Mjx
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Posts posted by Mjx
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I make peposo relatively often, and was taught to use...whatever's cheap (and usually, tough) at the butcher's that day. It's a great dish, but it's also Tuscan, and Tuscans are notoriously
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I can't tell whether all these versions are crunchy: I've never tried a crunchy wheat gluten strip, but I've had several versions of the chewy/flexible ones. The're not everyhere here, I don't see people wandering about eating them, or the empty packets on the ground, but they're readily available in SEA food shops. I find them kind of disgusting, but my boyfriend loves them, and if he opens a packet, the MSG slathering guarantees that if I try one, I will continue to eat them until there are none left.
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21 hours ago, liuzhou said:
. . .
Why would you be surprised that an advertising image doesn't look real? I'd be surprised if it did look real.
It not that it doesn't look real (at least, it looks no more unreal/surreal than that sort of thing in general), it's just that something about the image it doesn't look like the Starbuck's imagery I've seen in the US and EU, so it it registers as 'off'.
Is there any sign of anyone trying actually trying this out of disinterested curiosity?
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It sounds revolting, but I wonder whether it's a real thing: something about the image looks subtly off. @liuzhou have you, or someone whose word you trust, actually seen this, in person, on a Starbuck's menu?
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An air fryer uses less energy than an oven, because the spaces in it are far smaller. Also, if you roast something that makes a mess, such as chicken, which coats the inside of the oven with fat droplets, cleanup is much easier in an air fryer. When I roast chicken in my oven, it means about 2 hours of clean-up each time, because its not self-cleaning (this may not be important to everyone, but I live in a flat that, if I move, I have to hand over in its original, pristine condition, including the appliances). The small, mostly non-stick interior of the air fryer drawer is a cinch to clean.
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On 12/10/2023 at 10:02 AM, Duvel said:
So you haven’t tried salsify yet …
Salsify is one of my favourite root vegetables! I had it for dinner in a stew the other night.
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This is something of a shock. She was part of the hosting team when I first began, and she was always ready to help, and to respond to my endless questions. We kept touch after she stepped down from being a host, but this was often sporadic, and it had been a while since I'd hear from her. I'll miss her.
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I usually carry a pair of chopsticks in my bag, but use a pair that's meant for children, and fits nicely into a pencil case at the bottom of my bag (Pearl River Mart, about USD 3 when I got them). They're very short, but I don't think this would pose a problem to anyone with small to slightly-large-but not-enormous hands.
I have other pairs which are much nicer-looking, but I find these the most pleasant to use.
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On 10/16/2023 at 5:27 PM, Duvel said:
Thank you both - I was under the impression that you need to “add” oil somewhere, but I take it you merely toss whatever you have in it before it goes into the gadget. That’s easy enough then (and more basic than I anticipated 😉) …
I just use the usual amount of whatever fat I have lying about, in the usual way (including rendered duck fat on potato wedges: superb!). I've thought about getting an oil sprayer/mister, but that would probably be most useful on paneéd food (because a paneéd surface would be easily broken up by rubbing/patting fat onto it), so I haven't got one, yet.
I adore my air fryer, but the name is so misleading (and the reason I rejected the idea of having one, for years): it's a highly-efficient, miniature, convection oven.
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Kerry, thank you for bringing a gleam of light to this extremely sad news, with your wonderful memories of Anna. I haven't got the words for how much I'll miss her. One of my favorite memories was of her telling me about her husband, and the various Danish dishes she'd learned because of him, then there was a PM discussion in which we agreed that Danish cooking is basically starch and fat.
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@Duvel You've probably found a solution by now, but on the off-chance that you haven't, I've noticed that the empanada dough I've developed over time (I wanted a flexible crust, rather than a flaky one) doesn't shrink or expand, and it holds its shape (i.e. the crimping at the edge changes very little, even though it's not in a mould that would support it during baking), once baked. I usually use half a kilo of flour at a time, but this recipe may be multiplied and divided without any adjustments to the ratios.
In a bowl, combine 500g flour and a teaspoon of salt;
In something with a pouring lip, combine 250ml water and 60ml oil
Add liquids to dry ingredients, and knead until smooth.
Ideally, let rest in a cool area or the refriegerator, but I tend to be impatient and use it immediately, and the results are still fine.
I vary the amount of salt depending on the empanada filling I'm using, and choose the flour and oil on the same basis; depending on the flour you're using, you may need more or less water.
I usually bake empanadas in a 200C oven (with convection) for a quarter of an hour; time and temperature may need some adjustment for meat pies cooked in a mould, particularly if the filling is uncooked.
ETA I think that any dough that fits yor requirements would need to contain a decent amount of fat (to minimize/avoid shrinkage: water/water-based liquids evaporate), no leavening (to avoid puffing up), and be relatively firm (so it keeps its shape).
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I have a recipe for a traditional Tuscan kale and bean soup that is delicious, and has a LOT of kale in it (it keeps and reheats well, too😞 let me know if you'd like the recipe.
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On 8/24/2023 at 8:54 PM, blue_dolphin said:
Earlier this year, Eat Your Books announced they had linked up with ckbk so that users could search both their own book collections and the books that ckbk offers, with direct links to the ckbk recipes.
Both services offered some sort of discount to the subscribers of the other service. I decided to try a year's worth of ckbk (@ $29.99) and thought I'd share my early observations, mostly how it compares with my own collection.
Initially, ckbk had not appealed to me. I have plenty of cookbooks and like using them. I enjoy reading the books, getting to "know" the author through stories and header notes and found the idea of being taken direct to a digital recipe less appealing than using my books. I feel the same way about randomly searching the internet for recipes, though I do it sometimes.
I was quite curious to see what overlap existed between my cookbook collection and the ckbk offerings. At present, I have 513 cookbooks, 125 of them are Kindle e-books, the others are hard copies.
ckbk offers 751 books, 462 have been indexed on EYB. The remaining 284 haven't been indexed on EYB yet so it would be necessary to search for their recipes directly on ckbk.
Interestingly, only 17 of my 513 cookbooks are on ckbk. This tells me that ckbk isn't going to replace my own collection any time soon. On the other hand, with so little overlap, my ckbk subscription is mostly providing access to books I don't own. This is at least in part because the ckbk selection skews towards UK publications and my own collection has more US authors.
I thought ckbk might be a good way to sample new cookbooks that I was considering purchasing but I don't think that will be the case. Of the 462 ckbk books that are indexed on EYB, only 21 of them were published between 2021 - 2023. On the other hand, ckbk does offer access to a number of older and out-of-print books. Sometimes you can find OOP books for a song, other times they can be hard to track down.
ckbk has apps for mobile devices. I've only played around with it a bit on my iPad. As with the browser interface, all the recipes are imported into a standard format. Photos appear in a small-ish "thumbnail" that can be expanded with a click. It seems adequate enough for accessing recipes while cooking but I'm not sure it offers any advantage to just using a browser. For example, there's no way to increase the font size within the ckbk app, you need to use device settings or access ckbk via a browser and use browser tools to zoom in or out. While ckbk has MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf, (though none of her other books), the ckbk interface, either web or app, isn't where I want to read it. Neither are designed for the best reading experience IMO.
The browser interface for ckbk has a "print" button that could be a convenient way to get a copy I could mark up while cooking but the formatting on the recipes I tried printing was awful with a narrow column of text printed down the middle of 6 pages for one recipe and even shorter recipes broken up over multiple pages.
I'm very familiar with EYB's search functions and ckbk seems awkward to me so clearly, I need to play around with ckbk a lot more to get familiar with it.
Any ckbk users have any tips or experiences to share?
The owner of ckbk is an eGullet member, @mjcockerill and I'm hoping he'll weigh in, because I'm certain the feedback here would be useful to him, and contribute to offering a stronger product.
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21 hours ago, Nondescriptentity said:
Hello,
I'd like to make some of my own cajun cousine, without the stuff needed to do so if possible.
I'm from Austria, so making Cajun can be quite hard lol, hence why I joined the forum.
Now I'd like to know how to go on about this, here's a list of ingredients I can call available:
How do I go on about this?
If you're sourcing ingredients from Germany, @Duvel may be able to offer helpful suggestions; there must be online shops that have more specialized selections than this supermarket.
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8 hours ago, heidih said:
Perhaps a simplistic response but maybe do a test with a super small amount and just see if jell happens. Strawberries are not exactly pectin heavy but losing a few to trial better than losing a whole batcha. With berries you can always cook them down longer but them you lose brightness.
6 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:This gets complicated - you are looking to replace a low methoxyl pectin (uses Calcium to set) - with a high methoxyl pectin (requires sugar and acid to set). So I'm not really sure what amounts you would use - but you will have to use different techniques to activate the pectin.
Here's some information which might help
I like tapioca starch for pies!
Thank you!
I'm sort of wavering on the tapioca, now: I can easily get tapioca starch, but it can go slimy/stringy, and and I haven't worked with it much.
Oh, and kickoff is at 16.00 today.
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So far, I've downloaded a few free cookbooks and guides (e.g. from sites such as Project Gutenberg), but haven't bought any. If I can get a print version of a book, I'd rather have that, because the damage from a fall or spill tends to be less catastrophic.
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I promised to make a strawberry pie, and the recipe I'm using is from Cook's Illustrated (because their recipes have reliably delivered what they promise, every time I've used them) and calls for thickening 1.25 cups of pureed strawberries with 'a tablespoon of powdered pectin for lower sugar recipes (such as Sure Jell)'.
I'm in Denmark, and neither Sure Jell nor a reasonable equivalent is available (I\ve spen tthe day looking); I do have pure apple pectin, but am having difficulty figuring out how much of this pectin, sugar, and acid to use, to get something with equivalent setting power to Sure Jell.
Anyone have experience of this?
This is the recipe, and the pectin, I'm working with:
Thanks!
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Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had lobster. No idea why.
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14 hours ago, saluki said:
I have a Cosori Duo Blaze that I love. It heats from the top and the bottom. Very easy to clean as well. I've done whole chicken in there as well as those that have been spatchcocked with good results (albeit a tight fit).
The Cosori appeals to me because of the Thaw and Cancel functions, but I don't know whther I'd actually use them.
If you decided to replace your current air fryer (and let's say it lasted exactly as long as you Ninja unit), would you go with the Cosori Dual Blaze again, or a Ninja Foodi?
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Thank you!
14 hours ago, palo said:Air Fryer preprogramed settings are just programmed in suggestions - personally I just choose "Air Fry" and choose my own temp and time
p
I know...I mentioned the thing about the programs only to indicate that their absence wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.
14 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:Ninja has a clever design with the two drawers (i say that without having read this entire topic; perhaps two drawers is common configuration), but it appears to me that the drawer size means that a whole chicken will be a tight fit. Overall, the unit looks pretty big, but if I'm reading the specs right (my Danish is rusty), neither drawer can be much wider than 7-1/2 inches.
Sorry about the Danish, I wanted to link to the model numbers and images, and this was quickest. I don't care that much about being able to roast a chicken whole, halved would be just fine!
14 hours ago, gfweb said:I have the Breville and am happy with it. You could easily airfry a chicken and it still works as a traditional oven
It looks good, but I'd prefer the kind of air fryer with a drawer. My oven is okay, I just hate roasting anything with any significant amount of fat in it, such as skin-on chicken, because cleanup is horrendous, but since it's part of the flat I'm renting, I have to return it in pristine condition.
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Cheese and Vegetarianism
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
The vegetarians I know eat cheese (and wear leather, but not fur). I suspect that this is because originally, they were unaware of the rennet element, and if and when they did find out about it, they figured they may as well go on eating cheese. This is just my hypothesis: I've never asked! The vegetarians I know best (including everyone else in my immediate family, lifetime vegetarians) are neither intrusive nor political about it, so I've seen no point in bothering them about this.