rickster

Thanks!

I made the Tartine croissant recipe a couple of weeks ago and had a fair amount of butter leakage during baking, which prompts what may be a dumb question. No matter what specific technique you use to incorporate the butter, you eventually cut through the laminated layers when you form the croissants, so why doesn't every recipe end up with puddles of butter (this would be true for puff pastry as well)? Seems to me the butter leakage might be more related to proofing or baking temperature.

Interesting question. I recall that pineapple juice has an enzyme that can prevent gelatin from gelling, so I guess it could also affect the proteins in egg whites. I don't recall the ice cream, but it's also possible that sitting out under the TV lights did not help.

Not necessarily. It takes a while to get a winner's restaurant up and running. Even though Ilan quit his job before the end of Top Chef, I believe Harold stayed at his until his own place was opened and launched. Ideally, I think TC would like to have a winner resume his duties as if nothing happened, but I don't know that they are contractually bound to. Ilan quit (and not for another job), and nothing untoward happened to him, TC-wise. Andrew probably was booted, but he could just be biding his time until his place opens, if he did win. And why not? Draw a salary until your dream unfolds.

Seems like the NY Times has been reading this thread: Cursing on Cooking Reality Shows

I've ordered from them several times, although not in the last year, or maybe two years. I had absolutely no problems and would have recommended them for some of the hard to find items. I never dealt with anyone in person, only ordered via internet.

I thought levains or bigas were to aid in flavor development and while most levains use sourdough, I've seen recipes that try to achieve the same result with yeast. The odd thing is that all the ones I've seen use an extended fermentation, like overnight in a refrigerator to develop flavor, not 20 minutes. So this does not seem like a traditional levain, in fomulation or use.

Sometimes the cartilage is removed by the fishguy before you get it, like they often remove salmon bones. You should easily be able to tell. I don't think it is edible.

Here's a link to the one I have: Ateco Pastry Cloth I more often use a Silpat

Kaffehaus by Rick Rodgers has a number of Hungarian recipes, but it is not a Hungarian baking book per se.

A quart of milk seems a lot for 4 tablespoons of rice.

"How to Pick a Peach" has been out for at least several months. I bought my copy last June.

If you're making a sourdough loaf, the rise is going to be dependent on the strength of your culture and temperature. I find in general most sourdough rises take longer than recipes quote. For the Genzano loaf which has a lot of instant yeast, I found it rose much more quickly than recipe suggested.

I've had this book a while and have found it to be terrific. I don't know why it hasn't gotten more attention. I've made a couple of the French Sourdoughs and the Auvergne dark rye, all of which turned out great. Also the Genzano bread, which turned out OK but had a sort of commercial texture, I think because it uses a sourdough to make a biga, but is then reliant on instant yeast for a lot of the leavening. I find the instructions very clear and easy to follow. I can't comment on the sourghdough culturing parts as I already have my own culture

I don't have any advice, but Vosges Chocolates in Chicago makes champagne/rosewater truffles from both white and dark chocolate, so the concept should work.

Or you could try Quorn Quorn

It realy depends on the individual's interests. If they're really into cooking and want perfect recipes for mainstream foods and little other content, go for Cooks Illustrated. If they're more into food culture and less into cooking, try Saveur. Those are probably the extremes

I tried the pear torte recipe for the first time last weekend. Not sure it turned out right – I used a metric springform pan about 7 ½ inches instead of the 8 inch and there was way too much pear filling for the pan – I ended up using around 3 instead of 4 pears and there was still too much. The filling ended up being almost solid pear (plus the chopped apricots and nuts. It still ended up delicious and I’d make it again with some tinkering with the proportions.

This is a really excellent book, but unfortunately the only recipes I have made have been out of the French section. I'm about to tackle the Italian ones but have not looked at the German/Austrian parts.

While they could make some adjustments through editing, the episodes they're showing now were filmed a while ago.

I think this is right. I watched one of the BBC episodes last night (D-place) and was struck by how passionately involved Gordon was in trying to turn the place around. On the US show he seemed almost an observer while the drama focused on Peter.

In fairness, that's an awful lot of bleeping on the BBC version too and Gordon is far rougher at times with the staff than on this show. I agree though that this was all about the drama and nothing about the food and much inferior the the UK show, which actually gives you some insights into what makes a restaurant successful. The menu changes were dismissed in about 30 seconds and I swear they were still serving the same store bought ravioli that Gordon complained about in the beginning.

Pretty sure there is a recipe for these in the King Arthur Flour Cookie Book, but I can't say I've tried it.

They are both (as is Togo) owned by the same company. Not only do they spread the real estate costs across a couple of brands, in this case I suspect the company is trying to spread other costs since this combination of restaurants hits different meal occasions across the day, so you have your building more fully utilized. Could probably make the same arguement for Taco Bell (lunch) and Pizza Hut (evenings).

Peter Reinhart in "American Pie" provides a recipe for uncooked sauce and the recipes are intended for home ovens cranked to about 550. I believe he suggests adding garlic and herbs to the crushed tomatoes and letting it steep for an hour or so.