Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 2)

[mskerr]

mskerr, re: no. 3: Martin's potato flour hamburger rolls:

I've looked for these at a few supermarkets but no luck! Is it more of an east coast thing? Or do I just live in the boonies?

[mskerr]

I buy the oblong buns that are made for heartier sandwiches like French dip or "po boys" etc., And I shape the burgers the same way.

Maybe I am hung-up the usual round burger shape. It makes sense to just get the best roll for the job and work around that, huh?

[patrickamory]

It could be an East Coast thing

[gfweb]

Martins are, I believe, a PA thing that penetrates NYC and a few other places. I bet you could get them on the web. They ought to ship well. For me they are the ne plus ultra of burger rolls.

[cookforme28]

What is the easiest way to braise meet? Lets say a pork roast just to give an example?

[patrickamory]

In the absence of Martin's, I think perhaps Pepperidge Farm burger rolls might work?

And James Beard always extolled the virtues of a buttered English muffin... works surprisingly well, if not exactly the same effect! It certainly does not fall to pieces

[Mjx]

What is the easiest way to braise meet? Lets say a pork roast just to give an example?

My SOP:

Assemble and prep. all the stuff that's going into the pot (meat, vegetables, herbs, spices, booze, etc.)

Preheat the oven to 125C/255F, and briefly heat a Dutch oven or other heavy, lidded pot/pan (I sometimes use a big heavy saute pan) over medium.

Brown any root vegetables and onions, adding garlic (if you're using it) right at the end, so it gets about a minute; remove to a bowl.

Turn the temperature up to medium high, and brown the meat.

Kill heat, and add the vegetable back to the pot, then add herbs and spices.

Mix this a bit, then add broth to about halfway up the meat; I add booze at this point, a splash of rum, vodka or akvavit, or a glass of sherry or port.

Scrape the fond from the bottom, put the lid on, and put the the pot in the oven.

I check every hour or so, to see that the liquid level hasn't dropped significantly.

Depending on the thickness of the meat, it may be ready at any time between 1.5 and 5 hours. Something like pork shoulder I'd give at least 3 hours.

I don't use a thermometer, since the temperature won't tell you how tender the meat is (and my sister still hasn't got around to sending over my Thermapen).

Once the meat has reached the consistency you want, you can finish it in the oven, removing the lid and letting the heat and dry air reduce the cooking liquid and brown the meat (turn the heat up, and keep a close eye on progress).

You can also take the meat out of the oven, and do your reduction on the stovetop.

Once you get the hang of it, you can figure on half an hour of preliminary work, then the oven does the rest.

[mskerr]

And James Beard always extolled the virtues of a buttered English muffin... works surprisingly well, if not exactly the same effect! It certainly does not fall to pieces

The english muffin seems to be a debate in the burger community. (But then, what isn't debated?) Lots of places use it -Prune comes to mind - but I've also heard at least one chef say "hey! A muffin is not a bun!" It definitely works though, and usually makes me want to add canadian bacon and a fried egg to my burger. Yum.

[Darienne]

We are not great burger eaters but eat them at our Annual Dog Weekend. Last year we tried a bun which is available in Costco (Canada). One Bun from Pita Break from Toronto, ON. Don't know if they are available in the US. (They are not pitas.)

OK They are made by Ozery Bakery in the States. Right and Costco in the USA carries them.

Try them. You'll like them.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Darienne (log)

[patrickamory]

Thanks for the braising summary Mjx - I plan to try your MO next time out.

[mskerr]

How widely is tourneeing used, and what is the point? Is it just for visual appeal? For uniformity when cooking?

I never do it at home, as to me it seems a bit wasteful, cutting off perfectly good pieces of ingredients...

[Twyst]

Not widely used at all. Its extremely time consuming and produces a ton of scrap. The only places I really still see it are places that strive to be really classic french. It's strictly for visual appeal, an even dice will do just as good a job of assuring even cooking.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Twyst (log)

[KaffeeKlatsch]

It's also used, for some odd reason, in high school level culinary arts competitions.

[gfweb]

Tonight I poached some Scottish salmon filets on a bed of mirepoix. Just barely simmering...as I've done many times...but this time the filets sweated off some albumin as they cooked. They were cooked perfectly (just a little rare in the center..~108 F) but didn't look perfect with that scum in spots

What happened? Did it get hot too quickly?

[nickrey]

Don't know what caused it but the same thing happens in sous vide cooking. The recommendation for stopping it involves brining the salmon before cooking.

[gfweb]

Hmmm. I seem to recall a Top Chef cook who had albumin on his/her salmon a few seasons back. Fortunately I was not asked to pack my knives etc by my wife.

[MSRadell]

What is the difference between all-meat Texas chili and Chili con carne? Is there any?

Texas, especially for competition is very smooth, with no chunks of anything in it other than the meat. Chili con carne on the other hand, is chunkier in most cases (doesn't have to be) and can contain beans.

[Toliver]

A possibly stupid question about vanilla extract....

 

I recently made two different recipes, both using vanilla extract. One recipe turned out well. The other did not,

The vanilla I used was from a Costco bottle of vanilla extract that I've had for quite some time. It looks great and smells like vanilla should.

The first recipe I made using the vanilla was a batch of chocolate chip-type cookies. There was no problem with the cookies...they tasted great.

The second recipe (a sweet dip for graham crackers or fruit) using the same vanilla extract, when finished, it reeked of alcohol. The second recipe was basically cream cheese mixed with some vanilla extract, a little sour cream and then some powdered sugar (and a couple of other ingredients). People kept asking me if I had added Kahlua to the dip because of the strong alcohol-y taste of the dip.

My question is regarding the second recipe, did the vanilla extract somehow bond with the cream cheese/sour cream instead of dissipating evenly into the mixture and so the taste of the alcohol was prominent? If I had mixed the extract into the powdered sugar and then added that to the cream cheese/sour cream, would that have solved the problem of the too alcohol-y dip?

 

 

[Smithy]

That's a heck of a good question, Toliver, and I don't think I'd call it 'absurdly, stupidly basic' - which is to say, I don't know the answer.     My guess is that baking the cookies might drive off enough of the alcohol to eliminate that odor / flavor, whereas your dip was (I assume) neither cooked nor even served warm.  There may also be a certain amount of evaporation that occurs when cookie dough batter is mixed and aerated, that wouldn't happen with the creamy elements of the dip.  Whether mixing the extract with powdered sugar first would have helped seems unlikely, but not impossible.  

 

I'll be interested to see what others have to say!

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I dunno, Toliver.

 

Sometimes with all the other flavors going on in baked goods, lame vanilla can be masked.

 

I bought a 4 oz. bottle of "pure" vanilla "flavor" from Trader Joe's, which is usually a trusted source. When I opened it, it smelled like not much of anything and not good, and not a damned thing else. It's not labeled "extract". Now that I notice it, it's labeled "alcohol free".

 

The ingredients are: glycerine (yum  ), water, sugar cane, vanilla bean extractives.

 

I get much better vanilla extract from my dollar store.

 

I need to take this rip off back.

 

I've not used any of this dubious crap i bought.

[Maedl]

Alcohol evaporates when exposed to heat, so baking the cookies resulted in muting the flavor. The dip, I assume, was not cooked, so the alcohol flavor was more pronounced.

That said, I believe the alcohol content in vanilla is something around 35%, so even if you used a teaspoon of extract, you didn't have all that much alcohol in the dip.

And finally, even when alcohol is cooked, some can still remain--but in something like a cookie, I can't imagine that you'd notice it.

[Anna N]

I dunno, Toliver.

 

Sometimes with all the other flavors going on in baked goods, lame vanilla can be masked.

 

I bought a 4 oz. bottle of "pure" vanilla "flavor" from Trader Joe's, which is usually a trusted source. When I opened it, it smelled like not much of anything and not good, and not a damned thing else. It's not labeled "extract". Now that I notice it, it's labeled "alcohol free".

 

The ingredients are: glycerine (yum  ), water, sugar cane, vanilla bean extractives.

 

I get much better vanilla extract from my dollar store.

 

I need to take this rip off back.

 

I've not used any of this dubious crap i bought.

While alcohol is the most efficient way of extracting the flavor from vanilla beans there are millions of people for whom alcohol is forbidden for religious or other reasons. An alcohol-free vanilla flavor is the best they can hope for. So for those of us who are not alcohol adverse we can use the best flavored vanilla product but what is crap to us can be important for others.

[Maedl]

For an alcohol-free vanilla flavor, you can use vanilla bean--you don't have to use something that doesn't taste good. If the bean is too expensive, you can use it to flavor salt or sugar, which then substitutes for exteact.

[Toliver]

Thanks, everyone, for chiming in. It has never really happened to me before.

For an alcohol-free vanilla flavor, you can use vanilla bean--you don't have to use something that doesn't taste good. If the bean is too expensive, you can use it to flavor salt or sugar, which then substitutes for exteact.

An interesting solution...sans a(n alcoholic) solution. 

Does anyone know how much of a normal vanilla bean translates to measured extract? Swapping out bean for the extract would be an easy substitution and answer for the alcohol problem.

[Maedl]

I would start out with scraping the seeds out of half a vanilla bean--unless you want a strong flavor, in which case, I’d use the whole pod. But I like a trace of vanilla, not a heavy dose.

 

And save the pod! Break it up and stick it in a small jar of sugar or salt, leave it for a month and you’ll have additional vanilla flavor.