Thanks for the Crepes

Thanks, helenjp. I see fresh turmeric in my local Korean pan-asian market, but never knew what to do with it. Now I will try it cooked with fish. Even Western medical authorities say it has very beneficial health properties.

Thanks liuzhou, I absolutely love a good read, and will seek this out if it's available in English. Is it? I'm good with languages, but I understand that Chinese is pretty hard to pick up from an English native base. There are so many dialects besides Manchurian as well. I'm daunted by that. And you properly credited your quotes the first time, and I was cognizant of that, but you are the one that brought them to my attention, so I was thanking you for doing so. Now I look forward to finding a lotus pod so that I can extract the seeds and experience something I have never before come across. Thank you.

I'd use a little less because red oranges are usually sweeter than the orange ones. I have cara cara and regular navels in the fridge now, and I have to say that after the novelty wore off, I prefer good navels. I still like the bloods because I don't get them here very much, but I think this is my last purchase of the cara caras. Of course, you could always balance the recipe with a little lemon juice, and keep the sugar the same.

Or you can grow your own jalapenos and pickle them yourself. When I did this, few people besides myself could eat them comfortably. They may have cross pollinated with hotter peppers in the garden or my seeds just may have been different than the commercial ones. The jalapenos available to me in the grocers here, even with a surprisingly large Latino population for central NC, are usually so tame that when you remove seeds and membranes they can pretty much be used almost interchangeably with bell peppers with a slight kick. Anyone else notice how, over the years, jalapenos have gotten a lot milder? Scubadoo97's right, that you can add heat with serranos. I like the jalapeno flavor better though. It's one of my staples I panic if it's not in the kitchen, and you'd be surprised at the nutrients. More vitamin C than citrus, no lie. ETA: my question

I probably have no chance at a fresh lotus pod in my location, but liuzhou's seductive description of their flavor has insured that if I ever do encounter them, I'll be all over it! What a plant! Roots, seeds, and flour to eat for nourishment of our bodies, and rare beauty to nourish our spirits. https://www.google.com/search?q=lotus+flower&espv=2&biw=1097&bih=546&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=42zMVL_VFcimgwT4ioPAAg&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQ7Ak

I too can vouch for the Idaho Spuds brand Shel_B recommends. They're fine for the thickening soups and topping shepherd's/cottage pie, but I would never use them for mashed potatoes. I want mashed potatoes that start from whole Idaho russets always, without exception.

Good luck, Shel, That sounds like a very acceptable list of ingredients. I am curious where you got it, because it sounds like something I might use myself. Other than that, it sounds like something you could just follow the instructions for any recipe calling for homemade pastry. I'll say this, though, for savory and sweet applications, I like to prebake my pastry, even for recipes which undergo subsequent baking. I truly do not like soggy pastry. If you have edges/rims, though, you will want to use a pastry shield or foil to keep them from over browning.

Adding potato flakes (which is what I keep around) or buds is so much easier than taking part of your cooked potatoes, putting them in a blender, risking potato lava, and having to clean the blender. I use potato flakes to thicken chowders with chunks of real potato, and for one other purpose. I grew up in Vermont. In our elementary school cafeteria, cottage pie was misnamed shepherd's pie, but it was still good. It was made with potato flakes. As an adult, I've tried to make it with proper peeled, cooked and mashed Idaho's, but it's just not nearly as good to me. I also add onion and grated carrot to cook along with the ground beef, then the layer of (usually frozen, thawed) corn kernels under the potatoes, because this is a winter dish. I'm making either sauteed salmon, broccoli and starch tomorrow or salmon chowder with potatoes, onion, corn, and 2% milk. Said chowder, if it appears, will be thickened with instant potato flakes without shame.

Shel_B, If you have already bought a product like Pilsbury's Already Pie Crust or whatever they call them, it's too late to save you. If not, buy a frozen pie crust. Even your grocery store brand will probably be better than anything you have to "unroll." Look at the expiration date on those refrigerator case "pie crusts." See how far out they are from the day you are buying? This means their recipe is designed for shelf life, profit. Frozen crusts have no need for artificial ingredients and preservatives. They are also easier. Also, knowing you from your posts a little, I think you'd find the ingredient lists on refrigerated pastry quite off-putting. If you want to disguise your shortcut with a frozen crust, just pop it out of the aluminium pan and into your own pie pan. Thaw a little and crimp the factory produced crust by hand. You don't have to do that, of course; you can just use the preformed crust in the provided pan. Please believe me. You do not want Pilsbury's or any other mainstream grocery store offering of refrigerated pastry, pizza crust or biscuits. They taste of the chemicals and preservatives, and are not worth the convenience. Frozen tastes better, and you don't have to unroll anything.

This post was moved from the Breaking Down and Boning Poultry discussion. Okay, haresfur, I'll bite, even though it looks like we will shortly be moved to an older thread. I don't own detachable poultry shears that can go in the dishwasher to be sterilized. I always cut up my poultry with my favorite filet or boning knife, which is kept as sharp as a razor. I pretty much use no other knives in my kitchen, although I own a bunch of them. When I need to cut something huge like a watermelon, I use the largest of my "Old Hickory" carbon steel knives. They need a lot of maintenance. Not so, my stainless steel blade, full tang, fillet or boning knife. I still would never put it in the dishwasher. I learned really quickly how to butcher chickens, feathers on and freshly killed on my grandma and grandpa's farm. My first task assigned was to run down the chickens aided by my younger male cousin Doug, who looks and sounds exactly like the actor Lucas Black from "Crazy in Alabama" from 1999, and more recently from "NCIS: New Orleans," the TV series. Well that didn't work out too well. I tried my best, and was very young and spry at this point, but Oh God. My grandfather taking the caught chickens from me and grabbing them by the head/neck, then flinging them around until said head/neck twisted off was too much for me after a couple birds. The body flew off the neck and frequently got up and ran around. I have witnessed first hand where the adage "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" comes from. I couldn't hang, so I went inside with the other women folk. They were skeptical that I could learn to cut up chickens, but I was VERY motivated so I didn't have to see anymore chickens running around without heads. IT'S TRUE. I could handle it once they were dead, and I knew I had to contribute to the extended family's concerted effort to put up meat for winter. I think I learned this task faster than I've ever learned anything, because, I had to be useful to avoid going to the kill zone again. I became an expert chicken butcher in just a few minutes. I don't think my hands have the strength anymore to cut through poultry joints with scissors, but if it works for you, that's great.

Thank you Chris and Anna for correcting my ignorance. The local Korean/pan-Asian market S-mart Offers beef and pork in refrigerated meat cases. They also offer live fish swimming in aerated tanks, and some fish buried in ice. http://www.yelp.com/biz/s-mart-cary-2 I've often wondered about the fact that there is NO poultry on offer here in the grocery. I know the easiest, most logical route would be to ask employees, but most don't speak English, and/or aren't very friendly. So my question is: do you think they keep the chickens out back to kill on order (which I think is very unlikely, as it's illegal in my jurisdiction) or do they just not sell poultry because if it's not a fresh kill it's undesirable? I know they offer poultry (chicken and duck) on the menu of their onsite cafe. I know I should just woman up and ask, but I was wondering if anyone else had encountered this at a Korean/pan-Asian market in the US.

I dunno, Anna, I think I'd still like a warm slice with butter melting into it, or two.

Hey Anna N, Thank you for your intriguing post. I can find more info on Google on halal, kosher and silkie chickens, and I'd heard of all of them before. I'd seen the silkie carcasses in liuzhou's posts before with their startling, to this Westerner, blackness. They are absolutely delightful looking with their furry feathers, and are said to make great pets. I'd love to have one, but as a kid who had a more mainstream pet chicken who lost an eye when a cat climbed the redwood fence in our backyard with my pet in his jaws, and my mother grabbed the chicken away from the cat at the last moment, it's just not in the cards for me. The one I can't find is Hong Kong chicken as a breed/species, even after searching for chicken breeds and looking for them specifically. Only Hong Kong style recipes come up when searching for "hong kong chicken". Are they indeed a separate strain? Maybe they are chickens processed in a manner specific to Hong Kong? Or maybe it's a Canadian term for asian market chicken with head and feet attached? Please do tell.

Thanks for the support eG folks! Oh how I wish I had a digital camera to show you some of my creations, though. I'm the one who goes through all 1,362 pictures posted on yelp of Tony's Pizza Napoletana, living vicariously, yet I've no way to post hopefully interesting photos of my own creations. http://www.yelp.com/biz/tonys-pizza-napoletana-san-francisco But you folks are GREAT for tolerating me anyway.

Hi samkagan, India's a huge country with a very long history, tons of population, and many different subcultures and castes. Dosa are southern Indian. I'm not from India nor do I have much exposure to their culture, but I do have a love for Indian food, and I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance of a Little India in my community. Actually I call it the ethnic village, because all within walking distance I have Latino, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Italian, and even Himalayan-Nepali mom and pop restaurants. Used to have a good Vietnamese restaurant there, but now you'd have to drive for that. Still, I'm truly blessed with a cornucopia of ethnic eateries practically in my backyard. I discovered dosa for the first time at the Udipi Cafe restaurant. There are photos of dosa on the yelp website reviews for the restaurant: http://www.yelp.com/biz/udupi-cafe-cary-2 I liked the dosa and uthappam so much at my first exposure about 15 years ago that I wanted to emulate them at home. I set off on the internet for more info and recipes. Turns out they're made from roughly the same batter, but I suspect (don't know) that dosa batter's diluted down thinner that the uthappam batter. Dosas are more like an ultra crispy crepe, and uthappam's more like a pancake. It calls for urad dal and rice soaked separately, ground and fermented with natural yeast (bacteria?) from the air. It takes several days and a lot of steps and effort, so I came to the conclusion that it wasn't happenin' in this kitchen. The biggest off-putter was that my Oster blender probably wouldn't be up to the task of grinding the grains and beans anyway, at least not for long before the motor burned out. So I came up with a wheat flour/corn meal pancake and embellished it with finely chopped onion, tiny green peas, grated carrot and finely chopped jalapeno peppers for a very satisfactory Southern USA/Indian fusion version of Udipi's uthappam. I really haven't attempted dosa. I do make crepes, which are eggier and more flexible than dosa. Sadly when I went to Udipi last week for lunch the dosa was still good although smaller, but the filling wasn't as good. It was so watery it made the dosa soggy wherever it contacted it. Fortunately, it's customary to only put a small amount of filling in each dosa, so I ate the still crispy dosa and left the soggy part and the filling. Also over the years the spiciness has been tamed a lot. I guess even Indians who are at least 90% of the patronage at this establishment lose some of their taste for heat after eating our blander cuisine. I think I could even take my capsaicin averse husband to Udipi now. I filled up mostly on idly and sambar, and the lovely ripe watermelon they had on the cold bar. If I can even find watermelon this time of year in local markets it's very expensive, so I definitely got my money's worth. The papadums were excellent too; thin, crispy, bubbled up loveliness. It's $8.99 plus 70 cents tax for the weekday lunch buffet. It used to be better, but it's still very okay. Almost everyone drinks water, so that's not an added expense. The water is refilled so religiously and all the staff are so pleasant, I couldn't help but tip 20% anyway even though it's a buffet. I also noticed that the staff is much more familiar with English than they were in the past. It was very interesting to spy on the adjacent table's two Indian mens' conversation. They were (probably H1B visa) programmers. They talked about food. One ate meat, the other not. The one that didn't related an experience on July 4th shortly after coming to USA where his host asked him if he wanted a hamburger, and he agreed. Then he saw the red "squishy" patty, and reneged. He'd never seen raw meat before. He'd only seen it cooked, I'd hazard a guess, maybe in commercials. The same no-meat guy, who seemed very engaging and talkative, went on to describe his experience coming back here from a visit to India. He said it seemed like an apocalypse had happened, and how lonely it felt to just see buildings and cars but no people on the streets. Pretty fascinating to me, since I'm crowd phobic to the max. Of course this whole time, I've got my nose in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," so they spoke freely. The uthappam were small inferior shadows of themselves with NO vegetables baked/grilled into one surface like my previous experiences. I'm so glad I got some better ones years ago that inspired a dish I have made a hundred times, and everyone who eats them loves. I too would be very appreciative of any information any member could give on dosa making and uthappam. I sure would like to be able to make them at home with the equipment I have. I have Googled away for years, but it just doesn't seem to be a thing that's very easy to do in a Western kitchen without importing specialized equipment from India. These recipes are thousands of years old, though, so I'm sure they didn't have these electric grinding machines back then. I'm hopeful that someone who's experienced in dosa making can educate us Westerners.

I know Dinner thread posts sans photos are boring. That's why, at least until I get some means of posting photos myself, I rarely participate in this thread. I had to make an exception tonight because I made pizza with King Arthur Flour's beer crust. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/quick-beer-crust-pizza-recipeThe photo with this recipe belies the appeal of this crust. I used all unbleached AP flour, because I don't have and wouldn't know where to get semolina locally. Also I didn't use KA pizza crust seasoning, and added a little water when the dough looked too dry and shaggy to me. I like an ample hydration for good oven spring, but have no idea what percent because I don't weigh anything and go by look and feel. I also think they are crazy to call for two 10" or even 12" pizzas from this recipe. I split the dough in half after kneading vigorously for about 10 minutes and wrap and stick half in the freezer for later. I take the other half and let it go through the initial rise. Then I stretch and pat it into an 11" x 17" oiled non-stick cookie sheet. It doesn't "fight back" much after a two hour rise in the microwave, in which I have boiled a 2-cup Pyrex glass measuring cup of water, then put the covered bowl with the dough in and shut the door with the cup still in there. Then I let it rise in the pan. If you like a really thick crust, you may want to go with their instructions. It's the best recipe for quick crust I know, and my usual go to now, even though I spent 40 years tweaking my own long ferment one. The husband, who often discards the crusts, called out to me to bring his crust bits back to him when I took his plate to get him another slice. He said it was the best part.

Hey Franci, When I posted earlier about the easy availability of cut up chicken here, I was referring to mass-market chickens. I agree with you on the unpalatability of mass-produced agribusiness supermarket chickens. The methods of raising them should be criminal. They're crowded into their own wastes without room to move around. Beyond the moral implications of this, I have seen many bone deformities and abnormalities which I believe are due to artificially accelerated growth rates and lack of exercise. The kidneys and livers of these animals can be very scary-looking too. The final straw for me was when the government allowed processors to start pumping chicken carcasses full of "a salt water solution." This solution also contains other chemicals to help retain water, which is of course cheaper than chicken flesh; and then they sell it by weight, putting more money in their pockets by taking it out of ours. The producers state that it's ostensibly to improve moisture and flavor. I call bull, because you have to evaporate excess "solution" before you can get desirable browning, winding up with a drier end result compared to an unadulterated chicken. Try the organic, vegetarian-fed, free-range chickens available. I remember seeing "less than 2% retained water from processing" on some of the packaging. I can get these chickens locally as low as $2.49 a pound. They're usually sold whole with giblets inside and tend to run smaller than mainstream chickens all the way down to cornish hen size. You may be able to find organic free-range chicken already cut up. I haven't sought them out. So far, I haven't encountered any bone abnormalities or diseased-looking organs in the organic birds. The aroma of the cooked meat and broth is much better. I was calling a gravy I made with organic chicken drippings and broth "chicken perfume." It's that much of an improvement over supermarket chicken. But you may have to cut it up yourself. To me it is WELL worth it.

I too have been under the (perhaps false) assumption that bittersweet = dark chocolate. Unsweetened baking chocolate, if that is what you mean by dark, wouldn't work well with citrus, I don't think. As to David's second question, I think a screen or rack would allow better air circulation and crisping. I also wonder if the recipe calls for parchment because nothing sticks to it? Does the recipe call for flipping the slices over midway? Sugar, especially hot sugar can be really sticky and might partially or fully melt in the citrus juice and heat. If it were to stick, the sugar could pull away from the slice. This idea sounds really interesting. I'm thinking about cake and dessert garnishes, and just eating them like candy. I hope you'll let us know what you figure out.

Hey Darienne, I made the key lime pie from Joy of Cooking one year as dessert for a non-traditional Christmas dinner to go with Maine lobsters. I used the whites to make a meringue to bake on top, and it was very, very good. I just used regular limes, because I've only seen keys around these parts twice in 29 years. If your copy doesn't have this recipe, and you're interested, let me know, and I'll PM you the recipe.

Hi minas, I love your swan. It captures the grace and beauty of the creature! Thanks for sharing it.

ChocoMom! The next time I get my adrenaline jones on, I'm using Cocoa Krispies, but no PB chips. I love Cocoa Krispies. Why didn't I ever think of this? Thank YOU for the idea!

Every single grocer in our used to be small town, now little city (pop. 150,000, and growing crazily ), suburb of Raleigh, offers whole cut up chickens, whole chickens, packs drumsticks, thighs, breast, wings. Some offer "Pick of the Chix:" breasts, and drumsticks, and ground that day beef. Lots of times I buy the whole chickens anyway to save money because I have the time and not the dinero. The differential is usually not more than 50 cents a pound except for breasts and wings. But I don't shop at Walmart after finding ground beef in a package that was dated a week out from the day I was there. I hunted down my husband, showed it to him, and demanded to leave. I guess the ground meat was CO2 gassed, and it was in one of the telltale deep styrofoam packs where the plastic overwrap doesn't touch the meat. I've never been back to Walmart for groceries, and very rarely for anything else, even though acquiring things inexpensively is of utmost importance to me. Too much stockholder profit emphasis and not enough consumer value and service for me. That said, I can see the gassed, mass produced packs of meat moving in alongside the better offerings. I once got duped into buying relatively cheap vacuum packed bacon-wrapped tenderloins. They tasted like hot dogs because of the preservatives. I lament the reduction in service, but I now consider myself very lucky that there's at least still some service to enjoy here locally. Of course the rich folks can always go to Whole Foods and the Meat House, but here in my stomping grounds, we still have a little of the good old days left ... for now.

Hey weinoo, Your photo looks like the most perfect shirred egg I've ever seen. The yolk looks ready to ooze, the white seems set, but not overcooked. I've never had good results in attempting to bake eggs. Could you share your cooking method please? It doesn't looked cooked in situ. The white would have seeped down into the supporting bed of spinach and bacon. I'd hazard a guess it must've been covered in the oven. Please, do tell.

I get good results from everything with 2 percent milk, including bechamel. We don't really even notice it compared to whole 4 percent full-fat milk. When I try to drop below that, I'm never satisfied. I don't keep cream, ever. Our household can't afford the calories, saturated fat and cholesterol. I make scalloped potatoes, spinach/artichoke dip and alfredo sauce that are very lovely and decadent to us with 2 percent milk, and butter, thickened with flour. This is all with 2 percent milk, but when I try to drop below that it just doesn't give acceptable results in anything. There is, in my personal experience, a limit to austerity in this particular area. However, if you and your family find lower fat milk acceptable to drink, for cereal, for baking, etc., then you may want to stick with that and just buy the 2 percent for those applications that you find actually require it.

Hey Kim, I love homemade Rice Krispies treats, but never tried them with peanut butter. The husband would appreciate them probably more than I would. I just don't like the frantic scramble to get the mixing and spreading done before the marshmallow mixture sets up and becomes unworkable. It's a matter of seconds. I've always made it in time (barely), but I prefer cooking without adrenaline. I'd never make it in a professional kitchen.