Suzanne F
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Posts posted by Suzanne F
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Grinding the nuts in your food processor is not a problem as long as you: 1. do it with sugar; 2. do it FAST, so that the nuts do not heat up so much as to start giving up their oil. Then you'll have nut butter instead of flour. Not at all what you want. (You could probably do it in a blender also; the stronger/faster the machine, the better.)
It's best to follow a recipe that gives the measurements by weight (as professional pastry formulæ do). That way you can take the weight of nuts and chop them with the weight of sugar. Volume measures are not comparable. You could start with whole almonds, blanch them, and grind them -- although you still might not be sure just how fresh the nuts were to begin with. If you have a trustworthy source of (fresh) nut flour, it's easier to go with that.
Wish I had a recipe for you, but so far I haven't found one. One note, though: the last restaurant where I saw them made, they were baked in those flexible (silicone) molds. Popped right out perfectly.
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Egg shells (or more usually egg whites) are part of the "clearmeat" that one adds to the chilled stock along with ground meat, mirepoix, and acid (tomato, wine, etc.) to form the "raft" that clarifies the consommé. After you de-fat the chilled, reduced stock, you mix the clearmeat ingredients together, and beat them into the jellyish stock. When you then simmer it partway over the burner, the clearmeat comes together on top as a raft and picks up the impurities from the circulating liquid. It think it's the principle of "like attracting like" -- in this case, the proteins in the meat and egg attract and hold the little tiny sludgy bits. The mirepoix and acid are mostly for flavor.
The whole process of making crystal-clear liquid is long and involved. First you make your stock, skimming all the way; strain it; chill it; de-fat it; reduce it; strain it again; chill it again; (de-fat again if necessary); add the clearmeat and simmer it until it's clear. A lot of work for a cup of clear liquid. Not done much anymore. But then, if you do it right, there's almost nothing as astonishing, especially to modern diners. (Perhaps because, as Joe Baum is reputed to have said, "There's always something wrong with the consommé."
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Is "Heimlich" his real name, or is it just a manoeuvre on his part?
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Sandra: BINGO!!!
What is it with you guys (and I think it's been an all-male discussion, not that it really matters) and your need for instant marketing gratification? Someone mentioned how long it took for "pasta" as such to become mainstream. Just because the owner of Risotteria hasn't built an empire YET doesn't mean the concept can't/won't/shouldn't take off. Probably just a real-estate issue.
BTW: there were quite a number of "instant" risottos on display at the summer Fancy Food Show. Granted, they tasted awful (to me), but that's no reason for them not to become popular. Marketing is all!
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On Chowhound, I saw a description of making caramelized onions in the crock pot: toss in a stick of butter, load it up with sliced onions, let it cook for 24 hours. Haven't tried it (no crock), but it sounds good to me! (Store the stuff in 1-cup containers in the freezer; that I DO do.)
Then you can make pissaladière anytime!
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I'll take a shot at your questions:
If I wanted to make a truly authentic Chinese soup, yes, I would probably go to Chinatown for a black chicken, Chinese celery and herbs -- whatever the recipe called for. And were I to attempt a classic (i.e., French) stock as I learned in school and at work, I'd really try to do it that way.
But my style of home cooking is, well, mongrelization. I tend to make my stocks with whatever scraps I've saved in the freezer (raw or cooked) plus additional fresh ingredients. I suspect I'm close to the norm among most home cooks who make stocks at all, although probably not among those here. In any case, I use whatever stock seems most suitable to the finished soup.
To me, a good stock tastes first and foremost of its titular ingredient. Not of the aromatics, not of salt. Other flavors should be discernible, but as background notes to the main one.
I am usually too lazy to make beautifully clear stocks. Or, rather, I don't want to give the stock all the attention it deserves as it cooks in order to be clear. No frequent skimming, no rafts (but then, I try not to make it worse by boiling, either). I belong to the "cook it - strain it - chill it - degrease it and scrape off the nasty stuff" school. This does not give you anything close to consommé, but I don't really need to bother with that AT HOME.
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SteveK, in spite of my belief that if you wanted to berate me, you should have done it privately: the answer to almost all your questions to me is YES. (I have not worked with frozen Ravifruit or Boiron coconut purée; I've only used fresh coconut, desiccated coconut, or canned [regular and lower-fat] coconut milk. Other frozen purées, yes, but not coconut.) And virtually none of your personal comments to me has anything to do with the Q that awbrig asked.
I was being "very nice and generous" in attempting to answer awbrig's question because I saw very few mentions of what I thought the problem could possibly be. Your first answer did not even question whether or not awbrig really even meant "emulsion" but consisted largely of "blame your cheap equipment." Almost no investigation of the circumstances of the supposed failure. Perhaps you were standing there, reading at the recipe, and watching what awbrig did, step by step. I certainly was not, and so asked for more information. That's what I meant about detective work in a blindfold. (Sorry you chose to misinterpret it.) At no time (until just now) did I attack the answers you gave, and I most certainly did not rudely question your knowledge or experience, as you have done to me. You have been neither helpful to awbrig, nor polite to me.
And some members wonder why others don't post!
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Unless I'm confusing "Risotteria" with "Rice," isn't this the place that uses only induction cooking? If you notice, there is no hood over the cooking area (down the wall to the left as you look in the front window, as I recall). Just a number of single-burner induction cooking surfaces sitting on top of a counter. Which would make the concept great for replication -- if you don't need to install a hood, you can put it in virtually anywhere.
If I'm remembering that correctly, then one could hardly say that Risotteria makes "real" risotto. As in Steve P's definition. But ... so what? As Steve said, we're in New York, not Milan. Is this any worse than the widespread mis-use of the venerable terms "confit" or "pesto?"
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From both your descriptions of the recipe, this is an infusion, not a reduction. But Polly's comment makes me wonder: what kind of coconut milk did you use? Regular or "lite?" And what kind of milk milk? If you used less-than-full-fat milks, she's right, there might not have been enough fat in the mixture.
Come to think of it: does the recipe call for canned coconut milk, or are you supposed to make it fresh from a coconut?
So many recipes are incompletely written; they don't give quite enough specifics. I've never looked at any of Trotter's, so I don't know whether that's the case here. But I would expect him to be highly specific. No?
(This is fun: doing detective work while wearing a blindfold.)
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Ah -- that's it! A regular beater-type mixer doesn't have the speed you need; a stick blender will froth it much better. And contrary to what was said earlier in this thread, even a cheapie Braun or some such will work fine. I've used one on a half-gallon of beurre monté and it did the job. Sure, your canister blender will do even better, but it will also allow/cause the mixture to cool off too much in the transfer from pot to blender and in the mixing. Remember that frothing is beating air into the liquid. By doing it with an immersion blender in the pot, you can maintain a slightly higher level of heat.
Definitely NOT the flat paddle: 1. all that will do is splash it all over your kitchen; 2. it won't whip enough air into it to froth it; and 3. by the time you realize that it won't work, the stuff will have cooled off way too much.
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We lived in DC from 1976 to 1980. I am so thrilled to hear that Yannick Cam is (again) cooking in the area!!!! Still remember Le Pavillion. Go wherever he is, eat there!
There is so much more good food there than when we were around. Jaleo is terrific. Is Market Inn still open? (not far from the Arena) They used to have an all-day-Saturday half-price oyster deal. And the cooked-food stands at Eastern Market were a treasure.
Mina Newman is cheffing there now? Wow, gotta make a trip down! I knew her from Myriad Group here in NYC.
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Spicy, spicy, spicy food: chili, Malaysian noodle soup. Anything that will shock the system and cover up throw-up breath. And lots and lots and lots of water, but not at the same time as the food.
Or just spend the whole day in bed (for once, alone is preferable).
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A couple of months ago, David Rosengarten did an on-air hot-dog tasting on Leonard Lopate's show on WNYC. As I recall, they hated every single one. Sigh.
Now that I know Niman Ranch makes them though, ...
Thanks, Steve. -
It would really help if we had the exact recipe rather than a paraphrase, and knew exactly how awbrig did it, with specific instrumentation and all. I say this because the recipe as told to us says: "use hand held mixer until foamy" -- and a "mixer" could be several different tools. Also, "foamy" doesn't necessarily mean emulsified. It's all just too much of a "he said, she said" argument to sort out. Can't really "blame" any method or tool -- or ingredient -- as we have it, and so can't offer advice.
Can you point us toward the recipe, since you can't quote it here? And tell us exacly what you did? That would be a big help to those of us who would like to help you.
In The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson says this:
(page 274)EMULSION: a blend of two liquids where one forms tiny droplets which are evenly dispersed in the other. It is not strictly a mixture, because the two liquids do not actually mix. The technical term for combinations of this kind is a colloid. The blend may be stable, although in practice -- and especially in cookery -- emulsions often separate.The rest of his entry is quite scientifically detailed, but understandable. In Cookwise, Shirley Corriher also has an excellent explanation.
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Well, I was,
but with all these other great suggestions, why should he bother with something so plebian? Actually, if you form the mixture into individual loaves/cakes, you can cook them on top of the stove, as gussied-up burgers. Lasagna might be a little difficult, too. Save that for when you feel more confident.
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A former boss gave me a bottle of homemade tomato wine. But that's not why I don't work for him anymore
North River Winery in Jacksonville, Vermont makes quite a variety of mostly apple-based wines: an apple-blueberry table wine (quite dry), Northern Spy (only every other year; also very dry), plus some medium-dry rhubarb and some sweet ones, such as a maple-syrup/apple/raspberry dessert wine. They are quite surprisingly good and can be drunk at table with food. Not a Boone's Farm in the lot. They hold Vermont state's winery license #1. There are others around the state (listed in tourist booklets), but we've never tried their products.
As I recall, there was also a winery in Trenton, Maine that made blueberry wine. Less wine-like than North River's, but still better than expected. Don't remember the name, though.
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Do you want specific recipes, or just suggestions? Usual dishes are chili; meatloaf (add lots and lots of sautéed chopped vegetables and breadcrumbs/oatmeal to stretch); spaghetti sauce; moussaka.
Or if you have Asian condiments, you can make Larb:
Poach the ground beef in water for a couple of minutes until the color starts to change; leave it to cool in the water, then drain. Mix with lime juice, fish sauce, thinly sliced shallot, red chilies, and the white part of lemon grass. Add some fresh mint, torn up, and if desired, cilantro. Serve on lettuce. You can stretch this by adding cold noodles, either cellophane noodles or a vermicelli-type of egg noodle, although I believe that is not traditional. Good, though.
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I've probably taken a great risk, but I have kept roasted peppers in the fridge for months. After roasting and peeling/seeding them (and saving the juices), I mix the peppers with fresh herbs (ususally rosemary, sometimes oregano), very thin slices of fresh garlic, olive oil, the reserved juices, a little salt and pepper, and vinegar. I think it's the vinegar that's kept us alive.
On a related note: I've also made and stored big batches of piperade with red, yellow, and green peppers, plus onions and garlic. I sweat them all together in olive oil, then pack them hot into 8-ounce Ball jars. The tops seal as the jars cool; I keep them in the fridge. That way I can just pop open a jar when I need them for recipes. You could probably do it with just red peppers, onion, and garlic.
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Sorry, but vitriol is NOT the best way to cook anything. Much too wet for a good steak -- you end up with the equivalent of steam-table Blarney Star brisket. And it leeches all the nutrients out of vegetables. As for fish, oh, PUH-LEEZE! Maybe lobster can stand up to it, or monkfish, but a delicate turbot would just wither away. How can you possibly consider vitriol as a proper cooking medium? You must be a total idiot.
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I've got S & B brand Nanami Togarashi, which I always referred to as shichimi. It's in a small bottle with a red cap, and is made from "chili pepper, sesame, seaweed, and orange peel" according to the label. Also have green-capped Sansho from House Foods Corporation, which only lists Japanese peppers but smells very citrusy. Both are available in Japanese stores.
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Let's see: the art on the walls of ADNY is not really in bad taste, but it's not in good taste either. Does that mean it's just "in taste"?
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Great question.
"Taste" is highly subjective; "good taste" infinitely more debatable. As I'm sure it will be debated, here. I dare not go further.
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Brown Butter
in Cooking
Posted
What FG said. Plus:
Brown butter, aka beurre noisette, is whole butter cooked over low heat until it takes on the light, golden brown hue of hazelnuts (noisettes). A bit tricky to make, since it still has the milk solids in it, and they can easily burn. It's somewhere in between clarified butter and ghee, but with the milk solids left in and cooked to brown nuttiness