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gfweb

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    Test Dishes

    in Restaurant Life

    Posted · Edited by gfweb (log)

    I have several favorite dishes to test the mettle of an unfamiliar restaurant. If they screw them up they fail and see very little of me.

    Delis- A corned beef reuben. Can't be soggy, kraut must be drained or preferably toasted a bit. Swiss should be applied to each slice of bread which has a nice crunch on it from pan/grddle toasting in butter. Beef should be thin enough to bite through.

    Italian- Veal saltimbocca. Veal, prosciutto, sage with a white wine reduction. Cheese optional. Veal should be well pounded. Mustn't be swimming in sauce. Sauce is thickened by reduction and butter...no flour. No burning of the ham.

    Chinese- General Tso. I know its not real Chinese food, but how they make it tells me if they care about what they put out. If its made with crummy scrap meat, or coated in gummy batter, or if the sauce has visible pools of oil, they fail.

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by gfweb (log)

    I've been prowling on Medline trying to get an answer to the gel/no-gel question. No clear answers yet, but it is clear that temp isn't the only issue in solubilizing collagen and re-aggregating it as gelatin. Salt and pH have some effect too, and might well make all the difference.

    I suggest an experiment. Get a non-gelling stock and adding a small amount of acid or salt and compare results after chilling.

    The presence of bone in the initial stock might also be a factor. Heck of a lot of collagen in bone and its membranes.

    Restaurant August

    in Louisiana: Dining

    Posted

    I'll second the review of August. I eat there whenever I'm in NO and haven't had a bad meal yet (4 times, the last one was two weeks ago).

    Another place worth a mention is the hotel restaurant (I forget the name...the Club Room?) at the Windsor Court, which is across the street from August. Very good as well.

    A major beef I have with NO food is that so much of it is diner-quality stuff slung out for tourists at high prices. Muriel's, Mr. Bs, even Commander's Palace have disappointed.

    Recipes that Rock: 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I must have done something wrong. I love broccoli. So does DH. The soup was like cooked broccoli. Boring. We gave up eating it and put it into the dogs' vegetable container. (They eat pulped greens). I don't know whether to be embarrassed or confused or what?

    I'm sorry it didn't work..I doubt you did anything wrong. Maybe it's just that you and your DH were such ardent broccoli-lovers before that you were less surprised than the rest of us at how good broccoli can taste. :smile:

    Me too. The soup is nice, but not mind blowing to me.

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Out of curiosity, I googled "DIY centrifuge" to see what came up. I had visions of sticking a cordless drill into the middle of a lazy susan...

    A number of links came up, but most interesting was the "Dremelfuge", which can apparently go up to 33,000 RPM for about $50. I already have a dremel, and I've been fascinated by the concept of "pea butter" which was on one of the videos on the Modernist Cuisine website, and $50 doesn't sound like that much...

    Other DIY centrifuges that Google found included one that used to be a hand-cranked cream-seperator, one made from a salad spinner (total cost - $30!), and one that used to be a washing machine... the salad-spinner one looks very simple and relatively safe, not to mention cheap.

    Anyway, food for thought...

    Tempting, but be careful. It would take a machinist to make a centrifuge that wouldn't self-destruct at 30K rpm. Balance is everything.

    The State of College Cafeterias

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    My son, who has a pretty good palate, is at Pitt. He praises the variety and in general the quality of the dining service food. He's less kind to the off-campus choices. No good Chinese nearby, a sushi wasteland, no good delis, questionable pizza. There is at least a Chipotle, but it is counterbalanced by Subway and Quizno's.

    Gardening: 2011 Season

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Its nice to think about Spring with the #@!& snow still covering my yard.

    I've had a terrible time with tomato wilt two years running. Last year I planted only VF strains grown from seed and planted in pots with dirt from a clean source. Still got the frigging wilt!

    I may just do herbs and greens and rely on my neighbors who all have bigger gardens than they can consume.

    The Dishwasher-Loading Topic

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    When you remove the top rack what happens to the rotating sprayer? Does it come out with the rack?

    On my model, yes. But I've only owned a few dishwashers.

    That means there's a hole in the back of the dishwasher where water for the spray arm comes out. The top rack has a nozzle which seats into that hole. I doubt there would be any harm in removing the rack and running a load to see what happens.

    My wife is the person we should be asking. I swear she believes there is a "dishwasher loading committee" somewhere which hands out prizes for the most efficiently-loaded dishwasher.

    My wife too. Her only flaw.

    Corned Beef At Home: Recipes, Tips, etc.

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by gfweb (log)

    I bought some uncooked corned beef brisket at the supermarket yesterday and cooked it according to instructions. Absolutely vile fatty junkmeat. Barely even fit for hash.

    So I want to corn my own. From what I read there are a lot of variables...

    Saltpeter or not? I can't imagine brown corned beef but some recipes eliminate it.

    What cut? Brisket is traditional, but is such an iffy cut in my experience. At least the stuff my local market has is iffy. How about london broil or chuck or round. Boars Head uses top round in some products.

    After curing must it be boiled/simmered or can it be baked at higher temp than 212 F with spices rubbed in? That might be too salty, so could one soak it for a couple hours and then bake?

    What/Who is a "Foodie"?

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted · Edited by gfweb (log)

    Regardless of anyone's opinion on the term "foodie" it has nothing to do with the article. Meyers uses the terms "gourmets" and "food-obessed" as well as other terms through out the article and at no point does he contend the reason why foodies suck is because of the term "foodie."

    Indicating this article couldn't exist without the term foodie is like saying racism only exists because of the n-word, which is absolutely risibile.

    Take the article and substitute "people who like food" wherever foodie occurs and see if the article retains any impact. Stylistically, the article requires that word.

    The substitution also makes many of the statements sound as foolish as they really are.

    As someone upthread noted, Myers sets up strawmen and requires us to accept them so he can then rant. He is begging the question in the classical rhetorical sense (as opposed to the current usage by TV pundits, which has a quite different meaning) which is a sign of a weak argument.

    Foods you miss from the 1970s

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    The horse-drawn Huckster meandering through the neighborhood on a hot summer afternoon selling fresh Jersey peaches and tomatoes - "two pound fa qwahta"

    Junket

    Horn and Hardart's Creamed Spinach from the automat. Damn that was a treat.

    The mom-and-pop candy store where a quarter bought you a brown paper bag filled with smarties, pixie stix, wax lips, flying saucers, BB Bats...(that's a whole separate thread in itself!)

    Aren't you going a little further back than the 70s? The automat? (which I miss IN GENERAL).

    I think an Automat hung on in Philly and NYC into the 70s

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