Miranda
-
Posts
21 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Miranda
-
-
If ChrisTaylor can get the smoker he's been talking about elsewhere, those braise-ready cuts like neck and shoulder can be brined, rubbed, and smoked for a long time to excellent effect.
Don't know which smoker Chris has been talking about, but mistygulley.com.au have the Masterbuilt on sale for $399.
-
Whatever you eat, just don't drink the Kool Aid!
-
Oh Good, i finally can post this typo from somewhere:
Harold McGee's tomb and Ricki Carrol's cheese book can tell you more about this.
Can you imagine how large his tombstone would have to be?
Sorry, Mr McGee, I hope you are in good health and spirits.
I bought a copy of this for my nephew who is doing a wine-making/ ag science degree. He loves it and his girlfriend got one too. I must say it is still one of my favourite dip-into books just to read for fun and it always has something useful to say when i need particular information.
-
How about
Mafé
Mafé (or Mafe, Maffé, Maffe, or Maafe), a traditional dish of the Wolof people of Senegal and Gambia, is one of the many variations of the African Groundnut Stew. It is often made with lamb or mutton (as is presented here); it can also be made with fowl, fish (fresh or dried) or in a vegetarian version. The basic Mafé recipe calls for: meat; onion; oil; tomato paste; peanut (or peanut butter); a vegetable or two, chile pepper, salt, black pepper, and water.
It can be prepared ahead, and cooked on the stove top, and I'm sure you can tart it up to be more gourmetish,
Couscous as a side dish seems an obvious suggestion
-
I’m something of a pressure cooker addict. I have, um, eight or is it nine of them. I don’t use the large ones much any more as I have trouble dealing with their weight when full, but totally agree for stocks etc. And for doing that turkey recipe from Mexico: the beautiful, where it is wrapped in spices, avocado leaves and co, cooked, then served sliced with an orange based dressing. {sorry, doing that from memory}.
So, I downsized to the small 2.5L, 3 L and 4.5L versions that are ideal for dinner. Curries, stews etc in one, and rice in the other. Not being one to follow instructions well, I now combine all of it in one cooker. Make sure you use the trivet in the bottom as pressure cookers go from nearly cooked to horribly burned in a flash.
For a curry or meat dishes, I mix the paste with nearly boiling water or stock [cuts down on cooking time] put in the rice and meat, hard veges like potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, bring to pressure, cook for five minutes, let cool, add fresh veges and herbs and eat. {yes, I know I lose flavour by not frying the paste, but I’m often not well enough to do that.]
For pasta, I ignore the instruction to say I shouldn’t, add pasta, boiling water or stock, olives, anchovies, tomato paste, if using, dried herbs, small amount of sugar [i’m told tomatoes need it!] mushrooms, etc etc. Bring to pressure, pay attention to how it is going and cook for two, no more than three minutes. Let cool down, then do further pasta things to it and eat. One gets that wonderful concentrated pasta water this way
For ‘risottos’, use the trivet and add rice and stock and whatever. I make a Japanese ‘risotto’ by adding different seaweeds, especially kombu, black sesame seeds, soy, ginger, dried shitake mushrooms, mirin etc. bring to pressure, cook for five minutes, let cool then add miso, fish, etc. Not great on the aesthetic side for a Japanese dish, but tastes good.
I even make up meals that Dexter the Airedale and I can share. This is where the Kuhn Rikon ‘frypan’ model is very useful. If I’m making, say, a Middle Eastern Tagine, I leave his side without too many spices and have them on my side of the pan.
So, I have:
Kuhn Rikon 2.5L fryer braiser–Excellent and such a great design
Silit set of 4.5L and 3L, and a 2.5L in yellow [!]. these are excellent and have a non-stick interior so even more points for that.
Scanpan 6L good, not great.
Magefesa a well-known Spanish brand, 6L and 8L very good for the price,
Fissler, two 3L and a 6L excellent as you would expect, but they no longer make the seals for the smaller ones, which partially explains why a few new smaller ones have followed me home.
I had some arcosteel cheapies with the weight on top. They always worked well. I have given them away to friends.
Hope this is of some help. And I hope you are not too horrified at some of the short cuts and compromises I take!
-
I'd suggest a Thermomix, which I gather are hard to obtain in the US. It's around the same price.
You can do eggs in it, as well as grind, puree, cook, steam and make sorbet and nearly cleans itself.
Here's some comparisons from an Australian forum.
http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=3761.0
If you have a Kitchenaid, then I don't think it is worth getting the chef.
I also bought a SousVide Supreme a few months ago, and it is a heap of fun
-
I generally prefer my meats and fish cooked over fire on in the pan.
I've had my Sous-Vide for about six weeks and I am becoming addicted to it! Cook many servings of meat at once which are there ready to eat each night, sitting there in the fridge, all neatly packaged in their vacuum pouches. Flash the meat in the pan and you have what you prefer, Oliver.
It's so very forgiving about time. one hour? six hours? whatever?
throw in a dozen or two eggs so that hard boiled eggs are always on hand, or simply pasteurise them.
I've even taken to just cooking the meat in its original packaging if it's the correct type if I'm too tired to do something fancy [or if I'm sharing it with my Airedale Terrier, like Kangaroo mince].
And then there is the fantastic taste, of course.
-
It's real and it's called metabolic hunger. The lack of satiety despite sufficient calorie intake.
I crave meat, especially red meat. Mmm. feeling hungry now just thinking about it. Better go and eat some!
{and one great advantage of sous-vide cooking: all that wonderful, delicious meat just waiting to be consumed!!!]
-
Nice one Miranda, which reminded me, I came across a few more suppliers the last few days (I have not tried them):
Tasmanian Wasabi: http://www.shimawasabi.com.au/
life gets better by the day!
-
"Just be careful on quantities if you are using pure sodium nitrite in curing. A little goes a very long way and it is poisonous if used incorrectly. Most of the recipes that are commonly available using curing salts, which contain lots of salt in addition to the active ingredient. "
Thanks Nick, I am aware of that. Have settled for the premixed curing salts. Just seemed easier.
By the way, do people know that you can get real WASABI from New Zealand from:
-
Well, I can report I am very very pleased with the Sous Vide Supreme. It is a compact and sleek design that fits in well with the other kitchen appliances.
It is so simple to use and what a cooking method where you can leave something up to two days simmering away because you are distracted by something else! A very forgiving method.
I've done beef, pork, lamb, chicken and they have come out brilliantly. The main fine-tuning is around the flavours of spices, etc given my propensity to experiment.
The hard boiled eggs are great, even with the non-firm white.
One of the main advantages for the home cook is, I believe, the same as that for the professional kitchen: we can prepare numerous servings of a dish and have them ready to serve throughout the following week.
It has been great to simply get out a prepared lamb 'tagine' style, or Thai chicken thighs, or pulled pork and serve it with whatever, but especially sous vide veges!
I do a dozen or so eggs at a time to have them on hand to add to sandwiches, or smoked salmon and such.
For a couple of lunches, I've pre-prepared the meat and then have 'Instant' great meals to share! What more could one ask for? Takes away much of the labour on the day and the results are spectacular.
Like runwestierun, I am finding it is far more versatile than one would expect.
-
There's also
I bought some smoking powders and chips from Redback in summer and the chap phoned soon after I placed the order to check whether the chips were suitable since I was getting the powders, so that was good customer service.
Was just trying to source curing salts on Sunday, as it happened. So here are some results.
http://www.mistygully.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=350
Their range of products are enticing. Yet to buy anything, though so can't comment.
Then there's these Queensland blokes:
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/category6_1.htm
Pure sodium nitrate. 50g $8.00 the store also has cheese and yogurt cultures and starters
And the ever reliable MFCD whose products are manufacturing food grade quality.
http://www.mfcd.net/store/product.asp?pID=741&cID=10
NaNO2 50g/$33.50 NaNO3 125g for $33.50
At the stage of about to take the plunge into the Chacuterie adventure, just getting over the fear of food poisoning problem.
-
The Sous Vide Supreme is now available in Australia, as of last month. Exhorbitant price, though of AUS$990, but to buy the controller/rice cooker set-up is still $310, and a small professional one is at least $2600. So, I have ordered a SVS as like some others, I like the idea of it not looking like a piece of lab equipment, and that i don't have to fiddle with anything to get it to work as it should.
Can't wait to cook my first dishes. In the meantime, continuing with the research and reading on sous vide cooking.
From what I understand, it truly is a revolution in cooking methods, so viva la revolution!
-
Any reason (other than cost) you are using cassia instead of true cinnamon?
Because Paula says to do that, and I tend to do what Paula says.
Seriously, I agree with her: it's a better fit, I think, for this application.
But since this mixture had its origins in Medieval times, wouldn't cinnamon be more likely? Cinnamon had higher status as a luxury item, I believe.
-
Floor here too.
As I say, It's not clean enough to eat off my floor, but I don't eat off the floor!
-
All this talk of large size wrap made me dream of a table filled with gladwrap rolls that were 3ft, 4ft and five foot long, with similar sized foil rolls! Yes, I bought some....
-
Well, a chef would be nice!
-
An on-line source for all things Mexican is:
Fireworks Foods
Their shop is somewhere in Sydney.
Cheers miranda
-
Hi there, new to eGulllet {how could I not know about this site}, but not to online shopping!
Santos Trading: http://www.santostrading.com.au/
For bulk organic and natural foods (I've had great experience with grains and pulses).
I agree. Good for spices, and good price for Iranian wild figs and miso and such.
I've also had good experience with Fireworks for Mexican, and Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot for a lot of things I am sure I did not really need.
www.freshcitrusdirect.com.au is a new site where they pick the citrus for you and send it [but only in Vic, and SA, so far]. No waxed skins and fruit that smells like it should. $50 for 15kg. Just got my first order, so preserved lemons are about to be made.
http://australherbs.com.au/ is another great source of a large range of herbs, spices, etc
Haven't had much luck sourcing quality meats for delivery in Victoria.
www.thetruffleman.com.au if you really need to, or can afford to, buy caviar, jamon, foie gras and truffles. I've yet to yield to temptation!
http://vanillaplantations.com.au/ for vanilla beans etc [a kilo works out to about 60c per pod]
And, of course, colesonline.com.au, where all the chefs shop!
That's what springs to mind at the moment. Unless you want or need to know that I get my coffee from www.mycoffeeshop.com.au
This is the one I buy: Name: Private Label Mandheling Coffee Beans
Description: This is the coffee for people who want the best. With its rich dark chocolate flavour, Private Label Mandheling coffee is amazing - both black and with milk. A strong coffee blend that will not disappoint, espresso the way it should be! $37/kg
Oh, and then there's
http://www.ashboltfarm.com/ for elderberry and elderflower cordial/syrup. An absolute delight!
cheers! Miranda
-
But the sharpie labels are ..., hard to read over dark jar contents, and the scrubbing off, while not hard, is not entirely trivial.
I use those white ink correction pens on darker bottles, or a pentel paint pen, purple at the moment. And I try and resist the temptation to add elaborate designs!
Horseradish – Prepared, bottled and not so hot anymore
in Cooking
Posted
I've some powdered horseradish. It is decently pungent
What's the best way to prepare it? I've been mixing it with vinegar. Seems to be ok, but is there some better method?