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JAZ

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Everything posted by JAZ

  1. When I moved, I somehow lost/misplaced/threw away my only paring knife. I thought I'd miss it, but I lived without it for at least 6 months. Then I got one for free, so it's back in my block. I use it occasionally, but could live without it again, I'm sure. My utility knife gets easily ten times the use my paring knife gets.
  2. I've been cooking a lot of Mexican and Mexican-influenced dinners, but haven't been taking pictures. A few days ago it was pork chile verde based on a recipe from Rick Bayliss' Mexico One Plate at a Time, with rice and refritos. Tonight I had a quesadilla and a "shrimp ceviche cocktail," also from Bayliss. One of these times I'll take pictures.
  3. Chris, what did each "round" consist of? Different exemplars of one spirit (that is, 10 Scotches side by side)? Or family types, such as 10 different kinds of whiskies? Did the coffee beans and water alone really clear your palate enough between rounds?
  4. Something I just learned from McGee's On Food and Cooking is that leaving cooked rice at room temperature for too long can be unsafe. Apparently raw rice often carries bacteria that can withstand high temperatures (and so survive the cooking process). The bacteria grow pretty rapidly at room temperature, so he recommends serving rice hot and refrigerating any leftovers. Or, you can add an acid (as in sushi rice or rice salads, which inhibits bacterial growth.
  5. JAZ

    Dessert for 50

    I'd go with fruit crisp or cobbler. You can use the large aluminum disposable pans and even frozen fruit works well, so it's very easy. People feel virtuous eating fruit and for those who want more, you can have ice cream or whipped cream to go on top.
  6. Chicken wings? Depending on how you cook them, you might be able to do them the day before and reheat.
  7. JAZ

    Gazpacho

    Linda, although I always liked pretty much any style of gazpacho, when I had a smooth "authentic" version at a Spanish restaurant, I was hooked and spent ages trying to find a recipe for something similar. I finally found it in Penelope Casas' book La Cocina de Mama. I actually bought the book just for that recipe; I've never made anything else from it and still think it was the best $30 I ever spent. The recipe is online here: Andalusian gazpacho. It's really easy. Since you strain the soup, you don't have to seed or skin the tomatoes. At first, I thought it strange that the recipe didn't call for onion or cucumber -- I'd always had gazpacho with them and thought they were standard. Casas says no, so I believe her. And the only chunky vegetable in this is some red bell pepper added as a garnish if you want. Again, she says this the authentic method. In any case, I've never used any other recipe since I came across this one. A couple of suggestions if you try this: First, unless you hate cumin, I suggest adding it; it provides some depth of flavor. Second, use a good quality sherry vinegar and olive oil; they do make a difference in this recipe. Third, I never find that the sugar is necessary, but then again I use Campari tomatoes, which are pretty sweet. You might want to leave it out and add it at the end if you think it's necessary.
  8. You could try starting with the milder chiles and working your way up to the hotter ones. Polanos are medium hot peppers that have a lot of flavor, and a lot of applications, I think. If they seem hot to you, keep eating them until they seem mild. Then go up a step in heat to jalapenos or serranos.
  9. Quite possibly. Not only did the third worst team get a very valuable prize and the best teams not have a chance at it, but the third worst team is the one who got a recipe on the restaurant's menu. It would have made much more sense to give the early winners a chance to stay out with immunity, or continue on for a chance at the prize.
  10. For me, it's pears. Fresh pears can be great, but more often, it seems, they're either mealy or mushy. Canned pears are much more reliable.
  11. Cocktaildb.com, run by Ted Haigh (Dr. Cocktail) and Martin Doudoroff is pretty highly regarded. Esquire magazine's drink website consists primarily of material written by Dave Wondrich. I don't know if he's still involved with it (or if they're adding new material), but it's amusing and informative for the most part. If you want stories with your recipes, it's a good place to look.
  12. I refrigerate nut oils. After a long time they start to taste a little stale, but they never seem to go rancid.
  13. JAZ

    Celery Substitutes?

    Fennel?
  14. Thanks again for the suggestions. A couple of points: I want to send homemade treats; they don't necessarily have to be sweet, but that's the way I'm leaning. Also, I was told specifically by my nephew that liquids are not allowed. I'm sticking with that.
  15. The beef jerky is a good idea -- thanks. I can't send liquids at all, so the hot sauce idea won't work. Mostly, though, I'm looking for desserts/sweets, because my nephew has a sweet tooth. Although maybe crackers or something like cheese straws would work.
  16. My nephew is posted in Afghanistan for 6-9 months, and my plan is to send him a box of treats at least once a month while he's there. The problem is that I can't send anything chocolate (because of the heat) and that whatever I send has to have a pretty long shelf life. My first box contained caramel corn with toffee almonds and sweet and spicy walnuts, both of which were well received. Next box, I'm thinking of buttercrunch with salted cashews and macadamia nuts, and probably more walnuts (because he really likes them). After that, though, I'm stuck. I guess I could try some cookies, but what would be the best candidate? Something like shortbread? Any advice or ideas?
  17. So even if he didn't write anything at all about his experience, he shouldn't have accepted the gifts from the chefs? I agree -- that's part of what I meant when I said his column was disingenuous. He has to realize that most readers would not have that kind of access to restaurants and chefs. Not acknowledging that his situation is unique was a major lapse.
  18. Much ado online about the food at Josh Ozersky's wedding -- more precisely, who paid for it. Ozersky, formerly of the blog Grub Street, now writes an online column for Time.com. His column of June 15, entitled Great Wedding Food: Tips from a newly married critic, drew a questioning and uncomplimentary letter from Robert Sietsema in his blog on The Village Voice, in which Robert asked Josh who paid for all that great food. Certainly Ozersky didn't mention that in the article (although he did in an addendum addressing Sietsema's letter). And it's certainly not the first time Ozersky has failed to disclose pertinent information -- for instance, in his rave review of Anthony Bourdain's newest book (also on Time.com), he didn't mention the fact that he'd been featured on Bourdain's TV show. Now The NY Times Diner's Journal has taken up the story: I met Josh a couple of years ago after a seminar he participated in and I personally doubt that his intentions were dishonest; that is, I don't think he intended his column as a review of these chefs and their restaurants. But it seems clear that he should have disclosed that the food was provided free of charge. Mostly, I think the original column was disingenuous -- an opportunity to brag about all the chefs he knew, not an effort to actually provide useful information about wedding food. Along the way, he managed to insult caterers with ill-advised blanket statements about their cooking skills. I found the column distasteful, regardless of who paid for the food.
  19. Those modifications would also be necessary for a vegetarian dish -- not just vegan.
  20. The potatoes don't fall apart with that much salt in the water?
  21. Quite some time ago, Danielle Wiley posted a link to a recipe for sauteed beets and greens with horseradish creme fraiche (click here for the recipe). It remains one of my favorite ways to use both the beets and the greens -- and that's saying something, because I love beets.
  22. When I was growing up, my mother made creamed peas and creamed onions, both of which had a roux-based sauce: white sauce for the peas and a similar sauce for the onions but made with half-and-half and chicken stock. It's what I always thought a cream sauce for vegetables was, until I encountered recipes for creamed spinach that used a) reduced heavy cream; b) sour cream;and c) cream cheese. Since then, I've been paying more attention to recipes. White sauce (don't call it bechamel) comes up often, but so does plain heavy cream -- usually reduced. In my limited experience, both work well enough -- cream is more delicate, but white sauce is more stable. I've only tried a cream cheese sauce once, and found it cloying and heavy. It seems to me that sour cream would separate, but maybe I'm missing something. What do you use? Are there choices I don't know about? Better choices for one vegetable or another? (I can't imagine using anything but my mother's recipe for creamed onions, for instance, but I'm not convinced a roux-based sauce is best for everything.)
  23. JAZ

    Recipes That Rock: 2010

    Guess I wasn't clear. I know that cucumber salad is the traditional accompaniment for satay and I made it, but I think of it as more of a relish. I was looking for a separate side dish to go with the satay. I'm curious about why it's "not really Thai."
  24. JAZ

    Recipes That Rock: 2010

    I was looking around recently for a salad to go with pork satay and came across this recipe for Thai tomato and green bean salad. I like tomatoes and beans together, so I gave it a try. Easy and great. I made two changes: first, I blanched and shocked the beans before slicing, because I don't much like raw beans; second, I substituted lime for lemon juice in the dressing because it seemed more natural to me.
  25. Sure, that's the question. I don't know how thick a disk has to be in order to work well on convection. Would be cool if you could get away with a real thin one. May I suggest you take a look at Demeyere cookware? They've been making induction-compatible, copper-disk-bottom cookware for ages (their Sirocco and Atlantis lines; most other lines are aluminum based). Thick copper disk (2mm, I think), a couple of thin layers of silver and something magnetic for the induction, all encased in stainless steel. I've seen a cross section of the cookware, and the other layers of metal are all very thin. I've got a copper saute pan about the same size as my Demeyere one, and I can't tell the difference in the responsiveness, nor the evenness of the heat.
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