Mjx

I did see that it was supposed to be vegetarian, but since some of the experiments have included cream, it seemed okay if it wasn't vegan..?

Have you tried agg white as a gelling agent? Not only does it tolerate heat, heat actually sets it. You could make something along the lines of a Swiss buttercream, but omit the sugar, and use mushroom-infused cream instead of butter (e.g. https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/swiss-meringue-buttercream/); also, it should be easy to pipe.

Only in the homes of artisans. Whose craft is making pizza

From 1892, Drinks of the World, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

Whenever I can get my hands on some quince, I use them in pretty much anything one might use cooked apples/pears. I often improvise: I've made a quick tart by rolling out some marzipan and pressing it into a tart pan, then filling it with sweetened pureed or chopped quince, a pinch of salt, and some black pepper. Recently, I made a strew that included quince (also salsify, pork, and carrots in every colour but orange), because A. was reminiscing nostalgically about the food he almost remembers from when he was very small and his parents lived in a sort of hippieish communal residence; he suggested something of that sort for dinner. Since he was about three when they moved away from there, he couldn't offer any practical suggestions for possible ingredients, so I went with the players that loomed large in the recipes from the health-food cookbooks my mother sometimes used when I was a kid: 1) cabbage/beetroot 2) at least one now-obscure vegetable/fruit that hasn't been used much for half a century or more/is a huge nuisance to prep 3) at least one vegetable so covered in dirt that you need a pressure hose to clean it properly, and 4) at least one ingredient that is probably a terrible idea in the sort of dish in question, but...may work out..? I chose quince to cover the second and fourth elements (boyfriend firmly vetoed cabbage/beetroot), and perhaps surprisingly, it worked really well. I also tried to make mostarda mantovana, and messed up really badly: I ended up with something remarkably ugly, and with an awful texture. Can't wait to try this one again!

You mean, 'This is all reinventing the wheel' ...don't you? It's nice that there's another player in a field dominated by corporate behemoths, but shapes such as galletti are very, very similar to the cascatelli (especially in in terms of holding sauce), and have been around for a long time.

Hearts in cream sauce (e.g. https://www.dk-kogebogen.dk/billeder-opskrifter/vis-billede-stor-slider.php?id=23347&billede=4). Super-traditional in Denmark, but makes me think of something the wicked queen might've done with Snow White's innards, or from a recipe book based on the original versions of Grimm's fairy tales. No idea whether it's original/unique to Denmark, but since it's a specialty here, it fits the bill.

I've found that searing it then baking it en croute works well. This was a roe deer tenderloin, which is very small, so the chances of overcooking it were high. I cut it into three segments, and wrapped it in bacon and CI's pie crust with vodka recipe, minus the sugar. I modified a recipe for Beef Wellington, and cut down the baking time to 45 minutes (from an hour), but the venison cooked past rare, anyway. Fortunately, the meat was still extremely tender and full of flavour. Check out dcarch's version, too; that's lovely and rare!

I'm not sure whether there's a reason that salsify is sold here covered in mud, but it definitely needs a thorough rinse. If you cook black salsify with the peel on, the entire root will be almost inedibly bitter. I found this out the sad way. Made myself eat all the salsify, too, so I won't be forgetting this in a hurry. I don't know whether this happens with white salsify, too. Regarding the browning (which is harmless), unless you're simply boiling salsify on its own and want it too look really white, I wouldn't bother with acidulated water. I always roast it with other root vegetables, or braise it along with other things, and in those cases the browning of oxidation isn't evident

Sometimes I get a bit of reflection, but slightly adjusting the lighting takes care of anything problematic; Also, I don't use a flash. My cutting boards are quite scratched up, which further dulls the surface Sometimes I want a dense black background, but other times I really like that clearly, these are cutting boards beneath the food.

You may have a point. Then again, learning the accepted etiquette of any class is utterly free, which means it's one of the few universally accessible ways of overcoming certain class barriers. I know a couple of lovely people whose table manners at job-interview lunches lost them the jobs they were hoping to get, and that's a shame. I've often eaten with these people, and watching them eat bread is one of the unsettling things about their table manners. They don't actually shake it like a terrier killing a rat, but that's about all I can say. Fair/unfair doesn't enter the picture: every workplace has its culture and the equivalent of secret handshakes, and even if this is arguably silly, applicants are expected to recognize and acknowledge this, whether it's not showing up to an interview in flip-flops and a hat with antlers, or eating in a way that conforms to certain parameters. I was taught the same. Makes less mess, usually. Except croissants. If I break up a croissant like that, the mess is indescribable.

@JoNorvellWalker, they're nothing fancy, plain black PE cutting boards I use for meat and other things that I like to be able to clean up after really thoroughly (that's the website of the shop where I got these, but I'm fairly certain you could easily find identical ones). I got black instead of white because I realized it would make a good background for food photos: its lack of colour would mean the camera would focus on the colours of the food, and that would be the only element that I'd need to focus on, for any adjustments.

I kind of HAVE to get the most appetising-looking shots of bread, and I've found that it usually looks best shot in daylight, but regardless of the light, a black background always looks good (I have black cutting boards, which work really well), and the bread never looks too orange against it. I have a big piece of well-washed linen canvas that also looks great under bread, and sometimes I shoot the bread in the oven, on baking paper, though this is a bit of a gamble, in terms of results. I avoid shooting bread on wood, only because I seem to be able to make the bread OR the wood look good, but never both, and sometimes neither. I think the colours are too close, yet don't overlap entirely.

Thanks! I'll bear that in mind next time I try one; I've heard of people salting melon to bring out the flavor, too, though I've always found that melon has a lot of flavour to begin with.

How's the flavour? I tried these once because they looked intriguing, but they tasted very weakly of cucumber and nothing else, and I wondered whether this had something to do with the degree of ripeness/shipping conditions.

I never had the opportunity to meet David in person, but his presence was such an important part of eGullet; I have no words to describe how much I'll miss his presence.

You have Serenissima and Eterna, how about Superba, Magica, Dotta/Grassa/Rossa, and Nobile?

Larb! Simple, and perfect for warm weather.

I break them down (e.g. in a food processor) and use them in place of bread crumbs.

Not clear why you'd want to use a hydrocolloid, but I suspect you will get equally good, if not better, results if you just do a dry rub with salt and perhaps a some herbs/spices for a couple of hours.

This was exactly what came to mind when I saw this topic!

@keychris I've seen various bean-to-bar options with stevia (Ethereal, Pascha) and...something else which escapes me at the moment, in health food shops, so this seems to be a possibility. This article discusses the use of stevia in chocolate: https://chocolatedisorder.com/2016/03/

@gfweb I'm partial to the guidelines suggested in Guess What Came to Dinner? It focuses on parasites, but also addresses bacterial and viral contamination, and the solutions are simple and cost-effective.

I tried to find some sort of positive takeaway from less-than-ideal baking circumstances, and focusing on the fact that it's entirely possible to make decent bread with what I regarded as sub-optimal equipment helped to minimize my pointless boohooing (the instagrammable aspect was an extra). With a bread machine one might have to watch out for inaccurate measuring yielding an amount of dough that exceeded the unit's capacity, though.

I second what Chris says, including about how forgiving bread recipes can be. I live in Denmark, which is sort of relevant, because recipes here use metric measurements (except for the not infrequent 'tea/table spoon' measurement, which means 'try to remember which actual tea/tablespoon you used last time, haha, good luck'). I tend to be extremely precise when I bake (I love my electronic scale, which was definitely a worthwhile investment), but I sometimes visit friends up north who have A) an infinite capacity and desire for bread; B) an equally infinate for actually baking bread; C) a scale that was made at least a century ago, and no, I'm not kidding: Their point is that it works, and there's no reason to get a new one (they're not luddites, they're just not very invested in their kitchen). It's solid....some sort of very heavy metal, and super instagrammable! Also, super inaccurate, given the way it reponds to the increased load (i.e. spasmodically: a century-old spring is going to be a bit arthritic). To be honest, I use it more as a gesture to the gods of baking than from any expectation of accuracy, regardless of how precise I'm being. When I first used this antique scale, I was almost in tears, because I wanted to to meet the request for lots of bread with something really good, and I was certain the loaves would be miserable failures. The loaves were fine! I was shocked. And this has happened repeatedly over the 20 years I've known them (and I continue to be surprised). By and large, bread won't let you down if your measurements are off by a bit (though the bread may be a bit different than expected, e.g. larger/smaller loaf, more/less dense, fine/coarser crumb), but in the long run, switching to metric weight measurements wiil make baking more pleasant.