piracer

Ah, that makes a lot more sense now. Thanks!

The lemon juice is there as a major flavoring component, but their saying you should add it at the last minute, meaning, dont make a batch of chimichurri and let it sit. If you let the sauce sit, it will turn brown because of the lemon juice. But again, for apples and artichokes, its added to PREVENT browning, which is where the confusion lies. I wonder if its some way chlorophyll reacts to acid...

You could do a mainly onion and bacon quiche. Again, make the onion confit like everyone is saying and incorporate it into your quiche batter.

So i was watching a cooking show on making chimichurri and they were saying how you should only add the lemon juice at the very end to prevent the herbs from oxidizing and turning black. But with artichokes or apple slices, one would add lemon juice at the start so it doesnt turn black. Anyone know the chemistry behind these two things? Because the two of them are both oxidizing something.

Did you try letting your macarons sit around for a day before you ate them? I know some macaron shops such as Pierre Herme lets his macarons age for 3 days before they go into the shop. Ive also noticed that, the macs get much better after at least a day in the fridge before eating. The filling kinda becomes super cohesive with the filling and it all oozes into a more homogenous package.

Ah, would yeast be considered an animal product? Because if it is, wine would be strictly speaking be out of the question, wouldn't it?

Ah no, i'm not saying anything about the quality of the wine. I said that a lot of the cultivated strains of yeast were often done so in mind towards high alcohol wines. By no means should yeast be the sole reason for poor quality, but it can certainly be part of the reasons as to why its bad.

Just to add onto the brett conversation, the other source of contamination particularly in the views of a lot of new world producers, it can come via not cleaning your equipment, mainly barrels. What is considered natural wine by the way? I know in the US there are very specific regulations for organic wines, but nothing called natural. I think you could also argue that wines with high alcohol contents would lean more towards manufactured yeast. I believe that a lot of wild yeast strains are not able to get up to too high of a alcohol level, especially if the grapes were harvested somewhere in the ball park region of 25 brix and onwards.

Opps, why did i write high pH... Yeah, so I think the same thing happened when i let my sourdough once autolyse for over 16 hours out at room temperature. I remembering noticing there was no gluten development. I added a ton of flour to the dough until it was workable - i kinda forced it and then just baked it. There was some structure, but it was noticeably flatter than normal. I havent been able to taste it yet though, ill do so soon and report back

So I've been making my sourdough loaf for the last year or so pretty confidently without trouble. I brought it back to Singapore, fed my starter, and made a loaf. After the final rise with stretch and fold technique, i noticed it loss all structure, meaning it looked as if no gluten was developed at all. The biggest change is temperature - i cant imagine the local bread flour here is really so different and bakers here can still make bread. My theory is that because its so hot here (around 30-33C) as ambient temp, the yeast got far too active, produced so much lactic acid that the pH of the entire bread was so high that it denatured the gluten proteins. Can anyone verify this might be correct?

Yeah that would make sense. I was just using a spatula and folding it pretty gently from bottom up - if that makes any sense. Ill try it again in the near future with the balloon whisk and see how that works. I noticed though, that with the spatula that i actually had some unfolded flour into the mixture, perhaps the reason of why i had a sunken center with flour not being incorporated thoroughly.

So i'm bringing this topic back up because I recently made a small batch for a 6" ring and i had a sunken center. Probably was a folding issue. Anyway, what im wondering is why can't we just sift the flour into the stand mixer and continue beating it on high speed until its all incorporated (adding bit by bit, just like folding). Folding after all, seems to be the biggest issue from what I can tell, so if we just put in some of the flour, mix, more flour, mix, rest of the flour, mix like hell, wouldn't you just be maintaining if not, adding more air into the batter?

I would just serve the grilled romane lettuce straight up, perhaps a bit of salt and pepper or shisho pepper i think would be nice. Big fan of grilling bell peppers, letting them char and peeling the skin off. I love it in a couscous salad, that smokey flavor is just ridiculously awesome. I grilled a piece of chuck steak once, very briefly like 2 mins on each side. I was planning to braise it and grilled it instead of searing it in a pan like you normally would. I ate a slice of the just grilled chuck and it was pretty awesome i thought. Nearly ate the entire thing before it got into the pot for braising. How do you grill potatoes? Do you need to pre-cook them and just get the grill marks? Would you use waxy potatoes?

From what i've learned, you can't. Commercial yeasts have been manufactured with a lot of these sensory potentials in mind - for example you can have a yeast strain that is sure to be produce more aromatics that can be 'fruity' or 'vegetal', whilst other yeasts are designed to withstand high alcohol levels. As intriguing as natural and wild fermentations are, I think a majority of the time, it's a bit of a wate as the potential of the wine to be great isn't as high as if you knew what you were looking for. And yes, many other factors also determine all the other sensory aspects.

Would the 0.2 difference between KA and Gold Medal ever make a difference that might be noticeable, aside from lets say a 'bad' batch where the protein content is different. I guess, when is it that protein percentages begin to matter?

The differences between the brands are more about performance rather than flavor. What do you mean by performance? So you folks are saying protein differences matters. Its interesting when it comes to ingredients wise - i buy Gold Medal flour mainly and the ingredients are typically just flour i think. Im over in Vancouver, Canada right now and when i was at the store, the generic stuff they had included a bunch of preservatives i think that ive never seen before. Interestingly it said that the flour was blended specifically for bread machines - what does this mean? Would it affect reactivating a sour dough starter (i brought some starter with me to try and make a loaf, its been almost 2 hours and im not getting much rise, getting a little worried that the flour isn't conducive or something)?

So ive been baking my own bread from a starter dough for the past 6 months. Its supposed to be 'sour dough' but the culture is not sour these days anymore, which is a shame but the bread still taste fairly decent. Anyway, i generally buy whatever is the cheapest flour i can find, generally at Wally world. I've been eyeing the King Arther stuff but in all honesty, does it make a difference? I'm talking about general white bread flour here by the way.

I've been making my sourdough based on a relatively aggressive method that i saw on a youtube video ( ) and whilst the kneading itself lasts about 15 mins for me, the technique i learned that i thought was particularly useful was the 'tension pull' which creates a really tight skin to the dough.Whilst the recipe calls for 4 parts bread flour and 1 part whole wheat, i now do 3.5 parts bread flour and the remaining 0.75 parts of rye and whole wheat which i think gives the best flavor and texture. I do have a problem in my starter not being as sour as i'll like it to be. Also when scoring my bread, its almost like everything explodes (its about an 75% hydrated dough). Overall though, i'm pretty happy with this bread. I do think it tastes better than the no-knead dough that Bittman wrote about and for a long time before i got my starter from a friend, that was all i was making.

So i've got half a pigs head which i braised in stock etc until tender, shredded the meat and kept aside. I would like to make some kind of aspic with the remaining liquid, pile the meat along with some aromatic veg and seasoning into a loaf pan and press it down into a head cheese terrine. Question is, whats the best way to clarify my stock? I'm thinking of going egg whites - i don't really have any cheese cloths, only a fine mesh metal strainer. I'm not quite sure of the technique with egg whites however, i remember seeing how you're supposed to make a force meat blended with the whites, other internet sources tell me you just need a mixture of whites and water/lemon juice, swirled into the liquid cold, brought to a simmer and then when the whites float, just take it all out. So if that's nice and clarified, would it be possible to make an aspic without extra gelatin leaves, that is, if i reduced the liquid down enough, would there be a suitable amount of natural gelatin to not need any extra?

Thanks for the responses so far. Would soybean oil be fine (its what i have)? Also Flourgirl, why 81g and not just a 1:1 substitute? I had to check that my chocolate doesn't have milk fat - cocoa butter is not a dairy product right? From what i know that's from the beans itself.

So as in my previous thread that i was asking what to pair with a flourless chocolate cake, i found out one of my guest has a diary allergy. My recipe is this: 200g chocolate (about 60%) 100g butter 170g egg whites 90g sugar 4 egg yolks So one starts by melting the chocolate and butter, you would then foam the yolks with part of the sugar, and with the remaining make a meringue, folding everything together and bake at 150C. Easy cake. Now, if i were to substitute the butter with lets say coconut milk, olive oil or some neutral oil, would there be a difference in flavor? Texture wise i don't think there will be as the butter is being melted down. As we're not making a ganache or a candy, shine isn't what we're looking for. I'm thinking extra virgin olive oil as my hope is that if anything, it'll impart some interesting vegetal flavors to the cake though from what i read, after a certain temperature, all the aromatics in any flavored oil basically disappear though i'm not sure if 150C is that high of enough of a temperature.

So i know chocolate covered apples are quite common but i mean, really, anything covered in chocolate seems to be acceptable these days. Anyway, i was thinking of what to pair with a flourless chocolate cake (one that's meringue based). The obvious choice was vanilla ice cream or something creamy, but as the cake is relatively rich (1:1 chocolate and butter, plus egg yolks etc), i was thinking a tart green apple sorbet (vanilla beans optional). Would the sorbet cut through the richness and the contrast between bitter-sweet and tart be fine or would the entire pairing be too much? I'm planning to use something like a 60% or greater chocolate and the green apples would be granny smith with some lemon juice. thoughts?

I'm a big fan of using it in my meat sauces for pasta be it some form of bolognaise or ragu. But like people have said, kinda use it as my salt component. I find often that once its cooked into your dish especially if its stew-like or anything braised, you don't notice any of the fishiness at all.

So i manged to get half a pigs head that weighs roughly 3-4 pounds and i think making headcheese would be the best option. I sort of did it before but i was just kinda doing it blindly and my seasoning was off, and it was way too cartilidg-ey. I was thinking of just keeping it real simple this time - cook it in a simple mirexpox with some wine, some simple aromatics like parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary etc. Strip the meat (no ears, i like cooking the ears for something else) and then season it with... well, this is where im not sure what i should do. Salt, pepper, capers perhaps? I was thinking of lining the middle of the terrine with perhaps some pistachos to add a little color and texture. Would adding strips of other colored vegetables be too much? Asparagus, roasted bell peppers comes to mind. Also how much fat and skin should i put in, if any at all? Also, how reduced should the stock be? I mean, obviously a light jellied stock won't hold up the final product, but can you have a stock that is TOO reduced? Or if you don't make a terrine product, what would you do with a pigs head?

Holy god, the porchetta sandwiches were amazing. The farmers market on Saturday at the Ferry Building was a lot of fun, great produce which i was jealous i couldnt cook with but the food trucks that came out held their own pretty well. I think there was one called Namu that sold korean fusion stuff, their fried chicken was a daishi gravy was also fantastic - that gravy should be bottled and sold. I tried getting to Saigon Sandwiches but couldnt find any. Boccalone i went too and managed to get some blood sausage which was pretty good. I bought a stick of their fennel salumi which ive yet to have. I tried to make an effort to get to the other places mentioned but just wasn't able too. Oh, blue bottle coffee is very very good (best drip ive ever had) and Azmerendi bakery was great also. thanks for the suggestions! SF was a lot of fun, too bad for the shitty weather. It warrants another visit