Dakki
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Posts posted by Dakki
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Mexico here, with an early celebration later today since we have a holiday (yesterday was Day of the Revolution, which I properly celebrated as well). Going with turkey, dressing and gravy; the guests will bring the sides and desserts.
This is only my second year hosting Thanksgiving dinner and there's already a tradition associated with it. It goes like this:
T-day minus 14: One of my sisters will call and ask what to bring (and coincidentally informing me The Family has decided to hold the celebration). I refuse point blank to make the turkey and tell her to draft one of the other siblings. After some wheedling on her part, grudgingly accept, thinking to myself I'll take it easy this time.
T-day minus 13 to T-day minus 6: Read some eG threads, get inspired. Figure I have enough time to brine the bird, make brown stock for the gravy, etc.
T-day minus 5: Find "Semi-homemade" ethic has been discarded, replaced with "Martha Stewart Living."
T-day minus 3: Begin serious stressin'.
T-day minus 1: Skip sleep entirely, try to get ahead on prep.
T-day: Cook. Spend dinner in zombie-like trance due to sleep deprivation. Look in kitchen, estimate cleanup effort will require 48+ man-hours, decide to leave it for tomorrow. Or maybe next month.
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That's it, Broken English. That's why you're the problem. You don't realize other people have more important things to do than enjoy your company over a leisurely meal.
Sarcasms aside, one of the comments on the original story got it about right.
Are you trying to be a foodie Jeremy Clarkson?Unfunny windbags who get a pass because "Ho, ho, Johnny Foreigner doesn't get the subtleties of British humour." We get it's supposed to be funny, guys, we just don't think it is.
The bored teenagers at the *chans do trolling and insult comedy much, much better and they don't pretend to be above criticism because of their nationality.
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Illuminating.
I look forward to Jay Rayner's future articles detailing why Mac users are better people than Windows users, Manchester United fans are superior human beings compared to Liverpool FC fans, and people who like prog rock hold good, wholesome values, unlike those shady punkers.
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Dinner party for six...
Wow !
Seconded.
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Wow, turkey is cheap in USA. I paid almost $2 USD/lb for a regular frozen bird.
The Arizona division of the Farm Bureau Federation published the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving meal in its state. To feed a family of 10 with a 16-pound frozen turkey — priced at $21.28 — with all the trimmings, the cost was $50.06, up 13 percent from last year.Doing 19 lb bird, gravy and stuffing only, (guests are bringing the sides and dessert) I'm coming a bit under my initial estimated $70 USD budget.
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Wonderful pheasants, Mjx and mm84321. I particularly enjoyed the "in progress" photos.
Rico, way to show off simple, classic dishes. (Can I really classify Caesar salad as "simple"? What if one gets creative?) I really enjoy your stuff, man. Post more often.
djyee100, those prawns are downright inspiring. It might be my chilehead tendencies coming out, but your description sounds wonderful with the addition of a hot, fruity pepper or two to really bring out the flavors...
My own dinner? Why, fried eggs, sausage, tortillas and salsa. Early Thanksgiving dinner is stressing my limited logistics.
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Thanks for all the info.
On this turkey thing, does 32 kilos (meat + water) plus 1 kilo salt plus 1/2 kilo sugar, brined for 48 hours sound about right?
EDIT: I'm also planning to rest the thing for 24 hours to dry the skin before roasting, hopefully this will help equalize the salt throughout the meat.
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Makes sense.
What's the desired percentage (3%? Seems pretty high) and how do you calculate the minimum time to reach it?
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Questions about this 3% brine thing.
How should I calculate the amount of salt required? Do I include the meat in the calculation or just the water?
eg, 48.5 parts meat, 48.5 parts water, 3 parts salt, or 97 parts water, 3 parts salt?
How long do you guys think I should brine a 8.65 kilo/19 lb turkey in a 3% brine?
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Prawncrackers, that looks so good it's pissing me off.
Keith_W, lovely steak. Here's my own take on the ribeye (rib steak?), IMHO the best cut of beef.
Mushrooms sauteed in the beef drippings with a bit of garlic.
Photo taken in natural light, no post whatsoever. I'm pretty happy with how the browning turned out so I thought I'd post it as-is instead of messing it up with my hamfisted photo editing.
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So, water quality in my town is bad (hard), and the pipes in this place are pretty old. Water from the tap tastes horrible, like baking soda with a metallic aftertaste. Since this place is a rental I'd like to get an under the sink (as opposed to in line, whole house) filter.
Does anyone have suggestions? I'd prefer something with a washable pre-filter on the assumption that they'll prevent the actual filter from clogging on sediment. Something that uses filters commonly available in retail stores is pretty much a prerequisite, since I can't just order online. I'll start seeing what's available here based on your recs.
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I want ScottyBoy and dcarch to meet in the middle of the country to cook dinner together. I'll offer my house as the spot!
Agree on that. I imagine what will be the table look like when they're done cooking.
I bet it will be awesome!Who do I make my booking with?!!
If they did a plating workshop I'd gladly ditch work and fly a few thousand miles for that.
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Scotch and soda hitting the spot this very instant.
Weather is getting to where a warm drink would be nice. Toddy?
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Tensile strength isn't the same as hardness, or abrasiveness.
Tensile strength is pretty closely related to hardness, actually.
The idea that bamboo is harder than steel (even mild steel) does seem quite odd to me, actually. Bamboo is not a homogenous material - perhaps there's long strands with high tensile strength surrounded by some other structure?
Anyway I happen to have a bamboo cutting board in the kitchen and a portable Rockwell C hardness tester at work. I could do a test and post results if anyone cares.
I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.
http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/hardness/hardness_conversion_1c.htm
This page shows only a limited range of UTS so I assume it is for ferrous alloys only?
What I intended to show is that hardness and tensile strength are directly related. There are even charts and calculators that will perform approximations between tensile strength and the various hardness scales (you shouldn't really try to convert one sort of hardness measurement to another, since different tests measure subtly different things, not that I have to tell you this...).
The chart is for ferrous alloys, yes. However the same applies to alloys of copper, aluminum, etc. I haven't seen a chart that shows this for wood but I haven't seen a hardness chart for wood, period. I suspect the measured hardness of a given wood sample (including bamboo) would be different depending on whether it's measured parallel to the grain or perpendicular it, because of the way the fibers are organized.
Blah blah blah, materials nerdery.
I think bamboo boards are pretty nice.
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Tensile strength isn't the same as hardness, or abrasiveness.
Tensile strength is pretty closely related to hardness, actually.
The idea that bamboo is harder than steel (even mild steel) does seem quite odd to me, actually. Bamboo is not a homogenous material - perhaps there's long strands with high tensile strength surrounded by some other structure?
Anyway I happen to have a bamboo cutting board in the kitchen and a portable Rockwell C hardness tester at work. I could do a test and post results if anyone cares.
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Everyone (or so I assume) is familiar with the various Euro and Chinese kitchen knives, and India has produced an amazingly inventive array of steel weapons throughout history, and notoriously had easily the best steels available right up to the Industrial Revolution, but I've never heard of an Indian kitchen knife as such.
So what was used?
Are these still largely used or have they been replaced with Euro-type knives? Or Chinese?
Are there knives associated with certain regions or cuisines?
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I hate cauliflower but I want that.
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Not familiar with the product you describe, and my sharpening routines are different to the ones in the course, but I think I can answer some of your questions.
Third, the wheels do both sides at once, so I imagine no discernible burr should appear on either side, but how does this relate to the stropping techniques? Do you need to strop an edge with no burr?There is no question of need. Stropping is an optional step, so long as the burr has been properly removed on your finest stone.
There can be benefits to the finish when stropping, however, if your stropping abrasive is finer than your finest stone.
Fourth, they are ceramic wheels. Chad covers ceramic only in reference to steels, but doesn't go into detail on how well they'd work as the primary abrasive - is there any reason to think it wouldn't be a good abrasive surface?Short answer: No reason.
Longer but still woefully incomplete answer: The term "ceramic" covers literally hundreds of materials. If you have artificial stones they are most likely ceramic, and natural stones are simply naturally-occurring ceramic. The relevant questions here are particle size and hardness. Finish will be determined by particle size and speed in sharpening will be determined by a combination of both factors plus technique.
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ScottyBoy, that's high praise coming from one of the posters I admire the most.
As an amateur and a relative newbie I cannot emphasize enough how much it means to me to get encouragement from pros and people who've been at this for a while.
So... if we ever meet, I'll make tacos, but you have to make everything else.
(BTW, I loved your blog, but didn't get a chance to comment before it was closed).
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Not a good thing, an excellent thing.
Food-centric tour of India is a fantastic idea. I bet I could sign up half a dozen people just from my local acquaintances, assuming accessible pricing.
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I never had the inclination to visit India before reading this thread and now I have to go. Thanks a lot, percyn.
That rumali a couple of pages back looks exactly like the sabanas made in one of the neighboring towns from here, btw. (I have no idea if they're made the same way or anything, they just look exactly alike).
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That's what I do (except stovetop burner, not blowtorch) for dishes that call for whole or cut peppers. In the case of salsas such as this, the skins get in the way of pureeing the flesh, which gives you a different (although not necessarily bad) consistency.
Nevertheless I think getting every last bit of skin off is not something cooks need to obsess over. Effort should be proportional to result!
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Thanks. Just whatever comes off easily.
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Nice dinners all!
Keith_W, you might give dcarch a run for his money as "King of Plating."
Here's my own little contribution.
I'm not lazy, it's, uh, "rustic."
>_>
Jalapenos for flavor, serranos for kick, tomatoes and a little garlic because everything's better with a little garlic.
Call me reactionary but I think salsas are best when made by hand.
Tacos de tripa, as posted here once a month or so.
Thanksgiving around the world
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I can make mole any day but Thanksgiving is arguably the definitive USA holiday so we're doing the Norman Rockwell thing as far as reasonable or there's no point.
Also the mere thought of making mole from scratch aside from all this other stuff makes me want a stiff drink.
As an aside, turkey in mole is actually pretty traditional. The meat is either shredded or in parts, and cooked in the sauce, just as you would for chicken or pork. Honestly I like pork in mole better than poultry and serving a large roast bird is more or less a necessity for "proper" Thanksgiving, isn't it?