Thanks for the Crepes

It's interesting to hear the Chinese perspective on this. According to my battered and beloved hard copy of "The Joy of Cooking" (and I can't really tell you the correct copyright date because it has 22 of them ranging from 1931 to 1997) this is their take on the recipe for Five Spice Powder: "The first three ingredients in this licorice-scented brown powder are star anise, Szechuan pepper, and fennel or anise seeds. Cinnamon and cloves bring the number to five, but two more may be added, chosen from licorice root, cardamom, and ginger." They also suggest black pepper as a substitute for Szechuan and ground star anise as an alternative to five spice powder. I have only one kind of five spice on hand, and that is by the McCormick brand. It lists anise, cinnamon (which I am sure is a lie, because mfgs. are allowed to call cassia cinnamon here ), star anise, cloves, ginger and sulfiting agents. When I bought it at an expensive price, to replace the packet from the bulk spice rack I bought at Fresh Market much cheaper, I recall not liking the McCormick brand nearly as well. The Fresh Market packet is long discarded, but I suspect it had the Sichuan peppercorns which seem to be a consistent theme for the brands you listed and missing in the McCormick version. I am also thinking that star anise being so far down the list of ingredients (in order by weight by law) is not a good thing. If anyone knows of a better brand available in the USA, please pipe up. I mostly use it for pork roast, ribs, chicken or Cornish hen when I want to take it in an Asian direction. It can be a dry rub for fatty roast pork, part of a soy marinade for ribs, or a sweet, sour, salty, spicy glaze for chicken and Cornish hen. So sue me. When I have ordered roast pork, sometimes called char sui, in local restaurants calling themselves Chinese, it often tastes of five spice. I like it, but I promise not to think of it as authentic Chinese anymore. I also have some good ideas now to improve the flavor of my pricey but disappointing jar of McCormick, so thanks.

@sartoric, thank you so much for sharing your experiences in India! I feel so fortunate to be included in your experiences there, and I'm enjoying every word and beautiful photograph. Some of them of larger scope need to be popped out (right click the image in the post, select Open Link in Another Tab) to show detail, and the detail is breathtaking! I have a question about the image above, and please don't take this the wrong way. I love Indian food, but am still very ignorant about it and the terminology. So many names for just breads alone! I thought I had a small part of Indian cuisine down, though, and am seeking an education here. I would have called your beet pastry a samosa, and I thought pakoras were shredded or finely cut ingredients mixed up with besan (chick pea) flour batter like we would call fritters here in the Southern USA. Or we have what are called chili pakoras made with whole chilis stem and all dipped in this gram flour batter and fried. Whatever they are called, both are delicious, but I like to know what I'm ordering, and there are so many things I'm still confused about. I'm sure I'm not the only one reading along that would like to learn more about Indian food. Am I wrong in thinking that samosas are wheat pastry wrapped around fillings and pakoras are chick pea flour fritters?

I found this question very interesting, and on a little research, I found we are far from the only people to have contemplated this issue. I thought I had read in my hard copy of Marcella Hazan's "The Classic Italian Cook Book" that she said it was because the salt did not dissolve properly and caused unsightly white(r) specks in the dough. I couldn't find it by manually scanning the logical areas of my book where this might be mentioned, so I won't quote her on that. There are many thoughts and much discussion here an eG on this thread and this one. There are also opinions all over the map elsewhere on the web. I liked this opinion from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from 4 years ago on Reddit the best. I haven't made homemade pasta yet, but when I do cross it off my bucket list, and I will, I shall be pulling out Marcella's book with almost 8 pages of instructions including illustrations, and using that as my guide. I will use only eggs and flour. Sorry for the multiple edits. I was trying to take you straight to Kenji's post, but I'm a miserable failure, so you are just going to have to scroll down a little ways in the Reddit link, if you want to read it.

I took out a Chicken leg quarter to thaw last night and decided to make spicy Greek braised chicken for dinner tonight. I also had some raw eggplant and zucchini slices that wouldn't fit in the Mahasbet Al Darweesh I made the other day, and they were in surprisingly great shape, so those were added to the dish too. First I salt and peppered the chicken and set it aside. Then salt and pepper for the zukes and eggplant, and I shook those up in a bag with wheat flour. I fried the slices in hot oil and removed to a plate. Then the chicken got the flour treatment and was lightly fried golden in the same pot. It too went to wait on the plate while I fried onion rings and garlic in still the same pot. Deglazed with a little dry white wine, added a can of whole tomatoes undrained, a 2" Cinnamon stick, a bay leaf, and a little crushed red Chili flakes. Chicken went back in and the dish got simmered for 45 minutes. I added the fried zucchini and eggplant for the last 10 minutes of cooking. This was served with a red leaf lettuce salad dressed with lemon-tahini and Barilla "White Fiber" thin spaghetti. There was enough left over for another meal tomorrow. The spaghetti had been in the pantry over a year with me afraid to use it, remembering my one prior attempt at whole wheat pasta. I knew I'd have time while the chicken dish simmered to boil up a few strands of the pasta to test, and it was absolutely fine. Unlike the first healthier pasta I tried which was brownish and had the texture of sawdust, this "White Fiber" stuff was white with a smooth texture just like regular pasta. So this is what I used for dinner, and I'm not askeered no more.

I use a very sharp stainless boning/fillet knife for everything now except maybe splitting a watermelon, cutting pizza or a very large squash. It works well for me, as I haven't cut myself since I went in this direction. It is like working with a scalpel vs. a blunt instrument to me, and there is no rock-chopping involved, just precision slicing. YMMV

Still trying to eat the Masbahet El Darweesh, so nothing pulled out of the freezer except for a large container of chocolate ice cream with only a little left. Even though it was a small amount, and kind of old with some ice crystals here and some dehydration there, even though the carton was over-wrapped with a tortilla bag because a gallon freezer Ziplock is too small, the container was taking up a lot of space. I sliced a banana into it for dessert, and freed up the most space so far!

For those interested, here's a link to a trove of video on our local TV news station in Raleigh that covered the event today. I watched the first one to make sure there was no nudity or on screen vomiting, but I have to warn you, the host, Kathy or Cathy, who identifies herself as with WRAL has never been seen on WRAL at least by me. I have been watching this station since 1986. Also you are in for a 17 minute lame video complete with nauseating shaky cam footage. It's supposed to be about the costumes, but these are lame too, IMO. There are links to other videos on the event but I just couldn't waste anymore time on them. I am glad that there is acknowledgment and memorial for the guy who died last year. Mostly the linked video shows a lot of participant runners and lots of spectators milling about in the cold day we had today, and doing mostly nothing. *Yawn* They close off a major street for this nonsense, but some seem to enjoy it. If you watch the video(s), you will see it's a MAJOR BIG DEAL around here. *Yawn* And people deride country people's entertainment.

Along with the 11 c beer in the batter, you might wish to mention the 21 t ginger in the salad as well. The batter sounds like a good tempura recipe I recently used, but it called for seltzer water instead of beer. Yours sounds more flavorful. ETA - There are also two separate mentions of 1 T sliced green onion in the salad ingredients and nothing in the instructions for a divided use of them.

Yes, that's what the researched article said, but having not been there, and without a date on that article, I was reluctant to repeat it. I just saw they are making efforts to stamp out honor killings, so yes, the baker's oven rental tradition probably still continues. Former horrible, latter good, IMO. Good dish, though, and that's what I had for dinner tonight, and probably for two more days. There will be no more freezing of things in giant lumps, and I'll split them into single servings now that I'm a lone eater. I just need to work through the stuff that was frozen before my husband's debilitating stroke without wasting it first, if I can. Like many, I get tired of leftovers, but I'm learning new ways to get around that. And if all else fails, I can get over my waste guilt by feeding the coons that live in my yard. I always do it well before sundown now, when they become active, after one of the little ones became too eager for his dinner one night. I wasn't hurt, but the little bugger scared me right proper! Nothing is truly wasted around here.

I hear ya @pastrygirl, and it is for charity. Still, this event is stupid, IMO. That doesn't keep it from being wildly popular. That's okay. I'm used to being in the minority on my thinking on many things.

Hilarious! and reminds me of the one and only employee Christmas party dinner I attended when I worked for the YMCA minus the alcohol. The alcohol would have been most welcome to get through the speeches, toasts and other excuses for good food to get cold. My colleagues wondered why I didn't show up for the free food after the first one where I was initiated.

There are lots of threads on knife skills here on egullet. Here's a link to some.

Yes, this crazy event is scheduled again tomorrow in Raleigh despite the fact that a participant died last year. The show (stupidity) must go on! I love me some fresh, hot and ethereal Krispy Cremes, but come on, folks. Didn't your mother ever tell you to wait an hour after eating a meal to go swimming (or seriously running)?

Yes, the only serious hunks of animal fat I enjoy are the crispy rendered kinds like bacon cooked just right, or the fat cap on a nice rib eye steak that has been sizzle charred over charcoal. Those are pretty heavenly, but when I get to the white solid hunks of fat, I leave those on the plate. I also like to cut the fat off ham, either country or city style and render that slowly until I have prized crispy brown bits. Then I cook the ham in the rendered fat. Ham is always best cooked in its own fat to me. I select hams for roasting by looking for a generous fat cap, and I love the crispy bits, but leave the solid white stuff again. I like the marrow in chicken thigh bones, but you need strong teeth to get at it, and it's not really that fatty. I've never had beef marrow, and I'd try it, but it does look fattier than I would enjoy.

I don't measure my salt for pasta water, and it always seems to come out fine, but I always add table salt. A more expensive salt seems a great waste in this application to me. I probably pour about 1/4 cup into a gallon of boiling water and give it a good stir before adding the pasta so the salt won't pit my stainless over time. Even your revered Oxford Dictionary's definition concedes that America is "used as" name for the United States. The wording makes it seem a grudging acknowledgement, but they do make it. The Oxford definition of American even lists as the first meaning: "Relating to or characteristic of the United States or its inhabitants: ‘the election of a new American president’ " When people refer to Americans or especially "the Ugly American" they never mean Canadians or Ecuadorians. They are talking about people from here in the U.S. I believe, even English people use it that way. Mexicans and South Americans want to immigrate here to chase the "American dream". In fact, from what I read, the term was actually started by the English by referring to my home country as their "British American Colonies" including in legal documents. America and Americans for short. It's an expression, like many others that evolves over time, and the origins can sometimes become obscured. I know some resent it. You seem to, and in the research I just pulled up, there was quite the rant from a South American. Sorry, but widespread usage has become ingrained, and a minority of people unhappy with it are not going to change it. We and everyone else are aware we are not the entirety of the North and South American continents, and when most people want to refer to those they say, "the Americas". If you need someone to blame for this common usage, please blame the British. And maybe we can lay this particular quibble to rest?

I'm so sorry about your dish, and wasted effort, time and other ingredients. That is so sad, especially the Rotel you have so much difficulty getting. How do you get your hands on them?

I used a pound of ground Beef chuck and some french Bread from the freezer for the Masbahet El Darweesh I made tonight. I used a recipe I hand copied from a library book, and I can't remember which book. It was 41 years ago and I was only 16 at the time. I noted that the book said the dish was from Lebanon. It's a spiced meat and veggie baked casserole. I used to make this recipe about once a week way back when, and then forgot about if for years, until I was contemplating what I was going to do with a whole pound of ground beef. I had almost narrowed it down to moussaka when that prompted me to recall this recipe and that is where I decided to go with my beef. Thanks to the internet, after all these years, I was able to find out the the name means "The Dervish's Rosary" in Arabic, and that it's a dish more likely to be made at home than served in a restaurant. It used to be assembled at home and then carried to the bakery's bread oven after the bread came out, where the cook paid a fee to use the oven. I got the impression that more traditional and authentic dishes used cubed lamb. Also, like many homemade dishes, there are lots of variations, so I felt free to add a sliced carrot and a few sliced cremini mushrooms to my old recipe tonight, which is the one I used because it's tried and true, but there are many recipes and even videos on the dish out there. One article had an interesting theory on the origin of the name. It proposed that the ingredients combine during the baking like the beads of a rosary to make something greater than themselves. I don't know, but it's awfully good, pretty healthy, and a unique taste to this American gal. The bread doesn't go in the dish, but is rather served alongside for mopping the broth. I refreshed my bread in the oven. I had lots of leftovers, but that's okay, because I'll enjoy eating it.

Dinner was based on two things from my freezer: lima Beans and some French Bread for Garden Stuffed Peppers and garlic bread. The peppers were stuffed with the cooked limas, onion sauteed in butter, a chopped Roma tomato, corn, and oregano, then baked. Cheddar cheese was placed on top to melt for the last five minutes of the bake. The garlic bread was made from slices from the frozen loaf, garlic, butter, parsley and fried in a skillet. I also took out a 1 pound package of ground chuck that's been in there since before my situation changed and I learned to make 1/4 pound patties and freeze for single servings. I'm torn between moussaka and Masbahat El-Darweesh for tomorrow.

I took out my soaked garlic clove tonight for dinner and was able to peel it without smashing. A small crack in the skin had started at the larger end, so I started there. It took longer to peel than the time it takes me to walk three steps to the cabinet for my meat mallet, give a firm tap and peel it that way. This method was doable, but not a winner for me. I was using American no name garlic from a mainstream grocer, so YMMV. The overnight soak didn't seem to affect the garlic inside. I used it to make garlic bread.

Please avert your eyes, gentlemen. That is the ligation method referred to in the link I posted. It is not without risks either, and IMO just prolongs the suffering, but it does cut down on the screaming some. That makes it easier on us human perpetrators. It's a gross practice that used to be done to humans too, and sometimes still is with hormones for sex offenders here. Yes, probably TMI.

I am dubious, although hesitant to argue against experience. A few minutes and an hour are very different too. In my experience, the skins are pretty impervious to water. Maybe if the clove itself absorbed enough water to split the skin? But that seems unlikely too. I despise peeling garlic, but detest the jarred stuff. There's always a fresh head sitting on a plate with tomatoes on my counter. I avoid water when peeling because even freshly washed and not quite thoroughly dry hands make the pesky bits of peel stick to everything. The easiest way for me is to lightly smash cloves on the counter with the smooth side of my meat mallet then peel with meticulously dry hands. I'm also open to an easier way for ANYTHING. I just put a small clove in cold water in a shot glass, so I will see what happens overnight and let y'all know. It floats pointy side (non root end up) BTW, with a little less than 1/4"/6 mm bobbing above the surface. We shall see, won't we?

I am interested too. Is it the camera angle, or do the the fruits seem to be planted at different orientations in the two containers. Does which side is up not matter? (Aside: I saw Shari and Lambchop live somewhere in or near San Diego as a wee one, and was similarly unimpressed, in fact I think I had a little crying jag. She was quite the phenomenon at the time, though. There was also a member on here that used the blossom end of a chayote with a cute face drawn on as an avatar, I thought it was @SethG.) Edit: I actually know how to spell ... sometimes.

Seriously though, this is how it is done, when it is done physically instead of hormonally. Ouch! Here are images of tools used, not necessarily for poultry, but you get the idea. Sadly, when large herds are done, no anesthetic is used and this is a common practice. Same goes for notching of the ears of cattle and pigs for ownership identity. To add insult to injury, these two operations are usually done at one go. I don't know if this ear notching is more humane than branding with a hot iron because I've never seen that done except on TV and film. Antibiotics are used topically, and I have never seen an infection, although I'm certain they occur occasionally. You did ask. PETA would have a field day. The book and horror movie "Silence of the Lambs" title is derived from the screaming of the lambs being castrated. They probably notched the ears too, but there's no mention of it. And no, I'm not interested in this particular form of offal, because I have heard the screams and squawks that get it to your plate. That was always the saddest day on the farm for me, and I don't care how good it is, it's just not worth it. That said, I'd eat it if I was starving, and that is probably how the custom began.

For capons. You can sometimes learn way more than you want to know around a farm. I thought @liuzhou was trying to get kicked off eG. Okay, I didn't know what I thought, but you're right; I did open it thinking it was maybe a spammer or some new restaurant.

Warm bean dip is great, especially if it involves melted cheese. I like hot spinach/artichoke dip, and I use bechamel sauce for the base. Baked crab and cream cheese dip with scallions is good too. I don't care for mayo based dips either.