Mjx

If by 'bugs' you mean the pathogens that end up on people's hands when they take a rushed bathroom break, and think 'fuck hand washing', well, YES, you can at least significantly minimize their number with really simple, safe practices. Working in the kitchen involves the routine use of many chemicals. Salt is a chemical, baking soda and baking powder are chemicals, alcohols are chemicals, and obviously, so is vinegar. But presumaby, you do at least occasionally use vinegar, and CI/ATK found that a 1:3 (by volume) vinegar:water solution 'reduced 98% of surface bacteria' (CI, January & February 2010). The fewer bacteria, the more likely you immune system+luck will make it possible for your body to handle the outliers that aren't destroyed/removed. Yep. Apparently, plenty of people think hand washing is something the grownups make kids do just to show who's boss (as opposed to acknowledging the fact that pathogens are a primary source of food-borne disease, rather than unbalanced humours/the wrath of a diety), and pass on it every chance they get. So, even if they manage to keep their own fecal matter off their hands, their hands can still easily pick up all sorts of fun bacteria, since the flush knob/button/lever (among other things) tends to be contaminated.

I give purchased fruit a vinegar soak and rinse. Can't remember the precise ratio of vinegar to water (1 to 3, I think?), but CI tested it, and found it quite effective. Wild fruit I've usually eaten right off the plant, no washing, unless the hands that picked it were unwashed.

Fresh dill is really good with fish. In Denmark, when I've been served cured salmon in people's homes, a bunch of dill and a pair of scissors are passed around the table, and it's snipped directly onto the salmon you've arranged on your sandwich.

Actually, I've found that legumes seem to hold up quite nicely.

Has anyone tried rousong, aka 'pork floss'? I've seen packets of it in the pan-Asian shop in the centre of town, and am intrigued, although it does look a bit like fibreglass insulating material. Not so sure the packet version is all that the stuff might be.

Well, no. Liquids and semi-liquids are frequently measured by volume (litres, millillitres, etc.) And let's add Modernist Cuisine to this list.

I think you left out an important one: Sit down to dinner and eat, if the scheduled meal time came and went half an hour ago. In this day of ubiquitous mobile technology, not letting someone know you're running behind schedule isn't really excusable, unless some emergency has cropped up (and if someone is on their way to the emergency room or something, they're probably not going to put in an appearance anyway). ETA, if I'm running late owing to an emergency, I'm not going to feel less stressed realizing that the dinner host and other guests are probably sitting about, becoming testier by the minute because I haven't put in an appearance or contacted them, as I'm strapped to a stretcher/trapped in a lift/stuck in subway. I'd want them to get on with dinner!

Physics and chemistry are at work here, not just psychology! I recall reading in one of the ATK publications that flavour-bearing molecules migrate about in food, so (for example) that browning the crust of a loaf of bread will impact the flavour of the interior; oxidising and other chemical processes also alter flavour. I usually make two days' worth of stews and such, because although it's good on the first day, on the second day, the flavour tends to be better balanced, more seamless.

Nope. But I'm seldom invited to dinners where a set time is given, and standard practice here is to begin much (or even all) prep. when the guests arrive; more often than not, it's a participatory thing. On the few occasions that dinner was slated for, say, 20.00, but the charred ruins weren't offered up until close to 23.00, I've simply hoovered up the host's booze (began drinking very late, so I tend to consume things like G&Ts like a toddler drinking lemonade on a hot day, and the effect of alcohol is pleasingly rapid), after which my irritation melted, and I sat there, beaming happily at the profanity issuing form the kitchen.

Then you'll want to know that the origin of 'bruschetta' is, in fact 'bruscare'/'bruscato' which is a dialectical form of 'abbrustolire'/'abbrustolito', meaning 'to brown (without burning)', and that 'to burn' is 'bruciare' (no 's').

Three more for Denmark: suet, unsweetened baking chocolate, and evaporated milk I've actually had butchers flat-out state that there is no such product, when I asked about getting my hands on some suet. But you can get lard, blocks of hydrogenated palm oil, chicken fat, and duck fat, so the absence of suet is really puzzling (I go down to the slaughterhouse for massive globs of beef kidney fat, and render my own). Unsweetened baking chocolate is apparently not a thing in Denmark (despite the fact that any other kind of chocolate you can think of exists), so I always haul some back with me, whenever I go back to NYC. And, although you can find condensed milk all over the place, evaporated milk is not to be found. On the other hand, you can find lots of elderberry-flower flavoured things, which I've never seen in the US, sort of surprising, given the food industry's constant hunt for new flavours.

Those of you who travel quite a bit have probably noticed that some foods or food products you take for granted in your home country/culture simply do not exist in certain elsewhere. I'm not talking about items that a culture may proscribe or regard as repulsive in some way, or things that are specifically tied to a completely foreign culture, but things that inexplicably do not exist (I'm not talking about specific brands, by the way, just specific types of food items). I'll start: Grape jam simply does not appear to exist in Denmark, although it is [one of] the most popular flavours in the US. I have no idea why (virtually every other fruit flavour is available, including many you have to really hunt about for, in the US; grapes are no novely in Denmark, either). If I mention it to Danes, they think it's a strange idea. Flipping this the other way, bread chocolate, which is very, very popular in Denmark, apparently does not exist in the US (these are thin sheets of chocolate you put on slices of bread; when the bread is hot, it melts; serving this to all the delegates at a UN gathering might put a permanent stop to all future wars). Your turn! What have you found to be surprisingly absent from some corner of the world?

Yep. Best move. Shame it happened, though. It sounds like something I've observed in a very few places where, over time, they tend to become rather cavalier about their regulars.

Take a look at the discussions here: forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/80453-making-mochi-ozoni/ and here: forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/140629-pounding-mochi-in-a-kitchenaid-mixer/ Regarding the glutinous rice flour, please attach a picture, since there are plenty of brands in white boxes (there's no way of knowing where you are located--Asia? EU?--and it may be packaged differently in diffferent countries).

Nope. Crust colour is a pretty decent guide (unless you brush some sort of muck over the top). In fact, colour+temperature has always struck me as the best bet for determining bread doneness, because in my experience, bread actuallly reaches the correct internal temperature (which then goes little or no higher) before it's done. So, I bake the bread until it reaches a deep shade of brown. These days, when I've found the oven thermometer I have access to to be maddeniingly unreliable, I just follow the recommended baking time and temperature, then add however much more time is needed to bring the crust to a deep brown. It should be kept in mind that things like egg washes and so on brushed over the surface will (misleadingly) brown long before the bread surface itself is actually browned. This advice is so old I'm not even sure when or where it was first used, but there may have once been a good reason... or not (it may have just sounded more esoteric). I certainly don't know of any. N.B. It's also possible that some people really do have a feel for how a finished bread should resonate (not just sound), sort of the way that Parmigiano Reggiano testers do, when they tap on the cheeses to determine their soundness. To my own undeveloped senses, the sound+vibration of a loaf of bread that's been baked always sounds relatively hollow (even when slicing it open reveals it is still doughy inside), and I'm guessing that that's the case for most people.

What spices go into the mix? That ropy texture you describe (and which was the thing that caught my attention as being a bit strange) made me think of the texture I end up with when I add too much cinnamon to my coffee or hot chocolate, since apparently, that's how cinnmon behaves in liquids, and it wouldn't surprise me if there are other spices that do similar things. I'm also wondering about the action of prolonged contact between salt and the various muscle proteins, some of which may have gone into solution just enough to thicken the liquid.

Wait! With regard to chocolate tempering the overall sweetness, I was referring back to the what you said previously, about attempting one of the home made chocolate-hazelnut spreads, but omitting the chocolate (in which case, you would not be cutting back on the sweetness). Nutella itself is crazy sweet (even the European versions, which are the only ones I generally have access to).

The presence of chocolate should make the spread less sweet, since chocolate is naturally bitter (the sweetsweetsweet character of Nutella and similar spreads is down to the fact that children (still) comprise the primary market for these, and they're capable of appreciating sweetness levels that make most adults' teeth itch/the average adult pancreas to throb). The nutella analogues I've liked best actually have a higher chocolate/cacao content, but less sugar, and also contain a little salt, which keeps the stuff from tasting flat and insipid.

I think you're going to need to head back and take a walk along Mott Street. Not a google maps streetview walk (which I just took), either, because there tend to be trucks parked along the street, blocking a good view of some of the store fronts, and also, a lot of places have the name written large in Chinese characters, with the English much smaller and less prominently placed.

Spooned straight from the jar, while staring vacantly out the kitchen window, usually. Probably because I don't so much like it, as occasionally crave it, HARD. I wonder how common this is. There's the Nutella on crepes/in croissants thing, but honestly, it usuallyneeds a tweak of some sort (sprinkle of smoked salt, some instant coffee granules, pinch of cardmom) to make it worthwhile, and various knockoffs often taste better, since the often incorporate somthing that relieves the flatness of the original.

Pizza Beer. I love pizza and am capable of appreciating beer, and I get having them together, but... I have a bad feeling about this.

I'm partial to the Eva Solo fridge carafes, which seem to fit all the criteria (they're fine with boiling liquids), but are a little on the expensive side (the two I have I got at a deep discount, at a shop that was going out of business). They do look nice, though.

I have a some recollection of using this technique a long time ago (and know plenty of people who use it), but I prefer both the texture and convenience (just the pot to clean, no strainer) of rice that is cooked in just as much water as it will absorb. It's down to personal preference, obviously.

Must one, really? What, like anyone has choice?

Hm... does it have to be a stand mixer? Bear with me, since I know what the stand mixer is standard kitchen equipment, and plenty recipes specify it. However, even when a stand mixer is specified, I've found that a handheld works fine (the models of stand mixers I have my eye on are way beyond my means, so i don't have one); to be perfectly honest, I can't think of anything that I do with the handheld that a stand mixer would do [significantly] better, from meringue to bread (I bake bread 3-4 times a week, and do quite a bit of other baking, too). Plus, because of its size, it is easily tucked into a cabinet, and doesn't take up counter space.