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jedovaty

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Everything posted by jedovaty

  1. OH I was wondering what that person was trying to accomplish. It should be possible, try to float the veggies in lots of water when doing this to help distribute everything between the pulses. Same idea as making cauliflower rice.
  2. Hi! I'm a little late to this. Finally got a chance to try something I've been wanting to do for a while Check out my fresh hot noods! 125g fresh milled durum wheat (bolted, roughly 80% extraction) 125g caputo 00 flour (I was out of everything else) 45g not ripe yet but just barely soft avocado 50g locally sourced tap water Blitz in food processor to distribute avocado. Then run through my noodle extractor (it's like a motorized playdoh machine). I tossed them left over sous vide chicken, some veggies from the farmer's market, and left over starchy boiling water + some sort of hard cheese I had at the back of my fridge. Totally forgot to add the calabrian chilies from my office aerogarden. DRAT! Verdict? They smelled like bananas when forced through the extractor. They were a little mushy after boiling in water. Taste.. well, they tasted like noodles. I was hoping they'd be a little more yellow or slightly green, but, I guess it's all in the name of having fun! Would I do it again? Hmmmm. I dunno. If so, I might try more avocado and less water, and, I might also want to try with a ripe avocado, since this one didn't have much flavor. I tried searching and searching, but couldn't find anyone else that's done this. I wonder if anyone will give it a try, too. Now I have to wash the food processor. Oh, bother.
  3. It can be, steam can build up and cause liquid to burst out. Happened to my mom once (she has one, too), and she got burns on her arms - fortunately, she was looking away and avoided getting splashed in the face, shielded by her hair! There are vents in the lid and lid cap, however, sometimes the steam buildup can be faster and the pressure goes POP. Not recommended: I have removed the cap after the blend gets going. The recommendations in that link are good. Just be careful!
  4. Hah!
  5. I baked bread after shaping to see what happens. I've also baked when it was well under-proofed, and over-proofed, etc. You seem a little agitated with my questions and statements, but please don't be. I'm just learning. You don't know me, what I will share is that I tend to question everything and like to do my own testing, but before testing, I like to get a correct baseline. With regards to the KA, I'm having trouble narrowing this down. Many recipes I read that I believe to be credible, omit the final proof, and here you are very passionate now that this is wrong. I don't believe everything I read, and therefore, I'd like to get to the bottom of it! Here are a few kouign amann recipies / technique demonstrations which don't call for a final proof after shaping. I'm pretty comfortable with the credibility of these sources. Dominique Ansel, he's quite famous here in the US, being a french import. I actually had his KA last weekend on a trip in NY, they were out of cronuts so I tried the KA, a cookie shot, and pain au chocolat. The KA and cookie shot were pretty good (my only other comparison to KA thus far has been Mr. Holmes bakery in San Francisco a couple years ago). His KA was quite lightweight, nicely crisp on outside, very tender inside, good layering. Almost what I expected. His Pain Au Chocolat wasn't very good though, giant air cavity and collapsed crumb, no honecomb at all. David Liebovitz: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/long-live-the-k/ This french dude seems official and bakes right away: I think this french guy here has a famous bakery, and from what I can tell he does a very short final proof before baking: Then there's Chefsteps which don't quite follow the traditional path, but also bake right away (or put away in fridge): https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/kouign-amann--2 There are several more I'm happy to share. If you are concerned over the credibility of the above, I'm more than ready to review and try other recipes End of the day, I will do my own testing, but again, I do want to have a baseline recipe. Hopefully this is clear!
  6. Flavor, variety, and bragging rights. You won't get white flour/all purpose/bread/etc, however, you'll be able to play with other variables such as milling/grinding coarseness, freshness, etc. For bread, hydration will be a little different when compared to using whole wheat or rye flours. Some people might benefit having whole berries from standpoint of long-term storage, the berries don't go bad as quickly as the milled flours. Most of the places where I get wheat berries from also offer ground flours. I just prefer saying I milled my own, vs having it already bought I guess. You can always dip your toe in it and see if it's for you: some grocery stores will sell wheat berries in bulk, take a couple cups and try it. A friend of mine tried this, bought some hard red winter wheat, ground it, made bread, alongside a second loaf using King Arthur brand whole wheat. Any difference she attributed to imagined, and decided it wasn't worth the noise. She's got access to variety, though, SF Bay area has some great sources for both berries and flour. Slight tangent: I went through a "gluten free" phase a few years back, and ate buckwheat/soba noodles on a regular basis. The 100% soba noodles were stupid expensive, so I simply bought buckwheat groats and made my own flour from the groats in the vitamix, way way cheaper. But cost isn't always the case, it actually may end up more expensive depending on what type of grains/seeds you buy. Nice pea soup, by the way, yum!!
  7. Fun you've answered some questions I didn't know I had, and, subsequently, now I've got more - I will return to them later. For now I'd like to return to my original question, and present it differently it in the hopes it either gets answered or, helps me lead me to one. Regardless, I will likely end up doing the testing myself later. As you wrote, the base dough for many of these are the same, so let's compare croissant vs kouign aman. Please follow along my thought process: 1. Both have mostly the same dough that gets mixed and then rested along with initial bulk fermentation prior to lamination in a cold environment 2. The lamination steps are pretty much the same, except some KA recipes use salted butter instead of regular butter 3. The traditional KA recipes add/sprinkle/dump sugar and salt at the start of the lamination, but I'm going to stick with the recipes that add sugar/salt at the last turn or right before shaping, a these seem to favor my specific situation better (types of ingredients available, environment, etc***) 4. Except for the butter and the sugar/salt, the lamination process is the same: roll, fold, chill - 3 turns 5. After lamination comes the final roll out and shaping 6a. Croissants undergo final proof then baked 6b. KA are baked right away #6 is where KA and croissants are totally different: croissant recipes want the final proof to go until the shapes are jiggly and well poofed up. As you said, this time can vary tremendously - when I did it, it took nearly 8 hours, my ambient temp was 68F and I used a mixture of commercial yeast with sourdough. This is versus KA recipes which instruct the home baker to bake the KA right away, or at longest, suggest to rest for 10-15 minutes. That's very different from croissant, and therein lies my question: why are the final proof times different between KA vs croissant? I hope this makes sense now. From my perspective, the viennoiserie are nearly identical, except for the shape itself and the final proof. From my experience with bread, my standard dough recipe bakes different if I bake the bread right after shaping vs. one more proof until it passes the ubiquitous poke test. ***more on this later, for now, I'm hoping to cover one thing at a time
  8. I used to only grind about a cup of berries at a time (150-200g), since I hadn't had a need for more. You just put the frozen berries in, start on low, rotate to max. Let it run maybe 45-60 seconds. If you have the dry container, you may need to let it run a little longer. You can sift if you like; using the #40 from breadtopia will give you about 80-85% extraction. My vitamix is a ~9 year old 5200, looks like the new models are a bit different cosemtically, so results may be different?
  9. I've used my vitamix for making flours from grains/seeds. It works very well, just make sure to freeze the grains/seeds if you want a finer flour. Wheat berries, oats, buckwheat, rice, quinoa, etc. I've made breads, pancakes, waffles, noodles, etc, with all these. I've since repurposed my big coffee grinder for this, because I can no longer drink coffee, but the vitamix works just fine and you don't need a fancy flour grinder. You can also make your own powdered sugar (1-5% starch to sugar)**, pulverize caramel, or break up toasted sugar. Helps to chill/freeze ingredients first to allow slightly longer blending time for consistently smoother end product, but make sure it's very dry. Pulverize salt to make a lifetime batch of pickling or popcorn salt. Pulverize various herbs and spices with salt and dried mushrooms to make costco-sized batches of "umami powder". Note that blending salt and dried herbs/spices may slightly fog-up the container in long term. As others have mentioned, you can make soups. Additionally, you can make "vegan cream" soups by slowly pouring in olive oil with the blender on max - of course, do this after the soup has already been blended. This creates an emulsification, and is actually quite good (works fantastic for tomato or asparagus or cauliflower soups). Other soups that work well are squash soups. Blend half your soup if doing vege or bean soups. Make cauliflower "rice": fill vitamix with water and drop in your cauliflower, and pulse a bit, then strain. Make "whipped" cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes by using steamed cauliflower and garlic with a little steaming water and butter to blend into a mash. Nut butters work "okay" with the vitamix, but you'll never get them as smooth as with an indian wet grinder. You can also make stuff like dosa batter, but again, indian wet grinder will work better for this. It works for hummus and baba ganoush, especially if you are like me and despise cleaning the food processor. Olive oil emulsifies well in this, too I use my washed hands to get stuff out from around the blades.. very careful not to cut myself. I've got tiny spatulas from C&B that work well to clean up the sides. I have both dry and regular containers, and am happy to share test results I did with wheat berries if you are interested.. my conclusion was that the dry container is really not necessary. As you can see, the vitamix has gotten quite a workout with me! Hope this is helpful. ** powdered sugar is cheap, but, I do this because the "organic" powdered sugar here contains tapioca starch instead of cornstarch, and I've found it to behave strangely in baked goods...
  10. Thanks, that's helpful, you lay out the foundation and underlying reasons for short vs long proofs, and the use of the commercial yeasts vs home-grown ones. It seems then, that the purpose of omitting the second proof is to remove the flavor component of the yeast/flour/sugar interaction, and then let the ingredients themselves come through. I thought it might be more texture related, too. This is where I shrug and say okay? And thank you for the new term: " viennoiserie" That is precisely what I plan to explore this winter! Slight tangent, and going to explore path of croissant vs kouign aman, as that's a fairly easy comparison for me to capture. Earlier this year, I had a modicum of success with making croissants that used a combination of yeast and sourdough, but was distracted by something else before I could explore further. Many recipes also suggest using an osmotolerant yeast, which I've researched and understand it helps speed up the process a little. I've read that croissants may leak when baked if not proofed correctly (i.e. leak if underproofed; also, understood there may be other factors contributing to the leaking). How does this, then, work for recipes which call for minimal or no second proof, such as the kouign aman? Is the leakage somewhat desired in this case, to "fry" the dough a bit with the sugar? Why is the proof time in some KA recipes removed? Is it to reduce the "chewiness" that could be caused by the extra salt and improve the tenderness of the dough, or to bring more focus onto the flavor of the butter, sugar, and salt? Am I splitting hairs? These questions may simply not have an answer and be rhetorical, and I may just have to run my own tests to see why. Of course, baseline recipe first to have a standard to compare to.
  11. To be clear, it's only with the JT recipe I have this issue. I'm going to try to make them one more time, and if they don't work out, I'll post up as a separate topic so I don't end up derailing this one Also.. maybe the baking soda thing is the reason why you don't like CCCs very much?! I would guess doubling the baking soda could lead to a slightly off taste.
  12. Hi: I've had decent success with sourdough bread, having found a timing with two rounds of proofing/proving that results in a decent crumb structure and bread that feels light compared to its size. I'm starting to cautiously branch out to other yeast-leavened doughs/pastries now, and have run across a few recipes that don't make sense from my perspective of a two-stage proof because they leave out the second proof, i.e. after a bit of time chilling in the fridge, the things are baked right away. Why? I'm also guessing these types of recipes probably won't work well using a natural leaven like sourdough...??? Soon as I have time, I plan to try baking a loaf of bread as the first rise comes close to completion, I'm really curious to see what happens, but I'm not so inclined to test on other recipes because most of them are a lot of work (e.g. kouign amann, given all the time involved in rolling out, etc ugh). Thanks for your time!
  13. Hi there, I'm a little late on response. Yours look just right and delicious, and like you, I find these better the next day, after they have cooled down and "rested". But unlike you, I can eat and have eaten a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting (forget delayed gratification!!). While I'd like to suggest trying different chocolates in the mix at once, based on history of reading all your posts here I think I'd be preaching to the choir If you haven't done so, try that, use different chocolates, and also, maybe try using a little less than the recipe calls for. Or, instead, make small, bite-sized ccc, these are always very popular at my office. For chocolate, I usually use my own left-over dark chocolates (~70% no dairy, wipe out the chocolate from the melanger, mix with the ones that don't quite make full mold, and press out 1/4" sheets between parchment), and sometimes chunks of left over hazelnut/chocolate failed ganaches, or etc. Also, I've made a JT-based ccc recipe with strawberry white chocolate and macadamia nuts. However, I've found the JT recipe to make very greasy cookies.. I can't seem to get them them quite right, I have tried reducing butter or increasing flour. Any suggestions? Someone else stated they enjoy shortbread cookies.. to that person and to you, try the Alison Roman shortbread chocolate chip cookies, they are quite good.
  14. Done! Makes it so much easier to use. I see the point of disposables, though, cleaning choux pastry out was quite a PITA. Also, my first attempt at pastries and choux au craqueline, I can't believe I've never had these before, quite delicious!
  15. Interesting, okay! I've used the bag a total of 7 or 8 times since purchased in 2016. Just discovered choux pastry, so I may end up using it more depending just how fun they are to make. The top is not sewn or hemmed or finished in any way that I can tell. I'll perform the topbagectomy tomorrow and if there's time, try my first shot at profiteroles and eclairs. Wish me luck. 🤡
  16. Hi: I sincerely apologize for the extremely frivolous nature of this topic!! I purchased a 21" ateco piping bag that is cloth outside and plastic inside a few years back, on recommendation from a store clerk when I was learning to make french macarons. It's worked well, but way way too big for pretty much everything I've tried to pipe. I can easily buy a smaller bag (or use ziplocks of course), they are inexpensive at $4-8, and then either keep the 21" or throw it out. But... can I just cut the top down to make it smaller? I'll lose the logo and stamped button hole for hanging, but who cares? I just don't like waste, rather reuse what I have... feels real stupid to post this sorry and not sure why this is so agonizing haha 😐😧
  17. That sounds awesome. Questions, as this is my first time reading vinegar being canned: 1. Did you can the vinegar in order to halt the process and preserve for long time? 2. Will age on the canned product have any impact (i.e. could it be different in 2, 5, 10 years?) 3. Does the canning change flavor of the vinegar at all? 4. Canning kills nearly everything if not everything, so this would no longer be a "probiotic" type flavoring? (I wonder if vinegar with live cultures is even considered "probiotic" since it's no lacto fermented, right?) #4 is kind of a stupid question, I know, I just may be influenced a little with current fads having lacto-fermented foods, live cultures, etc. I'll admit I am a little bit of a product of marketing 😛
  18. Absolutely correct. At that time, I decided to do it this way mostly because it was an interesting experiment to watch the salt appear (wish I had filmed it). I was also too lazy to do the additional math to figure out how much I actually needed of each ingredient for the dishes I was playing with, and couldn't find my scale that's accurate to the 0.1g. So many excuses 😛 With an hour or two of evaporation, I now have a tin of this sodium citrate salt Solution or salt, they both work!
  19. I followed the instructions in that reddit post a year or so ago because I had the ingredients on hand and didn't want to wait for delivery. It works. I did most of the boiling on the stove, then transferred to a parchment lined baking sheet in the oven and let it finish baking in there (larger surface area). I wasn't sure how the boiling down would work in the pot, whether it would scorch or damage it which explains the oven. I'm not sure if parchment is water proof and could be some chance of a reaction with the aluminum sheet pan and left over citric acid if measurements are right. You end up with crystals and powder.
  20. jedovaty

    Aging / curing fish

    Isn't fish that's just slaughtered a little dangerous to eat, from the perspective of parasites? It's been my understanding, perhaps an incorrect one, that fish needs to be held at sub 0 temps for X number of hours to kill the parasites - and this is what makes typical "sushi" grade fish.
  21. I went back to look at the progress of my two remaining tubs, and sadly, as Andiesenji would have predicted, they didn't work out. One of them had a massive mold growing on top.. it was solid, had weight to it. It's actually kind of pretty, maybe a mushroom of sorts?! I want to call it the evil vinegar step-mother?! All has been tossed, and I'll give in and start a vinegar using a commercial mother and/or a vinegar with active culture in it already.
  22. jedovaty

    Smoking Meat

    Only one way to find out
  23. jedovaty

    Smoking Meat

    Yeah, it's sous vide that opened up a whole world of not only improved textures, but also foods cooked to lower temps (and not necessarily via sous vide). When reading about beef and pork smoking, I mostly see 250-300F temps, while cold smoking usually for fish and charcuterie. I'll give it a go, setting up a long smoke @250 or so with a kettle seems to be "easy" with the snake method. I'll look into cold smoking after this first step. Wish me luck that I don't burn down the neighborhood 😲
  24. jedovaty

    Smoking Meat

    Interesting timing on this resuscitated thread, I've just started learning about charcoal grilling and smoking, first grill to start this weekend, and then I'll try smoking the following weekend. One thing really bugging me about not-cold-smoking: am I going to actually like it? Not sure. I've learned I do not like texture of red meat beyond medium rare, and pork past medium. I've had some braised meats, and while tasty, the texture has always been off-putting. Is that what I will experience if I smoke 250-300F ?
  25. Yeaaaahhhhh I think that dude(ette) is referring to a standard vacsealer, not a chamber. I use my old (OLD) foodsaver at least weekly, and I can do basic flash pickling using small mason jars and the jar sealer quite well. I get lost in the specs, and want one that does it all, but then those go way beyond what I want to pay. Such as retort canning. When am I actually going to retort can?! Pffft.
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