Dave the Cook

So it seems that you approve of the TJ offering, @Shel_B.The price is reasonable: $5 /lb. It easily meets our 80/20 rule: >80% of the desired outcome for <20% of the effort. What more can you ask of a ball?

Also excellent in meatball sandwiches, dressed with Marcella's simple tomato sauce and a sprinkling of shredded provolone.

We've been very happy with Trader Joe's balls. The package says "Italian Style," but nothing about them strikes me as particularly Italian, unless that means unashamedly including bread crumbs to keep the ball light. Edit: I see from the ingredient list that parm is in there. Maybe that makes it Italian?

(To be clear, Alex is quoting Yotam Ottolenghi here.) In any case, it's not true, generally speaking, that a large pot of water will return to the boil more quickly than a small pot. See the proof here (go to 5:23).

It wouldn't surprise me if (relatively) undiluted milk was left in the bottom of a pot, and the pot was set to sauté, the milk would scorch. Under those conditions, many things would. People say and/or believe many things that are simply not true, (including not to use milk in a pressure cooker). Such beliefs are often based on little evidence or a misunderstanding of the principles involved. I once had an otherwise very good chef tell me that not letting the salt dissolve in your pasta water before adding the pasta would create urea (uh . . . no). That's one bit of perhaps not-so-surprising news. A second is that, typically, condensed "cream of . . ." soups contain less than 2% cream.

This is a reminder about the upgrade tomorrow.

Not to pile on, but most of what we buy from Penzey's comes in bags:175 ml, 350 ml and, depending on the spice, 700 ml bags. Those might be larger than you want (3/4 C of ground spice is going to be somewhere around 3 to 4 ounces by weight), but almost everything they sell is available in this format.

Oh, you're looking for an accessory kit to retrofit a Sous Chef 16, as opposed to a separate processor. Then I dunno.

Isn't that what the Paradice 16 is?

Going back a ways, but +1 to @rotuts for the Hatch chili salsa. We like to keep a couple of assorted salsas around. The TJs Hatch has now replaced Frontera (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) as our standby.

Not being a member of the Cult of the Pretty Blue Flame, I can't advise on gas rangetops. But @blue_dolphin's advice on KA electric ovens is spot on.

All that makes sense to me; thanks, @blue_dolphin. I find the whole process, from 3.25% cow's milk to 83% butter on the refrigerator shelf, pretty interesting.

Thanks @blue_dolphin, that is a cute cartoon, if a bit lacking in detail. My interest was piqued by @pastrygirl's assertion that the cream was made into crême fraiche before being made into butter. Is that really what happens? I imagine that making crëme fraiche and making butter are similar processes, especially in that culturing includes thickening and flavor development. But surely, the same bacteria aren't used for the two products?

That is correct. In case it's not clear, the bacterial cultures are specific to each application. I'd be interested in hearing more about this. From a manufacturing perspective, (to the extent that fluid milk is manufactured, and most of it is), it runs contrary to everything I thought I understood about the dairy industry.

That's true. But how much greater, and does it matter in the finished good? US butter is about 80% butterfat, about 18% water and 2% milk solids and the like. Taking that 18%, we can calculate the water content (0.18 x 16 = 2.88 oz). That's not quite 5 tablespoons. Taking the European percentages (I couldn't nail down the 86% Vermont that @AAQuesada references; the highest I could find was highest I could find was Organic Valley Special Edition, at 84%. Using the same arithmetic (and subtracting 2% milk solids), we get 2.24 ounces, or 4-1/4 tablespoons. So the difference between the two butters is about 3 tablespoons in a pound of butter. I don't do much baking, except for cookies, but that doesn't strike me as a big deal. Checking a few recipes, I found in most cases (the exception being brownies, which have almost no added moisture) the water content of the butter wasn't significant, when placed in context with the rest of the liquid in the recipe. Here's, roughly, the water content of a few: pound cake 8 T milk, 1 T brandy, 1 t vanilla, 3T from egg whites, 2-1/2 T from 1/2# butter (7% of total water from US butter; 6% had it been Euro) banana bread 1 t vanilla, 18 T banana, 3/4 T honey, 1-1/4 T from 1/4 # butter (11%; 9-1/2%) cornbread 20 T milk, 1 T from egg, 1-1/4 T from 1/4 # butter (12%; 10-1/3%) popovers 16 T milk, 2 T from eggs, 1T from 1-1/2 T butter (18%; 15-1/2%) So if you needed proof for your assertion "I'm guessing it doesn't, especially in the quantities used for such baked goods," there it is. Even at the widest margin, European-style butter contributed only 2-1/2% more butterfat. As for flavor, the recipe authors seemed to claim that the biggest difference was between using butter and not (using instead vegetable oil, shortening, lard, etc.). There were assertions that the water content of butter was mechanically beneficial in some cases, but real proof was scarce. What seemed to make big differences were 1) the form the butter took: straight from the fridge, room temp, melted, browned; 2) whether it was cultured or not. The first criteria will determine, in large part, the height, flexibility, puffiness and crispness of the finished product. The second criteria is simple a matter of taste -- you either like it or you don't. Or you like it in some case but not others.