Mottmott
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Posts posted by Mottmott
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Add 10 more, 6 were presents, 4 I forgot I just retrieved from another city.
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There's no $2.Chuck around here. But I have found a cheap middle European wine that works for most cooking purposes. It hasn't much body, but isn't too acidic, and works well for deglazing, etc. I don't think I'd use it in a dish where the wine stars.
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How do you do it?
Do you use recipes most of the time, seldom, never? For everyday cooking or just party cooking? And where are you? novice? experienced? granny-cook? professional? I know some of you even keep inventories of your home pantries.
I love cookbooks, read 'em, collect 'em, check out the mags all the time. Enjoy the cooking shows. I "hoard" recipes. But most of my cooking does not actually follow a particular recipe. (Except baking, of course.) And with a few exceptions I seldom make a dish the same way more than once.
I'm doubt it's a matter of experience as much as temperament. I've cooked for many years, and I've always used cookbooks and recipes more as a learning tool than a guide for a particular dish or meal. I enjoy snuffling around the market to see what's looking fresh and tempting and perhaps find something I haven't used before and then making up a meal to fit. Or am I just rationalizing disorganization?
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I tasted pan roasted/fried cauliflower in Italy in my youth and have made this delicious dish ever since. I can make an entire meal on most of a whole cauliflower myself! (it shrinks) My kids love it, too.
I agree with those who give it 30-40 minutes in the oven. When I do it on the stove, I usually steam the head whole slightly. Doing this the night before allows finishing more quickly stovetop without overbrownintg. When I do it stovetop, I usually dredge the flowerets in seasoned flour and use lots of olive oil.
This lends itself to all sorts of seasoning & spices, though the Italian variation is my favorite. And this is the one place where I sometimes use garlic powder.
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I like to mix fresh & canned tomatoes for sauces. No matter what brand you use there are always a few tricks to coax the best flavor out of them. You definitely find people on both sides of the fence when it comes to adding sugar to tomato sauce but I have to say sugar is a secret ingredient in many chef's pantries. If you read (& I suggest you do) Tom Valenti's "From My Kitchen" cookbook, he has a great passage about seeing another chef he respected (John Schenk) having sugar right next to the salt & pepper on his station and how happy he was to see he was not alone. I use bar sugar since it dissolve instantly, in hot or cold to tweak alot of sauces. Essentially everytime you use onions or wine or most vegetables, you are on some level, adding sugar to your dish. So, as the seasons change and products vary, don't feel like your cheating if you sneak a pinch of sugar in when noone's looking. They'll all thank you for it later when your sauce has that extra "something" that always makes yours taste better than when they try to make it.
My kitchen rule? "There are no rules."
I agree it's about balancing and/or emphasizing flavors and aromas. Taste, adjust, taste, adjust. If it needs sweet, add sweet. I also often sneak in a bit of lemon juice and/or peel while cooking or sprinkle some on before serving to give another dimension to the acidity of the tomatoes.
As for brand. I used to order the large cans of Badalucco tomatoes by the case from Claudio when they were packed in their own juices. Now they've changed the formula and begun packing them in puree.
So I'm casting about for my "house" brand. (Claudio's says chefts prefer the tomatoes in the puree. Huumph.) -
I'm using a generally satisfactory Braun, except: THE CORD. Is there a good one out there that is battery powered?
(I set up my kitchen pre-immersion blender days and the wall on which I have my longest counter run is against a masonry wall which makes late additions of electric difficult.)
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When I was young the family (and everyone had to be there) ate in the kitchen unless we had company - no TV during meals. When my children were young we ate either in the dining room or the kitchen, with or without company - again, no TV during meals, but sometimes music.
Now when I live alone, it's always the dining room with company, sometimes without - never TV. Otherwise, snacky meals are had on the round marble table that was my mother's - sometimes TV. It depends on the menu. Some meals deserve the dining room. Others are enhanced by it. But if I order in pizza when I'm too tired to cook, it's always in bed in front of the TV. I only use the outdoor grill for parties or when someone else will tend it.
Oddly, I find that I use the dining room when alone more now that I have a nice old round table instead of a rectangular one. The room has a more intimate and inviting feel to it. Or perhaps it reminds me of my live-alone graduate school days when I had a round oak table in a round bay in an old brick Victorian that has since been torn down for a McDonalds. Used for study as well as dining, the table had piles of books and often my cat perched on them, watching or sleeping.
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Thanks to both of you for the explanation. The cast dendritic blade sounds amazing, but a tad pricier than my amateur status probably justifies. Though I'm open to argument. Less sharpening by a factor of 300!
I'm still enamoured with old fashioned carbon steel that is, at least, easily sharpened. I'm not averse to a new knife, but my typical experience with "new" and "better" technology is that it often has as much down as upside. I shake my head at the idea of a knife with a metal handle or a ceramic, breakable when dropped blade!
Stainless knives look cleaner than my darkened and, yes, I admit it, pitted, 8" Sabatier, but I didn't find the Wusthof version of stainless cuts better or keeps sharp easier. I suppose, though, that mass market knives probably don't use the same quality metal as the artisan made knives.
AzRael, look above for the photos. And for real culinary tool porn, check out the websites listed by Chad.
Barbara
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I have a couple questions.
Chad, the technical alpha-numeric descriptions of the steel in these catalogs whizzz over my head. Is your Mullin blade what I call carbon steel? - The sort that's likely to stain? Do I understand correctly that you have Mullins's 8" blade unmodified? Or did you have it modified? Yours looks a little shallower than the blade on his website.
And I'm curious what is "cast dendridic steel" ?
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Chad, You've inspired me. I have an couple 30-40 year old (tatty looking but very sharp) carbon steel Sabatier's (8 & 10") and a 7" carbon Henkels. I'm going to get out the Dremel and customize them! Why not make a good thing better? A few years back I bought a Wustof chef's knife and wound up giving it away. Too thick, too wide, too heavy, and too hard to keep sharp. And, I had trouble getting used to that rocking action.
I'm also going to work on a cheap carbon steel Chinese half cleaver that's actually the sharpest blade I've ever had, but so thin its edge has become somewhat serrated!
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I haven't made this for awhile, but using small/medium white turnips (purple shoulders ok) - not rutabagas, parboil them. Then saute them in butter and just before servinging, throw in a bunch of freshly fried breadcrumbs. I think this recipe may have come from Julia Child.
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...I'll making some mascarpone in a few minutes ...
re tartaric acid...
Edited: Oops, nevermind.
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I'm late to the party. Personally, I'm willing to share anything I can remember. I've always cooked like someone's grandmother. A little this, a little that, taste, and a bit more. Oh, it needs some salt, some sugar, a bit of zip or a calming down. I often have no idea how much of this or that is in the final dish. Often bits and pieces of former meals go into the pot. How account for that? And so much of cooking for me is how it smells, tastes, or looks, not how many minutes it's been cooking.
Lastly, when exactitude does count, I find that people's eyes glaze over when I go into the details that I think really make the difference, when, say, making pastry or some other food that depends more on technique than ingredients. (I've actually demonstrated making pate brisee for my DIL who's never actually tried to do it after she saw how persnickity I am about it.)
I can understand, though, that some people might be reluctant to share particular recipes or - more to the point - to share them with particular people who will use them either competitively or ineptly.
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I've just read your wonderful account of a marathon pornographic Holiday feast. Amazing. It will become the model to which I shall aspire next year. (And it is a most welcome antidote to this year's lugubrious holiday visiting ailing friends. ) I feel more cheerful, now.
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Olive oil, garlic, and sometimes a bit of lemon peel.
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The best toast is toasted on a cast iron pan with the contrast of texture between the inside and outside of the bread. Toasters? Feh.
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Kym, there is a recipe in today's (London) Guardian for a date + olive oil cake (with optional pecans) - do you want me to PM you the recipe?
Fi
I looked online for it but couldn't find it. Perhaps you could post the link? It sounds good.
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".......It must have been at least 40% butterfat .......but they brought out the carton and there was no butterfat percentage listed......."
This is exactly what irkes me the most. No exact labeling about the butterfat.
And no one is willing to tell me the difference in fat content of "Heavy Cream" and/or "Whipping Cream"
I have called different dairy plants and non is able/willing to devulge that Info.
Does anyone out there know? (maybe by 'naming' the Dairy?!)
You may have better luck with some of the smaller dairies. I've gotten information from Merrymead.
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Can someone explain the wild price range of red peppers? I bought them at $1 for five of them at the Italian market (Phila, about a week ago) at the same time they appeared elsewhere at $3+/lb in the same city.
In the case of many other foods, I see SOME explanation: upscale market vs supermarket, organic vs conventional. With red peppers it seems so capricious.
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I suppose everyone interested in food history knows about Clifford Wright's "Mediterranean Feast." Phyllis Pray Bober's "Art Culture, & Cuisines is less well known and densely academic (62 pages of foodnotes and a 43 page bibliography). It also has a bunch of recipes from prehistoric, ancient Egyptian Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman times, and late Gothic times. A second volume is promised, but not yet actualized as far as I know.
Also, a couple more websites:
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When you go over all that's been said in the past, you'll find a recurrent theme is that most people who do more than occasional cooking are unenthusiastic about "sets." Different materials have different properties. No material has everything the adventurous cook needs. I second the suggestion that you begin with the eGCI segment on cookware, then check previous threads.
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Computer Variations:
A wireless laptop makes it easy. If you're worried about getting flour in the keys, etc., cover the keyboard with Saran. (You can do use it with cookbooks, too, if you bring them in the kitchen)
I store most recipes on the computer whether they are my own, from friends, scanned from a book or magazine, or downloaded from websites. Most of the time I print them out to work from paper, which I prefer. With the computer, it's easy to note the changes and keep notes. You can use a scanner to get all your bits of paper onto the computer.
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Never send my daughter-in-law to the wine cellar for "cooking" wine! (I always have on hand a variety of inexpensive wines for cooking - yes, drinkable, just not pricy).
Somewhat hurried and harried over doing a last minute poached fish for my non-meat-eating DIL (the rest of us were to revel on roasted animal flesh), I sent her to the cellar for some riesling. Too absorbed in juggling stovetop and oven, I absentmindedly opened the wine as I removed the fish, reduced the court bouillon, added it to the pot, reduced it again, etc., all the while fishing the roast, the fingerling potatoes and chipollini out of the oven.
It was only the next day I looked at the wine bottle to discover she'd come back with a one that cost more than the roast the rest of us dined on.
The worst part was I'd only had a teaspoon's taste of it! 
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You always add the wine first so you can drink the remainder while finishing off your recipe.
Mad Cow Disease now in the U.S.
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I just read this article on BSE/MCD. Perhaps those of you with more science behind you could comment. It is not reassuring.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17513