piazzola
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Posts posted by piazzola
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I am looking at the possibility of buying the artisan bakery where I work, together with a coworker. It is a relatively small operation now, but we make really good breads and pastries. The demand is there for us to sell a lot more, but the current owner didn't really want it to grow, so he kind of kept the lid on the volume.
I'm wondering what you all think--is this a good time to be in this business?
Obviously, location is very important. We're in a good city for this, but the location within it is horrible. So moving to a better place more conducive to retail sales would be our first priority. We have put a lot of thought into it and have a number of other ideas as well for growing the business.
What do you think?
Visit Dan Lepard forum he has a lot of info on professional artisan bakeries
Yet if I well remember he does not visit this forum anymore
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I tried Whole Foods grass-fed beef @ $15/rib eye steak. I was disappointed for several reasons. First of all, I don't think it tasted that good. Kind'a gamey in a bad way. Because it is not marbled, it cooks in an entirely different way, and I barely know how to cook regular steak properly. Not what I had in Spain, that is for sure.
Again the quality of beef can vary greatly from ranch to ranch and herd to herd however Argentinean beef is mainly chewy and dark meat but flavourful unlike Wagyu although the Argentines are into waygyu in a big way in the last few years.
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Quite like today episode
No one got eliminated it ws funny but What the other contestants?
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I like aspects of the show but the elimination of contestants by peer votes makes it too much like Survivor: Masterchef. Will the best chef end up as the winner?
I do not follow as I should but it is a good show Although this way pass my time to have a career or own a restaurant still makes a good viewing and I agree I do not like certain aspects of the elimination.
I am more for the final cook off between the three bottom contestants.
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Prociutto cotto just means "cooked ham" ... so I think it could refer to any Italian cooked ham of any type. What we usually think of as prosciutto is technically prosciutto crudo (cured, raw ham) ... or more specifically, the Parma style of prosciutto crudo.
Technically right although there are a lot of variations within the varieties and regions of many countries other than Italy in which has been produced for yonks.
Jamon crudo is also another name for prosciutto crudo.
In my old country for instance we refer to sandwiches made with "crudo or cocido" and omit the word ham or in Italian "crudo e cotto" still the same. Since prosciuttto sounds quite a mouthful the word jamon is preferred.
Subtleties in rising a pig for processing will always exists and also differences exist in every region town and countries because of pigs diets, way of processing them this makes it almost impossible to establish a rank of preference for hams. Basically a difference is found in plant processed and home made hams. If anyone had dispatched a pig or two that person would know the work and processing involved in making hams and other smallgoods at the time of the killing or faena.
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This is a basic recipe http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1434.html
you can tweak it to suit your own taste buds with or without vinegar either French or apple vinegar.
You can use pork or beef meats or none if you prefer.
It is advisable to stir fry your shredded cabbage and lightly stir fry the beets to bring up the natural sweetness.
Timing is of essence there is no need to overcook ingredients borscht is great if cooked one or two days before serving.
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Two Brazilian recipes that I have not managed to prepare successfully in exile are these two above bolinhos de pescado (Rio) and vatapa (Bahia)
Anyone could share the some light into the recipe?
Thank you
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In Argentina with different filling they are called bombas de papa
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Sriracha was hit with Australians a few years ago as well as similar sauces from SE Asia but as fresh chillies of all sorts and shapes became more available year round and the Asian community has grown out of it preferring chopped fresh chillies on their lunch time sandwiches for instance.
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Batard is right somehow
Asia ingredients What?
Chinese north, south, centre,west,east.
Japanese, Korean
Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese,Cambodian, Indonesian, Malaysian even Singapore has its own style and ingredients then the Indian Subcontinent and Persia and Central Asia as you can see it is just a very broad term just as much as a Asian person goes chasing European or American products. What is your interpretation of American in English does not translate in other languages as the country above the Rio Grande.
It very much depends on how you want to look at things and how much you want to know.
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I made tah-dig with a Spanish twist since I had some chicken rice or arroz con pollo and used zaffron as well so I wanted to reheat this the next day I went for the tah-dig method and the rice at the bottom come up crispy brown, not burnt at all my family said it was delicious loose and crispy rice at the bottom.
My wife, as always said and asked me not to forget the recipe as I always do he!he!
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Three day old wine? How did you manage to keep it for that long?
Sugar! never occurred to me but my Mum used to give me flamed red wine with sugar as a cough syrup when I had a cold.
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Melbourne, Australia second largest and highly cosmopolitan city various markets mainly Asian exists in close proximity of each other nowadays it can be compared to Singapore a melting pot of Asian cultures. Anglo Australian and of Europeans descend shay away but we are very wise when shopping for food stuff and ingredients as Australian travel a lot and almost daily to Asian destinations news travel home fast we know what's good and what's bad pretty soon.
Asian cookware is pretty cheap and ingredients not always good fish, shellfish and vegies cheap but sometimes they could contain bacteria or high levels of mercury still allowed into the country as random batch testing is performed but more stricter quarantine laws are needed to prevent bad foodstuffs coming in.
Asian restaurants were highly patronised ten or more years ago but nowadays quite a few were featured as unhealthy eating and were shown on tv as vermin ridden and plain unhealthy.
Likewise South Eastern asian butchers tend to keep meat at temperatures above 4C perhaps 10C so cheap does not always reflect healthy eating.
Markets are great for cultures but beware of what you get for your money value is one thing getting ill is another side effect of market cultures.
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Finally I settled for Spyderco fine grit ceramic stone recommended and bought from a dealer in Western Australia he runs a knife and Japanese sword collector's club. I explain my background as my father and I were fine clockmakers and watchmarkers so naturally we used many sharpening stones soft and hard high and low grit to shapen and polish watch mechanism and tools.
When I was a kid I use to look at my dad through the process of sharpening his razor blade and then shaving with it with his eyes closed and he would never bleed from any cut.
Anyway I just use a small collection of knives mainly German Wustoff and use utily or 2 thin blade knives to cut difficult things like tomatoes, parsley stalks, onions, celery or plums.
thin blade knives are easy to maintain and when slicing stop slices rolling off the chopping board.
Coming back to this dealer he told me that Japanese water stones these days are not what they used to be as the Japanese quarries have been exhausted the stones nowadays are made of reconstituted material.
He continued saying the there is a separate chapter to sharpen swords but that does not apply to kitchen stuff.
Anyway as I have children and young people visiting besides my wife dos not care which knives she uses anyway and I am afraid for their safety so I choose not to over the sharpen but keep an edge just enough to last me say 20 degrees and kept deep in the chopping block.
But I do keep Dad's (my own) Argentinian facon in pretty good shape encased and that is sharp only used to eat meat.
Finally, I would be interested to know how to sharpen and keep a serrated knife and a expensive potato peeler in good nick?
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In Argentina, Asado de Tira is simply a strip of Beef Rib bones cut to about 4-5cm in width, still held together by meat, collagen and silverskin...essentially a long strip of short ribs.
Well paisano it is true but the most important way is how you cook it
I have found a small restaurant in Montevideo near the Uruguayan parliament to be a great place for this kind of meat and about the adobo(chimichurri) I won't tell you nothing because it was heavenly and that was 1995.
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Hmm Shaya is this everyday food? I rather think it is not
My friends soon to be partners both from Teheran and do not think as I stated earlier.
Please clarify?
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You right Alessia
Sonno tutti scherzi
Tagliasacchi (Ulivo- Pd) richiede un ulteriore approfondimento, "poiché si tratta di una questione di grande rilevanza per la città."Consiglio comunale: approvato il regolamento sui pubblici esercizi -
All this time I thought the spiceman was selling me old barberries, its nice to know he's not cheating me! If I had used the bright red super sour barberries my rice would have been completely out of balance. Zereshks are much more complex than I ever thought!
I really need to find myself a nice Persian grandmother and see how she makes the Tah-dig using a stainless steal pot, otherwise I will be posting about my stuck on rice the next 50 years. I would love to learn the secrets of the Tah-dig.
Don't have a grandmother for you but here find some ingredients, recipes and videos courtesy of SBS Australia
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I have found myself on quite a few occassions when I could not find a specific ingredient for many reasons many ingredients they were not available at the time.
I start with a small list perhaps others can add useful information so we can share them here. Thanks
boiled tins of condensed milk back in the 70's to make dulce de leche
bacon and paprika as substitutes for chorizo.
fatty bacon for lap chong
sweet vermouth for soy and mirin mixture for Japanese tuna steaks.
walnuts instead of pine nuts.
water instead of eggs for pasta.
pizzas without cheese.
quesillo and or soluguni or white cheese use a mixture of muzzarella, brinza and ricotta.
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Use dried cranberries. Oceanspray sweetened dried cranberries are too sweet; see if you can find less sweet types in health food stores, more sour the better. Or use fresh cranberries instead, and balance with a tiny pinch of sugar. Farsi Shireen polo uses a lot of sugar and al-balo or sour cherry polu also depends on this sweet sour balance, so using sour, fresh cranberries for the red berry/colour/tart element may be an appropriate substitute for barberries.
BTW, and this is my Indian "chauvinism" trying to set the record straight about the oft repeated canard that the Persians taught the Indians how to cook polo, the opposite is true:
1. The very etymology of polo is palaanna, palAnna, pala + anna = meat + rice, Sanskrit
2. See the Mahabharata e.g. the Tale of King Nala, for a detailed picture of the culinary scene of ancient times when Persian, Kamboja and Indian culture were COTERMINOUS, like Canada & USA today; i.e. no separation was sharp. Thus x teaching y is nonsense endlessly repeated by food writers until taken as gospel truth.
3. Most importantly, ALL AROMATIC RICES originated in a single cluster in the foothills of the Himalayas near eastern UP, Bengal, westermost part of Assam [see Susan McCouch]. Diffusion of these rices into small, medium & long grain forms took time, and moved west + south, probably countercurrent with the diffusion of the Kamboja and other Iranian Aryan groups along the Ganga valley, where they created discrete kingdoms in Bengal, Assam, and infiltrated into Cambodia which supposedly bears their name [Kampuchea], carrying with them those same aromatic rices.
At a certain time, Indian Aryans & Iranian Aryans were very close both linguisticaly & culturally, to the extent of having religious schisms. This you cannot enjoy, unless you are extremely intimate; Zoroaster's mother, Rbha, was part of a Vedic lineage or shared the same set of cultural and racial ties whereas he had some "Lutheran" things to say about his maternal culture !
So, a palanna by definition, is rice cooked with meat.
Khecharanna may be rice cooked with other things e.g. legumes, vegetables, fruit etc.
Indica rice originated in India well before the period of the epics, by which time the aomatic rice were well differentiated into their numerous classes. in the setting of the Mahabharata, we find a civiilization that is well-established around Delhi and which culturally sets the trend for food, dress, ornaments etc. for the entire region from Aghanistan to Bengal in the east to Gujarat in the southwest. There is an aritocracy where invidual nobles take great pride in being accomplished chefs and the fame of the tables of certain nobles is legendary.
The King Nala is one such foodie. Fate plays a cruel trick and he finds himself enslaved along with his beautiful Queen. To effect their escape, and endure in the meanwhile, he puts his skills as a chef on display and becomes the head of his master's kitchens where he continues to amaze all with his creations. Among these are complex palanna/pulaos and meat and rice dishes!!
So polo/pilafs have a common ancestry in the Indian-Iranian continuum of those times when Indian rice, eggplants, cucumber, citrus etc. were diffusing west and cumin, coriander, fenugreek, asafetida, mustard, beet-spinach, lentils and many other crops diffusing east.
One thing though is that you seem to have forgotten about the Moghuls or Turko-Mongol period and its domination over the whole region where lots of Persians fled to what's today East India and Pakistan remained and slowly assimilated into Indian culture as Parsis.
By the same token Tadjiks are also ethnic Persians.
BTW I just happen to pick up a leaflef with similar rice recipe from an Iranian dried fruits dealer similar to what Sarah had posted above. Anyway I mentioned that Uzbeks and Tadjiks add rabbit with barberries to plovs and dishes and he was very happy to try a plov like this next time.
Sarah one cup of barberries seems a lot when most recipes call for 20g otherwise too much sugar will have to be added barberries are extremely sour especially when cooked.
BTW Sarah that burnt rice is also vey much appreciated by Thai people when the jasmine rice gets crispy toasted at the bottom of the pan.
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No problem finding barberries here although they are very expensive.
I have not heard of barberries included in Uzbeks or Azeri plovs but I have to give you the benefit of the doubt even Ossetians (just had a war with Georgia are ethnic Iranians) .
Even when Iranian cooking has influenced Russian and Ukranian cooking
to great extent I have to confess Iranians are masters at treating rice and noodles alike they have sensational dishes that I hope one day not to distant get published.
Thank you Sarah for sharing the recipe
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hmm looks to me like farmer's cheese popular and staple food in these parts.
Just sour cream and let it rest overnight draw the whey and compress and refrigerate. BTW the whey is used to make great crepes or bliny or blintzes.
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To me my latest discovery has been charrgrilled eggplant with charmoula which is almost identical to chimichurri except fresh cilantro is not known and used so it is a welcomed change. Even thought I have quite a few Spanish speaking Moor friends few of them would suggest such recipes but stressed that most Spanish cultural heritage is Moor.
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in summer, we like serving sang-choy-bow and the korean sam-gyop-sal. lettuce is so refreshing! and for dessert, black gelatin with lots of ice.
Ok do not nothing about that but hope is not kimchi.
MasterChef Australia!
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Not available to overseas countries it follows the line of its counterpart MasterChef UK Also not available overseas. However some parts can be viewed in youtube or torrents.
I may even upload some series next month when I get my new ADSL 2 plus.