fifi

I vote with MM on not letting it sit. Aunt Minnie had this ballet going on . . . One piece of chicken into the bag, shake, out of the bag, quick shake and into the pan. This staged putting the pieces into the pan so that the temp didn't drop too much. She worked in a clockwise spiraling pattern, this was a big pan, and used the same pattern for turning and taking out. I will be interested in the comparison. I haven't had a chance to try the MM method yet. I was somewhat disappointed in the thickness of the crust on my trial. I attributed that the a thinner buttermilk than I am used to. That style should be a fairly thick crust chicken. I suspect that the final products are all good, just a different style. It never hurts to have more than one in your arsenal. I have no idea why on the quantities of peanut oil but, now that you mention it, you are right. I see that here, too. I will guess that folks are buying it in small quantities for salad dressings and such and the big guys for frying turkeys.

I think I have read somewhere that tryptophan can cause the drowsies that mizducky remembers. I know that the after-Thanksgiving dinner naps after eating a lot of turkey is blamed on turkey being high in tryptophan. Perhaps some of the ingredients in typical Chinese dishes are particularly high in tryptophan.

What Richard said is exactly right. The key to how this thing works is the little bumps. You have created an air gap between the pot and the heat source. I had to chuckle at "zero-carbon steel." There is no such thing.

No fun! I couldn't find the simmer mat on that site but I did find it here.

That is exactly what I have, the 6". I need the 8". The smaller one is fine for spices and small amounts of seasoning but much too small for sauces.

OK you guys! My LC still has a place in my heart, even though I am flirting with the new guy in town. If I am going to set a braise to 225 degrees F and go off shopping, I will use the LC. It is predictable. It is dependable. It is not sexy. And it is great for gumbos and stews. Clay pots have a sense of danger, the unknown, the unpredictable. Sort of like that mysterious stranger that you are unreasonably attracted to and you don't quite know what to expect. That is sexy.

Oooo . . . I forgot about the full moon. Perhaps that will get me up off of it to get this done. Besides, if the weather got any better, I would have to bite myself. Time to get the balconey cleaned off and ready to receive some herb pots.

Pssst . . . I think we need a meeting. Alas, I am not cooking in mine yet. I am still curing. I am still thinking of an inaugural dish. Lamb is sorely lacking here so I will probably do something with chicken. I am still noodling through Paula's book.

I tried something today that is quite interesting. I was at the grocery browsing around in the meat department, and here was this one pound package of "stew meat" that was really pretty good looking. (I normally buy chuck and cut it myself.) Since I continue to cut down recipes for one, I snatched it up and then started trying to decide what to do. I remembered my report on the "Red Wine Braised Shortribs with Rosemary & Porcini" where I was grousing about the fiddliness of the recipe. And, I had all of the ingredients on hand, including some of the same Shiraz, so what the heck. I really liked the flavor of that recipe. *Warning - If you are sensitive about recipe abuse, please do not read any further.* I decided to throw caution to the wind and revert to my lazier days of braising. Since this is a spur of the moment deal, I obviously didn't marinate. Out go the aromatics. I did, however keep the other seasonings. The other new twist in this heresy is that I am going to use the black chamba clay pot. All other ingredients are the same, adjusted for quantity. (Well, I do have to confess that I tend to exaggerate spices a bit. I find most published recipes a bit tame. But, I did that the first time around, too.) I did brown the meat. Dump. Into the pot along with the spices. No, I didn't tie them up in a neat little bag. I will strain them out later. I sauted the onion and garlic a bit and deglazed with red wine. Dump. Added the rest of the ingredients and mushroom water and a bit more wine to bring the liquid level to about halfway up the sides of the meat. I placed the sprig of rosemary on top and added the parchment. Lid on and into a cold oven, now turned on to 250 degrees F. Two and a half hours later, I have this luscious beef in the nicely thickened sauce that is heaven on a fork. I am convinced that the clay pot is to blame for the fabulous texture of the sauce. I can't wait to reheat it tomorrow. So, I plead guilty to recipe abuse. I suppose that I should rightly be shut away into the eGullet dungeon for habitual offenders . . . but, you have to catch me first.

Octaveman . . . Check out this post in the eGCI braising thread. There is a whole seminar there and lots of good info. I also did a pot comparison with chicken here to supplement what was done in the seminar with beef.

Sounds to me like you have a great start with the Staub. I don't know that you really have to have a low profile pot. I would just use the Staub with crumpled wet parchment. But, I would not have the parchment draped over the edge like Molly shows. I now put the parchment all inside the pot, wet and crumpled, just above the food, al la Wolfert. So, unless you just like new toys, you are good to go. Check out the clay pot threads and the tagine thread about those. However, I do need to issue a Wolfert Warning. Two weeks ago I had no clay pots. I now have four and a tagine.

It could since it is a sodium salt. But if you are using enough to make any difference at all, given the other sources of sodium in a dish, you are using way too much. I think that vegetables get the biggest kick from MSG. I have been known to add a little shake from the Accent container into the peas or carrots.

OK . . . this is not about a Central Market brand but the Momma HEB. Now, normally HEB brands are pretty good stuff. But I have found an outlyer. That is the jar of mayonesa . . . mayonaise made with lime juice. I am able to get Hellman's mayonesa at my local Randall's but I was totally out and I was in the big HEB so I went looking. No Hellman's. But they did have the HEB brand of mayonesa so I bought it. Bad move. This stuff is like Jello. I look at the ingredients list and am wondering how they can avoid mentioning something like carrageenan or some other emulsifier. This stuff is gross. I put some in a bowl and added some lime juice for a dip for some roasted asparagus and couldn't get it incorporated into a smooth sauce. After vigorous whisking, it still looked like bad cottage cheese.

Please let us know how it does with the pancakes. A friend is looking at getting one but is wondering if it is heavy enough to provide even heat for perfectly browned pancakes.

Actually, in many things you are using one of the sodium glutamates and may not know it. Sodium glutamate is just the sodium salt of the amino acid glutamine that is common in many foods. I believe that these amino acid salts are what is responsible for the umami flavor profile. Soy sauce is an example of a common seasoning that depends upon those salts for the flavor.

Since recipeGullet isn't up yet (It's coming, promise.) I will copy the lard methods here: Rendering your own lard produces a wonderful product that is not "bad" for you. It is not the same thing at all as that brick of nasty white stuff you see on the grocery shelf. That stuff is hydrogenated, contains a lot of trans fats, and tastes like plastic to me. Fresh lard is a different product altogether. You have to refrigerate it or you can freeze it. It keeps forever that way. Do put it in a glass jar, though, as it can pick up other flavors from the refrigerator or freezer. I keep mine in the refrigerator because it is easier to dip out. I have used the top of the stove method for chicken and duck fat. 2—5 lb White pork fat (ask your butcher) Chill the fat in the freezer to make it easier to cut. Cut into 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes. I lean toward the smaller size but it isn't critical. The quantities given above do not matter. I just make whatever I am willing to cut up. For either method use a very heavy pot. I like to use my Le Creuset French oven because the light colored interior makes it easier to see the color develop. Top of the stove method: Put 1/2 to 3/4 inch of water in the pot and add the cubed fat. Do not cover. Start on medium to medium low heat. The water will cook off and gets the fat melting a little faster. Stir occasionally throughout the process. Before the bits of fat start to brown, dip off the clear fat. This is a light and mild lard that is good for baking where you don't want pork flavor. Continue to cook until the cubes start to brown. You want to go slow so that the cubes toast evenly. Pour off the amber liquid. This is the product that you want for savory cooking. Don't throw away the bottom dregs of lard and all of the brown bits. This is "asiento". It is used as a savory spread on corn tortillas or bread. This method takes quite a while but doesn't require a lot of attention. Just go slow at first if you want the light stuff for baking. You end up with three products. Oven method: This one is really easy. Just put the fat in the pot with the lid on to start and put it in the oven at about 300F or a little lower. Stir occasionally. When it starts to render, take the lid off. Pour off the lard and save the asiento. Again, you want to go kind of slow here so that the cubes toast and don't burn. For either method, strain out the cracklin's to eat as a guilty treat, add to corn bread, or use as a sprinkle on salads. The picture shows the three products, white lard, tan lard, asiento, and of course the cracklin's. (Maybe that is four.)

Many thanks for the links. All I can say about "Mountain of Hope" is . . . WOW! I will be rooting from the sidelines for the final judging.

My new Rifi tagine has arrived and is now reclining in a tub of warm water. Off to get some chunk charcoal to make ashes.

I never heard the bit about the microwave heating being about lead. I always assumed that the chemical make-up of the clay used is the cause. That varies all over the map. (And the superheated water thing happened to my daughter. Nasty burn, too.)

Cool analogy with the cars and trucks. I may have to use that. I think you are right on about the heat sources as well. Clay steadies everything out. But it is those properties, particularly poor conductivity that can get you into trouble with cracking. There is one other phenomenon that I have seen with glazed pottery and it happened to me. I put some coffee into a stoneware cup and put it into the microwave. KERPOW!!! It was a hand thrown cup made by a friend of mine and the clay was fairly porous. A crack had developed in the glaze that I did not notice. Actually, the reason I put it into the microwave was the coffee had been sitting in the cup a while. Enough coffee seeped into the clay to cause a steam "explosion." BTW . . . Beware of microwaves with any kind of pottery or stoneware (not porcelain usually) because they can really heat up. In fact, I read somewhere that a good test to see if dishes are "microwave safe" is to put some water in a cup or bowl and nuke. I forget for how long, but I am sure is was a minute or under. If the dish itself gets hot, it is not microwave safe.

First a disclaimer . . . I haven't read Thorne's review. But, just conceptually, I am not sure I understand why a reviewer would give a book a bad review if it isn't what he wants or thinks it ought to be. McGee's book doesn't claim to be anything but a science book. If you don't want to read about the science of cooking and cook "experientially" knock yourself out. Just don't read the science books. And don't blame a book about science for being . . . um . . . about science. I, for one, enjoy every cooking science book I can get my hands on, every one of them, wherever they are in the spectrum. But then, I am a science geek. My suggestion for choosing books of this sort is to get them all!

It was those wine cooler guys, sittin' on a porch. I am pretty sure it was a Gallo product and there was a story about how they ended up in the commercial. They were great. I can't remember the brand to save me. Do I win anything? I haven't had tomato rice soup in a long time. I think of most tomato soups as a nice summer dish. PM me the recipe.

Oddly enough I was thinking the same thing about the chicken but she mentions chicken as an alternative in the preamble to the recipe. I think it is doable with thigh meat and added fat at the sauce frying stage. You are going to get some coconut oil out of the milk. I was just surprised there wasn't more. I think it was absorbed into the tiny bits in the sauce. She also mentions in the recipe that the beef contributes to the darkening color. I wasn't surprised at that. The pork I bought was labeled "boneless country ribs." Logically, I would have thought that came more from the shoulder. While cutting the chunks, I began to suspect that it was from the leaner loin. Next time (and I will do this again) I will get a pork butt and cut it myself. Any thoughts on the fish sauce?

I just posted my preparation of Molly Stevens' "Beef Rendang" made with pork here. It shows a technique that I use when dealing with fibrous roots. I also do that thin cross cut when using the mortar and pestle. Also, in that recipe, I used a technique I learned on this thread, the secondary broiling. It worked great. This recipe technique also reminded me a lot of the dish that Smithy prepared here. I guess I always thought that tagine cooking meant that the "hat" was on. This was done all open. Do I have the wrong paradigm about tagine cooking?

I have finished the Pork Rendang. I went by the recipe as best I could. One of the frustrations is when a recipe says "2 1/2 inch piece of ginger" what does that mean? Ginger is quite variable as to diameter. The same goes with the other roots, how big are the garlic cloves, whatever. I would much rather see volume or weight measurements when working with any kind of produce. I am not sure it makes a lot of difference in a recipe like this but if the flavor balances are critical, it could make a lot of difference. That rant over, here are the ingredients for the sauce: Top left to right: galangal, ginger, tumeric, lemon grass. A tip here. When working with fibrous ingredients that are going to remain in the sauce, I slice them thinly across the fiber. This will result in short segments in the sauce that are not bothersome. Notice that I also substituted three fresh chiles. I could have used more but that is ok since I often cook these dishes mild and let folks adjust with hot sauce. I processed this in the mini-bowl of my Kitchen Aid food processor. It took a surprisingly long time and more water than Molly suggested, about 1/3 cup. You can see the texture of the sauce at the end of the frying here: You can see the graininess right out of the processor. It is not unpleasant. If I had a bigger mortar and pestle, I could have probably gotten to a smooth sauce. (Note to self: order bigger M&P.) There really is a change while frying to where the oil starts to separate back out and the whole thing gets glossy. I couldn't capture it well. This is at the end of the frying of the sauce. Having added the whole spices, coconut milk and the meat, it went into cook down mode. This took about 3 hours before it actually started to fry some. I may have been a bit timid on the temperature and I switched burners and lost some time there. No problem as this step doesn't require a lot of attention. I will note that it didn't start to "smell right" until I added the lime leaves. The frying step didn't go as well as I like. I didn't have enough fat. I will blame that on the pork. Also, I found trying to fry in the pot bothersome. What I finally did is spread it all out on a lined baking sheet and put it under the broiler. I find that lining a sheet with foil makes for more even browning. That worked great. It took about 10 minutes, turning the pieces once. This reminds me of a technique that we discussed in the tagine thread. Still not much fat. Oh well, it sure looks good. And . . . It is! OK . . . I have been reading the eGCI course on plating. I am not artistic and I was too chicken to try tadpoles with the sriracha. Comments: I had to add more salt than called for. I was tasting as it went, keeping in mind that it was all going to cook down. I would love to try this with a well pounded smoother sauce. But the grainy sauce is really nice. I like the little crunch of those bits of root. If I do it again with pork, I will look for fattier pork. I am thinking that if I do it with chicken, I will have to add more oil at the frying step to compensate. Or, chicken fat maybe? I will also bet that adding some fish sauce wouldn't hurt. But, I think we have indeed found the elusive Thai Carnitas! Now, does anyone know how to get tumeric stains out of my fingernails? Clorox worked on the plastic bowl and blade of the FP. I am afraid my tee-shirt is permanently yellow spotted. Next time, wear black.