anzu

A couple more tips: if making things like cake, it is immeasurably easier to calculate the carb content per serving if you bake small cup cakes (or use mini-muffin tins) rather than whole cakes that then have to be sliced. When eating them, they also give the illusion of more food. (i.e. wow, I had three whole cup cakes vs all I had was one piddly little slice of this big luscious cake.) If freezing any for later use, mark clearly how much carb there is per cup-cake. I, at least, forget amazing quickly how much each thing contained. The same rule for labelling goes for anything else which contains carbohydrates and is to be proportioned out for use at some later date. I can't begin to count the times I've made something, and have not kept a good enough record... Also, if following something from a cookbook which does not have the carb content given for the recipe, but contains carbs nonetheless, work out the total carb content of the recipe on the basis of weight of ingredients and using all those fiddly charts that I'm sure you've been given. Then (this is the important bit), write that total carb amount next to your recipe. Saves having to work it out all over again next time around. Personally, I always forget to do this, after having painstakingly calculated it. If your daughter is then going to eat, say, one quarter of the total amount, it's easy to calculate one quarter of the total carbohydrate amount. In addition, this practice of figuring out the quantity of carbs for the total dish can be quite useful even when following a recipe where they do give carbs or exchanges per serving, as sometimes the servings are absolutely minuscule (one twenty-fourth of a cheesecake, anyone?), but this is not always immediately apparent on reading the recipe. A lot of the things I deal with give the carb. content relative to weight only for the dry weight of foods like rice and pasta. This is really unhelpful when you are cooking several serving's worth of that food. Maybe you have been given other information that does give you the cooked weight for one portion/exchange, but if not: work out the cooked weight for one portion/exchange-worth of foods that you eat a lot of in your house, such as rice, pasta, noodles, cooked potatoes, and such like, and keep a list of it handy in the kitchen. And, if you don't already have them, buy scales. Preferably the digital kind that you can easily reset. I think the scales are probably the most-used item in my kitchen. Measuring things in cups-worth is less helpful than weighing it (compare filling cooked pasta into a cup to see how much you have versus putting a plate on the scales, hitting the dial so that it sets to zero, then serving the pasta directly onto the plate, and you'll see what I mean). Scales also help a lot in trying to figure out things like, for example, how much carbohydrate fruits contain. It's all very well to be told that an apple, for example, is one exchange, but then that really doesn't hold true when you have teensy tiny apples, or humungously large ones. Having scales makes your life so much easier. Given that your husband has type 1 already, all this is probably teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. Hope it's of some use.

Not acid enough, I should think. The acid content of the vinegar is important for the right taste.

700 grams is 1 and a half lbs (rounded off). The mustard seeds in the picture look to me what my MIL refers to as 'rai' (even though this strictly speaking means 'mustard'). She uses it only for certain pickles, and it is made from the mustard seeds that you were talking about, but which have been husked and split. I'd say you should use the mustard you are accustomed to without hesitation.

Just had a look in my local grocery stores after reading this thread. Dried straw mushrooms weere stocked with other dried mushrooms such as porcini, etc. Chinese groceries don't have them. This will probably differ in the US, but it might be worth looking in some of the more upscale grocery stores that have a variety of dried mushrooms.

If your wok is one with a good seasoning you've built up on it, then be wary of using it for certain Indian dishes. A lot of Indian foods have a high acid component, whether from tomatoes, yogurt, or other things, and if you are simmering the food for a long time in a seasoned wok, this might play havoc with your hard-won seasoning. If doing a bhunao (frying onions, garlic, etc. with spices for a long time, while letting them stick just a little, then releasing the sticking with a little water, and continuing to boil/fry) as a preparatory step for a dish, then this almost-sticking step can also be pretty hard on a seasoned wok. The other issue with a wok is that it might conduct heat a bit too well. A 'karahi' is often used in India for cooking in. It is wok-shaped and was actually developed from the Chinese wok (or so I have read), but is generally smaller than a wok, and is thicker as well. The thickness makes it easier to fry onion, etc. to the stage desired without them burning. If you are cooking something without acid ingredients, and which cooks quickly (I think I know the cabbage dish you were discussing earlier, and it fits into this category), then go ahead and use a wok without any qualms. BTW, the same hot/cold food distinction you learnt from China is also present in India. Garam masala, literally 'hot spice', is called that because the spices in this mix are meant to be 'heating' ones.

I would seriously recommend staying away from trying to cook naan, or any other Indian griddle-type bread for that matter - at the same time as trying to cook an entire meal's worth of other Indian dishes for the first time. You will already have your hands full working with different tecniques, and adding a semi-raised bread into the equation is raising the hassle level to pretty high (timing, bench space, trying to keep track of all the different things at the same time, knowing when the naan has cooked enough). Very few people in India would cook naan at home. While still in the stage of learning how to do it, I would suggest cooking plain or lightly spiced rice, and leave the breads - and particularly naan - for when you are trying to learn fewer other new things. Obviously, it depends on what you are cooking and how the tastes fit together, but in addition to Milagai's suggestions, it's also quite normal to serve a raita (yogurt based side dish) on the table. So: at least one 'wet' dish, ane at least one 'dry' dish (balancing out the lentil, vegetable, meat, components so that it is not top heavy in any one direction), plus pickle, salad, raita. Appetisers don't usually appear in the Indian context, except under Western influence.

Forgot to mention earlier: fennel -you'll want it particularly if cooking south Indian kewra essence - if cooking sweet dishes and some Mughal dishes (usually stocked next to the food coloring) seviyan (ultra thin vermicelli in very long strands) - if thinking of making an ultra-fast Indian dessert (called, amazingly, seviyan ) Re fresh curry leaves. Refrigerated they keep a maximum of two weeks, but they are constantly losing flavor throughout this period and start to grow black and very unhappy. Frozen, they do lose quite a lot of flavor compared to the freshest ones, but are still better than un-fresh unfrozen curry leaves. Dry leaves are good for nothing whatsoever.

Okay, in order of questions asked. Black and brown mustard seeds are different, but (speaking personally here, others may disagree), I find it okay to use either in cooking Indian. Most Indian markets have only one color of mustard seeds available (choosing out of black or brown, that is, they usually also have yellow), so simply get the one they have and don't worry about it. Tamarind blocks are on the shelf in groceries. I haven't seen them stored in the freezer yet. There is also a product (the one I know of is called 'Dri-tam') which is dried tamarind powder - just add spoonfuls of it directly to what you're cooking. Purist friends of mine sneer at this, but it can be a great time saver. Turmeric powder is what you want. Fresh turmeric is not used an awful lot in India. The default cooking oil tends to vary a lot according to different parts of India. Speaking very, very broadly here: Mustard oil is used in Bengal and Punjab. This must be heated to smoking point in the pan before use, then reduce the heat to let the oil cool off to a more reasonable temperature, and only then cook with it. Often stocked next to hair oil (such as almond oil) in Indian grocery stores. Don't let the label about not being for internal use put you off. (there is a long discussion about the reason for the label elsewhere on this forum). Sesame oil is used in the south. This is often labelled 'gingelly oil', and is NOT the same as Chinese sesame oil, it is made from untoasted sesame seeds. I personally find it an aquired taste. Coconut oil. Used in the south, and along coastal areas. Again, can be a bit of an aquired taste. Peanut oil. This is growing in popularity across India, I believe, as it has a fairly neutral taste and doesn't burn readily. This is what most of my friends use, and is what I would suggest to you as the default, especially if cooking southern, where ghee is not appropriate. Canned beans are okay, as long as you drain and rinse them well to get rid of all the icky stuff they're canned in. However, if you are cooking beans a lot, these are not good value for money. Easier to soak them and cook them yourself. I usually make a lot at once (cooked till soft but no spices added), and freeze them in meal sized batches. Pickles will be in jars on the shelf. You will find a whole bunch of them, usually next to bunch of bottled spice pastes and such like that I don't recommend bothering with. If you are a complete newby to Indian pickles, then I suggest starting with mango pickles (don't start out buying the hottest ones), or lime, mixed pickles, or eggplant (this latter is usually somewhat sweetish). I myself like Pathak brand. Each type of lentils will usually come (1) whole and unhusked, (2) split and unhusked, or (3) split and husked. Obviously, the whole ones take longest to cook, and the split husked ones are fastest. Time is not the only factor, though. The same lentils often taste quite different when husked, and when unhusked. Most common types: (strictly speaking, some of these are beans rather than lentils, but get treated like lentils in Indian cooking) urad/black gram: black husk, white inside. When husked is completely white. Is shaped like the green mung/moong beans and is related to them. Whole, with the husk still on, they have a very rich taste. moong: these are the same mung beans that are used sprouted in Chinese cooking. val/valor: white to tan color. needs to be soaked before cooking. channa dal: yellow in color, look like yellow split lentils but are larger than them (and taste better than them too, IMO). Rather sweet tasting. masoor: these are the red lentils you were referring to. Husked, they are the fastest cooking of all the lentils I know. Unhusked they have a blackish exterior (they are rounder than unhusked urad), and you can sometimes see some of the underlying red color showing through. Whole ones take considerably longer to cook. arhar/tur/toor/yellow lentils: almost always sold split and husked. They look similar to the channa dal mentioned above, but are smaller. They come in both oiled and unoiled varieties, with the packets usually stacked next to one another. This should be a clue that you are looking at tur and not at channa dal. Don't buy the oiled one, as then you have to wash it several times before cooking. There are more again, but that should be enough to get you going. I can't make specific recommendations based on taste for which lentils to buy. I like all of them, and find it interesting to cook different lentils with the same spicing just to see how dramatically the tastes vary. Which 'green lentils' are you referring to? Green split peas are sometimes referred to as green lentils, and these are used in Indian cooking. If you mean lentils de Puy, IMO they are better off used in non-Indian applications (cost being one factor leading to this opinion). edited to add: some of these answers are overlapping with liv4fud's responses, who posted just before me. However, I think what we've said is basically in agreement. I also love jaggery, though I tend to eat it plain rather than cook with it!

Off the top of my head: coriander (whole or powder) turmeric chili powder black mustard seeds garam masala (or make your own) nutmeg black cardamom/large cardamom/bari illachi white poppy seeds tej patta/Indian bay leaves ajwain Indian pickles dry papad (poppadums) block of tamarind (or the concentrate as Tryska suggests) coconut milk as many types of lentils as you can lay your hands on kidney beans stock up on almonds and/or cashew nuts (to be ground and used for thickening sauces) raisins (again, used in sauces) besan fresh green chilis fresh (NOT dried) curry leaves coconut (fresh) limes mixes such as dosa mix, idli mix, rasam powder, etc. for the times when you want to eat Indian, but don't want to go to too much effort I could probably be even more specific if you say what type of Indian food you most intend to cook. The spicing is quite different between north and south (not to mention east and west,and all points between these four).

A former colleague, long ago, used a kitchen knife to keep a gang of thieves out of her house. She was living in Papua New Guinea (not at all a safe place to be living) at the time, and her husband had left on a business trip that lasted several days. She thought the gang had probably been watching the house for some time, as the very night after he left they tried to break in. The ground floor of the house had bars on the windows, but upstairs there were no bars as the windows were (theoretically) too high to reach. There was, however, a large tree that did allow one of those windows to be reached. She was downstairs, heard the sound of breaking glass, grabbed the closest thing to hand, which was a kitchen knife, and raced upstairs. A pane of glass had been broken, and she could see a person's hand coming through the hole trying to undo the latch to the window. So she slashed at that hand with a knife, and drew blood, and the hand withdrew. The person/people in the tree did not leave, however, but stayed in the tree the whole night waiting for her to leave the room, or relax her vigilance, or to fall asleep inadvertently. Several times in the course of the night a hand again reached through the opening in the glass to try to open the window. Each time, she slashed at it. Finally, at daybreak, the thieves left the tree. If they had managed to come in, she told me, they would almost certainly have raped her, and may indeed have raped her and then murdered her (this is by no means an exaggerated fear given conditions in that particular place at that particular time). Needless to say, they did not continue living in that house for long after that.

I also didn't develop Type 1 till adulthood (I was 24), so I can't say what it would be like to have to deal with it in childhood. However, I have spent quite some time with others with type 1 who did have it from childhood on. From what they've said, two themes keep showing up. 1. A lot of them felt - rightly or (almost certainly) wrongly - that their parents stopped seeing them and their lives outside of diabetes. They would come home from school, and it wouldn't be questions about how their day had been, or how they felt, or were they tired, or what else had been going on in their lives, but instead only questions about their blood sugar: was it too low or high right now, had it gone too low or high during the day?, and other such questions relating only to the diabetes. 2. A lot of them also felt hard done by, basically feeling that they'd missed out on various things that their peers had enjoyed (like birthday parties with lots of cake and other 'sinful' things, for example). In adulthood, they could recognize that their parents had been doing what they thought was best, but that didn't get rid of the feeling that they'd missed out. Of course, right now, how all of you are going to cope with diabetes will be in the forefront of your minds! But point number 1 is probably something to keep coming back to later when the situation has settled down somewhat and become more routine. I.e. how to make it clear that your love for your daughter and your interest in what's happening to her extends beyond the day-to-day coping with diabetes. With point number 2, I think you really need to strive for the feeling that she's not going to miss out on things. I don't know how strict the professionals are that you've been talking with, but I've personally come across the whole gamut, ranging from 'Abstain from all joyful things: you are going to go blind or have even worse things happen to you if your blood sugar is not as perfect as possible as often as possible' to ' Occasional high blood sugar is sure not going to matter, and go ahead and have that piece of chocolate' (and sure enough, it was only the professionals who had diabetes themselves that advocated the occasional letting go ). So, I'd say an occasional 'letting go' (within reason, or course) is a good idea, and probably also the best way of ensuring that there will not be an out and out rebellion later on. I'd disagree with Katie to the extent that she says ' it shouldn't even take a second thought'. In my experience, some things are always going to hurt, like checking one's blood sugar (though the pain of this truly does decrease with time), finding a new place on one's body that doesn't hurt to give a shot,(especially after you've been doing it a while and you find that you have been doing it for too long in certain specific areas) and so on. I feel that what should be emphasized is that, even it it hurts, that hurt doesn't last long, and is for an important reason. Right at the beginning, various professionals told me that various things wouldn't hurt. They were lying, or wrong, or both, and I still resent them now, even though it was years ago and I was an adult at the time they told me this. On top of that, there is always going to be a certain element of resentment and feeling deprived. Even if you are adjusting the insulin by yourself, there is always going to be a certain feeling (for me, at least) that it's not fair, that other people can just eat things without worrying about how much carbohydrate it contains, whereas you DO have to worry, and have to try to work it out. I think this is natural, and is probably going to be something you'll have to talk about (probably repeatedly) with your daughter. I can see that, in these early stages, they want to have a fairly rigid regime of shots, meals, and snacks. I followed that type of regime for the first 8 years of my diabetes. In some ways, it does make things easier, there is less to have to worry about. However, I would qualify that and say that this probably easier only for people who are less accustomed to dealing with the carbohydrate content of food, the whole issue of giving shots, etc. This is not the case in your family, where you are accustomed to it. I would suggest giving it a few months of seeing how it goes with this sort of rigid regime, and seeing how liveable you find it compared with the more intensive (and knowledge- driven) regime of your husband. At the end of that time, if you find the rigid regime less workable, don't be afraid to hassle the doctors so that it can be changed! Brand names of insulin vary from place to place, so I won't use names. Instead: is the insulin to cover meal-times normal or ultra-fast acting (does it have to be given 20 minutes before the food is eaten, or immediately before eating?). If it is 'normal', this is much, much harder to deal with. There are so many situations where you can't know exactly how long it is until you will eat (eating in a restaurant is just one of these), and trying to guess that food will be ready in 20 minutes from 'now' is a major PITA. Try to have/get an ultra-fast acting insulin, it is unbelievable easier to work with. How much is your daughter used to being pushy (not to mince words here) and standing up for herself? I ask because, when I had to eat regular snacks between meals to ensure my blood sugar didn't fall, there always seemed to be someone around, or some type of situation, that would prevent my being able to eat when it was actually a medical necessity. You know, some person would be eyeing my food, for example, and saying: 'That look's good, can I have some?' when actually the quantity of food was measured out precisely, and it was essential that I should eat the full amount of what I had with me. Or I would be in a class which was going overtime, with the teacher ranting on and on, and all I could think was that I needed to be out of there and eating something, otherwise I would be in trouble. If she's not used to being assertive, maybe you'll need to encourage her a little so that she can deal with difficult situations like these. And (this is blindingly obvious, but worth repeating nonetheless) make sure that she ALWAYS has something sweet with her, for when/if her blood sugar falls. This includes times like 'I'll just be away from the house for 5 minutes, I won't be away for long enough for my blood sugar to drop'. After all, 5 minutes can easily turn into 15, and blood sugar can drop very quickly when you're on insulin. I'd also agree with the issue of trying to find peers who have diabetes. There are groups, summer camps, and so on. Again, this was in adulthood, but it was a great feeling for me to go out to a restaurant with a large group of people and have everyone there 'shooting up' together when the food came. One feels, essentially, like less of a freak! The feeling can only be stronger in childhood. Best wishes for all of you.

Before I start, I know that India and Afghanistan are not the same, but there are a number of cultural similarities. My parents-in-law in India don't care a toss about hygiene. I have seen my MIL buy fresh fish, leave it out of the fridge for 8 hours in summer - the temperature was somewhere around 42C (not too good at conversion, but around 100F if not more) - then 'remember' the fish, put it in the fridge overnight, take it out of the fridge the next day, leave it around for another couple of hours, then cook it in a slow cooker (!) for another 3-4 hours, and then eat it with no ill-effects. The two of them have been eating this way for years - their bodies can take an awful lot that I couldn't and that you couldn't either. I can say for sure that my body can't take it because I had extremely bad food poisoning from her food a couple of times right when I was first living with them and before I realized the full extent of how she treats food. Now, I would imagine a similar thing is happening with food in Afghanistan. Something a local could eat without problems is not something that YOU could eat without problems. As far as the treatment of chicken flesh in Afghanistan is concerned: If the conditions under which chickens are killed are similar to India (and it is my guess that the conditions would be similar, as these conditions tend to prevail in many less-developed nations), then there are two most common and likely scenarios. One is where the chicken is home-killed and then cooked quite soon after. It certainly is not going to be undergoing the type of treatment that occurs with American factory chickens. In the other scenario, the chicken is sold already killed in the bazaar or at a butcher's shop. The chicken has probably been killed by the seller, or by someone else but close by. There will be no refrigeration, and the chicken and other meat will be surrounded by flies (before you get too grossed out about what people do in less developed countries, I will point out here that I saw meat being sold this way in Greece, as well, as recently as the late 70s. Furthermore, it is probably still more hygienic than giving the chicken carcasses a swim through fecal soup, as is done in the US). In this scenario, it would be my concern that the outside of the meat is well-cooked, the inside is less of a worry. As to how the chickens were living prior to slaughter - running around freely and being fed scraps is by far the most likely. Incidentally, it's also possible that it was not only the request to cook the chicken further that was causing confusion. Chicken in many places - Afghanistan included - is still a luxury item compared to other meats (they have less yield compared to a goat, for example). Serving it to a guest, therefore, is an act of extreme politeness. When the guest then turns around and requests that food to be served differently, well you can imagine that the two groups might easily be talking past one another rather than with another. You know, "I serve them my best dish, and they don't appreciate it?!" After all, there are enough threads here in eGullet with people talking about where the host/guest relationship went wrong, and yet those are mostly situations where both sides were from the same cultural background. So, to sum up. Chicken in Afghanistan could well be dangerous, but this is probably not the same type of danger as in the US. Less need to worry about salmonella, probably, as the chicken is not being raised or killed in similar conditions. Freshness, fly-borne pathogens, etc. could be an issue though. And, personally, I'd be wary about eating raw chicken, such as sashimi, anywhere. This includes Japan even though people are serving chicken sashimi. People get food poisoning in Japan, too.

Chinese gooseberry. It was given this name due to the color and because it apparently comes originally from southern China. When my mother was growing up (in Australia) they were called Chinese gooseberries, were dirt-cheap, and she says she never heard of anyone eating them raw. They were used for making pickles and such like. The re-naming was done in tandem with other campaigns - in the areas originally available telling people that they were actually edible and tasty raw, as well as pushing them a lot in other countries. If you associate the fruit with New Zealand I guess some of that publicizing worked!

I adore lard. I got used to it, without realizing what I was eating, in pastry items in China, and then when I left China I just forget all about that particular taste. Fast forward a few years (well, a decade and then a few more years as well). There I was in Spain eating some cookies and trying to figure out what it was that was making them so delicious and why they kept making me think of things I'd eaten in China. Well, the answer was lard. So when I got back home the first thing I did was run out and buy a couple of tubs of it (not exactly hard to get hold of in Germany ). A plain one for cooking with, and a salted one with little bits of pork crackling in it for spreading on toast. Heaven. Since then I've been using it for frying up onions and the like around about one quarter of the time I fry anything (the rest is divided between ghee - even more unhealthy than lard?? - butter, and various types of oils). IMO lard adds a certain sumptousness and depth of flavor to a dish, particularly soups. Is it really all that bad? All things in moderation, and all that... And even if it should be bad, better a small quantity of food that is utterly delectable, I feel, than a large quantity of food that tastes like nothing, or tastes worse than nothing, but is meant to be 'healthy'.

Matcha is Japanese powdered green tea - this is the tea that is used in the tea ceremony. When used as a drink, it is frothy, bright green, and has a markedly bitter taste which some like and some dislike. (I'm one who likes it). There is a four page long thread on matcha here in the Japan forum. Apart from the tea ceremony, it is also used to flavor icecream, cakes, mousse, and a whole lot of other things. Look for either matcha or green tea as a keyword in the Japan forum, and you'll find a lot of individual threads concerning these. Changing topic back to this icecream recipe. Some people have suggested various ways of beating or stirring the icecream in the absence of an icecream maker. I was instead under the impression that the recipe itself makes this beating or stirring unnecessary. This kind of thing was my mother's specialty. Icecream with no churning involved, cakes where all the ingredients could be thrown together, puddings where, even though the ingredients could be thrown together, you still ended up with two distinct layers of pudding and sauce after baking... Even if you like spending time in the kitchen, it's still a great way to do things sometimes!

Actually, leave out ALL the vegetables that are mentioned in that recipe, just cook it with liver, soy sauce, etc., and you end up with something very similar to something that a friend of mine from Shanghai cooks. But the French sites are indeed better. Edit: the comment about eating with the hands being in is preying on me. I keep getting visions of going to a restaurant and ordering Maultaschen, and eating them with my hands. Jeez, I need to get a life!

I use my pressure cooker pretty much daily! I usually cook Indian food, which really benefits from a pressure cooker. Virtually every family I know in India has at least one. I use it for: 1) rehydrating and cooking dried beans and lentils. Lentils require no soaking but can be cooked immediately. The time they require varies depending on the type of lentil and whether they are whole or split. It can vary between 3 - 10 minutes once its come up to pressure. For beans (I cook mostly chick peas and kidney beans. Not together ) you can either chuck them in the p-cooker and cook the heck out of them. This requires quite a long time, maybe over an hour depending on the age of your beans. I never do this actually. Instead, I use the pressure cooker for rehydrating the beans. Cover generously with water about 4 (or 6 or 8 or whatever) hours before you want to cook. Bring up to pressure, turn off and let the pressure come down by itself. You can leave it alone at that stage, though if I'm in the kitchen meanwhile, I might do it a second time later when the temperature of the beans has come back down. When you want to cook, it requires about ten minutes more in the pressure cooker to be fully done. Check before you start that the beans have not absorbed all the liquid, you may need to add more water, and give a gentle stir to the pot to ensure that nothing has stuck to the bottom. If you are cooking something where, for presentation, it is important that none of the beans have split, you should tweak this cooking time downwards a little, as what I've given yields very soft beans where a few are beginning to split open. Obviously, this can be used for non-Indian dishes as well. My mother always uses her pressure cooker for ham and split pea soup, for example. 2) To adapt Indian meat dishes (and other non-Indian recipes as well, of course) to pressure cooker use I usually reduce the stated cooking time in the recipe to approximately one third (time this after the pressure cooker has come up to pressure, not from the beginning of cooking). Take care with chicken, as it can easily get so overcooked that it is falling off the bones. 3) I also tend to use it for Moroccan dishes which usually require long slow cooking. 4) Cooking stock. Yes, it does go all cloudy, and is not the purist method or yields anything I would serve to guests. But sometimes, who cares? It's fast, and it's easy, and it uses up less natural resources in the form of gas or electricity due to the vastly reduced time required. And if the soup is then going to contain something which covers up the cloudiness - such as cream or pureed vegetables - then I don''t have any qualms at all. 5) Risotto. (yes, I know. Gasp, shock, horror. I NEVER stir risotto). This idea was taken from Lorna Sass' Cooking under pressure , though I tend to tweak her recipe so much that the only thing in common with it is the quantities for rice to liquid and the cooking times required. 6) Indian rice pudding (kheer). Normally this requires standing at the stove stirring constantly for far longer than risotto, AND it runs the risk of burning on the bottom because you are boiling milk with the rice for such a long time. So I looked at Lorna Sass' risotto recipe and several days later (enlightenment can come slowly) I realized that of course it would work for kheer as well. Indian rice pudding in ten minutes of cooking time as opposed to at least a couple of hours, AND with no stirring or burning (though there might be a little sticking to the bottom). When I told my discovery to Indian friends I got the response: 'But we ALWAYS cook our kheer in the pressure cooker.' Seems that everyone knew but me, and I had to rediscover the wheel. 7) English style boiled/steamed puddings (such as Christmas plum pudding). These require about 30-45 minutes in a pressure cooker, and much longer if cooked conventionally. If you've never cooked them, do try. There are many recipes out there, and although some English boiled puddings can be rather leaden in the stomach, there are also ones which are steamed, light, and delicious. I cook a lot more things than just these, this is just to give you some idea of its possibilities. I'd also recommend the Lorna Sass book. Nice food, and once you've cooked some of the recipes you'll get a feel for how to use the pressure cooker for recipes written for conventional boiling, simmering, etc. If you want to get started on cooking before you've acquired recipes specifically for pressure cooker use, do note that it's important to use less liquid in you dish than you would use otherwise. Very little of your cooking liquid is being lost from the pressure cooker, and obviously the cooking time is reduced. Consequently there is also a reduction in the amount of the liquid lost from evaporation which usually occurs over a long period in conventional cooking. If you neglect this fact, your dishes will be swimming in liquid and you'll have to do a lot of extra reduction.

He has just been holidaying in Russia, and brought me Xenta. I haven't tasted it yet ('summer' here at the moment is so cold that I am considering turning the central heating back on, and have no desire to drink anything chilled, no matter how novel it may be to me). Is it actually Russian? I was looking at the minimal information on the bottle, as well as trying to Google for information, and am more confused than I was at the outset. On the bottle they claim it's made according to the original recipe, and somewhere on the web I read that Xenta was originally produced in Spain and then they recently switched production to Russia. Somewhere else they said essentially the same thing, but claimed it was originally produced in Italy. The company that is actually behind the product is legally based in Luxemburg.... If it is actually swill, and mouthwash would taste better, please say so gently, as it was given as a gift and in good faith.

However, there is a pickled za'atar also available in jars.It's pretty much sprigs of za'atar thyme very tightly packed in salted vinegar (or is it in brine? It's been a while since I had it). I'm sure the people on the Middle Eastern forum could tell you all sorts of exciting things to do with it. I liked the flavor much that I simply ate it plain straight from the jar.

Ludja, there's this forum, though I don't find it really in the same calibre as the French sites you gave here.

Are you sure you actually need chunks of anything? As far as richness and fattiness goes, might not the bitterness of the matcha offset this adequately? And for texture, I recall reading a vaguely similar sounding icecream in one of Nigella Lawson's books, also no stirring, no beating, but with citrus juice providing the counterpoint to the sweetness of the cream (don't have the book, so I'm very vague here), and I don't recall there being chunks of anything required to get the right texture in the icecream.

I think this is the English name she is using for a peach variety that I've come across in France - peche de vignes (there should be a circonflex over the e in peche). I've only come across them in France. I couldn't even find them in the far north of France, but have seen them in Burgundy and places further south from there. I tried to google for them to find a picture, but couldn't find one. It's a deep red, almost all the way through. As far as looks are concerned, think of the peach equivalent of blood oranges. The taste is wonderful, too. If ever in France (are they actually elsewhere??) at the right season, look out for them. If you're not there at the right time, peche de vignes icecream is wonderful too, though the ripe, fresh fruit, eaten at the peak of ripeness and dripping everywhere, cannot be surpassed. With out any real basis, and definitely without any proper knowledge whatsoever, I've always assumed that the name of these peaches meant that the trees are grown in an espaliered shape, and not that the trees are actually grown in vineyards. Nectarines are quite different in taste. I'm sure your jam will taste good, but it won't taste like jam made from peche de vignes.

My brother (bless him ) just gave me a bottle of absinthe. Does anyone ever serve it with any food (nibble-type things, not meals)? If so, what? Incidentally, might the trend of lighting a sugar cube over it (don't worry, I'm not about to do this myself) have perhaps been derived from or related to the German Feuerzangenbowle? (the link is in German). This is a Christmas-time punch made with spiced red wine and rum, in which lump sugar is suspended over the wine, drizzled with rum, then set alight. It became widespread after a 1944 film of the same name, but has been around for 200 years, at the very least. A similar drink is also called Krambambuli, and is/was also part of the drinking rituals of German university students. One link on this, again in German, here.

your absolutely right, thats something that really pisses me off. especially when it comes to fresh produce and meat those farmersmarkets, wholefoods and traderjoes outperform any store in germany easily. it just seems that american customers are far more quality conscious than german customers, one must not forget that only 30 years ago in german haute cuisine restaurants the veggies came out of a can! since about 7 or 8 years pumpkin and squash in many varietes are "a la mode" i can only hope that the same thing will be true for tomatoes, potatoes and other veggies. in an average supermarket you will only get 2 tomato and potato varietes. most of our tomatoes come from the netherlands and go by the nickname waterbomb. :-( i get my tomatoes mostly from an italian specialty store who imports it directly from campania. by the way where will you move to in germany ?? ← I think these comments are far too much of an overgeneralization. It depends on which part of the US you are talking about, and which part of Germany. I lived in the American mid-West for 5 years. There were NO farmers markets, pretty much the only place to buy fruits and vegetables was in supermarkets, and the fruit and veg. were anything but ideal. Fruits were picked so green they would never ripen, many of the vegetables were limp, or even rotting due to the water regularly sprayed onto them in the display. Cucumbers and such like were coated with non-edible wax, meaning that you could never eat one unpeeled. Many of the vegetables were grown until enormous, meaning that they were tasteless, had (in the case of cucumbers for example) large seeds that would have been edible had the vegetable been picked younger, but now had to be scooped out and discarded, and so on. Sometimes there were better fruits and vegetables available, but then they were too expensive for me to afford them on a student budget. That said, collard greens, okra, and corn were cheap, and were excellent in quality. When we moved to Germany directly after living in the US, I was in heaven as far as the quality of the produce was concerned. Sure there are lousy Dutch tomatoes that taste of nothing, but right next to them are ones imported from Spain or Italy which are ripe, and have smell and taste. I have never seen heirloom tomatoes in Germany, but to make up for that you can easily choose between about 6 - 8 varieties of green peppers imported from Turkey, Spain, or Hungary (not to mention the red or yellow peppers), a huge variety of lettuces, cabbages and other related greens (if you want to talk about foods which have been grown locally rather than imported), etc. At the market, the people selling the vegetables were more than ready to give tips on how to prepare certain vegetables. I had never come across black radish before Germany, for example, and was told several ways for preparing them when I asked. In addition, the prices were/are far more affordable than in the US mid-West. The above experiences, by the way, were in a much smaller town than where I am living now. Even there, I could easily find NUMEROUS Turkish and Italian-run produce stores with top quality produce. Some of these needed quite a lot of effort in finding their location, but they exist all right. Now, I am sure that I would feel quite differently about the produce available in the US if I had been living in, for example, California. So, to return to the topic of tomatoes, I have never yet seen an heirloom tomato for sale in Germany. For Behemoth, however, I would say that as you are moving from the mid-West to Munich (right?), the quality of produce will probably be a vast improvement, even though the range of what is available will differ. As you are not exactly unacquainted with Germany, I'm sure you already know this. But I'd be looking for Turkish grocers rather than supermarkets for most of my fresh produce. (cheaper even than the markets, not to mention cheaper than the supermarkets, as well as fresher, riper fruit, and a wider variety of produce in general). I haven't been to Munich's Viktualienmarkt. Annoyingly, I was within spitting distance just last week, but was with two elderly relatives from abroad who were unable to walk much, and could not be left alone as they could not find their way about without help. I gather, though,that it's very good. OK, you may now return to the subject of tomatoes...

My answer is referring only to European dumplings. The problem, if you make a distinction between filling or without a filling, is that the two categories can blur into one another. About a year ago, I had this book out of the library. It has 125 recipes for dumplings, most of them from southern Germany. It includes dumplings based on wheat flour, semolina, stale bread, potatoes, etc., as well as numerous doughs where these ingredients are combined in some form (for example, cooked potato mixed with grated uncooked potato, stale bread soaked in milk). Some are filled, others not. However, often the dough for filled and unfilled dumplings is identical. Dumplings in the past were often prepared by poor families who were trying to feed many people at minimal cost. Therefore, whether the dumpling was filled or unfilled depended not just on its intended role in the meal or on the view of what 'dumplings' ought to be or ought to contain (or not contain) but relied to a great extent on cost and availability of ingredients. To take an example, if one takes a dough made from flour and cooked potato, molds it around a piece of fruit - such as apricot or plum, boils it, and serves it in a browned breadcrumbs, then certainly most people in Germany, Austria, or Hungary would consider these to be dumplings. If you take the same dough - unfilled - boil it, then serve it in soup, or with a stew, or let it grow cold, slice it, then serve it fried lightly with fried onion and bacon, I don't see what one would call it if one were NOT to calll the same food a dumpling. It is, after all, the same dough prepared in the same way, but with different accompaniments.