fifi

Welcome, nickarte. It has been a while since I have visited the great DF. My fondest memories of street food are the ears of corn. That corn is corn. Not the insipid sweet corn we get here in the states that everyone raves about. (I am hiding out in this forum on that point. There are a lot of eGulls that think that sweet corn is the big deal. ) I still dream about that corn. The other thing I remember with fondness is the mangoes that are cut to look like flowers and dusted with chile powder. They are so beautiful and tasty. And what is the name of those things... the fried dough with the cinnamon sugar... ARG! Senior moment!

I have done the same thing with my BBQ posole, Rancho. Yes. It tastes good. One time, just for the heck of it, I mixed the masa harina with some fresh lard and "toasted" it in a frying pan. I was thinking corn "roux". I have no idea if this is ever done in Mexico. It was really good and thickened the posole quite nicely. It was almost a completely different dish.

Yeah Judith... I remember the Night Hawk restaurant now that you mention it. I don't think I ever went there. We probably didn't "get" the history and connection. FistFullaRoux... Are you saying that Schlotzky's originated in Austin???

Ethylene gas makes things "ripen". As andie says, bananas are another excellent source. If the ripening process makes carrots bitter, then I would have to say yes. I just never heard of it making carrots bitter. BTW... Those green bags and green discs for putting into the produce drawer in the fridge... They have a catalyst that sucks up ethylene. That is how they work.

I can't imagine cornstarch having anything to do with it. If you put it in a bag with an apple, things might accelerate. The apple gives off ethylene gas which goes to ripening.

*bump* I just had a saltine experience. I was wandering through the kitchen and picked off some sweet red seedless grapes, munching those... A tube of saltines was nearby and I grabbed one. WOW! Saltines and grapes! A whole new taste experience! Who knew! It was a whole 'nother thing.

This is increibly delicious looking. I am jonesing about the key lime thing. I want this stuff. We need this stuff in Houston, darn it!

OMG! I remember Nighthawk frozen foods. I had no idea that Nighthawk was an Austin original. I wonder if that is still around.

OMG that sounds good. I am thinking about doing this when I visit my son over the Christmas holidays. He absolutely loves squash. His housemate will be away and we can cook all sorts of pork. (His housemate is Jewish... not kosher but just doesn't do pork.)

There is a restaurant in Mexico City, Arroya I think, that has these vats of lard where they do the chicharones. They also deep fry pork roasts. It is WONDERFUL. The next time we fry turkeys, I am going to do a pork roast, but I will do a chunk of shoulder. Now I am really curious about brisket. Brisket usually needs a long slow cook to convert all of the connective tissue to gelatin to make it tender. I am not so sure about deep frying it. But I could be wrong.

That may have been Kaphan's. They served steak and seafood. But it could also have been Bud Bigelow's. They were also known for steak. (As was just about every restaurant back then.) They just also happened to have lobster in the tank as I alluded to above. It seems like any "serious" restaurant here back in the 60s and 70s had to have good steak.

You know... I have never thought of this. I make notes while I am cooking specific dishes so that I can write them up as an actual recipe for family and friends but I have never thought about a notebook. I am thinking that what you are talking about is more like a cooking diary, with specific instructions. What a fantastic idea. I can't tell you what I would give to have something like that from my mother, grandmother and great aunt.

If you have good paprika, there is no such thing as overkill.

The search gods must be with me... I found the turkey thread here.

Ditto the sporting goods stores that sell the deep fryers for turkeys. But I would check with Wal-Mart, Sam's etc. as they might get it in as a seasonal thing. We buy these 5 gallon "jugs in a box" kind of like cheap wine. (Been known to buy that, too. In sangria, who can tell. ) edit to add: Don't assume that you have to throw it out. We have saved well browned peanut oil from one year's turkey frying marathon to the next year's. It was delicious. It was well strained, put back into the original jug and kept in the house (cool) in a dark cupboard. I do hope you have read the safety issues with doing large quantities of oil and big chunks of meat. I can't find it now, but I will see if I can find the turkey frying thread from last year where I addressed the safety issues. As usual, the eGullet community offered additional valuable advice.

On lighting for your table... I have seen these track light set-ups that you hook up to the outlet, like where your ceiling fan is, and then the bar that holds the track lights is hung from chains or cables anywhere you want. One of the chains carries the cord from the ceiling outlet. There is a finish plate that hides the place where the fan was. I was going to do that in my house because I wanted lighting over my desk, work area. I was using the "formal" dining room as an office and the only ceiling outlet was in the middle of the room, intended for an over the table chandelier, and the work area was against a wall. I had found one that had the little halogen lights and I loved the quality of the light for working. I looked on the web for what I found and I can't find it now, but I first saw things like that at one of the big lighting supply stores and I think I found something similar a Lowe's. That was about 3 years ago and I never did it because I sold the house. Your white cabinets are about to convince me that that is what I want in the new kitchen. Almost all of mine are undercounter, but I think the white is the way to go. Man... What a difference. I agree about the red knobs. I have seen those, I think at Lowe's. Hey! You can shop Ikea from home now... Check this out! I am all a-lather to see that floor. When are you going to do that?

Having gotten past the fact that you weren't cooking manatees... I found a reference to "manti" in Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean. She tells a wonderful story about this woman that runs a restaurant in Istanbul that specializes in manti. Then she further defines the dish. (Uuuum... are you hungry yet? Wolfert Warning! Do not read Paula's descriptions if you are on a diet! ) Then there is a detailed recipe. The "dumplings" are filled with lamb and onion seasoned with black pepper and oregano. As to the stock, that is poured over the dumplings in the baking pan after they have browned and return to the oven. Apparently, they absorb most of the liquid but there will be some left over. You pour that into the yogurt sauce you are making. Wow! cooked down chicken broth added to yogurt. I would not attempt this dish without Paula's detailed instructions. The recipe takes about 2 1/2 pages, well spent to describe the details of technique. If you make your own dumplings, this is a project. If you can find the dumplings pre-made, you are way more than half-way there. The seasoning emphasis is on oregano and black pepper with a note of mint in the sauce. The sauce has garlic as well. The Cooking of the Eastern Meditteranean an eGullet friendly Amazon link.

Heh... Many years ago, when Italian restaurants were trying to move beyond spaghetti and meatballs, I went to this new and "trendy" place. They described some dish as served over a "square of lightly fried polenta". Well... I had never heard of polenta, the rest of the dish sounded good, I was curious about this polenta stuff, and so I ordered it. A couple of other folks did, too. When the dish arrived, we exclaimed almost in unison... "Why, that is fried grits!" We still laugh about it today.

russ... Does the pot in Paula's method have a lid on it? BTW... That is my kind of recipe!

Tomorrow night on A&E is a real highbrow special... Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating. Scroll down, it is 9-11 EDT. I am curious but I may have to pass.

I get lovely smoked salmon from friends in Washington State and, if they don't come through, I order it from Vis Seafood in Bellingham. Because of the PNW origin, I will assume that your salmon is a similar style. The style that these guys do involves a bath in a seasoned brine, dry to form a pellicle, and then hot smoke. Well, not all that hot. They shoot for a smoker temperature of 170-180F. This makes for a relatively smoky and drier fish. We tend to keep it simple. I serve the whole thing on a platter with seafood forks for flaking. Then I supply a cream cheese/sour cream mixture, sometimes a relatively mild horseradish sauce, capers, chopped egg, finely minced red onion and water crackers. Then the guests "build their own". Leftovers have found their way into a lemon cream pasta sauce with capers. Another favorite is a quesadilla with a good Mexican melting cheese and a generous amount of the salmon. I have also sprinkled a nice pile of soft and silky scrambled eggs with the flakes for breakfast. The texture contrast is lovely.

I think that is exactly what I have done. My next try with chunks of shoulder is to make the chunks a bit bigger then leave them the hell alone.

I had a recent adventure with the Mojo Criollo here. The Malta Goya is a great addition to this bean and ham soup I make from the end of the spiral sliced ham I get at Christmas. I use dark beer in it but the Malta Goya gives it an extra malty kick. The canned beans are the basis for many salsas. Goya seems to get canned beans right.

OK... Looks really close to jambalaya to me. Maybe a bit different with the emphasis on the chicken. Whatever... I now have a new dish to wow my yankee friends with.

I am asking... NICELY!