Panaderia Canadiense

Kim, have you tried a lightly-oiled silicone bundt? It's a game-changer.

Chris, what's being said above, is that flour + water + air temperatures should equal 52, isn't it? So 17+17+17=52? (roughly...) I could of course be wrong..... But wouldn't that mean a cooler flour than normal?

Rereading this, it sounds like what's being advocated is having each ingredient at about 17 degrees C (63 F), which is a bit cooler than standard room temperature. This would indeed contribute to a longer ferment (since yeast is less active in the cold) and therefore a loaf with a lighter, more tender texture (if I'm recalling my theory of French breads correctly....) One comes up with these temperatures in practice by chilling the ingredients before you begin.

And here I thought the tagline in that post was "Ah, floopy March carrots...."

We thought that last Sunday was Mother's Day (yeah, I know - I'm great with which day of the week it is, but terrible with where that day might fall within the month....) So, dinner was shrimp fried in butter and aliño, with mushroom and green pepper risotto and steamed asparagus. And the obligatory green salad, not pictured.

I caramelized onions a few times a year, and have never paid much attention to the amount of liquid they exude - maybe because the onions have all been moist enough. This thread has got me thinking about the moisture content. Is there some way of knowing how moist or dry the onions are when purchased, before cutting them? Mostly I use what are often called "storage onions." Will the age of the onion effect the moisture content? Which might be more most, young or old onions? I suspect that age, but more specifically how long the onions have been held since harvest, will affect how much moisture there is in each bulb. Kind of the same way that a carrot fresh out of the soil will always be crunchier and juicier than one that's been held in the root cellar all winter. Ah, floopy March carrots.... I've had weeping onions that were what you'd consider "new" (very small bulb size, almost pearls) as well as what you'd think were "old" (huge big bulbs), but in all cases I'm willing to bet that the granny I bought them from had pulled them up the previous evening in preparation for market day. If you're using "storage onions" then they're almost guaranteed to be drier than that, since they've been held for an undefined (but I'd assume longish) period of time. Worse if they're supermarket onions, because then who knows how they were treated, transported, held, and whatnot from the point of harvest. So I suppose what I'm saying here is that the freshest possible onions, regardless of their age (in terms of time from seed to harvest) are most likely the juiciest. ETA - the best test I've figured to gauge the age of an onion without cutting it is simply to heft it a little. The freshest onions seem a little heavy for their size, and of course with all things being relative this does take a bit of time to figure out. I've been hefting onions for about a decade, so I have an idea of what an old one weighs when compared to a fresh one of similar size.

I'm with MJX - lid! Otherwise, screaming hot pan and oil, cold onions, will also do the trick (and rather quickly, last time I did it this way for crispy caramelized). Also in another part of the world, but I haven't noticed any lack of moisture in my onions (in fact, I sometimes get the kind that weep copious amounts of oniony liquid when I cut them - these are awesome for the kind of caramelization you're talking about.) I haven't noticed a seasonal difference, either, but then again the parts of the country where onions are grown don't really have well-marked seasons, just a sort of eternal springtime.

My preferred method is to cook in a steel pot over medium heat, covered, until the water has all been absorbed. I use a local grade of toasted gold rice which is drier than the more standard white perl types normally available down here. Incidentally, when I'm cooking brown rice, the ratio is closer to 3:1 water:rice....

I'd definitely say that it does, based on my own experiences at sea level vs. very high altitudes, and humidity vs. desert. In Canada (Edmonton, Alberta - 500 meters and fairly dry), it was always 1.5:1 water:rice; on the Ecaudorian coast (high humidity, 0 altitude), it's 1:1, and in Ambato (3,000 meters and desert-dry) it's 2:1.

I do swear by 2:1 water:rice, but I use a specific toasted golden rice and cook it at 10,000 feet above sea level, which always, always requires more water than on the coast. 1.5:1 and 1:1 make crunchy, ugly, undercooked rice, which is not what I'm after at all.

The ties are probably less dirty than the fronts, yes? Have you tried tying them together in a simple, loose one-loop knot behind the aprons before you toss them in? That's what I do with my aprons (although admittedly I only wash 5-8 at a time, that being how many I've got.) It works very well - the ties come out clean but they don't tangle or get weird in either washer or drier.

I've always been almost inordinately fond of pain au chocolat made with brioche dough and bittersweet chocolate - I form the brioche dough around a chunk of chocolate and then settle it into its mould and bake as usual (I use personal-sized brioche moulds). They come out sort of like chocolate explosion muffiny brioches - very yum.

I used to have that problem, then I started using a bundt pan for angel cakes (it even works when you want to fill them, so long as you've got a nice long cake knife or a cake-levelling saw).

I can send you a jar of mine, if you like. I do a 48-hour soak with unscraped peels, with a preliminary boil at the 24 hour mark, and a final weigh-in and sugaring after 48 hours. My British expat clients down here swear it tastes like the marmalade they remember getting at Harrods in their youth. Then again, what I'm after is the traditional, bittersweet orange marmalade like my gran used to make; I've pieced together the recipe I use from memory and her badly faded, spidery handwritten notes. I spent a lot of time as a child in gran's kitchen with the wicked-sharp paring knives she favoured, cutting oranges for marmalade.

Thing is, I do have a very sharp mandolin, a Japanese model which I use for slicing things for pickling. It's sh*te with the oranges for some reason, and it's certainly not because of a dull blade. Which means that I've been chopping everything by hand with my Nakiri; this works but it's a royal PITA for large batches. Hence, if I'm going to spend some cheese, it might as well be on a tool that will do what I need it to! Also, that's a very different method of marmalade making, Andie! Where is the 24-48 hour soaking period in water and its own juice? Is there a comparable depth of flavour to the marmalade when it's made quickly as you describe?

Badiane - if that were the case, I could use my mandoline, but unfortunately that's not a good idea. The mandoline is all but useless for oranges (I'm very disappointed!) and in my experience meat slicers aren't so hot with something that's as juicy as cut citrus.

I need to slice large quantities of oranges, lemons, and limes, quite thinly (think 1/8 to 1/16 of an inch) and fairly quickly. I make Seville orange marmalade when the Seville oranges are in season here (which starts about now and runs for 6-8 months a year) and I have picked up a contract to produce very large quantities of said marmalade for a deluxe grocery chain. In Victorian and Edwardian times, a tool existed for this specific purpose; it generally clamped onto the countertop and hand a handle that controlled a sharp blade as well as a pusher of sorts to hold the citrus against the cutting surface. I think there's an example of one in the Unknown Kitchen Gadgets thread; the brands seem to be "Magic" or "Marvel" and it also appears that such a tool is no longer produced. They usually look like this. Hence I'm looking for somebody who's got one they're not using, in order to do a trade.

I'm going to go with Spain or Portugal, based on the vegetation and architecture. And I'm going to say (with great hope in my heart) AAQuesada is our next blogger.

Hi Folks, I'd rather not have to resort to eBay if I don't have to, so I figured I'd ask here - since y'all are such profligate collectors of kitchen paraphernalia. Does anybody have a marmalade slicer of any sort that they'd be willing to sell/trade me? I've got high-end gran-cru chocolate and arriba cocoa nibs, as well as access to a number of hard-to-source Latin American ingredients. Alternately, if anybody has any suggestions as to where I might be able to find such a creature, I'd be most grateful. Thanks in advance! ____________________________________________ Host Note: Rules of the Game Please use the PM system for all aspects of any exchange: cost of shipping, addresses, etc.

The other thing you can do is cut the canes in half, hollow them out somewhat (save the hollowings, obviously) and then fill the cavities with coconut-curry shrimp and peanuts, then bake or bbq-oven them until the shrimp is cooked. This is very, very yum.

My first thought was also "olives aren't already healthy?" Then again, I've seen mushrooms here tagged as "zero cholesterol" so I'm no longer surprised by obvious marketing claims....

Kay, you'll end up with hard fig candy before they dissolve.... (Not that hard fig candy would be such a hardship....) If you want fig preserves, either less sugar or more water.

The blender trick is completely well-known in Latin America... It's also a whole lot easier to clean than a food mill. Blender-juicing is also applicable to any berry, pineapples (to get juice without stringy pulp), papaya (fast liquifaction), coconut milk (add a bit of flesh and pulse to get coconut cream), watermelon (on a hot day, this is even better than eating slices, and a whole lot less drippy), and mango (for nectar.)

Darienne, have you ever juiced in your blender? If you toss the raspberries in there with just a hint of water (enough to keep them from sticking to the blades) and give them a whirl, the result is much, much easier to strain of seeds and won't end up all over your kitchen.

But...aren't they? Does any other city know for either its bagels or its pizza have the same quality municipal water? Montreal, at least on the bagels end of it. I'd say that the NYC water/bagels thing is definitely a myth. Montreal bagels are, in my opinion, quite less than delicious. But the bagel thing goes beyond water. It goes to the size of bagels now, and making bagels without boiling them. SACRILEGE! Well, at least the Monreal bagels being less than delish.... Although I do agree with the bagel thing being more than just the water used in the dough - size, lack of boil, all of these things have contributed to a declining standard of bagelness. Personally, I don't think they can be called "bagels" if they're not boiled - the word itself refers to this process, and it's essential in the bagelmaking process.