Josho

This might be one of those occasions where cornstarch is called for. --Josh

...or semi-savory sorbets like basil or wasabi... I hadn't heard that it was illegal to use stevia. We have a health food store (well, HAD, it closed a few months ago) that had a variety of stevia sweeteners. I'd be surprised if they were selling something illegal out on the shelves like that. But I'll ask at the co-op next time I'm there -- they'll know. --Josh

I would not recommend stevia as it adds a distinct grassy flavor that would be out of place in most sorbets (and, I think, is out of place in just about ANY dish). If you can use palm sugar, that's great and while it also has a flavor to it, it's not nearly as discordant as stevia's -- it's almost caramel-like. I'm surprised that palm sugar is okay but cane and beet sugar aren't, but if that's the case, that would be a good substitution. --Josh

I'm happy to report that it tastes pretty much as good as it looks (although I think if I'd used fresh rather than frozen blueberries, it might've tasted even better -- but around here, fresh organic blueberries are going for $5 a half-pint). My wife is by far my severest critic -- probably fewer than eight times in all the years I've known her has she not had at least a couple of criticisms of anything I've made. This was one of those rare instances in which she could not think of a single negative word about this pie, and I love those instances because they help me justify the cost of the subscription to CI. :-) The filling is, as advertised, not runny in the slightest -- yet it doesn't have the mouthfeel of something that's been stabilized. The apple is indetectable. I was able to taste the lemon, but my wife and her best friend didn't know it was in there and didn't detect it -- a good thing since my wife tends to find it intrusive. The crust is the usual -- gotta love that vodka crust that Kenji developed. It's never let me down. BTW, we also tried out that Oxo Mango Splitter/Seeder this morning, that's reviewed in the latest issue. It works like a dream. --Josh

I made the Best Blueberry Pie from the new (July/Aug 2008) issue today. Haven't cut into it yet -- it's supposed to cool for 4 hours minimum. But it smells wonderful. My only problem was that I seem to have made the crust too thin in one area -- you can see that the filling bubbled through there. Otherwise, it was a breeze. --Josh

Picture it this way. If you put water into a bowl and froze it, you'd have a solid block of ice, right? Your ice cream base is predominantly water. If you freeze it without agitating it, you end up with what is essentially one huge ice crystal. If you put water into a bowl and froze it JUST until there was a thin layer of ice around the walls of container, and you scraped that layer off the walls and broke it up into tiny shards (individual crystals) and stirred it in...and then kept doing that over and over, every time there was a thin layer of ice around the walls...eventually you'd end up with a bowl of smooth slush: millions of tiny crystals. Similarly, the smaller and more even the crystals are that form as your ice cream freezes, the smoother and creamier the ice cream will be. It's the difference between making one large crystal and a million microscopic crystals. --Josh

Bingo---that's the one I was thinking of. I know I've made that one in the past and it was really good. Maybe I will give the muffins a shot too, but I'm definitely staying away from the Sept. '95 recipe: it's just not very good. ← I had the same experience you did. I counted their 1995 cornbread recipe as one in the "failures' list. I was surprised at how dry and flavorless it was. --Josh

It really depends on your definition of "better." You may genuinely prefer the taste of Haagen Dazs® ice creams, for instance. Or there may be something about the flavor or properties of the milk and cream used in Italy for their gelato that you can't duplicate anywhere else. But my guess for most people is that the answer is a resounding YES, for many reasons. For one, real ice cream, made without additives, does not keep particularly well. Chances are that that pint of Haagen Dazs was made days or weeks ago; imagine if you could eat something with the quality of their ingredients, but which was actually made minutes or hours ago. Imagine that you can tweak the proportions of butterfat and flavors until they're EXACTLY what you're looking for. With home ice cream machines, you can do this. What you can't do easily is control the amount of air ("overrun") incorporated into the ice cream. But you can't control that by buying Haagen Dazs, either -- you're stuck with what they give you. I have a Musso ice cream maker, and adore it. I love trying new recipes or fiddling with the recipes I already know and love. Can't do that with store-bought. I love it when it's soft, straight from the machine. I love being able to control the ingredients, using my favorite local organic heavy cream instead of the ultra-pasteurized stuff, using fresh local eggs, using chocolates with the percentage of cacao solids that I prefer. It's all good. --Josh

I weight out two lbs. of flour total for the master recipe. Give it a try. Jmahl ← That does work out to a fraction over 4.9 ounces per cup, which seems to go along with what Judec says. Excellent, thank you! --Josh

I make ice cream a good deal (have had good success lately with Mark Bittman's "Corn Starch Ice Cream" from a recent NY Times column). My wife's favorite ice cream is an unusual recipe: Almond Poppy Seed Ice Cream from Bruce Weinstein's great "Ultimate Ice Cream Book." --Josh

Came out really beautiful...my best so far (at least appearance-wise; I haven't cut it open yet). I did two things differently: 1. My slashes were a lot more definitive (I did the cross-hatch pattern, which I'd tried before). 2. I gave it a much longer rise on the peel than usual (1.5 hours instead of 40-50 minutes). Elsie, that longer rise may help the crumb. My first loaf was really way too dense (almost like a white sandwich bread, with very small bubbles). I think I did two things wrong that, once I changed them, helped the crumb: first, I allowed a longer rise on the peel (50 or 55 minutes instead of 40). Also, as Zoe mentioned, the less you handle the dough before putting it on the peel, the better -- 20 seconds is better than 30 or 40 seconds. I think I overworked the dough the first time I baked (and had a dense crumb). --Josh

Thanks, Sanrensho! I've got a loaf going in the oven in about a half-hour. I'll try being a bit more bloodthirsty in my slashes. :-) --Josh

Dear All, I've been making this bread for several weeks now with, overall, great success. Love the crust. Love the crumb (after the first loaf, that is; I read through the thread here and took some advice; now the crumb is great). But I have a consistent problem that I'd love some input on: the loaves tend to rise VERY high in the center. I end up with a loaf that's almost pyramid-shaped. Initially, I shaped the dough into a ball. Then I tried shaping it like a much flatter round. I even tried having the round slightly thinner in the center. Still, it ends up looking like a volcano by the time it comes out. Is this a function of poor slashing technique? Do I need to slash deeper -- or thinner? Many thanks for any help. --Josh P.S. Also, has anyone come up with the correct WEIGHT for the flour for the master recipe? I usually prefer to measure by weight (and I was surprised that the book didn't include it). Are we talking the standard 5-oz cup of flour here, or a lighter cup?

This seems like a very curious criticism. Do you feel the same way about, say, Consumer Reports? I think CI is quite good about listing the *whys* of their preferences, so if somebody's got criteria other than those CI lists, the ratings are still helpful. (It's the same as with their recipes: they lay out their criteria for what THEY consider the "ideal" of a given dish, and design the recipe to reach that end; for those whose ideal is different, CI's lengthy descriptions usually have enough info to point people in the direction they want to go.) And as for the "Lemmings" comment...I don't understand. An organization that does a tremendous amount of cooking on a daily basis tests various brands and models of a given piece of cookware, and prints its findings. Consumers are certainly not poorly served by this. Maybe a person with money to burn could afford to go out and do their own tests and reach their own conclusions, but that's a time-consuming and expensive process, and if they follow CI's recommendations and generally get very good results, what's the flaw in the process? Like it or not, taking advice from someone who has a financial stake in the consumer's decision seems like a less reliable way to proceed overall. That is not a slur on you or any other kitchenware salesperson in particular; there are plenty of salespeople who value repeat business over a quick buck, and give honest recommendations. But have they tested as many items of a given type as CI does? Have their tests been as comprehensive, as transparent, and as well-documented? --Josh

I agree fully; I think CI's hit rate is better than just about any other single source of recipes. Moreover, their articles do a far, far better job of letting me *understand* why certain techniques work the way they do. So when I improvise, or tweak, I'm not doing it in a vacuum. And I also agree about the soul in a dish coming from the cook, not from the book. --Josh

I wonder how much of this is perception, and how much is reality. I wonder what folks would say about the CI recipes if they weren't each preceded by a page-and-a-half of pseudo-scientific* detailed analysis, and instead started with something like, "Here's a recipe handed down to me by my great-grandmother." Would people still think the recipes were soulless, or would they simply say, "Terrific recipe, but I needed to give it a little more (fill in the blank) to suit my own tastes"? Don't most people end up adjusting *most* recipes to suit their tastes? And isn't that what the CI cooks are doing when they start off by identifying what suits THEIR taste in a given dish, and then adjusting over and over 'til they achieve it dependably? I wish all cookbook authors were that willing to test, and retest, their recipes before putting them into print. BTW, I just finished "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles," and in it, Jennifer 8 Lee talks about how ovens are very rare in Chinese homes. --Josh *I shouldn't have said "pseudo-scientific." Much of it IS scientific, and often good science. But the desired results are entirely subjective.

You win. ← As Mom used to say, "It's not a contest, hon." --Josh

Prasantrin, There are a lot of questions on topics that haven't been covered in class and aren't in the textbook, either. I believe we're supposed to research them, and any form of research is fair game as far as I know. I'll go with the zucchini, since that seems to be the consensus, and I understand the reasons that zucchini would not require blanching: the high water content, the quick cooking time, the texture. What's curious to me, though, is that asparagus would need blanching either, since it cooks so quickly once it's trimmed. --Josh

Many thanks to everyone for their assistance. I think I know how to answer this question now. There seems to be some subjectivity to the answer, which rubs me the wrong way, but I guess that's par for the course I'm taking. ;-) --Josh

We were given a take-home test this past week. There's one question I'm puzzling over, and it has to do with blanching vegetables before breading or battering them prior to frying them. The question asks which of the following vegetables should definitely NOT be blanched, or precooked, prior to breading or battering and frying. The four choices are: broccoli, zucchini, asparagus, and cauliflower. Now, I know full well that both broccoli and cauliflower should be blanched or precooked in some way before deep-frying in breading or batter. And I suppose it's possible that there's more than one correct answer. That's happened on these multiple-choice tests before. But I can make a good case for not having to blanch or precook *either* zucchini *or* asparagus. Both seem like they would cook fast enough to not require blanching. Any thoughts? I hesitate to actually try (I hate deep-frying at home). Guess I'm leaning towards precooking the asparagus, just to set the color, but...I'm just not confident in this answer. Many thanks for any wisdom, Josh

My favorite Cook's Illustrated parody (perhaps because I lovingly crafted it many years ago): Cook's Illustrated does Pop-Tarts (Warning: it contains one potentially objectionable four-letter word.) BTW, I've been a subscriber since the first issue. I echo the negative sentiments regarding the customer service and any/all statements taking Chris Kimball's editorials to task. That said, I have more dependable, usable recipes from CI than from any other source, hands-down. Off the top of my head, their Chicken Tikka Masala, their Pad Thai, and their take on No-Knead Bread all top my list. --Josh

We're going to be asked about "strong vegetables" on a test this week, and I'm having trouble classifying them. I understand that cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli are considered strong vegetables. But what about other vegetables with strong flavors, such as peppers, tomatoes, onions, and so on? Does the term "strong vegetables" apply strictly to crucifers? Thanks in advance for any help! --Josh

Possibly so. However, neither of the two biologists I spoke with felt that the fear was misplaced or inappropriate. I'm the parent of a female toddler. I see some fairly frightening trends, including the rising incidence of precocious puberty, ADHD, asthma, autism, Asperger's, food allergies, diabetes, and so on. Some of these are readily explainable -- poor nutrition, not enough exercise, overdiagnosis (or previous underreporting), and so on. For some of the others, all science is offering us right now is a shrug of the shoulders and reassurances that, "Well, it's not the air per se" and "it's not the food per se" and it's not the water per se." I don't take a lot of comfort from those answers, since they're not really answers at all...and they often fail to take synergy into account. As a layperson, I'm certainly swimming upstream against a tide of sensational newsreports about the latest threats, clumsily trying to pick out which are legitimate causes for concern and which aren't. Bottom line for me is that since my little girl eats my food, and since whatever negative effects contaminants may have are likely to be magnified by her age, I'm going to hedge my bets juuuuust a bit and have her consume as little mercury, BPA, synthetic hormones, antiobiotics, and other unnecessary chemicals as possible. If I were only cooking and baking for myself, I probably wouldn't feel as strongly about it. I stirred the roux every moment throughout the cooking. And yes, I got the corners, I got the sides, I got the bottom. As I say to my wife, "Hey, it's not rocket scientist." --Josh

Many, many thanks to everyone for their responses. I've invested in a very fine chinois, and I'll see if that does the trick in lieu of cheesecloth. I've also remade the roux, and it turned out beautifully. More practice, I'm sure, will help. I'm greatly intrigued by the thoughts of making roux in the microwave and in the oven, and will be testing those out over the next few weeks. HungryC, it's fascinating -- I can't find instant or premade roux anywhere (here in upstate NY). I certainly found it online, but I'd prefer to learn to make it well myself the old-fashioned way (and then, perhaps, branch out into the more hands-off methods, such as the microwave and standard oven). BTW, for anyone interested in the little tangent about clarified organic butter: I've checked with two biologists, and they both told me more or less the same thing: while some chemicals (antibiotics and hormones, primarily) are not notably fat-soluble and thus would be largely removed by clarification, there are others (notably pesticides) that ARE fat-soluble and will be concentrated by the act of clarification. Moreover, they both considered the pesticides more dangerous than the antibiotics or the hormones. The hormones and antibiotics, they both said, are less likely to survive the digestive process than pesticides are...pesticides are created specifically to build up in the tissues and have a cumulative effect. (Remember how much DDT was found in mother's milk?) Therefore, if one is trying to avoid ingesting pesticides, it pays to use organic butter, whether or not it's going to be clarified. --Josh

Sherry, I'm cramming for a test in Food Prep 1 tomorrow, and thought I'd chime in here. The basic effects of heat on the basic components of food: Proteins coagulate Starches gelatinize Water evaporates Fats melt and Sugars caramelize In the case of flour (starch), the particles of starch, when heated in the presence of liquid, absorb the liquid, swell, soften, and become somewhat clearer. Hence the thickening power of flour, cornstarch, arrowroot, etc. It's properly called gelatinzation. And apparently you're not grossly incompetent unless you've got burned bits of roux! --Josh