TheTInCook

Good price?

It ain't the packaging. Food service gets ground meat packed in tubes aka chubs routinely. I picked up a tube of Smart and Final house brand ground meat (First Street?) from a tube the other day for making jaozi and pot stickers. Now it is on the fatty side, but that suited my purpose just fine.

Alas, I have to celebrate Pi Day on Friday, but it will be with a shoofly pie.

Anyone know of any good sources for bulk soybeans? I'm in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles.

Yes, I know. I purposely made mono-sodium citrate. You also have to account for the water of crystallization in the citric acid. It's only 18 g/mol, but still. I'm pretty sure the sodium carbonate was anhydrous, since I made it and kept it in a plastic bag. I did some dairy science reading today, and I confirmed that the problem was it was too acidic, and that it's tri-sodium citrate mainly used. Mono- and di- sodium citrate are used sometimes to decrease the pH of the mix. Also found out how the emulsifying salts work. First, it raises the pH. Secondly, the sodium ions swap with the calcium ions in the protein matrix. Third, the citrate ions sequester the calcium ions. The pH change combined with the ion exchange and sequestration, allows the proteins to hydrate and de-aggregate , allowing you to make smooth cheese with heat and sheer.

Tried making a cheese dip tonight based off of the parametric table. Water 240g Sodium Carbonate 1.98g Citric Acid 7.85g Non Fat Milk Powder 4g Cheese 200g (85g med chedder, the remainder low moisture mozzarella) Green Chiles to taste I ended up with mixed results. I used the liquid to cheese ratio for fondue from the table, and it seemed to be pretty thin. I added around 100g more mozzarella. It got to a nice thickness for dipping, when it cooled a little. The main problem was the citrate component. I don't know if the sodium citrate called for in the book was mono- di- or tri-sodium citrate, and I didn't have any sodium citrate laying around. So I the math, and added the chemicals for 8 grams of monosodium citrate. When I weighed the chemicals, I made the assumption that the citric acid I had was monohydrate (according to wikipedia citric acid is either anhydrous or a monohydrate depending on how it's processed). This assumption and the decision to use mono sodium citrate was because egulleters have reported that in their MC cheese attempts, they ended up with a cheese that was too basic. So I erred on the side of acid. The dip was agressively tangy. Almost overpowering. I didn't measure the ph, but based on taste, I'd say around 4. The second issue was the texture. It didn't get smooth, and stayed pretty rough, even after hitting it with the immersion blender. Before that, there were little traces of curd. There was no fat seperation, and the liquid it self looked nice and creamy. I think the cause of this fault is either, the ph being too low, use of dry milk instead of whey powder, type of cheese, or too short cooking time. I'm guessing it's the ph. I agree with the other people here and it seems that the cheese preperations don't need much, if any, table salt for seasoning. The emulsifying salts seem plenty salty enough.

OMG! If somebody could invent an easily adjustable height prep s/s prep table, my back would thank you. You'd make a fortune selling those things.

In the book, she objects because -doesn't make a large enough volume in a batch -only good for a set ratio of beans to water. (I guess it's a problem if you wanted to make richer soy milk, for say silken tofu or pudding) -still had to strain the soy milk.

She recomends against those.

How did you build the press? I got some cheap cuts of poplar and glued them together with gorilla glue. I didn't have any plans, just eyeballed the pic of the wood one in the book. I only had a dremal to cut with, so my cuts aren't as neat as I'd have them. Once I get a saw, I think I'll make more refined one. http://thetincook.blogspot.com/2012/03/making-your-own-tofu-press.html

IIRC, the general modes of failure for that kind of thing are 1)The starch wasn't hydrated/cooked enough during the first cooking, 2) it was dried too much/not enough, 3) Oil was too cold. Good guide here http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/10/27/puffed-snacks-1-wherefore-the-puff/

I bought this on kindle too. Even built my own tofu press for it, but haven't had a chance to make tofu from scratch yet. The ma po tofu from the book is very good. I used to use mince pork for that dish, but beef pairs really really well with the bean sauce. You should also try the bear paw tofu. I've got some ideas for making my own nigari, since it's not readily available here.

An offset gratin edged slicer seems like it would be a good Knife to have.

They were just packs I got at the Fresh and Easy. I also use Pataks because I like their flavor profile. They were both about the same quality, but pataks are a better bargain. I used to make my own, but when I moved in Dec, my masala dabba fell victim to a horrible spillage accident, and I haven't gotten around to buying new spices yet.

Mae Ploy pastes are pretty good, both in quality and value (most economical of the curry pastes out here). I enjoy the panang and the green. I use the Maesri prik king paste mainly because I've never seen it under another brand. It is tasty though. It's possible, but I don't know for sure, that the Mae Ploy bag in tub pastes are processed more mildly compared to the canned pastes. I've tried various Indian masala pastes in retort pouches, and they are not bad.

A 6:1 ratio is on the thick side of congee, which is what I ended up with. I followed the recipe as written, except I left it to drain overnight, and ended up with a tablespoon of filtrate. It might have been too smooth, but it wasn't as if there was lots of free water. The recipe promises a 1.5 kg yield, which in having attempted it, seems unreasonable.

I'm trying the rice milk recipe on 6-228. It's looking like a loser. Soaked the rice for 3 hrs, then simmered it for 30 minutes. Ended up with a pot of mushy rice. Adding the next installment of water and puree yield a pot of paste. I got it sitting in a sieve with a single layer of muslin (I'm out of cheese cloth), but it looks like it's too thick to drain. Did I miss some errata?

Anyone try the rice noodle dough from the parametric table?

What kind of pot were you using? Aluminum?

Candied tangerine and lemon peels. Ginger snaps and oreos. Ruffled potato chips. A fudge center would be awesome if you're using a high cocoa% dark chocolate. Otherwise, it's too sweet. Cranberry or pomegranite pate de fruit sounds tasty in dark chocolate. I'm working on a glace apricot made with dried apricots. Not quite there yet, but good for dipping.

I used 16 guage galvanized steal wire I found in the picture hanging section. ~2 bucks for 25'. I haven't seen any signs of rusting. If you're going to make your own three or four tined fork, here's a trick I found out. The fork is formed with a single piece of wire, you just wrap it in a sorta coil. You'll have one or two loops pointing out and one free tine. You solder the junctions, then clip off the ends of the loops off, thus forming the rest of your tines. This way you don't have to worry about clamping stuff will you solder.

Looks like a cake layer cutter thingy.

I used the same solder that's used on copper drinking water pipes. It has no lead in it.

NICE! Your tines look thicker then mine. I went with the Oxo sized handle for comfort. I'm so using your idea of using a taut wire perched on the bowl to scrape excess off.

When I was really getting into confectionery last month, I was disgusted by how much dipping forks cost, so I decided to make my own. I used plumber's solder to join the wire together, so it's safe. I wasn't too happy with the join because I was using my dollar store soldering iron, and it seemed to have trouble getting the workpiece hot enough. The join is still pretty strong. Next batch, I'm thinking of using my blow torch. The spiral one ended up getting turned into a holder for my instant read thermometer so I can keep my hand cool while checking temps. These are prototypes, so they are a bit ugly. I picked out the poplar dowel handles from the scrap bin.