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CathyL

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Posts posted by CathyL

  1. Since yeast is already not rugelach to me, it might as well be chocolate. Zabar's is only blocks away...

    I'm sure I'll love it. I'll just have to call it something else. :raz:

    Rochelle, let me suggest another favorite from Maida's Book of Great Cookies: brown sugar butter cookies sandwiched with a browned-butter filling. The dough works well in a cookie press.

  2. Maida's recipe calls for refrigerating the dough overnight. It contains no sugar at all but I add 2 tsp because my grandmother did; Nana also used 6 oz. of cream cheese instead of 8, no doubt because that's what two small packages of Philly add up to. :biggrin: They're still very rich. No jam, just cinnamon sugar & chopped walnuts.

    I haven't made them in years but I used to use a pastry cloth (and a mixer!). Maida rolls out the dough in a circle and cuts into pie-shaped wedges. My grandma rolled a long rectangle and cut adjacent triangles, which I went back to after trying Maida's method once. Easier to get consistent sizes/shapes, at least for me.

    Rochelle, if the Bat Mitzvah girl loves chocolate, I highly recommend Jane Freiman's brownies - another Maida cookie book recipe. Divine.

  3. While a butt may be cooked after 4 hours, it's not cooked enough to be pulled pork. It needs to stay on the smoker long enough for the internal fat & collagen to break down; that's what makes the meat tender and juicy. Let the next butt go longer, and when you think it might be done, stick a fork in it. If you can pick the butt up, it needs more time.

    A few temp spikes along the way don't matter.

    edited to correct a sudden attack of dyslexia. :wacko:

  4. Yes, I remember the lemonade too - yuck. A friend once did beer butt chicken with Tequiza - double yuck.

    I agree, it's a fun way to do chicken (unless the can tips over on the grill!), and a great conversation piece - especially among Q-starved Manhattanites.

  5. My theory is that since the chicken is forced open, and then has a highly conductive can stuck up its butt (not that the can does any cooking, but it is conductive enough not to get in the way of heat penetration), the chicken cooks from the inside and out. In its un-butterfiled state, a chicken cooks only from the outside in. Since it cooks quicker, there's less liquid loss. The fact that the thighs are closer to the heat than the breasts accounts for the even cooking, and from my point of view, is the best reason to use this method (though I usually butterfly, too.)

    I think you're right, Dave. Someday, I'll do a side-by-side cook: beer can (I actually use a ceramic 'chicken sitter') vs. vertical roaster.

    Meanwhile, I'm butterflyin'.

  6. I don't buy the beer can steam thing, I think it's a gimmick. I prefer to smoke my chicken cut up, there's more surface area for smoke penetration. If you use a water pan in your smoker you'll get just as much steam.

    It is a gimmick, and the liquid in the can doesn't steam enough to affect flavor or moistness, but for some reason the chicken does turn out very tasty. Cook's Illustrated did one of their pseudo-experiments a few years ago, with water in one can and beer in another, and judged the beer version better.

    Still, I prefer to smoke chicken butterflied, for the reasons you mention.

    A water pan in a smoker does not add appreciable moisture to the air.

  7. I would never get rid of the water pan. That is what helps to keep temperature swings at a minimum and adds moisture to the smoking chamber. In the New Braunfels, I put two big aluminum pans of water on the bottom shelf of the smoking chamber.

    Water pans add negligible moisture to the air in a vented smoker. They're useful as a heat baffle, though.

  8. We were married Sunday morning in a rabbi's study, then went home with our three guests for Dom Perignon, cheese, prosciutto and the cake I'd made (orange genoise w/orange butter cream). That left a long stretch until dinner, and it was -10 below outside, so we all went to see Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Dinner was at PS 77, a long-gone little French restaurant in the neighborhood. Can't remember what we ate.

  9. So when you're smoking for the first time, relax. Drink a couple of beers, shoot the sh*t and just wait for the goodness. And don't worry, it's incredibly hard to ruin a pork shoulder. It can handle swings of 100 degrees and still be better than any pork you can get commercially.

    The master speaks. :wub:

    The hardest lesson to learn, for me, was that temperature swings don't matter much when you're smoking something for hours.

  10. I've had a BGE for 6 years and wouldn't be without it. Alan's web site is an excellent resource on ceramics in general.

    I have a pal in Atlanta who makes naan on his Egg's interior walls (well-scrubbed).

    There's a newish company called Primo whose cookers are reportedly well-made, and somewhat less expensive than a BGE.

  11. I've always had trouble with Taylor analogs - the digitals are much more reliable.

    D the C, did you have the Maverick probe in the meat while you were searing? It's only rated up to, I think, 392º F (as are the Polders) and has a tendency to go wacky at higher cooking temps.

    The Maverick works fine for me most of the time, although the probe display and the remote lose their connection every now and then. And it won't work at all from my bedside table, which is of course the critical location during an overnight cook.

  12. The Korean farmers who sell home-made kimchi at the Union Square greenmarket make one with Jerusalem artichokes - very good, with a more delicate crunch than the radish variety. Their cabbage/chili/scallion version is my favorite, though.

    Jin, I think your potato dish sounds scrumptious. I like brown rice with sriracha and cold cabbage kimchi.

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