Chris Hennes
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Posts posted by Chris Hennes
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Toliver, thanks for bumping this. Reading through people's memories is a wonderful way to while away a Friday afternoon. Here are mine:
What was your family food culture when you were growing up?
My dad worked at the local newspaper as an editor, so he didn't get home until 9 or 10 most night: everything we had was something that could be microwaved with reasonable results five hours later. Mom worked too, starting when I was fairly young, so we had a lot of crock-pot meals, or very simple preps (baked chicken, jarred-sauce spaghetti, etc.).
Was meal time important?
It was at a fixed time each day, but I would not regard it as particularly important until my dad got a non-newspaper job and was able to actually come home for dinner most nights. I was much older by then.
Was cooking important?
No---typical middle-class Americana: low prep, low fussiness factor.
What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table?
None that I recall, but that may be because I was a wonderfully well-behaved child
.Who cooked in the family?
Mom. Dad made Bisquik pancakes some Saturdays, though.
Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions?
Very, very uncommon. Ususally just for Easter, and the anniversary of my sister's adoption (she was adopted from Korea, so we went to a local Korean place on "got-her day" every year).
Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over?
No, and as the oldest child and grandchild, I generally got a seat at the "adults" table anyway, at holidays.
When did you get that first sip of wine?
When the Minnesota Twins won the World Series in 1987 we had a bottle of "champagne" to celebrate.
Was there a pre-meal prayer?
Yes, my family was very Catholic, so we always said grace before eating.
Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)?
Nope.
How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life?
Basically none of it! Mom instilled a love of cooking in me unintentionally by letting me help with Christmas cookies: that made cooking a special occasion. When we got a bread machine when I was around 12 the booklet that came with it had a recipe for making croissants (using the machine to knead the dough): I stayed up all night playing cards with my dad, siblings, and best friend, making the croissants between hands. Those were the most phenomenal, magical, wonderful croissants ever (to a sleep-deprived 12 year old). I never really looked back.
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It tasted good. Actually it tasted so good that I want to do it again soon the right way.
Kim, that's what really counts! If it tastes good, we look the other way (even for canned gravy
). 
I just try not to admit that some of the nights I don't post here it's because I ate at the Olive Garden!! 
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I don't know what the proper name for them is but... I love fresh Puffballs. If you catch them at the right time they can be as big as a volleyball. Slice them into steak sized slabs, fry 'em up with some butter and garlic, yum yum. I've never seen them in a store and they don't last long in the field but they sure are yummy if you get them at the right time. As soon as they turn a little brown they are no good anymore but when they are pure white all the way through and nice and firm they can't be beat.
Is this the one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_puffball
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the mushroom in season here is the one that is my favorite....and morels are coming in very soon!!!! I am writhing with th urge to go hunting..for now then they will be my favoites then!
Oh, how could I neglect morels!!! I first had them a few months ago, simply sauteed in butter and a little thyme. Wow. I am jealous of your foraging skills!
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Inspired by the new banner (hopefully a new society sponsor?) for mushrooms, a quick search revealed a couple of region-specific mushroom topics in Canada and Japan, but strangely, no general mushroom topic in the Cooking forum (though there is a mushroom recipes thread)! As a mushroom lover myself, I think this should be remedied immediately (apologies if I missed it in my searching).
The great thing about living in Pennsylvania has been the wide selection of fresh mushrooms. At Wegmans yesterday there were almost a dozen varieties, including my personal favorite-of-the-moment, the Maitake (also called the "Hen of the Woods" I believe). There must be hundreds of varieties I have never tried.... what are some that I should seek out? What are your favorite mushrooms?
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To be honest, I was half-recalling a comment I heard about the French press emulsifying some of the extracted oils, which adds to the body of the beverage, but I can't find any source to confirm that now. Perhaps some experimentation is in order! Do you use a paper or metal screen filter?
Paper, and that's a good idea: it would be a really easy experiment to conduct and would be fairly definitive (at least, taking into account my ability to discern the difference...). I think I still have a metal filter hiding someplace, as well. I am using a burr grinder, but it's a cheap one. I still like it better than a blade, but that's a convenience and consistency thing, not a quality thing. I push a button and a few seconds later, out comes the perfect amount of grounds, every time. No muss, no fuss. I would love a Rancillo or something, but that is pretty hard to justify on a grad student budget!
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Doesn't it cancel out the benefits of using a French press in the first place if you then run the coffee through a filter?
How so? I find the biggest difference when using a french press versus a drip/perc/etc. is the ability to heat the water to over 200 degrees, and to let it steep for four minutes. I haven't noticed a taste difference since I started filtering, except with the dregs.
In any case, I'd think that using a better grinder, to minimize fine particles, would help reduce the sludge content. I typically end up dumping the last bit of coffee in my cup, but it's nowhere near an inch.My "cup" is a 16 oz thermos, so it's not quite a regular cup, and the inch may have been an exaggeration...
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Does anyone else out there post-filter their french-pressed coffee to get rid of the "sludge"? I have read various comments on eGullet about the relative merits of the sludge, but I'm not a fan, I think it makes the bottom of the cup taste like over-extracted, grainy, nasty, um... sludge. I am using a coarse grind, but with a cheapo grinder, so I end up with a lot of fine particles, so I send the finished coffee through one of those Melitta one-cup filters before I drink it. Do you all enjoy the sludge, or toss the last inch of coffee, or what?
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I like that you cut the pork in the same length and width as the long beans. Did it add to the dish versus small chunks?
Definitely: I do this dish with ground pork a lot, but this had a much clearer pork flavor (there was also a lot of pork in there!). I fried the pork and long beans over high heat for a couple minutes so both got a nice crispy texture, instead of the pork dissolving in with the sauce. Admittedly, I had already pre-sliced the pork on my meat slicer so the dimension in one direction was already set. The matchstick cut is easy and seems to work well in many dishes.
That looks amazing. I'd like to try that with garlic scapes. How did you do the glaze?The glaze is one part dry sherry to two parts soy sauce, with some white pepper, red pepper flakes, and dry mustard powder added. This is based on a recipe in one of the 2007 Cooks Illustrated issues, I think. I saute the beans and pork over high heat for a few minutes, add the mushrooms for a few more minutes, toss in some minced garlic and ginger, saute till I can smell the garlic, then add the glaze. Toss for a few seconds to coat, and serve piping hot over sticky rice.
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Blackened Swordfish/ Mustard Greens
NoNiceTime that swordfish looks great---one of my favorite fish, easily.
Still working my way through the pork roast from last week: tonight's entry, Chinese long beans, pork and oyster mushrooms in a soy-sherry glaze.
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otherwise you need more professional texts such as
"Handbook of Dough Fermentations" edited by Karel Kulp and Klaus Lorenz" ISBN 0-8247-4264-8"
Youch...that is more expensive than most of my grad school textbooks! And no "Search Inside" link, either. Do you have it? Is it readable?
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That's my experience as well with PH's. I think Chris' question about room temp v. chilled is key since I would much rather have a curd held together by the chilled butter.
That's a good point that I never thought of---it is the butter that causes it to firm up when cold. I never really questioned the functioning of the curd...
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Are you looking for something at room temp, or is refrigerated OK? The lemon curd I use, from Friberg's Professional Pastry Chef, seems to be firm enough to make quenelles with under refrigeration, anyway, though I haven't tried it myself. The only thickener in it is the egg: 8 eggs to 360 ml of lemon juice, plus sugar and a little butter.
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I subscribed for a couple years, but I just couldn't stand the tone of the newsletter. He was just so ebullient about everything... it got really annoying, really fast.
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Sadly, "the beginning of the end" for FN was quite awhile ago. Prior to Sara Moulton's last show, viewers had detected a disturbance in the force. Upon her departure, it was confirmed that the Evil Empire of Marketing had destroyed the whole FN planet. What remains is a hologram... only an illusion.
I still enjoy ICA and Ace of Cakes. Really, since finding eGullet I find myself far more interested in hanging out in my own kitchen rather than watching FN anyway, so I don't think anything was lost
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Spaghetti puttanesca, one of my favourite pasta dishes.
doctortim what kind of olives did you use? My wife is a huge puttanesca fan, but I haven't been interested lately because last time I used Picholine: clearly, a mistake. Too buttery, too sweet. They didn't work well at all. Should never have strayed from the Greek cracked I usually used...
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http://heartbrandbeef.com/shop/
This is probably where Heritage Foods is sourcing it from. They have a wider selection than I saw on the Heritage Foods site, but that could change. I've ordered it once before and thought it was good but not great. Heartbrand does have very reasonable shipping rates though, so I'll probably end up trying it again.
It looks like the Heritage Foods price is the same, and HF has free shipping (or rather, it's rolled into the price...). But of course, HF only sells the ribeye and strip loin. Thanks for the heads-up on Heartbrand, I'll have to add them to my online meat sources spreadsheet.
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I had a last-minute change of plans tonight as my wife's flight into town was diverted (after it was directly overhead! Too much fog to land
). So, dinner alone again tonight. Scrounging in the fridge, I had leftover pork roast, leftover rice, and some lovely Maitake mushrooms, so it was fried rice again.
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hummingbirdkiss those peanuts look great. I love fresh peanuts (and tree nuts, for that matter). I was just scrounging the fridge for lunch today and ended up with these pork quesadillas:
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Now, isn't wagyu the generic term in use for that specific Japanese grade of beef? When they refer to akaushi, they're refering to the specific bloodline/breed, I thought?
That is my understanding as well, but I'm not expert on the matter. I loved the Wagyu I had the one time I had the opportunity, but it ended up overshadowed in memory by the scallops of an earlier course.
P.S. - Are you still thinking about living in Oklahoma City, a slave to Fedex?My wife's job interview is Friday, so we'll see how that goes...
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Does anyone have a friend with access to a GC-MS (gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer)?
I'm not sure how useful this would be without a good understanding of how the original formula changes with time. The GC/MS will certainly show differences, but I'm not sure we can pin them down to "freshness" vs. "recipe". I don't have any experience with analyzing that type of results myself: do you?
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This week from Heritage Foods comes a breed of cattle from Japan that I have never heard of. From the newsletter:
Akaushi Beef*Pure-bred Akaushi is a national treasure in Japan.
*Japan Association of Akaushi registers all data related to the breed and traces the genetics of the herd we are selling back forty generations.
*These cattle are so delicious that they are the only breeds allowed to graze freely in Japan where property is not easy to come by. They roam the sacred mountain of Aso where they are protected by the Japanese government.
*The high percentage of intramuscular fat produce marbling unlike any seen in other beef.
*Akaushi beef has been proven to have a lower level of cholesterol than fish.
*While “Wagyu” simply means “Cow”, “Akaushi Wagyu” means “Red Cow.”
So, apparently it compares to the Waygu we are more familiar with, and certainly the prices seem in line with that! Anyone familiar with this breed? Tasted them?
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i don't east fast-food too often, but my favorite fries would have to be both wendy's and also arby's spicy curly fries (do they even still have them?? shows you how long it has been since i've eaten there...).
least favorite are definitely mcdonalds (although when i was a kid, they were my favorite) - they have changed over the years and are now long, limp, and overly salty (for my taste, at least).
In my opinion, the key to getting the proper McD's fry experience is to get them when they are as fresh and hot as possible. Lunch rush seems to be a good time. They degrade so quickly over time, I think they are inedible after 5-10 minutes post-frying. But right after, if you get a good batch? Hell, yes!
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Pulled pork tacos with pico de gallo.
Those look great, Jim. Toss on a lime wedge and some avocado and I'm in heaven...
Mushrooms
in Cooking
Posted
White button mushrooms don't do much for me, but I do enjoy creminis, left whole and quickly sauteed in the drippings from a steak, then served atop same.
I'm also a fan of reconstituted dried porcinis for use in things like bolognese---they round out the flavors perfectly. I was tempted to pick up some bluefoot at the Wegmans the other day, but they were a bit pricey.