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Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 2)


Pontormo

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A possible stupid question about rémoulade salad dressing: Why don't they bottle it and sell it in stores?

It looks and, sort of, tastes a lot like Thousand Island salad dressing but without the diced pickles. So why don't I see it in my salad dressing aisle at the supermarket?

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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5 hours ago, robirdstx said:

The remoulade is stocked with the horseradish and tartar sauces at my grocery store.

i will have to take a look in my local grocery stores. That they would put it someplace else other than the salad dressing aisle Is odd. Maybe they consider it a condiment instead of a dressing?

 

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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35 minutes ago, Toliver said:

i will have to take a look in my local grocery stores. That they would put it someplace else other than the salad dressing aisle Is odd. Maybe they consider it a condiment instead of a dressing?

 

 I have seen it in the condiment aisle but never with the salad dressings. 

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

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It's in the condiment section here, too.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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9 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

It's in the condiment section here, too.

 Yeah I've never considered remoulade a salad dressing but then what do I know?

 

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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42 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 Yeah I've never considered remoulade a salad dressing but then what do I know?

 


Me neither. I use it on fish/seafood Po Boys and with fried green tomatoes and various other things of that nature... never had it or even seen it on a salad.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Julia Child's recipe for celery root remoulade is a classic.  I also have a recipe for fennel with remoulade.  The celery room remoulade is good for three days.  Good the first day, best the second day and still good the third day. 

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"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just boiled some fresh cranberry beans with garlic and white chilli to use later as a kind of purée. I've drained them and am looking at the boiling liquid which I reserved and which has turned a dark brown colour and smells of beans. I'm reluctant to throw it away and am left wondering if I can use it as a stock or something. Or is it just an invitation to massive fartulance?

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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Well, @liuzhou, that depends on how used your GI system is to digesting beans. People who don't eat them often or at all are quite susceptible to the "musical fruit" syndrome. I think the presence of the indigestible sugars they contain feeds a certain beneficial bacterial colonization in the gut that eases or eliminates the excess gasses eventually. It is supposed to be very healthy for us humans. Sorry it's graphic and gross, but you did ask for information.

 

We, here in the southern US, love our bean "liquor", and use cornbread to sop it up, and wouldn't dream of throwing it out. I haven't seen you depicting or describing much bean eating, so if I were you, I would be cautious. I even soak dried beans in several changes of water, and I find that helps to dissolve some of the complex sugars in them we are not designed to digest. I just bought some really nice looking speckled butter beans in a frozen form, so I may be joining the musical community soon, who knows? xD

> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

I even soak dried beans in several changes of water

 

Yes, as do I, but these were fresh beans which didn't need soaking.

 

I eat moderate amounts of beans. Mostly fresh.

 

My hummus is legendary in my circle of friends few of whom had ever eaten hummus before!

I have never particularly suffered (or forced others to suffer) any bean induced anti-social symptoms.

 

27 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

We, here in the southern US, love our bean "liquor", and use cornbread to sop it up, and wouldn't dream of throwing it out.

 

I think that's the answer I needed. Thanks.

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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  • 5 months later...

I think this is a new question.  And, boy, is it stupid.  Which is the correct way up on an angel food cake or pound cake made in a tube pan?  I mean to serve it.  Is the part that was at the bottom of the pan the top or the part that is on the top of the pan?  Does my question even make sense?

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The sides of my tube pan slant out a bit so the diameter at the top is slightly larger than the bottom. I always make the smaller diameter (the bottom in the pan) the top to serve. But that is just me and my pan.

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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero

But the library must contain cookbooks. Elaina

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I don't think there is a "supposed to" on this one. I usually serve it so that the top (when it is in the pan) remains the top when it is out of the pan. But I'd suggest that you place whichever end looks more attractive at the top. They're pretty when they're inverted because then they have sort of a bell shape, but I never inverted them. A few years ago I started baking angel food cakes in my Pullman loaf pan, and that put an end to the problem!

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I confess: I don't think I've ever seen an angel food or Bundt cake served where the widest part - the part that never contacted the pan - was up. Is that what you mean, @Kim Shook? If so, I'd love to see a picture of it when it's finished.  It sounds ... unstable-looking ... to me.  Must be a failure of imagination on my part.

 

By the way, i am delighted to see you back and posting again! :)

 

Edited to add: @cakewalk, the question goes to you, too.  I'd like to see what that looks like.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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Interesting, because I never heard of serving angel food cake with the narrower side on top until recently. I don't have photos of angel food cakes that I've made (I didn't start photographing things until recently), and most things I found on the internet showed the narrower side up, or showed slices where it was difficult to tell which side was up. But also, most narrow-side-up cakes were frosted. If you're frosting an angel food cake, it makes no sense to keep the wider side on top. (I would never even consider frosting an angel food cake.) 

 

Anyway, I thought this was interesting. She also mentions the upside-down thing.

http://pastrieslikeapro.com/2016/05/angel-food-cakes/#more-3262

 

She says, "I serve mine right side up, but I have seen it mostly upside down."

 

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Truth to tell, now that I've seen the images in that blog, I'm not sure how my mother served it!  It makes sense in some ways to have the poofy (broad) side up. My clearest memories are of slices on their sides, on dessert plates.  :) Thanks for the education.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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18 hours ago, cakewalk said:

A few years ago I started baking angel food cakes in my Pullman loaf pan

 

Yeah, and Wilton makes a straight angel food cake pan with the leg thingies. I have one.

 

My mom and grandmothers always presented round angel food cakes upside down (narrow base up.)

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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11 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

 

Yeah, and Wilton makes a straight angel food cake pan with the leg thingies. I have one.

 

My mom and grandmothers always presented round angel food cakes upside down (narrow base up.)

I've seen those, and have so far kept my temptation to buy one at bay. My main beef with those pans: there's no removable bottom. And the corners are rounded instead of squared. Okay, so that's two beefs, but they're connected. I line the bottom of my Pullman pan with baking paper before I bake, otherwise I don't think the cake would ever come out! 

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11 minutes ago, cakewalk said:

I line the bottom of my Pullman pan with baking paper before I bake, otherwise I don't think the cake would ever come out! 

 

Yeah! No doubt!

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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5 hours ago, cakewalk said:

I've seen those, and have so far kept my temptation to buy one at bay. My main beef with those pans: there's no removable bottom. And the corners are rounded instead of squared. Okay, so that's two beefs, but they're connected. I line the bottom of my Pullman pan with baking paper before I bake, otherwise I don't think the cake would ever come out! 

I have several Angel food pans with removable bottoms.  I have my grandmother's from the 1940s. WEAR-EVER ALUMINUM with a tapered center stem.  They also made a square one.  I recently saw one on ebay.

 

And I have a newer one like this.  Chicago Metallic

 

 

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"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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