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nickrey

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Everything posted by nickrey

  1. In Australia the salad is always served either as a side dish to accompany the main course or on the plate as part of the main course. When we are tourists in the US, it is often a stand-off with the server as we will not have the salad until the main course arrives while the server won't deliver the main course until the salad is eaten.
  2. My mother, and most of her contemporaries, used a product called Gravox. The trauma is almost gone (but please don't mention pressure-cooked vegetables). If I want a sauce and don't have any home-made stocks, I'll use a stock that comes ready-made in a tetra-pak. Simply reduce, add vinegar/mushroom powder for umami/worcestershire sauce/whatever, thicken with a pure starch such as potato if necessary and voila, (almost) instant sauce. You can also add green peppercorns or fried mushrooms if you wish. Please don't call it gravy though, it brings back too many less than pleasant early food memories.
  3. nickrey

    Paella—Cook-Off 31

    Good chance to post a picture of a Paella I did for 20. Towards end of cook then after eating before continuing to enjoy Soccarat.
  4. So sorry to hear this. She was a lovely lady who was always bright and cheerful. I'll miss her posts. Condolences to friends and family.
  5. If you are looking for serious umami, you can't go past kombu (dried sea kelp, mostly Korean these days). Simply put a piece or two in your cold stock for three hours or so before cooking. You could also gently heat the stock and put the kombu in the warm stock (do not boil). Using sea kelp with seafood seems appropriate.
  6. The Coronavirus lockdown has led to some interesting consequences. The other day there was a full page advertisement for pasta flour in our National newspaper, The Australian. Shows just how many people are now making their own pasta at home.
  7. Cara Hobday. Food presentation secrets : styling techniques of professionals.
  8. An Australian comedian was so incensed by people buying pre-bought pasta sauces for lockdown that he did a video showing how easy it was to prepare it from scratch. He is a "sweary, ranty you-tuber" (see this article for a journalistic write up ) who has fans around the world. Worth a watch but I need to issue a parental guidance warning about some of his language. The you tube channel is here.
  9. Fourteen years late to the party on this one but it is a cheap buy on Amazon at present. Being from Australia her name is not particularly familiar, nor is the force of being the New York Times restaurant critic anything special to me. No-one else has used the highlight function on this quote in the book but this perfectly captures an olfactory experience that I've had in the USA which still seems to treat bars like it's coming out of the recession: "Occasionally I’d pass a broken-down bar that burped alcohol into the street when the door swung open." And so it goes. I notice Jay Rayner above preaching about a lack of current relevance of her restaurant criticisms. That misses the point and may suit his biases but the way that she presents the criticisms to highlight her experiences is a master stroke. It is excellent writing that foreshadows her subsequent journeys. Don't expect to read it as a reflection of the current state of restaurants in New York but do read it as an education in how reviewers can excel in their art. Do yourself a favour and buy it while it's discounted.
  10. I've been making crumpets with my discarded sourdough starter as well. The back one is with butter and honey, the front with jam and ricotta cheese.
  11. I'll add one from Australia to that list: Banquet: Ten Courses to Harmony by Annette Shun Wah and Greg Aitken. The book covers the history of Chinese food in Australia from the Gold Rush to its publication date of 1999. It includes recipes and other memorabilia such as the following quote from Willie Sou San's 1951 book Chinese Culinary in Plain English "When blade is in action do not life the blade too high over the knuckles, as a little mishap may result in obscene and cursing language."
  12. Significant numbers of Chinese have been in both the USA and Australia since their respective Gold Rushes, despite shameful efforts in both countries to get rid of them. That's six or seven generations ago. It's no surprise that the food has evolved significantly locally. I hesitate to say that is fusion, it's possibly more an evolution in response to a different environment (think culinary Darwinism).
  13. I have the motorised drive and it is great. It is a time and effort saver. Added bonus is that you don't have to clamp the machine down while using it. When I purchased my motor drive, I worked out that I had a very old version of the pasta machine which didn't have the additional holes to which the motor attaches. I wound up having to purchase another pasta machine as well as the motor drive.
  14. "I let it rest a bit." I always rest the dough for at least twenty minutes in the refrigerator, which makes it less soft and less likely to jam up the pasta machine. Assuming you used the correct proportions of flour to egg (typically 100g to one egg), the dough should have worked. Another reason for it being too soft may be that it wasn't kneaded long enough to develop the gluten. Serious eats has a good web page on making pasta from scratch (link here). Keep at it, you'll get there. The bottom side of the pasta machine should be in line with the side of the chopping board. The vertical part of the clamp will then sit straight against the edge of the chopping board. This means that the chopping board should be sitting with around two inches of board over the side of the bench. Diagram as follows:
  15. Yep, love the affiliate links. All the subtlety of an advertorial. Hey, wait, that's exactly what it is! Not so curious about Epicurious. If I want gratuitous advertising, I'll jump on social media for a more immersive experience.
  16. nickrey

    Dinner 2020

    Ps. That was an incredibly rich main course. I included the cheese but didn’t need to.
  17. nickrey

    Dinner 2020

    Appetizers x 2. Entree (not in the US sense) of scallops on pumpkin with orange sauce and hazelnut foam. 2 x slices of cheese. Dessert as attached. No one went away hungry.
  18. nickrey

    Dinner 2020

    Dinner for 16. From a Yannick Alléno recipe. Squab Royale with Foie Gras and Vegetable Chartreuse (I used chicken mousseline in this, which was not in the recipe). Baguette with shredded confit squab leg and chicken paté, lattice cut chip, lettuce leaf and pickled vegetables (cornichons and raspberry vinegar eschallots). Sorry about quality of photo.
  19. I would have added ingredients and made a Thai Green Chicken Curry out of those ingredients; however, give the health statement above, the coconut milk may not be appreciated.
  20. It's more changes in humidity than changes in the beans. Good coffee shops adjust their grind during the day to compensate for this. The beans don't change that quickly.
  21. I missed this post. I still have this cooker which was bought from the Anova site. The first one that arrived did not work properly. Anova had me send the original back to them at their expense and replaced it promptly. It is a big beast and I think it could power a domestic spa. Certainly the rotor is so strong that it will whip water over the sides of a smaller container if you are not careful. I use it for big cooks (50-60 covers) and it works well. For smaller cooks, I use one of my other Anovas. I must say having used someone else's Anova Nano, they are too underpowered for my purposes both in terms of heating up and circulating. The unit had an RS232 port on it which supports the contention that it was a variant of their laboratory models.
  22. Ok, I think I have it. They are put into cheese on a cheese platter so that the cheese can be cut without someone touching the cheese to do so. It's probably more of a "cheese handle" rather than its apparent name of "cheese button."
  23. I I have no idea. They were a present and have been sitting in my cupboard. My best guess so far is a knife to lever out pieces from a crystallised cheese such as Parmesan.
  24. Does anyone know what these are? I’ve included my thumb to give an indication of size.
  25. nickrey

    Lunch 2019

    About the same. The original recipe I worked from had a two and a half hour timing. I tried one and a half and two when I wasn't satisfied with the longer time. The two was closest to my needs. Perhaps the true time is sometime between 1.5 and two hours. Edited to add: Perhaps there was another factor. I rapidly chill in ice water to arrest cooking. If you put them in the fridge, they could have continued to cook.
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