Natho

In Queensland (east australia) where I live we are in the worst drought in something like 150 years. The government has us taking 4 minute showers and is threatening to cut off the water to anyone who uses too much...

Here is a thread with more than you would ever want to know about vanilla including lots of good ideas and where to get them for hell cheap.

I'm not sure if it would have long enough to do anything unless you could vaccuum seal them again i think the beans would just go stale after a while. And I guess if you did vaccuum seal them it wouldn't do anything anyway.

Well, in australia anyway, marmalade is made with citrus, jam is made with non-citrus and preserve covers pretty much anything in a jar that won't go off quick. I can't comment on compote.

Helping wash up after cooking at friends places and handing dishes back to be rewashed 3 times. Makes me wonder what happens when I'm not there to police their hygiene.. My old cooking partner, oneday he lost his cloth for wipeing the dishes so he went into the bathroom and came back with the one he cleans the sink (and I'll assume the toilet) with. I bared access to the kitchen and told him if I was on the verge of never eating anything he cooks or even looks at ever again.. Also using plastic implements and leaving them sitting in the pot resting on the bottom when it's on the heat. When the edge of said implement is half melted down and warped one has to ask onself "Where did all that plastic go?"

Tomato puree and piripiri seasoning. I'm constantly amzed by how much I can put those two in.

Thanks everyone. I had considered weighing but i don't think my scales are sensitive enough for small amounts. It doesn't matter anyway I just kind of guess and it turns out fine. I was just curious if there was actually a preferred method or not..

Sorry if anything i say has been posted already i don't have the time to read 17 pages worth right now... In Australia (dunno if it's available anywhere else) I use Volcam (spelling??) brand of paste for my green curry and i love it. I have found that the secret to making it best is to add the juice of a whole lime and then balance out the acidity with dark brown sugar (or palm sugar). I have had the Mae Ploy in red but I'm not really that keen on red. I will try it soon with their green. I recently made a green paste from scratch and it was good, really fresh tasting. But From the effort it took to get all the different ingredients and make it up, it didn't quite stack up to the Volcam. One other thing i've found is that here I can only get one brand of coconut cream in the supermarket (Ayam brand) that is 100% pure coconut cream. All the rest are varying between 30% to 70% cream, then watered down and thickened. It has this info in the ingredients on the can. Using the 100% stuff makes a big difference as well.

Well, if you skim back 6 pages to the start of this thread you may find that you have already found that which you are searching for...

Well yes i do plan on grinding them up to cook with but i still need to know how much to grind up in the first place. I don't want to pregrind a whole bunch of spices as they don't keep as well. I do it all in the mortar and pestle when i go to cook something. I have till now been adding about 50% more.

On a side note note, I wonder if any of the alcohol gets absorbed into the vanilla beans. Could make an interesting drinking game addition when your essence is finished brewing, kind of like the worm in the tequila?

Is there any kind of formula or method for measuring whole spices when a recipe asks for powdered? As in if my curry wants 1 tsp of powdered cumin, how much whole seeds would i use?

Any particular part of australia? It's a pretty big place... There is one in brisbane called The Bull and Cactus on logan road i couldn't vouch for it's authenticity. For all I know it may be cheesy as hell but anyway, thats what they claim to be. The food was pretty good, however seeing as I've never been to the south of the US I can't really make a legitimate call on that.

Almost every time I use unsalted butter for a recipe I am unhappy with the result, not texture wise or anything but just in taste. It always tastes bland to me, I find that the salt rounds out the flavor better, even with sweet things, chocolate etc. I always try it first with unsalted if the recipe calls for it, but generally always end up remaking it with salted.

I would think rum would be great. I recently dabbled into banana and coffee and it was really nice, I made a banana loaf and used espresso for all the added liquid. Although the coffee wasn't noticeable as it only had a 1/4 of a cup of extra liquid next time i will try with doppio or something really strong. I made a coffee Icing for it which helped. So back to the initial question, I would suggest a coffee liquer would go nice.

Could you post the recipe for the Halva please? I have been looking for a good halva recipe.

I feel your pain! I live in brisbane and I also found it hard to find anything. I have found polycarbonate molds at executive chef. They charge about $60. Does anyone know if this is a decent price? Or is it a total rort? I also found Lindt coverture at an IGA of all places! But I have never found invertase anywhere. So, being poor, I unfortunately have to deal with crap plastic molds for now or hand rolling truffles. If anyone is ever near Bellingen (near coffs harbor) they have an organic hippy store called koomble or something wierd. They have a great range of organic and free trade chocolate and sell this bulk organic chocolate made with cane sugar etc dunno where it's from but I only tried the white and it was awesome.

I'm keen to make some praline paste. I believe there is a tutorial on here for it. But I make my almond paste and flavour it with varying forms of alcohol and roll it up and coat it in chocolate. So I do need a firmer product. Thanks for the tip on the almond meal Kerry, I think I'll have a crack at that soon.

Well I did it tonight. First off I had trouble with my sugar syrup, it kept frothing and rising up and I had to stand there and take it off the stove about every 30 seconds so it didn't boil over. A bigger pot may have helped. Dunno. I've never had it do that before when working with white or castor sugar. I had to have the temp down so low that it took about 30 minutes to get even near soft ball. Anyway, i roasted the almonds a little too long because they have a bit too much of a roasted flavour for what I wanted to use it for. And at the end of the day, the brown sugar just gave it a mollasas (spelling??) taste. Not bad overall, but better when done with regular sugar. Does anybody know if it is possible to toast almond meal? I can't get my almonds fine enough to get a good smooth texture in my almond paste but store bought almond meal is very fine and good for the texture I want.

That jungle Cabana on the chocolate week tour in Belize sounds awesome...

If you tied it right you could just pull the skewer right out of the knot easy as.

Fishing line should definitely be strong enough if you get the right sort. If you can catch a marlin with fishing line, you should be able to hold up some cupcakes. I think it normally comes rated for it's load-bearing strength.

Does anybody know if soft ball is the same temp for all sugar?

I will do this thing, in the name of scientific discovery (and my tastebuds). Extra brainwave just recieved, some spiced rum would i think be very good in the almond caramel fusion.

I make my own almond paste pretty simply just from a sugar syrup of white sugar and water, cooked to softball and then put in a food processor with pre processed almonds. Now I had a thought about using brown sugar and maybe a bit of butter to make a caramel/toffe/butterscotch whatever almond paste. My question is, how will it affect the process using brown or dark brown sugar (muscovado for some people) and would i just cook it to the same temp on the sugar thermometer? Would the extra mollasses content cause it to burn easier?