slkinsey

This is a good reason to use a doserless grinder, and to keep it swept clean of old grinds to the greatest extent possible. Even so, there will usually be some old grinds in the grinding mechanism itself (Versalab mitigates this problem by dosing unground beans into the grinder). To mitigate this problem with my doserless Rocky, I simply discard the first bit of grinds that comes out of the chute in each grinding session. If I'm still getting 2% of old grinds, I cal live with that. That shouldn't happen. Sounds like your coffee isn't ground nearly fine enough, because the coffee shouldn't be coming out fast enough to spray anywhere. It should look more or less like the picture on this page when the coffee is coming out.

Indeed, obesity and diabetes are also strongly correlated with things like telephone poles per capita and plastic bag use.

I don't have it in front of me, but I looked up "confit" in McGee's book last evenening, and I recall him saying something to the effect that a slight rancidity can be part of the traditional flavor of aged confit. WRT the evaporation, while I don't disagree with your example of the one cup on a 180F hotplate evaporating after 8 hours, it's not clear to me that you will evaporate the same one cup of water in 8 hours if it's covered up in 6 cups of fat (not to mention 8 duck legs). I can't imagine how much water would really be cooked off from within the duck legs themselves (which exude liquid throughout the cooking process), but there's no way it could even approach all of it. When I've made confit using the traditional method, there has always been plenty of liquid at the bottom of the cooking vessel. Typically, I'd try to minimize liquid in the actual storage jar by placing the cooked legs in the jar and then pouring only fat around them. Even then, some liquid still usually comes out of the legs and collects at the bottom of the jar.

Tim, how wet was the dough? When I'm making orecchiette, I try to make the dough as stiff as possible (too stiff to practically knead by hand, really). I also cut the disks and let them dry for an hour or so before pressing them out to shape. I've never had any troubles with cracking after drying 24 hours.

I've never heard the theory that the confit process removes all the water (which is presumably what you mean by "moisture") from the meat. And, having made confit using the traditional process many times, I have to say that this is not my experience (there is almost always some liquid at the bottom of the jar). Indeed, duck legs from which all the water had been cooked out would be tough, dry and unappetizing. I also don't quite get the chemistry of "there is no oxygen to go rancid." What would be going rancid, exactly? And how is oxygen being removed by using an open container? If anything, I'd think that heating the confit above the boiling point of water (which would be necessary for the evaporation you suggest takes place) for a long period of time would increase oxidation of the fat, and therefore increase the possibility of rancidity developing over time. As for preservation... afar as I know, what happens is that you cook the duck legs for a long time, effectively sterilizing them, and then you "seal" them in an airtight covering of solidified fat -- fundamentally "canning" the duck legs without using a can. As far as I can tell, the sous vide process should minimize oxidation more than the traditional method.

So, what you're saying then is that there is no such thing as a "credentialed" journalist? Anyway, the American Heritage Dictionary says: Of "credentialed journalists" wikipedia says: This suggests to me that there is no such thing as a "credentialed journalist" in the United States. What would that mean anyway? If the East Pawtucket Bugle hires someone to be a "reporter" or "critic" for their does that make this "credentialed journalist" more legitimate than Andrea Strong?

I've enjoyed rooibos ever since a South African friend introduced me to it. Honestly, I'm not sure where the tobacco comparisons come from (people don't smoke it, do they?) but the thought that it resembled tobacco never occurred to me. Honestly, I don't get that at all. Anyway, rooibos is delicious brewed as a tea, and I don't see why it wouldn't be great infused into alcohol. For one, there isn't the tannin to be dealt with.

Although I realize this is a gross over-generalization, my impression is that cooking school faculty are usually quite firmly in the French camp. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it can have the tendency to make them insufficiently informed as to Italian (and other) technique/aesthetic/ingredients. Not knowing that there are many different kinds of 00 strikes me as an almost shocking lacuna in culinary knowledge for a culinary instructor.

Yea... I gotta tell you, I'd be very reluctant to try a homemade infused tobacco spirit. Nicotine is a very dangerous drug. Personally, I'd want to have the assurance of some kind of testing for nicotine levels in the infused spirit before I'd think of trying any of it. People in prison occasionally use tobacco infusions to commit suicide.

Extensive tagine thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=63502

Question about confit: I recently did some duck leg confit sous-vide. Individual duck legs with salt, etc. and a tablespoon or so in each bag. 80C for around 7 hours. So... how long is this safe to keep in the refrigerator? When prepared the traditional way, one hears of confit kept cold for months and months.

If you have the capability, confit is one area where sous vide can really be a cost saver. I recently made some duck leg confit, sealing each leg in an individual pouch with some fat. The beauty of this is that you don't need to use much fat. I only used around a tablespoon of fat per duck leg. When you vacuum the bag, the leg is surrounded by a thin layer of duck fat. It's also nice to have the legs in individual packages.

Exactly. The "00" -- if I'm remembering correctly -- has to do more with the level of refinement than it does the protein/gluten content of the flour. That's probably why the head of Rochelle's school said pasta should be made with bleached rather than unbleached flour. My experience is that there is "00 for pasta" flour, which is low in protein/gluten, and that's the one you want (there is also "00 for bread" and so on...).

A related and, in my opinion more important question is: accountable to whom, and how? If you are a self-appointed "reviewer" online (or otherwise) you are accountable to your readership. If enough people decide that your writing is rubbish and your opinions are not well-founded, your readership will decline and people will stop reading your reviews. Who decides that you have well-informed opinions and something worthwhile to say? The whole internet does. On the other hand, all too often one finds situations in which the informed readership has determined that a reviewer's 's opinion is hopelessly biased, misinformed or otherwise worthless, and yet that writer continues to be gainfully employed by an important newspaper, and to wield the influence that comes along with such employment because... well I'm not quite sure. Because some editor at the newspaper likes them? I am more familiar with music reviewing than I am with restaurant reviewing, but I have on any number of occasions read reviews in major newspapers that diverged so widely from my own experiences that it is barely possible to believe we were at the same performance. And I'm talking about details of fact, not opinion (e.g., "cracked wide open" and "ringing" cannot describe the same climactic high note). Yet, somehow these reviewers do not get the "warm handshake as they make their way out of the door" that Daniel promises. Rather, they remain employed for year after year after year. All of which is to say that the imprimatur of a professional writing gig and the supposed ethical/competent oversight that supposefly comes along with it is hardly a guarantee of accountability and professionalism.

The only "shaken with mint" drinks I have tended to shake hard are either those with other things in the shaker (e.g., muddled lime quarters) that "protect" the mint from over bruising, or drinks with a lot of other strong flavors and plenty of sweetness (e.g., the Juniperotivo) where bitterness is not particularly apparent and I want maximum expression of mint flavors. This does, I suppose, account for most of the "shaken with mint" drinks I make regularly. Maybe that's why I don't think it's as big a deal. I can certainly tell the difference in a julep. To my thinking, though, there's some room between "shaking the bejeezus out of it" and a "rolling shake." I would understand a "rolling shake" to be more less like rolling (pouring from one tumbler to another with ice), only in a closed shaker, which would be very gentle indeed -- although perhaps not what Erik is describing. There are certainly drinks both with mint and without that I think benefit from a gentler shake.

Stronger in what, exactly? I think you'll find if you read through the thread above, that real absinthe never contained much thujone to speak of, and that most of the reported affects of absinthe which have been attributed to thujone were in fact the result of alcohol poisoning and poisoning from the various adulterants and contaminants found in low quality pre-ban absinthe.

Did you use the stems of just the mint leaves? I think that shaking hard does impart perhaps a little bitterness, but not too much.

Why not just double-strain?

Put 1 oz of regular maple syrup into a clean 40 oz bottle, fill with water, shake and taste. That's exactly what the sap tastes like. Hmm. Not exactly, in my experience. I think the caramelization that happens when the sap is boiled down contributes quite a bit to the flavor. Great idea! Take an ingredient that is expensive, distinctive and limited in supply, and then refine all of its character away! [/sarcasm]

As mkayahara points out, getting the sap out of maple trees is a fairly costly and labor-intensive business. It's not the same thing as mowing down a field of sugar cane and pressing the juice out of it, and it's sure not the same thing as making booze out of the industrial waste from sugar refining. Given the costs associated with obtaining maple sap and the fact that a distillate produced from fermented maple sap would most likely not have a particularly "mapley" taste, I think it's unlikely we'll ever see such a product.

I'm actually wondering why anyone should care what Churchill thought about how to make a Martini. He may have been a boozer of some repute (indeed, Robert Hess has suggested that most of the people who famously eschewed vermouth were alcoholics more interested in boosting the alcohol content of their drink than crafting a properly balanced cocktail) but that doesn't make him an cocktail expert. It's actually interesting if you do some of the math about Martini-making. Let's say you're making a 3 ounce Martini with Tanqueray gin and Noilly Prat vermouth. Proper stirring with ice will give you around 20% dilution, so you're ending up with a 3.6 ounce pour. Let's look at two different Martini formulations. The first one is a 2:1 Martini: Two ounces of Tanqueray ay 47.3% abv and one ounce of Noilly Pratt at 18% abv plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 31.3% abv. The second one is an 11:1 Martini: 2 3/4 ounces ot Tanqueray and 1/4 ounce of Noilly Prat plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 37.5% abv. The 11:1 Martini is only 6.2 percentage points higher in alcohol by volume.

Little-known Munchos trivia: Because they are perfect foods, the Apollo Lunar Module was stocked with nothing other than Muchos and Tang.

Yep.

Just make the bag extra-long, put the watermelon in the bottom of the bag and put a pleated paper towel around 2/3 of the way up.

Durum/semolina flour does not have to be course-textured. But it usually is, in which case I find it to be totally unusable. If you find it finely ground, like any other flour, it makes superb pasta, firm with a distinctive flavor. But even finely ground, the high gluten level would probably make it very difficult to work by hand. I second the votes for 00 pasta flour if you are doing it by hand. That's the point I was making: Durum flour and semolina are both made from durum wheat. "Semolina" is simply a name for coarsely-ground durum wheat. In Italy, any coarse-ground grain i s"semolina" -- what we think of as "semolina" is properly called semolina di grano duro (as opposed to, say, semolina di mais). It is not possible to get "floury" semolina, because you would then have flour and not semolina. Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is true that some companies and in certain non-Italian-speaking countries "semolina" has come to be synonymous with "durum wheat" regardless of the fineness of the grind.