Josho

Thank you, Tri2Cook! I'm conducting my first forays this weekend, so I think I'll just stick to reverse and play it safe®. Thanks again, Josh

I have a question related to spherification. I've read that one uses "reverse spherification" if the liquid to be spherized contains calcium. What's the converse? When would one choose spherification over reverse spherification? Why not use reverse spherification all the time? Many thanks, Josh

Has anyone with a FoodSaver tried their new "Liquid Block" bags?

Thank you so much! I'll give it a try tonight and see what happens. Should be interesting! Josh

The topic title pretty much says it all. I want to make a chilled zabaglione-type foam and brûlée it, but I'm wondering if the foam is apt to deflate quickly under the heat of a torch. Has anyone tried this? If so, did it work, and are there any tips you can pass along? Thank you! Josh

I covered it partially, as the recipe called for. I'm going to simmer it awhile longer and reduce it...but it really seems wrong to me.

Julie Sahni has a recipe for "Lentils with Garlic Butter" that appears all over the 'net (sometimes credited to other authors). It calls for 1.5 cups of pink or yellow lentils simmered in 5 cups of water -- with added turmeric -- until tender, and then pureed in the pot. The recipe continues from there. I just finished doing this, and I'm greatly confused. I ended up with nearly 6 cups -- almost all water, of course. The lentils are certainly cooked through, but rather than a lentil dish, this is like an extremely thin soup. Is this the way the dish is supposed to be? It seems unservable, but it's such a simple recipe and I can't imagine where I might've gone wrong.

Julie Sahni it is, then!! Thank you, all!

I'm looking for a superb Chicken Korma recipe. I've looked around the 'net and so many recipes seem to be met with the criticism "too bland." I'm not looking for 100,000 Scoville Units, but I would like a dish with impact...unless Chicken Korma's just not supposed to have impact. None of my go-to books and sources seem to have this recipe. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Canadian, You're absolutely right -- the crust does NOT survive wrapping or standing much at all. The next batch I make, I'll try your formula on one cake. On the other, I'm going to try a different approach -- a moist sugar/lemon topping that goes on just before baking. Perhaps if I can achieve some caramelizing of the crust, I can end up with something a little more long-lasting. But I doubt it. :-) Josh

Thank you, all! I'll give these ideas a try and see if I can perfect a technique. Thanks again, Josh

I'm making a couple of poundcakes, and I'd love to make a lemon or orange glaze for them. I've had a few cakes where the citrus glaze was actually crispy -- almost like a very thin sugar shell, but in shards. Will any supersaturated glaze do this, or is there a technique to it? Usually, mine only seem to crystallize very slightly (if at all). I imagine humidity has a lot to do with it. But I'd like to guarantee myself a crispy glaze. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Josh

I've scoured the web and never seen this problem raised before. My wife, whose preferences in food texture are, to put it mildly, unusual*, prefers frosting with definite discernible grittiness. I'd like to make a fine standard buttercream, but I'd also like to ensure that it DOES have some grittiness. Should I reduce the amount of confectioners' sugar in the recipe and make up for it with some superfine sugar? Any suggestions would be welcome! Many thanks, Josh *For instance: she won't eat crispy french fries, she'll only eat floppy, soggy ones. She doesn't like her toast to be visibly browned; she prefers "warm bread" to toast. She abhors bread crumbs on top of macaroni and cheese, and definitely favors mac & cheese made with Velveeta to anything made with real cheese. She'll only eat chewy cookies, not crisp ones. I despair of what she's doing to my cooking skills!

What seems disingenuous about CI's stance here is that, in their recipes, they talk about how they started off with this-or-that recipe for a given dish, and then modified it until it met their requirements. They do not generally credit the sources given for the recipes they modify. In fact, they may be violating copyrights themselves. --Josh

Kiliki, I've made that blueberry four or five times now, for various functions, and it never fails to delight. Really a superior recipe. --Josh

I don't know if this jibes with everyone else's experience, but I just made my first batch of PR's cookie dough today (for baking tomorrow), and I found the freshly-made dough possibly too liquid to hold a scoop shape. It might well've needed chilling before it could be successfully scooped. --Josh

Regarding Paulraphael's recipe, should the dough be brought to room temperature (or close to it) prior to scooping? The recipe simply says that chilled dough will be too stiff for smooth balls, but it doesn't say if the smoothness is desirable. --Josh

For what it's worth, I've found the best way to make the crispiest bacon is in the microwave. Less mess, less heat, and absolutely shatteringly crisp. You just have to watch to make sure it doesn't start to burn, and cook it between paper towels to prevent spatters (on a bed of newspaper to absorb the fat). I'm really intrigued by chocolate-covered bacon. Gotta find a way to sneak the bacon past my non-pork-tolerant wife. --Josh

The Medrich recipe is something I've made probably several hundred times by now. Some of its "peculiarities" are: it contains pecans, it starts with melted butter (and the dough is made completely in the pot you melt the butter in), and it requires, at minimum, overnight chilling in the fridge. The finished cookies are on the smallish side if made strictly according to the recipe. They are very buttery and have a good combination of crunchy exterior and chewy interior. The timing has to be fairly precise. I've spoken to Ms. Medrich about them once or twice, and, although the recipe just calls for chocolate chips, she recommended coverture. --Josh

We like these cookies quite a bit. I'd say it's my second-favorite CCC recipe so far, with Alice Medrich's recipe still champion. The salt is definitely a bit more forward than I'm used to, but it's not overwhelming at all and makes an unexpected and very interesting counterpoint. While one of my tasters initially found it a little too noticeable, it actually grew on her to the point where she couldn't stop eating it. They do spread a lot (there's that overbeating), and they're huge to begin with, so I found six cookies on a sheet to be a little much. Next time, I'm going to cut back on the beating time. (I didn't shape the mounds very much at all, and that might've contributed to the spread.) The proportion of chocolate to cookie is VERY high; one person actually found it off-putting. I think it could be cut back slightly. I actually weighed each portion of dough, and ended up with enough for about 20 cookies (a couple more than the recipe is supposed to make). Curiously, the recipe calls for each portion to be 3.5 ounces, which it describes as a "generous golf ball." Generous indeed. More like a baseball.

I've got a batch of the NYT recipe dough sitting in the fridge, made yesterday afternoon and so it'll be ready to bake starting this afternoon. I'm not sure how the browned butter would fit into the recipe, since the NYT recipe doesn't start with melted butter, but the more typical butter-and-sugar beating (five minutes of it, in fact -- two minutes longer than I usually allow). --Josh

Hi, Nick, I do use Kewpie whenever I'm cooking an Asian dish that calls for mayonnaise. I know it's got MSG already in it... I will check out the Asian section as you suggest. That totally slipped my mind! Thanks, Josh

2 T mayo 1 tsp yellow mustard (French's) 1 tsp prepared horseradish thin with red wine vinegar soy sauce to taste. ← That's the closest-sounding one so far -- although the manager confirmed for me the presence of grated onion. I'll give this a try and see how it work. Actually, the manager confirmed for me ALL the ingredients I've mentioned (mustard, horseradish, soy, mayo, onion), but wouldn't go any farther than that. I'm doing everything I can to cajole him to wrest the recipe from the chef. --Josh

Wow! Well, the sauce doesn't have a name. In fact, they call it "Mustard Sauce" (and it's served primarily at the Hibachi tables, for dipping vegetables and shrimp). But I think the predominant flavor is horseradish, and there's definitely grated onion in it. The sauce's color is about as pale as straight mayonnaise; there are no colored flecks in it at all, and I don't detect any garlic either. There might be some Sriracha, but if so, it would have to be a very tiny amount since there really is no hint of redness to the sauce. I've tried a few of the "horseradish/mustard"-type sauces on the web, and none of them come close. Hey, if anyone out there considers him/herself an expert at recreating these things, maybe I can arrange to ship a little of the sauce. --Josh

Here's the situation. There's a Japanese restaurant near us called Koto. Apparently it's one of a small chain. They serve a sauce there that my wife and I find absolutely sublime. My wife, in fact, would use it every day if she could. So I've been trying to duplicate it. I've identified most of the ingredients: a mayonnaise base (likely Kewpie), grated onion, horseradish, mustard (probably Dijon), soy sauce. But I'm pretty positive there are one or two other things, too. I have tried offering to pay the chef for the recipe. I've tried approaching him through the manager. I've tried reconstructing the recipe at home...I don't know how many times I've attempted that, but I know I've gone through several bottles of horseradish and mayo and mustard. At this point, I'm getting way frustrated. I've heard of labs analyzing food, but I'm skeptical that this can be done for an actual recipe...and even more skeptical that this can be done for a reasonable cost. I'm looking for creative solutions to duplicating (or acquiring) the recipe. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be delighted to hear them. --Josh