fifi

Thank you. I feel so much better now.

One of these days I am going to take some time and really wander the food shelves. I am sure I will find some "discoveries". Oddly enough, I have never done that. I am usually after specific things and just beeline to those things and exit stage left. I am sure there are a lot of goodies that I have missed.

"Blanching" vegetables in oil is a common technique. I used to do that all the time doing stir fries. Because of the high temperature of the oil, the flavor and texture is different than real blanching in boiling water. Sort of like frying chicken, when the temperature of the oil is high enough, very little remains on the food. Well... I guess brocolli florets could physically hold a lot in their little mop heads. This one reminds me of that crazy lady on FTV years ago that had a show on no fat cooking. She actually sauted veggies in water. Uh... I hate to tell you this but you can't saute in chicken broth. You can poach in it or boil in it but you can't saute in it. At saute temperatures, the chicken broth would jump out of the pan. If you want to eat crazy stuff like that, don't ask the chef to put out something like that. Stay home and cook it yourself. (Strange that this one really has me in a lather. )

*Bless me for I have sinned* This evil thread has forced me to do something I hate to admit. After Mayhaw Man's mention of it, I developed a craving for Frito pie. I went to the store for the sole purpose of procuring a small can of Wolf Brand chili and a bag of regular Fritos. (Wolf Brand was what my mother always kept on hand for those impromptu, just got home from school, Frito pies.) My observation is that Frito pie with really good chili just wouldn't be the same. I now have two questions: Have you noticed how hard it is to find that bag of plain, original Fritos? Does chunky salsa verde qualify as a vegetable?

Many mumble years ago, I was into counting calories while I was pregnant with my daughter. This wasn't so much because of weight gain as I find that if I count calories, I automatically eat a more balanced diet. Over the years, I have developed a pretty good sense of what is in various dishes and what the counts are. When I was doing that, I adjusted by adding some numbers to a restaurant meal or I would only eat a portion of the dish, expecting the calories to be higher than typical. (I am not in the clean plate club.) I was somewhat dismayed by the tone of the article in that, in some ways, it has that "fat is bad" tone. Yes, there is that element that a chef may put butter on or in something that you normally wouldn't expect so that the calories are higher than expected. I worry more about hidden sugar. You should be able to ask and get a straight answer.

Well... I wasn't thinking of induction. Those are still pretty unusual in a home kitchen. I have a friend that is having a small induction top, two burner I think, installed in addition to the gas range. We are looking forward to playing with the new toy.

After a serious teleconference with my son, he tells me that I do cheat on the recipe. So I lied. I believe him because that would be more my style and he has a photographic memory so this will be pretty close. I have bumped up the seasonings, made some chili substitutions, and deleted green bell peppers. So, after editing the original file based on his recollection of the last time we made it, here is the recipe "based on" the original. Bodacious Chili Adapted from the recipe in Southern Living 2 lbs chuck in ½” cubes 2 large onions chopped 3 stalks celery cut in 1” pieces 1 large red bell pepper chopped 4 jalapenos, seeded and diced 1 cup sliced mushrooms (Portobellos are really good) 4 cloves garlic minced 3 T olive oil Start meat in oil and when beginning to brown add other ingredients. Continue to cook on med-high until vegetables begin to cook. Stir in: 3 T cocoa 3 T ancho chili powder 1 t cayenne or arbol (optional) 1 t ground cumin 2 t cumin seeds 2 t dried Mexican oregano 2 t paprika 1 t ground tumeric ½ t salt 1 t ground cardamom 1 t ground pepper 1 T molasses 3/4 cup red wine 2 cans chopped tomatoes 1 can drained kidney beans 1 can drained garbanzos Simmer covered for 1 ½ hours.

Heh... You would be "out of" a lot of places in Houston. I don't think there is a way around this one. The old trick of putting rice in the shaker doesn't even work at the water front places with outdoor patios and decks that I like to frequent. I give up and have to open the shaker and dump some out in my hand. All of the above but, the one that REALLY gets to me is yucky menus. I can put up with a lot, but a torn menu with spots really puts me off.

If it is new, you could probably sell it pretty easily. That would help assuage any guilt about ripping out a new cooktop. I would check about the gas line. I can't imagine someone ripping out a gas cooktop and replacing it with one of these. Well, maybe they were going for "the look" to help sell the house. And, that would probably work for those that aren't cooking freaks. There would be more important things to fix??? Just kidding.

I have to say that I have never run into this before. I found this reference here. So... I am confused. Is it the seed heads that are used? Stuffing with cheese? How does that happen? Boy... am I curious!

There was a thread a long time ago that discussed the various merits and myths about fats. I remember being particularly relieved about coconut oil. I love Thai curries and anything else with coconut milk. I googled my heart out and can't find the thread I was thinking of but I did find this post in a discussion linked to a TDG article on soy. (For now, you may have to go to the archives as the link at the top takes you to the temporary "home page".) I banned margarine from my pantry many moons ago. Butter is the dairy fat of choice. Peanut oil is my high temperature oil of choice. It has gotten fairly expensive compared to your generic "vegetable oil" but at least I know what is in it. My favorite cooking fat for a lot of things is lard. Not the plastic tasting white block on the shelf but the stuff I make fresh myself. But then, I cook Mexican a lot. It is also the superior medium for producing awe inspiring pan fried chicken and fish. I do have to admit that if I don't have enough lard around for those, I will revert to Crisco, even though I try to avoid trans fats. But then, I do the chicken and fish maybe once a year. (When recipeGullet comes back, you can read my lard making methods there.) This whole "fat is bad" thing drives me nuts. Fat is a necessary component of the diet. It is essential for proper absorption of fat soluble vitamins. In infants and young children, adequate fat consumption is necessary for development of nerve and brain tissue. Where we go off the track, as usual, is we overdo it... the whole moderation thing applies.

My experience is an echo of Kevin72's. When I first got cable in the mid 90s, I was enchanted with FTV. I was also just getting back into cooking after about a 12 year hiatus. I caught up with the trends, learned a lot of new stuff, reprised things I had forgotten and generally found that worthwhile. While I am not much of a restaurant roamer, I did enjoy getting to know the personalities in the industry. Between the chef shows and the shows with guests that may have written a book, I proceeded to assault Amazon.com and now have a ridiculous collection of cookbooks. (almost as ridiculous as my collection of history and science... but the cookbooks are gaining) Then, I guess it was 2 or 3 years ago, my interest started to sag. The travel shows were about the only thing that interested me. I stuck with both ABs and would check the schedule. I still look for The Esscence of Emeril, Mario, even Bobby Flay. I kind of got tired of Emeril Live but I have a deep appreciation of what he is doing, and has done, with that show. I think I have grown some and have moved on. The numbers speak. FTV just isn't aiming for the eGullet "us". There aren't enough of us. I will also migrate back to PBS. I watched Julia on PBS from the beginning. She only reinforced my family's food interest. So, things have come full circle and I will be back where I started but that isn't a bad thing.

It has been over a year since I made the venison chili but I think this is how it went... I sauted the typical amount of onion and garlic, light on the garlic, and added the diced venison to brown. I like about a half inch dice. I stemmed and seeded some anchos and rehydrated them in a bit of hot water for about 20 minutes. Those went into the blender and I added the rehydration water as needed to blend into paste. I am guessing that I used about a quarter cup of paste per pound. It may have been more. I would start with that and add more to taste. We actually had some venison stock from leg and shoulder roast bones and scraps so I used that for the liquid. I had some jalapenos so I diced them and added that, maybe one seeded pepper per pound. I was after a little "green" note. I went light on the cumin, I am guessing about 1/4 tsp per pound. I dunno. Taste. I wanted a little "back of the throat" heat so I glugged in some habernero hot sauce. This all went on in my trusty Le Creuset that was put into a 250F oven with the lid on for about two or three hours. I was after focusing on the venison and didn't want it very hot. I was trying to capture the origins of chili and keep it simple enough not to cover up the venison. It was REALLY good. I think the venison stock helped a lot.

My current favorite is Huevo del Toro's "Work in Progress Chili". It is a good mix of cut beef chuck, good seasoning balance and the addition of the chocolate rounds everything out. The one surprise that I had not seen before is the addition of some whole cumin seeds. They cook up tender and you get these little bright bursts of cumin when you are eating it. Now for the bad news... You will have to wait for recipeGullet to come back on-line. But... this is good enough that you need to write to yourself on a sticky note, stick it to your monitor and go there as soon as it is back. I prefer to use reconstituted dried chiles, heavy on the ancho, as my base seasoning. I gave up using ground beef a long time ago. I have come to dislike the texture of ground beef, especially if too fine. The one exception may be the stuff you put on a hot dog or Frito Pie. Don't tell Brooks, but the family favorite chili breaks just about every "rule" in the book. I got the recipe out of Southern Living years ago ('96 or so) and I have never modified it because, if I did, there would be a mob with torches and dogs at my door step. It was so weird sounding that I had to try it out of sheer curiosity and it was an instant hit. That being the case, I can't put the recipe in here because of copyright. Perhaps if you can get to an archive for Southern Living, you can find it. Beyond the usual suspects, here are the oddities... green bell pepper, red bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes (weird for me at least), cocoa powder, cardamom, tumeric, mollases, red wine, kidney beans and (I can't believe I am typing this) garbanzos. I have been through the Southern Living site and can't find it. My mother got the annual recipe books for years and I will look there. This recipe for Pedernales Chili was my dad's staple and he tinkered with it from time to time. Other than the two recipes that I mentioned, I actually rarely use a recipe, wing it, and taste as I go. The two things that I keep coming back to are the addition of Mexican chocolate or cocoa and adding a good beef stock if I have it. Other than the Bodacious Chili aberration, I typically like my beans on the side, pintos cooked with some jalapenos, and corn bread. When the nephew bags some venison, I am in heaven. If I have venison, I keep it pretty simple to let the sweetness of the venison shine through. Historically, chili was pretty simple... beef, onion, garlic maybe, chiles and cumin. That is what they had in northern Mexico and Texas way back when. We have certainly diverged from that. But, so what. I think of chili as a concept with infinite possibilities. When you think about it, gumbo is a lot like that.

Yes, it is the trifid of the garden. What I am laughing about is the reference to iguana. I am wondering if they feed it to the iguana to flavor the flesh. On the long running gardening thread, I once suggested to a member with a bountiful amount of basil to buy a lamb and feed the sucker up on the basil. I suppose that with the concern about safrole, the flavor component of the herb, one should be prudent. After all, there isn't real sassafras in root beer any more. (Sassafras is the flavor component of root beer. While Hoja santa is said to have an anise flavor, that isn't quite right. The flavor is root beer or sassafras.)

*bump* I just did a two part experiment. I wanted to see if Camellia Red Beans, the phenomenal bean dish of South Louisiana, could be reproduced via the "Parson's Method". The other part of the experiment was to see if I could scale down to a half pound of beans. I live alone and don't have a lot of freezer space right now. Here is what I did: In my new little 2 1/2 quart oval Le Creuset, I sauted a half an onion and two minced garlic cloves in a tablesoon of bacon fat until translucent. I added in a 1/2 pound of sliced andouille and stirred that around a bit. I added the rinsed 1/2 pound of Camellias. These are available here at Kroger. The use date is Aug 2006 so these are probably "new crop" whatever that means. Added 2 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a couple of bay leaves. I brought the whole thing to a boil, put the lid on and into a 250F oven. Here is what happened: At 30 minutes: Still plenty of liquid. Back in the oven. At 1 hour: Beans are about half way there. I added 1/2 cup of water. At 1 1/2 hours: Beans aren't quite there but getting close. At 2 hours: The beans are really close. I smash some with the back of the wooden spoon as I usually do to thicken the liquid. At 2 hours 15 minutes: Houston, We have red beans! These are every bit as good as when I have cooked them for hours in the crock pot. I will warn you that I like my red beans "stand up style". That means that they sit on top of the rice and there is not a lot of juicy stuff. You can always add liquid to get to the texture you want if you like them with more liquid. The salt level was perfect. With 15 minutes prep for the seasonings, 2 hours and 15 minutes cooking time, I have "all day" red beans in 2 1/2 hours. YEEE HAAA!

I will tell you what I do which is pretty much how the original is with a few twists. Slice the cauliflower in less than 1/4 inch slices, more like an eighth. Some folks just go to work on the whole thing. I usually separate the florets, slice those, and slice the core separately. It doesn't matter really. In a bowl, toss the cauliflower slices and all of the little bits with about a 1/4 cup olive oil and a little Kosher salt. Don't salt heavily as this cooks down a lot. I line a half sheet heavy aluminum baking pan with the non-stick foil. Spread the cauliflower evenly onto the sheet keeping it in a single layer. Into the oven at 375F for about 25 minutes. Turn the pieces and move it around if it is not baking evenly. Back in the oven for about another 25 minutes. Done. Munch.

No convection oven for me... yet. I would bet that it does an outstanding job. How were the carrot chips? I agree... last time I added the garbanzos I waited until the last half hour or so.

I don't remember if I reported this and I am too lazy to go look. Anyway... I have taken to lining a half sheet pan with the new non-stick foil, non-stick side up. I have also dropped the temp to 375F. A couple of things happen, the stuff seems to toast more evenly and get crispier. It is also easier to move around for more even browning. It does take longer, about 50 minutes.

The thread you are looking for is here. It really isn't the same topic, though. That thread was a safety discussion. If the house was right in most other ways, I would just factor in the cost of changing out the cooktop, if at all possible getting gas. And I would change it out... before I moved in... but then, that is just me.

I love this thread. I ran into this one a few days ago at a restaurant that should know better. The butter was cold and wrapped in gold foil and I can't get it out without getting butter all over my fingers.

My sister has about a 20 foot bed of Hoja santa that is reaching the eaves of the house. We had a mild winter last year and it never froze back. I am looking for some inspiration on using it. Check it out here. We have used this in a rough chiffonade to make a bed for baked chicken thighs and as a pan liner/wrapper for a tamale pie type thing that I got out of one of my Zarela Martinez books. Zarela has a charming story about the plant... It seems that the Virgin Mary, being very poor, had very few diapers for the Baby Jesus. There was this big leafy bush growing in her yard and she would spread the washed diapers on the big leaves to dry. God blessed the bush and to thank it for helping the Virgin Mary in her time of need, he named it Hoja santa.

I could exist quite happily with my DeLongi convection oven (I am in love with that thing), a hot plate, a crock pot, a rice cooker and, Please God, bring me a griddle. (New house will have one on the range. I have considered buying one to get me through my temporary apartment exile but the second bedroom and bath are already full of toys.) A microwave is WAAAY down on the list. I have a Weber smoker for the big ole hunks of meat. In a long term situation I would probably look at a gas grill with a side burner.

I agree that I don't have this problem at fine dining establishments. But I don't frequent those, by choice. When traveling on business I usually want to "kick it down a notch" and find someplace casual and comfortable. If I can avoid the "upscale chains" (oxymoron?) I will do that and opt for a local place. I can't tell you how many times I have asked for suggestions from the hotel management and get back... "That place is great. the portions are huge." For some perverse reason, I get hit with the huge portions on one of these trips where a doggy bag isn't an option. BTW... I have never been to The Cheesecake Factory and never will, unless dragged kicking and screaming in a situation not in my control. The main reason is what has been reported to me on the obscene portions.

Bring a big suitcase.