TheTInCook

I made Andrea's tofu palak paneer (called Simmered Greens with Fried Tofu) for dinner tonight, in my wok. It's very good, and makes a point that I've always missed when making saag or palak dishes, that they need simple spicing. The only dry spice she uses is cumin, but I ended up adding a touch of garam masala at the end to make it pop. My Indian-food-novice spicyfood disliking (I made it mild) guest enjoyed it. I used only spinach, as that is what I had, but she suggests a range of greens as alternatives. It only suffers because when you taste the saag, your mouth expects to bite into a nice bit of paneer, but ends up with a cube of tofu. I rate this dish as a qualified make again, only because I'd swap out the tofu for paneer if available. I'd make the greens portion the same way.

My homebrew nigari is almost ready. I just dissolved a bunch of calcium chloride in water, then added epsom salts while stirring until it could no longer dissolved. It turned milky due to the formation calcium sulfate. Now, I just gotta wait for it to settle out. After I decant my 'nigari,' I plan on recovering the sediment. I'm just not sure if I should wash it to get rid of any excess epsom salt.

Nope. Texturally it cooked perfectly.

I am furiously looking for the receipt. Looking at the company;s website, it seems the rice might be parboiled. Doesn't say so on the bag, but I wonder...

My new bag of basmati rice stinks horrible while and after being cooking. It smells kinda like an electrical fire, as I'd thought my rice cooker had short circuited. I've tried cooking it straight from the bag, and sautaing it in ghee (hoping that would fix it), same malevolent aroma and icky taste. In between I made a batch of jasmine rice, and it turned out ok, so I don't think it's the cooker. What's going on here? It smells pretty neutral with a light basmati aroma when it's raw. Any ideas on how to salvage it? I'd hate to toss 10lbs of rice. The brand is Lakshmi Foods, 100% Natural Nazia 1121 Sela, Super Basmati Rice. The packing date is October 2010. There are no obvious signs of rodent, pest, or water damage.

Hmm, do you know what the emissivity setting is on yours? Some models have adjustable emissivity settings, too. For the candy syrups, do you think it might have been a surface temp v interior temp issue? Have you tried it with deep frying oil? I was looking at amazon after I started this topic, and this was the first review that popped up. http://www.amazon.com/review/R199QRXIN61CX7/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000TM7HXC&nodeID=15684181&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful In it, he says there was an ~10 deg F differential between the IR and instant read temps when making candy. Also, he says if stirred just before taking the reading, he gets a better reading.

I was making a bunch of candy yesterday for a fundraiser, and it was a pretty miserable experience temperature taking wise. I was not happy at all with the bi metallic and glass thermometers I had, and the heat the stove was putting off from cooking three batches of stuff at once made using the digital instant read thermometer painful. I didn't trust the wire from my remote probe digital to be safe from the burner heat, but that's a model specific issue. An IR thermometer seems like it might be an ideal solution, but I got no idea if it can get a good read on the syrup temp.

Huh, I thought PSE was only in pork.

Found a couple of other uses for the okara. 1)You can parch it in the oven to make granola. 2)You can add some liquid and steam it to form a psuedo tofu.

Just finished making, and eating some Twice Cooked Coriander Tofu. It's pretty good, I especially like the dark edges. I used ginger instead of galangal as the book suggested, and I added some serrano chiles because I like the heat. This dish would be amazing with galangal. I might try it with the powdered stuff the next time I make it. If you don't want to fry it, I think it could work pretty well in the broiler. I ate it with hot rice, a bit of the reserved spice paste, and a squeze of lime. Very good. Reminds me in a way of fresh char sui and hot rice. My main quibble, is the process. You press the tofu, then you add it and the spice paste to a bunch of water, and cook it down until the 'sauce' gets thick. Then you scrape the thick sauce off the tofu, and deep fry it. All that moisture the tofu absorbed is detrimental to a good deep fry, and the simmering/reducing step adds almost an hour to the cooking time. I'm thinking press, marinated overnight in the undiluted spice paste, scrape the paste off, deep fry. Make the sauce by sauting the paste in some oil till cooked, and thin with a little lime juice. This dish is definitely a make again, especially if I can remove the simmer step.

Olive oil normally clouds and congeals in the fridge.

Maybe gelatin? IIRC, a lot of carrageenan gels melt at >60 deg C.

Yeah, check out the modernist 'constructed cheeses'

Grated ginger(it was on the older side), garlic, cilantro, cumin, soy sauce, aji no moto (I'm expiramenting with it), and I think I added sesame oil to the first batch. There were also bamboo shoots. These were in julliene, and packed in water in a plastic bag. I diced them up.

I'm making the Twice Cooked Coriander Tofu (Pressing as we speak) tonight, and serving it with garlic spinach. Since I have to fry stuff anyway for the above, I bought something called 'Soy bean cake.' It was on a styrofoam tray. I cut it into tiles, and I'm going to fry it, and use it for later dishes. Also picked up 3 different brands of soy beans, lol. Welpac, Asian Taste, and some Korean brand. Pretty affordable. Prices ranged from 1.80 to 1.25 a pound. I couldn't find my calcium chloride, so it looks like I'm stuck with epsom salts.

It was the same beef. Egg is a good thought. It wasn't slimy. The texture was almost like I had sweated it, and been very careful to smash up all the clumps. It was very juicy though. No binder was used. The beef was fatty, at least 20%. I'm at a bit of a loss. Maybe I didn't stir it enough, or stirred it too little. When I defrost the remainder of the beef this weekend, I'm thinking about adding a little alkalie like they do for making chinese style beef balls. They have a 'springy' texture.

True. However, I don't own a grinder, and I usually buy already ground meats to economize. I usually get it from places like Vallarta or Ranch 99 which have their own butchery operations and use up their own trim. Speaking of chopping, I've read a couple chinese cookbooks that recomend chopping your already ground meat to 'loosen it up.' I've never tried it though. I keep thinking about the texture I ended up with yesterday. The little bits of beef remained separate. It was almost like I filled the dumplings with a ragu bologense. Makes me wonder if there is something interfereing with the albumin or whatever causes ground meat to knit together when cooked. Almost sounds like a job for transglutamase.

Khymos also suggests adding some guar gum to control syneresis.

The khymos book says agar tolerates it.

I bought it unfrozen, but I don't know if it was frozen before purchase. I don't recall seeing any previously frozen label. I did portion some of it out to freeze it for later, but I didn't freeze the part I used. Later this week, I'll thaw some of it out and cook it to see if its different. FWIW, I don't think I've had this problem when I've frozen ground beef. Think it might be a problem with the meat packer;s grinder?

I made a batch of potstickers today, and the beef just didn't bind together after cooking them. Even though it was cooked through, it just remained mushy and pasty. I didn't measure or weigh anything, but my best guess is that the non beef ingredients were <25%. IIRC, the beef was 80% lean. The only thing I think I've done different was using bamboo shoots in the filling. Any ideas what causes this?

No bone chips in the two chubs I've bought this year. Only ever had a bone chip in fast food burgers, and that was years ago.

I read that article. Found it kinda funny how he praised the exuditiveness of the 'all natural' beef. I want my juices in the burger, not in a puddle on my plate.

I've also heard that okara makes a good wood polish. After you press out all the soy milk, you keep it in the rage, and rub your wood surfaces with the bundle. Something about the oil content. Most of the okara dishes sound ok. I've never had it before, so I don't have a metric to judge.* Sounds like okara is the lesser cut of the soy bean. Have you guys decided what coagulant you're going to try? I picked up some Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) the other day. Somewhere I've got some calcium chloride from cheese making. If I remember my chemistry, if we mix the magnesium sulfate and calcium chloride, most of the calcium will precipitate out as calcium sulfate (gypsum), which we can use for Chinese style tofu. The liquid should be pretty close to the original nigari being mainly magnesium chloride, with a little calcium sulfate still in solution. *I went to a fancy Japanese restaurant a few years ago, and the Japanese waitress was telling us about the 'okara' special. I ordered one, and was excited to try something I'd just read about. Turned out, it was just okra.

Anybody got any plans for what they are going to do with their o-kara and whey? I'm definitely going to try the o-kara fritter type recipes. I also dug up a chapati recipe that uses okara to try. Would the whey be good in soup?