Smokeydoke

@rustwood Any thoughts on Nopalito? It's on sale too. I'm not a taco-person. I have no idea. Nopalito: a Mexican Kitchen

Hello and welcome!

I just want to say eGullet amazes me at times. Still so much to discover and learn... as I sip on my $2 McDonald's ice coffee.

Chicken kofte on rosemary sprigs with garlic schmear and cabbage kumquat salad p. 119 This was more Sqirl-inspired than the real recipe. This was an instance when instinct won out and I made last minute changes to save the recipe because there was no way I was going to ruin $10/lb, organic, free-range, college-educated, ground chicken. Firstly, I want to say I love Zankou Chicken, I grew up on Zankou chicken, but this is not Zankou chicken. Whatever this is, it is extremely delicious. I am keeping this recipe, in some form, because it is the best ground chicken I've ever had. That being said, the recipe is a mess. And it's not just me! After my fiasco, I went to Eat Your Books, and other reviewers had the exact same problems. The recipe starts by taking ground chicken and adding red wine (I used Dolin Sweet Vermouth), spices, roasted red peppers, garlic and oil and mixing it all together. It's suppose to mold over rosemary sprigs, I assume like meatballs, but that never happened. I added 1/2 a cup of plain bread crumbs and an egg. It finally started to bind, but not in a good way. I'm thinking 1 cup of breadcrumbs and 2 eggs would do the trick, notes for next time. They were still impossible to mold, I don't understand the rosemary sprigs? I need to order this at her cafe and see how she does it. I ended up using kabob skewers, much sturdier. Chicken is moist and oh-so-flavorful. The garlic schmear, which is almost pure garlic, would've been overkill. Pita bread, or as Koslow recommends, buttered rice, is a must. The Kumquat salad was delicious on its own but it needed salt and something crunchy to complete it, I used toasted pecans. The kumquat salad with the chicken was overwhelming. I was going to toss out the kumquat salad but Mr. Smokey forbade it! So, it's staying in the rotation, but for a different dish and different flavor profile. Overall a delicious dish but use caution using the recipe!

As long as they're shiny! Color me impressed.

I'm not ganging up on you, but they look like different sizes, that's why everyone must be asking for side-by-side comparisons. I took a closer look and Tutove ones in the back look a lot like the normal rolling pins ones next to it, but they do look smaller than the Tutove ones in front. But anyways, they look great, isn't that what matters? So the Tutove was a success... there you go. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

I don't know anything about tutoves, I just want to say those kouign amans look delicious! Just a thought, if there's ever a next time, I'd love to see what the pastries look like, side by side, before going into the oven. I wonder if the tutove makes a difference in how the butter smears into the dough. And honestly, no discernable difference in the two batches, but I'm looking at it from a computer screen at 9am in the morning. Dough A looks just as flaky and puffy as Dough B. Dough A (regular pin) maybe moreso.

Mr. Smokey has been hassling me about the IP, he wants me to make corned beef. And what a coincidence, there's an eGullet thread about corned beef! Maybe it's meant to be. I want to use it, there's just so many things to make, so many recipes to try, I haven't been able to get to it. The corned beef may be it's christening.

I'm with chrome dome and kim shook, I don't have any 21st century kitchen products, can you believe that? Oh wait, I still have my Instant Pot, sitting in the original box, in storage.

I love new people, they resurrect old threads! To continue my Costco love: Environmentally responsible dish soap, this stuff is the best, especially for Cast Iron cookware Charmin Ultra Soft, cheapest anywhere Sabatino Tartufi truffle zest and truffle salt. I love these on burgers Better than Bouillon Beef Base As others have mentioned, their cheddar cheese is excellent. I also recommend Kirkland Brie and Kirkland Bleu Cheese. I buy their fresh-caught salmon, but only because it's cheaper and easier for me to buy there than the fishmonger. I've had better quality salmon, but Kirkland's is not bad. Ditto on the scallops, they are not dry-packed, but they taste ok and are cheaper. I used to buy their chocolate chip cookies, but it would take me days to eat them, so I stopped. I like their crispy ones better than their cakey ones.

This is a new show on Netflix. It's about about people who leave bad reviews on social media (yelptards, Chowhowlers) and are asked to cook a meal, then have it judged. It is annoyingly low-budget and badly edited, but I'm enjoying it. Having been on both sides of the kitchen and a weapon of mass consumerism, this show appeals to me on every level. Firstly, I want to be a contestant, on that show. Bad. Like I'm obsessed. If you're reading this Eat Your Words, hit me up! But I wonder if my time working in kitchens would disqualify me? Secondly, I despise Yelptards, for many reasons... both professional and personal. And I love how this show highlights a fundamental flaw with Yelpers, they don't understand food! Why do they write with such authority on something they know so little about? They know how to eat, most of them have no problem with that, but when it comes to basic cooking fundamentals, they are so off, they make any line cook cringe. I'm only onto the first season, but I'm looking forward to season two. I will admit the first episode with the two Filipino guys was good. Honestly, they're the only ones whose food I'd want to eat.

Just amazing @Kerry Beal. What an amazing treat to read about your adventures. The last three pics look like works of art.

He's on-point about the batter mix, every Korean and Korean restaurant I know uses that stuff. And of course, everyone loves it! I don't know what Maangchi was thinking making homemade.

That mold is gorgeous!

@Norm Matthews Your son looks like you! It's uncanny. And he's way better looking than David Chang, if that's what you're inferring. I just got this book and I've looked it over several times, but nothing has piqued my interest. He uses so much butter! He uses Benton bacon in his kimchi fried rice with butter-gochujang! That sounds so insane, frivolous and delicious at the same time, I might just try it.

@Captain That looks amazing!

Great idea, I will use espresso in my cake tonight.

It really is the perfect dish, in every way.

I do feel silly posting in this thread, as this chocolate cake is not photogenic, but it was a major feat of baking, so I had to post it somewhere. My apologies... This is Rose Beranbaum's Double Damage Oblivion. It is her flourless chocolate cake sandwiched in-between her regular chocolate cake and covered with chocolate ganache. For some reason, the layers wouldn't stay put. If I ever make this again, I'll have to think of something to keep the layers intact. The taste was intensely chocolatey. Surprisingly, it was not sweet. I added some salt because I desperately needed something to cut through all the chocolate. Not my greatest success but I'm happy to have made it. I'm going to make another chocolate cake tonight, this time by Joy the Baker. This cake was good but it had me hankering for good ol'-fashioned American chocolate cake.

That looks lovely. Hope you are enjoying your time.

@liuzhou I don't know why, but that's the saddest plate of food I've ever seen. It must've been the aforementioned paragraph, now I just want to give that fried rice a big hug and say, "it'll all be ok."

Here's an excerpt from Jonathan Gold's review in 2012: " But if you enjoy chaos as much as you do toast smeared with chocolate ganache and almond-hazelnut butter; toast with poached egg, lemon zest and cream; toast served with quince paste and transparent slices of prosciutto; or toast crowned with fried egg and greens, Sqirl may well be your favorite place in the city — as dedicated to eggs and green vegetables as Animal is to dangling bits of swine. " http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/15/food/la-fo-gold-20121215 Real almond hazelnut butter made from real almonds and real hazelnuts? Yes, that would be me! And to answer his earlier question, who stands in line for 90 mins (in the cold, but not for porridge)? Me!

Yep, Jonathan Gold did write that. I'm surprised. Manuela did nothing to inspire me, it's a mediocre restaurant in a very nice (expensive) space, I see it in the same realm as so many other LA restaurants: Bottega Louie, Drago Centro, Perch. I've been to them all, I lived in LA for over 30 years and I ate out a lot. And honestly, restaurants such as the above, dominated the LA dining scene for a long time. I thought Sqirl was something new and innovative, I didn't write this in my original review, but Jessica Koslow was there the day I visited, working the line, in that tiny kitchen of hers. I didn't want to look like an overly excessive fan-girl so I didn't say anything to her, which may have been for the better, as she looked very busy. But I will say I was shocked, it's so rare to see actual chefs in their kitchen these days.

@heidih " it's the first place your cousin from Ohio wants to go when she gets into town. You can probably trace the popularity of grain bowls, avocado toast and $13 jam to Sqirl. The current predilections for the flavors of sorrel, turmeric, burnt bread and ricotta toast didn't start with Jessica Koslow, but they may as well have. Who waits 90 minutes in line for a bowl of porridge?" Oh wow, did Jonathan Gold really write this? Or is someone commenting on his 101 list? This same person says this about Manuela, " If you are the kind of person who enjoys the pleasures of a buzzy restaurant but yearns wistfully for cornbread and collards, fried chicken and butter-pecan ice cream for dessert, Manuela may be the fine-dining restaurant for you." I'm LA born-and-raised, but I couldn't be more further removed from the culture. I can't believe anyone would slam Sqirl but approve of Manuela (I've been to both and Sqirl wins, no comparison). Then again, Manuela seems to be what LA-dining is all about.

Flaky-ass biscuits p. 205 These little bombs of happiness is the reason I want to cook this cookbook. They are the best biscuits I've ever had. They're tender, crispy, luscious and lip-smacking tasty. How does she get so much love into a tiny little package? She uses butter, a lot of it. 1 cup for 4 cups of flour. Then she painstakingly rolls it out, like you would for croissant dough, and folds it. Then refrigerate, and again refold. I've never seen this technique for biscuits, but that may be why I've never had biscuits so tender and flaky before. She recommends they be served with more butter and homemade jam. Since these lil munchkins took over two hours to make, I didn't make any homemade jam. Instead I served them with some lovely plum preserves I got on my trip to Central California. And they taste great alongside some bacon and eggs. Look at those gorgeous layers! My only complaint, and was user-error, since they weren't this way at her restaurant, was most were lop-sided. They tasted fine but they didn't look great. Mr. Smokey came up with an ingenuous solution: he made them into cream biscuits! Boy, they were delicious. Just split them apart, put some cheap whip cream in the middle (or clotted cream, if you have some, I didn't) and a dollop of good preserves. Yum. If there's only one recipe you plan on cooking from this book, I recommend this one. It's a winner and worth the price of the book.