JoNorvelleWalker

I was taught how to make fried cornmeal mush as part of the home economics curriculum in grade school, going on sixty years ago. That being said, I have an unopened package of Bob's Red Mill corn grits sitting in my kitchen, waiting till I can afford a working pressure cooker, so I can try the Modernist technique for polenta. Also, cutting chilled polenta into rounds with a biscuit cutter and broiling them with butter and cheese is pretty tasty.

I'm having a bowl of pavlova with blueberries and whipped cream at the moment. For some reason the pavlova tastes better to me several days old than when it was freshly baked. This is well, as there is about two thirds of it left.

I added much more dill and a good quantity of sour cream. Now I would call my potato salad very good. Had it tonight with the first of the tomatoes from my garden.

All parts in the dishwasher with the drying cycle. Mine is from when Cuisinart was made in Japan, so not sure of the durability of current models.

I use a Simac pasta machine (circa 1985). The ingredients are just flour and eggs. I only get the sticking problem when the pasta is extruded wet from too much egg. Maybe try thicker shapes of pasta?

The outside tastes better than the inside. Everytime I pass by I shamelessly break off a piece. (I finally had to remove the pavlova from the oven because of baking bread last night.) For some reason the inside, the softer part, tastes a little off. But the outside does not have the powdery taste I had complained of.

It's been a long time since I'd made potato salad but I was in the mood for it so I made a batch. I looked around for recipes but didn't find anything that excited me. Here is what I did: I boiled six red potatoes in their skins for thirty minutes while making a three yolk batch of garlic mayonaise. When the potatoes were done I drained them and pulled them apart using two forks. (Somewhere in the back of my head I have the idea that one should not cut potatoes for potato salad, but I do not know where this comes from.) I poured hot salted wine vinegar over the potatoes and let them cool. Using my hands I tossed the potatoes with sliced scallions and mayonaise and refrigerated. The resulting salad was much too dry and had too much vinegar. It certainly was not creamy. What to do? I went out and bought fresh dill. What could make my salad more creamy? Hmm. I dumped heavy cream in my iSi and used it like a fire extinguisher. Refilled and repeated. Tossed with chopped fresh dill and more scallions. Now the salad was pretty good, but not great. The vinegar is still a bit much. How can I make my batch better?

I use an ice cream maker, but for making ice cream without a machine you might try this recipe from icecreamscience (note, the recipe has not been tried by me): http://icecreamscience.com/2012/08/31/how-to-make-vanilla-ice-cream-without-an-ice-cream-maker-recipe/ However if smooth ice cream is what you want I recommend you get a machine. Here is a current thread on ice cream machines: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/37816-ice-cream-machines/ For a dairy free recipe I highly recommend Modernist Cuisine gelato. I have made batches of the peanut butter version. I find it hard to believe there is no heavy cream in there. You will need an ice cream maker, though. Note there are slightly different versions of this recipe. I followed the recipe from Modernist Cuisine at Home (leaving out the fruit juice and replacing it with water): http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/p-b-j-gelato/ Be sure to use a very smooth nut butter. One batch I made from a small company's "smooth" peanut butter was not as good as what I've made from peanut butter that was actually smooth.

I can report that it was not too bad for a first attempt. I broke off chunks and served it with blueberries, which are just coming into season here, vanilla ice cream (a very good batch), and unsweetened whipped cream. Texture of the pavlova was crunchy outside and just a little soft inside. Color was not as white as in the pictures. Mine was more beige. The problem is the taste, maybe more the aftertaste, is a bit powdery? Can't think of a better term to describe it. I was wondering if the taste could be due to cornstarch? If I had been making a merigue I would have followed a similar procedure but left out the cornstarch. Another problem is there is a *lot* of it and I can't think of a better place to store it than my oven.

Raw.

I've added slivovitz to some ice cream too!

Update: I'm not so sure about this. Like something out of the Mary Shelley cookbook, last I looked, my six pavlovae had fused together into a somewhat more than half sheet sized confection that was attempting to leave the oven. Maybe I used a bit too much yeast [joke]. Sorry, I did not take its temperature.

Sorry for the delay. Because of the weather I had not felt up to preparing ice cream mix. But now I have a six egg batch of pavlova in the oven! I followed Leslie's instructions as given by Bojana, with the addition of cream of tarter at the start. Six egg whites makes a lot. The meringue was climbing out of the six quart mixer bowl, and the KitchenAid motor was groaning. I don't think I shall attempt a nine egg version soon. Oh, and I also mixed the cornstarch with the sugar, rather than adding them sequentially. I used apple cider vinegar. And half vanilla extract and half vanilla paste, as I did not have enough extract on hand. I must say I had never heard the word "pavlova" applied to a dessert until I joined eGullet. My mother made baked merigues like this but they were just called "merigues", and as I recall it was considered a defect if they came out soft in the center. She also made baked Alaska (but not nearly often enough). I'll report back with my results!

Speaking here only from booklearning and not from experience, if you are making ice cream commercially you probably ought to homogenize your base. That is how people get away with adding butter to formulae as a source of butterfat. I have never tried Cremodan. I note Cremodan 30 is marketed as a stabilizer, not as an emusifier. And from experience, using a machine with a slower dasher helps. Also don't neglect to fully age your base.

I like Navip. I was introduced to Slivovitz while visiting Yugoslavia forty some years ago (I try not to think about the headache). I keep a bottle from the 1970's for reference, but the new stuff to my taste is just as good. Navip is aged eight years. My only complaint is that the supply is spotty here.

I would not cook the grains together in the same pot. And I'd use a pressure cooker if I had a working one.

New information. I've been reading Chris Clarke, The Science of Ice Cream 2nd Edition. Scoopability is the physical property yield stress (p 175).

Use a pressure cooker -- idea from MC.

I've drooled over your blog before when searching for pavlova recipes as ice cream by-products. I am a bit worried about pasteurization, so I make munalavgekook instead: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144208-home-made-ice-cream-2013/?p=1907948 But curiosity is getting the better of me and I'd like to try pavlova. (Besides, I have a freezer full of munalavgekook.) For those of us without a copy of the Edmonds Cookery Book, could you list the recipe?

I have read Homemade Soda. I found it interesting but I have not tried any of the recipes. My interest is that I would like a cola that tastes like coke, but is less sweet than coke and sweetened only with sucrose. Maybe open cola might be the way to go, but somehow I doubt I could really make something that tastes as good as coke. Why coke does not offer such a product I do not understand.

This makes me think that I am indeed using a stabilizer in my ice cream after all. The ultra pasteurized cream I usually buy has carrageenan as an additive.

For cooking a small chicken such as a Cornish game hen, I will sometimes take an angel food pan, cover the hole in the pan with foil, and impale the bird vertically over the foil. Then roast at 425 deg F.

Pressure infuse the cream in an iSi.

I would not keep grapes a couple weeks.

Sorry, I returned my copy of Frozen Desserts to the library. Currently reading ICE CREAM! The Whole Scoop by Gail Damerow. Damwrow has a chapter on emulsifiers and stabilizers, and for sorbets recommends arrowroot or kudzu starch in conjuction with gelatin and pectin, at the rate of one teaspoon per quart of arrowroot to a half teaspoon each of gelatin and pectin. I'm not much into sorbet, so I'll leave the experiment for others to try.