IndyRob
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FWIW, the 'Heavy Whipping Cream' that I find quite reliable for whipping is 36% and contains mono and di-glycerides, polysorbate-10 and carageenan.
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Even though I was aware of the restrictions during Passover I only just realised how attractive potatoes suddenly become when grains are so restricted!
Those were pretty much my thoughts and then I scrolled down and saw that you'd already nailed it.
I only recently learned about the dairy and meat thing. Is it okay if they're not mixed, but are on the side? Steak with Baked Potato w/ butter & sour cream? Potato Gratin? Creamed Spinach? The whole steakhouse vibe?
Apparently, Transglutaminase can be kosher, but I suspect that Wylie Dufresne's shrimp pasta is out. Perhaps a fish-based version could bring some pasta.
The thought of inventing a proper grainless bread is the sort of Holy Grail project (oh, wait, is that reference at all appropriate in this context?
) that's going to be bugging me for the next few days. -
Uh oh, time to check our shopping lists...
Q: In what foods is ammonium hydroxide used in processing?A: The list of foods in which ammonium hydroxide is used as a direct food additive is extensive and includes baked goods, cheeses, chocolates, other confectionery (e.g., caramel), and puddings. Ammonium hydroxide is also used as an antimicrobial agent in meat products.
Ammonia in other forms (e.g., ammonium sulfate, ammonium alginate) is used in condiments, relishes, soy protein concentrates/isolates, snack foods, jams and jellies, and non-alcoholic beverages.
The World Health Organization has listed hundreds of food types that may be processed using ammonium hydroxide when used in accordance with good manufacturing practices. These include dairy products, confections, fruits and vegetables, baked goods, breakfast cereals, eggs, fish, beverages such as sports drinks and beer, and meats.
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I've just noticed that they've reeled in Target. I didn't have time to try to ascertain whether they're participating in the CO2 canister exchange business, but it seems like this is the critical service that hasn't seemed to work in past ventures (Kohls, for instance)
I actually like their diet cola mix as well as I like Coke or Pepsi, but when you carry out the math, the savings are borderline.
But for seltzer, it seems like a clear win.
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I like that this practice has finally come out in the open if only because now my partner doesn't think I'm really nuts (maybe just a little nuts). You see, I opened up a package of ground beef about a year ago and there was quite the strong smell of ammonia from it. I had never come across that before and was alarmed. My partner said it was all in my head. I thought maybe it was all in my head. I went ahead and cooked it because I couldn't justify throwing it out, and as far as I remember, it didn't taste any different. Now I would take it back to the store.
Have you bought any more ground beef in the last year?
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Generally speaking, Activa RM isn't intended for slurry applications, because it's got sodium caseinate in the mixture, which will bond to itself.
I received my first delivery of Activa RM last week and, before I read this, I used it in a slurry in my eagerness to perform my first experiment. It seemed to work fine.
I can't really comment on the color of the transitional layer as I was bonding pork fat to lean porn loin. That transition is already a pretty dramatic one. But I don't recall seeing any gray layer.
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I realize the focus of this discussion is on what constitutes a "real chef" but I'm surprised more people aren't getting their hackles up over the term "normal food".
I think it's possible to be a real chef in every sense of the term without having an open mind about food. Whether you've run a successful South Carolina BBQ joint for 50 years, or run a successful street booth in Singapore, I don't equate a 'chef' with being worldly, educated, or anything else. It just means you can run a kitchen and be responsible for the product delivered (preferably an excellent one).
I don't find it unreasonable that an American Chef might take a dim view of some international (or currently popular foodie) trends. In fact, such a thing might be a travesty in the sense that food traditions could be lost.
Regarding the basic meaning of the word 'chef', perhaps it's only my own naive view with only a beginner's knowledge of French, but it seems to me that the credits on any French movie will list any number of 'chefs' - none of which have anything to do with food. It seems to me that the best one word translation is 'Chief'.
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Well, lesson #1 has been learned. Apparently, the addition of xanthan gum is desireable to achieve some gelling action in something like apple juice - so it doesn't just disperse when dropped into the bath. But adding the same amount to sriracha results in a sort of paste.
Thus, my first attempts more resembled sriracha mouse droppings rather than any sort of caviar. I tried drops of unadulterated sriracha into plain water and they dispersed immediately. Clearly, this is going to be a fine balancing act.
In the interim, it's time to explore the magic that is sriracha paste.
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I would like to play with modifying the recipe to use it as a filling, so more fluid than currently. I am happy with the flavor, so want to make changes that will not have a major impact on the flavor profile.
I once had a similar concern with a hot fudge sauce I had made that was dead-on in flavor, but became solid immediately on touching cold ice cream. I fretted a good deal about it as I had made a decent sized batch of the stuff for the freezer. Finally I tried just adding a touch of water to the finished product before heating and the problem was solved. It turned out that adding a bit of water to something that was already so sugary really didn't have nearly the sort of adverse affect that I expected.
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Besides..on-line
Where might I find Citric Acid..Locally
I got mine from cheesemaking.com, but I've read that citric acid is available in pharmacies. I decided to try a search on CVS.com. No obvious hits, but there was one intriguing result. It appears that Alka Seltzer is Citric Acid + Baking Soda + Aspirin. I don't think I'd recommend it, but I find the idea humorous. You might ask your local pharmacist if they have any just plain citric acid.
Kmart.com also has citric acid listed under their crafts section.
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Okay, I've received my initial components. As a matter of principle, I've decided to first attempt regular sperification before I try to reverse it, or attempt parallel techniques.
So I have some sodium alginate and xanthan gum for the base, and calcium chloride for the bath. This leads me to another question....
The base formulation offered by Mondernist Pantry involves starting with 500g of base. That's roughly a whole bottle of sriracha. I'll need to reduce that, but it occurs to me that if I keep the base and bath separate, there's nothing to suggest that these won't stay stable in the refrigerator. It that true? I could take both out of the refrigeration and spherify on the fly?
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That's quite a tight grouping of countries.
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When I want to do ribs without all the fussiness, I take a piece of aluminum foil slightly longer than the rack and lay it on a sheet pan. I squirt some Sweet Baby Ray's lengthwise down the middle of the nearest half. I put the rack on top of this and squirt more sauce on the top. Then I fold the far half of the foil over the top, leaving the rib tips exposed. Then into a 250 degree oven for about 2 hours. Optionally, broil or grill at the end.
Again, not barbecue, but it's good, easy, and virtually foolproof.
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Some sort of Mozzarella/Brie alloy?
ETA: Or perhaps start at the fondue end of the spectrum and find a formulation that firms up nicely when chilled?
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Not the most prestigious source but:
this one columnist reports that the addition of the "lean fine textured beef" just made the burger dry and rather flavorless. No problem with binding.
Not to start this whole thing again, but that test was fatally flawed.
Despite the odds, I had lucked out. Between the two grocers, I'd managed to identify two packages of 85 percent lean ground beef, one with pink slime and one without. Time to taste.This sounds like a fair comparison was found. But then...
By label alone, it was clear we were talking different beef demographics. The pink slime-free product bragged that it was minimally processed and that the cows had been raised without antibiotics, growth hormones or animal byproducts in their food. Price — $5.99 per pound. The pink slime version? Just a minimalist 'compare and save.' Price — $3.09 per pound.So the comparison was between $6/lb meat and $3/lb meat. The pink slime alone wouldn't make up for that price difference even if it were free.
A scientific approach would've taken some of the $6 beef and found some pink slime to add in.
Anyway, count me among the ground pork demographic.
But I suspect you were on target in your initial assessment and there was a new source of water in the bamboo shoots - along with wilted shoots.
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Ha! I was thinking that tofu (although I have never eaten any) seems to have similar texture to cooked egg. So if I were to try to tackle this, I would probably start with some sort of tofu slurry and add flour (forgot about the gluten-free part) and some liquid and seasonings.
Then I thought "Well, if I've thought of this, perhaps someone else has...." And searched for "Tofu Crepes". Bingo!
The pictures look quite good. Still not gluten free, but that should be a bridgeable divide.
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Butter is usually used to grease the pan though, no?
You are correct, sir. And was on Julia's.
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This timely article is currently featured on Bing's News home page. The author actually tracks down ground beef with and without and does a side by side test.
The plain old ground beef is the winner, but the distinctions are pretty slight. This didn't really surprise me, but the author mentions some grittiness from bone shards. Now that, I have a big problem with. But I do find myself wondering whether that came from the slime (how would bone fragments get past the centrifuge?), or a lower quality ground beef - before the slime was added.
I've had a similar experience with WalMart frozen pork breakfast sausages.
ETA: Correction: He complained of gristle, not bone. I had read this earlier in the day and re-read it after I posted. Upon reflection, I have a big problem with his methodology.
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The story on a local CBS affiliate (KCal 9) stated that much of the material that goes into the pink slime consists of ligaments and connective tissue.
In looking for a link for my previous post I found a lot of lazy reporting. Including the one I finally linked.
Ligaments and connective tissues? Really? Won't 80% of eG members immediatley think "Well, that calls for braising.", rather than "Aiieeee! Ligaments! Tendons!"?
But I sincerely doubt that ligaments and tendons are included (beyond incidental quantities). They're not even pink.
The "expert" that was interviewed indicated that the content of this material may be free of fat, which adds to the "lean" category, but in turn the stuff has very little nutritive value.That's quite a vague term to use. The "expert" could have used calories, sodium, vitamin A, B , C, etc. It obviously would be useful to know in what way the product was founf to be nutritionally defficient.
In the past this stuff was sold cheaply to pet food manufacturers and ground up to add "bulk" to "wet" or canned and "soft" pet foods, not to add calories or other nutritive components.I have to be careful here, but do we not have a food culture in the U.S. that has benefited greatly from lesser cuts of meat that were left for the folks in a state of servitude?
Cheap is cheap. In my opinion this is no different from the practice of grinding cheap fish products and forming them to produce fake "crab" meat.Well, that borders on deceit. But the labeling requirements are there. Sirimi is fake. It;s a fish sold as imitation crab. But cutting little bits of crab up is cutting little bits of crab up. Making a crab cake out of that is not fraud, it's frugal.
I've been grinding my own meats for years, I think I began back in the early '80s when there was a recall of contaminated beef.
I just want to know what I'm consuming and know that I am getting exactly what I pay for, not a cheaper "imitation" product.
You could have been grinding contaminated beef regardless. A little ammonium hydroxide could have kept you safer.
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I think it would be easier to make an eggless crêpe than one without butter, but I could be wrong; I never had proper crêpes before I stopped eating dairy, but the smell of butter taunts me whenever someone's making them.
Apparently, Jacques Pepin (according to him) and Julia Child had a disagreement about whether butter should go into crepe batter. He said it should, and she said it shouldn't. They had a cook-off and he had to admit hers were better.
I still put melted butter in mine. I like it (but it is a tablespoon or two, versus three eggs).
I would love it if you could post your waffle recipe somewhere! I have had good luck with the King Arthur sourdough waffle recipe with some modifications, however without eggs, the outside gets soft too quickly.Look on the last page here. (Oh, wait, it has one egg, but I bet it has a shot at success without it).
The upshot is to start with a poolish or sourdough starter and add a good quantity of cornstarch (probably around 3TB, although I was probably measuring by weight) to provide crispiness.
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I might point out that dosa are nothing like a crepe...
We must be using very different definitions for the phrase "nothing like", since dosa are pretty widely defined as "a crepe" by people who make and sell them. Sure, they're crispy and made of rice and lentils... but they're still a thin batter-based crepe.
To me, a crispy crepe would be akin to a crunchy omelette. It doesn't make sense. A vegan crepe seems an an oxymoron. Crepes are mostly egg.
Still, I'm intrigued, because I have developed a good Belgian Waffle recipe that happens to be vegan compliant (but not gluten-free).
So, the problem solver in me is wondering what the standard vegan substitutes for eggs are.
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Ah ....
but When will they discontinue it?
have they said?
I'm not going to go to the effort to find their actual press release. But...
When McDonald's and other fast-food chains announced last month that "pink slime" was no longer being used in their burgers, some thought that the product, beef trimmings treated partly with ammonium hydroxide, had disappeared from the nation's food supply.... (and then on to the school thing).
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I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was OK. I think it is gross that the USDA thinks it is OK to label something as 100% beef and still allow anything from a cow to be called beef. It does not have to be meat. And the other statement I made was meant to say that whoever thought it would be OK to call it 'pink slime" should never, ever be given a job with any PR firm.
But it's not 'anything from a cow'. Note that the centrifuge is used to remove fat from beef trimmings - leaving what? Beef. No two ways around that.
And if there was a labeling requirement, it would probably read "Contains boneless lean beef trimmings".
The only thing I find potentially controversial is that ammonia is used as a food safety instrument. But it appears to work as.... (from the above link)
Food safety experts in 2011 acknowledged the role of such processes in protecting the United States’ food supply against events such as the European E. coli outbreak.[5]
Okay, so it's safe, but it's an inferior product, right?
On December 24th, 2011, McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell announced they would discontinue the use of BPI products in their food.[6][4]
Has anyone noticed a difference? I haven't. Anyone care to claim that they're awesome now?
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Okay, so to try to enumerate, we have...
Over Easy/Medium/Hard (I assume Hard is an option although it seems, like a well-done steak, something that should be eschewed).
Scrambled - Easy/Medium/Hard? I'm not sure what Hard would be.
Sunny Side Up - Almost always I've found this to result in a lightly cooked cook egg with a very running yolk. Is the Easy/Medium/Hard qualifier accepted here?
Steamed/Braised/Covered - Some clouding of the top of the yolk? Pepin's preferred preparation.
Boiled - Soft/Hard - Is there a Medium?
Poached - Usually, the instructions found for poaching eggs are very precise without any guidance for variation. Poached is poached?
Shirred - Again, are there degrees?
Omelettes - Maybe I'm wrong, but I think these tend adopt their own personalities and are less adaptable to be done to individual preferences. Usually, when I cook an omelette it's in the Julia Child tradition. But I also do another hearty rustic American lumberjack sort with ground sausage and cooked in the sausage grease. These have a browned exterior.
Internet Reviews/Ratings
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
I'm surprised I couldn't find this topic already. Sorry if I missed it.
So, I'm sitting here trying to decide between two restaurants. They're both steakhouses but one is a little more upscale and expensive, while the other one is less so, but seems well respected.
I find them both on Bing Local, look at the menus and notice the ratings. It turns out that both have about 30 reviews and on the food quality scale, the more expensive option scores just over 2 1/2 stars while the less expensive one is nearly a solid 5 stars.
The thing is, we have a personal recommendation for the more expensive option by someone who is well traveled and certainly has much fine dining experience. Oh, and his son is a chef.
So I have a little quandry here. Do I go with the one personal recommendation, or go with the numbers?
What are your experiences with web ratings?