GG Mora

Steve - Can you talk a bit about "sprayed on" glaze? Is this considered better or worse (I'm guessing better?) than brushed on and, if better, howda ya doit? Grateful for any input!

I make all kinds of jam and preserves, but the one I'm hot on right now is Mango Butter. Mangoes cooked down to a thick paste and flavored with orange juice and a little toasted cardamom. Wee-o. Really good on really buttery breadstuffs (think brioche, or fresh biscuits slathered with butter). Also Rhubarb Preserves. Zing.

Cher Fifi – This recipe from Saveur is exactly the method I use. Whole milk from the grocery store works just fine. And the vanilla bean (or, should I say, the vanilla flavor) holds up just swell over the long cooking. I recently found that the farm where I get my milk has a couple of Jersey girls mixed in the herd Wow...I just got called away in the middle of this post. There's been a large owl around the property of late...my husband was out to empty the compost, and the owl was watching him from a nearby tree, so hub came in and called me up to see. There he was, about 20 feet up in a maple tree just on the edge of the dooryard: a Great Horned, I'm pretty sure. He waited just a moment and then took flight; had at least a 4-ft. wing span. Fucking awesome. um...and the Jersey's are being milked into the bulk tank with all the Holsteins. Farm hand said he'd be happy to "bucket milk" the Jerseys for me, so I can get pure Jersey milk. ::dancing the Snoopy jig:: So, Jersey milk DdL, here I come (and butter and yogurt and CHEESE, if I dare). Okay, here's the bad news. I've experimented with cooking Sweetened Condensed Milk to make Dulce de Leche, using the simmer-in-can method, the microwave method and, just for kicks, simmering it stovetop in a sauce pan. The brand I used was Carnation, so if there are differences between brands (which doesn't seem likely) perhaps I can blame the brand for my misfortune. First, I simmered a can in a large pot of water for about 2 1/2 hours. Web research indicated that cooking for longer periods would produce a progressively thicker and, at 4 hours, nearly solid product. This is what the "Dulce de Leche" looked like after cooling slightly: Next, on a whim, I just opened a can and dumped it in a sauce pan set over medium low heat. Before the contents even got hot enough to simmer, the bottom started to burn, but I persisted, stirring gently...until I just couldn't stand it any longer: Then I tried therdogg's recipe for Dulce de Leche in the microwave: I stopped before it got just too damned gritty. It's quite possible that there's a learning curve here, but I've been cooking long enough to trust my instincts; I can't have gone that far wrong (can I have?). So, those of you that have made the SCM DdL, using whatever method, did yours look anything like any of my trials? Is it possible that a different brand of SCM would yield better results? I have to be careful here. My husband watched all of this and warned me I would probably be accused of rigging the trial, because this is what Dulce de Leche looks like when I make it (sorry about the fancy jar – that may be rigging enough): I should mention that this one was snapped at room temperature. The others were all photographed when still warm enough to be uncomfortable at first bite. As for taste, the actual flavor of the SCM versions (I only tried the simmered-in-can and microwaved versions; that other stuff the dog wouldn't even touch), it's close (ish) to the real thing, but only in that it has some milk flavor, some caramelization, and some sweet. But the SCM stuff has way too much sweet, sweet being the overriding presence. It has none of the depth, the richness, the (forgive me) complexity of the long-cooked DdL. And the texture is so far off...the simmered-in-can was like a chalky corn-starch pudding, the microwave version was offensively gritty, and the other stuff was like partially coagulated wallpaper paste. This was, of course, an entirely unscientific trial, given my strong personal bias. And I'm open to suggestions for improving the quality of the SCM DdL – believe me, if I could get an equally good product with the minimal fuss involved, I'd be all over it. I wish I could send you all a sample of the real stuff, or that you could find some in a jar close to home – you really don't know what you're missing.

Answer: Dulce de Leche is a thick, sweet, caramelized milk jam (Argentinian in origin) that's used for a variety of soul-soothing treatments. It's traditionally eaten spread on toast, or used as a filling for a cake, or as a sauce on desserts. Sweetened condensed milk is milk that's been sweetened (WAY sweetened) and condensed (not quite sure how) to form a thick ivory goo that's used as an ingredient in all sorts of sweet stuff. You can cook SCM to make DdL (sort of) but the two aren't remotely interchangeable. I'm in the process of experimenting with the cooked-SCM version of DdL & comparing it with the "real" thing made from raw milk, sugar and vanilla cooked for hours. I'll prepare a brief report with photos and, er, "tasting notes". Things aren't looking so good for the cooked-SCM version (sorry, kids).

Too late for byrdhouse, I'm afraid, but another good online source for Mex ingredients is The CMC Company. Everything I've gotten from them (masa, corn husks, an assortment of dried peppers and herbs) has been first-rate. The website is a little frustrating in its organization and "literalness", but the goods are there. For example, "corn husks" aren't listed anywhere...only listed as "Hojas Para Tamal", and not under "Corn Kitchen" or "Essential Items" in the Mexican section, but under "Mexican Specialties". Oh, well. Small complaint – the stuff is still good.

Colleen Dewhurst, Robert Motherwell, Steve Jobs and Julia Child.

The Red Fox, Bondville, VT. And mighty well-pulled pints, to boot. Every year, on the Sunday closest to St. Paddy's Day, the town of Bondville holds a parade – a hokey, dopey hometown parade that lasts all of 10 minutes. Bondville is effectively home to Stratton Mountain (ski resort); it and all the surrounding little towns are pretty much overrun with out-of-towners for the duration of ski season. Mid-March brings the winding down of high ski season (although that's usually when the skiing just starts to get good), and the Bondville parade somehow marks the taking back of our towns for those of us what live here year-round. Whole families turn out, several generations' worth, and it's an entirely equitable affair – socio-economic boundaries disappear, if only for the afternoon. As soon as the parade is over, most of the crowd move on to the Red Fox for an afternoon of Guinness-guzzling and catching up...people mill in and out if the day is fine, little kids, big kids rejoicing in the coming end of winter. Around 4 in the afternoon, as the buzz reaches a pitch, an Irish punk band – Big Bad Bollocks – crank up and get the place reeling. A little later, a spread of corned beef and cabbage is laid to soak off some of the booze. I can't believe I lived here for 16 years before I got hipped to the party by my new husband. Now it's a family affair. Also – The Equinox Hotel, Manchester, VT. A much tonier venue, owned until recently by Glen Eagles, Guinness' parent company. Highly recommended in summer when you can sit out front in a big, green rocker, sipping your Guinness and watching the day fade into the mountains. Edit: Right. It's GuinNess, not Guiness.

When I worked in a restaurant kitchen, we would bake and freeze the choux puffs & then, after thawing, crisp them in the oven just before using. The raw dough held for any length of time simply doesn't puff properly.

Ick. My brother swears by this crap, which my sisters and I refer to as I Can't Believe They Think This Shit Tastes Like Butter.

Cape Cod Sea Salt & Vinegar. Whoa.

We're currently in a griddled-cheese and meatloaf phase. Crusty rustic farmbread (Rock Hill Bakehouse, for anyone in striking distance of Gansevoort, NY), buttered on the outside; Extra Sharp Cabot Cheddar, thinly sliced leftover GG's Excellent Meatloaf, ajvar (mild for hub & the kids, hot fer GG); large cast iron pan on medium heat. And yes, I'm quite sure there's already a Grilled Cheese thread (but not Griddled Cheese). With apologies to the Purists.

REALLY. And Yoplait, no less.

I'm going to have to try the simmer-the-can method and do a side-by-side tasting with the long-suffering-all-day-burbling-sticky-mess version.

The recipe I use was published in Saveur several years back. See here. I start with 3 gallons of milk, though, to ensure a plentiful supply of the end product. I only skim once. After making it several times and having to cook it much too much to get it thick enough, I determined that a traditional Argentine recipe is probably NOT best suited to Holstein milk (low protein). My guess is that a typical Argentine cow is of a breed that produces high-protein milk, and that multiple skimmings would be necessary to avoid making sludge. But over-skimming Holstein milk left it kinda wimpy. One skim delivered a perfect result.

Vorare – That's rather an auspicious first post. Welcome to eGullet!

Isn't the Ag. Dept. threatening to require that all cheeses be made from pasteurized milk, even those that will be aged more than 60 days? That would be a crime against humanity!

To a fresh baguette: Hey – You around tonight? You-know-who's going out of town....What do you say to a little get down "chez moi"? You, me and some soft, sweet butter...I'll slather the hot steaming length of you and take you on inch by inch. And if there's anything left of you in the morning, we can get into the fig jam... Call me.

Umm...where is this place?

....as in the custard base for ice cream....

Well, if it must be adorned, make it creme fraiche.

No...it's the tofu of meat/poultry. My culinary axis of evil would have to be um ermm.... I'll get back to you... Oh, wait... – overcooked liver of any kind – Crisco cake icing (anathema to all that is good and decent in the world) – BLUEFISH Please, save the "Oh, but you've never had bluefish cooked ________" comments. I will never, ever, EVER eat bluefish again.

I made a big batch of DdL for Christmas gifting and still have several jars left. One of the gifties asked what to do with it, and I ran down the usual suspects: serve it warm over ice cream, eat it off a spoon, lick it off your finger and uh....that was about all I came up with. But then I got it in my head that it would be delicious stirred into hot milk – sort of like hot cocoa only different. So I tried it last night. Guess what? It's deadly good. I can't wait to try it blended with some cocoa, or with a little rum mixed in. The kids aren't getting anywhere near it.

My sympathies. I dropped a liter-sized glass bottle of olive oil once and it exploded into a shower of grease and glass shards all over my pantry shelves. Try Goo Gone Citrus Spray – or any of the citrus cleaner products. They're excellent grease-cutters. Spray down the oil slick, let sit for a few moments, then go after it with a rag or sponge and a bucket of hot water. I buy the shit by the gallon from Home Despot (Zep brand) and decant it into a sprayer bottle for all my grease cutting needs. Doesn't work on sleazy individuals, though.

I always use unsalted. For everything. Salted butter never crosses the threshold. And I'm in the clarified-butter-for-Hollandaise camp. Like Suzanne F. says – different emulsion. I used to use unsalted simply because of flavor preference (unsalted tastes more like butter to me) but then had an experience while cooking in a restaurant that really put me off salted butter. One day our supplier inadvertently sent a case of salted butter instead of unsalted. No one noticed, until I set about clarifying 3 lbs. for service. There appeared to be more than double the "crud" – milk solids, whey, whatever – as I was accustomed to. Out of curiosity, I went to the walk-in and checked...yup – it was salted butter. And the crud was a lot, well, cruddier. And it's stuck with me. I just have a subconscious "yuk" thing about mass-pro salted butter. I suspect that, because salt acts as a preservative, the manufacturer can leave more milk crud behind in the butter and the salt will prevent it going off. The unsalted butter has to be more thoroughly cleaned. So I think of salted vs. unsalted as cruddy vs. clean.

Mrs. Butterworth's?