Chris Hennes

I'm making the Deep fried cauliflower for dinner tonight, but need some assistance (as usual): the cauliflower foam calls for locust bean gum, which I don't have. Is it possible to replace it with either xanthan or guar gum? Any suggestions for a ratio?

It may not be "floury" I guess, but the toasted flour is what's giving dark roux its flavor so for me it falls into the category of stuff where the taste of the flour is important or beneficial. I definitely don't make gumbo with UltraTex .

On the topic of ice cube trays: rumor has it that if you immediately throw away the lid that comes with it, these OXO trays are decent for people with arthritis. Apparently the lid is complete crap, which explains the majority of the poor reviews.

Nothing is 100% safe. The drive to the gas station to buy the bag of ice was far more risky than consuming the ice.

I agree with AAQuesada: the only time I use a roux these days is when I want a floury taste: otherwise I use something from the UltraTex line, it's faster, easier, and doesn't require all that cooking.

Roasted Garlic Tamales with Ricotta and Swiss Chard (pp. 222–223) I've posted about these before, but was reminded again tonight how good they are, and how versatile. I tossed together a quick salsa of fire-roasted tomatoes, onions, and chili powder (plus some vinegar: apple cider, I think). Still great.

Is the blower box hollow, or does it have internal baffling?

I had read 24-48 hours, so I gave it about 45 before my first cup.

I ordered the 4lb sampler box, which in this shipment came with the Ethiopia Limu Jimma from Alaga Sekala, the Brazil Fazenda Santa Mariana, the India Poabs Organic Seethargundo Estate, and the El Salvador Majahual from Tablon La Montana.

On Friday I tried this for the first time: the beans were the Ethiopia Limu Jimma - Alaga Sekala from Sweet Maria's, which I chose to do first because SM's suggests a lighter City to City+ roast, and I thought it best to do a light roast as my first. I did the roast on my back patio, but my strategy here backfired as my lawn guys showed up about five minutes into the roast, so I couldn't hear a thing! So I roasted purely by appearance... here is what I wound up with: It's probably a bit under-roasted: nevertheless, I tried my first cup this afternoon and it was very good. The coffee itself is quite light-bodied with some interesting fruit tones to it. I'm looking forward to playing around with this, especially while the weather is good and I have an excuse to zone out on my patio for 20 minutes.

I've got to agree with Nick on this: definitely don't approach this as a problem of finding some question you can ask him that will "prove" he's not a "real chef" (whatever that means). Ignore him. Alternately, since I am in fact a fake chef, I can vet your potential questions to see if you can tell me from the real thing .

It certainly can go bad: once you've added that much water you've got a decent breeding ground for bacteria. Stored at refrigerator temps for a week I think it's probably fine, I'd think you can probably go 2-3 weeks based on the acidity and temperature, though I don't find that flavor-wise coffee products keep well for that long.

Yeah, organic wheat is readily available here: really pricey, but it's out there.

What does it matter who proffers it if the advice is sound? I'm sure even the most reviled food celebrity has a worthwhile tip or two.

Historic Lamb Curries: Goan Curry & Cucumber Black-Eyed Pea Salad (p. 5•89–5•99) Tonight for dinner I made sous vide lamb shanks (0.5% salt, 62°C, 48h) with the Goan Curry Sauce and the Cucumber Black-Eyed Pea salad. There are a number of (what I believe are) errors in the recipe, so I did my best to work around them. First, although the table on p. 5•89 states that the cooking time for the lamb is 60 hours, the recipe they refer to on p. 3•109 is only 48 hours: I used the time from 3•109, "Best Bets for Cooking Tough Cuts."—the lamb was perfectly cooked, couldn't have been better. They also state that the finish time on the lamb is 30 minutes, but the recipe itself calls for a one hour reheat: I used the time in the recipe rather than the preparation table. It's already been pointed out uptopic and corrected by the MC team, but the curry sauce needs the addition of 250g of water prior to step 8. I also believe that steps 4,5 and 6 are out of order: I ground the spices prior to adding them to the tomato-onion mixture. The salad calls for channa dal and urad dal, in a very small quantity, and does not include a step to cook them. I have no idea if this is a mistake or not, but my dal were both inedible raw, so I sieved them out after step 7. Finally, the yield is listed as 200g, which is incorrect: the recipe itself calls for 100g of dry black-eyed peas and 170g of cucumber. And of course once the peas are cooked they weigh more. Those changes being made, however, resulted in a superlative curry, quite possibly the best I've ever had, and certainly the best I've ever made. It is absolutely delicious.

I know at least &roid has made the Cucumber Black-eyed Pea Salad to go with the Goan Curry in Volume 5: has anyone else? I don't understand the construction of the "seasoning blend", it calls for whole curry leaves and whole (presumably uncooked?!) channa dal and urad dal. I see in the photo that they have indeed dressed the lamb shank with that, but as a salad seasoning it seems pretty strange to include the two uncooked dal and to not julienne the curry leaves.

What is the difference between a recipe for a bread machine and one for making by hand?

I wasn't thinking in terms of the alcohol content, just the flavors. I'm having a hard time putting white wine and cheddar together in my head, but maybe it works great.

Once again, Traditional Dan Dan Noodles (dan dan mian) (pp. 87–88) This is one of my go-to recipes from the book for a fast, easy, and delicious weeknight meal. I served it with stir-fried asparagus, which was an excellent combination, with the cooling sweetness of the asparagus serving to calm the searing heat from the sichuan peppercorn and chile oil in the noodles. And the weather was great, so we could even eat outside.

If you have Modernist Cuisine, have a look at the recipe for Mojito Spheres: they are very large (I'd say too large, to be honest).

I made mine in the Blendtec yesterday: if you make sure to strip the skin from the chickpeas it winds up very, very smooth. If you leave the skin on you have a coarser texture.

I was just wondering if that would work yesterday, Andie, as I waited around for my chickpeas to cook. It seems like you ought to be able to cut way down on cooking time if you ground your chickpeas first (or of course simply bought chickpea flour).

No leftover meat in the fridge right now, but what I do have is a lot of morels that need eating sooner rather than later. So I figured that they are pretty meaty, and might be suitable in a hash: (yes, for shame, another fried egg...)

That's fine with us.

Stir-Fried Bean Sprouts with Chili Bean Sauce (p. 200) I tried this once before, but used sub-standard sprouts, so I gave it another go tonight to much better effect. The flavor of the sprouts is predominant, as it should be, but it means that overall the dish is fairly mild: the sauce recedes pretty far into the background. Still, a well-flavored and visually attractive vegetable side. (The rest of the meal was a stir-fried pork and rice, for those keeping track of these things)