fifi

*bump* This article in the Houston Chronicle gives some good pointers. I may have to get that book.

Get your self one of those rubber tube things to peel garlic. Makes short work of it. ← I have every garlic peeler known to man. None of them worked on this stuff. It was great garlic, though. I actually went back and got more, roasted a whole half sheet full, and still have some jars of it in the freezer... best I ever made.

Now I am getting really curious. There is a contact page for LC - US here. It might be interesting to contact them about this pot. It would be really great if they could come up with a history and product information on LC in the US and other parts of the world. (I don't see a way to send them a picture though.) I did that with Calphalon recently and got quite a comprehensive reply that we all found interesting. I included a link to the eGullet discussion topic for them. Hey... That is how you could show them a picture or pictures.

Ketchup... check Malt vinegar... check( especially when accompanied by the fish) The flavored mayo's... check (a personal favorite, mayo with a little soy... ah!) Any other sauce that happens to be on the plate... check Liberal squeezed lemon, dip in tartar sauce... check (great with the fried shrimp) Sriracha... check Ummm... I am finding it difficult to think of something I don't like.

wkl... Is that a typo? Is it actually "LCUS"? That would say to me that it is a pot that was made for the US market. None of my LC has any 3 digit numbers but they are all rather new. I did notice one thing, however. The bottom of my gratins appear to be raw cast iron. However, they actually have a "clear" base coat that I understand is applied prior to the enamel. The enamel is left off of the bottom of the gratins. This surface matches what you are describing more closely. I have a grill pan with the black coating and it looks nothing like the bottom of the gratins. This is pure speculation... I wonder if early on, when LC was being introduced into the US market, they wanted to have a product that was not too far removed from the cast iron that our market was familiar with. That kind of marketing strategy may explain what seems illogical to us now... enameled exterior and bare interior. Today, we see that as being kinda nuts. Back then, the market may have been somewhat "suspicious" of the new concept and reluctant to give up the cast iron that they knew and loved. Then, when consumers saw the avantage of the coating, they introduced the fully coated products. Just a theory.

They make sealers that will penetrate and strengthen the popcorn stuff. It was developed for asbestos abaitment. Then paint will adhere and not pull off. When paint dries, it sets up stresses that can cause a weak under layer to split and peel away. You might ask at your local paint store about that. I would ask a dedicated paint supplier, like a Sherwin Williams store, rather than at a Home Depot or such. I haven't looked for it on the retail market so I don't really know what is out there but it is worth looking into. If you think your texture has asbestos, I would suggest that you check into this. Ah yes... Beer and pork butt. The project fuel of champions!

Many thanks to all of you for this topic. Fritatta is my go-to recipe for brunch for several people. While it is usually of the "what I have in the fridge" variety, you guys have given me some great ideas to actually plan one. I have usually added a bit of milk but I really like the idea of the heavy cream, and more of it, to make the texture more quiche-like. I may not add as much as in a classic quiche recipe, but I am headed in that direction. If I do that, do I use a similar time and temperature and bake it like a quiche? Any recommendations on a suitable baking pan? I am leaning toward a rather heavy ceramic type. Heh... heh... An excuse to get that Emile Henri I have been looking at. (Assume, of course, that any ingredients that need sauteing would be done in a separate skillet.)

heh... heh... heh... BWHAHAHAHAHA! Actually, my attachment to LC probably has a lot to do with my particular style of cooking. I go in for slow cooking. Not necessarily Slow Food in that sense. I tend toward braises, soups, stews, gratins, the kind of things that are nudged along rather than rushed. Anything that is fast and requires attention is a potential for disaster in my kitchen. I am genetically incapable of putting garlic bread under the broiler without burning the first batch. I don't feel a compelling need for that copper saute pan... yet. If you are a cook that mostly grills, sautes, broils, you could probably do without LC and be perfectly happy in your kitchen. If you are a more "balanced" cook than I am, you would probably enjoy having a few pieces of LC or their ilk. (I don't think I have any stock in LC. )

Sorry... The essay is in his book It Must Have Been Something I Ate. I also see that I have misspelled... dauphinois. He extols the properties of the enameled cast iron for optimum caramelization and crust. Having tried the simple potato recipe in different pans, I have to concede that he is correct.

YES!!! Many thanks. I couldn't get any sort of link to work.

I pretty much save the things mentioned above... with the exception of vegetable trimmings. I have never gotten into that habit for some reason. One of the revelations that comes from hanging out at eGullet was the concept of saving the fat from defatting chicken stock. Why I never thought about that before is beyond me. I did see a suggestion here not long ago that the chicken fat (or whatever fat) from stock making will keep much better if it is heated to drive off any water before storing. The comparison was to making ghee. Brilliant. I am not sure if this is the same thing as saving, but I will make and store some basic ingredients that I use when an opportunity presents itself. For example: Mojo de ajo... When the garlic is really nice, I will bite the bullet, sit down and dice a half cup or more and make this. The diced garlic is simmered, barely bubbling, in oil until the garlic is nicely toasted. This is wonderful for grilling fish, adding a little of the oil to a salad dressing, dressing vegetables, etc. Roasted red bell peppers... Ihave been fortunate a few times to snag a bag of red bell peppers at a discount because they were about to "go off". I will roast the whole lot of them and store in oil for use in other dishes.

I never see garlic labeled here so I am completely uneducated on the characteristics of the different varieties. Other than the obvious extreme of the old garlic where you can feel that the skin has pulled away, I really can't tell. As I recall, some exceptionally juicy garlic was a purple skinned variety, large cloves, very firm, and a bitch to peel.

<looks around for waffling emoticon> Well, my favorite onion-and-sorrel panade DOES call for a flameproof casserole dish... ← BWAHAHAHAHA! Did I mention up-thread that the cast iron gratins are without equal? When I got one at Jeffery Steingarten's urging in his essay on potatoes daupinoise, I fell in love with gratins. You know the old saying... "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." For a while there, I was gratining (is that a verb?) everything in sight.

You mean I am supposed to read the manual???

*bump* I thought it was timely to bump this up. I was inspired by a TV ad from Home Depot for this intriguing appliance. This is the first I have heard of this thing. (edit: I have no idea why the original link would not work. I tried everything. Go to http://www.homedepot.com and search on fryers. It is the Charmglow 28 qt. Or, see MsMelkor's post below. She got one that works. ) It obviously has some safety advantages. But does it have enough oomph to actually recover temperature in a reasonable amount of time to keep the turkey from being oily? Has anyone seen this thing in action? If you had one, would you "fry big" more often?

I am totally guessing here... When I have fallen into a particularly fresh and juicy batch of garlic, I have noticed that it practically oozes when dicing and is even more "sticky" than the usual garlic. It is a real pain to dice. If you were dealing with that kind of garlic it may have had more than the usual amount of "sugars" in it, that may be the root of the problem.

Gauntlet thrown down and challenge accepted. My oldest LC is about 15 years old. My sister has one that is at least 25. No... I don't tolerate brown spots on the bottom. My interiors are as spotless as the day they arrived and I have a bunch of white white pieces 'cause I am into white and like the way it looks with my porcelain. I don't have a lot of stainless but my experience with my few pieces and friends' All-Clad... I would rather clean LC any day. If I am doing a braise, say for instance beef short ribs, I like to brown it really well then add the liquid and other stuff. The heaviness of the LC does a magnificent job of that and does so evenly. I will say that it is recommended that when browning on top of the stove you should cut the heat down a notch with LC... if you would normally use Med High, go to Medium. A few weeks ago, I had a carnitas disaster. I forgot about them and had carnitas al carbon, heavy on the carbon because I had added some OJ concentrate to try a slightly sweeter note. I am talking sticky greasy black gunk. A soak and then an application of Dawn Power Dissolver (well, ok, two applications) and things were good as new. I have seen a bit of stain from paprika chicken in one of my white pots but a quick soak in a clorox solution took care of that in about 10 minutes. One thing that does annoy me, especially on my white pieces, is the metal marks from ss utensils. But I understand, from Marlene I think, that the LC cleaner takes care of that. I will have to get some. The weight and heat retention properties are the key to the cooking properties, I think. And the enamel interior is the key to the clean-up. You just don't want to abuse it. That means no abrasive cleansers or pot scrubbers. Let the LC care recommendations be your guide. Yes... You really need some LC. You will never regret it.

Even with the salt, sitting around for a couple of days, that starchy water might start growing interesting little beasties. At least, I might find them interesting but not enough to want to eat them or their metabolic by-products.

C&D is one of those dishes that bring back my earliest memories of standing on a chair to see what was going on in the pots on the stove. When my great aunt would visit, the first thing she had to do was start cooking and one of the requisite dishes was chicken and dumplings. That first vivid memory was looking down into that big oval pot of bubbling chicken and seeing a chicken foot rising to the surface like it was "after me". I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. C&D is usually the fate of the carcass and leftover meat from a roasted chicken. I like to roast the really big mamas (6 to 9 pounds) so there is almost always enough left over meat to make a pot. The carcass goes to make the stock. After sauteing a bit of onion, celery and carrots, the stock goes in and is bubbled a while to cook down a bit. Then the dumplings are dropped in and cooked, then the meat added. The dumplings themselves developed into something of a family crisis a few years ago. Both my sister and I were frustrated. Aunt Minnie made the most wonderful dumplings of the strip variety that we also called "sinkers". When the dumplings were dropped into the stock, they would float up. The lid was put on and the dumplings were allowed to simmer. After a few minutes they would sink back to the bottom. That was when it was time to add the chicken, heat and serve. We just couldn't duplicate that same chewy texture that we craved, and Aunt Minnie's recipe was lost to mankind. Then somewhere my sister came up with the idea of using cheap store brand biscuits. On a well floured board, you smash them flat, turning to get a flour coating on both sides. Shake off the excess flour and cut into strips. AAAAHHH! Perfect. Here is a story that I can't resist passing on. I had a chicken carcass in the fridge, a pot of C&D was on the agenda, so I stopped at my local HEB to get the ingredients. In the produce section they had some of those Texas A&M maroon carrots. "Oh... That should look interesting. Little maroon cubes of carrot will be really cute. I'll invite my Aggie cousin to dinner." When I was dicing the carrots, the stains on the cutting board should have been a clue that I was headed for disaster. But, of course, I ignored the warning signs. Well... The maroon xanthophyls or whatevers bled into the broth... hmmm... Then the dumplings, with their basic pH levening turned the whole thing BLUE!!! I had a delicious pot of blue... and I mean blue... chicken and dumplings.

As soon as the temperature drops again... I will be making this ragout. However, I almost always substitute pork for the veal. There is something about this stew that says fall to me. Maybe it is the cinnamon. It is incredibly delicious. I have already done a stellar pot of Camellia Red Beans, using the Russ Parsons method with some andouille. Excellent. It really works. I usually have to have a pot of crockpot beef stew. It is an old recipe that relies on soup. You coat the meat cubes in onion soup mix. Put in the potatoes and carrots. Spoon a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup on top. Add a couple of bay leaves. Cook on low for about 5 hours. It is actually the most wonderful classic beef stew I have ever had. A pot of chile is in my head. I will probably go for Huevos Del Toros' Work in Progress Chile recipe. Gumbo is comin' even if I buy a small turkey just for that. As far as I am concerned, turkey and andouille gumbo is the only reason for a turkey to exist on this planet.

Assuming that you are there for the long haul (a good assumption, I think, given the body bag talk ) I gotta go with removing the old stuff... and putting it under the appliances. The main problem with CVT that I know of is that there are so many choices that decisions are terrible things to make.

Let's see... 2 2 quart Pyrex "bowls" with the handles 1 2 cup Pyrex 1 1 cup Pyrex 1 set heavy stainless dry measure cups 1 set stainless spoons 1 goofy cone shaped "universal" measuring thing that I never use (seemed like a good idea at the time) Clearly my toy box is deficient in this department. I intend to correct that as soon as I build some more room to store more toys. Now I have a question... I have recently read some recipes that call for 1/3 of a teaspoon of some ingredient. Hmmm... I have looked in all the usual places (W-S, SLT, Baker's Catalog) and it appears that such a thing does not exist. W-S sells an "odd size" set of spoons but no 1/3 there, either. RSincere has a problem with disappearing 1/3s. SusanG is inundated with them. I can't get 1/3 to format to a fraction in Word. Is there something about 1/3 that is working very hard to be troublesome?

I had this fascinating experience and reported on it over in the Carnitas thread. I recall that we concluded that superheated steam had developed in the chunks. That obviously didn't happen here but I am thinking that the livers must have had some "pockets" near enough to the surface to rapidly heat and pop. (I really don't like to think about a liver with "pockets" ) Do chicken livers always do that?

Some time ago I put a gumbo recipe in RecipeGullet that was used to get into the details of how to make a roux. I will quote it here. This technique is to get to that very dark roux that is used in some gumbos. It is really close to burning when it is at that Hershey Bar stage. Of course, you can use the same technique to make a lighter roux. Note that the quantities of fat and flour are equivalent, e.g. 1 cup flour to 1 cup fat, or whatever will yield a combination liquid enough to keep moving. You also need a heavy pot. I use my Le Creuset. I also see that no one has mentioned the typical (though it varies) ratio for the trinity: 2 parts onion:1 part celery:1 part bell pepper. Yes, sometimes I use red bell pepper. On the issue of layering flavors with the same common ingredients: One lady in La Place that I learned a lot from had this killer jambalaya technique. She would do some of the trinity in the fat with the cayene added in at the get-go so that it got toasted. That part of the trinity was sauteed until it was starting to caramelize. Then some more trinity was added and barely wilted. Then the sausage, shrimp, rice, stock and so forth was added. This is a classic example of simple ingredients handled skillfully that made a world of difference. She made me a believer that common ingredients can make for spectacular results when in good hands. That, to me, is one of the priciples of good Cajun cooking.

Smashing... Absolutely smashing. I am now just about convinced to go the classic checkerboard route. The difference is amazing. psst... Dave... Never have a dog cuter than you. It messes up the whole chick-magnet angle.