cbread

Having a brain cramp. LTLT???? Long time, low temp????

I've lusted after this book (books) ever since I first heard of it. Just now, when I saw the price at amazon.ca, I bought. It seems a reasonable price, even if not cheap. I would say to sadistick that not every worthwhile thing will be cheap.

All of the above look wonderful, to which I'd add a few: Comfort foods in general Corn Chowder Stews Beans and rice Lentils - especially beluga lentils Anything that keeps the oven going for hours Breads Pizzas

My memory is failing me here. Isn't there some beneficial change in some starches - potato or rice I believe - that occurs when cooked and completely cooled, then reheated? Am I dreaming this up, or if not, can anyone fill in the details? I'm sure I heard that somewhere, I think.... Theoretic queries aside, there's another benefit to advance prep and precooking. Having many items precooked, and only needing a quick finish makes timing the whole shebang much easier for ham handed amateurs like me. It's easy to see how much time will be needed to warm, crisp, plate, etc. Much harder to time a larger number of intermediary stages with very different cook times.

Something similar happens for me, but in my case with colors rather than flavors, in art discussions between me and a painter friend. She identifies olive drab colors, which are yellow and black combinations, essentially darkened yellow, as greens which are instead yellow and blue combinations. She doesn't like some of the the olive drabs in my paintings and calls them greens, which they are not. At first I missed what she was referring to, but now that I have sorted out her naming transpositions, I just translate her commentary in my head as she speaks.

I'm no cook, and being by nature poorly organized, I try to counteract my organizational shortcomings. I make it my practice to write very exact notes on items that can be fussy like breads. For forgiving items like soups, I write little if anything for myself. When friends ask for recipes, I tend to write as short a recipe that the friend's kitchen skills will allow. I add far more specifics for a novice non-baker than for a seasoned bread baker. "Where do you get your inspiration?" I'm not sure anything I make can claim to be inspired, but if I see a recipe that looks like I'd want to use it as the starting point for something of my own, and if it is complex enough to need writing out at all - if it's involved enough to challenge me (which is a very broad swath of the culinary landscape) I write out a complete new recipe that will embody the take I want on it. As I gain experience, this part gets more direct and intuitive. I structure it the same as a good cookbook recipe. List ingredients in order of usage. List steps in sequence... I am a slow writer so I am least specific in areas I know by heart and most specific in the areas I am least competent in. I'm not writing a cookbook, but by being very detailed in the areas I am new to, I get rid of variables that could trip me up. "How many times do you test a dish?" Presumably, if the dish becomes something I want to do again and again, I redo it till it is second nature. I photocopy my handwritten recipe so that I can make notes right on the recipe itself, making notations of spur of the moment changes to the recipe, note the results, note suggestions to myself for changes to the recipe. When cooking through my new recipe for breads and the like I note down the exact time each step is taken, right on the recipe page so I can minimize errors, and quickly diagnose any errors that may occur. It's very process oriented, dull and methodical, but it has helped me greatly with the less forgiving areas of cooking. "What tricks do you use to make sure your measurements are accurate?" Nothing unusual, just a gram scale for fussy materials like baking, breads etc. Faster, more accurate, easier. Weight measurements are more repeatable than volumetric measure.

OK, a couple of responses. If dark wood color is something of a dislike, then lighter flooring and/or countertops could lighten up the overall look and feel of your kitchen. But, not too light with flooring unless you like cleaning floors a lot. Likewise, a revisit to lighting design might help overcome the effects of dark cabinetry. Cabinet doors can sometimes be refinished or replaced for much lower cost than that of entire cabinet replacement. Likewise, it might be possible to refinish the cabinets themselves in a lighter color. Consulting with specialists on those options would be in order. There are enough new options for basic types of cook-tops that I'd review the options before going very far; gas and coil electric have been around forever, but the induction cook-top and radiant electric (as opposed to coil electric) are new to many of us, and I'd at least take a gander at them.

Those aren't stupid questions at all. As I read your posting, the question comes to mind that I wonder if you are doing all this as part of a larger project, or if the changes you describe comprise the totality of changes you plan on making to your kitchen. If you want no more from your kitchen than a new stove, a new backsplash and new flooring, then all the research you have done makes sense, along with the question you allude to - what stove you might want. The stove is critical. Maybe a bigger (or smaller?) stove would be your ideal. Is it gas, electric, 30", 36", 42" etc.... Might you want a grill? If you are replacing your countertops, you may have a lot of choices regarding size, or you may not, if you are trying to just drop a perfect match into existing cabinets. Forgive an over-long response that follows. I'd urge you to widen the scope of your planning process. At least review your entire kitchen. The questions I would ask are: What kinds of cooking you do now, and plan to do in future, i.e. What you want your kitchen to accomplish. What appliances and tools you have now, or plan to have in future, that you will need to accommodate. The dimensions of your kitchen and whether you may want or need to redesign your kitchen/expand it/relocate it within your house, etc. Is this a house you plan to have forever, or for a shorter period. Budget. There are a bunch of other questions that spin out of all this but you get the idea. If you are reviewing your stove, countertops, backspashes and floorings, this is paradoxically the least expensive time to review the big questions on overall kitchen design. Just with the items you mention, you're probably going to do quite a bit of tear-out, and will spend quite a bit now, just on stove, cabinets, backsplash and floors. If you later come back and attack other aspects of your kitchen, you will likely spend more on demoing work you have just done, paying extra to get contractors back to the site, damaging or obsoleting work you have just accomplished... You can probably get a better overall price for one big project than the same work broken into multiple small projects. I would suspect that if you redo your kitchen in two or more stages, the total cost will be higher - possibly a lot higher. That said, realistic budgeting can necessitate breaking an overall plan into staged portions. Having an overall plan now that encompasses all future stages of work as efficiently as possible will lessen end cost.

I use a couple of GraLab 300 darkroom timers for kitchen timing.

I just made a side dish from "beluga lentils", tiny black lentils, in a Moroccan inspired manner with faux ras-el-hanout mix of spices. Very tasty.

The key word here for me is "judicious". I believe a brief and hot sear in very little oil is the general consensus here on how to brown. I have in the past browned too long and too dark, and my most recent experiment in deep oil searing worked all too efficiently and added to the drying and toughening. I then compounded that by cutting off my cooking in liquid too early.I had too many variables going at once and couldn't sort out which was doing what. In one meal I was changing my browning technique, adding wine, adding some tomato, cooking for a shorter overall time... Everyone here has clarified the process for me. Thanks!

I blew it all round. I didn't even read Bittman accurately. That said, I suspect I needed to go well beyond 90 minutes to get the chewiness / texture under control. I will use a very hot skillet to do a more judicious browning.

Thank you for all the help! I will take all suggestions to heart and make better stew soon. For browning, I always work in batches and will continue to do so. I will use choice grade chuck from a good butcher shop. I will dredge in flour first, do less browning, in far less fat, and then when cooking in liquid, cook longer till done and won't believe every cookbook's times - I too was a bit surprised by Bittman's suggested 30 - 60 minutes.

Supermarket 'Beef Stew' is exactly what it was.

Wow. Fast replies! Thank you all! I should clarify and expand a few things. I guess I may use the term "stew" inaccurately; the meat was chunks approximately 1 1/2". For the 90 minutes in liquid I cooked at a very slow boil or simmer, just a few bubbles once in a while. Definitely not a fast boil. And yes, my stew is something like beef in a soup. It's unapologetic comfort food. This time, since I added wine, not my usual routine, I checked a cookbook. Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" said to cook 30 to 60 minutes till tender. That led me to assume that 90 minutes was a bit much. Usually, I have just cooked till the beef is near fall apart stage. The deep oil was am attempt to brown all sides in one step. I usually pan fry to brown. I have been assuming that browning should put a deep crust on each chunk, but it sounds like I am going too far, too fast. I may be taking Anne Burrell's "brown food tastes good" maxim too far. I am a bit unsure - why pan frying to brown one side at a time would be preferable to deeper fat to brown all sides at one time - assuming a given heat. I have been assuming that for the most part, heat is heat, other than that too slow in deep oil will let the oil soak in. Sounds like the wine is unlikely to be the issue. I think I will go to the real butcher's shop for my stew beef in future. The bad stew in question was beef from my local super market. One less variable in quality to worry about. Once again, thank you for all the help. Something so simple as a stew isn't so simple after all.

A silly predicament, failed stew. I'm not a trained cook, but gosh, stew has always worked fine for me. It's not rocket science. Brown the beef. Finish cooking fully immersed in liquid. What can go wrong? Much of the beef in this particular stew was unpleasantly chewy and verging on tough after something like 90 minutes of stewing fully immersed in liquid. The particulars: I didn't salt the beef quite as heavily as I usually do. I deeply browned the stew beef by frying in peanut oil deep enough to cover. Not quite as deeply browned as I usually do, but I was experimenting to see if slightly less aggressive browning could improve the moisture and texture of the finished product. Sauteed some onions, celery and carrots. Heated beef broth, red wine, and some tomato liquids juiced from some extra tomatoes from a neighbor. Added the sauteed onion, celery, carrots and the browned beef to the liquid. Cooked the stew covered, and checked the beef for tenderness from time to time as it cooked. After an hour and a half of slow cooking on the stovetop, the beef was still overly chewy and unpleasant. I've never had a stew fail me before. This beef seemed like it just wouldn't fully cook. Did I buy the wrong beef? It was marked as stew beef. Now I can't remember if it was marked as chuck or round. There was some marbling. Nothing visually appeared off to me. I haven't added wine in the past, but I was improvising and it seems like wine is part of many beef recipes cooked in copious volumes of liquid. So, maybe the wine? I'm flummoxed. 90 minutes; did I give up too soon?

One strategy to lessen the beep load is to not use the built in timers on some appliances. I use photo darkroom timers for most kitchen timing tasks. These: www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/20992-REG/GraLab_GR300_Model_300_Electro_Mechanical_Darkroom.html are available used (craigslist etc) usually for under $35.00. They time from 1 second to 59 minutes and 59 seconds. They can be set with one hand and you can hear the click click click as you sweep the minute hand out to however many minutes you need. For short intervals like five minutes, you don't even have to look to set accurately. The buzzer can be set to silent or to however loud you wish. They are the easiest and best timer I have found for this sort of job. I keep two in my kitchen. I wouldn't even consider cooking without them now. Many old Gralab 300s are getting sold used, and the oldest gralab 300 timers have fewer bells and whistles, so check out each timer completely to make sure it has what you want

I haven't bought a green bell pepper in decades. Kat's description above,"Like green mixed with gasoline" captures them for me. Reds I love - especially cooked.

First choice for industrial garbage food at the supermarket - tomatoes. I haven't wasted my time on a regular store bought from the big tomato bin for years. Second choice? Maybe green beans. They always need so much cooking that they lose almost all character.

I did much the same with wood. I will never do a kitchen w/o same. I made mine so that Taylor and Ng hooks fit. Wonderful to live with. Everything accessible.

Boy, I'd like more heat too. I have a wok burner that's more of a spherical warmer. Ugggh. The rating suggests far more volcanic satisfaction that one really gets. Wouldn't mind more heat on other burners but they're about as much as available w/o a commercial unit / fairly tolerable but I'd still like to really rock the kitchen. I thought about just drilling out one burner head as a test, but visits from the appliance repair guy are expensive if my "improvement" was a bust ... Plus insurance concerns etc.

One objection I keep reading about wood is the supposed difficulty cleaning. I use a burred edge on a bench scraper to scrape off the last ten thousandth inch (give or take a few) of wood, much as butchers used to back when they used a wood surface. Periodic scraping keeps the counter looking wonderful and takes little time. Having said that, I must note I do not make my job more work than necessary. I do not slather great quantities of water and oil etc all over the top. My stainless area gets the wet stuff and I am careful with oils. It takes a while to learn how to use a chef's steel to raise, and to keep, a burred edge on a bench scraper, but once you know, you have the ticket to a very neat butcher block top. Each pass with a scraper takes off a minute, microscopic shaving. It will take decades to make a noticeably uneven work surface.

Your DH is definitely a keeper!

When I looked at the choice between wood and SS I chose both. 8 feet of butcher block for most of my prep work, and similar lengths for sink and for the stove. Sink and stove have adjacent SS areas so I can unload hot or wet items. The layout is a "U" shape with sink on one side, stove on the other side and wood in the middle connecting them. It's worked out really well. I wouldn't want to lose either material. I could see a similar layout with wood and granite.

I really take the time to fully brown them in a hot pan with oil and then cook till tender in a broth or sauce. Usually a tomato or chicken broth, but whatever liquid. I mostly use chicken broth, toss in a lot of onion, carrot, garlic and herbs etc. with the browned thighs and cook low and slow till almost fall apart tender, remove the thighs, and reduce the cooking liquid till it has the strength I want. Not fancy, but it's like chicken candy when done.