is that, at the end of the day, recipes and the measurements they include have to tell us what to do under "average" cooking conditions. That is, a recipe can only tell us how to deal with an "average" garlic of average potent-ness, where the environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) are "average."
Cooks who are not wedded to the idea that they absolutely have to follow written cooking rules are more likely to learn to cook by feel, taste, and sight. And those who can cook by feel, taste, and sight are more likely to be able to account for relevant contextual features of their cooking practices (strength of flavours of ingredients, environmental conditions). Moreover, cooks who are able to "cook by ear" are more likely to be able to produce dishes to suit their own tastes, or the particular tastes of other diners. And for lots of people who like to cook at eat, having this kind of skill is useful.
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This will not work in all cases, but when suitable, I like to add some finely grated parm to my panko. It "glues" the crust together, and of course adds a nice flavour. I flour and eggwash, too.
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Ms. Churchill,
As a professional writer of published recipes, maybe you would like to know how some potential readers view the importance of measurements in your writing.
You wrote:
"Most people can happily manage quantities like 2 celery sticks, 1 large onion, 3 medium tomatoes. I mean who wants to weigh out 60g diced onion? For things like butter, I use grams. Who wants to try to measure out 1/2 cup butter?"
You and I are not on the same page or in the same book, library, ballpark, or city.
When I see a recipe with any of "2 celery sticks, 1 large onion, 3 medium tomatoes", I instantly conclude that the recipe is yet another case of what nearly all published recipes are, just vicarious escapist fantasy emotional experience entertainment, rational nonsense, and an invitation to waste time and money. So, I quit reading, click away from the Web site, toss the book in the trash, click to another channel on TV, as appropriate.
Absolutely, positively I will NOT pay any serious attention at all to any published recipe from anyone with the lack of precision of anything like "2 celery sticks, 1 large onion, 3 medium tomatoes". Period.
With this lack of precision, the recipe writer just has not done work that is useful to me.
Would you buy tomatoes advertised as "Two large tomatoes per dollar" with no indication of weight?
Would you buy gasoline advertised as "two measures of gasoline for one measure of money!" with no definitions of "measure"?
Would you buy an oven with temperature indications of only "low, medium, high"?
How about a car with a speedometer with only indications of "low, medium, high"? How about bathroom scales?
The 20th century solidly proved that measurements are just crucial.
For your
"I mean who wants to weigh out 60g diced onion?"
I do; I do, want to, and insist on it. As in a post of mine above,
"By the way, the tomato sauce recipe has 1 pound of coarsely diced yellow globe onions sauteed in 1/3 C of virgin olive oil -- most definitely I DO measure the onion, after dicing, and the olive oil."
Moreover, if a published recipe says "onion", then I quit reading, click away from the Web site, toss the book in the trash, click to another channel on TV, as appropriate. "Onion" is too unspecific: If a writer of a published recipe means yellow globe onion, then to get serious attention from me they need to SAY SO. Else they could be talking about sweet white onions, Bermuda onions, Vidalia onions, etc.
You wrote:
"Who wants to try to measure out 1/2 cup butter?"
I do: In the US, 1/2 C of butter is 1 stick of butter. Don't have to "measure out" the butter; it is enough just to unwrap it.
You wrote:
"And let's face it - if a recipe calls for 220g carrots, are you going to weigh individual carrots until you get a couple that exactly weight 220g?"
Yes; definitely let us do "face it": A recipe that calls for 220g of carrots likely wants the carrots peeled and then sliced and/or diced before being weighed. Then getting 220g within a few percent is easy. When I make stock, I use onions, carrots, and celery in the proportions by weight of 2:1:1, and I DO weigh each of these.
This stuff about measurements in cooking is SERIOUS. If published recipes are to communicate information about cooking that has a hope of being useful to the readers for COOKING, then measurements are just CRUCIAL.
Sure, a lot of cookbooks are written as a form of bound wallpaper decorations, but they are poor communications of useful information about COOKING.
I rarely measure anything, and I rarely cook with recipes. Generally, if I'm not creating a dish "out of my head," I will read several recipes (and sometimes discussions on egullet), and then measure ingredients mostly by taste, feel, and sight. If I'm making something I've never made or tasted before, I will follow a recipe and the measurements (especially for seasonings). But that's about it. However, I often get asked by friends for my recipes, and am then faced with the task of having to figure out what I've done. Many of these friends want to become better cooks, but find the whole process intimidating.
When I write out a recipe (I'm no professional cookbook writer), I realise that it will make no sense to provide the reader entirely with measurements such as "to taste" or "a large handful." However, I also think that really precise measurements in recipes can be an impediment to the development of home-cooks.
My housemate is a perfect example. Before we lived together, she would only cook from recipes and measured everything religously. She was also extremely intimidated by cooking and didn't find it particularly fun. Since we've lived together, I've encouraged her to measure things by taste, and feel, and sight. I've also encouraged her to know that learning to measure by taste and feel and sight requires trial and error. She has learned from her mistakes, and she's also started to become aware that you can correct mistakes more efficiently when you are measuring by taste and feel and sight. But most importantly, she's starting to feel less intimidated by cooking and she's starting to have fun.
I'm sure there are situations in which having very precise measurements, for the sake of things like the consistency of a dish, are important. But for lots of home cooks, who happen to be consumers of cook-books, such things are less important. Prior to living with me, I'll bet anything my room-mate would have thrown out a recipe that called for 250 g of carrots. I would just look away and wing it...
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I am 28, and I am one of the few people my age I know who has much experience cooking any form of chicken other than boneless, skinless breasts.
I think that about half of my cooking knowledge has been gleaned from mistakes (or disasters). I encourage you to keep trying to learn to just throw together a chicken dish. You might try messing around with a factory bird, either whole or parts.
I recently made up a chicken dinner for my housemates and their houseguests, who stayed a day longer than expected. I used only ingredients lying around the house. Since then, the dish has become a house favourite, and named "Khadija Chicken":
1. Salt some chicken pieces (dark meat is preferable). Brown skin until crisp. Drain off excess fat. Place flat, skin-side up in baking dish.
2. Sautee a diced onion with some diced bacon. Drain off fat. Spoon mixture over chicken pieces.
3. Blend large quantity of buttermilk (approx enough to cover chicken in baking dish) with a bit of dijon, maple syrup (honey would also work), crushed garlic, and a bit of salt. Pour buttermilk mixture over chicken (IMPORTANT: leave skin exposed). Throw in a few sprigs of fresh thyme, if you like.
4. Bake in medium oven, uncovered, for an hour, or medium-low oven for 1 1/2 hours.
5. If you use breast meat, add the browned pieces to the baking dish half-way through the cooking process.
5. Separate chicken pieces from sauce.
6. Remove excess fat from sauce.
7. Serve with good bread (to mop up sauce) and salad.
You will not regret making this.
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I suddenly realized that my photos of the girls were from when they first came home so I took some more. Sadly, I have the crappy camera and my photography trained husband is at work.
Eddy is the friendlier of the two, always comes over and says hi!
Patsy is a bit older, she's the one laying the lovely eggs.
Enjoying a bit of "free ranging" (if my mangy backyard counts as a range!)
I appreciate the Ab Fab reference. My best friend's nickname is Eddy, mine is Patsy. After yoga class, we like to share a glass of wine or two...
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I want to join the camp that is dubious of "Asian" style M&C. Many of my Chinese relatives can't stand dairy, and are literally disgusted by cheese. A friend recently went to China, and tried to eat some string cheese on the plane, but had to put it away, because the (Chinese) child sitting next to her would not stop gagging. I am told that many Chinese people think of cheese as "old rotten milk." I'm sure that not all Asian people feel this way about dairy, but I think most Asian cuisine just doesn't leave a lot of room to incorporate dairy.
The Mexican idea sounds more promising, because the dairly is easily incorporated. And the Indian idea might work as well.
I am Chinese and none of my family members (from my grandparents generation on both sides) are lactose intolerant. Growing up in Hong Kong, dairy was a big part of our lives. Cheese, milk, yogurt, we had it all. When I was in Hong Kong, I actually was not aware that so many Asians are lactose intolerant since I never saw that problem with my family and friends.
If you look at Western influenced Chinese and Japanese cuisines, cheese is being incorporated in many baked dishes. You also see cheese in baked goods in Chinese and Japanese bakeries. For them to be widely available, in the US and in Hong Kong, there must be Asian people other than my family who enjoy cheese.
Now, I'm not about to sprinkle cheese on top of shark fin soup. However, using ingredients like BBQ pork, Chinese sausage or five spice powder in a mac n cheese doesn't seem to be out of line. Don't be afraid of fusion!
Point well taken. I used to live in an international student house, and a number of them were from China (and they had never lived elsewhere). I was so surprised to discover that one of them drank milk in vast quantities. Dairy in Chinese food still seems pretty weird to me, but my assumptions are drawn from a limited sample group!
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I want to join the camp that is dubious of "Asian" style M&C. Many of my Chinese relatives can't stand dairy, and are literally disgusted by cheese. A friend recently went to China, and tried to eat some string cheese on the plane, but had to put it away, because the (Chinese) child sitting next to her would not stop gagging. I am told that many Chinese people think of cheese as "old rotten milk." I'm sure that not all Asian people feel this way about dairy, but I think most Asian cuisine just doesn't leave a lot of room to incorporate dairy.
The Mexican idea sounds more promising, because the dairly is easily incorporated. And the Indian idea might work as well.
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I preface the suggestion below by making the (perhaps annoying) proclamation that I am a particular kind of purist about Mac N' Cheese. I am a strong proponent of experimenting with different styles of M&C (white sauce based, custard based, evaporated milk, heavy cream, stove-top, baked, interesting/"fancy" cheeses, processed cheese, combinations of processed & more interesting cheeses). I also like to infuse (and then strain) the milk for the sauce with flavours that accent the flavour of the cheese (my favourite is pear, and I like the garlic idea suggested above). But, I think that at the end of the day, M&C is about pasta and cheese, and so I'm very wary of add-ins, etc. It's not that you can't make a delicious dish involving a M&C base, with extra flavours. But if you have a good M&C base, I see no need to distract from that.
HOWEVER, I used to work at a restaurant that served a dish called "tandoori chicken penne." Kids loved it, and there were certain adults who were die-hard fans (one guy came in almost every day and ordered take-out for dinner). Basically, it was a fairly neutral M&C --penne tossed with white sauce and mozarella cheese (not the fresh kind), baked with more mozarella on top. Dispersed throughout were chunks of tandoori chicken. I think one of the main reasons this dish worked was that the M&C part was fairly bland, and so mostly provided a rich, creamy contrast for the tandoori chicken. Kind of like butter chicken, I guess. Maybe some tomatoes would work here, too.
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When I make skinny noodles, I tend to julienne stuff, or cut into ribbons, if possible. This way, the stuff wraps around the noodles.
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An old favourite last night.
I still had some of that raisin/caper emulsion (usually, I would just use vinegar and sugar here, but I wanted to get rid of the raisin/caper stuff). I tossed it into the blender, along with a BIG handful of peanuts, sesame oil, sirricha, minced garlic, minced ginger, and some boxed chicken broth. Blended until smooth.
Cooked some dried chinese wheat noodles, only until very shy of al dente, rinsed well in cold water. Added enough peanut sauce until the noodles were "swimming."
Cooked some egg "crepes" with shallots, and cut crepes into ribbons. Julienned leftover chinese sausage and green onion, and heated together just enough to wilt the onion. Julienned LOTS of cucumber with mandoline.
Then I fried the noodles until they absorbed almost all the sauce and set them aside to cool. When the noodles were cool, I added some more sesame oil, along with the egg, sausage, green onion, and cucumber. Topped with more julienned cucumber, sesame oil, and sesame seeds.
I find that, when making cold noodle dishes, if the sauce is quite fatty, cooking the (undercooked) noodles in the sauce is a good way to get them to absorb the sauce, and get coated with enough oil that they don't stick together. The resulting noodles are not "saucy," they appear dry, but don't stick. They are full of flavour. I'm not sure if this method is traditional, but it works for me.
Pão de Milho (Portuguese Cornmeal bread)
in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Thanks everyone! Filipe, I think your recipe is for "Southern-style" or "American-style" cornbread. The Portuguese kind I'm thinking of is not a quick-bread, so it would not be leavened with baking poweder. However, thank you for the recipe anyway. I love the other kind of cornbread, too!
In my own web-research, I did come across the recipe from Letite's site. I've used recipes from his site in the past with great success, so maybe I'll try that.
As I said in my first post, I've just started baking sourdough bread, and I'm pleased with my (beginner's) results. When I buy Portuguese cornbread in Toronto, I get the impression that it is
made with natural leavener (it's so moist and dense). After I try the Letite recipe, I may try to convert it so that I can use sourdough starter instead of yeast. However, if anyone has a recipe that does the work for me, I'd appreciate hearing about it!