jedovaty

Hey that's actually an interesting idea! I don't know what they use to make it alkaline (baking soda?), but it could be enough to impact the gluten and give a tighter dough (kneeding the alkaline doughs was tough.. very stiff, flaky). The water from my mains is slightly alkaline, with a pH of ~8.5. This raises the question, is it the pH that impacts handling, or the salt in the water? I have read on dough forums that if you add salt to the dough, it tightens the gluten.. I've not really experienced that, went up to 3% NaCl. But here, oh boy, adding the alkaline components (which are salts) made a huge difference!

Hi: Please follow along this silly rabbit hole ;D @Kim Shook opened her noodle maker a few weeks ago, which inspired me to learn to make ravioli and tortellini - I have a ways to go, but having fun. I've made plenty of noodles before, especially 100% buckwheat, from fresh ground buckwheat, too! Tasty and fun. Then @BKEats mentioned he or she was making alkaline noodles the other day. Kung Fu Panda movie flashed in my mind, and I really wanted noodle soup, but, this association of chicken broth made me want hainanese chicken with rice as well. Researching alkaline noodles, there was a link in that post, which used sodium carbonate (baked baking soda). I tried that once with the buckwheat. Don't try it. It's disgusting 🤮, and I don't say this very often, I value almost all food and even enjoy eating bad food sometimes. There was a brief discussion about lye water, and I thought this was lye, but was wrong, it's a mix of potassium carbonate and either sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate (which is baking soda). Further research suggested no one knew the exact composition of lye water, and, it varies bran to brand. I found this gem, which tells us the composition of one brand! Here's the link, outside of EG: https://www.yumofchina.com/chinese-alkaline-water-noodles/ Today I made an experiment, because, well, I was curious. I made five noodles doughs, based on 100g flour and 40% hydration. I used Simple Truth Organic all purpose flour (which is a relatively "normal" flour in handling, nothing special) for three doughs: filtered water, 100% sodium carbonate, and my homemade lye water (see below). Then, after all the research, it's been my understanding the whole purpose of adding the alkaline water to the noodles was to strengthen weak flour.. so I pulled out the King Arthur Cake Flour buried deep inside the pantry, and made a dough each with plain and lye water. While I have borax in the garage, I did not feel comfortable eating it. I also have lye for making bagels, however, I did not want to experiment with this either.. baking at 400F is different from boiling at 212F. Again, note, lye water does not contain lye (aka sodium hydroxide!). Process: 100g + 40g water + alkaline chemical if using; put in mini food processor, pulse until combined, kneed by hand for 10 minutes, wrap, and let relax for 1 hour. Cut in half (save half for thick noodle experiment later). Then flatten dough, using the marcato machine roll out a two times from 1-5 (fold in half after the first go), thin to 6, and run through the small cutter. Dust with semolina, rest, then cook in boiling water for 2.5 minutes, drain, rinse, dry. I tried to be very methodical in this, and as precise as possible. Here are some stats you might find interesting: 1. pH of my filtered water is 6.53. 2. I dissolved 3.5g sodium carbonate in the 40g water, which yielded a pH of 9.82 3. pH of the lye water directly was 11.8 4. 3.5g lye water added to 38g water turns water pH to 11 5. Plain STO AP flour was super easy to kneed on its own 6. The cake flour was not a low-protein pastry flour, as I discovered later, it was harder to kneed than STO! 7. Adding either sodium carbonate or lye water to the dough made it very, very difficult to kneed 8. The cooked noodles with AP and Sodium Carbonate had a very strong eggy aroma and flavor, I didn't really care for it 9. Lye Water added a medium-level of eggy arroma and flavor, not really my thing! 10. I could not tell much of a difference between textures in the cooked product! Raw, the alkaline noodles were actually fun to handle, they didn't threaten to fuse and morph into each other like the plain water ones. 11. Alkaline noodles had a slight yellow color when raw. Sodium carbonate had a green hue cooked. In the photo of the cooked noodles, I may have accidentally swapped the top right two, should be lye water, then sodium carbonate. But I'm not really sure, could be camera processing playing tricks. 12. Left over dough scraps from all were mushed together, rolled out into more noods. These actually tasted pretty good. 13. Eggy flavor is more sulfur-like than actual egg. Not my thing. 14. The flavor goes away once sauce and other stuff are added to the noodles. 15. I think #6 was a little thin, I might prefer #5? Don't know. 16. Maybe I can tell difference in texture with thicker noodles. I may try that with the remaining doughs. If that link above to the noodle making instructions goes bad, the measurements for unknown branded lye water were: 74.5g potassium carbonate and 3.5g sodium carbonate to 100g water (I know they say ml, but I've learned 1ml weighs roughly 1g). I used distilled water, with a neutral pH. I made sodium carbonate by roasting baking soda for a couple hours. When adding the potassium carbonate, be very careful.. it fizzed quite a bit and made the glass rather warm, borderline hot. I was not expecting a reaction! The common brand of lye water seems to use sodium bi-carbonate (baking soda) koon chun. As noted in many places kansui is the japanese version. And now, please enjoy my noods.

Dibs.

@Chris Hennes How long does it take to get such an even and thorough olive distribution?! That is amazing!

Here's a wacky one that actually works: harzer kase (aka kvargla, it's a "hand" cheese), čabajska sausage (or any kind of seasoned ground pork, bacon might work, too), and a few caraway seeds, then after baking top with a little fresh marjoram and beer pickled onions. Who knew harzer cheese could melt?! Once strawberries start showing up, try: brie, strawberries, very thin slices of lemon, and some kind of "soft" deli meat such as mortadella. Drizzle good balsamic on it when done.

I'm binge watching hawaii five-oh. Don't judge me. 😜

So... rinse, let dry, grind into flour? Hmmm. I may be too lazy for that. Maybe we all need a little dirt in our diet 🤓

That's tapioca starch/flour 😊.

I hadn't considered those might be in the local-to-me farmer's markets, I'll keep an eye out once the shut in is lifted! Do you know if they used cassava flour, soured starch (polvilho azedo), or tapioca flour/starch? BTW, if you've never had soured starch.. it is a feast for the nostrils worthy of any dog. yuuuucccckkkkkk 🤢. Surprisingly, it cooks up delicious!

Interesting. They were nearly life changing for me!

Have you heard of and considered pão de queijo? It's a brazilian cheese bread/bun. Can be made gluten free, or, with flour. It's a little tricky to mix, but once you have the technique down, rather quick. Best when fresh out of the oven, however, a friend of mine does bake them for her office, and they are pretty good this way (the brazilian bbq places serve them cold, too). Goes very well with coffee or tea for breakfast, a pat of butter and honey!

Not commercial brands, rather direct from farms here in California. So far only with wheat. The farms from WA seem to produce a much cleaner package than CA. I only recently purchased oats and buckwheat in bulk (unrelated to covid, been planning to do it since February). Back when I roasted coffee, on very rare occasion I'd find a twig or stone or slate in the greens, too. Somehow always spotted before going into the grinder, thank goodness!

Got it, thank you all. This whole idea came up because I've been rinsing buckwheat and oats before cooking it, but, I was not when making flour from them or the wheat berries I have. If I roll the oats, and should I rinse them before or after rolling, etc (rhetorical question). I've found the occasional stone or twig in the packages.

Hi: Do you all rinse/wash whole grains/seeds before cooking/baking with them? If so.. what if you want to grind them into flour? Goes for anything, oats, buckwheat, wheat, etc. Mine all appear to be rather clean and well sorted, but.. just making sure. Thanks!

I did the bake baking soda for a different project long ago, have some sealed away, and just realized, I have a tub of food grade lye which I use when making bagels. I wonder, would the lye work better than the sodium carbonate? Hmmmmm. Now to look into ramen. Thanks for next week's project

I obsessed with trying to make these a few years back and gave up when only one out of every three or four ended up right. Couldn't get the technique consistent. I'll search board here and see if there any tips, but need to be careful, right now there are only so many eggs in my fridge and replenishment is problematic 🕳️

Is that a julie child type omelet?

I was craving british junk food last night but I threw out my 9 year old garam masala and curry spices last month. Instead, čabajska sausage seasoning (caraway, no cumin) and coconut milk in the sauce. Very... unique.. fusion food. Chicken Tikka WTFasala. 😁

Interesting.. I never thought to sub it for celery, but that makes sense. I had an ex-gf that had an allergy to onions, and we learned fennel made a great substitute for it. My mom and I learned to use it in braised cabbage, and other dishes. Good stuff. It's definitely an underrated vege It's really easy.. here's my mom's version: saute onion with salt, caraway seeds. Add flour to begin a roux, then add shredded/grated squash* and a little water (or milk or cream). When soft, stir in chopped dill or fennel fronds, pepper, and sour cream or creme fraische -- oh oh, edit: and/or lemon! This can be a meal on its own, or a side to goulas/stew. We call it tekvicový prívarok or tekvicova omáčka. Look up hungarian or slovak squash with dill. My mom's version is runnier/soupier. I hated it as a kid because of dill.. but now, apparently I'm an adult, because I really enjoy this. * the best squash for this is a european summer type, they are white and about the size of two forearms put together. Also called marrow. I don't see them in stores, maybe more central-european dense areas (chicago, NY) might have them in markets. Mom grows them in her garden, sadly last year's seeds didn't sprout. I'd like to find some replacement seeds but haven't had luck. It may be alba cucurbita pepo.. that certainly looks like it. Sorry to ramble.

I managed to sprout ramps in my garden but the slugs are attacking Celery root / celeriac is one of my "comfort" growing up foods. Have you ever had it fresh from the garden? Very different than the store, where it can sometimes be a crapshoot as far as age / stringiness. My family also has an interesting vegetarian soup/stew that uses fennel fronds or dill and zuccini squash in a light broth and a touch of sour cream / creme fraisch.

If you wouldn't mind sharing, what's the brand, model, and part # of microwave? Can look up parts and repair manuals, it may be easy and cheap to replace , especially if it's the magnetron cover, you just unscrew and replace. If it is the magnetron cover, you can still use the microwave, but meantime, cover your food with a paper towel or something to keep splatter from getting there. If it's not the cover, and a cover for something else, then further investigation is warranted before use. Qualifications: I have broken many appliances trying to DIY fix them, and successfully repaired a few, too. Batting average improving! It may be possible that, if this is the magnetron cover, it arced from the inside, too, which would mean that part has to be replaced, or the whole microwave. Hard to tell without seeing/knowing more.

I thought I was the only one who liked the rice from the bottom of the pot, at least, amongst my family and friends. And same, this is a fantastic idea I will now probably do with rice, woohoo!

Well.. I was really craving something like this and ended up doing more of a japanese / central euro mashup since I don't have any wilting greens ready, or clams. So here's my dinner of a simple soup (suimono?): porcini soaking liquid from the other day (err... mushroom dashi! 🤪), grouper, carrots, crimini mushrooms, leek and celery root (both from the garden). Flavor the broth was a bit off, I'm out of soy sauce and sake.. mirin, little rice wine vinegar, salt, lots of pepper and my last fresh calabrian chili pepper for the spice, but it did manage to hit the spot.

Great, thank you all for the opinions, this was really helpful! @Smithy I had looked at the epicurean boards, and in addition to the cost, I couldn't find custom sizing on their site. I think there's another company I ran across once a while back that manufactures the boards or sells them in their own name as pizza peels, and they could do it if I really wanted. A family member of mine has the cutting board and loves it. Cutting on this board will be more of a secondary use, given just how big it is and what a pain it'll be to wash until I get a larger dishwasher. @teonzo I have granite countertops, too, they are a pain. My use would be same as yours. Just discovered another site that makes the poly ones, but adds color to them. Neat

Hi: I need a 16x30" 3/8" thick board for a certain lesser known albeit expensive gadget (clay roller... ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies 😬). If I had a planer and jointer, I would make this myself, but, I found out I can get cutting boards reasonably cheap. There are two kinds: plastic (poly something or other, the white ones you see in restaurant kitchens) and bamboo. The bamboo is nearly twice as expensive ($40 vs $70). I can't decide. Primary purpose it will serve as a base for rolling out dough, and secondly, well, as a cutting/surface board. I'm concerned the dough will slide on the plastic one rather than be held in place while the roller goes over it. On the other hand, having the ability to drop it in the dishwasher or spraying it with bleach/starsan is desirable. Ignore the fact that I can't fit a 30" board in the dishwasher haha (when I remodel kitchen, I'm going to look at larger capacity dishwashers). Bamboo is natural and will no doubt look nicer. $30 savings doesn't make or break me. Thoughts?