JoNorvelleWalker

I am fond of rum, raisins, and ice cream. But not in the same breath. However I am not ashamed if a few raisins find their way into my rice pudding.

I love rum, raisins, and ice cream -- possibly to excess -- though not in the same bite.

EverCrisp will keep fried foods crispy till the end of time. https://modernistpantry.com/products/evercrisp-breader-batter-boost.html

I'd buy it except I already have it.

I too would love to find the Richard Olney reference! It's not under potatoes in The Good Cook Vegetables volume. I'm pretty sure it was some chef or author referencing Richard Olney. Unfortunately Eat Your Books informs me I own 408 cookbooks -- many of which include potatoes -- and I carry home more books than I should from work. And while I did not find the particular potato reference in question, I did enjoy Olney's distain for disgruntled cooks complaining after not properly following his instructions for preparing pommes de terre.

I well know that. I just don't have any. And now I am hungry for duck.

Not at all, unless I linger with my mai tai and baking goes on much longer than two hours. I bake potatoes in a bed of salt. Old pictures...

Dinner here last night was chicken, red cabbage, and potato. But my red cabbage was in coleslaw. I've determined sous vide cabbage is not my thing. Maybe if I had duck fat.

Yes.

I'm baking tonight's potato as we speak. I rub my potatoes with grapeseed oil and bake 425F for two hours in a bed of salt. However since I've been assured an asteroid will subsume the planet unless I properly prick my russets I have been stabbing mine to assay the difference. I find nothing wrong with prestabbing the poor potatoes but no benefit is added. Either way my salt baked potatoes end up dry and fluffy.

Host's note: this post and the ensuing conversation refer back to a wonderful find in the Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping topic. It was from Richard Olney I learned the technique of baking potatoes two hours at 425F, rather than one hour at 450F. It really does make a difference. I wish I could find the reference. One is in the oven now.

Not in our library system but I requested it.

I use butter in mine though. Do you use some other oil in your scrambled eggs or use no oil at all?

I should say I like large curds that are well cooked but still moist.

Sadly that is not at all the scrambled egg texture that I like.

This secret he does not share. He does say: "Boiling rice can be very simple, or it can be carried to complex extremes. Today rice is made daily in practically every Japanese household in an automatic gas or electric rice cooker. The automatic rice cooker...makes perfect rice every time." However the everyday rice recipe presented calls for "a tight-lidded, heavy and deep pot."

I believe the purpose of the Zojirushi iron coating is to evoke in the soul of the consumer the mystique of the traditional iron cooking pot. Platinum, on the other hand, acts as a catalyst to increase the water pH slightly.

Indeed. Though I am minded of Shizuo Tsuji's description of the restaurant rice cook: "The rice cook washes the rice in a stone sink, puts the grains in a flanged iron rice pot with heavy wooden lid of ancient origin, uses only fresh well water for cooking, and carefully tends a wood-fed stove, always adjusting the embers to control the heat." And unlike lesser rice cookers, the selling point of my newest Zojirushi model is that it comes with an iron coated pot.

I am fortunate to have purchased the full set on subscription.

I have yet to learn how to cook scrambled eggs the way I like them. Often simple food is difficult...I'm thinking toast.

Jail Food. As I was leaving work this evening there was a commotion in the lobby. The police department was holding a reception. Coffee, cookies, and quite good sandwiches. Wine would have been nice, but I stuffed myself, and when each of two friends offered a ride home I packed a plate for dinner.

I've been reading about Vermicular Japanese ironware. Has anyone taken one for the team? https://www.vermicular.us/

I found some dried out soppressata in the back of the refrigerator. The Breville All In One sliced it perfectly on thickness setting 1. I was amazed, and continue to be stupefied by what this little device can do.

Never mind, I did the deed.

It's been in my saved for later list for a while. Sort of wishing the price would drop.