DaveFaris

miracle whip is salad dressing... it's got sugar in it, for one thing.

See, I never think to snap a pic. I'm too busy getting out the knife and fork... I ordered the hanger steak because I've never, ever seen one at the places where I buy meat. And while I thought the steaks were great, I sort of figured that a dog biscuit from Loebels had darned well better taste orgasmic, considering the prices they charge. And I'll ixnay on the orescray of another ouponcay.

thanks for the advice, fg. quite tender and delicious, with lots of steaky good flavor. Now I'm trying to figure out a way to score another coupon.

well, my steaks just showed up. little bit put off on the amount of blood that escaped from the cryo-vac packages of meat. I imagine many of us who got in on the coupon deal last week will be enjoying steak tonight or tomorrow! So, as I said earlier, I bought 2 hanger steaks, mostly from what has been mentioned here on egullet in the past. But a search of past messages doesn't really give me any ideas on how best to serve the steak. Grilling, unfortunately, is out for me. Should I treat the steaks the same as another? (Hot cast iron, flip after 4 minutes, then into a medium oven?) Or is there a better way to treat these steaks?

As far as dry-aged steaks at the grocery store, I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that the dry-aged strip steaks at Whole Foods Market (at $17.99 a pound) are just the regular strip steaks (at $14.99 a pound) that they didn't sell from two days ago.

White Castles were the meal my wife and I ate on our wedding night. After our big wedding party, on the way to the honeymoon suite, we picked up a little suitcase of sliders. I was a little non-plussed, but my wife adores them, so that's what we had. And all in all, I'd guess I'd say that pretty much sums up our marriage in a nutshell.

canola and peanut oil have very high smoke points. I use them when I'm frying any deeper than a half-inch in the pan. When I make southern fried chicken, I go with peanut oil all the way, and I strain it and re-use it a couple times.

Just out of curiousity, FG, since you live nearby to them, I presume you bought them at their store. Do their in-store prices compare with their online prices, not counting the exorbitant shipping fees?

Sorry, marie-louise... I just did the video because I couldn't explain the technique verbally. My knife techniques run the gamut from A to B. You might want to pose the question to the eGullet Culinary Institute, though. (Or were you directing your question to everyone?)

Two 16 to 18 oz. hanger steaks for me. $12.98 with shipping.

I've never seen the infomercial for the product that you mention. That said, in my experience, smaller isn't always better when it comes to food processors. if all you plan to do is chop an onion or make some breadcrumbs, or mince a head of garlic, than a small unit would probably be ok for you. But that's about all they can handle, with the small cup. If you ever plan on making dough or pasta, or making a batch of hummus, or anthing with more volume than about 8 ounces, a small cup processor is not going to get you very far. As far as processing concrete into dust... well, what will it do to an onion? I don't know many recipes that call for onion paste!

12 lbs. of bone-in free range legs of lamb, $144.98. For that price, I think you should get the rest of the lamb, too.

someone with a mac pm'ed me to say they couldn't watch the onion video I uploaded yesterday. Here's an mpeg version which apparently works better, even though it takes twice as long to download (4 megs).

IrishCream: Here's a little video I made. Maybe it'll help. onion.avi (2.59 mb)

I'm pretty sure that Lidia Bastianich suggests you drain the ricotta in a cheese cloth or a fine strainer for several hours to get a better texture.

I second the thermometer. Pre-made roux Can you give more details here, Carolyn? I mean, I've made a roux before. How do you scale it up? Just multiples? And what kind of quantity are we talking about? Gallons? As far as the "pro-method" of cutting an onion, I learned a similar technique that I find works a little better, and you never have to turn your knife so the side is toward the board... after you cut the onion in half, cut it into quarters. Then, slice downward. Then, turn the quarter 90 degrees onto the other cut face, and slice downward again. Then turn, and slice downward again for small dice. I find this method less clumsy, even if it does require more cutting. And I don't think it does anything to keep you from crying. I find that if I rinse my hands when onions start irritating my eyes, I stop crying. I know why onions make me cry, and I know that rinsing my hands shouldn't have any effect on it, but it seems to work for me.

Not allowing anyone else to clean (with soap, probably) my cast iron frying pans. And a heat-up on the stove-top with a spray of canola afterwards. Another one is the trick to turning salmon steaks into tenderloins with a little bit of string after extracting all the bones. And less water in the rice cooker than the recipe calls for.

I really like blue crab, but I always lose on those "all you can eat" deals because I end up getting cuts on my fingers from the shells, and once a little old bay gets in it, forget it. game over.

Say what you will, the guy is pushing (or is in) his 70's, and he doesn't look a day over 50. His reformation apparently came about because a) his wife almost died from the rich food he cooked, and b) as a recovering alcoholic, he felt terribly guilty about the image he had in his younger days. Aside from the fat-separating measuring cup, I don't really buy too heavily into his cooking techniques. I once tried to make a recipe of his. It was supposed to be an alternative to supermarket macaroni and cheese. The recipe involved macaroni and roasted acorn squash puree. It looked precisely like the orangey macaroni and cheese, but the taste was ... not very good. My wife thinks he's a total creep.

I'm pretty sure this thread needs to be renamed "How to Judge A Book By It's Cover."

How has it changed?

Cook's Illustrated

I remember one thing that really surprised me when I moved here from Connecticut... when you order sausage on your pizza, more likely than not you'll get breakfast/sage based sausage and not italian/fennel based sausage. That takes a little getting used to.

I think the most important thing is that whatever you are pickling is extremely fresh. I know that when I make cucumber pickles, I pick the cukes, bring them inside and immediately put them into an ice water bath. Ditto. I was making 11 jars of fresh garlic pickles a week last year, during July and August last year. All from just 3 cucumber plants. Alas, no garden this year. I posted a recipe a few months back here on eGullet for pickled onions, which used frozen pearl onions, available year round. hmmm.... here it is.

While waiting for my burger to cook at Five Guys on Rt. 1 in the Mt. Vernon/Gum Springs area, I paused during my peanut eating frenzy to examine the laminated burger-related Washingtonian articles pinned to the walls. It seems as though there's not a lot of competition for Five Guys. I can't remember all of the names of the restaurants pitted against Five Guys -- and since the dates of the clippings span at least a decade, some of the restaurants mentioned may not even be in business. The alternatives to Five Guys included Slade's (the only one of these I ever knew of was in the Ballston Mall, and it's now a Chevy's mexican); Hamburger Hamlet (never been to one of these), Fuddrucker's, and (sigh) Burger King. Burger King seemed to excel in speed and cost, but lost major points as far as cleanliness goes. Fuddrucker's got points for sheer quantity. Slade's was noted for topping variety. But in the end, Five Guys came out on top. I like mine with bacon, cheese, fried onions, sauteed mushrooms and A1 sauce. Unfortunately, I need to take a bath in Lipitor after I eat one.