Katie Meadow
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Posts posted by Katie Meadow
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Okay, cane syrup doesn't get enough respect, so I'm bumping up this thread. The op wanted to know how to make a substitute for Steen's Cane Syrup. I sort of want the reverse. I'm trying to rid my life of corn syrup by using cane syrup instead.
The most common uses I've had for corn syrup is in making BBQ sauce or ketchup and baking pies, particularly pecan. Does anyone routinely substitute either cane syrup or Lyles Golden syrup when a recipe calls for corn syrup? I have Lyle's on hand (primarily for making Laurie Colwin's gingerbread cake) and now I also have some Steen's cane syrup. Although they are both made from pure cane juice they taste very different; the Steen's syrup is thinner and has a mild to medium molasses taste. But how do they compare when it comes to sugar content? When it comes to sweetness, does 1 unit of cane syrup = 1 Lyles = 1 Steen's?
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There are discussions of where to buy grits in several different threads. Sources people like include Hoppin' Johns, Oakview Farms and Anson Mills. I've got a new one: Geechie Boy Market & Mill in South Carolina. I haven't compared shipping costs, but a 2 lb bag of white or yellow grits is $5. I've now tried both, and I think I like the white grits better; yummy. Geechie Boy also sells cornmeal, but it's finely ground--more like corn flour in my mind. The grits take what I consider to be an average cooking time, somewhere between 45 min and an hour, depending upon your preference/amount of liquid. Shipping price goes down with purchase of three or more bags of grain.
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Long story short, I have about a cup of minced dried fruit that has been soaking in red wine. It's pretty heady as is, and is left over from making Charoset--I didn't have enough fresh apple to mix it with, so I reserved it. It is mostly figs, apricots, cherries. That's it, just fruit and wine and a touch of pomegranate molasses.
I'm thinking a simple semolina pound cake would be nice with it. What should I do to make a compote? Add a little water and simmer it briefly? I don't want to lose too much of the boozy flavor.
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One of the things I wanted to do this year was to learn how to start baking, so that's one food resolution fulfilled.
Another is to move away from the "necessity" of having eggs for breakfast. You could say, I want to broaden my horizons a little bit.
For example --
When blueberries are in season, you will see me using them quite a bit. On the menu is a blueberry soup, with polenta cakes or maybe sweet biscuits on the side. I'll be looking forward to that especially.
Typically I am not a breakfast person; going out for breakfast or even brunch always seems like a waste of money to me, since most foods have limited appeal for me in the morning. I crave neither protein nor acidic fruit, and I am very happy with just a piece of toast. Once in a while I have a yen for steel cut oats. And I admit I love grits for breakfast, but that takes even longer than oats. When lacking any bread products I might make popovers, which I love, but that doesn't happen often; they take about 40 minutes start to finish. Sugary pastry need not apply.
The truth is I haven't the slightest interest in cooking breakfast. I just want to sit with my newspaper and have my toasted bread and tea. Once in a while I break the rules, but usually if someone else is cooking (rare) or I am on the road.
My experience is that some people want protein in the morning, so they prefer eggs or cereal with milk. To figure out how to get protein without eating eggs or making milk a main part of the meal takes some effort, especially if you are not interested in meat before lunchtime, which I am not. Although I do make one exception: if it's brunch and I'm eating out and shrimp'n'grits is on the menu, I go for it. Seems like if you are energetic and have the time, there is an endless amount of breakfast material out there. Since I don't want to bake in the morning, I often think ahead and make cornbread or biscuits for dinner, just so I can have the leftovers toasted the next morning. Toasted biscuits are awesome with some bitter marmalade. Then there's hashbrowns and hash or other potato-vegetable pan-fries. With onions, leftover potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes in season etc, some great eggless meals can be had. Soba, if you made me a vegetable hash some morning I would be thrilled. Every vegetable you cook looks enlightened. And I wouldn't turn down cold blueberry soup on a hot summer morning.
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More common spelling (and the one that helps you pronounce it) is Matzoh Brei. As in "bry."
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With or without the brisket, never sour cream. Always cold apple sauce with a squeeze of lemon to tart it up and a dusting of cinnamon; it's all about contrasts.
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...I never heard of putting cream in hash, but it sounds good. I didn't grow up kosher by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did my parents ever pour dairy products into a pot full of meat....
It's not at all uncommon, for instance...
Thank you Margaret for the Red Flannel Hash recipe. I've heard of red flannel hash but never had it. Today I made Golden Flannel Hash; I couldn't pass up a bunch of lovely organic golden beets with tops that I saw this morning, and I had some bacon and a few potatoes in the fridge. I'm very much liking the method of sauteing the onion and garlic, then removing it and adding it back to the potatoes after they have started to brown. The beets were roasted first, cooled and diced. The beet greens I cut in a rough chiffonade and sauteed them ahead. I finished them with a little bit of vinegar and maple syrup the way I do collards. The beets and onions and greens and cooked bacon went in with the onions.
The only surprise was that the beets were so sweet I thought I should have added just vinegar but no maple syrup at all to the greens. I thought about adding a little cream, but in the end decided against it. We topped our hash with fried eggs. My takeaway from that recipe is that greens in hash are fabulous, but beets should be used with restraint. For all I know the Yankees who invented Yankee red flannel hash like their hash sweet. Maybe it's a New England thing, like the preference for Boston clam chowder over Manhattan. Anyway it was hash, and it was good.
Chris, those morels look scrumptious. I used to do a lot of mushroom hunting but finally got so sick of ending up with poison oak that I just gave up my shroomin' ways.
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Never having made hummus from chick pea flour I can't comment on it, but my intuition tells me that I would rather use high-quality jarred chick-peas if saving time is a major factor. I've used dried whole chickpeas, rehydrating, cooking etc. and find I can make hummus I like just as much using the Annalisa jarred ones, and I don't seem to have a problem with the skins. I find there is definitely a difference in texture and flavor if the chickpeas are packed in glass rather than metal. I use an old cuisinart processor, not a blender, and if enough oil and water and/or pea-broth is added, the end result is plenty smooth, at least to my taste.
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I've been meaning to make that same Calabrese recipe. I have two questions about it, not that this would stop me from making it, but since you're here, I'll ask. Did you you use fresh tomatoes this time of year? Or did you use canned? Next question: the direx call for starting the chicken skin side up, then turning it over. How does the skin get crispy that way? Seems like it makes more sense to start it skin-side down for the shorter period of time and then turn it and cook it for the longer time. What do you think?
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Been a few people who like the Sablefish. I love the stuff, but rarely see it fresh back here in NYC. It's a classic when it's smoked, though.
These days, at Russ & Daughters, smoked sable is about the same price as smoked sturgeon. They tell me it is much harder to source and much more expensive. My guess is that's been the case ever since it became a hit at Nobu (who can forget the much ballyhooed miso marinated black cod?), and then appeared on practically every other menu in town.
Probably it never even occurred to me growing up around the corner from Barney Greengrass that there was such a thing as fresh sable or fresh sturgeon or fresh whitefish. Nor can I remember eating fresh salmon, but then my parents didn't eat a lot of fish that wasn't smoked.
Rarely I have been able to get the west coast version of smoked black cod on the northern CA coast, and it is great, but a little differently done than back east. Not easy to find, though, and very expensive. The price of fresh black cod has been on the upswing in the last couple of years. Berkelely bowl used to sell it for about $12 per pound, and Tokyo Market for about the same. Recently Berkeley Bowl has been having difficulty stocking it, and last week Tokyo Market was selling it for $18 per pound, which is the most I have ever paid.
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The definition of a favorite fish for me is not only how it tastes, but must include low toxins and sustainably fished. Being on the west coast I would agree with David Ross that the best all-around fish these days is wild Alaskan Sablefish (black cod, butterfish.) I eat black cod about once a week, and it's super versatile and yummy. Ten years ago I would have said wild Pacific King Salmon. But now it's available sporadically and is very pricey. I still love it, and consider it a treat.
I also really like fresh wild Pacific sardines, but gutting and boning them isn't a favorite activity, so I have to buy them somewhere they are willing to do that for me. They are not terribly available; I suppose demand is low. The price is right, though. They are dynamite cooked on the grill.
Yellowfin Tuna (Ahi) is also a favorite of mine, but it takes finesse to cook it just right, and it isn't cheap, and it isn't easy to determine how it is fished.
When I'm on the east coast I admit to a weakness for bluefish, if I can every find it, but it has been so long since I lived in NY that I look at most of the fish sold when I visit and just get confused. When back east I tend to eat the shellfish of my childhood, which isn't available in CA.
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In what form exactly are you wanting to preserve your green chile? I suppose you could can salsa or pickled jalapenos, but if you just want to have green chile to add as needed during the year I would go with freezing. In New Mexico typically the green chiles are roasted, peeled, and then frozen in bags or containers the sizes you estimate might be useful. I like to chop the roasted, peeled green chiles coarsely, add a little salt and mashed garlic, and freeze in small containers. If they are really hot, like Hatch chiles, I get rid of the seeds before freezing. If they are milder, and I want to use them for stuffing, I just freeze them whole, stems and seeds included.
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Sweet onions are nice for carmelizing and adding as a pizza topping, as long as there is some spicy tomato sauce on the pizza to balance out the sugar. Another way I like them is in a stir-fry. I find that mostly when I go out for or get take-out Chinese or Viet food I rarely want to eat the onions that are often in the dish--sometimes far too many of them. Today I made a quick shrimp stir fry recipe that calls for a sweet onion. The onion gets wok-fried on high heat for just a couple of minutes, so that it gets just a little browned but remains slightly crunchy. World of difference between that and a regular yellow onion under the same conditions.
In Walla Walla one restaurant does a sweet onion deep fried "flower" that's pretty yummy. I love them grilled, just plain with olive oil and salt or on a burger. I'm not really a hot-dog person, but served with dijon mustard on a hot dog grilled WW's are pretty awesome. I eat fried onion rings once in a blue moon, but I imagine a sweet onion would do well that way.
In stews, most soups or long cooking braises sweet onion are not my first choice.
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Mmmm...soup! That would be Scotch Broth. The bones and fat are a plus for flavoring the stock, then you can easily pick off the meat to go into the soup.
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Sounds just about too fantastic. In my experience if there's plenty of lox (yum, two kinds!) no one eats whitefish salad. Especially if there is an alternative smoked fish, like sable or even whitefish. I can't imagine eating chopped liver before 5pm, or with lox; we're talking really rich food, given you are planning potato pancakes and a frittata.
Now speaking personally, if presented with untoasted bagels and no toaster on the table, my anxiety level goes way up. Gotta provide a way to toast bagels without you having to run back and forth to the broiler. Okay, I'm a high maintenance guest; lox on a cold bagel makes me depressed. A savory noodle kugel might be nice, but no need for such with latkes. Mmm, don't forget some fresh lemony apple sauce for them. If potato pancakes suddenly seems like too much work, a kugel could fill in.
Yes to anything that adds a crisp unadorned vegetable or fruit. Sliced tomatoes, paper-thin red onions, capers. A citrus salad works really well--several different kinds of citrus, with a very light dressing of olive oil, citrus juice, teensy bit of salt, even pepper. On second thought, just make sure there's a pepper grinder on the table. Nothing beats a blood orange salad with a grind of pepper.
As for sweets, well, no one I know would ever turn down home made rugelach. Chocolate cake sounds good, if that's the birthday boy's favorite. Cheesecake after such a meal might seem like coals to Newcastle.
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Same here, only sadly, no grand marnier, so we used a bit of Triple Sec and a dash of orange bitters.
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Batali's meatballs are the only ones I make. My Batali recipe is a little different. It uses 2 kinds of ground meat, less egg, less bread product, but definitely the cheese and the pine nuts. Sometimes I make them with beef and veal, sometimes I add a little ground pork. I especially like the technique of quick saute for the meatballs and then warming them up in the red sauce so they don't overcook.
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Artichoke bottom stew sounds perfect. The golden crispy-top rice looks delicious. How is it made? In a big flat skillet? The way I prepare basmati rice I don't usually get a crusty side, and that makes for a really appealing presentation. Tell me how please! I seriously need some hakkaka immersion therapy. What a fun blog.
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There are two ways I like a chicken sandwich. One is the Betty's Bakesale way, which is fried breast meat with spicy slaw. Very simple, but not so simple if you have to fry the chicken yourself; and I don't do that. In the early days that sandwich was dynamite, but now the line is so long I find the quality is suffering.
The second way is grilled, in a banh mi. Of course freshly grilled and still warm is best, but not always practical. If I don't have leftover grilled chicken, I might quick saute slices of breast meat in a pan in butter. The crunch factor comes from the carrot-daikon pickle, which is easy to make in bulk and keeps well in the fridge. The usual suspects include cilantro, mayo plus maggi, sliced jalapeno and sliced cucumber. If you take the trouble, adding a smear of pate makes it perfect. If you have all the ingredients on hand it's easy to put together. I'm very happy using a good baguette and don't require an authentic Viet roll.
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I haven't made a dedicated search yet, but I would like to find a source of fresh masa that's available in bulk--in other words in SMALL quantities. I shop for Mexican ingredients at Mi Pueblo (partly because I am addicted to the cuernos for breakfast and their bakery has really good ones) and although the masa, both preparado and non-prep is great and seems very fresh, it's only available in enormous bags. I never need all that masa. I don't know if there are preservatives in it or not, I'll have to check next time. I'm told that it can be frozen, though. Does anyone recommend this?
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Okay, here's my totally sick confession. My go to is a piece of good chocolate, but like you say, sometimes you don't have that. However, I usually do have some quality chocolate sauce in the frig. My current favorite is Fran's dark chocolate or bittersweet sauce. I swirl this in about equal proportions with natural unsweetened chunky peanut butter and a teaspoon is usually all I need to satisfy. There is a thread somewhere about making peanut butter cups with high quality ingredients. I'm no fan of Reese's--they taste like what they are, very cheap sugary pb and cheap milk chocolate. But this is pretty yummy. No one is aware that I do this, so don't broadcast it.
If I don't have any chocolate sauce I probably will have caramel sauce. I'm a devotee of Recchiuti Burnt Caramel. I cut up an apple into thin slices, melt a little puddle of caramel sauce in a small bowl and then dip in the fruit. Would work with a pear too, I imagine, but I've never done that. You could skip the melting part, but it's kind of nice.
Neither of these extremely desperate measures takes more than 2 minutes. Nutella on toast also works, and that's under 5 minutes as well.
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Rick Bayless has a few recipes that in my mind qualify as casseroles, such as his version of tamale pie.
When I lived in NEW Mexico there were endless variations of casseroles built around masa, tortillas, beans, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, tomatillos, green chiles, zukes, potatoes, cornbreads. Some were more like souffles or custards or standard brunch backups and some were more like architectural constructions built with layers of various ingredients. Every B & B in New Mexico will serve something like that for breakfast, especially if it can be constructed the night before. I used to make a tomato zucchini rice cheese green chile baked affair that was comforting in the extreme. A casserole, definitely. Maybe not Mexican, but using the most commonly found ingredients in the southwest and south of the border.
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That sounds delicious. I'm working on "Hash #3" starting tonight-smoking a side of Sockeye Salmon for a Smoked Salmon Hash. I'll do the same recipe as the Corned Beef Hash-baked, chopped/processed potato, evaporated milk, chopped/shredded salmon. I'll do the poached egg again, but maybe a different sauce this time other than Hollandaise. I'm still thinking about the sauce at this point. Should I just do a lemony Hollandaise or something else for the Salmon Hash?
Sorrel?
Maybe something bright to serve on the side like a raita or just sour cream/creme fraiche/greek yogurt with cucumbers and fresh dill?
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Hey, my hash turned out great! Minimal ingredients, since I'm trying to use up stuff before going away for a long weekend. I think refrigerating the par-boiled potatoes is an excellent technique; it was a snap to then mince them into perfect little cubes (smaller than 1/4 inch.) Above thread there are several advocates for using russets. There didn't seem to be any down side to using yukon golds.
I weighed the virtues of bacon fat or oil, but went with just butter. First I sauteed some onion until golden, and removed it from the pan. Into the pan went the potatoes with ample butter; I stirred occasionally until they started to brown. Then I added back the onion, a couple of minced jalapenos that were not super hot, salt, a modest amount of dried Mexican oregano and fresh thyme and a sprinkle of paprika. I sort of turned the hash once or twice until it seemed nice and crisp, added a small amount of shredded ham and cooked it a few minutes more. My new non-stick pan worked way better than I thought it would.
About the onion. I have no idea if what I did was unnecessarily fussy, cooking the onions partially and then removing them, but for some reason I decided that if I put in the onion and the potato in at the same time the moisture from the onion might prevent the potato from getting crispy. And in the end, I think the onion needed a bit more total cooking time than the potatoes. So perhaps it would work equally well to halfway cook the onions, which would eliminate some moisture, and then simply add the potatoes to the pan and continue to cook.
With it we had a simple no-mayo kohlrabi and cabbage slaw and fresh baked warm cornbread. I had planned to serve the hash with a fried egg draped on top, but didn't remember until we were already eating. So much for short-term memory. There was no dessert, but it struck me that a baked apple in a puddle of cream would have been awfully nice.
Steen's Cane Syrup
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
Just noticed a typo in my equivalency formula. I meant: does one unit of CORN syrup = 1 Lyles = 1 Steen's?
Hungry C, how would one determine if the chemical properties of corn syrup were significant in a given recipe? I can say for sure that in something like bbq sauce or home-made ketchup it makes no difference, as I've subbed Lyles or maple syrup for corn syrup with out any problems.