Anna N
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Posts posted by Anna N
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Okay, Jinmyo, since you twisted my arm:
Your market basket items are ground beef, hamburger buns, ketchup and iceberg lettuce. GO!
Seriously, we could have a thread to hash out details, but I don't want to steal Anna's thunder on this great idea. Let's see what she thinks and go from there.
Also, I'm a bum.
Please, please feel free to steal my idea!
I relinquish all patents, royalties, liabilities, tortes, tarts, and whatever other chattels might possibly accrue to me as a result of my insomnia.
To whomsoever feels up to the task- please, please take it.
Signed and dated this 27th day of December in the County of Halton ( just a minute - do I live in Peel or Halton Counties) never mind, one of the above.
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Sorry, everyone. I didn't mean to sound mardy (sulky) - it's been a rough Christmas.
But I lay in bed last night and thought through all the things everyone has said about the limitations of following recipes and wondered if I could challenge myself to cook without a recipe. I mean of course, something new and different.
I made an imaginery walk through my 'fridge, freezer, pantry and then out into the supermarket (not too many specialty stores here and the Farmer's Market is closed until May). Then I thought of Malawry's Market Basket reports from school. Could I put together an interesting meal, without a recipe, just by looking at ingredients and deciding what went with what and how flavours would live together.
I answered myself with a qualified "maybe". It would be a little like taking the training wheels off my two-wheeler - I'd be pretty unsteady at first, but eventually I'd find my balance. And if there were only me to please, I'd accept the challenge willingly. But then there's The Dane ....
But we have a saying in this house when we try something new - "Oh well, if it doesn't work, we can always send out for pizza." So far, we have never had to send out for pizza! So, perhaps it's a level of confidence I need more than anything else. And I think all of you have done wonders for boosting that confidence level.
That doesn't change my mind in any way that if you are going to write recipes, write them well and in detail.
Wouldn't it be fun to have a weekly egulleteer challenge - a market basket and see what members come up with? It would have to be very accessible ingredients so that we weren't stumped by an inability to put together a market basket but damn, wouldn't that be inspiring!
So, you see, I'm back in the saddle again and up for more discussion.
So many thanks.
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anna n, i'm sorry not to answer sooner.......
........which reminds me that a real dirty stinking old cheese should be served on good rye bread.
and an additional advice which may sound heretical to most danes: if you serve several different kind of herring, try substituting the kryddersild with grebbestads ansjovis. swedish, but incredibly good and powerfull stuff.
Hey, no apologies needed!
How could I have forgotten the stinky cheese! When we first visited my brother-in-law in Denmark, we arrived in the very early hours of the morning. He drove us from the Copenhagen airport to his home in Lynge and stopped off at the local bakery to pick up fresh white bread and Danish pastries (If you are reading this and have never been to Denmark, don't even think of what is called Danish pastry in North America!).
As he opened the door to his home we were engulfed in the smell of "dirty socks" - real, wonderful, stinky, Danish cheese. Breakfast was bread still warm from the bakery topped with stinky cheese, washed down with Danish coffee which keeps you wired for hours, and followed by Danish pastry. We topped it all off with a half coffee - half black, black coffee, half akvavit and loads of sugar. If we ever suffered from jet lag on that trip, I don't remember it.
Sadly my wonderful brother-in-law passed away just two weeks ago.
I have never had even the least success in bread-making though I have tried for a loaf of rogenbrot and I can make a very nice caraway rye in my bread machine. Bread-making is one of those things that simply eludes me so I'm afraid it will have to be store-bought for us.
Though I have never heard of grebbestads ansjovis, I am willing to see what I can find out.
Many thanks for your post and for reminding me of stinky cheese which I find almost impossible to get here - best I can manage is a strong German Tilsit and even that is hard to come by.
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Steve Klc and Jinmyo,
I'm both glad and sorry to have started this thread. Glad because it has led to some very interesting points of view, sorry because it seems again to have become an opportunity to take sides, as it were.
Were we all together and able to see one another's face and detect in them the kindness that is meant, it would be fun to have a rip-roaring exchange of view points. Via this vehicle, it's too easy to make assumptions that are baseless.
Some of us were raised in homes where much cooking was done, even if it was not much more than meatloaf or hamburgers but not all of us. Not all of us had a mother to watch and from whom we could learn at least the basics. Some things totally mystified me until very recently and I am already a grandmother twice over!
I have read fairly widely both cookbooks and some science of cooking but I'm not confident and not comfortable combining this with that and adjusting until I get something edible. Eating out is a once in a blue moon thing for us so I don't see the possibilities that others might see in a restaurant meal. My only guide to food preparation is recipes.
Yes, as I move along I am becoming more confident but I certainly don't have any innate abilities to produce gourmet meals. Nor do I want to. I want to put an interesting and tasty meal on the table with enough variety to keep me and The Dane nourished not only with the food but with the experience of trying something new.
Certainly without a recipe I wouldn't have a clue what to do with lemongrass or mango - new discoveries to me.
So you see, a great deal depends on who you are, what your background is and what it is you hope to accomplish. For me the "map" is a recipe. Once I've found the main road, then I can make my own side-trips and change things but I want that map there to begin with and I want it as accurate and detailed as possible.
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For large cuts of meats and whole poultry - an instant meat thermometer. For chops, steaks and cut up poultry - timing plus touching and sometimes, especially with chicken - the awful sin of cutting into it. It's more of a health thing with the chicken - a steak just doesn't worry me a whole lot - I like it pretty darn rare and the same with a beef roast but pork and whole poultry are a bit scary and not a bit of fun to eat if not properly cooked. I like my pork barely pink but couldn't eat it rare - health concerns aside - it just doesn't look appetizing.
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I store my brown sugar in the freezer in a plastic bag and it never gets hard.
Anyone else try this?
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I have written thousands of recipes for publication, and been published in over a hundred books, magazines and newspapers combined. In my daily column, the recipes appear as I write them; in many magazines they are edited to fit the magazine's style (and for some books, I am required to write in a specific style). I believe I have seen my meaning misconstrued, key information left out, helpful tidbits ommitted, and recipes improved with sensitive editing.
Over the years, I learned to appreciate certain attributes of well-written recipes. They include:
1. Visual clues: "Cook, stirring, for 10 minutes, or until the sauce is the consistency of heavy cream."
2. Simple Explanations: "To avoid scorching the garlic, be sure to..."
3. Approximate, if not exact, time or effort required to complete a task: "Bring the potatoes and water to a boil and continue cooking for another x minutes, or until the potatoes are tender"..."Broil for 10 minutes, or until the center is barely translucent." In contrast, "Broil until the center is barely translucent" leaves the inexperienced cook wondering if she has time to make the rice from start to finish after she puts the fish in, or if she should stand by the oven door and check every three minutes).
4. Headnotes that tell you what to expect: Is the dish elegant looking? Subtle or rubust? Hearty and filling? Can it be made ahead? Is any part of the recipe tricky?
There are, of course, many other considerations. Style is a matter of personal opinion. Do you like your recipes chatty or precise and concise? Do you want the recipe to serve as a rough guideline or an exact technical manual?
As a writer, I think first about who my reader is for each recipe, and try to visualize him/her. Is he/she a novice or experienced cook? Harried or cooking for pleasure in leisure time? A sophisticated diner who wants simple, clear directions? Confident? Happy to be cooking? Attentive to what he/she is doing in the kitchen? I am both a technical writer and a friend as I visualize my reader.
The best recipes that I read (and follow) have an authoratative, encouraging, and clear, unfussy voice.
A little detective work, a little browsing and I was able to come up with a number of your recipes. I have to say they do come close to the kind of detail I like to see. I am particularly impressed with the ones that include suggestions for sides and accompaniments. Tonight - Quick Coq au Vin!
And I cannot argue that you must write for your audience and that means adjusting from novice to expert in terms of detail. But you seem to have found a good compromise - enough but not too much.
I like headnotes, and visual clues and comparisons to things I'm likely to understand - e.g. "the consistency of heavy cream".
I think you've covered a lot of the basics here - wish more recipe writers be so considerate! Thanks -
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Initially I want to make plain vanilla ice cream - our favourite all-purpose dessert-making basic. So I'd rather not have to resort to marmalade or such even though I make the best Scotch and Seville orange marmalade around! Can I use powdered pectin instead and what sort of quantity would be appropriate for two cups of liquid?
Here's a link to Alton Brown's "Serious" Vanilla Ice Cream from Good Eats on the Food Network. This is where we got the idea to add preserves to ice cream. Click the link for instructions, meanwhile, here's the ingredient list:
- 2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons peach preserves (not jelly)
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
The most important thing to keep in mind when using an ice cream maker is to thoroughly chill your ice cream batter before freezing. If you put it in while it is warm or at room temperature, you may get bits of congealed butter churned out of your cream.
About having some stuck to the bottom of the mixing container, not letting it freeze until hard will definitely help. You can scrape out the softly frozen ice cream with a rubber spatula.
Oddly, this is one of the recipes I found but didn't trust as it did not call for eggs at all. Being totally new to ice cream making I thought it was a bit strange and wondered if there'd been an ingredient omitted. I guess not. No eggs! Hmmmmmmmmm.
So, my next effort will definitely be the Alton Brown with the pectin source and I will chill my ingredients over night before putting them in the machine. I will report back - we just need to eat up the vanilla ice cream and berry frozen yogourt first - else there'll be no room in the freezer for anything! But I promise to report back when I do make it.
Again, thanks to everyone for their help - this board is GREAT!
- 2 cups half-and-half
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One of my favorite writers, John Thorne, had this to say in Simple Cooking:Perhaps the worst culinary temptation to ever lure a cook astray is the misguided belief that there is, somewhere, the perfect recipe for a favorite dish, best of the best, against which all other versions pale by comparison, and that the cook's only task is to find it. More cookbooks have been bought in vain because they promised the hopeful the consummate chocolate chip cookie, the nonpareil of pot roasts, the quintessential cassoulet or carrot cake, only to have the purchaser discover -- too late -- that each of us tastes the world with a different tongue.
Perfect dishes do appear now and again in this all-too-imperfect world, but perfect recipes, never....
I think this is a great quote and so true!
And another one I like but can't quote exactly nor even attribute:
It's a recipe for heaven's sake not a formula for a prescription drug.
Still, you have to get halfway there before you can start "tweaking" to get it to suit your taste buds. Hence, I still maintain a need for clarity in recipe writing, as you do.
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One of my favorite writers, John Thorne, had this to say in Simple Cooking:Perhaps the worst culinary temptation to ever lure a cook astray is the misguided belief that there is, somewhere, the perfect recipe for a favorite dish, best of the best, against which all other versions pale by comparison, and that the cook's only task is to find it. More cookbooks have been bought in vain because they promised the hopeful the consummate chocolate chip cookie, the nonpareil of pot roasts, the quintessential cassoulet or carrot cake, only to have the purchaser discover -- too late -- that each of us tastes the world with a different tongue.
Perfect dishes do appear now and again in this all-too-imperfect world, but perfect recipes, never....
I think this is a great quote and so true!
And another one I like but can't quote exactly nor even attribute:
It's a recipe for heaven's sake not a formula for a prescription drug.
Still, you have to get halfway there before you can start "tweaking" to get it to suit your taste buds. Hence, I still maintain a need for clarity in recipe writing, as you do.
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Adding a spoonfull or two of marmalade doesnt affect the flavor profile of a strong vanilla bean ice cream. We've done this several times with very good results.
I'm convinced! I will give it a try next ice-cream making session.
Do you think ice cream still has calories when you're trying to perfect a recipe?
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Sorry, Anna, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was attributing all of that to you. I meant to be hand-waving and blaming everything on society and evil publishers.
Of course I agree that there are lousy recipes out there (boring is the worst offense in my opinion--I hate cooking something new, trying the finished product, and saying, "Well, that's not terrible, but it's not great").
You know why Mastering the Art of French Cooking turned so many people into cooks? It wasn't because it had the best recipes--indeed, John and Karen Hess make a convincing case that it didn't. It was because it made people want to cook, to impress their friends, to taste these things they couldn't get in a restaurant in their hometown.
So I think starting off with a cookbook with badly written recipes will lead to frustration. But starting off with a superb beginner's cookbook will also lead to frustration. If you don't get frustrated while learning to cook, you're a saint. And in the end I don't think it matters much which kind of cookbook you start with as long as it's something that keeps drawing you back, demanding that you try it again because you just have to taste that.
WHEW! Thanks.
And yes, the biggest frustration is making a recipe that has been lauded by everyone from here to eternity and discovering that it's Ok but hey, what was all the fuss about?
The next biggest frustration is not being able to cook the same dish over and over and over again over a short time interval to see how it can be improved. I have a thing, inherited from parents who lived through the depression and rationing. that makes it difficult for me to toss food out. That and knowing how many are without food. Other crafts stress that your biggest and best teacher is the waste basket or the garbage bin! But the two of us can only eat so much and even the finest dish palls after a few closely timed repeats. I do try with dishes that don't require costly ingredients.
I would love to cook my way through a book as many egulleteers have done. I'm not sure that the Mastering the Art of French Cooking is the one for today, though. A little too guilt-inducing on the calorie/fat side! I did borrow Julia Child's The Way to Cook from our local library but it had been so vandalized (pages torn out) as to be pretty useless. But from Great Dinners From Life Magazine (I think that was its title - it got lost in a move) I made Child's French Onion Soup and still make it today and I guess that's my signature dish.
Sorry I've never heard of John and Karen Hess but that does sound like an interesting read! Can you tell me where to find it? Book? Magazine article?
Anyway, thanks for all your thoughts on this subject - which I find quite fascinating. (both the subject and your thoughts!)
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Winding, and both Perlows,
Thanks for your suggestions. Having asked for advice I'm not about to argue with it so please take this in the spirit of inquiry:
The recipe I used came from the instruction book that accompanied the product. The only changes I made were to halve the quantities given but add one extra egg yolk and to use pure vanilla extra rather than a vanilla bean (don't have vanilla beans and they are hard to come by around here).
But before I even attempted it, I looked up quite a number of recipes for vanilla icecream both on the Web and in cookbooks I own. None of them called for pectin but most called for a whole lot more egg yolks - 17 (seventeen) in one of them (for about double the quantity of liquid I used).
Initially I want to make plain vanilla ice cream - our favourite all-purpose dessert-making basic. So I'd rather not have to resort to marmalade or such even though I make the best Scotch and Seville orange marmalade around! Can I use powdered pectin instead and what sort of quantity would be appropriate for two cups of liquid?
If I remove some of the heavy cream and replace it with milk (homo 3%) do I need to increase the number of egg yolks?
I know darn well this is going to take practice and experimentation, I just like to start an experiment with the highest likelihood of success!
Many, many thanks for your time and input.
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The problem I have with detailed recipes is that they reinforce a bad assumption: that everything you need to know about making a dish can be encapsulated into a recipe, and that learning to cook is just a matter of picking the right book and following the instructions carefully.......
Good cooks are experts at what they do. Being an expert at something means that most of the task is unconscious: you've internalized all sorts of tiny principles that lead to a successful outcome, and you can no longer call up what many of them are. You can stop and think and break it down, and being able to do that well is one hallmark of a good teacher. But you will never, ever break it down completely; otherwise it wouldn't be a skilled task in the first place...........
The only way to become a good driver or a good cook is practice..........
If I gave the impression that I expected to become a good cook from reading a book and following a recipe, I'm sorry. It's not at all where I was coming from. But if the basics are muddled then I'm not likely to ever achieve "cookdom".
Personal experience tells me that as I cook more, I become better at it, not only in the final result, but in other almost imperceptible ways of trusting my instinct, of looking at a recipe and saying - nope - that's not gonna work! Of staying organized and remembering things such as having a paper-towel lined tray ready for deep-fried goodies.
But a poorly written recipe sets me up for failure and that's where I want to see improvements. Right now, in front of me I have a small recipe book that on the same page tells me 2 T or 25Ml and in another recipe 2T or 30ml! Usually not likely to end up in complete disaster but still - it leaves me wondering what else is wrong.
So, I hope I have at least dispelled the thought that I expect to become a star cook from following a book - anymore than I will expect to become a second Michaelangelo from following a Paint-By-Numbers set.
Thank you for your thoughts.
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So, I got an ice cream maker for Christmas - Cuisinart ICE-20C. Here's the recipe I used (modified by me so it shouldn't be a copyright issue):
1 cup 35% cream
1 cup whole milk
2 egg yolks (from xtra large eggs)
1/4 cup sugar
vanilla extract - total of 1T plus 1t.
Make custard in usual fashion, let cool completely, pour into already frozen container of ice cream maker and process for 20 minutes.
The problem? The ice cream tastes fine, the texture is quite nice. But there's at least 25% of the custard firmly stuck in a layer around the bowl of the ice cream maker. It is almost impossible to scrape out (no metal implements allowed) and what I do scrape out has a much less pleasing texture. Is it taken for granted that you will have this much "waste"? Not that it will be wasted, I did manage eventually to get most of it out and put it in a separate container in the freezer and I know The Dane will eat it - it's ice cream after all. But it seems to me that the bowl needs some scraping down during the processing. Any one have any ideas?
The same thing happened yesterday making frozen berry yogourt but since I had misread the recipe and done some things that in hindsight were not too bright, I took the blame. Today I followed the recipe like a scientist and still this layer formed.
Many thanks.
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Goose fat?!?!?!? Please, please, please give us a lesson in Danish sandwich-making.
I wouldn't presume to set myself up as an expert in the art of "smorrebrod" (please imagine the required slash through both o's"
My husband was born in Copenhagen and his mother had emigrated there from Scotland so it's a very, very mixed heritage. I've dined many times in the long gone and deeply lamented Copenhagen Room restaurant in Toronto. And I've made a number of trips to Denmark but I trust that any true Danes will chime in and correct me where I make errors.
I understand that smorrebrod means buttered bread and in the days before butter became the eighth deadly sin, it would be layered on the bread thick enough to show tooth marks when you bit into it. The alternative spread is called "krydderfedt" and we make it by sauteeing finely chopped apple, peppercorns and bay leaf in goose fat for fifteen or twenty minutes and then passing it through a sieve. It is allowed to solidify and then is used on the bread instead of butter for certain sandwiches.
The bread is generally rogenbrot which is a square, extremely thinly sliced, heavy bread. Only a half slice is used for each sandwich. Cheese and shrimp though would be served with (or on) good white bread. Not all our guests like rogenbrot so we subsitute with other thinly sliced dark breads.
The "sandwiches" are made by completely covering the bread with toppings and are always open-face and always eaten with knife and fork.
Some traditional sandwiches include:
The Vet's Midnight Snack:
Spread the rogenbrot with goose fat, add a slice of liver paste then some thin slices of cured meat and garnish with aspic and thin slices of raw onion.
The Sun over Gudhjem:
Spread rogenbrot with butter and then a smoked herring, sprinkled with very thinly sliced radishes and place a raw egg yolk carefully in the centre of the sandwich and finally sprinkle with finely chopped chives.
Smoked Eel:
Skin and fillet the eel and place on buttered rogenbrot, top with lightly scrambled egg and chopped chives (This is the favourite of my husband, The Dane)!
Fillet of fish with remoulade:
Breaded and fried fillets of fish (plaice, sole, flounder) dressed with remoulade and lemon slices - always served warm.
Shrimp salad:
Tiny shrimp, white asparagus, mayonnaise, whipped cream, lemon juice all tossed together and served on buttered white bread which has been covered first with a large lettuce leaf - garnish with lemon wedge -very, very yummy.
Akvavit is kept in the freezer and served icy cold and accompanied by beer.
Hope this is an intro to some of the best food I've ever eaten.
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Close to a bell jar...how about placing the presliced bread beneath glass cake domes...
Yes, I think this is worth investigating. Thanks
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Like a woman's skirt. Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting.
I won't touch that one! But thanks for helping with the quote thing.
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One of the two books I used when learning to cook was Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking.
That was one of the books I used, too -- if something in one of her recipes utterly mystified me, I looked it up in another book, but the vagueness was very liberating, and everything always came out good.
What was the other book?
And I have nothing but admiration for both of you.
But some of us are born believing that if you are going to give directions then you ought to give precise directions.
Pasta and chapatis are both made with flour and water, both can be utterly "good" but they ain't the same! And I'd be very disappointed to have one made when I really was aiming to make the other.
That's the best analogy I can come up with on short notice but I'm sure it makes the point.
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Can you pre-butter it? That works for finger sandwiches, usually.
Since, depending on how you will top your bread, you may decide on butter or goose fat seasoned with apples and peppercorns, then no, one cannot pre-butter it. But I still thank you for the suggestion.
I keep hoping there is something out there like a domed cheese board or perhaps I already have the answer - now I've expressed it - those bell-jars I've seen in laboratories - they should work but they might look a bit on the bizarre side until guests have imbibed enough eau de vie! Maybe I should search around and see if I can find something like that.
There - see - at least you've all made me find my own answer. Thanks to all.
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What if they also sliced their own bread? Or if you toasted or grilled it first?
Wow! I've got the quote thingy working! Thanks so much Dstone001.
Neither would work well. Slicing own bread would require passing around a bread board and knife (disruptive and possibly dangerous given the amount of Akvavit frizzling the brains), an ability to slice very, very, thinly (bread in the Danish lunch is a palette on which to design a masterpiece!) and more elbow room than I can manage at my table. Neither can it be toasted or grilled - generally we try to serve rogenbrot or something similar which simply doesn't take to grilling or toasting. But many thanks for your suggestions.
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Anna, not only are you "no longer lurking" you are no longer "no longer lurking" but "Anna". Nice to meet you.
Thanks, Jinmyo - a little authenticity (made possible by the good-nature of the vast majority of egulleteers) is good for my soul.
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Once or twice a year we host a Danish style lunch of open-face sandwiches. Not too many of our guests are Danes so I prefer not to pre-make the sandwiches but allow each guest to build to their taste.
I like to serve a wide variety of breads but have yet to find a way to keep them from drying out at the table. To slice to order would simply disrupt the informality and easy-going conversation (lubricated with lots of ice-cold Akvavit washed down with beer!). I try to put out a reasonable variety of breads in a number of baskets and top it up when needed but even so, during a three to four hour meal, the bread tends to curl and dry out. Wrapping it in napkins doesn't seem to help much - any ideas?
I'm preparing a mini-Danish lunch for The Dane and I right now, and we'll make do with the wrapped bread within easy reach but that's not the answer for guests!
Thanks.
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I believe that recipe writing lies somewhere between technical writing and creative writing.
Darn, I wish I could figure out how to include names/dates in quotes but...
Malawry - I agree with you. As both a creative writer and one who once revised an enormous set of software manuals (for the process control industry - no games!).
I want the personality of the author to come through perhaps in an intro to each recipe - and not "This is the best chocolate chip cookie in the world" but along the lines of "I first tasted this in ..... and found it a refreshing twist on a simple green salad. If you enjoy Asian food, you'll like this." Something that tells me what to expect of the final product.
But then I want clear, unambiguous directions on how to get to this final product.
The software manuals were neatly divided into Hardware, Software and Operator manuals with the first two being directed at Engineers and such and the last geered towards operators. But before I began my re-write, all were written at a level needing an enormous tech. background. Some research on my part uncovered the problem - the Operators averaged Grade 10 education! Our software suffered because the operators couldn't or wouldn't read the manuals. Long, long paragraphs of stuff. My partner in this endeavour wanted each instruction to follow the format:
See light
Push button
That was what we used as our guiding light for the operators.
Further, we insisted that the manuals be tested by computer "dummies" the office staff, shipping, etc. People who knew nothing whatever about the software. Could they follow the instructions.
That's how recipes (at least those aimed at novices) should be tested - not by the creators nor by professional "testers" but by home cooks who normally don't do much more than open a few cans or add beef to Hamburger Helper. They are the ones who will find the "gotchas".
Recipes too, I suppose, needed to be geared to different levels of expertise. But then perhaps we should have a rating system (as some books and magazines do) You know, Level of difficulty - Easy. Requires some knowledge in the kitchen. Don't touch unless you have a degree in culinary arts.
But some things just need to be there and aren't. In a PM to Suzanne F. I described my enterprise this a.m. with my Christmas pressie - an ice cream maker. Not to go on forever, but one instruction said - process until thickened - what the heck does that mean - until it resembles cement? light cream?
So, I think this thread will be very interesting. Thanks for your contribution.
HOW DETAILED SHOULD A RECIPE BE?
in Cooking
Posted
You have said it far better than I could hope to. Thanks, Suvir.