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JoNorvelleWalker

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    Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Curry.  Day five since I started making it:

     

    https://umamimart.com/blogs/main/japanese-curry-scratch

     

    Today is an early morning work day.  Otherwise I would have made a proper meal with rice and whatever.  The curry wasn't even done yet.  But I just had to have a taste before bed.  Just a small taste.

     

    Now, a couple hours later, I am most replete.  Perfectly accompanied by a bottle of Stone Ruination.  A friend was horrified that the recipe did not call for removing the copious beef fat.  I even contacted Yoko Kumano the author and she assured me the fat was not to be removed.  But I had not the courage of my convictions.  I removed and reserved the fat, adding back about a third.

     

    One taste and I put back in the rest!

     

    This was so good.  The recipe as written did not even require salt.

     

    I burned my tongue.

     

    • Like 7

    2017 releases

    in Cookbooks & References

    Posted

    On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 5:05 PM, Anna N said:

    So of course I had to find out what Bäco it's all about. Joseph Centeno seems to have many recipes on the Internet though not necessarily from the book.  They are exciting and imaginative. Some of them certainly rely on sub recipes, sometimes many sub recipes!   Still it is calling out to me even though I know how limited I am as far as ingredients go. But I no longer feel compelled to believe I would cook from a recipe book.  It is often enough if it just inspires me to get back into the kitchen.  I am thinking you are an enabler!  

     

    I got my copy today.  I like his writing.  Too soon to say about the recipes.

     

    New Stove Adventures

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Curiouser and curiouser.  I started the oven up again but when I got up the next afternoon I saw that it had just shut off.  By this time I was pretty sure the oven was doing this to me intentionally.  The manual said there were more settings documented on line, but the menu items shown on line did not all match the menu items on my stove.

     

    So I played with the settings a while.  Now the stove seems to stay on like a normal stove.

    • Like 2

    Searzall--After the Honeymoon?

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    2 hours ago, boilsover said:

     

    Your basting covers are glass?  Mine are aluminum.

     

    And I'm not basting the eggs they cover--I'm waiting for the heat trapped inside to finish the top of the egg.  Lifting the cover too often releases the heat, just like opening an oven's door.  Wait too long and the egg's overdone.  Hence finishing with the torch.

     

    I misunderstood about covering the pan.  I baste my eggs with butter and a Ruhlman spoon.

     

    • Like 2

    Slaughtering and Butchering Mature Hens

    in Cooking

    Posted

    8 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

     

    What more humane method do you suggest? Were the birds left to live and only die upon bleeding out? If so, I agree that a more humane method could easily be found.

     

    They were hung upside down to die slowly.  Decapitation would be more humane.

     

    • Sad 1

    Searzall--After the Honeymoon?

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    1 hour ago, boilsover said:

     

    IMO, this is probably the best use for most cooks.  Faster than a basting cover, and without the guesswork because you're watching it.

     

    I don't understand.  If you are a normally sighted cook or something close to it, you are watching your eggs as you are basting them.  Else, if you are vision impaired you might not want to be handling a Searzall.

     

    Slaughtering and Butchering Mature Hens

    in Cooking

    Posted

    4 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

    No pics, because its just plain ugly.  But, I had two days of killing/processing chickens here, as I posted on another thread.  Today, I finished doing the last 10 chickens.  I've got them all in the freezers now,  except for one that we BBQ'd last night.   

     

    I cut all the scraps off and bagged them for the freezer too. Those are the pieces that will go into pressure canned chicken soup later on.    I'm tired, but a good tired. Nice getting all the buggers done in two days!  

     

    In my youth (maybe age 10 or 12) I had to help with chicken killing.  In this case the birds' throats were cut (perchance the purpose of the @liuzhou mystery knife) and they were hung to exsanguinate.  Not that I mind eating chicken, one is in the CSO as I speak.  However I can't help but think there is a more humane method of slaughter.

     

    • Like 1

    Oxtail Soup

    in Cooking

    Posted

    My amazon fresh order this week included three pounds of oxtails for curry.  And yes they were expensive.  But amazon informed me they could not supply them.

     

    • Like 2
    • Sad 1

    Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

     

    Steam bake? How long for your baguette?

     

    I have used Serious Eats covered skillet method successfully, but I bet steam bake in the CSO would do very well too, maybe better. I'm gonna give it a try, thanks.

     

    For a day old half of a baguette I do about five minutes on steam bake 325 to retrograde the starch then about five minutes on convection bake to repair the crust.  Good as new except for the outermost slice and even that is most enjoyable.

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

     

    I can't believe that after all the discussion about beans vs. no beans chili no one has picked up on this recent post by @robirdstx. She's a Texan and seems to be in the beans camp (at least sometimes) with me and a few others. :D But people should eat chili that makes them happy, beans or not. Hot or not, whateves. Me? I like hot with beans sometimes on top of spaghetti.

     

    My dinner was a mushroom pizza at Primo Pizza on an errand run over in the vicinity. This is so good when it's hot! It cools quickly, though, and while still good, I sort of wish I could eat it faster because only the first slice is perfect. It slightly burned my mouth, but weirdly, that's the way I like it ever since a small child. I have been fantasizing about pizza since getting the CSO, but I need to do more research before trying it in there. There isn't a recipe for pizza in the owner's manual.

     

    I have half of the mushroom pizza left for dinner tomorrow, which is good, because I have another errand.

     

    Not that I've tried but the CSO should be good for reheating pizza.  I love how it can reheat the second half of a baguette.

     

    • Like 2

    New Stove Adventures

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    41 minutes ago, gfweb said:

     

    Maybe an induction plate for long cooks?

     

    If only I had induction to find out.  To its credit the new oven held temperature for about eighteen hours.  If the problem was due to a power blip the old oven wouldn't have missed a beat.

     

    • Like 1

    New Stove Adventures

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    I came home tonight to find the oven (with my stockpot in it) had turned off.  I was not amused.  My ThermaQ was logging the temperature to my iPad and I see the oven failed about 4:30 in the afternoon.  As soon as I could I plunged a themapen in the pot.  It read 127 so I'll assume my poor stock is still OK.

     

    It is possible there was a momentary power outage, however if the oven randomly shuts off from time to time I shall not be pleased...even less pleased.

     

    Stock in a Pressure Cooker

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Shoprite still has bone-in chuck on sale but none to sell.*  So I bought some marrow bones and choice chuck, both nice looking.  I thought really hard about pressure cooking till I realized this was not a typical western stock.  The recipe calls for a slow cooker.  I decided to use my KitchenAid precise heat mixing bowl.

     

    But after I'd browned the bones and vegetables, covered them with water and brought everything to a boil as specified I realized this would never fit in the PHMB.

     

    My fallback is to simmer in the oven, where the stock pot is now sitting.  The jury is still out on how well this technique will work.  The oven temperature is a bit erratic for my tastes though the pot of stock ingredients has considerable heat capacity.

     

    Still for a French recipe I think I'd turn towards the pressure cooker.

     

     

    *To add further insult to injury this Shoprite dropped the Shoprite brand organic cranberry sauce I like.  Obviously they track my purchase history so they can drop the things I like.

     

    • Like 1

    Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

    Ah, continuing with Bugialli and my trek around Sardinia:  Pesce alla Vernaccia, pp 180, 181.  Also the cover illustration.  Some of the best fish I have had, served with a bottle of Vermentino de Sardegna.  Fairly simple recipe.  The difficulty was sourcing the Vernaccia di Oristano.

     

    The branzino is flavored by nothing more than salt, lemon zest, olives, and Vernaccia di Oristano.  I hate to think what this would cost in a restaurant.

     

    But I must call shenanigans!  I'd like nothing better than to have Bugialli jump in here and explain my ignorance.  However let me explain:  there are two full page illustrations of this dish, the front cover and page 181.  It was not for a while I noticed these were not the same picture.  Both show the identical serving platter and the same background of the Roman sewage system.  (Sometimes Bugialli shares too much information.)  But the cover shows five fish and three wine glasses, while page 181 shows four fish and four wine glasses.  The cover shows whole black olives as called for in the recipe.  Page 181 shows pitted green olives, an anathema.  Plus the cover shows the poor fish sprinkled with some unspecified green stuff!

     

    What's worse none of the nine fish show any trace of breading.  None.  Which is difficult to conceal with breaded fish.  If I had to guess I'd say Bugialli's fish are props.  Not cooked at all.  There I've said it.

     

    My problem was that even in my large Falk pan the fish didn't nearly fit.  Oops.  Rather than turning the fish once as called for I had to scoot it around to get it cooked.  Yes I took pictures, but they were not the prettiest.

     

    One can only eat and drink so much.  But I finished the fish.  I could not face the thought of leftovers.

     

    I would not attempt this dish again till I had a larger pan or a smaller fish.  Not to mention more Vernaccia di Oristano.

     

     

     

    Edit:  tonight's baguette was excellent.

     

     

     

     

    • Like 8
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