OliverB

Just try it, but I'd be very skeptical. Usually when I read about recipes that put things in oil it's not for a month. The commercial things might be treated in all kinds of ways that you won't have handy. I'd also think that the zucchini will get very oily over time and probably turn into something less than appetizing. Maybe reduce your plan and make just enough for a couple of days at a time? Covered and cooled they should last for some days. I sure use left overs over a couple days at home. Preserving in vinegar would also be an option, but it will change the taste of course. I actually just made pickled zucchini after then Zuni Cafe cookbook and they are simply fantastic. It would be worth trying it with lightly grilled zucchini, though I'd not coock then all the way through, I think they might turn into mush. I also just looked at my preserving books and they all use fresh zucchini. You cold probably turn them into a nice relish of some sort, but I guess you want to keep them as pieces? Freezing might work, though I'm not sure you'd save much time if you have to freeze them separate on cookie sheets or something like that.

just got some more bacon in the bag! Hmmm, one week from today...... Also just received my waring pro meat grinder yesterday, the sausage stuffer shall be here Monday. I see some good meat on my plate in the near future! I'll probably start with Nuremberg Sausages as that's where I'm from and I just got a recipe from a local butcher there :-)

I often use simple balsamic vinegar to add acid and sweetness at the same time. I'm pretty happy with the CostCo Kirkland one in the square bottle, has four leaves quality seal. It's my every day balsamico that I use in many things. I also sometimes add (and this might make some faint....) concentrated broth from Trader Joe's to things. It comes in a box of little packages (like ketchup). They have beef, chicken and veggie kinds and I actually like them quite a bit. Certainly better than any cube or other similar things I've tried. Also Maggi is useful at times. And for beef Worcester sauce. Or a spritz of fish sauce.

If you're in the area, head out to Yountville this Saturday, 3-21-09. The Mustard Festival, which runs for several weeks, has it's stop in town on Sat, lots of food sampling, kids activities (I was told), tours in the French Laundry garden etc. Starts 11am until I think 5pm or so. Fun, food, music, wine, kid stuff, should be great and it looks like the weather will be ok too. We plan to be there at clock strikes 11 am :-) Oliver

Some books have a web presence, which is really nice IMO. Actually, I'd love a website or tool where I can enter all the books I have and the site will then load all the indexes and contents into an interactive application. It's too often that I remember reading a recipe but can't remember where. And often I have something (lamb chops or striped bass etc) and it would be nice to have all my book's contents accessible so I can search for recipes. I'm sure one day this will come, but I'd like to have that today. I often end up using some online recipe because I can't find the one I'm looking for and don't have time to page through all my books.

Because you can't read the title of the book when it's sitting on the shelf at the bookstore if there's no binding to write it on. Publishers don't like that. (Yes, I've explored the spiral binding for my next book . . ) ← I have a couple art instruction books that are spiral bound but also have a back spine, the whole think it mounted inside the hardcover. Probably won't work for a fat book though.

I just ordered my meat grinder and sausage stuffer, so the smoker is not too far in the future anymore :-) I think I'll probably get a Bradley, they seem to work very well and it's not that big. The cost of the pucks is really not that extreme either, BUT, I somewhat don't like that I can't use any wood I want. I want to make some German style things that use wood that Bradley does not puck up. Did anybody have any success making their own pucks? I'd guess it's a rather involved thing to do? And I might never even get around to those things, just that little Nagging Guy in the back of my head is doing a silly can't-use-any-wood-you-want-ney-ney dance~~~ But I don't want a unit that I have to babysit every hour or so, I just don't have the time to do that. I'll get the original and get an Auger PID, they have one that can be used for SouVide too, seems a good idea :-)

I don't own a stand mixer but I'm getting more into breads etc and am thinking about one. I have a braun kitchen machine that has dough hook etc, but I'm afraid I'll fry it if I use it for heavy dough and I use it as a food processor mostly. Is it true that KA finally redesigned their gear box on the pro model(s)? I read somewhere that it's still the same plastic cover that goes on. I get the feeling that they think they're selling kitchen sculptures rather than kitchen tools. King Arthur Flower doesn't even sell them, they have Cuisinart and Viking models only, and AFAIK they do some extensive testing on things before they put them on their site to sell. Of course, my wallet just screamed and ran away with the circus once I saw the prices for some of those mixers, but if I buy one, I want to buy one that I'll have for once and for ever. I'd rather not buy something that I'll throw through the kitchen window eventually, that really gets expensive ;-) And I could not care less about the color/finish, as long as it works. I can always paint it myself :-)

good stuff mentioned already! I want a clear and complete index, none of that "roasted potatoes, see potatoes - roasted", just give me the damn page number! A complete and well organized content section Page numbers on all pages on the lower outside, no matter if there's a photo or not Chapter names repeated all through the chapter on top of the page (soups, meats, etc) volume AND metric measures None of the "one bunch" "three small" or "one medium" nonsense. Pictures (photo or drawing) of the most important things Pictures of the finished dish, preferable in full focus, none of that arty macro stuff. And please, photos that show the dish as written about, not photos of a dish that's clearly missing an ingredient or shows something not mentioned in the recipe No colored gigantic font gimmicks in different sizes all over, mini quotes from the recipe scattered about, no colored pages. It's not a magazine and it's bad enough that magazines do that. Good binding and paper I like if the picture of the slip cover is repeated on the actual book too. Page marker strings are nice Short introductions/stories about recipes and nice introductions to the chapters Rather less good recipes than 1001 "best" recipes Source lists for the harder to find items are nice too. Glossary explaining the more exotic things. No page jumping or at least note it clearly on top with the ingredients that I'll need sauce dingeling (page 129) in the middle of a recipe. I know, I should read it all and I do, but still.... Hard cover option And don't cover the back or inside flaps with useless quotes by celebs, tell me what the book is about. Oh, and no Rachel Ray anywhere on or in the book of course ;-p

I don't have time to read this entire thread, but I use candied orange peel to make Lebkuchen (what's wrongly called gingerbread at times - there's no ginger in there) at x-mas time. This year I could not find any so I made my own - the store stuff is pretty icky anyways. I boiled them up twice and strained then made the syrup and put them in, drained them well and poured more sugar on to make sure they don't all turn into one sticky ball. I cut them very small too since they go in the dough. Turned out so good! I also added a bit of lime and mandarin zest since I had those around. I must say the mandarin zest turned into a taste explosion! Unbelievable aroma, you bite into one and get this "wow" effect. Really neat. Of course I might have just been lucky with very fragrant mandarins but I figured I'd mention it here. I will never buy this stuff in the store again and I will always add a bit of mandarin and lime to my Lebkuchen :-) I had plenty left over too, which works great sprinkled over ice cream or other such things - or just eaten as is.

I looked through a couple of my more out there meat books but can't find a single mention of any kind of bladder. I went to google.de and looked for Schweineblase, I found them washed and ready to fill for things like headcheese etc, also a picture of somebody storying salt in one (hu?) but no mention at all for any other use except as a casing. Or how to clean them. Oh, you can also make a ball out of them! An other fun ancient use I read about, they sometimes filled a smaller bladder with the yolks of some 25 or so eggs and poacked it until set, removed the yolk ball and put it in a larger bladder filled with eggwhites, poacked again and ended up with a "giant egg" to serve. This could be something fun to slice up at a buffet! They also used them to store all kinds of things, from liquids to solid, documents etc. And they made "window glass" from them, by putting then on a wooden frame. As for cleaning, no idea, but since you have a couple, I'd probably try a simmer and a good rinse with hot water, scrape out what doesn't look good. Maybe also call the guy that you got all the goodies from and ask. I'd definitely try to find some use, and if it's just making a ball for fun. Oliver

Well, I baked my first one last night and am mostly impressed, though the taste was very mild, I'll definitely have to add some seeds or things like that next time. It was not as bland as the CI no knead bread though. I've had the dough in the fridge for not quite 3 days. It had shrunk a bit and I got hardly any rise out of it in the 40-50 min it was on the counter. I also did not slash deep enough I think, but it turned out beautiful, very crunchy crust and soft and moist interior. Denser than I expected, but certainly not heavy. I'll also add some whole wheat next time, plus some anise/coriander seed or maybe rosemary, something like that. Over all I'd call it a success, especially for being only my 2nd ever baked bread. We ate it all, here are some pictures: sliced, dusted and ready to go fresh from the oven sliced in half All in all I'm very happy and this was really super easy to make, a winner! I do love kneading dough, could do that for hours, but it's certainly more practical this way. I also love the small size of the loaf, we ate it all fresh and have no bread going stale to worry about. We don't eat bread every day, having this smaller loaf size is certainly nice. Question though, would a twice as large loaf bake just as well, or would it be better to bake two small ones? The kids are growing... Oliver

interesting! Since it's not gonna make be go bankrupt I think I'll just try the recipe with fresh yeast which I can get here, if it works I'll try again with dry in according amounts. Maybe they'll rise more? I'll add to this post once I get to some more experimenting :-)

I figured I'll share some images of my sadly already departed Brezeln. I have to work on getting the form right but I was too excited to fiddle around with these. First the recipe I used: 1package active dry yeast warm water 350ml brown sugar 1/3 cup (note, recipe says 1/3 cup or 80gr, but 80gr looked like a lot and did not fit in my 1/3 cup so I went with the smaller amount) flour 520gr 4 quarts water 2Tsp lye (from certifiedlye.com) I put the yeast, flour, sugar all together and then added the warm water, made the dough. Does not need to rise but probably did for 30min or so in the end. I did not see a difference between the first and last Brezeln, so the rise does not seem to have much effect. I did not know if these will rise much in the oven, so I made them rather small compared to what you get in Germany (about hand size). They did not grow much, next time I'll make them larger. You roll the dough into a long sausage, then cut off pieces and form a long about thumb thick sausage. You make a loop, cross the ends over and fold them back on the loop. Easier to see in pictures (which I did not take but can be found in many books). You add the lye to the water (never the other way around!) and heat it up to just boiling, then reduce heat a bit to keep it just very hot. Submerge each Brezel for some 30 or so seconds until they float and turn a light yellow. They might stick to the bottom of the pot, I found it best to sink them in with a spatula and then jiggle them a bit around so they did not make contact with the bottom of the pot. I just put them on the baking sheet with salted parchment paper after I let most of the bath run off. (I later discarded the paper, it got all wobbly and brown after the 2nd batch. You must make sure though, that your sheet is non-reactive and especially not made of aluminum as lye will dissolve it (and create helium...)) Sprinkle with some coarse salt (the larger the grains the better) and if you like with some seeds like anise or cumin. I baked them for about 10 min at 475 until they had a nice brown crust. Here they are in all their glory: And here you can see the crust and crumb: They smelled and tasted absolutely authentic and I will make them again soon, the kids love them :-) You can store these in a bag but they will turn a bit gummy, put them back in the oven the next day to get them nice and crunchy again. If you have left overs.... I sometimes spray them with some water and sprinkle some more salt on too, since most of the salt on there tends to dissolve over night. Next recipe will be an adaption from a German book, once I can figure out if the 40gr of yeast are correct, as it seems like a lot for 600gr of flour? Edit: just to add, making the lye bath is little trouble, but you have to be careful. I wold recommend to use gloves and maybe even goggles. I wear glasses anyway and I passed on the gloves as I used a long slotted spatula and slotted spoon, but if you get this stuff on your skin it will burn you. I'm actually not sure if the solution would be strong enough to do so, but the pure lye definitely has to be handled with care. The recipe I used actually does not use lye, but 2Tsp of baking soda per each cup of water used (and you need enough to really have the Brezel float around). I went for the real thing and don't really see it as much of a hassle at all, but the baking soda is an option if you rather don't have hot corrosive liquids around. But as long as you keep Aluminum far away and handle things somewhat careful you should be fine. certifiedlye.com has lots of info on their site. And with lye you can make some nice soap too if you want :-)

Well, this is very all very interesting and my first batch is in the fridge. Luckily I read (after I thought I was done) that KA flour will need more water, my dough was not really wet at all (not that I'd really know the difference, I've only made bread once before) but I was able to add some more water and it rose very nicely. I'm gonna let it sit for a couple more days to develop some more flavor. The first bread I ever baked was the no knead one from CI and I was very disappointed. It looked great but tasted just about as bland as a slice of toast from the store, never made it again. Now I'll give this one a try but I'll also make some regular bread soon, I love kneading dough! I shall report how things turn out once I bake the first one! Oliver

To my surprise even my local Safeway stocks it, I just don't have any at home and had no chance to go to the store. I used a recipe I found online on an Oktoberfest site. It has 1/3 cup brown sugar in the dough (or what they say 80g, but that seemed way too much). I must say, they turned out quite wonderful for a first ever attempt. Golden brown, crunchy thin crust, just the way they are supposed to be. Once I figure out the yeast thing I'll try the German recipe that has no sugar, just a bit of salt. then it could be interesting to sub the water with warm beer, add some seeds to the dough, hmmmm, how fun :-) Oh, I wish there'd be an independent bakery in town. And a butcher. A real take the whole animal and cut it down kind of butcher. I'll probably have to open that myself one of these days....

well, I got my lye, I'm ready to go, but my recipe asks for 40g of yeast, the fresh kind. This is for 600g of flour. Of course, I don't have fresh yeast, and what I find via google etc is not very conclusive, so, how much dry yeast would I use here? (edit:) what I find online and on my package is that one of my traditional active dry yeast is the same as one 0.6oz cake fresh. So 40g would be 1.41oz of dry, or a bit more than two packages? Seems a lot. I intend to half the recipe, but still.(:edit) Also, would I use bread flour or all purpose? thanks for any help!

I did not see the 2nd run as work, there wasn't even that much skimming necessary anymore. It makes sense to me that the 2nd run will pull more good things from the bones after the first pot got saturated. I ended up with a bit less than 7 cups of stock, I had it in the fridge overnight and it turned into the most wonderful wobbly jello with a great color. Made 6 packages that are now in the freezer waiting for good use. I'm roasting a duck tonight and have duck stock for that sauce, the veal stock will have to wait a couple days. It tastes very mild, mostly like veggie stock, but has a very different mouth feel, somehow coating the mouth with goodness. I'm very happy with the outcome, if I get to it I might add some photos later on. A great thing to do on a day when you're around the house/kitchen anyway. The FL book has two stocks, the white one uses no tomatoes and after blanching the bones are scrubbed clean before they're put back in the pot. The aromatics differ a little too. Scrubbing all those bones clean seemed a bit too much work and I also had some veal breast that hat quite some meat on it in there, so I did not go that way. Might try it some day with less bones. Thanks for all the input!!

I will also try the version Ruhlman put into Elements of Cooking. Wish I'd have the time and room to try them all and compare...

thanks all! I skimmed and skimmed (and did throw it away, I'll try it next time. Was very sticky stuff) and I did have the pot on a very low simmer, I'm pretty sure it smiled :-) But it's good to mention it in this thread, yes, you don't want much movement in the water. Now I just have to pack it and freeze it - oh, and make something with it of course :-)

Haha, don't know why I did not look into that book! I made the double boil and simmered it down, it's cooling now. Question though, that thin skin that's always forming, should I skim it? I did, but I'm wondering if that's just some yummy gelatine that I'm throwing out there... It is almost invisible but dark brown when skimmed all into one place. A bit on the slimy side and very sticky too.

I'm actually not sure yet what I'll do with it, I just wanted to make it sometime and since I came across the bones.... I made both stocks, put them together and am now boiling it slowly down. I did not add tomato at all though, it's more a mix between the regular stock and the white stock in the book. I just figured that I might not always want tomato in what I might be doing with it, and if I want it, I can add it later on. The initial poach turned up some serious scum, pretty icky stuff, but since then there was little to skim. Now while reducing there's always a thin skin building up, I skim that off. Should be down to manageable amounts soon, then I can pack and freeze it. And think about the soups or sauces to make with the stuff :-)

Thanks Tim, that makes sense! Interesting. I'll just follow Keller's instructions, my guess is that he knows what he's doing ;-) I'm looking forward to seeing the difference. Bones are washed and blanched and the first stock will go on the stove shortly, just have to figure out my timing so I don't have to deal with it in the middle of the night. Oliver

Those are some nice looking books Max, I'll take that list with me to Germany later this year! I grew up in Bavaria but with a good dose of Austrian influence regarding food and we have a condo in Austria, so the food never was exotic to me, but yes, I'm sure in Frankfurt it is and in Berlin it's probably just as exotic as Asian food ;-p It's actually quite interesting that such a small country has so many different dishes, most of them going way back in time. I'm sure the OP's friend will find something locally, I just had dug out my German book two days ago and came across a lot of things that I'd consider Austro-Bavarian if there is such a thing. Things my grandmother used to make etc. Now I'm off to amazon.de to put some things on my wish list, thanks again for that list :-)

I managed to get some 8lb of veal bones and breast and intend to make stock over the next couple days. I think I'll go with the French Laundry recipe w/o roasting. I do have some questions though: First I'm supposed to wash them well, does that mean give them a good rinse or scrub them? They all have some meat etc on them. The breast had quite some meat actually, I cut it all up to add. (edit:) I just answered that myself, duh.... (:edit) Then, the FL makes two stocks from the same bones and then pours them together, one first, then again with the same bones a weaker one. Now, why not just let the first one simmer twice as long? I don't quite understand why they make two. I could not find a how to thread, if there is one pls merge. Thanks!