thayes1c

I also got the "best cookie ever" from somebody when I made the flake-mallow-chip recipe. And that was also with the cookies coming out really hard and crystalline. I think that 18 minutes is just too long. I've since made the chocolate brownie cookies (my favorite) and the peanut butter cookies and I think 15 to 16 minutes is probably better for the fudgy centers that the book talks about.

It's just powdered freeze dried corn. You have to make it yourself, grinding up the corn in a blender. I haven't been able to find freeze dried corn anywhere around town, so I think I'll have to order it off Amazon. It's included in the cereal milk White Russians, something I'm eager to try...

Just got my copy of the Milk Bar cookbook a couple days ago, seems we egulleteers have been slacking on creating a topic for this new book! I just made up a batch of cereal milk (So rich! So delicious! Can't wait to try it in my coffee in the morning) and the dough for cornflake-chocolate chip-marshmallow cookies is chilling in the fridge(Corn flake crunch being a component for that recipe). I've eaten a bunch of the dough and am enjoying the salty sweet excess that it promises. Also, I'm having a really hard time sitting still and typing this. Time to run across the room! SUGAR RUSH!!!! YEEHAA! Ahem. Lots of interesting techniques and ingredients I've never used before, probably because I very seldom make sweets. The milk powder is an interesting flavor boost and I'm also looking forward to trying some of the recipes with glucose. I've never used it before and it seems like an interesting goo. I picked it up at a Michael's craft store for half the price of Amazon, so if you're looking for glucose you might check craft stores yourself. Anybody else cooking Tosi's creations at home?

Just sliced up my first batch of pastrami. It was double fantastic. So tender, so spicy. I was a little afraid it would be too sweet for my tastes, but it was perfectly balanced. I used brisket, cooked it SV for 72 hrs and though I didn't smoke it it was still among the best pastrami I've ever had. I did use smoked salt in the rub, but I don't think it was really enough to make a big difference. Next time I'm trying it with short ribs, but I can heartily recommend the recipe to anyone who has the book. Don't let the lack of a smoker stand in the way of pastrami! And on a beer pairing note, Hop Rod Rye is an excellent choice to wash down your pastrami on rye.

If you like Hawaiian pizza, prosciutto and pineapple is pretty fantastic. Prosciutto and scrambled eggs is pretty damned good, too.

Taco salad. It's like nachos, but cold and with a little bit of lettuce as garnish.

I've had some success infusing cucumber into gin.

Yes, that's right. Steak covered in chicken skin. Along the same lines as a traditional chicken fried steak, but more delicious. I've seen recipes that call for bonding the skin to the steak and then frying, but my shiny new Sous Vide Magic is calling to me. I was thinking along the lines of the MC fried chicken, cooked SV and then finished in the fryer.

I've got some Activa coming in the mail today and was thinking of making chicken fried steak with it, mostly because that sounds awesome. Trying to figure out the best way to cook it. Should I bond the skin, then cook SV to proper doneness and finish by frying. Should I batter it as well? Any thoughts, tips or tricks?

Just found a new website for modernist ingredients, modernistpantry.com. If you're anything like me you will accidentally type modernistpanty.com instead and feel like a pervert, but it's looks like a good source. It's the first place I've seen that sells Activa in smaller than kilo form (12.99 for 50g). Same with iota carrageenan (I nearly bought a pound of the stuff! I think 50g of that is much more manageable for a home cook). I haven't received my order yet but they seem to have good customer service and the prices are good, especially if you want to try smaller amounts before you buy bulk.

I just opened a 2005 Mirror Mirror from Deschutes. It was wonderful, good toffee notes and a nice sherry like flavor to it. I replaced it with a bottle of the Stoic from Deschutes and a bottle of the XXIII Black Butte.

Mexican food and lard. Specifically the lard I buy at the Mexican supermarket, the lard that I'm pretty sure comes from the frying of the chicharron. Makes for the best refried beans. Just like you wouldn't make pasta sauce with canola oil, I think it's all about the right fat for the dish.

I've been drinking cold extract coffee out of a toddy lately. You make a large batch of concentrate, then dilute with hot or cold water. I really enjoy the flavor, and it's especially good because if you prefer your coffee iced.

My Sous Vide Magic and Fresh Meals Magic got shipped yesterday, and while I have visions of 48 hr flank steak and perfect eggs dancing through my head, I'm really curious about the pulled mushroom on page 3-396. Has anyone tried this yet? I've been flipping through the kitchen manual and I'm amazed at how many recipes are opened up to me now that I've joined the sous vide crowd! Any suggestions on things to try first?

How much salt do you put in the pan?

Awesome, thanks for the advice. I've order the FMM package and am trying to decide what I should cook first! Looks like I'll be able to cook a whole lot more recipes out of Modernist Cuisine!

After filling my Amazon.com basket with all the parts for Seattle Food Geek's DIY immersion circulator, I remembered a very important fact: I don't know diddly about assembling electronics. I've been looking at other systems and am wondering about the Sous Vide Magic with the Fresh Meals Magic setup. It seems like people are pretty happy with it. I like the fact that I would have a circulator and the option to make a water bath with a crock pot or rice cooker. Then I spotted a passing reference to using the SVM to control a cold smoker. Is this possible? That would really seal the deal for me to have that added functionality.

You could bake the eggs and cooked mushrooms in hollowed out tomatoes.

Wheat grass is marketed with some pretty incredible claims. Many of the claims are, however, unfounded. I know that chlorophyll is named as one of the big benefits of wheat grass, but it really has no effect on the human body. I think I've even heard that dissolved oxygen is one of the benefits, another untruth. My personal barometer for whether or not a health food claim is legitimate is Dr. Andrew Weil. The guy does promote the occasional suspect supplement (and say some crazy things), but he generally does not support claims with little evidence. Here is an article he wrote on wheat grass that you should check out (My favorite part is where he said to spend your money on tastier veggies that have more nutrition): http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA363552 I've grown to become quite skeptical over the years, and I'd have to point at wheat grass as one of the things that tipped me that way. My exes father sent us a pot of wheat grass, so we bought a juicer to use it, since we knew that wheat grass was so good for you. When I got online to find out just how good for you wheat grass was, I ran into numerous articles debunking the extraordinary wheat grass claims. I was pretty deflated, especially since we had just bought a juicer for the wheat grass (one of those ones with an augur that really isn't good for much else).

Picked up a copy of Lucky Peach earlier in the week and I've set my mind on making fresh ramen noodles this weekend. I've already made sodium carbonate by baking Arm and Hammer (it has a much soapier flavor than unbaked baking soda, so I know something happened!), I've bought the pork shoulder for pulled pork and I'm off to the Asian market tomorrow for further ingredients. Anybody ever tried making their own alkaline noodles before? Any pointers?

I've made the pasta twice and definitely had to add a lot more water. I didn't measure, just kept working more in until the dough felt right. I had the problem with tearing when I tried to run the pasta through the rollers the first time. Using the technique from Marcella Hazan, with the folding in thirds and passing through for the thickest, the pasta became unmanageable. Once I skipped this step, the pasta worked fine. It was also the best pasta I ever made.

Making pesto the hard way, in a mortar. Pretty much using the mortar and pestle to make anything is satisfying, in a "my arms hurt but this is sure going to taste good" kind of way. Also the cutting up of chickens and general chopping, dicing, mincing.

China Poblano has great margaritas and the tacos are excellent.

Alright, my fellow eGulleteers, a surgeon in the hospital where I work has thrown down the gauntlet. Whoever can bake the best black walnut chocolate chip cookies (judged by the surgeon himself) walks away with the prize. I've never really cooked with black walnuts, but I'm willing to try. I was leaning towards taking some risks with it, maybe tracking down some nocino and adding that, maybe even adding some miso for a secret flavor boosting ingredient. Or maybe I should just go traditional on this one. What say you? (I've already thought about tracking him down and saying "Oh, hey. Do you have a good recipe for cookies?" but I don't think he'd fall for it.)

So I noticed in the offal section they left out one (or two) of the more divisive bits of offal. Here's my question, MC team: Where are the testicles? No rocky mountain oysters in your celebration of the off cuts?