Duvel

You beat me to it 🤣

He used to assist in the preparation, but now he focuses more on the consumption part …

On Monday I had to work in the office, so I dropped by the Italian supermarket to get some items to make pizza today … Starting with the flour … Tomatoes … Their fresh fior di latte & some calabrian sausage … And some shelf-stable items … And now for the practice shots: dough with 24h poolish, 62% hydration. I went up from my usual 165g flour dough balls to 200g. Makes for a much easier shaping. First pie: Mushroom & calabrian sausage Second pie: Capers, olives & anchovies Third pie: Hawaii (as requested by the little one). He did not care much for the cornicione, so I rolled his pizza out. The rim puffed anyway quite nicely (flour ?!) … Forth pie: Nduja, onions and Provolone. Very spicy, very good …

Little one eats pretty much everything, with just a few notable exceptions. One of them is aubergine. When he was small he showed some intolerance towards nightshades, but this has long subsided. Still, the taste (or the texture ?) seems to bother him. So I try my best to make it more palatable to him. Today we tried ratatouille. In the shape of what he would recognize from the movie Ratatouille. Augmented by some grilled meats. Let’s just say he appreciated the work, and the grilled sausage 😉

I do love Japanese potato salad, or ポテトサラダ. However, as far as I know, this salad is made from a potato variety called “May Queen”, ubiquitous in Japan and of waxy consistency, rather than russets, which are floury …

The things we do to disprove commercials …

Try adding some gin - changes it for the better 😉

Imagine growing up in the culinary wasteland of rural Germany in an area that featured commercial harvest of exactly three vegetables: kale, sugar beets and kohlrabi. Imagine all the fun preparations that existed (hint: one - boil for a looong time). For kale I made my peace. For sirup from sugar beets I can cope. I learned also to tolerate pickled kohlrabi, but bringing me to branch out further is reaaally stretching it …

From my perspective, nothing conveys quality & sturdiness like some good German names: Karl Otto Wilhelm Franz Siegfried and Friedrich (I would probably buy the Wilhelm 28 cm wok pan, and the Franz sauteuse …)

If I ever catch someone wrapping a hamachi in Kohlrabi, he’ll make it onto my enemy list in an instant. In an intant ! That means no Christmas cards, no kudos in any forum and a special place in my semiannual voodoo ceremony …

Fantastic, @weinoo … especially the nashi/yellowtail combo speaks to me !

These dishwasher tabs (actually all dishwasher detergents) are „designed“ to dissolve organic residues. So naturally, they do clean toilets, drains etc. pretty, pretty well - especially if you let them soak for a while. And they are friendlier to the material (steel etc.) than the hard cleaners …

And just to add (the nerdy bit): there are two types of „cleaning chemistries“ going on typically. There is an alkaline component, that dissolves fats and proteins very effectively and with exponential performance depending on temperature. The higher temperature cycles rely on this component. It is corrosive and causes damage to unsuited plastics and blinds cheap glass. Then there is an enzymatic component (in high end detergents), that works well in warm up to 40 oC environments. It takes a bit longer to dissolve all matters, and its action is usually promoted in the „eco“ cleaning cycle of your machine. This is also the basic idea behind the „dishwasher tab in your sink/toilet/drain“ hack …

Part of my job used to be material science, especially corrosion phenomena, so it‘s a way of predefined thinking for me 🙄 I was actually wondering about the „top shelf“ distinction. I have never seen that type of statement in Germany. The dishwasher I have (a pretty standard one from Siemens) has a separate heating element to regulate the water temperature of the water going into the dishwasher directly. It seems some older models (80‘s, if my father remembers correctly) used to have heating could in the bottom, but they were discontinued. Does the top element in „your“ dishwashers get significantly hotter than the desired water temperatures of lats say 60-70 oC ?

In principle you are right from temperature aspect. From my point of view, dishwasher safe includes the resistance to hot alkaline environments (whereas microwave safe relates to the temperature alone), so I‘d make a small distinction.

I believe Modernist BBQ will be the next thing: plenty of variables, a lot of perceived „voodoo“, hugely popular …

You really need to work on your plating skills. I can hardly see the nectarines under all that pasta …

I prefer cubes, just under 1 cm side length. My wife prefers slices of app. 3-4 mm width, with large potatoes halved lengthwise before slicing. Needless to say, with these distribution of preferences cubistic tortilla de patatas are a rare sight in the Duvel household …

Second that … absorbing the salt into the potatoes and releasing the oil into the egg mixture is key.

Every company optimizes their supply chain, and if the customer is not willing to pay for holding certain items permanently in stock (think bound capital), manufacture (or assemble) to order is the way to go.

Pickled / sweet&sour Kohlrabi is very popular in Germany (it has to be, because we have so much of that stuff). For me, that’s the only way I can stand that vegetable - mild & crunchy. If you come with the other German preparation - boiled & served in cream sauce - I‘ll run …

Double the onion & amount of oil, and please leave out the black pepper. One egg less will be more balanced from my point of view …

I think it fits very well in here, given that all potato salad contain at least the cooked potatoes, if not additional cooked onions, carrots, peas, bacon …

Just like my dear wife always knew … 😉

Thats pure raki (e.g. at 40 vol%) ? Or diluted (but then it would be turbid) ….