Dave the Cook

I agree that MSG was shunned (and blamed for more than a few things that weren't its fault) for a while. But I don't think it's ever been unavailable. If you remember Accent All Natural Flavor Enhancer, you're remembering MSG. However, I doubt that it, or undisguised MSG, was responsible for the kick in your Mom's recipe. MSG doesn't have much flavor on its own, if anything, it's got a sort-of meaty ambience. It really does enhance, rather than directly flavor food. If vinegar isn't working for you, maybe you could try lemon juice, wine or sour salt (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), which isn't salt at all, but citric acid.

A while back, we were discussing bang-bang shrimp, and I tried to tempt you into trying something different, but it wasn't on your dance card then. Anyway, I sense your time on the road is growing short and you might want to give deep frying one more shot. If you want to try it, here's the deal: it's based on Heston Blumenthal's fish and chips, filtered through a Harold McGee column in the NYT. The idea is that what makes fried coatings chewy and/or tough (another word for durable, but that's for chicken or chicken-fried steak) is gluten. It's also demonstrated in Kenji Lopez-Alt's pie crust, as featured by ATK. The trick is to prevent gluten formation. For this, the recipe uses two methods: 1) start with as little protein as possible. You need some to provide structure to form the coating, but in many recipes, you can replace half the wheat flour with a non-wheat, protein-poor flour, like cornstarch or rice flour; 2) replace some of the water with alcohol. This does two things: first, alcohol interferes with gluten formation, and second, it evaporates at a lower temperature than water, relatively speaking, so you don't have to use up heat to get rid of water. So here's what we use: 3/4 cup (90 g) white rice flour, plus a couple tablespoons for dusting the food 3/4 cup (85 g) all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon fine salt 3/4 cup (180 ml) vodka 3/4 cup (180 ml) club soda or mild beer (an American lager is fine) Fried at 375°, This makes a light, feathery coating. We use this batter for shrimp destined for tacos. Even leftovers, which are usually very disappointing when it comes to fried fish, are crispy. After a (very) little experimentation, we revised to make a slightly more substantial coating: 3/4 cup (90 g) white rice flour, plus a couple tablespoons for dusting the food 3/4 cup (85 g) all-purpose flour 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking powder 1-1/2 cups (360 ml) beer (here, the flavor of the beer matters a lot more) If you didn't believe me about the gluten, the differences in those two recipes (especially the liquids) should convince you. We use this batter for fish and chips. Leftovers are better than average, though not as good as the previous recipe.

A lot of people believe that tamarind is indispensable in making Worcestershire. I have three things to say about that: I was working from a recipe that didn't include tamarind, and didn't apologize about it. The original recipe came from Emeril Lagasse, and I'm not sure he's ever apologized for anything, but there you are. When all was said and done, the product tasted like Worcestershire sauce. From this I conclude that the inclusion of tamarind may be authentic but it is not mandatory. At the time, I didn't know about tamarind, and a) probably couldn't have easily gotten my hands on it, though today I could tell you of at least four local sources; b) I wouldn't have known how or how much to incorporate into the recipe.

I suggest you make your own. Here's a recipe to get you started: What's dis here sauce? There's a related topic here. It's kind of sweet to start with (sweeter than L&P, anyway). Also, I'm not sure where the sauternes would fit in. Maybe instead of one of the vinegars?

I will do my best.

With great sadness, we note the passing of Margaret M. Rovai, or, as she was known around here, maggiethecat. Maggie was one of our earliest members and cheerleaders. She wrote for, and edited the Daily Gullet, publishing and/or editing the early work of food-literature luminaries such as Tim Hayward, Joseph Carey, Monica Bhide, Todd Price, Andy Lynes, Janet Zimmerman, (the little-known fiction of )Jay Rayner, Nina Planck, Darra Goldstein and JJ Goode, among many others -- not the least herself, whose contributions stand among the best in the Daily Gullet offering. She also invented and judged the Daily Gullet Literary Smackdown. To many of you, that all may sound like ancient history, and measuring in internet time, it is. But if you're reading this, you owe her an inestimable debt. eG is only here because amazing people like Maggie were around to make sure it happened. For those of you who were not FB friends with Maggie, I'll add her daughter Honor's tribute: RIP, Maggie.

Looks good. In Germany, does it come with waffle plates? Because in the US, it doesn't. Based on what I see, they don't exist.

As long as we're continuing is the shrimp vein (ha!), are you done with deep frying for a while? 'Cause if you're not, I've got a couple of ideas to run past you.

You don't have to search very far to find oven-baked "roux," where the flour is cooked, by itself, in a low oven for a long time. It works fine, it gives you most of the flavor you need, it's hard to screw up, AND IT TAKES FOREVER. That's because air is not as good a conductor of heat as fat is. So, the oven method is very controllable, at the expense of time. If we want to speed things up, we have to introduce a liquid that can exceed the temperature at which starch browns. That mean water is out, because it will just boil away at the requisite temperature. Let's use fat -- butter or oil. The fat conducts heat into the starch much more efficiently. Once it's been combined properly, it also keeps each granule of starch separated from every other granule (please disregard the fact that wouldn't be necessary if we weren't introducing a liquid like oil or melted butter). Since it's a fat, it probably picks up a flavor note or two -- it might even have some flavor of its own. This is a proper roux, as classically defined: fat and starch combined for purposes of flavor and thickening. Most of the flavor is in the starch, though. Once the fat has done its job by protecting the starch, can't we just discard it? Yes, yes we can. You should realize though, that if you don't stir that fat back in, it's not a roux any more. It's just browned flour.

Simply Recipes' Bang-bang shrimp reminds me of a recipe we sometimes use for shrimp tacos, part of which we stole from Kay Chun's recipe for Salt and Pepper Shrimp Rolls. Instead of buttermilk, Chun calls for whole (or 2%) milk, and omits the wheat flour altogether, using only cornstarch. Without wheat, there's no gluten to speak of, so you can fry in batches (so you need less oil); the first batch of shrimp can easily wait for a second one. Admittedly, it's not your everyday fried shrimp, but it is very crunchy.

So do I. Although, to be accurate, my version was "was dis here sauce." And that's how I taught my kids to say it, too.

It's worth pointing out that these notices (and a big thank-you to members who post them) are kind of deceptive, in that if one reads a headline like "Daniele International LLC Recalls Ready-to-Eat Sausage Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination," one might think that they should avoid sausages with the name "Danielle" on them. In fact, Danielle isn't a brand you are likely to come across in the deli. However, depending on where you live, you might be familiar with brand names like Frederik, Boar's Head, Colameco and Del Duca. Danielle makes sausages for all those companies, and those are the names you need to look for. But unless you've read the notice, you wouldn't know that, or which of those brand's products might be subject to recall. Please don't misunderstand me -- I'm not criticizing those of you who post recall notices. Far from it. Rather, I want you to do your due diligence, and follow the links they're giving you. At worst, you'll come to find that something in you refrigerator is lying in wait to poison you. At best, you'll learn that Bourbon BBQ Vienna Sausages exist (scroll down a bit). Because this is a great country.

I thought that 100°F/37°C and below was considered cold smoking. I find this guideline pretty much everywhere, from Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) to Kinsella's Professional Charcuterie (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Much hotter than that, and you start cooking delicate things like fish.

Fair enough. So no fancy balsamic on your salad? Or good extra-virgin olive oil on your pasta? No caviar on your toast points? Truffle in your scrambled eggs?

I don't know what the alternatives cost, but soy lecithin powder is $8/50g at Modernist Pantry. If you figure a (generous) 1/2 cup milk per frothing session, I figure the cost of soy lecithin powder like so: 125 g of liquid (about 1/2 C milk) * 0.05% = 6.25 g $8 / 50g = 16 cents/g 16 cents * 6.25 g = $1 per 1/2 C application That's at a pretty high price for soy lecithin powder. Were you to move up to the much more economical 400g pouch at Modernist Pantry ($16), the cost per application would be 25 cents.

Soy lecithin (at around 0.5% of the weight of the liquid) is often used to make foams.

A wild guess, based on reading of Mrs. Beeton's receipt for -- sorry, oyster sauce. Her oyster sauce is nothing like the Asian version, but instead seems to be oysters in a white sauce, meant to accompany fish or simply prepared chicken. So I'm wondering if sauce oysters are oysters suitable for making a sauce with -- not pretty enough for other presentations, but acceptable under a blanket of bechamel. Maybe?

Huh. I didn't even know that "fancy molasses" was a thing.

What do you suppose "cooking molasses" is?

I've never tried Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce. I'm only chiming in here to point out that that review is from 2012, and contains incorrect information. The sauce does include, as your photo and a visit to https://jackdanielssauces.com/ confirms, Jack Daniels whiskey. It is not made by Heinz (it's not clear that it ever was). The brand name is licensed to Golden West Food Group, which has been producing the sauce since at least 2019. We are a former Bullseye house, lately converted to Stubb's. But that's another story.

@Anna N is right. IMO, you really have to read a Keller recipe closely, and more than once, before attempting it.

As far as I know, there's no hard-and-fast recipe for Creole mustard. However, it's usually made from brown mustard seeds (like Dijon-style mustard) steeped in vinegar (not like Dijon-style mustard, which famously uses wine). It usually includes a little horseradish, and often includes other things, such as sugar and spices. It's almost always mixed with coarsely ground brown mustard seeds. It's a little sharper in flavor than Grey Poupon or Maille, but not as sinus-clearing as some German or Asian mustards. It's easily found in the southern US (especially the southeast, if one includes Louisiana). In this recipe, I think I used it because that was what was available, and it worked, so that's what I wrote down.

That's the best essay on noma's closing that I've read yet.

Searing a chop that thick won't get you very much, doneness-wise. If you sear it long enough to seriously affect the interior, you might as well have cooked it traditionally anyway. You say that 132°F is underdone for your taste. I'd bump the temp to 136 - 138°F and let it swim another 75 minutes or so.

I understand, on both counts. Especially okra, the taste for which I have yet to acquire. I was just trying, without personal conviction, to promote the traditional solution to the problem.