blue_dolphin

Due to a miscommunication at the farmers market, I need some help in adjusting a recipe that calls for bone-in lamb shoulder to use a boneless lamb shoulder roast. The recipe I want to make is pulled lamb shawarma from Falastin that uses a low, slow braise. It calls for 2-2.5 kg bone-in lamb shoulder. What I've got is a little baby 0.75 kg boneless roast and I'm sure it's a waste to use a boneless roast for this but I don't have anything else in mind. The recipe says that after an overnight marinade, it goes 4 hours, covered, @ 140°C/284°F, then 90 minutes more uncovered with the temp raised to 160°C/320°F) for the last 30 min. Are there temp targets I can use to gauge when to uncover and when it's done? I'd appreciate any and all suggestions!

And if you used the wrong tool to pry up the edge of the strip, it could break right off, leaving nothing to attach the key to.

That's my go-to with older eggs and I keep a T-pin handy in the kitchen for the purpose. Not that it does anything special but its size makes it less likely to go missing! Today's breakfast was French toast along with Sautéed Persimmons with Crema from Amá. Header notes recommend the persimmons as a side for grilled meats. Quite good. They are browned in butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper, lime juice and mint leaves. V I used the crema sub from Nopalito (1 cup whole milk yogurt, 3t lime juice, 1/2 t salt). Not that crema is hard to find around here but I always have yogurt on hand and don't need another condiment in the fridge.

Yeah, TSA uses the size of the container and anything larger than 100 ml is banned from carry-ons and has to be placed in checked baggage. I brought a tube of toothpaste that was almost empty, thinking I'd use it up and toss it on the trip but it had to be pitched because I didn't have time to go back and check a bag.

Good find! It was very good. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t make extra of the sauce as they suggested.

I can try that. Seems a lot of in and out of the oven, though.

Thanks so much for doing this. The group is indeed very friendly and supportive. A lot of people seem to ask for recipes without taking the time to read the instructions on how to search and retrieve them and they always get kind and helpful responses from others. Love the sharing of what people have cooked.

Scrambled Red Shakshuka and Jerusalem Sesame Bread (K'ak Al Quds) both from Falastin Instead of cracking whole eggs into the sauce, they get scrambled, poured into the sauce, folded gently and cooked covered on the stovetop for 4 min. A nice option vs watching the yolks overcook while waiting for the whites to be done.

Jerusalem Sesame Bread (K'ak Al Quds) from Falastin. The recipe calls for half bread flour and half all purpose. I used all whole grain bread flour. These are only supposed to have white sesame seeds but I didn't have (or couldn't find) enough so I used half black sesame seeds. Crumb: The recipe makes 6 breads. I baked 4 and froze the other 2 pre-bake as the header notes say they can be baked right from the freezer. I'll also be freezing some of these and reheating in the CSO, which I suspect will be a better choice, but we'll see.

Yes, that's it. After frying, they're tossed with walnuts, parsley, mint, Aleppo pepper and lemon juice and spooned over the hummus.

Over in the Air Fryer topic, I recently posted some comments from the Wirecutter's air fryer review where they chose a Cuisinart convection toaster oven as their top option. This is what they had to say about the convection oven vs pod-style air fryer:

I appreciate your insights as someone who’s used these gadgets and who has a pretty good sense of my cooking style. I think I’ll continue to observe this thread and others while managing my air fryer FOMO 😉 Thank you for the very thoughtful reply!

Hummus with aubergines from Falastin, pita from Shaya

Could you say a bit more about things at which the Vortex excels and the Breville fails? I don't have an air fryer. My little CSO surely lacks the wind power of those machines but when I put frozen stuff like onion rings or fish filets on a pizza screen, I get a nice crispy result. What air fryer delights am I missing out on? To get an air fryer, I'd need to get rid of something else so I'd love to know its very best points. Is it worth getting rid of the CSO? Unlikely! My most used appliance Instant pot? Not going nowhere. KitchenAid mixer? Same Paragon induction burner? No way KitchenAid food processor? I don't use it a ton but it can be handy. Would it be worth replacing with an air fryer? Philips indoor grill? Can the air fryer make pretty brown stripes on things? That's the least used of my countertop appliances but I do rather like it. If I could replace the microwave with an air fryer, I'd go for it but they'd have to make one that mounts over the stove where my MW lives.

Joining the blurring nomenclature, I noticed that in the most recent Wirecutter review of air fryers (annoying paywall, I’m sure) they chose a Cuisinart countertop convection oven as their top pick: They acknowledge the difference between the two sorts of appliances this way: I don’t have an air fryer so I don’t know if they’ve got it right or not. Clearly, there’s a huge price difference between their budget pick Cosori Pro pod fryer @ $85 and a toaster oven that runs close to $300.

If you are looking for a reply from someone who uses the same cooker, maybe share some more specifics (manufacturer, model or a photo)? There are a lot of older threads here about countertop convection ovens like the Brevilles, some of which include "Air" in the name and claim to function like air fryers but they are not new so you must have something different.

Grilled pear, gruyere and gorgonzola on sunflower seed sourdough rye Not a bad idea but could be improved.

My cousin was telling me about her lunch with friends at the Chicago location last week. Not quite as pricy as the NYC menu linked. They enjoyed wandering around the store with their glasses of wine and had good things to say about the food and service. It's one thing to offer a round of drinks in the bar when people are just relaxing and talking but being booted from a table while people are still eating as happened to the NYTimes writer isn't nice.

That (small spuds, buried in salt) seems to offer more moisture control and seasoning than simply placing (nestling?) a big tater atop a bed of salt. I get the salt would allow more air circulation than directly in a pan. Presumably less circulation than if it were right on a rack. Curious the salt is so crucial.

I bought a bag of Lucy Glo apples at Trader Joe's today. Two lb bag for $4.99. They are very nice apples. Good sweet/tart balance. Not the crispest apple ever but not at all mealy. The skins are a little tough or chewy. Noticeable but not off-putting for me. I think the apple I just ate is less colorful than the one that @BeeZee shared 2 years ago and I had another one that was even paler so there seems to be some variability. I gather there is a Lucy Rose sibling that's all looks and less flavor. Not sure I'll be looking for them but I'll buy these again if I see them.

I stopped by a local farm to pick up a few squash this morning. I got a small kabocha, a couple of delicata and a carnival. I think they're all pretty common. I snapped a few photos of several varieties that were less familiar to me. This one is called One Two Many Pumpkin. It's a white pumpkin with colorful veining. Normal pumpkin color on the inside. Red Warty Things. Yes, that's really the name. Goosebumps: Galeasux d'Eysines. I thought this was one of the most unusual, both in name an appearance! Lumina - white on the outside, orange inside Ambercup. I think this one is getting fairly common. Jarahdale. These were quite striking, almost looked like they were glowing. I managed to capture the sign for these but there are some other squashes photo bombing the photo. These were very lumpy and blue. Banana squash. My photo doesn't capture how massive they were. Maybe in comparison to those normal sized acorn squash on the left. Rascal. Fun name Speckled Hound Blue Hubbard Porcelain Doll Cinderella

Yeah, try it again and definitely ask for an explanation. I've been a member of that Fine Cooking Community group for quite a while and the number of new members seems to be going through the roof lately so I suspect they have to be careful of malicious bots and such. They have a searchable index (though I generally search with Eat Your Books) and PDFs of all the regular issues and many special issues on a Google drive. Finding a recipe is a 2-step process. First search for the recipe, then download the PDF of the issue it’s in. Not as handy as the FC website was but most stuff is there.

I've been meaning to try that one, though the prune and Armagnac version sounded pretty good, too!

And I would be delighted with Moe's breakfast any time of the day...maybe with a glass of wine, depending...😉 LGD and eggs are a match made in heaven! The original mash had a lot of scallions - white parts cooked with the potatoes and cauliflower and the greens added later. I would have preferred leeks but using the scallions two ways was a good call. For a cup of mash, I added half an egg, a bit of diced country ham and a handful of grated parm to make four 1/4 cup pancakes. Since the cauliflower made this wetter, some panko would have been a good idea, I just let them cook a bit longer. Today's breakfast sando: thinly sliced and browned leberkaese and a fried egg on toasted sunflower seed sourdough rye with mustard: Unlike some people around here who make their own, I bought a little dolphin-sized leberkaese loaf from the German sausage peeps at my local farmers market.