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Mallet

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Posts posted by Mallet

  1. Here's a link to the original press release, including links for the actual data

    •  WASH surveyed over 260 food products around the world from KFC, McDonalds, Kellogg's, Nestle, Burger King and Subway

    •  Not one product surveyed had the same salt content around the world. [emphasis mine]

    Interesting that Darienne mentioned sugar above, I wonder if there is a direct trade-off between salt and sugar content in these products across regions.

  2. Apparently, many of the same processed foods are sold with more salt in Canada

    http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/07/2...ood-cereal.html

    Canadians who like to start the day with a bowl of Kellogg's All-Bran cereal, for instance, are eating 233 per cent more salt than people having the same breakfast in the United States.

    All-Bran sold in Canada contains 2.15 grams of salt, or sodium chloride, per 100 grams, compared with just 0.65 of a gram south of the border.

    I was already aware that processed foods contain a lot of salt, but I had no idea that there was such a strong geographical component, from products made by the same manufacturer!

  3. Oysters are attached to their shells at two points, at the hinge (via the hinge ligament), and at the adductor muscle (there is a third muscle, but it is so weak that we can pretty much ignore it for now). The main thing you're trying to do at the hinge is to sever the hinge ligament, which takes surprisingly little force. If you find yourself really forcing at any point your knife is probably in the wrong spot. Once you've inserted your knife and severed the ligament, twisting the knife slightly to give your knife some room to work up to the adductor muscle should be relatively easy. Without taking your knife out of the shell, you can then work your way up to the adductor muscle making sure to follow the top shell with your knife to avoid damaging the meat as described above (if the hinge is facing you, the adductor muscle is on the right hand side of the oyster so make sure you run your knife along that edge).

    PS: Don't bother sniffing. I find it looks ridiculous (as well as potentially unsanitary), and wastes precious time. If an oyster is dead, believe me, you won't need to stick your nose in it to smell it!

  4. I wonder how much of an affect age plays in taste? In colder waters, a lobster will be older for a given size. Many people prefer the taste and texture of larger, older lobsters (Martin Picard in particular champions the 6-lbs category), and I would be curious to compare a Fourchu lobster to a lobster from different waters but similar age, not size.

  5. It was a great find to be sure (they say chance favours the prepared mind, and I have been thinking of morels an awful lot). I simply sautéed them with butter, salt and pepper. They were delicious and what I especially noticed was their meaty texture and quality. One thing was that there was a lot of grit left in them. I initially didn't want to soak them or run them under running water, but I think that will be necessary in the future.

  6. I was gone on conferences during what I thought was the core of morel season. I'm assuming it's all done now? In between trips, I was in Toronto with some friends and we found 4 morels growing on the lawn! It was my first time eating fresh morels and they were delicious.

    I also discovered wild leeks this year (although I didn't forage them myself). They are my new favourite spring green. They seem to significantly enhance everything from sandwiches to stirfys!

  7. I was experimenting with vegetables at 185 F. for an hour. On some, I felt the package until there was give. I think the carrots went 90 min. I did potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and whole mushrooms.

    Frankly, I was not impressed with the results. EXCEPT for the mushrooms. They came out rich flavored and great.  A lot of potential for various finishing techniques - or none. 

    The potatoes were cut in a 1/4" dice and tasted good, but compared to what versatility you can get with potato preparations, no big deal. Carrots were done, but not impressive. Broccoli yuch. I am very willing to hear results from others that might give more interesting veggies.

    Stu

    Sounds like it's definitely worth experimenting with wild specimens, thanks!

  8. Taking this thread back to cooking for a bit, has anyone experimented with SV mushrooms? slkinsey did some SV shiitakes (they were in a bag with chicken and scallions), but other than that I haven't been able to find much in the way of guidelines/recipes. For example, Under Pressure has not a single mushroom preparation sous-vide, as far as I can tell.

    Is it just a waste of time? Perhaps proper browning of mushrooms is too integral to their flavour. Wild morels are coming up soon, and I don't want to waste any (assuming, of course, I manage to find any!).

  9. My understanding is that the driver involved in a roadkill in Ontario has dibs on the carcass. After that, the OPP often takes care of finding someone to salvage the kill.

    From the Ontario Out of Doors forum's "Would you eat roadkill" thread (stumbled on through Google):

    I hit a bear a few years back, and it was left wounded on the side of the road. Fearing that it was hurt and dangerous, I left and called the OPP. When I came back, my bear was departing in the back of of a pickup truck. The officer said to me "I hope you don't mind but I called my cousin, he likes to eat bear?" I laughed it off, but in reality I wanted it for the freezer!!
    I know a father and son that get regular calls from the local OPP whenever there is a deer/vehicle collision, to see if they want to come and get the deer. They told the local detachment to call them whenever the need arises. I believe the OPP give them some sort of police report to show how they came into possession of the animal, and notify the MNR (as required by law).
    To get a road kill up here your name has to be on top of the OPP call list. Mine is getting closer every kill.

    And it goes on. I guess there's a whole network in place! In Alaska, salvaging roadkill moose is very common, and the state police keep lists of local charities to whom the meat is donated. Once you have received a kill, your name goes to the bottom of the list, thus ensuring fair distribution (it is a public resource, after all).

    I have no idea what the practical etiquette/rules are like. For example, if my friend and I showed up at a deer carcass and part way through salvaging, some other people show up and claim they were called in, would we have to cede our prize?

    As for the actual salvage, I have zero experience dressing anything larger than a porcupine, so I can only speculate. As far as I understand it, you basically just carve off the chunks of meat that haven't been destroyed by the collision. If you're lucky, the animal will have been struck in the head, in which case you can proceed as normal. I think the exact details of the procedure highly depends on the nature of the kill and the age of the carcass.

  10. Mallet, they slow cook it here in Korea and they have a special pot/gadget to do it. There's a lot of black garlic products sold on the home tv shopping here. I'll ask my korean friends how do they make their own black garlic.

    Thanks, I'd really appreciate it!

  11. Today, my friend came down to the lab looking a little more excited than usual. A friend had spotted a fresh roadkill deer on the way to work! We agreed that if she saw the deer on the way home we would rush over to the scene and salvage what we could (of course, documenting everything for educational purposes). A quick scan of Ontario hunting boards revealed the unlikeliness of this situation: apparently, the Ontario Provincial Police actually keep a phone list of people they can call to salvage deer and moose that get reported! Sure enough, it was gone on the way home...

  12. I don't have very much experience foraging for anything (except chanterelles, which are so plentiful in NB that no skill/effort is required save the ability to withstand the onslaught of mosquitoes). It's something that I've always wanted to learn more about, though. What's a good starting point?

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