rob7

I looked into purchasing a couche and have found them online for about $20. The more I looked at it the more it seemed that it was just a heavy piece of fabric that I may be able to get at a craft or fabric store for much less. Do you know if this is the case? Online I've seen ones made from muslin, linen, and flax (linen essentially). Has anyone bought their own fabric to use as a couche? If so, what did you buy and how has it worked? I know that the fabric needs to be unbleached. Is there a specific weight of fabric that is needed so that it can support loaves? Also, does acouche need to be "seasoned" before using? if so, what is the process. Thanks all for your input.

The bagel topic got me specifically thinking about this.....if a recipe calls for high gluten flour and I have regular bread flour and a box of wheat gluten, can I add the wheat gluten into the bread flour to make high gluten flour. If this can be done, is there a formula to determine how much gluten to add to get to a certain protein content? If this can be done, are there any disadvantages to doing this as opposed to finding a high gluten flour. I ask because the only way I am able to get high gluten flour is mail order. But, I can get bread flour and gluten.

The best dough recipe I have found that I can follow (my mother was pure feel and I cannot seem to replicate her's) is from Grant Achatz and was published in the December 2006 issue of Food & Wine: 2 1/2 C all-purpose flour 1 cup sour cream 1 large egg beaten 1 large egg yolk beaten 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter melted 1/2 teaspoon salt Mix all together, knead until smooth, cover and let rest for 15 minutes. The filling that I grew up with is a potatoe and farmers cheese filling. Make a batch of mashed potatoe. Add farmers cheese. Usually about 2/3 mashed potatoe to 1/3 cheese. The farmers cheese that we always used was made under the Friendship brand. It is a white, crumbly cheese. To make it easier to mix with the potatoe, I usually put it through the ricer into the potatoes. Where I live now it's hard to find this farmers cheese. I read at one point that using ricotta can be a good substitute if you drain all the excess moisture and add a bit of lemon juice to give it the tartness that farmers cheese has. I tried it and it worked ok. You canstill tatste a bit of the sweetness from the ricotta.

I agree with the grilling method. I grill them on a weber kettle setting up a fire on one side. I'm sure you can set up the same with a gas grill. I put the wings on the indirect side and let them cook a while. Then I rotate them through the direct side until I get the color I want on the skin. I think that by cooking them over indirect heat for a while it allows some of the fat in the wings to melt away. I end with wings that have a crispy skin and moist, tender, meat. They've never dried out on me. I then follow the directions for sauce on Frank's Red Hot and toss the wings in the sauce. I think that the grilling adds a little extra depth of flavor to the wings, especially when don over hardwood charcoal. You get a little smokiness in the wings.

One of my favorite summertime treats- watermelon (with a sprinkle of salt to bring out that sweetness). I never really thought about the difference between seedless vs. seeded until recently and asked around. The only answer I got besides " I don't know" is that seeded watermelons are sweeter. I did a tasting of one seeded and one seedless and the only advantage I found between the two was that the seeded had a firmer, crisper flesh. But, I don't think that my tasting was necessarily right because of product inconsistencies--- one day I get a seedless that is sweeter, couple days later a second melon from the same bin bought the same day doesn't have much sweetness at all, etc. So, any thoughts? Are there differences between seeded and seedless watermelons?

For my birthday, my wife gave me a brass wok. For some reason, I began to wonder if brass was a safe material for cooking. I decided to google it and came up with the following information. A link from a Canadian government agency suggested not to use unlined copper or brass and that it can lead to ingesting dangerous amounts of copper (I believe brass has a significant amount of copper). Another site says that unlined brass or copper cookware can develop verdigris, a highly poisonous substance. From Webster's: verdigris- 1 a: a green or greenish-blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper and consisting of one or more basic copper acetates b: normal copper acetate Cu(C2H3O2)2·H2O ; 2: a green or bluish deposit especially of copper carbonates formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces. The link to the wok that I received is: http://importfood.com/brass_wok.html When I spoke to the gentlemen on the customer service line he said that in Thailand he always sees candy being made in brass woks but has not seen it for cooking. He thought that he did not see it used in cooking because it is more costly that a carbon steel wok or cast iron. Obviously the action during candy making vs. a stir fry is much different and not as rough on the wok. What are your thoughts. I brass a safe material for cookware?