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emannths

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Everything posted by emannths

  1. If you bought one of the $15-20 salinity/TDS meters from Amazon (example), you could just use serial dilutions to confirm your salinity is in the right ballpark. Most only go up to about 10,0000ppm = 1%. Dilute your brine 10x and you'll be able to use it. You could try using a multimeter, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth. Probe composition and separation, container size, etc can all throw off the measurement.
  2. I'm not sure what Fairway charges, but be prepared to pay at least $15/12oz for most high-quality coffee. It's worth the extra cash, IMO, and certainly worth it to try premium beans at least once or twice. Weinoo, do any of the places you mentioned give a free cup with the purchase of beans? Maybe the OP could us that to verify that (s)he's found what he's looking for.
  3. Blogger with photos and recipes: http://cookingfromtheheart.com.au/2011/09/21/david-chang%E2%80%99s-ramen-from-lucky-peach/
  4. I have the older Cuisipro one (w/o the ridge/no-stick sides). Works well for most things, but I haven't compared it to anything else. The only problem is that sharp blades are more painful on your knuckles.
  5. Looks like some of the episodes are on youtube (beef episode, most of the egg episode). It looks like it's also available over peer-to-peer services like bittorrent.
  6. Doesn't look like it, if your definition is "perfectly clear": http://www.alcademics.com/2009/12/clear-ice-blocks-at-home-in-an-igloo-cooler.html
  7. I'd look for a Latin American coffee or a "breakfast blend" with a medium or light roast, all other things being equal. But the best way to sort this out is probably to go to your coffee source and ask them, or ask them for small samples of all of their offerings if the source isn't too knowledgable. You can then make pilot batches either by extracting it in alcohol or cold-brewing it in water and adding Everclear.
  8. I believe the US government would say that as long as it wasn't about 40F for at least 4 hours, it's still "safe." How long was "overnight?" Since you're going to be cooking it after the potential unsafe conditions, thus killing any bacteria, I'd go ahead and cook it and eat it. But I tend to play fast-and-loose with the rules.
  9. When we do it, we usually feast on them for dinner. A big bowl of vinegared rice, some toasted nori cut into ~1.5"x4" pieces, the peeled shrimp (heads/shells reserved for stock), shoyu, wasabi, and a little gari/pickled ginger if we have it. Then it's diy handroll time--pick up a piece of nori, add a dollop of rice, a shrimp or two, dip in the shoyu/wasabi, and devour. When you're done, you feel like a glutton, but you've only spent $8 tops on shrimp for two. I usually get them at New Deal or Courthouse fishmarkets, both on Cambridge Street in Cambridge. They're both best-of-the-market type places, so you never know what they'll have, but it's guaranteed to be excellent. I've heard that they show up in Whole Foods around here too, but I think those may be headless ones.
  10. When we (our family) get the head-on ones down here in Boston, we eat them as sushi/sashimi exclusively. I look forward to it every winter!
  11. I think in the show, when he was cooking his steak, he said 45/rare, 50/medium rare, 55/med, 60/well-done, but that's by memory (and also pre-rest, so if you allow 5C of carryover, it maps pretty well). But the hamburger recipe says to pull it at 45C for medium-rare (the steak recipe has no temp listed). No biggie--it just caught my eye when I was looking at the text. Maybe someone misheard him.
  12. It really is like "Good Eats meets the Modernist Cuisine design team." I liked it. If I had to make a critical comment, I'd complain that the burger segment asked a bunch of rugby guys to cook burgers, then told them the right/best way to do it is to grind your own meat and align the fibers. The jump from using a binder to grinding your own aligned meat seems pretty big, even for a rugby team that makes Thai burgers and compound butters. I don't really fault him for it, but the segment seemed a bit like showing off more than giving advice. Oh, and is medium rare in the UK really 45C? Even with substantial carryover, that sounds solidly rare rather than medium rare (I think I'd put the low end of medium rare at about 52C after carryover, and more commonly more like 54-55C). Thanks for sharing this!
  13. New Years means mochi, so we gave this a whirl this weekend with excellent results. I soaked 2 gou in water overnight, rinsed it thoroughly, and dumped it in the rice cooker. I added water up to the 2-gou line and cooked it on the regular cycle. About 10 minutes after it was done, I transferred it to the mixer (5qt lift bowl) with the paddle and beat it on medium-high speed till it was smooth. No need for the dough hook for me. It came out a little softer than perfect (I like it a bit chewy--this was simply soft), but the $6/5lb bag will give me plenty of experiments for half of what a sheet of fresh mochi costs in the store.
  14. I had good success drying ripe poblanos in a warm oven (~150F, electric). I split and seeded them first to speed the drying. I left them in there for a couple hours, then turned the oven off and left them overnight. You can buy anchos through Amazon for $9.27/lb, shipped for free. And if you go through a lot of chipotles, you can buy 12 7oz cans for $21.41 ($1.78/can).
  15. emannths

    Frozen Keg

    TTB allows +/- 0.3% tolerance on abv statements for beer: So I guess it's possible that A-B takes advantage of this to trump up the abv of Bud Ice, but I doubt they systematically and intentionally misstate the abv.
  16. emannths

    Frozen Keg

    You can remove up to 0.5% by volume of the beer as ice. Any practical increase in the abv would be considered distillation (or concentration) under TTB rules. TTB ruling
  17. You'll sooner get people to stop making every restaurant name possessive (Panini Grill --> "Panini's") than you'll get them to get the Italian singular/plural thing right. As my college linguistics professor said, "accidents happen to vowels."
  18. My favorite way to collect and share recipes is via Google Docs. I can just copy-and-paste from recipes I get in emails or that I find online, and most of the recipes I find in cookbooks and magazines have already been transcribed by someone, so I can just copy and paste those too. Google Docs makes sharing very easy, and you can allow everyone to edit them, or choose to make them read-only, or choose to allow only select people to edit them. Additionally, you can choose to share a whole folder so that you don't have to share docs individually. It also allows easy searching so you don't really have to create an index. Google Docs can export to .doc format if you want to use MS word, but I can't help you when it comes to making a physical book. Getting consistent formatting and figuring out organization will be a tough project!
  19. emannths

    Frozen Keg

    Were you pushing CO2 or air into the keg? If you were pushing air, it'll probably be flat. If you were pushing CO2, it'll be fine once it thaws and you give the CO2 a chance to redissolve.
  20. emannths

    The Cooking Date

    Osso buco with risotto Milanese (saffron risotto) is both impressive and surprisingly easy. The hardest part is probably convincing yourself to shell out of the ingredients! The osso buco just braises in the oven, which leaves you free to make the risotto at the last minute. And it's a two pot meal (well, three if you count the broth). Braised lamb shanks with white beans is also a classic combination, and both can be cooked in the oven and held until you're ready to serve. Since both of these options are rich, I might start with a simple salad of thinly sliced fennel with olive oil and lemon and a bit of parmigiano reggiano.
  21. One that bugs me is sake being pronounced SAH-kee. Grr. Even worse is when it's actually spelled "saki". It feels like the speaker is applying some sort of linguistic stereotype, which is why it is more bothersome than a simple mispronunciation.
  22. emannths

    Popcorn at home

    Bumping an old thread here. I've been popping in my 4qt All-Clad saucepan, and I've been using my splatter screen to contain the popping kernels. It works great--it lets the steam out and allows you to see the action, and if you're a shaker (I am), you can easily hold it in place with your thumb. Btw, I'm lazy when it comes to getting seasonings to stick. I just let them fall to the bottom of the bowl and get them to stick to the tips of my fingers as I eat the popcorn.
  23. Bounty makes no statement to imply that it would be unsafe to use paper towels as a filter: If the product weren't safe for food contact, I'm sure they'd say something.
  24. emannths

    Champagne-style beer

    Thanks for the report. Just fyi, are are some beers that have some acidity to them despite the lack of fruit (in fact, some are intensely sour). The acidity comes from the lactic and other acids created by bugs like pediococcus and lactobacillus, just like in fermented pickles.
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