Mjx

Has anyone come across some indication of the portion sizes involved? I cannot figure out how people managed this sort of thing; if they ate like that on a regular basis, they would have been far heavier as a group than photographs suggest they were, unless these banquets played out like tasting menus. I can't even eat most 3-course meals without feeling at least a little awful afterwards, and there is simply no way one could eat most of any meal in a corset (I've eaten while corseted down to just 20 inches, not the 18 inches upper-class women strived for during that era, and you can manage about a handful of food at a go, that's it).

Well played sir... some how that one slipped my mind. Didn't we already do those in the 90s? I seem to recall seeing this sort of thing on menus around the same time that roughly every other person I knew in NYC had some sort of swing-dance injury.

For whatever it's worth, I made another poorly (read 'un')controlled experiment with cooking beans in rum. This time, I used cannellini, and a dodgy-looking batch they were, with about half looking about a decade older then the rest, and none looking less than 'kind of old'. However, just to see what happened, I only discarded one bean (which looked like something had been living in it, then left because it got too depressing). The rest, regardless of how withered they looked, stayed. I dumped the half kilo of beans into a pot, added the rum (same as before, above), then added a bay leaf and boiling water, just enough to cover (I wanted to dilute the rum as little as possible, to optimize any effect it might be having). I loitered about, topping up the water so the beans stayed covered. About an hour later, things looked pretty bad; about half the beans had picked up water, and were smooth and cream-coloured, while there rest had expanded, but looked withered and chalky. Biting into one of each, the difference was clear: the smooth, newer beans were softening, but still a bit crunchy, while the wrinkled white beans were very hard, and had softened just enough for me to notice that they were a bit rubbery. I gave them another hour, still topping up water, to keep them just covered. At the two-hour mark, the difference among the beans was far less pronounced, in both appearance and texture, and they had reached an 'edible, but barely' stage. I added about a tablespoon of salt, and gave them another half hour. At this point, they were distinctly edible, although some were still slightly crunchy, so I took a chance, and drained them and transferred them to the chicken and sausage mayhem I was braising for dinner, and the beans cooked a couple more hours in broth with a bit of tomato paste, sherry vinegar, and sherry mixed in (no idea of the pH, but it was pleasantly tart, so I'm wildly guessing 'under 5'). At the four-hour mark, the beans had an extremely pleasant texture (I noticed no distinctly crunchy ones), which is not something I can normally say of a batch like the one I started with (also keeping in mind that I usually pick them over and may discard nearly half as being unlikely to ever be pleasant to eat). I have no idea of what (if anything) alcohol does to dry beans when they absorb it, but after two unusually good batches, I'm now feeling inclined to do a controlled test.

I thought that McGee et al established that searing doesn't seal liquid in meat. He's talking about something completely different (cue Monty Python theme): Over high heat, the exterior browns very rapidly, and the inside remains relatively cool during that short time. Over a lower heat, the exterior of the meat takes longer to brown, giving the interior time to also become warmer; as the meat warms, the fibres contract, causing the juices to be squeezed out (the effect you get when you sqeeze a sponge, if you can imagine the sponge self-squeezing). 'Sealing' doesn't enter into it.

That was my thought, too. Regarding the toughness, pre-soaking the strips of meat in a solution of sodium bicarbonate and water (5g in 130g) makes a huge difference, and I wouldn't do a stir-fry without that (I first came across this recommendation in Cook's Illustrated). Also, have you tried velveting?

An eG forum search for 'pressure' brings up a good handful of discussions, including the Pressure Cookers - what's cooking? topic.

Is this true? Does all the chloride get rinsed off? I thought spheres made this way would continue to thicken over time. Especially with ganache, since the cream must have some calcium in it. If this isn't an issue I'll try standard spherification. If not I'm interested in other sources of calcium, like the lactate Tri 2 Cook mentioned. MC on direct spherification (4-186): 'Rinsing [with clear water] slows the gelling process and washes away any lingering flavors from the setting solution. Rinse the spheres at least twice. Remove with a perforated spoon. Optionally, heat to 85 °C / 185 °F for 10 min to stop further solidification. Store the spheres in water or oil until needed.' I don't speak from experience, since I've only attempted reverse spherification, but my next effort in this direction is definitely going to involve direct spherification, since I'm hoping the results will be a bit sturdier.

Did the recipes give any actual indication of the consistency the dough was supposed to have? A lot of recipes are specifically for slack doughs, in which case, the recipes were behaving the way they were supposed to (I work almost exclusively with doughs that definitely fall into the 'wet glop' category; I don't even consider kneading these, but just go at them with a hand-held mixer with dough hooks). Flour will absorb water differently, depending on protein content; it's possible that the recipes you used were intended for flour with a completely different percentage of protein (405 flour runs about 9% protein, US all-purpose about 11% protein, high-protein flours run about 14 to 15% protein).

Couldn't you make/keep the base more liquid, and just drop it into the solution with, say, a turkey baster, or even a small ladle/portion scoop? Also, since you mention submerged the spheres to warm them, it sounds like rinsing them wouldn't be an issue, and direct spherification might be worth looking into, since any residual calcium chloride would be rinsed away.

Short answer: No. Longer answer: Every waiter, diner, and group of diners is different, and, apart from being professional and polite (and toeing whatever line management sets), the only effectve strategy I found was to pay close attention to the people I was serving, and adjust my behaviour accordingly (some people practically want their food cut up for them and put into their mouths' others want you to just bring food and drink, and get lost; some know every fne point of etiquette and frown on any break with serving form, others pride themseles on dispensing with 'all that nonsense', or have beliefs/opinions thatlead them to reject form). Don't be hard on yourself for not being psychic. I'm not exactly an extrovert, so my thing was being unobtrusively on-the-spot-as-needed, keeping an eye on things, but not hovering or intruding; someone with a more outgoing personality would clearly do things differently, I'm not saying this is the only way to go. If you work closely with people for a while (I didn't wait tables long, but I've done other work that demanded the same level of attentiveness), you soon recognize patterns, internalize things to look out for, and respond more or less intuitively to the situation in front of you. Also, your peripheral awareness of the room steadily increases (or should), until you practically have eyes in the back of your head (it takes a while: when I began, I was so focused on not dropping things, and remembering who got what, a table could have had a circle of nude aliens around it, and I wouldn't have noticed; it wasn't long, though, before I could almost feel someone being unhappy about their food [given where I worked, this happened pretty often]).

Seems like adding flavour to the whisky once it's in the glass would be a better way to go. I'm not even a whisky drinker, but pre-flavoured whisky just sounds unpleasant (and I'm speaking as someone for whom it is almost impossible to make a drink that is too sweet/ridiculously flavoured to drink, as long as it's well mixed and balanced).

I've only noticed graininess with whole rice flour (it didn't really bother me much, though).

What intrigued me was that this time around, none of the beans were tough or stony (usually, since beans aren't a big thing here, they're pretty old, and no matter how long they're cooked, a good number of them stay hard, and the calcium-laden local water doesn't help); these were more or less perfect, and I wondered whether the alcohol didn't have something to do with it. Since ethanol and ethanol + water solutions are really close to pH 7 (here, probably a bit more basic), I was actually wondering whether there mightn't be some other chemical behaviour at work, completely unrelated to pH (it might have been a fluke, unrelated to cooking method).

Thanks! These recipes sound really good (@judiu: the exact same though crossed my mind ), and it sounds like the alcohol used in them actually brings flavour to the finished dishes (mine doesn't seem to have done, although it may just be extremely subtle). What's interesting to me is that all these recipes instruct you to add the alcohol once the beans are softened, or at least reconstituted; anyone know whether reconstituting/cooking the dry beans in an alcohol-containing liquid is known to have any effect on their finished texture? My impression from this batch alone is that it does, but I'm wondering whether this has been systematically investigated by anyone.

I cook dried beans fairly often, and this morning, as I was adding salt to the water covering some pinto beans, and staring at the bay leaf bobbing about in it, my sleep-deprived brain went: 'bay. . . rum'. I know Bay Rum is an early iteration of aftershave (and modern versions probably contain neither bay nor rum ), but while my brain was considering the history of male cosmetic preparations, it was also directing me to slosh in some rum. Which I did. About a quarter cup/60 ml of Bacardi Superior, to be precise. The beans have come out really nicely, with no stony ones (unusual with the only brand of dried beans I can usualy get hold of, here), and a very pleasant texture and taste (they probably smell good too, but I'm congested to the back of my skull, so I've no idea). Now I'm wondering, is cooking dried beans with booze a thing? Are there recipes for this? I can't recall coming across this growing up, but it doesn't feel like a hugely Tuscan thing, so that doesn't surprise me. So, do you do this? Any special recipes you'd care to share?

Any other places worth visiting in Bremen? My boyfriend's parents are headed there for a couple of days at the beginning of next week, and they're interested in simple, cosy, local places, 'nothing fancy'. Good takeaway is definitely of interest, too. Thanks!

I wonder how it tastes cold. I adore bread, and hot bread is... well, there are few breads that don't more or less past muster when they're hot, but once it cools down? That really separates the good from the DEARGODWHATTHEHELL. I'm a bit curious about the 'under an hour' thing; it suggests that both baking and rising take under a half hour each..?

It's kinda hard to go seriously wrong by adding rum and lime to almost any fruit juice or puree, but that begs the question (as folks raised above with regard to sidecars) of whether the result is any more a "true" daiquiri than those abominable flavored vodka creations that are called "martinis." . . . . I had a hunch that the drink I had probably did not fall strictly within 'daiquiri' parameters, which I'm willing to respect, but admit to having no actual idea of. I've never had a daiquiri [before?]. There's a link to the ingredients that the bar put together, though, and it was pretty tasty. If it was even a bastard version, I'd have to say that 'Rhubarb Bastard' sounds a pretty decent name for any for any drink that vaguely gestures toward some traditional cocktail, but very loosely. With rhubarb. Panaderia Canadiense, did you give one of the fruit simples + cachaça pura a go yet?

Regarding rice flour: I can only speak for the traditional, stovetop approach, but when I switched to rice flour, I didn't know if or how it would behave differently, so I just carried on as usual, intending to make adjustments as necessary; honestly, the behaviour of wheat and rice flours (I've used everything from whole ground rice to pure rice starch) seems to be roughly identical in this instance, whether I patiently stand over it for half an hour at a lower temperature, or risk creating instant carbon dust/paste because I'm in a hurry.

Well that looks good! How were they? Obviously 'ducky', since you ate three, but consistency (how cooked were they?), overall flavour?

Something based around water chestuts, especially if you can get your hands on some fresh ones.

As long as you were lowring the pH to the same degree, it doesn't seem that it would make a difference which acid you used (this is off the top of my head; I may be quite wrong). You might also want to use honey in place of some of your sugar (unless the flavour would be an issue); a recent issue of Cook's Illustrated noted that there is a compound in honey that effectively (i.e. as per their tests) keeps apples from browning.

Well, as I indicated, this is largely going to reflect individual experience (I'm not slamming induction, I just couldn't work up the enthusiam for it that sales reps seemed to want me to experience ). For the units I used and tested, the difference in control in both sorts of cooktops seemed directly linked to the quality of the units involved, and the top-notch glass ceramic cooktops featured the same level of control as the induction models of equal quality (again: this holds for the ones I tested, and the array of units available in Denmark is very likely quite different to the one in Spain). At this point in time, for a given amount of money – irrelevant if you have no budget cap – you'll get a better glass ceramic cooktop than an induction one. Despite all the hoopla about power and speed, I did not notice any impressive difference between the Gaggenau glass ceramic cooktops and their induction cooktops (I didn't do the boiling water experiment, since it's a bit irrelevant for us; we use an electric kettle). Safety, no argument there: Induction is the way to go if you have small children who play in your kitchen (we don't). In terms of cleaning, the surfaces are identical (if we're talking about the same kind of glass ceramic cooktop); it's a snap. With many Gaggenau units of both kinds, even the control knob comes away, meaning you can get that surface really clean (no lingering muck under the edge of the knob!). All the pans we have are stainless or cast iron, but I admit Ilike the idea of not having to worry about the conductivity of the material. Also (not relevant to everyone), for one of the people using our kitchen, there are legitimate concerns about the safety of induction cooktops; they present undisputed issues for specific cohorts. Hysterical pop-culture shrieking about induction cooktop safety is not something to which I'm inclined to give the slightest attention, but I do give some consideration to articles that have a firm scientific basis, such as 'Exposure of the Human Body to Professional and Domestic Induction Cooktops Compared to the Basic Restrictions'. Although that abstract doesn't mention it, my recollection of the recommended working distance when using an induction cooktop (from the edge of the coil, not the centre, I'm quite certain) is 30cm/12", and based on my own observation (I became curious, after reading this) most short and medium-height people (e.g. the people who use our cooktop) stand significantly closer than that. Induction cookers offer a technology with a lot of potential; all I'm saying is that for some people, there are legitimate reasons to make other choices. Aaand I've had my say: anything I might say beyond this would just be repetition.

I should have mentioned that where I am, a conventional glass ceramic cooktop is the standard, making that (not a gas cooktop, which is a bit of specialty/luxury item) the usual alternative to an induction cooktop. This means that there is a lot of competition among the cooktop producers, so glass cooktops are available in every quality and at every pricepoint. This also means that at a given pricepoint you can get a better glass ceramic cooktop than an induction one, since induction cooktops are still priced in keeping with the fact that they're using a newer technology. I've cooked on a large number of both conventional glass ceramic and induction cooktops, and I haven't yet come across an induction cooktop that exceeds the power and control of glass ceramic cooktop we got (plenty do just as well, but they cost more). But that's here; it is probably quite different where you are, and it all boils down to the array of options you have at your disposal. Whatever you choose, take a close look at their warranty; it matters, since any electrical appliance can conk out expensively (I think Gagganau's 5 year guarantee is international).

The bear is probably a surprise guest contestant. Sounds like they've jumped every other shark!