tino27

Thanks for the compliments on the bread. I'm just happy that it all got used up! I'd rather not post the recipe on the Internet, but I would be happy to share my it with anyone who PM's me.

I, too, am a fan of the steel-cut oats (I usually just buy whatever is in the "help yourself" bin at the market). However, my first step is to toast the oats in the pot over a medium high flame. Adds a lovely toasty note to the flavor. Then in with either the water or milk, cover for 18 minutes ... et voila! Tasty with a nice pat of butter and some real maple syrup.

Can you school a novice on this? I am very interested in how vinegar is made and remade. ← Check out this link.

I would guess the quality of the wine vinegar is directly related to the wine used to create it, not necessarily the little beasties that convert it.

It sounds to me like many of us eGulleters come from families that lack the sort of crazy gene that drives us to perfection (or at least edibility). At least I know that is my case. My mother. Love her dearly. Many fine qualities. Common sense just doesn't seem to be one of them when it comes to the kitchen. She has definitely drank her fair share of Kool-Aid when it comes to "convenience" items. Green bean casserole made from the trio of nastiness. Frozen this and canned that. And her biggest mistake ... that damned pop-up timer on the turkey. One year (before I started being more assertive on holiday meals), it seemed like things were taking longer than normal to appear on the table. When I went in to see what was going on, my mother, flustered, exclaimed that she was waiting for the turkey to finish. A few more probing questions and I discovered to my horror that the bird had been in the oven for 90 minutes longer than the estimated cooking time. I implored her to take it out of the oven. She refused because the little "pop-up thingy" hadn't popped. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought my instant read with me and clearly she didn't have one. She finally relented when I used a knife to show her that there was no longer any bloody juices. In fact, just the opposite, there were virtually NO juices. I normally don't care for Heinz gravy in a jar, but let me tell you, that year, I was very thankful for it. (BTW, Santa brought her both an instant read AND a probe thermometer for Christmas that year!) There was also the other time she decided to make "cheesey potatoes" from a recipe she had gotten from a friend. The recipe called for sour cream, but all my mother had was fat-free sour cream. She combined that with 2 sticks of butter to create this lovely multi-layered concotion with potato hash on the bottom, a somewhat liquid layer on top of that, and a nice protective top-floating layer of orangish grease that was at least 1/2-3/4" thick. The only person brave enough to eat any was her then husband, who simply emulsified the "fat" layer back into the casserole before taking a heaping helping. *shudder* I asked her afterwards if it didn't seem odd to use fat-free sour cream and two sticks of butter, and she admitted that it did, but she just kept falling back to what it said on the recipe card. Ah family.

Bought my copy today at Barnes & Noble here in Akron, OH. I've already devoured (sorry, pun intended) the first 100 or so pages and I have to say that it's a very informative read. I can't wait to see how utilizing some of Reinhart's new ideas can make my breads even better.

I need to get my post in here before NancyH and Edsel post their FABULOUS pictures of our adventure tonight at Lolita. When NancyH mentioned that Lolita had a whole new menu, I was absolutely ALL IN for trying it out. Our reservations were for 7 PM, but I got there a little early, had a lovely vodka martini with some feta-stuffed olives and had a chance to check out the new menu. "Wow!" is all I can say. The menu is split between starters, salads, pizzas, pastas, entrees, and sides. Immediately some of the items started screaming out at me. The crispy chicken livers. The duck prosciutto pizza with the blue egg. Roasted beet salad. My mouth was watering with anticipation. When all of us got there, we decided to order some starters to get us, well, started. We ordered the roasted beet salad, the crispy chicken livers, the roasted chicken wings, the roasted dates and one of the cured meat boards (smoked berkshire pork prosciutto). Chef Symon surprised us all with a tribute to NancyH's devotion to her hometown meatball pizza by sending out a lovely rendition to the table. It was divine. The meatball was a mixture of pork and veal and just melted in your mouth. The pizza itself was that perfect combination of crispy and chewy. It had just enough of the char from the pizza oven to add that really special taste. Divine. Our starters came out in two rounds and we absolutely devoured them. Growing up I absolutely hated beats. To this day, the smell of canned beats sends my gag reflex all a-flutter. But these beats were absolutely delicious. Sweet and delicate and tender. Ummm. Paired with some slivered almonds and a cheese on top (for the life of me I can't remember which kind, but the salt from the cheese totally complimented the sweetness of the beets). If my mom could only taste how beets are *supposed* to taste. But I suppose she came from a time when people didn't know any better. All the dishes were winners. The roasted dates had an amazing sweetness to them, but still wasn't too overpowering. The wings were served in a rather spicy sauce, but when paired with a little bit of the beets or the dates was a perfect match to cut through some of the spice. And the flavor of the wings was killer. With a nice cold beer, I could've easily polished off a plate or two just by myself. The REAL winner for me were the crispy chicken livers served over a bed or polenta and mushrooms. Words cannot describe the balance. Crispy. Creamy. Salty. Earthy. Ok, I guess I DID just use words to describe the balance. I'm glad there were six of us at the table, because I could've easily polished off an entire plate full of these. Then again, I am a total sucker for a good chicken liver and baby, these delivered. Finally, we finished off our starter portion of the evening with the berkshire pork prosciutto plate. This consisted of generous mounds of cured meat, what appeared to be a dried cherry chutney, some leeks, and some crostini. Really, really delicious. Again, Chef Symon and crew have managed to balance the salty, the sweet, and the savory to produce something that just tantalizes the senses. Next we went whole hog (sorry, no pun intended) on ordering the pizzas. We ordered four of the six pizzas available on the menu. Let's see, there was ... * Margherita -- cheese, basil, and oven dried cherry tomatoes * Anchovy -- pickled white anchovies, garlic, and arugula * Duck prosciutto -- duck prosciutto and the infamous blue egg * Soprasetta -- cheese, basil, and soprasetta (kind of like a spicy pepperoni, but WAY better) They were ALL fabulous. I actually liked the anchovy one, but not necessarily enough to eat an entire pizza to myself. I am torn on my favorite. It's a toss up between the Margherita and the Soprasetta. The one thing I really enjoyed about all five pizzas (don't forget about the one inspired by NancyH) is that they each had their own character. Simple, but well though out ingredients. Each pizza having no more than four or five things on it. And the effect that the pizza ovens had on the crust was just amazing. I know a good crust when I taste it, and this one met my standard. Finally, we did corn two ways. We ordered the polenta with mascarpone cheese and the Ohio creamed corn. Simply delicious. I personally felt that the polenta was at the edge between perfectly seasoned and oversalted, but the Ohio creamed corn was amazing. I will say that the texture on the polenta was perfect -- creamy and sort of falling off of the spoon. No grittiness at all. Finally, for dessert, four of the six of us had the chocolate pot de creme. If you've never had this, you MUST try it. Between the silky bittersweet chocolate pot de creme and the salty caramel that adorns the top, this is a killer dessert. With a nice cup of unsweetened coffee, this was a perfect way to balance sweet, bitter, and salty. We never even got to other parts of the menu, but I can tell you for certain that the nice thing about this menu is that you can structure your meal in so many different ways, depending on the crowd and your mood. I can completely see doing an entire meal of just little starters. Or maybe a started, a salad, and a pasta. Or ... well, you get the picture. Hats off to Chef Symon and all of his crew for coming up with a delicious and most compelling reason to visit Lolita over and over again. I know that I'll certainly be going back again for more. (edited to fix misspellings)

Just to follow up on NancyH's post regarding Bangkok Thai on Mayfield Road, I ended up there for dinner on Thursday evening. I was trying to avoid the 271 traffic and thought that since Nancy and I had such a wonderful lunch, I would check out their dinner menu. Good news and bad news. The dinner menu is almost identical in both content and price to their lunch menu. Good news is that you can pretty much get anything you want any time of the day and it'll cost you about the same. Bad news if you are expecting more from the dinner menu. I ordered the Tom Ka Gai -- spicy chicken coconut soup -- as my starter. Delicious. Not quite as kick you in the throat as the Tom Yum Goong, but delicious all the same. The coconut goes a long way toward taming the spiciness of the soup. For my main entree, I decided to dive in and go for the Phad Thai. I ordered the standard version with the chicken and shrimp. Now, I've eaten my fair share of Phad Thai in various restaurants in various cities and I have to say, overall, this was a very decent version. What sort of got me thinking though was that the very best versions of this dish usually come with a lime wedge or two so that I can adjust the sweet/sour component of the dish. This version did not. And it didn't strike me until I was well into the dish that the underlying sweetness of Phad Thai was a bit too strong and got in my way of truly enjoying this version to it's max. A little bit of lime would've really helped here. Again, not saying it was bad at all. In fact, at this point, it's probably the best version I've had to date in either Cleveland or Akron. I'm lucky that Bangkok is pretty darn close to my current workplace. I know I'll be going back again to try more and more of their very good menu.

Remember, too, that in an average bakery, a baker might make several hundred loaves in a day. As a home baker, you're lucky if you make several hundred loaves in a year. Or two. Realize that you're just not going to have the kind of day in and day out practice that it takes to make perfectly consistent loaves every single time. That being said, I agree with the others above ... pay attention to the details and when the loaves don't come out right, do an assessment. Bread is a living organism and as such can be just a little bit different every single time you make it. One of the things that has freed me quite a bit is knowing that I might use 30g less water or maybe 30g more. It just depends on the day. I've made my doughs enough times in the KitchenAid (and by hand) that I know what the dough needs as it develops. And if nothing else ... when you take a couple of loaves to dinner at a friend's house (and fresh homemade bread always announces itself), always present the dinner guests with the "perfect" loaf -- the one that looks the prettiest. Then cut up the tasty and deformed ones. They'll never know.

Thank you, ricain. I'm glad that my brioche was good enough to make a long-time lurker finally turn into a poster! And thanks to all the others who have mentioned the breads in their posts. But, truly, the bread was just one component of an amazing and delicious meal last Saturday. Kudos to everyone who made the event such an enjoyable experience.

Needless to say those numbers don't add up to 100%. I believe the way it works is that the flour(s) add up to 100%, and then you take all the other ingredients in ratio to the flour. So, if you have a kilogram of flour (500 grams of all-purpose and 500 grams of bread flour) the you'd use 660 grams of water, .5 grams of yeast, etc. ← Actually, that'd be 5 grams of yeast (we're multiplying everything by 10). I, too, would much rather have a formula than a recipe. In fact, I generally convert recipes into formulas the first time I make them. At least this is for baking. For general cooking, where chemistry isn't quite so important, recipes can stay the way they are. The funny thing is that when people ask me for a bread formula, let's say, they complain that everything is in grams and not tablespoons and cups. I'm a firm believer that instant read thermometers and scales should be the first culinary concepts taught to people when they learn to cook and bake.

Are you baking on a stone or in loaf pans? I'm not sure what you mean by a bulge ... if you could either post a photo or try describing it in a little more detail, perhaps someone can help you out. As for the crust tearing, what's basically happening is that your outside crust is setting before the inside of the bread has had a chance to fully expand to it's final position (this expansion in the oven is called ovenspring). It's cracking at a point that is the weakest structurally. You have a couple of choices: 1) Using a razor blade, sharp knife, or lame, slash the breads. This not only lets you be artistic, but it also gives the expanding loaf a place to expand without the random cracking. 2) Keep the top of the loaf of bread moist enough during the ovenspring that it won't set too early. This can be accomplished by periodically spritzing the inside walls of your oven with hot water or placing a pan on the bottom of the oven that you throw 1/4 cup of water in. This should be done about every 2 minutes after the loaves go in and up until about 8-9 minutes into the cooking time. Depending on the type of bread I am making, I do one or the other, sometimes both. Good luck!

Now that I've had a day to digest everything (pun only slightly intended), I think I finally want to add a few comments. First, I want to give kudos to NancyH for putting together a fabulous weekend. I know that she had many obstacles to overcome, and she did so with such grace. Second, I want to say that I, too, am excited about the event being in Chicago next year! I'm going to have to work hard at my timing for next year as I won't have Saturday morning to bake off fresh bread. But I've got a year to plan, so I think I'll be covered. Finally, the events themselves. I think the thing that strikes me the most about these weekends is the sense of community and comraderie that it engenders in the participants. Truly it is about enjoying the company as much as it is about enjoying the food. It was great to see a lot of old faces from last year, but also lovely to meet some new ones this time, too. The food at Saturday night's event was stupendous, to say the least. Between the awesome charcuterie that Ronnie_Suburban brought and the wonderful cheese selection that BethG brought, I could've made an entire meal on that alone. Add in another 6 well-portioned courses on top of that and you've got a truly outstanding meal. To my palate, everything was really very good, but the truly surprising course for me was the watermelon salad. So, so simple, but so, so good! I'll definitely be adding that one to my repetoire. I brought 24 loaves of bread to the gathering (there were 25 people at the gathering). I walked out with about 1/3 of a loaf of sweet potato bread -- that's it! Everybody either ate or took home the rest! Apparently the brioche was a big hit as that was the first thing requested after dinner was over. To those of you who took some brioche ... how did the French Toast turn out? I'm guessing that Brioche will be on the menu for next year's event, too? Sunday's event at Carrie Cerino's was nothing short of amazing. Chef Domonic didn't just feed us, he FED us. By the end of the 4th main course (there were 6 main courses after 3 appetizers and 1 salad course), people were only eating one bite of food and immediately transferring the rest to take-home boxes. Out of respect for the amount of work put in by the chef and his crew, you had to have at least ONE bite. The little pagoda of take-home containers that edsel snapped a photo of was mine. I had meals #2 and #3 last night and this morning and I still have two more boxes left. It was just absolutely amazing! It's sad to see the end of another gathering, but that just builds the anticipation for next year's event.

The brioche just came out of the oven ... It smells heavenly. I'm sending some aroma your way, moosnsqrl! Next up is to finish baking off the Black Russian Rye and then I'm off to the gathering!

What if I told you that I got stranded in traffic last night on the way home and already ate the entire jar in a desparate move to stave off starvation? Um ... that I donated it to a local children's charity? Um ... that I owed my bookie money and traded the precious jar away so Vinnie didn't break my kneecaps? Perhaps if we all politely ask him, Chef Matt might post the recipe here on eGullet.

edsel's pictures do a pretty good job of summing up last night's wonderful meal at Light. Everything was very good, but for me the two stand-outs were the eggplant flan with paddlefish roe and the olive cracker (so smooth and so delicious) and the lamb done two ways with the aforementioned candied banana peppers and sweet pepper gastrique. Absolutely delicious. To top it off, Chef Matt was kind enough to hand out little jars of the candied banana peppers at the end of dinner to anyone who was interested. Trust me -- EVERYONE was interested. Kudos to Chef Matt and everyone else who made last night a great success!

I am so with you on this one. I can't believe how often this happens to me as well. And just because I bitched about it earlier upthread, it happens to me (almost like I predestined for it to happen) ... I went to a local mom & pop Italian place where I have eaten on several occasions and ordered a nice plate of pasta that comes with a salad. The waitress disappears. 5 minutes goes by. No salad. 10 minutes goes by. No salad. After 15 minutes, she appears with my order in full. As she's putting the salad on the table, I say to her (politely): "You know what? Why don't you go ahead and wrap the salad up to go and I'll just eat the pasta now." She looks at me with this quizzical look on her face. "Well, if I take the time to eat the salad first, the pasta will be cold. And I'd really rather eat the pasta while it is hot." Suddenly realizing that there is a REASON why the salad is served before the entree, she starts apologizing profusely. I reassure her that I will eat the salad at a later point, just not now. I did leave a standard tip for her with the hope that not only will this not happen to me again when I eat at that establishment, but hopefully to no one else as well.

I agree with RyuShihan -- especially since you are just beginning -- keep it simple. Sometimes a grilled steak with just the right amount of salt & pepper can be truly sublime. My suggestion would be to treat your protein and your vegetable simply and if you want to do something fancy with your starch, that's where you can experiment a little. I like the idea of a pilauf with pork or chicken, but if you decide to do steak, I would maybe switch to a potato based starch. But, that's just me. Besides, no matter what you cook for him, it comes from a place of love, and that's what is the most important. Good luck!

They also didn't make the recipes available for the original Iron Chef series either. I think part of the problem is that the chefs are improvising and really only have a general idea of which ingredients and how much of each ingredient was involved in the dishes. I'd imagine that when FoodTV (or any food-related program) publishes a recipe, it's been tested thoroughly so that the home viewer can consistently re-create it.

Calling me "dude". Sitting down at the table when taking my order. (This usually only happens when I am dining alone) Avoiding eye contact. (If you are that shy, why are you in a person-oriented job?) Bringing out your salad/starter and then bringing out your entree a minute later. Or worse, waiting forever to get your salad and the waiter/waitress brings them both out together. The check comes to $14.59. You put a $20 in the check book. The server returns with a $5 bill and $0.41 in change. Ummm ... you'd better hope I have some $1 bills in my wallet or you're getting a $0.41 tip. Just a few to get started.

I don't know if this is a general trend, or just something in the area in which I live, but it seems that now that most grocery stores have switched from brown bags to plastic bags, no one seems to know how to pack up your order correctly. Honest to god I've gone into a grocery store, purchased three items and got one item in each bag. They actually seem surprised when I tell them to "pack them heavy". The other peeve I have related to bagging is when the bagger attempts to put the hazardous products (rat poison, bleach, etc.) in the same bag as perishable goods. Maybe this only annoys me because I spent a summer as a bagger during high school and there was definitely an art to properly packing groceries. Kids these days! They just don't know how good they have it!

I, too, started out on a breadmaker and if you are unfamiliar with making bread, then I think it is an easy and convenient way to start out learning the process. And I would agree with some of the other sentiments that having a fresh loaf of bread timed with morning rise or evening dinner can also be a bonus. That being said, my biggest gripe with the finished loaves is that they were often under or over proofed -- since bread dough is a living thing, each time it can be a little different. As I had a pretty early model, perhaps modern models will allow you to set the proofing times before the loaf is baked. Plus, you are also limited to one loaf at a time. If you use the oven, you can bake two or three loaves (good for the holidays). I'm not trying to discourage you from using a breadmaker, but I eventually got frustrated enough with the limitations of mine to start making my bread with my hands and a stand mixer. Haven't looked back since.

I do caramelized pecans by simply drizzling honey over the nuts and then baking them in the oven at 350 F for about ten minutes on something non-stick (Silpat or non-stick aluminum foil). Toss them with a spatula, add additional honey if you need to, and cook an additional 10 minutes or so, until they are slightly caramelized. I tend to toss them every five minutes or so during this entire process. Only trick is that when they come out, you need to separate them into individual nuts IMMEDIATELY. Once they cool even a little bit, the nuts will stick together and it's usually impossible to pry them apart without breaking them.

From all of the original Japanese Iron Chef episodes I saw over the years, adding some egg white to the salt mixture will cause the salt to sort of "harden". When the fish comes out of the oven, you crack the crust with the back of a knife and then remove large chunks of it at a time. Maybe this would help. Then again, with the addition of egg white, you probably couldn't re-use it.

I do have the book and it is filled with lots of interesting looking recipes that I'm looking forward to trying ... however, the above snippet has generated a question ... It was already discussed earlier that strawberries are low in pectin. Obviously this strawberry jam recipe doesn't call for the addition of extra pectin (either in the form of apple jelly or commercial pectin) -- does the boiling to 221F ensure that the jam will set properly? If this is the case, why add apple jelly/pectin to ANY jam recipe, if simply cooking it to 221F ensures a proper set? Is is just a matter of preference or is there some scientific cooking principle that is being satisfied? Thanks!