slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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How do you get the ginger juice?
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Pretty pricey, at least compared to a Sous Vide Magic plus an equivalent size rice cooker, but a lot better than a laboratory immersion circulator.
I still think that good prices on circulators can be found if you're diligent. I recently got a powerhouse VWR 1122 for 395 bucks.
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There's a good carrot dressing recipe in one of Mario Batali's books. As I recall, a large amount of carrot juice was reduced way down, cooled and recombined with some fresh carrot juice. Then it's simply a matter of adding the oil and acid you want. It won't be unbreakably emulsified, but that's true of most dressings. You could always put in a little xanthan gum if you wanted to thicken it and stabilize the emulsification.
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I find that honey-mustard doesn't particularly need oil.
You allude to the problem with most no-oil dressings: It's not that people want no oil, they want no fat. Almost any other source of fat (any kind of nut or seed butter, avocado, etc.) will produce a nice no-oil dressing, but that's not the point. It's not clear to me that your friend's dressing was particularly low in fat or calories -- certainly no lower than it would have been if the tahini were replaced with oil.
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Theoretically this is done to build up the strength and activity of the culture microorganisms so that you get a fast, strong rise. Building by doubling is not a good way to do this (much better to build by quintupling at least), but that's another discussion. Another potential effect is that if you start with 100g of starter, rise that for 10 hours, then double to 200g, rise that for 10 hours, then double that to 400g, rise that for another 10 hours... well, now you have some dough that is 30 hours old, some dough that is 20 hours old, and some dough that is 10 hours old. The oldness of the 30 hour dough, for example, could potentially have an effect on final dough quality.
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I've been using slkinsley's technique for maintaining and using a (small) amout of starter with great success. I'm baking some of the breads from Silverton's La Brea bakery cookbook and wanted to know about converting a starter from white to wheat flour. In her cookbook, she has you go through several sequential builds to convert a white starter to a whole-wheat starter. Any reason you can't just use a small amount of white starter to innoculate the necessary amount of whole wheat flour and water rather than use her slow-build whole wheat starter?
No, there is no reason you can't simply inoculate a quantity of "usage starter" with a small amount of active "storage starter" and use it when it becomes fully active. There is really no rationale behind maintaining separate whole wheat and white wheat starters. The only difference is that the whole wheat starter will have a higher ash content, and therefore be able to contain more total acid before the sourdough microorganisms are inhibited, but this won't change the composition or properties of the starter culture. Fundamentally, it's still just wheat. Of course, the whole wheat starter also contains oils from the bran that can go rancid.
Rye is a slightly different story. Unlike whole compared to white wheat flour, rye really is "different food" and creates a different environment for the sourdough microorganisms. Most starter cultures maintained in white wheat seem to do very well in rye breads, but some do not. There are also some rye cultures that only seem to do well in rye and do not work in wheat flour.
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I say this as a professional user of the voice: If you have laryngitis, the last thing you want to do is drink alcohol. Drink lots of fluids, take some anti-inflammatories and refrain from using your voice. Then the next thing to do is try to determine the cause of the inflammation. If it is a cold or flu, then waiting is just about the only thing you can do. If it is potentially due to an infection in either the larynx or the sinuses, then potentially certain prescription drugs might be needed. For this, consult your doctor. If it is due to vocal abuse (e.g., you shouted too loud at the game/concert/argument/whatever) then vocal rest is highly recommended.
All of which is to say that nothing you drink is going to help you one bit, except psychologically.
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Most likely the caution against cleaning Silpat in the dishwasher is due to the fact that the abrasives and extremely alkaline dishwasher detergents would degrate the "smoothness" of the surface of the Silpat, thereby reducing its nonstick properties.
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Other than American-style "Sicilian" pizza, I am not sure there is any such thing. Sfincione, which most Siciliani would say is not the same thing as pizza, is thick, bready and square. But it has nowhere near the thickness or profusion of toppings and general sogginess that American-style "Sicilian" pizza typically has. Something like this would be a pretty representational example, and as you can see it's pretty dry.
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Negroni Tredici Tanqueray, Carpano Antica, Campari, Cynar, Regans’ Orange Bitters
Why "thirteen"?
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The problem is this - Glycerin isn't food. It's a chemical additive - typically a byproduct of soap making used as a humectant (keeps things moist/wet) and a partial preservative. It makes things feel artificially smooth, rich and syrupy.
Thanks for the otherwise useful information, but I have to take exception to the above.
Yes, glycerol can be described as a "hygroscopic trihydroxy alcohol usually obtained by the saponification of fats." But, so could high proof alcohol be described as a "simple aliphatic alcohol formally derived from ethane, usually obtained by the digestion of sugars by fungi and volatility-mediated purification." The point being that glycerol can hardly be considered any more "artificial" and "not a food" than alcohol itself. Both are obtained from naturally-occurring substances, both are purified by various technological means, both are digestible, and both have caloric value.
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You're SOL once the glycerin gets on there. Potentially you could try getting it off by putting the bottle in a jar of alcohol.
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This is perhaps for a different topic, but I think it depends on how dogmatic the drinker would like to be. I would consider a tall drink that incorporates a few dashes of Angotura or a half-ounce of orgeat to be "nonalcoholic." But, at the same time, I would consider meat served on a plate that had previously had cheese on it to "not contain any dairy," I would consider vegetables cooked on the same grill that had previously cooked meat to be "vegetarian," and I would consider a piece of cheese sliced with a knife that had previously touched a piece of salmon to "not contain any fish." I think these are reasonable views to have, but other people might not agree and would have valid reasons to hold their own views.
Anyone who would eat a dish of penne alla vodka or coq au vinshould not quibble over a "nonalcoholic" drink made with a small amount of Angostura biters or orgeat. But people aren't always logical.
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The solution to this is to have a large "tail" on the bag. Then what you do is put the solid food and the liquid into the bag, then you "stand" the bag up on the counter so that the food and liquid bunches at the bottom end of the bag. Then you bend over the "tail" end of the bag and put that into the FoodSaver-type machine (make a gently curving fold rather than a sharp fold). Then you start the vacuum. If you do it right, the machine will first evacuate all the air and then you can see that thin layer of liquid rising towards the sealer in the little capilaries of the FoodSaver bag. Keep your eye on the liquid and hit "manual seal" when it gets to within an inch or so of the sealer (usually the machine will go into sealing mode before this anyway). Works every time. This is easier to do with my "semipro" sealer because it has a transparent top that makes it easy to see all the way into the chamber. Later, if you like, you can roll up the "tail" end and put that inside the vacuum chamber so you can manually seal the bag further down the "tail."
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Yes, but wine is not 54% alcohol.
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that's all very interesting, thanks! I'll look for some good canned Italian tomatoes and will just use salt. I often added other things, oregano, garlic etc. I'll leave that for the topping.
I think you will not find in Italy the use of copious toppings that are ubiquitous in the United States. Obviously the overall amount of toppings is less, of course. But certainly nowhere near the prevalence of oregano (especially dry) and garlic. If you want an Italian-tasting pizza at home, I suggest a thin slick of roughly milled (by you!) San Marzano tomatoes, a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkle of coarse sea salt and a few blobs of the best fresh mozzarella you can find (preferably never having been cold refrigerated). Out of the oven, toss on a few leafs of fresh basil.
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Yes. In fact, I would say that this is commonplace in American pizzerias. Of course, most of them aren't cooking the sauce themselves, they're buying a pre-cooked "pizza sauce."
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Dave Wondrich has reported that as little as a half-ounce or so of 100 proof vodka in a bottle of simple syrup stored at room temperature has been enough to prevent the mold growth he had otherwise been getting. Honestly, I don't quite understand how or why this works, but apparently it does.
In my own experience, a highly saturated syrup has stored just fine in an unopened liter bottle (with occasional pours out into the service bottle). This was probably a 3:1 syrup with gum arabic to prevent recrystallization, and did include around an ounce of 100 prof vodka on top.
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Most pizzerias in Italy (and the best ones here) don't use a cooked sauce at all -- just a coarse puree of high-quality canned plum tomatoes and a little salt. I can immediately taste it when a pizzeria is using a cooked sauce.
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Refrigeration is not likely to make a meaningful difference anyway. The best thing to do, if oxidation is a major concern, would be to get one of those wine-saver deals and evacuate the headspace (or fill it with a neutral gas, depending on which kind you were using).
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And it is true that some people make poor choices in trying to avoid artificial ingredients, especially when what they're buying is eseentially identical. But scary talk about the "dangers" of natural foods like carrots and mushrooms is hardly persuasive, unless you can demonstrate actual harm.
I don't think this is "scare tactics" so much as I think it points out the ridiculousness of decrying the "danger" of eating so-called refined or synthesized foods (e.g., MSG) when there are so-called natural foods which either contain the same substances or other substances that are equally "dangerous." Another way of putting it would be to say that if you're going to run around with your hands in the air shouting "eeeeeeeee! MSG!" then you should also be shouting "eeeeeeeeee! agaritine in raw mushrooms! eeeeeeeee! free glutamates in 'liquid aminos'! eeeeeeeeeee! parasites in raw salad greens!" and so on. The point being that "refined" and "synthesized" doesn't automatically equate with "bad" or "dangerous," and there are lots of naturally-occurring substances in foods that are equally "bad" and "dangerous" -- if not moreso.
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Kalustyan's also has a number of Bitter Truth and Bittermen's bitters (or they did the last time I was there).
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Yes, that assumption is incorrect. That recipe in Imbibe!, by the way, probably makes two liters of highly saturated gomme syrup.
I'd probably put around 20 grams of gum arabic in the recipe I give above.
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Yea, I use POM. Just because it's convenient and a known quantity. A lot of the more "foodie" pomegranate juice around here is cloudy, and I don't like the looks of it. Once you reduce it 6-fold, is there a difference? i doubt it. Maybe, though.
No idea what vanilla I use. Massey double strength, probably.
Creme de Violette
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
It's not a process.
The designation "crème" simply means that it contains enough sugar as to have a syrup-like consistency. So "crème" refers to the liqueur having the texture of cream.