slkinsey
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So...
The First Rule of Regent's Punch Club is: Don't forget that this is practically an all-booze punch, even though it goes down so easily.
The Second Rule of Regent's Punch Club is: Don't forget that it also contains caffeine.
The Third Rule of Regent's Punch Club is: I can't remember that many things right now.
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In the "I can't believe I didn't think of this before" department:
If you're making something like Regent's Punch for 60 of your closest friends, like I am tonight, doing the oleo-saccharum with that many peels can be a bit daunting by hand. On the other hand, if you divide it into batches and put it in the KitchenAid with the dough hook, you can do other things while the oleo-saccharum is making itself. All without giving yourself tendonitis.
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Ceramic over thin carbon steel is just about the cheapest pan construction there is, and it is not unusual for there to be chipping due to uneven rates of expansion and contraction.
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Ceramics have very poor browning characteristics, and are mostly useful in the oven.
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And now, forever more, you cannot simply assume that the bottle of vinegar you have in your hands will be acidic -- even though that characteristic utterly defined the product for as long as it has existed. None of the recipes you have for vinegar work with the stuff as a result, and you have to fend off more and more pretenders who, as a marketing ploy, choose not to let you know whether the bottle you are holding in the store aisle is truly vinegar or some other, non-acidic ersatz brew.
Perhaps you wouldn't find that frustrating. If not, then we've found our disagreement, and your capacity for relativism exceeds my own!
This discussion is remarkably similar to a recent discussion in these forums about products marketing themselves as "gin" that do not have a primary character of juniper. One wants a bitters to be bitter and work like "a bitters" just as one wants a gin to taste of juniper and work like "a gin."
Are non-potable bitters added to a cocktail in order to make the cocktail bitter?Yes and no. Asking this question is a bit like asking "is salt added to a dish to make it salty?" Well, yes it is added to make the dish salty, but it also does a whole lot of other things that you might want. The salient point is that, if you add "salt" to a dish, you are always expecting that you are adding "saltyness" along with whatever other reasons you might be adding salt. Similarly, when you add bitters, the expectation is that you are adding bitterness along with whatever else it is that you're adding. Frankly, this seems pretty simple to understand: salt adds saltyness, bitters add bitterness. If you want to add aromas and "intervals & overtones, the ordinary & and the extraordinary" -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- without bitterness, then we have other words we can use to describe these products... words such as "tincture" and "extract" and "hydrosol" and whatnot.
It's all good and well if someone has a conception of bitters, their characteristics, uses and effects, that does not include bitterness as a primary characteristic. Hey, to each his own. Someone may have a conception of "automobile" that does not include "four-wheeled motor vehicle" as a primary defining characteristic. And that's fine for them. But it doesn't change the fact that it is a primary defining characteristic of an automobile, and bitterness is a primary defining characteristic of bitters. Frankly, it seems a bit silly that there is some question as to whether bitterness is a primary defining characteristic of something called bitters.
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The roasted rice cakes are awesome.
Now that I have a chest freezer, I've been meaning to make a massive recipe of ramen broth to reduce and freeze. But I've also been wondering about perhaps attempting to make the ramen broth using techniques from Modernist Cuisine. This would mostly mean grinding the bones and meat, and cooking the whole thing in a pressure cooker (also meaning that I have to get around to buying a 5+ gallon pressure cooker.
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The problem with electrostatic precipitators is that they are consistently rated very poorly in air purification tests
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100 g each sounds good.
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The other is measuring the weight of salt accurately can be quite difficult.
Considering that fine granulated table salt can weigh twice as much as kosher salt (a medium-coarse salt) by volume, I'd say this is a significant issue if your scale doesn't have good resolution below a gram and you are using amounts this small for your testing.
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Why avoid table salt?
I avoid table salt because it often has anti caking agents in it and stuff like that and I'd rather avoid unecessary additives - it's so easy to grind salt fresh I don't see a problem.
Morton's table salt, to make an obvious example, contains something like 0.2% calcium silicate as an anti-caking agent. Others anti-caking agents include magnesium or calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, etc. All are odorless, tasteless and present in minute quantities. Considering what's floating around in the oceans of the world, I'd hardly think that someone who likes to use sea salt should be worried about these "additives.
Personally, I don't like using table salt much because I think the grain size is too small, and kosher salt is easier to use by the pinch, etc.
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"Pork belly" is most of the underside of the pig separated from the leg, loin and shoulder, consisting more or less of the bottom half of the ribcage going back. Another, more old-fashioned name for this would be "side meat." When you take the bones out of the pork belly, you have "spare ribs." The belly further towards the back/navel area doesn't have bones.
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"Finishing Salt"
What do you mean by "finishing salt"? Can you give examples? Do you mean like those salt and pepper seasoned on top on fried fish and chips?
Right. In other words, it's salt crystals that are sprinkled over the dish as a "finishing touch." These salt crystals (hopefully) do not dissolve and therefore create unique taste sensations based on their shape and size.
Diluted vs able to tell the difference:In your description, I tend to agree. I tend to believe that the very small percentage of other compounds (in the salt) dissolved in a dish can make a difference since salt level of a dish is usually already at a maximum of 2% of the cooked dish. Therefore, we are basically talking about a small percentage of this 2%.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. And I'm not sure where your figure of 2% salt by weight in a dish comes from -- that seems way too salty. But even if we assume that the dish is 2% sea salt by weight and that the sea salt is 2% minerals other than sodium chloride, we're still talking about a 2,500 times dilution of these minerals. This is way above the taste threshold even when diluted into plain water, never mind something else that has strong flavors of its own.
For chefs who use sea salt, or on menus where dishes are ... e.g. salmon cured with Murray River saltJust marketing thing? Only for "peace of mind" thinking they are using "pure" "natural" salt but in reality, all SALT is NaCl? Any salt is NaCl + something?
Yes, this is just marketing.
So... When do we use sea salt? When rock salt? When river salt? ...So when do we use a particular type of salt?
And
Why the chinese use / suggest to use rock salt over table salt for making cured Kumquat, i.e. Kumquats in big glass jug, lots of rock salt -> cure for many many months to years.
What is your definition of "rock salt"? And how is this different from "sea salt"?
As for when/how to use one particular kind of salt over another, common sense tells us to use cheap salt to add salinity to the food as it is being prepared, because this salt will dissolve and you won't be able to taste the difference. Then, if you like, sprinkle on fancy/expensive salt according to your preferences and goals after the food is prepared as a "finishing touch." The point is to use cheap stuff if it will dissolve and only use expensive stuff when it won't dissolve. Any salt that doesn't have an interesting structure/texture is not worth spending more money on (e.g., finely milled sea salt).
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. . . small producers of culinary salt can let the evaporative process continue until the salt crystal begin to precipitate out of solution, and the resulting salt is usually only about 96% sodium chloride, the rest a mix of the trace elements found in sea water.
I think this should read: "a minimum of 97.5% sodium chloride if sold in the United States." That appears to be the regulation here.
While the difference in sodium chloride content is very small, it is perceptible.I have my doubts as to whether any such tastes can be detected once the salts are dissolved/diluted into other ingredients at culinarily-appropriate salinity levels. The 2001 Leatherhead Food Research study suggests that it can't be. In pure-undiluted form (i.e., undisolved and used as a "finishing salt") it's clear that different sea salts make a different taste sensation. The extent to which this is due to the mineral content as opposed to the shape and size of the crystal is an open question, but the fact that differences are extremely difficult to detect when the salts are dissolved into water suggests that shape and size are the most important.
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To summarize Robert Wolke: The FDA requires that food-grade salt me a minimum of 97.5% sodium chloride, and in practice it is always much more than that. For example, sea salt that is harvested from seawater by "natural solar evaporation" is around 99% pure sodium chloride without any processing at all. This is because of the way the salt is harvested (evaporated until crystals form, which are then scooped up and washed in a saturated saline solution) and because when a solution contains mostly one dissolved chemical (sodium chloride in the case of seawater) that chemical crystallizes out first. The remaining 1% is mostly calcium and magnesium, which leaves very little room for all the other compounds that supposedly give different salts their "unique taste." The example that Wolke uses is that, in order to get the amount of iron contained in a single grape, you would have to eat a quarter-pound of sea salt.
But wait! That's not all you get! Now consider the fact that, when you dissolve the salt into food, you are massively diluting it. If we are supposed to believe that the maximum of 1% of "other minerals" in sea salt is detectable and makes the salt taste different, then let's consider what happens when the salt is put into food. Again, Wolke's example is instructive: Let's say you add a teaspoon of sea salt to a 3-quart/3,000 gram stew. The teaspoon of sea salt weighs 6 grams, which means that it's 5.94 grams of sodium chloride and 0.06 grams of the all-important "other stuff that makes it taste different." Okay, well, when we dilute 0.06 grams into 3,000 grams it's a 50,000-fold dilution. The reality, of course, is that it's much more than a 50,000-fold dilution, because the sea salt is likely more than 99% pure sodium chloride. Does this strike you as something that will make the food taste different? Me neither.
All of which is to say that sea salts should only be used as a finishing salt, because the difference is in the texture, and it should never be allowed to dissolve. Granulated and fine sea salt is a hoax, because there is nothing special about the texture. Oh, and all salt is sea salt anyway... first because even mined salt is simply sea salt from prehistoric seas, and second because plenty of table salt is obtained from evaporation of sea water anyway.
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Typically what you'll want to do is have a gigantic shaker so you can shake out around 5 cocktails at a time, which you can then pour into glasses, garnish and set out on the bar for people to grab (or get someone to circulate in the crowd with a tray of cocktails).
What is this gigantic shaker of which you speak? Actually, now that you mention it, I wonder if I still have that 24" glass....
This baby holds 60 ounces. They're not hard to find. If you decide to do a stirred cocktail as well (although I encourage you not to switch techniques if you're going to be the only one back there) you can use a large glass "lemonade" pitcher.
A rocks drink is a good idea for one of them, because all you have to do is scoop some rocks glasses full of ice and pour over the batched cocktail straight out of the bottle.
Oh, and champagne cocktails (or, rather, cocktails with champagne) are always a winner.
Brace yourself for people who will ask you for straight pours of whatever spirits you're using. Happens every time.
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I've been to a lot of this sort of thing over the years, not least helping Audrey with the Citymeals galas in Rock Center for the past 5 years or so. The one thing I would recommend is that you offer no more than three cocktails which you batch beforehand and shake out on site. Typically what you'll want to do is have a gigantic shaker so you can shake out around 5 cocktails at a time, which you can then pour into glasses, garnish and set out on the bar for people to grab (or get someone to circulate in the crowd with a tray of cocktails). An advantage is that you may be able to get a distributor to donate, say, a case of bourbon or whatever in exchange for putting out some signage (which could be as simple as making a litle "display" of the bottles and listing the name of the spirit on the menu or in some kind oc signage) and featuring that spirit.
What you absolutely do NOT want to do is to offer 6 or 7 cocktails plus an array of the usual highballs and neat pours, all of which you will be jiggering and shaking out to order. Take it from the guy who, together with Don Lee, produced something like 300 each of Queens Park Swizzles and Lemon Thyme (muddled!) Daiquiris in an evening.
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I wonder how the soldering iron trick would work with a stovetop smoker to keep the heat down.
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I have enjoyed it 1:1 with Smith & Cross, stirred & strained.
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In that kind of table the top is already veneer. So it's a matter of stripping off the old veneer, putting on new and then layering on the finish.
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I've always thought haggis might make a good terrine in pastry that could then be sliced. But it might be too crumbly for that.
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Yea, I read that one. I'm not sure how significant I believe those differences are, or rather whether I'm that picky about stock.
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You are both incorrectly defining pressure cooking as "cooking at 15 PSI".
Pressure cookers do not operate at only 15 PSI. Most have two, even three settings. Earlier, first generation pressure cookers, only reached 6-8 PSI.
I am not defining "pressure cooking" as any such thing. I merely used the 15-psi-above-atmospheric-pressure example to illustrate how much the temperature goes up (22 degrees C!) under that pressure.
The point is not that the food is cooked under "some amount of pressure." Even in an open pan with no lid, everything is already under right around 14.69 psi due to atmospheric pressure. Unless, you know, you're in a very low valley or on a very high hill.
The point is also not that the temperature has been increased. There are lots of ways you can increase the temperature (although not as dramatically as with a pressure cooker) such as adding lots of dissolved solids, etc.
The point is that one uses a special pressure containing (and regulating) cooking vessel to raise the temperature of the cooking medium such that the food cooks in a substantially different way than it would at 100C/14.69 psi. Raising the temperature and pressure of a regular cooking vessel some infinitesimal amount does not constitute "pressure cooking" by the simple fact that the cooking itself is no different than it would be at 100C/14.69 psi. Your argument is like saying that you can deep fry in a tablespoon of oil.
By the way, don't be so sure that these old pressure cookers didn't have a major effect. The cooking temperature at 6 psi over atmospheric would be around 110C. That is a significant difference over cooking at atmospheric pressure at 100C.
I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility that a a Tajine could at the very least reach 1 PSI - and even that, raises the boiling temperature, albeit not by much, to "pressure cook."No it wouldn't raise the pressure 1 psi over atmospheric, or anything close to that. But the main problem with your argument is that you are suggesting that if you are somehow able to raise the pressure to 14.70 psi (+0.1 psi) or even to only 14.691 psi (+0.01 psi), then you are "pressure cooking." What if you boil your stew in an open pot but you are in a deep valley below sea level where the atmospheric pressure is naturally higher than 14.69 psi? Is that "pressure cooking"? What about if your local area is experiencing a high pressure weather event? Is that "pressure cooking"? Hey, the pressure in New York City right now is 14.71 psi... I should go home and pressure cook in an open pan right now!
These things, by the way, would all change the pressure and the cooking temperature more than your tagine example.The point of all this is that unless the pressure and temperature are raised sufficiently to make the food cook differently than it would under normal pressure and temperature, it's not "pressure cooking." It's just "cooking." It's also worthy of note that "pressure cooking" is a verb derived from the noun "pressure cooker." Wikipedia has a good definition of "pressure cooking" as "Pressure cooking is a method of cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure." This doesn't include tagines and parchment, etc.
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As to whether a tagine or similar traditionally lidded cooking vessels constitute "pressure cookers," the answer is quite clear: no, they don't. And this is for a simple reason: The point of a pressure cooker is not to increase the pressure. That is a side-effect of the real point of using a pressure cooker, which is to increase the temperature above the boiling point of water. The only way to do that in a "wet cooking" medium is to increase the pressure. For example, the boiling point of water under the 15 psi setting (meaning 15 psi above normal atmospheric pressure) is 122C.
There is simply no way that a clay or ceramic vessel such as a tagine could build up sufficient pressure to raise the boiling point of water any significant amount. And there is a very simple reason why this is so: the tagine would explode because the clay is not capable of withstanding any significant internal pressure. This, of course, is in addition to the fact that foods cooked in a tagine or similar vessel are typically slow-cooked below the simmer, meaning that the temperature is actually lower than 100C. Just because there is some water vapor being produced doesn't mean that the internal pressure is increasing. Similarly, a heavy lid on a pot doesn't even come close to creating enough pressure to raise the boiling point of water an easily-measurable amount. Might the pressure inside a heavy French oven at a full rolling boil be slightly higher than atmospheric pressure. Maybe an infinitesimal amount. But you would need pretty sensitive instruments to measure the difference. More to the point, it wouldn't make a bit of difference to the cooking.
I hope we've laid that to rest. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if anyone has experience pressure cooking with one of these big pressure canners, such as the All American 21.5 quart pressure canner. The reason I'm interested in this is largely for making stock. It's great to take advantage of the fast-cooking aspect of a pressure cooker for making stock, but I'd still much rather make it in large amounts that can be reduced and stored in the freezer. In addition, I'm wondering what the disadvantages might be to making smaller quantities in a larger pressure cooker. For example, if I really only wanted to make 4 quarts of something, would I be able to do this in the big All American? Perhaps with a smaller vessel inside of it? Or would I really need a traditionally-sized pressure cooker for that amount?
Saying Grace
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I think this very much depends upon the part of the country (and world) where you are, and also the community for that matter.
There are certain parts of the States where public displays of, and group participation in acts of devotion by people who are not overtly religious are quite common. These are not particularly common in the Northeast, although I have found them to be common in certain communities here. In either case I find it most common that the public/group devotion is a Christian one.