Chris Hennes

What recipe do you use? I had some fantastic yeasted waffles yesterday morning that I posted about in the Waffle topic.

I have no idea. The package was labeled "Fresh Chinese Noodles" in English, no other info. The ingredient list had egg in them, and I think wheat flour.

I got a copy of the book for Christmas this year, so on Christmas day I made the potstickers, and tonight I made the Dan Dan Noodles (wow, I dunno how Westernized this recipe is, but it was mighty fiery!)... ETA: those are Xie Laoban's Dan Dan Noodles, not the other ones.

Thanks for the link, Frank: I'll have to give Marion Cunningham’s a shot next and see how they stack up: I see that Orangette ranked them ahead of the CI recipe I just tried. The WIG recipe sounds good, too, but I think I'd miss the yeastiness that these raised waffles bring to the table. Plus, with a little planning ahead, making breakfast in the morning is just a matter of heating up the iron and pouring the batter, which in the AM is about all the energy I can muster!

The Pot-sticker dumplings with chicken stock (ji zhi guo tie, 鸡汁锅贴), on page. 112.

Today I experienced as close to waffle perfection as I have ever gotten. I don't think I achieved "perfect," quite... but damned close: The recipe was from Cook's Illustrated March/April 2004 issue, and is a yeasted waffle with an overnight refrigerated retardation stage. I think the refrigeration of the batter is CI's main contribution here, the ingredient list is pretty standard: 1 3/4 cup milk 8 T butter 2 cups AP flour 1 T sugar 1 t salt 1 1/2 t yeast 2 eggs 1 t vanilla extract The method is also pretty standard for a yeasted waffle (e.g. no separating the eggs, etc.): melt the butter with the milk, let cool, combine everything well, then refrigerate overnight. The waffles were very crisp on the outside and finely-texture on the interior, and were very light. They faded pretty fast out of the iron: these were not the sort you want to hold for any length of time. The flavor was yeasty and very reminiscent of brioche, with just the slightest hit of sourness, and quite a bit of vanilla flavor (I was using a homemade vanilla extract, which is quite potent at the moment).

I think what he is saying is that he wants you to make a single radial cut, literally such that the tip of the knife starts at the north pole and run straight down to the south pole, so that any given layer of the onion is only sliced once, rather than twice. What he did was make a cut across the entire diameter, resulting in each layer falling into two separate pieces. Chris?

Man, that bird is gorgeous.

"I have discovered a truly marvelous recipe... This margin is too narrow to contain it."

Round two: my wife loves potstickers, and I got Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty for Christmas, so we had a few rounds of potstickers for lunch/snack/dinner: Wow, these were the best potstickers I have ever made, hands down, both in terms of flavor and texture. I cheated and used packaged wonton wrappers rather than making my own potsticker wrappers as specified in the recipe, and that was probably for the better. I tend to prefer the more Westernized versions with thinner wrappers and crispier sides.

My Christmas menu evolves on the fly based on whether I feel like cooking Christmas morning or not. This morning the plan had actually been to hit McDonalds for some bacon, egg and cheese biscuits, but we slept well beyond McDonalds breakfast/lunch switchover. So, still craving BE&C Biscuits, I made some. I gotta say, homemade bacon and good cheddar definitely balanced out my lackluster biscuit skills, these were mighty fine...

When you vacuum sealed it that foam didn't reduce? Or does the bag just float too much?

I dunno, the texture of the base looks right to me, as he's pouring it there. Come on man, how long are you going to keep us hanging here? Fess up!

My brother bought me this book for Christmas this year, so today I made the Pistachio Waffles with Chocolate Cream on p. 143. I had a bit of trouble with the chocolate cream not setting up, so I popped it into the ice cream churner and turned it into chocolate soft serve, which worked fine. Unfortunately my waffle maker is of the "belgian" variety, which resulting in waffles that were thick and soft, rather than thin and crispy. Still, the flavors were nice, and no one complained...

I'd just temper the eggs by adding 1/4 or so of the hot cream mixture to them to combine. Then you should be safe to combine the rest (I literally just finished making a creme anglaise, that's how I did it).

165°F for a custard ice cream base? That seems low, I typically go to 180°F.

I gather someone in the house likes English Muffins?

All this careful planning, and you STILL blow it. Sheesh. Out of lard!

I'd buy that. Obviously, we'll probably never know...

If you have, or can get your hands on a copy of, Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian there are a lot of great recipes in there. Like IndyRob, when I go on a Jaffrey kick I can find myself eating vegetarian for a week or two without even noticing.

OK, I know this feature has been in there since forever, but this is the first time I used the shopping list function. Wow, awesome. I love that it is all organized by what store and section of the store I probably need to buy it at. The only suggestion I would have for improving it would be to somehow indicate next to each ingredient which of the recipes it pertains to, so it's easier to look up the quantities.

Kent, you have apparently never met andiesenji! She's the queen collector around here.

When you tried the corn, did you try the blended/pureed version, or just the kernels. Sometimes the blending breaks the outer hull down into more "tasteable" bits, and if the hull is bitter, there's your source. Is this commercial frozen corn? Or something else?

I still think plan A is the way to go, but be careful here: it's really about time at temperature: collagen melts much faster at higher temps, but it still takes time to melt. The thicker the piece of meat, the longer it takes the middle to warm up, so the longer it needs to cook in order to melt all the connective tissue. My estimate of 200°F is based on the idea that by the time the center reaches 200°F in a 225°F oven, the collagen has had plenty of time to melt, even considering the size of ribs we are talking about here. Really, it's probably overly conservative, you may be fine at 190°F or even lower, I have not run the numbers. The only way to know for sure when they are done is to cut into one of the ribs and test it.

For me, the first suspect is the stock: have you tasted it in isolation to make sure it's still fresh?