JoNorvelleWalker
-
Posts
14,769 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by JoNorvelleWalker
-
-
Tonight I was reading Giorgio Locatelli on tasting EVOO and he says there should be a connection with the fruit.
-
The idea of tasting coconut milk and galangal on my next lamb and date tagine is not appealing.
I can't speak for coconut milk but galangal is used in Moroccan cuisine. In fact I used some galangal in my last lamb and date tagine. If it helps I just gave the lid of my Moroccan earthenware tagine a good sniff and it definitely has a pleasant aromatic odor.
-
Bojana, since Ruben is hopefully asleep at this hour, I will answer for him that his site says "about 32%".
Just now I finished cooking the following mix:
heavy cream -- 500 ml
licorice infused whole milk -- 500 ml
large egg yolks -- 6
sugar -- 80 gm
Kosher salt -- 1/8 tsp.
I was more attentive this time and the highest temperature was 160.8 deg F (71.6 deg C). The final volume was 850 ml. The mix tasted better than I'd feared, but somewhat weird due to the delayed effect of glycyrrhizin's sweetness.
-
I could get you one of those - but it's been used in a medical lab!
In my youth I used to make ice cream in a lab. Having a freezer room was nice. I drank the lab alcohol too.
Tonight's question is about licorice. I pressure infused chopped licorice in hot milk in an iSi, with the intention of making licorice ice cream. The milk tastes horribly sweet from glycyrrhizin, and as to be expected smells rather like licorice. Dare I use it to make ice cream? We shall find out.
-
Maybe I am paranoid but I have read Tomatoland.
-
Beware of Chinese pine nuts, they have an inclusive notion of species and some cause a mild poisoning where everything tastes like metal for two weeks. Better to pay at least $50 a pound for Italian pine nuts, and treat them like truffles.
The pine nuts I have been using for a while are Alessi. They state "Product of China or Turkey". I don't have a lot of choice of locally available pine nut brands. Do you have a suggested source of Italian pine nuts?
That being said the Alessi seem OK to me.
-
Does that mean you can't place the bottom of an unglazed tagine under the broiler? (After being hot from the prolonged cooking.)
It may or may not. Theoretically if the tagine is hot you could put it under the broiler. On the other hand I have heard first hand stories of cracked tagines. My Moroccan tagine is beautiful. I choose not to take the chance.
-
I've done a number of dishes from Food of Morocco (and from Jeff Koehler's Morocco) as discussed here:
http://forums.egulle...ng-help-needed/
Dinner tonight is left over pil-pil, the round bread for which is rising now. It was on Wolfert's suggestion in Food of Morocco that I obtained Basque Piment d'Espelette from France for the pil-pil, as according to her Piment d'Espelette are similar to Moroccan peppers.
My only dissatisfaction with Food of Morocco is that I wish the photographs were reproduced better. They seem low contrast and washed out. However that does not affect the recipes.
For preserved lemons I recommend the brand Roland. I paid $6 something (probably closer to $7) for a jar of about twelve lemons. I cannot buy fresh lemons for that price, even if I could find the round Moroccan lemons to buy. Roland preserved lemons are a product of Morocco and they are very good.
For cookware, I bought two tagines: one made of unglazed earthenware from Morocco sold by Bramcookware in Sonoma, the other a 31 cm Le Creuset. People (including Paula Worfert) have said bad things about the Le Creuset tagine. However, for what it's worth, the Le Creuset tagine has my recommendation. I like it because it is very large and is easy to clean. The Moroccan tagine I have is smaller and holds only about half as much. But the lid of the Moroccan tagine fits perfectly on the Le Creuset and this is how I usually cook with the Le Creuset. The glazed top of the Le Creuset does not work as well as the unglazed top. For recipes that call for it I can put the bottom of the Le Creuset under the broiler or in a very hot oven. For smaller recipes that cook entirely on the stovetop I use the unglazed earthenware tagine.
I love Wolfert's recipe for chicken mechoui, however I cook the chicken on a spit, not in a pan as she suggests. If I had to name one favorite recipe from Food of Morocco it would have to be lamb tagine with dates. And yes, I do use argan oil for it.
Edit: I forgot to say I took Wolfert's suggestion to have my butcher cut up a whole lamb shoulder in to about 1 1/2 to 2 inch cubes.
Another favorite recipe is chicken with pine nuts and apricots, though I have found it works better for me to do the final browning of the chicken individually. Otherwise the very sweet sauce in the pot becomes like hard taffee. However if you were serving a number of people all at once this would not be an issue.
-
For years I have been using Colavita. It tastes like olives to me and it is neither bitter nor expensive. I use a lot of olive oil.
-
Since I can't edit, this is the sort of device I had in mind:
-
There has got to be a way to make the preparation easier. I was thinking maybe a temperature controlled stirring hot plate, which is something I don't have.
Sounds like you need a thermomix and a sous vide set up.
But that would not accomplish the reduction in volume that is the heart of Ruben's method.
A temperature controlled stirring hot plate could be used for poor woman's sous vide, but I doubt the pump of a Polyscience unit is rated for custard.
-
- I can't puree canteloupe as fine as I'd like in my cheap food processor. Any solutions for this short of a Vita-Mix?
I've never felt the urge to puree a melon but I would use the food processor and then scrape the result through a tamis. I don't have a blender either, however I do have a tamis. (I had tried to puree a pumpkin once before I got the tamis.)
I'm not sure about your egg question as I don't care for the taste of eggs in commercial ice cream. I always assumed it was because the eggs were not cooked enough but maybe it is because the eggs are overcooked. In any event if the label says eggs I buy something else. I also do not care for Ben & Jerry's ice cream at all. Ben & Jerry's is over flavored and over sweetened to my taste.
-
I was planning a more controlled experiment before giving my results. But the short answer is that my first try with Ruben's method was the best ice cream I have ever tasted.
Not having a 23 cm pot I used a 24 cm Le Creuset. My mix was as follows:
heavy cream 500 ml
whole milk 250 ml
large egg yolks 6
sugar 100 gm
salt 1/8 tsp
Preparation of the mix was as described above. I transferred the mix to a stainless steel pan and refrigerated for about a day and a half. When I added the chilled mix to the ICE-100 the level in the bowl was rather low, below the blade of the dasher, so I quickly dumped in about a cup of heavy cream and some vanilla (I did not measure).
I spun for 15 minutes and transfered to a shallow prechilled hotel pan and returned to the freezer. After about four hours the ice cream was just scoopable. At 24 hours it was hard a rock, but not the least bit icy. Texture, when I can dig it out, is perfect, even after a few days.
There has got to be a way to make the preparation easier. I was thinking maybe a temperature controlled stirring hot plate, which is something I don't have.
Thank you, Ruben, for your site and for coming here and adding to the discussion. And thank you, Nathalie, for calling my attention to icecreamscience.com.
-
1
-
-
Update: I had thought my overwhipped cream was ruined. But after sitting in the refrigerator for a day in the iSi it is practically perfect! Now the problem is how to keep from eating half a quart of cream.
-
I just used my new iSi for the first time. It didn't explode! To my taste the cream is slightly over whipped, which I guess is a function of how much I shook the bottle. Maybe I should have made somewhat less to start with. Still good though.
-
I am exhausted. It's 2:30 in the morning and I just finished cooking a batch of mix by the icecreamscience.com method: namely holding the mix at 71.4 deg C (160.54 deg F) for one hour. Without a controller do you have any idea how difficult it is to hold a batch of ice cream mix at 71.4 deg C for one hour? I thought I could read a book. Ha! I was watching the meter and stiring constantly. And an hour would have been nice. But with bringing the mix up to temperature I was a good two and a half hours at the stove. And in one moment of inattention the temperature went up to 71.8 deg C (161.3 deg F). I was recording the minimum and maximum.
This better be good.
-
I'm not sure about twenty years but I've had my KitchenAid immersion blender a real long time and I like it.
-
I do not know Paula Wolfert's method, but as often as not I make thick polenta in a double boiler without stiring (except initially).
-
I believe powdered/atomized/freeze dried are all the same thing. And, yes, modernistpantry was the only amazon seller I found that offered less than 5kg. They have dextrose too, and I am considering giving them an order. However my first choice right now for a vendor is pastrychef.com, as they list the brand names of their products. Their atomized glucose syrup is from Patisfrance, who provide a data sheet (in English).
Meanwhile I finally put my finger on the problem with the batch of ice cream I am eating, into which I had dumped in the extra Lyle's! It has the taste and consistency and color of a slightly richer version of Friendly's Butter Crunch -- but without the crunch. It makes me thirsty. Butter crunch is not a bad flavor, but this was supposed to be vanilla.
-
I get my powdered glucose from a healthfood store.
No powdered glucose at my local healthfood store. I did get my xanthan gum there however. Amazon has at least three suppliers of powdered/atomized glucose, only one of which that I could find less than 5kg. And none with data sheets.
And, thanks, yes, Frozen Desserts is one of the books that I would like to have.
-
First I should have stated that before starting the topic, I read everything I could find (or at least that Google could find) on eGullet about ice cream. By training I am a biochemist, but these days I work in a library, which has afforded me an opportunity to read a number of books on the subject. The two I have on my table at the moment are by David Lebovitz and by Hoogerhyde, Walker, and Gough. I note that Lebovitz (like Beranbaum) advocates alcohol for texture.
The download of Angelo Corvitto's book never worked for me. I get a page with instalment headings and pictures of pretty colored scoops of ice cream, but that is about it. The English translation of his book was available on Amazon last I looked. I have been thinking of requesting it on Inter Library Loan.
Bojana, thank you. I have not read Jeni's book, but I understand her method is to substitute cream cheese for eggs. I am a fan of lots of yolks, and I am afraid cream cheese would not do it for me. I'll try almost anything once but I want to exhaust a few other possibilies before that.
I had not seen icecreamscience.com before. His contribution seems to be the idea of holding the mix at 71.4 degrees C for one hour to improve texture, though I think his base of 14% sugar would be too sweet for my taste. It's far different from my usual method but I may try holding the mix at 71.4 degrees C for one hour to see if it helps. For my custard and pastry cream I use the Alicia method of boiling the milk and sugar then adding to the egg yolk mixture all at once. It works for me. Though sometimes if I am not careful it makes a mess of the stove. The custard is never returned to the burner, but cooks by the residual heat of the milk. If the icecreamscience method works better I will switch for my ice cream base.
Even so, at about 10% sugar, it is unlikely I will get acceptable texture without some magic ingredient. Alcohol remains the best that I have found. I have no local source of dextrose or atomized glucose syrup. Dextrose is dextrose, but atomized glucose syrup can vary quite a lot from what I have read. Anyone have recommended sources of atomized glucose syrup? (I did find a thread here on a non-recomended source.)
Here is the most recent mix recipe I used (before I dumped in more Lyle's to improve the texture);
heavy cream - 1000 ml
whole milk - 500 ml
large egg yolks - 12
sugar - 180 gm
Lyle's Golden Syrup - 3 T
xanthan gum - 1/4 t
salt (Kosher) - 1/4 t
vanilla paste - 1 T
-
1
-
-
Yes, I know it is not quite 2013 here in New Jersey but after a long period without an ice cream maker I am back to making ice cream and would enjoy a discussion of recipes and technique.
I am to the point where I can make a base which yields a satisfactory texture or a base which gives a satisfactory taste, but sadly not yet both at the same time.
After recently getting a Cuisinart ICE-100, the first recipe I used was Rose Levy Beranbaum's Vanilla Ice Cream from The Cake Bible (p.285). Texture was great but the alcohol tasted a little funny. I tried reducing the cream while keeping the alcohol, but the mouthfeel suffered. I tried adding a bit of Karo but that didn't really help.
Then I stopped using alcohol, went back to about 20% butterfat, but used a small amount of Lyle's Golden Syrup and xanthan gum to hopefully improve texture. Flavor was excellent but the texture was slightly icy, and the melting characteristic was more like commercial ice cream than homemade. Plus the ice cream was rock hard from the freezer. Next I added more Lyle's which improved the texture, but now the ice cream is far too sweet and has a pronounced molasses flavor.
I prefer ice cream that is not very sweet. This precludes dumping in a lot of sugar to improve the texture and reduce the freezing point. I'm thinking dextrose and/or atomized glucose syrup might help reduce the freezing temperature and improve texture. But I don't have these ingredients.
My best result was with Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe, but I'd like to replace the alcohol with something. Does anyone have ideas?
-
Twice in the past couple months I've prepared Paula Wolfert's recipe for lamb tagine with dates. For the most recent batch I had the butcher cut a whole lamb shoulder into about a dozen chunks.
-
I found a half liter iSi Gourmet for sale at a good price (and in stock) so I ordered it. It's a good thing I like whipped cream.
Questions about selecting a tagine
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
I would only use my earthenware tagine for Moroccan non-fish, non-seafood dishes.