Gabriel Lewis

This is amazing, and it is exactly what I've been looking for. It appeals to me on so many levels; a low cost, relatively simple, ingenius solution that improves on the tool it was created to replicate. Pielle, would you be willing to talk a little bit more about the specifics? What range of fluctuation were you seeing in terms of temperature, and did this vary at all with respect to magnitude (i.e. more difficulty maintaing at a temp at 50C versus say 200C) ? How low have you tried to go in terms of temperature?

Muchas Gracias Esperanaza, su estímulo me anima. (Hope this makes sense, my spanish is very poor at best) Thank you for pointing out the difference between the plural and single forms of the word; I would agree that it is important to use correct terminology. I think I have a grasp of the degree of work involved, but for a number of reasons, this doesn't really faze me. Past large scale cooking projects have taught me to carefully assess the degree of effort required (think 8-course meals prepared in a single day, with relatively little cooking experience, how they were not more disastrous than they were, I do not know). But it is always good to be reminded, as Rancho aptly put it there is little point going to all the effort if I do not even know how to assemble the tamales correctly. What I was trying to figure out was if there was something difficult about the nixtamalization process I was missing, other than simply the scale of the project. Now I am off to the market. (crosses his fingers that they still have corn and poblanos)

Thanks for your input everyone, I have been very busy lately and haven't had as much time for cooking as I might like. However, I am no relatively caught and have turned my attention back to tamales. I've decided to take Rancho Gordo's excellent advice and take a bottom-up approach rather than a top down. In my zeal sometimes I get obsessed with perfecting every aspect of a process and lose sight of important details like learning the specifics of the technique first. Unfortunately, maseca para tamales doesn't seem to be available in my area. The white bags are plentiful, but the pink bags seem nowhere to be found. I will check agian at my local tortilla factory to see if they have any masa para tamales, but I don't really want to go the pre-prepared route. andies: Thanks so much for writing about your neighbours procedure. As I said I will make them with maseca just to get it done once, but once I have attained basic mastery I think I will turn my attention to the masa, and I always welcome any information I can get! Luckily for me, someone was kind enough to bring this thread to rancho's attention (somehow your earlier suggestion slipped by me or was forgotten). I might add I have nothing but great admiration and respect for all the things I've seen you do or talk about through reading old e-gullet threads. Maybe it is because I have never acutally done this, or maybe I'm just crazy, but strangely enough this doesn't sound that difficult to me. What exactly is so difficult about this? It took me a long time to figure out exactly what happens in the process of making fresh masa from reading different bits and pieces, but now that I do understand it seems relatively simple. I know that if I knew somewhere I could get ready access to the right corn here in montreal I would jump on it. My manteca is fairly good I think; I get fat from a local pig farmer who raises excellent pigs, and then render it myself at home. Is the savory lard (amber-coloured when rendered and still liquid) the most appropriate kind for tamales? You mention folding techniques. I recall reading that one person whips their masa in a mixer first to make it light in fluffy, and another recipe specifies kneading until a chunk of masa "floats in cold water". Would you be willing to talk a little bit more about the different techniques or perhaps provide a description of one of the most basic ones? I hope I'm not coming off as obnoxious, I like to really go into the details, and I know some people don't feel the same way. Obviously, I am a tamal-making virgin but I'd like to gather as much information as I can before I embark. I want to start with the most basic, open ended version of tamales with each element executed to the best of my ability. I really appreciate any and all help your willing to give, but as you may have guessed, I feed on details.

I am thinking that ethnic (particularly chinese) shops would be your friend in this respect. I can't recall anything specific at the moment, but I believe I've seen big circular chinese style butcher blocks for relatively cheap (20-50$) at an ethnic store or too. Think China, Thai Hour, Marche Hawaii, and another chinese grocer nearby out in St. Laurent. I will keep my eye out for you and let you know if I see anything.

Both ghee and clarified butter are made from, obviously, butter. Therefore, some of the differences between them such as sourness stem from differences between butter rather than the method when they are prepared. Thanks to v. gautam we know now that true desi (country) ghee is made from butter churned from the fat layer of yogurt in a complex process he has outlined above. The sour component some people refer to probably stems from ghee made from this type of butter - butter that has been cultured and has a sour note as well as other flavors. I was confused as you were initially, but what I've come to understand as the main difference between ghee and clarified butter (aside from the base butter used) is the moisture content. Clarified butter is usually just melted and heated for a short period of time such that the relatively pure butterfat can be seperated. Ghee on the other hand, is heated very slowly until all the moisture present in the butter has been evaporated out and all the milk solids have been fully seperated. There are a number of tests for this such as soaking the ghee in a piece of paper and lighting the paper on fire, if you hear any crackling then their is moisture left. Another common test is that when the butter solids begin to brown the ghee is ready, indicating that there is no moisture left in the butter fat. I would say that in a pinch they can be used interchangeably, but that ghee differs substantially from clarified butter. There is no moisture left in it (ideally) and it can be stored at room temperature for months without spoiling, it has a complex, nutty aroma, and is very unique as a cooking fat. Its lack of moisture and impurities allows it to be heated to higher temperatures than even clarified butter, and the long slow cooking changes its properties. I suspect this has to do with the slow maillard reactions taking place as the moisture is slowly cooked out of ghee. In this way ghee shares some of the properties of beure noisette in french cooking, except the effect is achieved must more slowly, producing I think, a more complex final product. Does this help?

Indeed, Rob (grfon1) has been very helpful. On my next trip to the latin markets in the area I will check for frozen posole. I suspect the fact that Rob's posole had not yet been nixtamalized (outer shell removed), along with the fact that it was frozen, worked in his favor to preserve the freshness and quality of the corn. Rob, I just thought of a detail I hadn't asked you before. When you thawed the frozen posole to what extent was the corn hydrated, was it closer to fully dried or fresh? And, had the corn already been treated such that all you had to do was rub off the outer shell, or did you have to include a step involving treatment with lime?

Thanks Jmahl. Once the corn has been soaked and nixtamalized (cellulose layer taken off) is it ground straight away or dried and then ground? I wondered because usually when grinding you want your grain to be as dry as possible, although it doesn't seem this would be a problem with a traditional metate. I just tried grinding up a small batch in my coffee grinder, and suprisingly it worked quite well. I didn't try to get it as fine as I could but it ended up a little coarser than my maseca (white bag). I made two small tortillas with it and they seemed pretty good, although I'm not sure they were better than Maseca; it may be the corn I have isn't quite fresh enough. I'm going to experiment a little more and do a side by side comparison, and also try grinding the corn in my food processor. I did try asking the local tortilla factory for some of their masa, but they were unwilling to part with any. It would have been nice, but I am really enjoying the process of learning about masa and doing everything myself. Also, I am a bit suspicious of the quality as their tortillas are worse than mine made from maseca, and I'm pretty sure they make them daily. Whether this is a result of the corn used, the way they or made, or the freshness I do not know.

Thanks for your responses everyone. It seems another aspect that I didn't quite understand has become clear. Fresh masa is prepared in the same way as Maseca would be except that the corn has been freshly ground. Feel free to enlighten me if I've misspoken. I don't know that I have anything capable of grinding the corn I have, this stuff seems pretty rock solid and all I have is a small coffee grinder for spices and a food processor. Unfortunately, I am not in a financial position to make any grinding purchases right now but I will keep the suggestions in mind. In the thread I mentioned previously Bimbo Jones simply simmered (and also soaked overnight I believe) the corn until it seemed soft enough to grind, and then ground it in her food processor. I'm not sure if she added more water to her dough afterwards, I am curious at to the details as it seemed to work well for her. Jay - Thank you for the suggestion and encouragement. Maseca para tamales (pink bag) doesn't seem to be available here, so I am left only with Maseca para tortillas (white bag). Is the recipe you mention simply this mix or is there a link to it somewhere on the web? I have looked at some recipes for masa para tamales but am as of yet unsure how I am going to turn the basic masa (ground corn) into the actual masa for the finished tamales.

For a long time I have been pushing myself to get my act together such that I can make tamales. I am now in a relatively good position to make tamales, but my quandary is this: how to prepare the masa from scratch? If I am going to make all the effort, I would like my tamales to turn out as best as I can possibly make them. After much reading, here's what I know: I have some corn which is corn for posole. When my aunt stopped by the other day (she is mexican), she exclaimed "ah you have the corn for posole!" and told me about some happy memories involving posole and some particular celebration in september. I believe this corn has already been nixtamalized, it is all white except the tip, and looks like the corn in this picture. Assuming my corn has been nixtamalized, can anyone provide any advice or a general procedure for turning it into masa para tamales? I found this thread digging through the back pages of this forum which has been helpful, but leaves some questions unanswered. The member in question who originall performed the experiment, Bimbo Jones hasn't been active in several months. I have looked through many websites and guides and done a lot of reading, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what to do, but really I'm looking for a little "hand-holding" as I'm still a little uncertain..

What a beautiful tandoor, I am very envious. What have you made in it so far and how have you found using it? I think I remeber you saying you haven't made naan in the other tandoor thread as you are hesitant about sticking your hand into a 500 degree oven, maybe some full length heat proof gloves?

Indeed! Thanks to your clarifications I think I am fairly clear on all the details of the process. I didn't fully understand it at first, but I now realize how much effort this requires for such a small yield. This does not mean that I am deterred, only that I will have to adjust my plans. Given the level of technicality involved start to finish, I think I will build up to the full project in a number of steps. I will start by doing some research on butter making and cultured butter in general, and by getting some locally available cultured butter and Muenster cheese. With the butter I will make ghee, and with the cheese I will learn what desi ghee is supposed to be like. From there, once I have gained more yogurt making experience I will attempt the desi ghee from scratch. I am confident that if I can pull off the process correctly the result will be worth it to me, but even then I think this ghee will be ghee for some very special meals indeed. V. gautam, you assumed correctly, I will definitely be doing this on a small home scale. I don't have the resources for otherwise right now, but I might apply what I learn in the future. I love yogurt and am sure that I can find some creative uses for all the excess. It is starting to get very cold here in Montreal, and I think I will take advantage of my "outdoor fridge" as another thread called it to cool my milk. I might add you might find the quote html tag useful in the future. Simply write [*quote] insert your quote here [*/quote=whoyouarequotinghere] (minus the stars). Or click here for some tips on tags.

I don't know about your cookbook, I have heard very good things about the restaurant and chef in vancouver, but have never heard anything authority say that if the mustard seeds are popping they are burning. In fact, pretty much every recipe I have cooked in which whole mustard seeds are an ingredient involves spooning the mustard seeds into very hot oil and letting them pop. Usually to do this I get the oil very hot (just below smoking, but this varies by oil) and toss the seeds into the oil, trying to make sure that no seeds do not fall into oil. I then quickly cover the pan as these litttle buggers pop quite violenty. Once covered, I listen to the frequency of popping and once it has dropped from vigorous popping to more intermittent pops (at this point the seeds should be gray), I uncover the pan and procede with the next step. It takes a little while to get all the variables right and learn how to work off the different cues, but with a little practice it won't take long how to get the desired effect out of your pan, stove, oil, etc. When you throw seeds into hot oil you aren't really cooking them in the same sense that one cooks a piece of meat or a vegetable. As wazaa explains very well in his blog, many of the natural compounds found in spices are much more soluble in fats than they are in water. Thus when you throw the hot spices into hot oil, you are essentially infusing the oil with the flavor of the spices, the basic character of the spices also change due to some chemical changes that occur at high temperatures. This does not take very long at all, the oil is usually very hot (solubility increases with temperature) and the flavor of the spicse are quickly extracted. The chemical change evoked by throwing the spicse into hot oil is sort of the same as the difference between a raw piece of meat and say, a seared steak. I don't know a lot about the details but the important part is that you have released the flavor of the spices into the oil, and changed how they taste. Now that the flavor is in the oil it is in liquid form, and can spread throughout the dish and do things like coat the piece of meat in your curry to make it taste so good. On the point of your specific recipe, I don't think I have ever cooked a dish where there a hot spices fried in the oil before caramelizing. This is probably for the reasons you encountered; as the water is fried off there is little buffer left between the seeds and too much heat and they start to burn. I have sort of learned what you are doing in the recipe from your descriptions, but am not exactly sure. Perhaps you could post the steps involved in the first half of the recipe (or pm me if posting was inappropriate, I am unsure). I might be able to understand the author's intentions, or come up with some adjustments that might help you. Grub - I know exactly how you used to feel. I love Indian food, and through a lot of practice my understanding has improved. I know that back at the beginning the detailed conceptual background was always what I craved the most. I am very pleased to be able to share some of what I have learnt. If you have any questions, please don't be afraid to ask! I will answer to the best of my ability.

Gautam: Thank you very much for the detailed instructions. I have a few questions about some of the specifics you provided, Your description of fat seems to indicate to me that traditionally in India, unadulterated cow and buffalo milk was used (meaning that these milks ranged from 5-7 for cows and 9-10 for buffalo as they came from the animal). But considering the small yield of the final product, I might want to see if I could produce a higher fat yogurt initially in order to end up with a final higher yield. Is my interpretation correct? You mention cooling the milk slowly. This interests me as others have advocated the specific use of rapid cooling (in an ice bath) for yogurt making. I have a series of experiments I am planning to conduct on yogurt making but I haven't yet tested this variable. In the culturing step you say "accumulate several days worth of skins", I take this to mean that once the yogurt has set after incubation, I "culture" it in the fridge for several days. Skins will form after a certain period of time, and I should allow the mixture to culture long enough to acquire several skins? And once the yogurt is set, all that there is left to do is let the yogurt culture for a few days in the fridge otherwise undisturbed? I also wonder about the specifics of "squeezing and mauling"? My loose plan at this point is to get a good working understand of the variables involved before proceeding. I still have a number of yogurt making experiments to conduct, and I think I might finish these before I attempt this ghee, as if I embark on an endeavor of this magnitude I would eventually like to produce a truly wonderful end product. I am so thrilled to learn more on this topic! I always knew there was more information somewhere, I just never knew where to find it. Once I have attained my desired level of mastery in yogurt making this will be my first full-fledged application. Incidentally, do you have any idea what kind of yield I am looking at based on an intial milk/cream volume? I still know very little about buttermaking, but does your last post indicate that 5-10kg a milk will produce a single quantity of 750g of butter?

Peanut Oil for me, an oil that fills the kitchen with the warm aroma of peanuts when splashed into a hot wok or pan. Sometimes I use corn oil in a pinch, but I prefer peanut for anything that will be mainly "asian" in character. As many others have mentioned, Lion & Globe out of Hong Kong is an excellent brand. I buy 2700mL cans from asian grocers here in montreal for 15-16$ canadian. If these were not available, I would look for a darker oil (if I could see it) that was cold-pressed or pressed at low temperatures and refined as minimally as possible. It is my understanding that the it is refining and high temperature/high pressure that "neutralizes" the peanut qualities of peanut oil. I don't use my peanut oil for foods where I wouldn't want a peanut taste. I don't ever really use olive oil, though I see how it could be used in some applications (not stirfrying!). I just started to render my own pork fat, and look forward to trying it out. It seems many traditional chinese recipes call for pork fat. One of my chinese cookbooks, "the Chinese Kitchen" by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, advocates the use of infused oils. These are peanut oils that have been infused with scallions, onions shallots, or white peppercorns. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Extremely interesting comments v. gautam, there is always another level isn't there? I have been making my own ghee at a time and had overtime come to choose the highest quality unsalted cultured butter I could find. I highly doubt it meets your specifications, as I have no idea from what cows it came or to what extent it was cultured, but it made pretty good ghee. Cultured butter never seemd that much more expensive than regular, but maybe it wasn't cultured as you describe it. I would however, love to go to the extreme that you have described, it sounds convincing to me. If what I have been eating is not ghee, then I will just have to make ghee. Would you be willing to provide some more details? I have access to some good non-homogenized milk and high quality cream that I think would work well. What level of fat are we talking here for yogurt? Could you give me some rough proportions for the mix of cream and butter? Additionally, how long would one incubate the yogurt for? Are we looking for a tangy yogurt, or a sweet mellower one? You mentioned two cultures of bacteria, is it important that these cultures be used specifically, are the more cultures? And once the yogurt is complete, I would churn it in a blender? On low speed, until a seperation into butter and buttermilk is achieved? Will this butter be like the butter I know at present? Well, that is my torrent of questions. Any answers are much appreciated. Oh, I almost forgot, do you know anything about ghee made from buffalo's milk?

Hello Cnspriggs, good to see that you are attempting some Indian food at home! Caramelizing onions to create a base for a dish is a technique very common in Indian cooking. Once you learn it, it is very easy to apply in many different situations, especially when you want to create that special flavor profile it gives. Most of what I have learned has been initially from instructions in cook books, and then from experimentation on my own. I did once convince an Indian friend of mines mother to give me a few lessons, but she didn't seem to understand that I wanted to learn more than I want to eat (we did have a great chapati making lesson though). I don't think I have ever seen anyone dry-cook onions before caramelizing them, but I know you can achieve a perfect result without dry-frying first. If I were to cook the dish you have described above, I would probably throw the cumin seeds into very hot oil for 10-15 seconds, or until they turned a dark shader of brown. I would add the mustard seeds at this step too, and immediately cover the pan with a lid. They pop very vigorously at first, and I usually move on to the next step (typically adding onions or something else that will lower the temperature of the pan) when the popping has subsided to intermittent popping and the mustards seeds have turned grey. If your seeds continue to pop after you add the onions it is probably because you added them too early and not all of them had a chance to pop, and thus started to pop again when the temperature was high enough. You could also add seeds at the end of the caramelization stage, but I wouldn't recommend this at it is trickier to do. You only have a very short window of time between full caramelization and burnt and you have to add the next ingredient to cool down the pan before your onions burn. It is also tricky to ensure that all the onions are fully caramelized, and that there is virtually no water left in the onions. I would then add the onions, and cook them stirring constantly on fairly high heat until they had caramelized. This typically takes me about 20 minutes for a standard sized dish that has 1-2 white onions in it. They require less attention at first, but as they lose more and more water they are more prone to burning. When they start to stick together monitor them closely, as they are nearing your desired product. The amount of oil is essential for proper caramelization as mentioned by others. Lean on the heavy side, the onions shouldn't look coated in oil so much as swimming in a shallow layer. Your pan should be big enough for minimum overlap. Cutting onions of uniform size is also important. My prefered way to cut onions for caramelizing is in very thin slices from an onion halved length wise. I seperate these slices before I add them to the oil, thinning any of the the thicker slices from the lower layers of the onion. I have read that in India they are pounded to a paste, but that this does not work well with western onions which have a much higher water content. As to your choice of cooking fat, any oil or fat suitable for higher heat cooking (not olive) should work. Personally, I prefer corn or peanut, and coconut, sesame (different from chinese sesame), mustard, and ghee for special applications. I tend to shy away from the newer oils and those pressed at high temperatures. The "oil glistens on top" indicator was explained very well by Wazaa, you will come to recognize it fairly quickly with experience. Indicidentally tomatoes fried in golden/caramelized onions is a wonderful combination (best when the cooking fat is ghee I say!). One of my favorite dals has a tadka made with ghee, golden onions, tomatoes, and panch poran and it is exquisite. Terrific experiments Waaza, I was especially intrigued by the observation that onions degrade so quickly after being cut. I often prep my onions 20-30minutes in advance, and have never noticed any bitterness, but a subtle difference would be hard to detect in most of the food I cook. Is this something you can detect in a side by side comparison? And would the onions degrade the same way cut up in a bowl as they would immersed in water? I learned your point about the flavor being in the fat well one time when I overzealously defatted a pork vindaloo - nothing could be done to save it.

I don't have any direct experience with a pacojet myself, but I have spoken to cooks in other restaurants who use one. From what I've read/heard that understand I've come to have is that the major difference between it and a regular ice cream maker is that the technology allows for a major change in ingredient proportions. For example, if you go to their website you'll see them advertise about making pineapple sorbet with just pineapple. Supposedly, all you have to do is cut up the pineapple, freeze it for atleast 24 hours at -20 F and then "pacojet" at which point it is ready to serve or go into storage into a slightly warmer (-10F) freezer until one is ready to serve. According to their website, high-speed (2000rpm) razor sharp blades shave a layer off the material in a frozen state, producing a very "creamy, finely textured end product". It does indeed work for ice cream, supposedly very well. But the recipes are not the same, if you look at some of the sample recipes they call for much less cream or fat than normal ice cream. At one restaurant I know of where they have a pacojet they use only a plain creme anglaise base, supposedly if they use extra cream the ice cream ends up with a too thin consistency after "pacojetting". There is a lot of info online, I suggest you google pacojet and browse. If you do end up getting one I would love to hear about your experiences with it! We might get one sometime nextyear and I am really excited about it. It sounds like such a phenonmenal product that would be tons of fun to play around with. Oh and I wouldn't imagine you'd have any trouble serving a party of 20, it takes only 20 seconds to pacojet a 700g portion of frozen base that is then ready to serve, you would need only to prep in advance.

My mother always used to defrost meat this way, but never changed the water. We never had any problems. As Pielle pointed out, if the meat is sealed water-tight you shouldn't have any problems. If it isn't, you are actually stimulating bacterial growth to an extent when you change the water as you a providing them a more hospitable environment by raising the temperature. Hair splitting aside, I don't think this merits this level of scrutiny. As long as the water is cold, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Can anyone explain the theory behind "adding eggs one at a time" in certain recipes?

I made cornbread tonight using Susan's recipe to go with my chile verde. I thought I would try and revive this thread as I enjoyed reading it so much. I baked it in an 8-inch cast iron skillet (top of side-wall to top of side-wall) for about 22 minutes at 425F, following Susan's directions precisely. I wasn't sure about adding the hot grease step so I simply added all the melted lard and stirred it in. I think I will try the absorption method next time. While it was good, it was a little disappointing. I suspect this was the fault of my cornmeal, finely ground cedar brand (a common brand in canada) that was probably roughly a year old. The integrity of all my other ingredients was quite good (my own rendered lard, fairly fresh eggs, good milk etc), and I have little doubts about the recipe, but I hope it will turn out better next time with better cornmeal. I also look forward to experimenting with chiles, corn, buttermilk, cheese, coarseness of grind, and who knows what else. How much does this style of cornbread usually rise? Mine did not seem overly dense, but only rose to about the height of the side of the skillet (about an inch and a half). The crust was nice and crunchy.

I think the pig looks great, it has the strangest look on its face. I also love the picture of the horizon in the morning, lake country at its best. As some of you may know, Manitoba has over a hundred thousand lakes, westhawk and lake of the woods are two of the bigger ones (thought most or all of lake of the woods is in Ontario If I remember correctly). A good friend of mine has a lovely cabin on an island in lake of the woods, his mother bought it back in the sixties before real estate prices soared. I have also been to westhawk lake which is quite lovely, but a little cold and a little too developed for my tastes. My understanding that it was formed from the crater of a meteor or asteroid and is about 80 or 90 feet deep at its deepest points, great for scuba diving. Another lake I enjoyed was starlake, which I believe is in the whiteshell. I think my favorite lake though was Jessica Lake, which is actually quite close to winnipeg. It is actually two lakes, big jessica and little jessica and a friend of mine had a great cabin on a cliff of sorts overlooking little jessica. There is little in the world I would trade for a weekend at Jessica lake - waterskiing, tennis, trips to the rapids, and board games on the screened porch. But, best of all were running leaps off the dock several times a day (and night) when you just gotta beat the heat. Keep up the good work Kerry!

Excellent blog Kerry, I really like your curt writing style - you seem to say all the right things in exactly the right amount of words. Manitoulin Island reminds me of manitoba and the lake culture there, ah how I miss visiting my friend's cabins in the summer. Do we get to see pictures of the finished pigs?

While I find that peanut oil is more expensive than other basic oils such as corn, soy, canola etc, I do not find it overly so. Peanut oil is one of my primary oils so I buy it in bulk, I can get a 2700mL carton of peanut oil for about 15$ canadian, which I think is very reasonable. I suspect that the reason that peanut oil is more expensive is related to simple processing costs as well as supply and demand and lobbying. Nuts are expensive to grow and process, and while peanuts lie on the cheap end of the spectrum, they are still much more expensive to produce than mass grown crops like corn, soy, or canola. There are many different types of peanut oil. European/western peanut oils tend to be lighter in color and blander, with a very neutral taste. I believe this is because they are pressed at higher temperatures and go through a greater refining process than many asian peanut oils. Chinese peanut oil tends to be darker with a strong peanut taste. My favorite brand of peanut oil is Lion & Globe from hong kong, it has a rich peanutty colour and fills the kitchen with the aroma of peanuts when heated. I am curious as to anyone knows the details of processing peanut oil? It doesn't seem that some of the oils I've used could come from raw peanuts. My personal feeling is that peanut oil should taste and smell like peanuts. I prefer peanut oils that are pressed at low temperatures and refined minimally. If I don't want a peanut taste in a certain dish but am looking for a neutral oil, I tend to prefer corn or perhaps canola. In her book Classic Indian Cooking Julie Sahni talks about peanut oil in India. Apparently at one time (and perhaps still) people would bring sacks of peanuts to a specialized oil-pressing shop and have the peanuts pressed in front of them. They would then take the oil home in glazed jugs.

I just love the descriptions of tianguis' (could someone tell me how to pronounce this word) and other more traditional food sources several of you have described. Living pretty much smack in the middle of a large urban city, I am surrounded by large-scale industrialization of food distribution on all sides. How well I can relate to this! I would be a far less busy person if I had access to all my products under "one roof". I am fortunate enough to have some lovely farmer's markets, but of late I am having mixed feelings about them. It seems too many of the vendors are middlemen who have no qualms about adding sugar to their sample platters of fruit or the like. Do you mean this literally? It was my understanding that beef that has not been hung and aged is not very palatable. Thanks again everyone for sharing your experiences. I have been to Mexico before but was too young at the time (and not as food-obsessed) to appreciate or seek out the things you describe. When I make it back, my priorities will be clear.

Most of the flatbreads I make are unleavened and then cooked on a flat cast iron pan of some sorts. A basic flatbread would consist of your choice of fat, water, and salt. Mix flour and salt together in a bowl, cut fat into flour until the mixture looks like coarse meal with some pea size lumps, and add water until dough pulls from the side of the bowl, knead until smooth and elastic. Spread a very small amount of oil on dough, cover with plastic wrap or a moist towel and let rest for a half hour. When dough is done resting, seperate dough into balls corresponding to the size of flat bread you want, squish them into small patties and then coat them with flour, roll out to desired thickness and diamater on a floured board, and then cook on a preheated cast iron pan (flipping once) until done. Of course, there is a lot to work with here. You can choose to omit the fat or include it, fiddle with the type of fat, type of liquid, or type of flour or flours. You can roll them thin or thick, you can have them puff or not puff... Flatbread with a steak? Doesn't really seem like an intuitive pairing to me, what sort of steak is this? If you want it to go with hummus I'd probably do a middle-eastern or indian style flat bread, I don't know too much about pitas but I'd be happy to share what I know about Indian flatbreads if you're interested.