Darienne
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Posts posted by Darienne
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I WANT to buy a Calamansi/Calamondin tree, but my source must be in Canada, preferably in Ontario. So far my searches have turned up nothing.
Any help out there? Please
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My scales are a bit unreliable for smaller weights but I think you'd be looking at around 1.5T of matcha powder for that much ganache. It may be easiest to start with a very conservative amount though and to keep on tasting. Be sure to sift the matcha powder or, preferably, immersion blend it into the ganache to minimise any chance of lumps.
Many thanks.
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Can't find a matcha ganache recipe anywhere.
Approximately how much matcha powder to say, 9 oz of chocolate?
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Didn't know whether to ask in this thread or the 'matcha' thread.
I can't seem to find a recipe for matcha flavored ganache. I know I read about one somewhere....
Roughly how much matcha powder would you use for say 9 oz of chocolate?
Thanks.
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I've been on a frozen yogurt kick lately. I made strawberry, blueberry, & mango in the last few weeks & we've loved them all. For the mango, I followed the strawberry yogurt recipe in the book, substituting frozen mango cubes, & using a little more lemon juice. I find the recipes just a little sweet, so tend to cut the sugar slightly. I use Liberty 2.5% fat organic yogurt & find the finished product to be just rich enough to satisfy, yet lets the fruit flavour shine through. Love this book!
All other ice cream plans went out the window and I followed jayhay's lead. Made DL's Vanilla Frozen Yogurt. Loved it. Big time.
My first. It's just the beginning. -
Candyfreak
Had to add a note: Candyfreak is a poorly chosen title for this book
and I would encourage anyone who is interested in the history of the small family-owned candy businesses in the USA going back a few decades to read it. If you ever loved certain candies as a child and these candies no longer exist...read this book. Yes, the writer is a self-admitted 'candyfreak', but the book is well-researched and fascinating. I stumbled across it in a Utah library and read it from cover to cover.
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I finally decided that I should find out what Matcha tea/powder was.
When I was in Grade 9, back in 1954, before most of you were even thought of, my teacher, Miss Rorke, had just come back from Japan...a most unusual thing to do in the early 50s, and we did a special unit on Japan that year. This experience included making tea with a bright green powder. I do remember that it was lovely. And now I know that it was matcha. Thanks for bringing back that memory.
Perhaps I can buy some at our local Asian market and try it again...and in ganache and ice cream.
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Made the Philadephia-style chocolate with Penzey's cocoa powder and 72% chocolate from Trader Joe's. Not super-star level indgredients, but it came out really rich and deep. I can only have a few spoonfuls at a time - which is good for my waistline! Unfortunately, I can't really taste the rum, but the amount I put in keeps the texture at just the right softness for scooping.
Congratulations.
I must admit that I pretty much always make my ice creams, whatever flavor, using the Philadelphia base. It's not as rich, satisfies me and the DH pretty well, and doesn't leave me with dozens of frozen egg whites in little dated containers in my freezer.
I guess it works because my inclusions and flavorings are usually pretty punchy. 
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This is why no one candies galangal.
The structure of the plant shows up so well after it is candied and dried.Why they call it Thai ginger and there is also real ginger from Thailand called, of course, Thai ginger, I could not say.
It was an interesting experiment and now I'll throw it out.
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I don't think you did anything wrong.
Next time you can try draining them completely after a day and putting them in new syrup with a higher sugar content. The burnt taste is probably the key.
The tipping point of the sugar cooking is very tricky and in my experience doesn't follow the "rules" and may be influenced by the weather, the altitude and God knows what.
The Clementines I get are tiny - no more than 1 1/2 inches in diameter - and after two days in the syrup they have absorbed enough of the sugar that they don't float.
(I didn't see your earlier post about that.)
Mine do get darker but never brown or black.
Thank you, O Ginger Lady
, as usual. All good stuff.I could indeed have taken them out after a couple of days, when the syrup was pungent and delicious ...and not tasting burntish...and done well. Didn't know that.
They are currently drying in the dehydrator. Cut off a piece...delicious. They will do nicely in ice cream for weeks on end, just as the candied kumquats did. Probably think up some other use for them too...like in Lauren Chattman's Banana-Caramel Bread Pudding (Instant Gratification which is as it sounds) which I felt needing something punchy.
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Good try. So my favorite by product from Andiesenji's method is that syrup. Did you get to the point of making a galangal syrup?
I must admit I tossed it. a) the galangal after steaming was so much less in taste as noted and b) I had used orange flavored sugar in the sugar syrup...long story that there was no point in keeping it.
As I think about it...it was really the lack of 'galangal' taste that was the sticking point. The orange flavoring would not have been a large factor.I have enough ginger syrup to start a small business. The sad part there is that my DH hates ginger unless it's in Chinese food. I use it liberally in the dishes so I don't know where the disconnect is.
And as noted in the Mandarin oranges thread, I threw out that syrup also. I have no idea of why this pungent yummy syrup ended up tasting almost burnt. No doubt someone will tell me. Wish I had siphoned more off after one or two days of candying.
Next project is to candy some tiny hot red peppers from the Asian market. I am almost afraid to taste one...they are SO tiny and SO cute. They'll probably sear my mouth for days. But my friend Melanie will love them. She is, as Andie noted in an earlier post, a "tin-throat-chile-head".
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Next the Clementines.
After three days...out of the 14 prescribed days...the Clementines are almost black and taste very good but the syrup tastes almost burnt. I have taken them out and am going to dry them. They can be chopped up and used in ice cream and suchlike.
I tossed the syrup. Yesterday I used it on ice cream and it was very strong and very good. Some wouldn't have like it, but I did.
I obviously did something really wrong.
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Report on candying galangal...to date:
After steaming the properly sliced pieces for 2 1/2 hours I decided that they were about as soft as they were going to get and began candying them. Some pieces were quite palatable...some were simply fibrous and I ended up spitting out a little mess of fibers after chewing them for a while. Galangal is definitely NOT ginger. Also the hot peppery taste was much subdued...rather like the change in radishes when you cook them.
Three days of candying the pieces and I just gave up and now they are in the dehydrator...our humidity is a constant 92-100%. Summer in Ontario. Nothing has changed and I suspect that they'll end up in the garbage.
Well, it was a valiant try... (unless I just goofed up somewhere).
My Chinese ginger is doing well in the dehydrator. And also I have two healthy sprouts up in my indoor ginger window box.
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Made some tiramisu ice cream the other day with homemade mascarpone it was fabulous, I swirled it with a mocha fudge sauce, yummy.
That sounds good. I made a big pot of raspberry yesterday with raspberry vodka and freeze dried raspberries with milk/whipping cream 50- 50. It is great, really creamy and soft scope straight out of the freezer.
What more needs to be said?
Mascarpone, tiramisu, mocha (chocolate & coffee) fudge, raspberries, vodka, whipping cream...
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This type of steamer
is much more versatile than the bamboo steamers. I have an older one made by Farberware that I have owned for at least thirty years. The only difference is that mine has composition handles that remain cool when being used.
I have one of the electric stackable steamers
And I also have a huge couscousiere that I use on the stovetop for bigger batches.
Oh, how lovely. I think my snack bracket will not support one of these for now. The bamboo steamer is much less expensive, given the CDN$ and the S&H and the potential border parcel costs which can descend at any moment.. But one day...
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I bought a triple layer 10inch bamboo steamer almost a year ago with visions of veggies and shiapo dancing in my head, but to be honest, i've never even taken it out of the box. I keep looking at it when i cook (as it sits on top of my stove's shelf) and swear one day i'm going to use it.
OK. I googled Shiapo and the best I could get is a cross between a Shiz Tzu and a Poodle. ????
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Thanks both to David and Lisa for the information.
I had forgotten about letting the edge of the steamer overhang the pot.
And you're right...the wok does take up a great deal of room.
Thanks again, Darienne
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A friend and I were just looking at DL's book, drooling over the recipes. She has a troop of grandkids coming next weekend and would like to make ice cream with and for them...except for the cost.
'Could you not incorporate butter into the ice cream and thus cut down on the cost of the heavy cream. It would be much cheaper to use a lower % cream/milk and add butter somehow.'
Now, if RLB can add butter to lesser % cream and make it into whipping cream, why couldn't you add butter to a lesser % cream and make it into heavy cream and from there into ice cream. So I said I would ask on my forum and let her know. She loves to experiment with everything. (She'll probably try it anyway.)
I don't know. Can you?
Thanks. -
Yesterday I made andiesenji's Fruited Cocoa Cake.
One look at that cake and I know I have to make it. Good going!
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Seeing as I could find nothing in the archives on bamboo steamers and also woks were discussed in this forum:
I gave away my bamboo steamer years ago in a former life and now want to buy a new one.
I can't decide which size is the most useful: I would use it for steaming fruits and peels to be candied, Chinese food, making sponge cakes, etc. Who knows where this new life will take me?
I had a charming little bamboo steamer in Moab which I gave to a friend there. Forgot that my own was no more. Now I am using a stainless double boiler steamer, but I don't really like it. Just a personal preference.
The bamboo steamers come in 8", 10" and 12" from our local Asian market, 3 or 4 layers. Nothing seems to fit very well into the pans I currently own. Do most folks use the steamer over a wok? I don't cook with a wok: electric stove and the carbon steel wok is too heavy and too awkward for my hands. I use two stainless saute pans with encapsulated bottoms.
There are too many choices here.
What does anyone out there do? Thanks -
Thanks all for all the information. I have a feeling that sour cherries are about to go to the end of the list of 'things I have to deal with in the next few weeks'.
That's life sometimes. Thanks again.
But...I will keep the information in mind for next year......
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We have no Indian grocery store in our nearby small city, but we do have an Asian one which carries mostly Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese/etc. Whatever Indian foods we can get will be there. I am going to check on the unsalted pistachios.
It is great that the Nuts Online ships to Canada, but by the time you paid for the nuts in CDN$, and the S&H, and possible duty stuff, if they choose to nail you, you could have paved your ice cream maker in gold.
I don't suppose you could get most of the salt off/out of the pistachios? Foolish question, no doubt.
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I guess I should say thanks, but that is one depressing article!!!
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I can get fresh galangal at the local Filipino market but I don't recall ever trying to candy it.
I do use it in sambals but pound the heck out of it in a mortar (have tried processing it in food processor but get strings so the old-fashioned method works better for me).
To me it has an "earthier" flavor than ginger and while it does work in recipes, I don't like it plain.
For hot an peppery, I have candied the tiny piquin and tepin peppers - dried. As with other dried items, I steamed them first.
I used to make them when I was regularly attending Chile-Heads Hotlucks and the real "tin-throat-chile-heads" loved them but I couldn't eat them myself.
They are the original "red-hots"
Thanks Andie.
I think I have a lot to learn about Galangal. Somehow I thought it was quite like ginger, more than just belonging to the same family. I thought ginger from Thailand was called Galangal. Obviously that was not the case. I'll go back and read about it more carefully.I noticed that it has all sorts of little side 'branches' in the rhizome which make it hard to peel. And the peel is different.
So, after 2 1/2 hours of constant steaming, the slices are finally tender-ish. And the taste is less hot and less peppery, but still quite sharp and pungent. I am candying them anyway in a syrup made with orange flavored sugar (from a confused mistake). Won't hurt them I am sure.
I'll get back with the results.
I like the idea of candying tiny hot peppers. My friend Melanie would go wild for them. Did you do anything different that I should know about?
Thanks.
Searching for calamansi aka calamondin tree
in Ontario: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Thank you muchly. I'll give it a try.