Andrew_Cookbooker's Profile
What to do with a small smoked uncooked ham?
I got a quarter of a pig just after Christmas, and have a freezer full of lovely porky bits. Today I have a small, 2 lb ham I'd like to cook, but I've never actually cooked one like this before and would love some suggestions.
It has been smoked and is uncooked. From looking through my cookbooks and online I think I might just be able to roast it at 325 degrees for an hour or so until it's at 160 degrees inside. But most recipes I find are for precooked hams (and much larger ones) and conflict on the details.
Should I cut off the skin and much of the fat (to 1/4 inch), or leave this on while it cooks?
If I leave the skin on, should I cut it in a diamond pattern?
Should I use a glaze or just let it cook by itself?
Here's the simplest suggestion I found: http://homecooking.about.com/od/pork/a/hamprep.htm
Martha also has some suggestions, including leaving the rind on: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/ham-101
Thanks!!
Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller.
Just finished dinner, and yes, it was nice. It was fussy, as I'd said - it ended up being ready about 40 minutes later than I'd planned, and there was some crazy shuffling between boiling vegetables and rolling out crust and making bechamel. But in the end I got a very nice pie. I do recommend it if you're a chicken pot pie person. But plan ahead - it's not something you whip up on a whim. Next time I'll make the pastry well in advance (even the day before maybe), precook the vegetables well in advance, then just worry about assembly when dinner time is getting near.
12 Pounds of Green Tomatoes: and we don't like Relish. Ideas?
They will ripen! We had 25 lbs of green tomatoes and I was thinking the same thing, so we did a little looking online and decided to ripen them. We put them in our basement where it's cool but not cold, and put them on trays in a single layer (important), put some old teatowels over them and left them, checking them every few days. Within a couple of weeks they started turning red, and eventually we were able to use almost all of them. It has been almost two months now and I still have a couple of pounds in the kitchen. I've made several batches of tomato sauce, as well as using them in sandwiches etc. They're not quite vine ripened, but they're better than what you'd get in our supermarkets this time of year here in the wet north. We lost a few to rot, but only a few - most were perfectly edible
Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller.
I did make the chicken on Monday night and it was gorgeous to behold. It looked like something out of a cookbook. It tasted great too - very tender and juicy. The veggies with it were pretty good, but next time I do it I'll drop the leeks as they don't seem to roast that well. I'll also scoop out some of the fat partway through - some of my veggies basically cooked in an inch of chicken fat, oil and butter and ended up a bit soggy. I'm not fat phobic, but I like my roast vegetables to be roasted fairly dry.
The leftovers point is a good one. I'm making chicken pot pie tonight with the leftover chicken. It is a bit more fussy than other chicken pot pie recipes I've made (cooking vegetables in separate pots, reducing a bechamel sauce for 40 minutes...), but my sense is it will be a notch above the normal. I'll find out in a few hours.
Alton Brown turkey brine - which kosher salt?
Oops - in all my discursion I forgot to answer the original question - thanks jpc8015. Yes, using my math, 2 gallons would take about 10oz of salt - however in Alton's recipe he also has stock, which is salted, and he brines for quite a while. So yes, one cup of Mortons should be just right.
Alton Brown turkey brine - which kosher salt?
The important thing is to go by weight when working out a ratio of salt to water in a brine. It's too bad Alton didn't give a weight or at least a type of salt, as it really can vary quite a bit. Morton is not 'saltier' than Diamond Crystal, but rather it is less dense (because it's shaped differently - flattened flakes rather than larger crystals). A cup of Diamond Crystal weighs about 5 oz. A cup of Morton weighs about 7.7 oz.
A standard brine is 1/2 cup of Diamond Crystal to 4 cups water, so about 2.5 oz per quart. There's a great master class on brining at eGullet here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/28308-brining/
Which pears are best?
There's a good roundup at the NYTimes about pears here: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/pears/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
This is linked to from a recent Mark Bittman recipe for maple pear upside down cake which I am going to cook when my anjou pears ripen a little more.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/dining/111mrex.html?ref=dining
Bread Book?
His whole grains book is very interesting - he's developed some ways to get more out of whole wheat using things like soakers and pre-ferments. The boule I made is his Whole Wheat Hearth Bread. I made a soaker last night (just flour, water and salt left out at room temperature) and also a 'Biga', some dough with a little yeast, which ferments slowly overnight in the fridge. I used half 'Red Fife', which is a heritage grain starting to get more attention here in Canada, and half regular whole-wheat flour.
Then today just a quick mix, a few minutes of kneading. 90 minutes total rising time, and baked on the stone in the oven. I let it go a little long, and it's darker than I usually make it, but still very edible. The crust gets quite nutty tasting. Here are a couple of pics.
Bread Book?
I'll third the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's what I settled on when I had the very same desire almost two years ago now. He gives you a thorough grounding on the basics and his recipes are very reliable. I had a real sense of accomplishment when I mastered some of them, and though I still have lots to learn, feel much more like a baker now. As I write this, I'm about to take a lovely whole wheat boule out of the oven, from his Whole Grain Breads book...
Father Kitchen is also very wise in his response - almost any of the good baking books will make a good guide. I recommend picking one to start and working your way through a good number of the recipes until you get a feel for the dough, for kneading, for technique. Then branch out all over the place!
Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller.
I picked it up last week. I agree that it's a bit unwieldy - it's a coffee-table sized book, and not exactly handy for propping up in the kitchen as you cook. It's also not something for casual cooking; most of the recipes require a certain amount of planning and prep. That said, it's also not one of those restaurant cookbooks that requires you to spend two days reducing a lobster stock to add a tablespoon to a sauce - it seems designed to bridge the gap between regular home-cooking cookbooks and fancy restaurant cookbooks.
I agree with bushwickgirl's paraphrasing - it seems as if it will help make me a better cook if I go through it and really try to up my techniques. Though it I'm not sure it will get as much use as something like Bittman's How to Cook Everything...
He does go a bit heavy on the salt, which seems to be common in restaurant-inspired dishes. I'm going to cut back a bit as I'm don't like highly salted food.
Otherwise, it does look promising. I made the brined pork tenderloin a few nights ago and my wife called it a 'taste explosion'. I've got a nice free-run chicken in the fridge waiting for his roast chicken and root vegetable recipe for Monday night. I'll be reviewing these on my own recipe review website, but I can also pop back here and update on the chicken.
What percentage of your cookbooks have you actually cooked from?
I have two that really knocked my socks off. I haven't baked a bad loaf from the book (well, I did have some sourdough problems, but that was me, not the book), but these two stand out in particular:
1. Pain a l'Ancienne. This makes the best baguettes I've ever tasted, and it's really simple - all the fermentation is done in the fridge overnight. You do need a baking stone and some fancy action with a spray bottle when baking, but that's it.
2. Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire: This makes conventional loaves, in loaf pans - no stone required. It makes fantastic toast and sandwich bread - slightly sweet and chewy, and quite adaptable to any grains you have lying around. I normally use bran, oats and coarse cornmeal, which is all soaked overnight.
Mmmm - I'm going to have to bake some this weekend now.
What percentage of your cookbooks have you actually cooked from?
I've got about 100 cookbooks and food magazines. Some of the ones I've received as gifts I haven't cooked from, but I try hard to cook at least a few recipes from each one. If I find one that seems particularly reliable, I do make an effort to try to explore them, but yes, I think like most people cookbooks are like icebergs - 90% 'underwater' (untried).
I have been trying to cook my way through a cookbook - the Bread Baker's Apprentice, but I doubt I'll be able to do all of the recipes. Some recipes you just don't want to try!
Beloved Cookbooks
We inherited the TIme/Life "Cooking of the British Isles" not long ago from a relative. My first thought was that it would be good fun to look through the pages, not expecting much, but as carbonaraboy says, they're actually quite excellent. The writing is great - this one has a series of set-pieces; stories really, illuminating aspects of British cooking in context with British cultural and family life, and the recipes are a snapshot of traditional food from the UK.
Now, for actual everyday cookbooks we have and love, my family has sworn by a Canadian series "Fare for Friends" and "Good Friends". They were published and sold well in the 80s in support of a women's shelter, and ended up being blurbed by Oprah, among others. They seem to have been very well tested, as a lot of family faves came from them, with no duds that I can remember.
yikes! Did I just screw up my dinner?
The only thing I ever find in lentils are very small rocks - usually I find one every so often when I check a batch. I'd presume if there was a rock it would be at the bottom of the pot, and you could just look through it after as Normandie said. I've never had any other sort of issues - you're not rinsing off anything that will affect the taste when you rinse them (unlike Quinoa, for example)
What are your tried and true favorites from Epicurious.com
I have to add this one: Raspberry, Rhubarb and Pear pie. It's a slightly unusual mix of fruits, and something about the combination of these, plus the healthy amount of orange zest, produces a simply fabulous pie. I'm amazed this one only has 12 reviews, as it's really a stunner.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Raspberry-Rhubarb-and-Pear-Pies-1730
Chocolate dessert
Those New York Times chocolate chip cookies with fleur de sel that people were buzzing about last year are quite easy to do and memorable tasting. I've surprised a few people who thought they were run-of-the-mill cookies. The salt really adds something...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/091crex.html?_r=1
what to do with pumpkin seeds
We just had some great pumpkin seed rye bread - they make a great topping for the bread, though they do have a tendency to fall all over the plate when you're eating it...
Recipe here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2009/08/05/pumpkin-seed-bread/
Any suggestion for a vegetarian appetizer that's easy to transport and won't need to be reheated?
There are lots of great veggie tarts out there served cold - I've done a nice one with caramelized onion and gruyere which has been a hit. And it's not much harder to do tiny individual tarts than it is to do one big one.
Classic Cookbooks around the world?
Oh dear, I can feel my wallet tingling already. I may come to regret this question. That's the fanciest cookbook website page I've ever seen!
Classic Cookbooks around the world?
It seems that there are a few classic cookbooks that almost everyone who cooks seems to have; I'm not talking about the fancy ones, but rather the workhorses of the kitchen: Joy of Cooking, How to Cook Everything, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook perhaps (my mom gave me that one when I went off to University so I wouldn't burn the water..).
I'm curious about similar ones from other parts of the world - anyone know what the comparable titles are in Australia/NZ or in the UK? Italy? Elsewhere?
Pasta Fagioli
My wife makes a version with kidney beans, spinach, carrot and potato which is quite nice - from the Canadian Living Cookbook 'Best Vegetarian Dishes', for those Canucks who can get it. Ah, just found the recipe online here: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/pasta_e_fagioli.php - we've never made it with Black forest Ham though; even if this is something you have at hand, it doesn't feel terribly Italian!
