BadRabbit

Sorry to drag up this old topic but this issue has certainly become more pervasive since the original conversation. The villianization of nitrites/nitrates has gotten much worse. Hell, even Oscar Meyer is selling "uncured" hot dogs now (surprise! celery juice is one of the ingredients) for people who've been scared into believing that nitrites are certain death. My in-laws recently came into town and proudly declared that they had sworn off nitrites and were only eating uncured bacon and sausage (their loss, more delicious salami for me!). They had even brought their own bacon with them to eat for breakfast. I explained that the products they were eating were actually cured and that celery juice contained naturally occurring nitrites. They were surprised and appalled that they'd been had. I then explained that I thought the nitrite thing was overblown and they should just stop worrying about it. After this incident, I looked into it a little more and some of the scare sites declare that the Vitamin C in celery counteracts any harmful effect of the nitrites. I can find zero academic research to back up that claim. Anybody know if that's just the typical pseudo-science that you get from the food doomsday crowd or if there's some actual evidence supporting that claim? Edited for grammar

I believe that the spelling and pronunciation "restauranteur" has moved past being an error and is becoming the more commonly used spelling. Several dictionaries already list it as an alternate spelling. Lots of foreign words that are adopted into English eventually get Anglicized. ETA: Clarification

Being a chile-head, I do the opposite. I keep some weaker hot sauces around (Tabasco or Crystal) for others when I never use anything weaker than El Yucateco. Edited: Spelling

Actually, I've been told that's basically McDonald's "secret sauce": Thousand Island dressing, and some horseradish. The traditional Russian has horseradish in it. 1000 Island is essentially Russian minus horseradish plus pickles.

I've been working on cleaning out my spice cabinet, my sauce cabinet, and the doors to my fridge. In the process, I've realized that I keep a lot of things that I seldom if ever use but always feel the need to have on hand. For example: I had two small jars of Cream of Tartar though neither was opened. It's just something I expect to have in there so I do. Apparently, I feel it's so necessary that I bought a second jar without checking to see if I had some and apparently without a recipe in mind (or at least I never made said recipe). Others: Shaoxing wine (though I'm about to remedy this one with the Master Sauce recipe in the China Forum) Nori Dried Chipotle (I make my own chipotles that I freeze or use the canned) Chinese Five Spice Rice Flour Light brown sugar (I prefer dark or piloncillo in virtually every possible application but still for some reason keep light on hand) Epazote Whole Annato Seed What's wasting away in your cabinet that you will just replace when it goes bad despite never using it? Edited for grammar

In my experience, most casseroles are heavy on carbs. They need carbs to provide texture so you don't just have baked goop. Casseroles are also often intended to be one dish meals so you expect to see a little bit of everything (including carbs). If you wanted to avoid carbs and you could substitute eggplant for noodles or maybe add high fiber or low carb nuts for crunch (Almonds, Walnuts, Pecans, Macadamia). What are the reasons you are looking to start cooking casseroles? Are you planning to make them ahead of time? ETA: Clarification

Does anybody know if there are any differences between the Fagor Duo and Splendid lines other than the two pressure settings available on the Duo? The 10 qt versions are only $2 different on Amazon so it seems like the Duo is a no-brainer but wanted to make sure there wasn't something else I was missing. Fagor's website doesn't have a comparison page between models so it's hard to determine what other differences might exist. http://www.amazon.com/Fagor-10-Quart-Pressure-Cooker-Canner/dp/B0000CFH7X http://www.amazon.com/Fagor-Splendid-10-Quart-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B00008UA5V/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

1000 Island is just a variant of the original Russian and is easier to find if you are using bottled dressing. Also, lots of modern bottled "Russian" dressings seem to have dropped the mayo or yoghurt component(I know the one distributed by Alabama Sysco has)so 1000 Island is closer to the original than those . ETA: This is Wishbone's Russian dressing ingredient list: corn syrup, soybean oil, water, tomato paste, high fructose corn syrup, distilled vinegar, salt, beet juice concentrate (for color), spices, lemon juice concentrate, yeast extract, garlic, xanthan gum, maltodextrin (corn, wheat), (sorbic acid, calcium disodium edta) used to protect quality, onion powder, natural flavors, sugar, onion, paprika As you can see, there is no mayo/yoghurt component anymore (IYAM it's not really Russian dressing).

I would start with something like pastichio (easy) and then move on to cassoulet (more involved). Edit: Spelled the musical term instead of the baked pasta dish

Maybe that's it. It could be that I just feel like I didn't end up where I originally wanted to be and that's really what's really bugging me. I feel like I plan well (at least I prep and organize my kitchen well) but I also improvise a lot as I cook and sometimes I veer pretty far off of my original plan once I get to tasting the dish.

Ummm, yeah? Food is (or at least should be) all about personal enjoyment, especially dishes you cook yourself! Who gives a fig if it's "authentic" - particularly if you're not trying to pass it off as such? The authentic thing was not really what I was driving at. I regularly change classic dishes and blend cuisines. I guess the point I'm getting at is occasionally I think I blend things to the point where the roots are indiscernable and that's when it starts to make me feel like the sum is not greater than its parts (or at least that I've lost something important within the dish).

I know that fusion has been discussed on this board many times but it occurred to me that the time scale on the fusion of cuisines has diminished rapidly and no longer needs colonization, migration, or cultural assimilation in order to occur. Everyone on this board has at least some knowledge of multiple cuisines and likely has ingredients from all over the world in their fridge or pantry. We often don’t even realize how much we’ve assimilated into our everyday cooking that would have been completely unheard of in our respective region 50 years ago. Often this blend of techniques and/or ingredients produces something new and fulfilling but occasionally I find that I’ve achieved something with no identity. My wife thinks I’m crazy and usually raves about the dishes in question but for me they make me feel “fake” as though I’m some guy with vague knowledge of foreign cuisines that has made something that is somehow unnatural. I find this seems to happen to me most often when cooking Asian dishes (though it occasionally happens with Euro cuisine as well). I may start off to make a simple Chinese noodle dish that by the end has acquired wasabi, galangal, lemongrass and 5 other ingredients from my Asian pantry/ fridge shelves that might or might not belong in the original Chinese dish. I end up with an obviously Asian dish but one that has a muddled cultural makeup. Since these dishes are often delicious and I never present them as “authentic ________”, it’s not like I’m misrepresenting these dishes as anything other than what emerged from my kitchen. Am I just thinking about this too much? If it tastes good, should I just tell my inner food pedant to shut up?

I was going to suggest a mercado for the same reason. The mexican store by my work always has beautiful garlic and it's cheap.

This may be a little complicated but it might work. Package your chicken breasts individually or in bags that roughly approximate your needs over a specific time period (for instance an hour or half-hour). Load breasts in periodically to a SV bath set at a safe but fairly low temp (say 143F). Make sure to always cook FIFO and go straight from bath to grill. What you are shooting for here is to catch the chicken breasts on their way to temp so that most of the cooking is actually done on the grill (optimal range would probably be 100F-120F). This will significantly cut your time down but will likely keep most of the SV texture problems away. Potential issues: Bath temperature stability as you would be periodically adding cold chicken to the bath Workflow issues depending on the location of your bath in relation to the grill. This setup might be difficult for the health department to understand and apply codes to. There may be safety issues I'm overlooking but I'm sure someone will point them out if so.

Speaking of southern pronunciations, most people in the south refer to canned sausages as "VIE-ee-na sausages" though I have never heard anybody mispronounce the name of the city. I'm guessing most people just don't put two and two together on the subject.

I'm from the south and have never heard them called creamed. We treat our potatos like we treat buttons in an elevator; we "mash" them.

If your mini-prep has served you well, why are you looking to change? I love mine and they are cheap enough to be practically disposable. I can't imagine there are any commercial versions as restaurants don't usually have much need for tiny processors.

I love a reuben but prefer to make it at home as nobody else does it right. I like it classicly as described by others above (though I don't consider it a reuben if it's pastrami, corned beef is the classic, a pastrami reuben type sandwich is delicious though). I will sometimes use dijon mustard instead of russian dressing but that probably makes it not a reuben as well.

Why would one make something with no flavor? If you're going to make something for the texture, why not make it taste good in the process? It also seems odd coming from a cuisine that uses pretty bold flavors most of the time.

I cut my breasts in half longitudinally and marinade them in red wine vinegar with garlic powder, italian herbs, salt and pepper. I usually marinade them until I can see the acid just starting to lighten the chicken (which is usually just a couple of hours). I put enough salt in the marinade to season the chicken and like it better than a water based brine. I have cooked them sous vide and finished on a very hot grill and they are good but they are much better if you grill them with no sous vide. With a hot grill you could get them done in 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the breasts. I know that's a little long for the service constraints but that's how you'll get the best flavor/texture. I have yet to find a parcook method for service that yielded a good quality final product. Sous vide is great for some applications but a chicken sandwich is not one of them IMO. I like your idea of the chicken skin for texture.

If you've ever had Moroccan food, you've almost certainly had preserved lemons. They are commonly used in dishes like lemon chicken with olives, lots of tangines, cous cous dishes, and salads. Some Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines use them as well. I am sure the original intent was to make lemons available year round and to facilitate their travel over long distances but they are a somewhat different ingredient than fresh lemon. They are more lemony than fresh and because of the salt and the fact that often only the rind is used they are also much less acidic than fresh fruit.

You would think with Ruhlman\Polcyn that this conversion issue would be in the opposite direction. I can't imagine they make sausage using volumetric measure. Another issue you have with volume measures and herbs is how hard you pack it. I can get 4-5x as much cilantro in a cup measure if I really pack it in as opposed to a light pack. I would have thought so too, but the standard garlic sausage in particular is absurd if made with all weight measures--the garlic is almost hot there's so much of it. Agreed. I had been using it as a base recipe for a couple of things I was trying out and the garlic was always too much.

My thinking here is that when I develop a new sausage recipe, I tend to think in volume terms: to one pork shoulder add a pinch of this, a handful of that, etc. OK, now write it down... well, that was probably about three tablespoons of X and a teaspoon of Y. OK, now convert to weight. I can see that but weren't these recipes supposedly all tried and true recipes of Polcyn's. I would have assumed that he's just scaled down from larger recipes that would have long since been codified in weights.

You would think with Ruhlman\Polcyn that this conversion issue would be in the opposite direction. I can't imagine they make sausage using volumetric measure. Another issue you have with volume measures and herbs is how hard you pack it. I can get 4-5x as much cilantro in a cup measure if I really pack it in as opposed to a light pack.

This is one matter in which I'll join Public Enemy and fight the power. A pie involves a pastry lid and braised meat (or, if you're so inclined, stewed fruit). A pizza is ... pizza. One of these things is not like the other. I do not understand people--and there are many here--who deem a baked disk of bread topped with cheese, tomato, et al to be pie. I can easily name 30 (possibly 100) pies that have no pastry lid that noone would argue aren't pies. Chess pie Chocolate pie Banana Cream Key Lime ...need I go on. Edited: grammar