dougal

The India Club still exists, doesn't it?

Electrolux DLX. If you don't know about it... http://www.everythingkitchens.com/electroluxvideo.html Big (domestic) dough batches. Whipper for fast and light stuff. Optional: one serious grinder (and its attachments). The machine is built like a train. (But the whipper bits are plastic.) Search around and you'll find out that once people figure out how to use the thing, they love it. Even on this same thread, you'll find ... http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1602054

Generally PayPal are providing a service for small traders. Paypal fees (for a few sales) are cheaper than the vast set-up costs of a fully secure and accredited e-commerce website. For Amazon, and other BIG retailers, the economics are the other way round. I might be wrong, but I think Amazon are something of a benchmark for security - at least as good as PayPal. For people doing price, availability and delivery cost comparisons (especially but not only for out of print or other secondhand books), don't forget abebooks (com and co.uk), ... and in the UK, its good to know about bookkoob ... ADDED : btw, many of the booksellers that list their stock on abebooks, DO take PayPal. You are dealing with the bookseller, whereas on Amazon Marketplace you pay Amazon (who look after the security aspects etc for the sellers). Internationally, exchange rates change fast. Just a couple of months ago, £1 bought me $2. Today my £ gets me about 20% less - so your $ gets you about 20% more. Recently the £ has moved in step with the €. Right now the US$ is rather strong, not weak. (Come on over!)

I kinda turn those things around. Lentil soup - split red lentils, boiled in veg stock (usually Knorr or Marigold - Marco Pierre White* assuages my guilt) until falling apart, then blitzed with a hand blender. Bacon/ham stock might be even better, but offends a veggie audience for a veggie soup. Meanwhile some whole green/brown (a mixture of colours and sizes is nice) lentils are boiled on their own, and some thinly chopped onion is caramelised. Adding a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and the whole lentils to the already pureed soup, and then garnishing with a little of the onion and a drop of cream or yoghurt just lifts things above the mundane. Note that the split red lentils cook to a mush, whereas the whole ones are more like beans. The different colours and sizes have different textures, and, to a lesser extent, tastes (particularly when cooked together!) Lentils and sausages - cook Toulouse {for my preference} sausages in a dish in the oven. Add some chopped onion, garlic, and maybe a little carrot, celery, etc as you fancy towards the end of the sausage cooking. Meanwhile boil some whole green/brown lentils until kinda al dente. (Your time will vary with the lentils! Or you could cheat and used pre-cooked tinned ones.) Add the drained lentils to the sausages plus veg, and stir them together with a bit of wine or whatever, and give them ten minutes or so for the flavours to meld and the gravy to thicken. Excellent peasant food for the cold weather! *Regarding MPW http://www.knorr.co.uk/

Its important to remember that the cost of fish isn't measured in money alone.

Hi , cookwithlove. There are many, many different types of bread. Most "types" can either be made 'well' or faked with additives. I don't know your location, but if you are in the USA, I'd advise that it is likely to prove healthier to follow the FDA advice and avoid Bromated flour, and any bread containing it. This stuff is banned on health grounds in Canada, Europe (inc here in the UK), Japan and elsewhere, but there's a legal barrier to banning it in the USA. I think labelling requirements vary from state to state. Compared to Bromate, most other bread additives aren't as bad. Not necessarily good, but not as potentially harmful. Learning how to make bread yourself, manually, isn't difficult. That way, you should know exactly what has gone into it. Unless you have specific medical problems confirmed, don't worry about yeast. But regard TIME as an important ingredient. Use less yeast and allow it more time and you'll get better (ie more) flavour in your bread. Commercially, the pressure is to do things quickly. And that's unnatural for bread - hence all the additives! At home, you can give your bread all the time you like. (Allowing dough to rise overnight in the fridge is a good trick!) White (wheat) flour has had much of its nutritional goodness removed. True whole grain flour, with nothing removed (as with real 100% stoneground wholegrain), provides a wider spread of nutrients - which is generally thought 'better'. (But the flour has a shorter shelf-life.) Similarly, breads with other added seeds (and/or grains) can add yet more good stuff. And then we can have the discussion as to what might be the very best of the 'good stuff'. But, if you want light, well-risen bread, then best to stick (mainly) to wheat flour. Its very hard to replicate the magic of wheat's gluten without resorting to technological trickery. And even from white flour, one can make good tasty and wholesome bread. A breadmaking machine has process limitations, needing rather a lot of yeast for example. Do it by hand, and you could soon be making better bread than a machine. It is harder to reliably make light, tasty whole grain bread. Not impossible, but develop your skill with white dough before moving on. For now, the best beginners' book on breadmaking that I know of is Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice". Bertinet's "Dough" is lighter on explanation, and easier going. However, for a really varied collection of diverse breads (including many using wild yeast - 'sourdough") I'd steer people towards Dan Lepard's Handmade Loaf ("Art of Handmade Bread" for the US market) which is now available quite cheaply in paperback, but I think it'd be better to start with something more basic. You don't need much equipment. But I'd strongly advise a cheap digital scale (estimate less than $20) for measurements, and using a pizza stone (rather than starting with a loaf tin).

And BTW, crab prices in Shanghai are at a ten-year low... http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/prop...E40E383A34F4%7D Not a good economic omen, this thread.

I don't think you'd poison anyone. But I simply don't know how well your candied confection might 'hold'. However, if I was doing straight "Devils on Horseback" for later serving, I'd assemble and cook (undercook) the bacon well in advance, and refrigerate, arranged on trays so that, immediately before serving, those trays could be flashed under a grill or stuck into a hot oven for oooh, probably less than five minutes. Try to disengage the prep from the presentation!

I think this is because of previous rumours about the book and the possible availability of home versions of sous vide equipment. That being said, Bouchon is much easier to deal with than French Laundry in a home kitchen. ← This is precisely what I was trying to convey above (probably in too few words for once!) It sounds (if even SLKinsey is unlikely to try ANY of the recipes as written) as though the book might have been subtitled: "French Laundry 2 - the sous-vide stuff". Is that a fair assessment?

Would the complexity/difficulty comparison be with FL or Bouchon ? I'm presuming that this might be about super-crafting everything that goes into the bag, but could you give us a more specific idea of what you are referring to? Are we talking fantasy ingredients as well? Is this because of a big liquid content? Or...? Metric weights are excellent for precision, and easy to scale quantities up or down... Personally, I drink proper big UK pints of beer and worry about the mpg of my car, but I also think metric weights are the preferred way to communicate a recipe! I understand that clearly it is not targeted at introducing home cooks to SV, (as one set of rumours had it), but is it really just coffee table fantasy material, or do you think its something to provide practical and aspirational source material for 'ordinary' pros and obsessive amateurs? It sounds as though we need to give NathanM the hurry-up!

Kenneth, just to add to my previous remarks that gas solubility INCREASES with decreasing temperature. This is in contrast to the typical solution of solids in liquids, where reducing the temperature reduces the solubility. If you want to use CO2 in the mix, then work with the acidity. Otherwise, best I think to keep it outside the ice cream mix.

I think "carbonation" is inevitable if you mix CO2 into your ice cream. This is why "cream whippers" use N20 (nitrous oxide) and NOT CO2. This matters even if it isn't cream you are whipping. Kenneth, I see you've posted on the current 'Foam' thread, but for anyone else... http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1611146 CO2 in the mix will give carbonation, and a taste of 'soda water' (English) or 'seltzer' (US). Liquid Nitrogen is just, umm, Nitrogen and pretty tasteless. Thats one reason it works for ice cream.

Do you know about Steak & Oyster Pie? One example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database...ste_70548.shtml Simply gratinéed under the grill on the half shell is excellent (cream and parmesan). I think salt is the usual material for supporting them and keeping them level. But Mr Harris at The Sportsman (just outside Whitstable, traditional English oyster centre) serves chilled oysters with coin-sized pieces of hot (grilled and spicy) chorizo... And to swallow them whole... A bit passé. A bit of a waste, surely?

The thing to recognise is the difference between "long-term" storage and convenience of use of what is currently in play. Rancidity is promoted by air, light and heat. So, long term, store it cool, dark and in (well filled) closed containers. But, to always have to hand a pourable container is very nicely convenient! But I'm no oil snob. My (cheap) extra virgin nowadays lives in a (dark green) ex-wine bottle with a narrow, vented, pouring stopper. There's less than a couple of months' supply in there. Its very nice to have it available, instantly and needing just one hand (which stays clean). In a cool kitchen, in a cool climate, I've not had any problem with it 'going off' - or with anything getting in! I dare say one might be more careful with a hand-pressed, single estate treasure - but that's not what I've got! So, a "small" pouring container is a good idea. However, you'll notice that I'm deliberately leaving "small" and "long-term" for you to define in your own situation.

"The absolute start" and "the beginning".... hmmm... Maybe this ?

You shouldn't take everything dear old HFW says on the subject of curing too literally. As one example, on the 'Pig in a Day' DVD it seems he insists that dried Chorizo needs neither starter nor nitrate/nitrite. Why? "Because its not salami". I think this is risky advice to give the public! (IMHO, it suggests "research" that confused recipes for dried and cooked chorizos.) Anyway, here he is at least using Acidophilus, though probably not any Cure. However, using acidophilus varieties as a starter culture is actually quite well established. It should help to create a nicely (botulinum safe) acidic environment. Though I fear HFW may be misleading to suggest that it has anything to do with the surface mould. IIRC that's a penicillium often as not. There's a UK High St 'health food shop' that sells a nice cocktail, actually as a digestive aid! http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/pro...ail.asp?pid=753 (the label is available as a PDF)If you are trying HFW's bacon curing recipes, expect a very salty result! Earlier this year HFW excelled himself with a tv-broadcast recipe for 'elderflower champagne' - a traditional English brew, quick, light and fizzy. Its just a pity that he tripled-up on the quantity of sugar needed. And didn't mention any pressure requirement for the bottles. And that the Ikea bottles that looked exactly like the bottles seen on the telly, simply couldn't handle the pressure all that sugar generated... http://forum.rivercottage.net/viewtopic.php?t=32661 (among many) He's an excellent read, but beware using him as a principal guide to Charcuterie!

In a restaurant setting, the broth is often a 'leftover' from steaming open whatever shellfish. If you were serving 'stuffed mussels' or whatever, (some even like mussels served like snails, drowned in hot garlic butter), you'd start with steaming the mussels open, giving you the bonus of that fantastic broth. You might want to use the freezer if you didn't want mussels and broth at the same time! I soften a little onion with some (important) celery gently in a little oil. Some finely chopped garlic is added when the onion is almost done. As the aroma rises, I add the water, wine, etc (not much!) and wind the heat up to bring it all to the boil before adding the cleaned mussels. A couple of good shakes with the lid held firmly in place and only a couple of minutes over the still high heat is enough to open the shells - and that's all the cooking they need! Sure you can add chopped parsley and/or celery leaves, cream, curry or whatever takes your fancy. But they aren't needed if the mussels are good enough, and somehow, they always seem to be good enough!

I'd just add that adding more yeast will also have the effect of making the resulting bread go stale faster. Making bread (like vintage wine or matured Whisky) is something where time is a quality ingredient. Cut the time, and generally you cut the quality. Supermarket white sliced is actually made rather quickly. No surprise there!

Dunno about your yeast, sorry. I think that at cool temperatures, Instant lasts for years if its left sealed in its original package. Yes, I'd say there's a lower proportion of viable yeast than there used to be. You could use more (to generate more gas in the same time), but you'll get a stronger taste of yeast. Some people like that. And the dead yeast will give you glutathione. So your dough will stretch more without tearing, but it won't be as "strong". So your bread won't hold as much rise. Hence IMHO it'd be better for pizza than well risen bread! Giving it more time will likely emphasise this weakening effect. Personally, I'd bin it. No idea what it might do to your tank, but it couldn't harm on the compost heap... I buy Instant in packs of about 100g (costing about £1 IIRC.) Once opened, I decant the whole pack into a jamjar, which then lives, tightly closed, on a fridge door shelf. It lasts pretty damn well. And is used direct from there. I wouldn't leave a large open pack "in the pantry" where it is exposed to warmth, and more importantly the humidity that the original pack was sealing out. As long as its dry, I doubt freezing would do much harm to Instant Mix yeast. Don't know how much good it'd do.

I'm not responsible for that table, but it would seem that the column in question is referring to how many 0.6 oz "portions" are being used/converted. See that 1.0 "portions" is equivalent to 0.6 oz. As noted in my (March 26th) post above, my understanding is that 10g fresh/compressed = 4g actively dried = 3g instant mixing yeast which implies that 1 oz actively dried would equate to about 2.5 oz of fresh/compressed. (This ratio comes from the rules of thumb that say that "fresh" is about 70% water, molasses, etc and that "active dry" is about 1/4 dead yeast cells, from the hot air drying, while instant is near as dammit (99%+ usually) pure dry viable yeast cells.) Since fresh/compressed/cake is in any case a bit variable, based on things like how dry or stale it is, I shouldn't think that you need bother about the small discrepancy between the figures I've offered and the figures in that table. Treat any conversion method as an initial approximation, not a universal truth! When changing the yeast type, the other elements within the 'yeast' - notably the presence or absence of dead yeast cells - may also need to be accounted for. ("Deactivated" - ie dead - yeast is a popular "dough conditioner"... ) And then there's the different ways they like to be woken up... !!

Yes, that's what I suggested, Chris.

Sous-vide controller ... riiiiiiiight. Next to my Wolf range and my walk-in fridge. ... ← I was meaning something like this - http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page=pr...&products_id=74 (scroll down for photo illustrating use with a rice cooker as the waterbath) And if you check the sous-vide thread, you'll see that an aquarium 'bubbler' (for around $10) is recommended as a simple means of non-manual stirring of the waterbath.

Do you stir the waterbath, so that the whole thing is at pretty much the same temperature? And be sure to use a low-thermal-mass (responsive) thermometer. (So it 'keeps up' with the changing temperature of the water.) To practice, you can use water instead of milk in your inner pan. You'll pretty soon get an idea of what rate of heat supply maintains different temperatures and provides different rates of change ... With electric heating, you could use a sous-vide controller on the waterbath...

What is a proper British pancake? So much to learn. The pancake issue came up with an Indian guest recently. She asked for pancakes (not on the menu at that lodge, but that is another story) hoping for something spicy, and got American pancakes. American, British, Swedish, Indian....so many pancakes! ... ← I'd say that you would be very unlikely to be offered (typical British) pancakes (like a slightly thick crepe) for breakfast in any UK hotel or B&B - unless it attracted a largely American clientele! Typically, in a hotel, I think they'd be offered as a lunch or dinner dessert course option, and called crepes! "Scotch pancakes" are smaller and thicker than 'pancakes' - like a bigger and not-so-savoury blini, sweetening optional - and usually served (more often cold than hot) as a mid-afternoon ("teatime") vehicle for butter and jam. Its not impossible that you might be offered these for breakfast in a Scottish hotel, but it would be one with phoney tartan curtains and the like! http://bakingforbritain.blogspot.com/2006/...h-pancakes.html However, I believe in India savoury, spicy, filled Dosa and such are rather normal for breakfast. Particularly in the South?

When questions of a similar type have come up before, the answer has been: -- because the authors liked the taste that way! I think the book is much stronger on technique than 'authenticity'. The recipes nevertheless are, I gather, authentic to their Michigan roots.