abooja

Nice. I may have to steal that coconut filling idea. I'm making Pam R's chocolate and Maida Heatter's orange-y hamantaschen doughs with, respectively, Pam R's idea for dried cherry filling and a date-orange-cinnamon filling from an Epicurious recipe. I may make a third plain dough today so that I can mix and match even more, perhaps making a caramel pecan filling and attempt a coconut filling. BTW, I know I've missed the whole Purim boat, but then I'm not Jewish. My husband is, and he's not religious at all. Purim is just another excuse for me to bake.

What is the texture and taste of a classic San Francisco sourdough loaf? Dense and tangy? Somewhat tangy, but light enough to be palatable to the masses? I know that I can adjust the sourness and lightness of my bread to suit my own tastes, but am wondering what the gold standard, if any, is.

I'd just peel it, slice it into little chunks, perhaps individually wrap them in plastic wrap, pop into a ziploc bag and freeze it. When you need some ginger, just grate one with a microplane right from the freezer. It's actually easier to work with this way. I wish I had known of this technique years ago. Would have saved me many knots of good ginger.

I have experienced this, particularly with blocks of cold, straight-from-the-fridge shortbread and pie doughs. I know you're supposed to wait a few minutes for such doughs to warm up ever so slightly, but it's sometimes more efficient to work a cold dough than wait for that temperature sweet spot to roll around, only to quickly pass and be too warm. The few times I have done this, my palms have paid the price.

I can't remember where I found this recipe (may have been mentioned on eG), but this peanut butter and chocolate tart looks awfully good. It's on my very long to-do list, but I'm still trying to recover from this peanut butter chocolate cake I made several weeks ago. Waaay too much cake for two people.

Good point. My vanilla ice cream mixture is 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of whole milk, 5 large egg yolks, 150 grams of granulated sugar, one vanilla bean, 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. It's essentially the David Lebovitz recipe, minus one egg yolk.

I was just going to suggest this myself.

I bring my custard mixtures to around 182F before straining them into a bowl set above an ice bath. A portion of the cream is set aside and kept cold so that the mixture cools that much faster once the custard is added. The only times I have had any clumping whatsoever was when I brought it up to even slightly higher than 182 and/or waited too long to add the custard to the ice bath. This is more likely to happen with smaller batches. I'd invest in a Thermapen (or a knockoff) to guarantee consistent results.

I lived in Astoria for six years (I'm originally from Brooklyn) and could never find sherry vinegar locally until I moved to first the New Jersey, then the Pennsylvania, suburbs. My local store at the time, Trade Fair, had lots of odd ethnic ingredients, however, that I'm hard-pressed to find around here, except in the ethnic section of Wegman's. They also had halal chickens with their heads still on, but no kosher ones. Go figure. That having been said, I tend to agree with Chris: eGullet members are not at all representative of the "curious-but-new-to-cooking" demographic. You might be better served polling random people in your building and neighborhood.

I actually like the looks of this loaf better than the last (low hydration loaf) which, while beautiful, looked a bit too tightly wound. This one appears to have been made from a more slack dough.

Tonight, I made a really tasty pot of beef barley mushroom soup. It was from an old CI recipe, except I made the beef stock ahead of time (from short ribs, marrow bones and shank, cooked for 12 hours) and simmered in some seared chuck after the fact. The result was quite meaty, rich and dark. I don't think I can ever go back to Tabatchnick.

I have coated once fried (or microwaved) fries in potato starch before frying them again. They turned out pretty crisp. I think I may go back to that method.

Velveeta, Ro*Tel tomatoes and pickled herring.

I'd love to know the answer to this question as well. Most of the time, my results are the same whether I've let them dry an hour or four, room temperature or refrigerated. Edited to add: 24 hours?! So much for last-minute fries. Would you recommend 24 hours in the fridge and then tossed in the freezer for future fries? Or would they then need to be dried another 24 hours after that second fry?

Hi, twilight -- I have made that blueberry pie several times, and the foolproof pie crust many, many times and, yes, the crust is reliably good, and flaky. It is my go-to pie crust recipe for almost all applications. The only problem with it, and this is not much of a problem at all for me, is that crimped edges do not stay crimped upon baking and tend to poof out. Not completely, but enough to be annoying if this sort of thing is important to you.

Most people are not passionate about their jobs and work solely to support themselves and their families. As was made painfully clear to me elsewhere on eG, bakers are paid a pitiful sum, perhaps not as little as waiters in our state, but low enough (and, often, with worse hours) to possibly warrant a second income. If you're doing what you love, you must accept low wages as part of the job and not take it out on the customer. Restaurant owners are to blame, not customers. The word "voluntary" should not be rendered meaningless.

After following the process I stated I would follow upthread, I wound up with fries that were little better than what I normally achieve with double frying alone. They were crisp for the first two minutes, it seems (presumably, while I took the below crap picture) and that was it. Here's what they looked like: I used two russet potatoes, cut into slightly smaller strips this time -- 1/4". (Not cut very consistently at all, in some cases, as you can see.) Despite the fact that they were purchased at the same time and stored together (in an unheated closet in my very cold basement), one of them had some dark spots while the other was perfectly white. They had been there for around two weeks, and most of that time it's been quite frigid around here. Maybe they got too cold. At any rate, I microwaved them for 5-7 minutes (had to throw a couple back in) after tossing them with vegetable oil, let them cool at room temperature, then deep fried them in creamy vegetable oil (sort of like a mix between shortening and regular oil) for 4-5 minutes at 275F, let them cool at room temperature, then fried them one last time for 4 minutes or so at 375F. The only real benefit of this experiment, as I see it, was realizing I can save a step by not soaking and drying the potatoes before cooking. That seems to have made no difference whatsoever. I'm glad to no longer have to wash a 3-part salad spinner when making fries. I just wish I could figure out the origin of the inconsistent results, despite the technique employed. I figure it has to be in large part the potato itself. If I had pulled them from the earth myself and got right to frying, I'm sure they would be spectacular. Even straight from the market (which I try to do) beats two weeks in my closet. I'm also wondering if I should make the switch to peanut oil, now that DH no longer has that allergy. And maybe I should go back to adding potato or corn starch to the oil (or dusting the fries with starch) pre-frying, as I once did, for added crispness. Finally, it may be that these fries are perfectly crisp for most people and my expectations are way too high. But I don't think so.

I neglected to mention that I have, in the past, dried the soaked fries with paper towels, and gotten much the same result. I'd just as soon not waste all those paper towels, so I've switched to the salad spinner method. Perhaps I should lay them out to dry after this soak. As I don't add any citric acid, I'm concerned about discoloration. As it is, my once-fried potatoes often get these blackish blemishes after having rested in the fridge. Or is that the cold-sugar demons at work again? They seem to disappear after the second fry. Something else I don't understand about making french fries is, why soak them at all pre-frying? Doesn't extra starch help to keep them crisp? As someone mentioned in another thread, the Cook's Country method of achieving crisp fried potatoes includes adding some corn starch to the mix either pre-fry or mid-fry. I just checked Cook's Illustrated's website, and their comments on this subject suggest that soaking benefits the creaminess aspect more than the crunch: I think I may omit the soak tonight. Then I'll coat them with a bit of oil and microwave them for some time, let 'em cool, fry 'em once, let 'em cool, and fry, fry again. Unless someone has a better idea.

Wow, this couldn't be more timely. I intend to serve fries with tonight's burgers (soon-to-be home ground mix of chuck, brisket and short rib), but have been struggling with which method to employ. I always twice fry roughly 3/8" russet potatoes that have been briefly soaked in cold water and spun dry. The results are never consistent. Sometimes, they're crisp for a short while, then become limp in spots before the meal is done. (I do the second fry right before serving.) Sometimes, they don't get as crisp as I'd like before they've browned too much for my tastes. (I know the browning is likely due to sugar content and the manner in which the potatoes have been stored, but I can't always control this.) Far less often than I wish, the potatoes crisp up perfectly and stay that way, with creamy insides, for the entire length of the meal and then some. After reading several eG threads on this subject, I think I might try the 3x method, possibly boiling or even microwaving them the first time. Lately, I tend to refrigerate them after the first fry, but think that's possibly not a good idea as that might contribute to over-browning before they're crisp. I've read the results of the Robuchon method and have nixed it. My goal is consistent crispness. Must I resort to frozen fries?

Tonight was my first attempt at minestra di riso e lenticchie (lentil soup with rice). So easy and goooood. Far different from the standard vegetarian lentil soup with carrots, celery, onions, tomato paste and tubetti I grew up on. We ate that once a week and, while I liked it well enough, this stuff is so much better. Now, I just need to try my hand at replicating Coco Pazzo's Tuscan Lentil Soup with Thyme. It's so simple, I'm bound to screw it up.

Rather than react to some of the more vitriolic responses to my, I thought, friendly and respectful queries, I'll just say thank you to everyone for your input. I obviously didn't make it at all clear that mine was an evolving concept, and this thread more an attempt at information gathering than a desperate plea for help, a pat on the back or, certainly, an opportunity for public parsing of my words. At any rate, I have made some decisions that I think I can live with and am going to try to implement shortly. So, thanks again.

This is an *awesome* idea.

I have lots to say in response to some of your comments and queries, but am going to sleep first so I have half a chance at calming myself down before I do. Please feel free to chat amongst yourselves.

I think I love you, Lisa Shock. Thank you so much. I am just starting to research food safety certification and the like, thanks to you. The other information is also extremely helpful. I have some CIA books that my mother bought me years and years ago when she visited their restaurants, but none of them are baking books. I will buy and study all of those books, at some point. Thank you!!

Last night, I made CI's Pork and Cabbage Dumplings and Stir-Fried Sichuan Green Beans for the first time. I made my own gyoza-style wrappers, because I prefer them a bit thicker than the store-bought wonton wrappers I can get. I've made other dumpling recipes in the past, and this was pretty good, though not as good as the duck confit potstickers I made a while back. I still haven't managed to perfect the art of getting them crisp enough on the bottom, yet still easily removable from the pan. One day. The green beans were also pretty good, but nothing spectacular. I can't imagine my sherry-sugar substitute for the two tablespoons of Mirin called for in the recipe made *all* that much of a difference. Overall, the meal made me quite thirsty, though it did not taste overly salty. It needed some other, fresher flavor to break up the salty pork factor. Not sure what, though.