rbenash

Gotcha - thanks! My bad/laziness for not just looking upthread a bit

Thanks for the tips! What kind of corn are you typically using? Dent, Flint, white or yellow??

Ahh - thanks Chris. I have a couple of Kennedy's books coming so looks like I should be able to figure out basic recipe and your notes on consistancy should be quite helpful. Was wondering about the freezing thing for fresh nixtamal and masa from other posts on the net. Your comments bring me back to my original reservations that freezing either is probably not a good thing. Better to make up a pound or so of nixtamal/masa and make up into whaterver use as required. Start over with the next batch and don't depend on freezing anything. I have a semi commercial chamber and external bag sealer so always wanting to leverage those if it works :-)

Well, OK a revivial if you will? I have been through all this (upstream) in my head for a good long while. I really want to just make some masa from Nixtamal and good tortillas. Thing is other than the promise of a hand mill (that typically don't do wet well) there's nothing that works better than say a metate, and even they aren't really "good" new until they are broken in for a bunch (1k) uses. So we have the Nixatamatic. Do the search you will see what I am talking about. Rancho Gordo has one that they brought back and like it and a few others in the states that are into this whole thing. So just saying, long story short. I was finally able to import a Nixtamatic. Got mine today. The unit cost was about 300 US the shipping was about 200 US (ouch), basically 505USD with shipping, but that's just the way it is. Cool thing is it only took from Wednesday to Thursday for it to get to me from Mexico to my house in PA. Unpacked and fired it up today. Haven't made any masa with it yet but going to give it a go in the next couple weeks once I figure out what/best dent or flint corn to try, get the cal and soak some corn. I assume that I can freeze fresh nixtamal and masa without too much degradation (let me know?). Comments welcome. If you have a solid start recipe for the corn soak and then post grind masa (add water, words on feel texture) that would be awesome. I know that I will need to adjust grind/pull tops from the kernals as required for tortilla/empenada/tamale etc to get coarsness right. Any help from the hand made community would be great. I would be willing to work out a group buy if folks are interested. I don't really want to make any money of this - seriously. I just know that the hand crank food mill thing doesn't work so much. The hand cranks aren't really good for wet corn/nixtamal. Ight seem strange but the company never responds to emails. I foung a firm in Mexico that will single unit ship for now but I think I could work a quantity buy. None speak english, the shipping can get strange due to customs and the fact that you become an importer per se. Easier to reduce costs with a group purchase is all I'm saying. So that's the promise - I'm really not looking to sell anything. I have no personal interest in making anything ($) other than giving back to this site if it helps. I would just want to recoup expenses. If there are 20 folks that want one let me know. I'll let you know what the figures look like. If things work out, maybe move this thread to a group buy, etc. And if it doesn't - still going to poke you folks for tips on masa texture for tortilla/empanada/tamale. Ray

So for example by known weights: 1 C Crisco would be 192 gm 1 Stick Butter would be 110 gm (Whole Foods 365) So the fat by weight in the recipe above would be 302 gm When subsituting IN lard to a recipe for pie dough in this case. 50/50 butter/lard by weight based on total fat in the recipe? If all lard same wegiht of all fats in the original recipe? Is their some other substituion method/ratio one should use? Thanks, Ray

Thanks - so if you are converting a recipe that uses butter and vegetable shortening as I mention above. Do you convert by measuring total weight and do a 50/50 split? This is a non tree fruit recipe for example. If using tree fruit - just use the same wieght of total fat as lard to substitue?? Most interested in conversions :-) Thanks again for getting back!

Figured I would give this thread a bump instead of starting a new one. In my case I have had great success with the America's Test Kitchen "perfect pie crust recipe" as mentioned up thread. Otherwise I use my Mother's tried and true oil crust from the ancient Betty Crocker Cookook. That said. I have since rendered my own leaf lard and have a good stock in the freezer. I have subsituted with pretty good success but figured there should be a formula for substituing IN leaf leard vs replacing it as has been done in the past. What I would like to know: If the ATK recipe crust calls for: 1.5 sticks butter and 1/2 C vegetable shortening. Would a pastry expert here be able to comment/give advice on the proper substituion of leaf lard into this recipe? I have in the past measured the total weight and went 50/50 butter/lard. Should I simply substitute all lard by weight or should I go by liquid state/volume? Should I care about tranlating to a ratiou of butter/lard or just use all lard?? Thanks in advance!

Done - thanks.

A bump, I know this is a long dead thread. One question I have is regarding beef stock. If I am roasting bones first - you know when you pull from the oven you will have a good bit of fat. Pour it off? Or should I assume the fat at this point goes into the simmer? I typically roast the bones for an hour, then pull and paste if I want a brown stock then back in the oven for 30 minutes to roast the veggies along with the bones a bit then into the pot. Thinking about whether there's any value to dump the fat in (reserved during second roast with veggies and paste). Or if I can just discard. Just wondering if there's falvor in the fat that adds any value during the simmer?