furzzy
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Posts posted by furzzy
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I just received an advertisement from amazon for a new book by Boulud, Daniel: My French Cuisine. Might be interesting. Anybody that has opinions to share on his other books?
Only the promo - due out Oct 15 - on this one
Other books: I like Café, Braise, and At Home...so I expect to like this one.
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Read through the US release of Every Grain of Rice last night. This is an incredibly practical book. Not all ingredients have a metric equivalent, but most of the items you'd weigh do. There is an improvisational aspect to this kind of cooking that makes this acceptable. Time to start cooking!
Amazon has lots of five star ratings for this one...but they don't have a "look inside" feature.
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As for technique, here's a quote from "everyday stock" p318:
I'd first seen this idea in Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef. Later, Janet Fletcher of the SF Chron told me that this was classic Chinese technique, but I'd never noticed it in print before now. Even Thomas Keller waited a few books to come clean that this was protocol in his restaurants too. So why was he leaving this out before? I'm ok calling Every Grain of Rice a beginner book if we can agree that The French Laundry Cookbook is also a beginner book. There's simply worded advice that happens to be right. I know many good cooks who simply skim their stocks, with comparatively ghastly results that they're not even noticing.Clean the raw meats: the traditional method is to blanch them for a couple of minutes in boiling waterWhen I read this, I had to immediately check out Think Like a Chef...because I had never noticed it before, either. I'm definitely going to,try this next time I'm making any stock!
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My last count was 1946 actual cookbooks, plus 43 related {such as Trotter's Lessons in Excellence & various (auto)biographies}. This inventory was taken in August, 2012, after donating 432 cookbooks.
In 1987, preparatory to going cruising for a couple of years, and then living on the boat, I donated over a thousand to a resale shop, along with almost 4 thousand other books.
Last August, I said I'd buy no more hard cover or paperback books. Everything would have to be Kindle, or other e-book, because my deteriorating health & weakness make it almost impossible to hold the paper ones.
Since then I've added 127 cookbooks to my iPad. That's a good thing. O:-)
But I've also purchased 17 hard covers that aren't available in e-book...right now, I'm awaiting delivery of Martha Stewart's Hors D'Oeuvres. Wednesday, M. F. K. Fisher's The aArt of Eating: 50th Anniversary Edition was delivered. Last week, Trotters Seafood, and the week before, McLagan's Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes.
I dare not go on...I'm frightening myself!
ETA: A few of those 127 on the iPad are duplicates of faves I already had & used a lot.
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Well, shoot! I just tried to go,download it, and it's no longer there.
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This is Chef Achatz at Harvard, I don't know why this would cause people to lose their respect for him.
Neither do I. This is brilliant!
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Some people mentioned quiche...but even better might be frittatas. Quicker by not having to make a crust, and bakes much more quickly.
I would not spend from a very limited budget to buy a bread maker...yes, it'll take a total of your time hands-on that a bread maker won't.
However I would definitely recommend a Pressure Cooker because it will save you both time and money, both in food costs and in fuel. Unlike some others here, I recommend a stovetop one, rather than electric.
Rice and dried beans as so many have mentioned. And with a pressure cooker, you have a bean meal from dry to ready in 45 min. Most of that hands off time
Good Luck. If you said what you're studying, I missed it. What's your major?
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Tamagoyaki is a very fun sort of omelette; you beat eggs with rice wine vinegar, soy and sugar and sometimes saki, and apply very thin layers to the pan, rolling each one in turn to form a cylinder or rectangular tube made of the egg layers wrapped around each other. Then you can use it to make nigiri. No doubt my technique is bad but I was able to get the hang of it fairly quickly.
I just saw a video of this recently. Very interesting. Wish I could find it again.
Try these. One shows the making of a lightly-colored one, the other shows the making of a browned one. Both are fine.
There are other variations selectable from the list of "similar" videos on the right panels of the webpages if you went to the actual youtube page.
Note also that the Google set of images for tamagoyaki shows stuff varying from blond to browned.
And just for fun, here's a one-egg tamagoyaki:
Thanks for setting me on a good path. I found it very interesting when Imsaw it, but didn't take note of where. The one I saw had them being rolled rather than squared off, but in watching some of these & reading some more, I find that rolled is also valid.
The wok burner under the first one was also interesting...wonder how hot the pan was, since we generally think of eggs as needing gentle heat.
Also looked at pans...wow! From about $8 to almost $200! Anyone here have one?
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Cured salmon with potatoes, dill, other things
Would you tell me what other things? Apparently the potato is puréed. Little garnish of shallot (?) & dill. And is the white a soft cheese w/dill? Kind of bread?
I'm having a dinner party in couple of weeks & this looks/sounds like a perfect app, instead of the same old tartare I'd been hoping to replace with something more festive. Or this might even make a great amuse!
Thanks for anything you're willing to share.
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I like the edges of tortillas and such, but I cannot stand the skin. Especially pudding skin.
The more I read this thread, the more I discover how incredibly neurotic I apparently am!I can't mix pasta either.
Also, I have to cut my waffles according to the lines. I'm not sure if that's the reason why I eat them, just because of the lines.
It gives me the absolute heebie-jeebies to cut waffles "against the grain"--you HAVE to cut along the lines. And french toast has to be cut in lines parallel/perpendicular to the sides of the bread; no willy-nilly chopping off pieces here and there as you go. That's just plain wrong. 
And then there's the eating things in odd numbers--candy tastes better eaten in 3's (1 is too few, 5 is too many, 2 is too balanced, 4 is overkill).
I do microwave ice cream cartons because ice cream tastes better slightly melty. Really good ice cream I'll deliberately spoon around the edges in my bowl to get a combination of the still-frozen stuff and the cream that's melted off. (You can't, by the way, just wait until it all melts; that's just crazy talk.)
And I've passed on this genenic mess as well: My son won't eat any foods that have a "skin" on them, for example, cream of chicken soup that's cooled just slightly. And no crusts, no skin on apples--pretty much he hates chewy things. That does drive me nuts, since the edges of a tortilla are pretty much the same as the centers of a tortilla, but he insists they're a "crust" and won't eat them. I eat a lot of pickings off his plate...
Oh my! I just started reading this thread, starting at the end & working my way backward page by page.
I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!
I have no opinion on crusts, but skin, especially pudding skin......mmmmmmmm.....
I'll make creme anglais (still "vanilla pudding" to me) and let it sit long enough to get a skin.
Then I carefully scrape that off & eat it.
Then let it sit long enough to get skin again, & scrape & eat.
Then, again.
However many skins I can get.
mmmmmmmmmm
Do I hear "lather, rinse, repeat"? <GG>
Heading for the kitchen to see if I have enough egg yolks, sugar, whole milk & cream.....
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Of course they are defensible. They just have nothing to do with whether irradiation is safe. You can choose not to eat irradiated food, but we aren't discussing your choice.re: GMOs and Irradiation resistance not logical.Someone could also make the argument that eating Oscar Meyer Lunchables on a regular basis is a logical thing to do!Sorry, it's not for me!!I think that the food sovereignty and freedom of choice are defensible positions.~Martin
We are (were) discussing choices...disliked trends in the food industry. Not food safety, safe food trends, unsafe foods trends. So...he doesn't like GMO's and Irradiation. That's okay. It's his choice to dislike those things for whatever reason, or no reason at all.
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Idiotic menu items such as "Cornish hen coq au vin".If you don't know basic biology, I don't trust you to make my food.Didn't you get a sex education?Did you really import your HEN from Cornwall to Canada?Or are you just being pompous? And ignorant?
This is a plac where quotes might be appropriate: Cornish Hen a la "Coq au Vin"
Or: Cornish Hen in the method of "Coq au Vin"
(sorry about the missing accent grave over the "a" - got a new Logitech keyboard for my iPad, & have it set up for both French & English, but when I get to the French, I can't get the accents & other diacritical marks to work properly -- yet!)
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Making it really really difficult to find cream that's not ultra-pasteurized. Stuff has a dead taste that I dislike intensely but even a lot of health food stores sell only organic ultra-pasteurized. Grrrrr.
YES!!! Not only that, the ultra-pasteurized doesn't increase in volume when whipped. It's finally reached the point that I simply can't find plain old pasteurized...and I continue to ask, & ask, & ask. Wish I were in an area where I could raw milk, where the cream floats to the top.
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Lots of papers presented above. Many from the dark ages. Some not relevant. Some maybe relevant...hard to judge without looking up the whole reference.
I'm sure plenty of studies also exist that fail to show dangers from irradiated food.
Whatever the case with irradiation one needs to see it in context with other things we do to food...like grilling it or baking it..and what potentially toxic stuff is generated the old fashioned way.
But with Irradiated foods, as with GMO's, these are things done to the "foods" before they reach us. Grilling or baking is something we decide for ourselves.
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Smucker's Strawberry Preserves. Nashville House (Indiana) Baked Apple Butter.
Either one on my hot homemade buttermilk biscuits, slathered first with butter. YUM!
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You asked about the meals served at farms in France.
They're called 'ferme Auberge' and there are lots of them.
http://www.bienvenue-a-la-ferme.com/recherche/index/restauration/2643/?q=&ferme_auberge=1. (click on the link at the top 'Voir les résultats sur la cart.) This is a link to one association of them. As you can see they're all over France.
Each one is different and usually they feature local products & cooking. One near us, for example, featured roast sanglier (wild pig). This farmer had fenced in a few acres and kept wild pigs there. We had soup, a starter, the main course, some cheese and dessert plus unlimited wine. The cost was reasonable.
Mostly they will be family style with everyone at one large table. Great for one's France and, usually, a lot of fun.
If on vacation in France I'd urge anyone to try one.
We've done this several times in France. Without exception, the food has been delicious; the proprietors, lovely; prices, very reasonable. We've obviously enjoyed it, because we keep doing it.
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Does anyone have a commercial dishwasher? I've never used one, but have heard impressive things.
I stumbled onto a book at a used bookstore that was about the home kitchens of famous chefs. Some had modern, commercial looking, stainless-everything facilities; others had exposed wood, warm colors, homey, cozy, un-restaurant looking retreats.
But every single one of them had commercial dishwasher, either in plain view or hidden away. The chefs bragged about the 30 second duty cycle (or something ridiculous like that). I'm sure the things sound like commercial jets taking off, but if it's over in 30 seconds, who cares?
I know this thread is way old, but here"s my 2 cents anyway.
The Hobart I've used had a 90 second cycle. Only one rack at a time, eiher flat or with pegs to stand things like plates. Scraped the bulk of the nasties, but never had to rinse. After the racket stops, watch the heat go up to (whatever, think it was 180 F) and then when it got back down to 160 (I do remmber that one!) it could be opened to a huge steam escape. Couldn't touch the stuff yet to unload, but quickly could. Dishes always clean. This was when I was teaching for Sur la Table.
I looked into replacing my Maytag (we bought a Model Townhouse with appliances already installed) but just couldn't justify the $5k+ price even to myself, let alone my spouse. ;o) And the Maytag does a perfect job of cleaning, it's just noisy...but the Hobar is noisier, but only for 90 seconds. And unless I'm cooking up a storm & having to run the thing several times in a day, I usually just start it when we go up to sleep.
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I know this thread began 4 yrs. ago, and the last post w 3 yrs. But, unless I missed it, I don't think anyone does it the way I learned:
Two slices sturdy white bread - Pepperidge Farm original is perfect.
Heat up a Cast Iron pan, & when it gets good & warm, chuck in a knob of butter.
Just before the butter gets past sizzling, crack a really fresh egg into the middle of the puddle of butter.
Sprinkle in a tiny pinch of salt & a small grind of pepper. Use spatulas to sort of smoosh the edges to make it ultimately fit the bread.
When the egg had started to firm up (and this is KEY!) - flip the egg over and smash it down with the spatula.
("Turned Over & Stepped On")
More S&P "to taste". - (Do not actually taste at this point...you probably know how to season your egg.). <GG>
When the egg is Solid - hard cooked - lift out of the skillet, onto one of the slices of fresh, soft, white bread. Cover with the other.
Savor. Yum.
::::sigh::::
Excuse me...heading for the kitchen.
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Tamagoyaki is a very fun sort of omelette; you beat eggs with rice wine vinegar, soy and sugar and sometimes saki, and apply very thin layers to the pan, rolling each one in turn to form a cylinder or rectangular tube made of the egg layers wrapped around each other. Then you can use it to make nigiri. No doubt my technique is bad but I was able to get the hang of it fairly quickly.
I just saw a video of this recently. Very interesting. Wish I could find it again.
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Here's the Julia Child omelette:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=RThnq3-d6PY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRThnq3-d6PY
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I've had local harvest grapes last two weeks. But you're saying two weeks plus the time you travel. Will they still be refrigerated while you travel? I, personally, wouldn't risk it. They might last, but they certainly wouldn't be at their best...and, as dryer said, they don't start out at this earliest harvest at their best, anyway.
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Moderator note: Since the Dinner! 2013 topic quickly became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, we're continuing to divide it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Dinner! 2013 (Part 2)]
Ashen in Chicago they call a bone-in strip a Kansas City strip. Never heard it called that way in New York (but they don't call them New York strips here either!)
Where do you shop in Chicago? All I've ever heard them called is NY Strips.
New York strip = boneless, Kansas City strip = bone-in. At least it was that way when my partner lived in Chicago in the mid-'00s. There was a local grocery in his neighborhood (Clark and Fullerton) called Big Apple Finer Foods with an excellent old butcher counter in the back that had dry-aged beef. That's where we first encountered KC Strip. Since then I've seen it on restaurant menus outside of New York.
Of course here, New York strip is just called strip steak (or shell steak, which I THINK is more or less the same cut). Bone-in strip is rarer in general here - if the bone is present, people seem to go for T-bones or porterhouses and get some of the filet on the other side as well.
Ah so! Guess the "bone in" wasn't registering with me. I've never seen/heard of a bone-in strip, or maybe I just never noticed a KC strip listed on a menu. Rare must be right. I'll have to ask next time at Fox & Obel, or check out Big Apple Finer Foods the next time I'm in the City...or maybe even my great butcher at Casey's, now that we're out in Naperville. That would obviously be sooooo much better than w/o the bone. The strip has always been our favorite after the bone-in ribeye, but if I can get a KC Strip I'll definitely try it. Our son & family do as you mentioned: they buy one porterhouse for the three of them.
Thanks for the clarification. I love this place!
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I've just read through your entire blog last night & this morning. How marvelous! Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to do this for us.
Empathysizing with the small kitchen, but I know it's possible. We went cruising on our 35' sailboat & then continued to live aboard for 10 years. My little L-shaped galley was about 3' x 4' - not "floor space", that included the counters, stove, sinks, fridge, and my floor space was about 2' x 2'. People were continually amazed by what I could produce from that limited space - and Presentation was always Key!
Thanks again, for this wonderful peek into your culinary life.
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Great to know, thanks! Basting in butter sounds like a great step, I'll try that next. I have tried searing them in butter but it burns too easily. But I love the taste of butter and it should also promote the maillard reactions that brown the scallops - I once tried dusting the chilled scallops in powdered milk before searing them to see if that helped them caramelise (after seeing Heston do it with chicken wings) but it didn't seem to do much. Basting in butter after they've been seared sounds like the best of all worlds...
I learned to press them very gently into superfine sugar before browning. Since creating the Maillard effect give them a "sweeter" taste, it doesn't make a difference in taste, of, if it does, it just makes it better.
Then brown/sear in clarified butter or ghee, ands baste with the same. I promise, these will be the best scallops you've ever had. In fact, you'll probably need to buy more than usual because they're so good!
[Moderator note: This topic continues here, Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 9)]
Cookbook Recommendations?
in Cookbooks & References
Posted
Maybe so many people doing this is the reason for the death of bookstores?