Caroline1's Profile
what to serve with baked beans
hmmmm,,, I've been thinking about this. All of the things I've mentioned above are good, but... the truly best thing with baked beans is barbecued beef ribs. Well, not really truly barbecued. The kind of beef ribs that are boiled until the meat shrinks away from the bones, then laid out in a roasting pan and slathered with gobs of gooey delicious made from scratch barbecue sauce (preferably mine), then roasted in the oven until they start developing charred splotches over them. The kind of "barbecued" ribs that, no matter how daintily you eat them, manage to smear sauce all over your face! With really great baked beans and some wonderfully sweet-tart cole slaw with just a hint of cardamom, and some great hot bread to wipe the barbecue sauce off your chin. Maybe a really nice glass of beer to wash it down. THAT's what goes with baked beans! I'm hungry.
Just for fun: the self-stirring pot!
Yup. Anyone who would trust convection currents in a curly sided pan to stir a stew doesn't know anything about cooking! '-)
Just for fun: the self-stirring pot!
Intersting, but I wouldn't trust it for a risotto! But I do trust my StirChef for risotto. Unfortunately, they no longer make them. Rats!
What did you have for breakfast today?
A very lazy breakfast today. Scratch buttermilk-cheddar-bacon drop biscuits with strawberry jam and mugs of Douwe Egbert espresso. I couldn't eat just one. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow. SURE I will! When pigs fly. '-)
Mail Order Ingredients
When you shop amazon.com, it's always helpful to include "free shipping" in your search. For instance, if you're looking for cheese, enter "cheese free shipping." The minimum is $25.00 for most free shipping, but shipping charges can run more than what you're buying if you're not careful. I'm crossing my fingers that coakes is moving someplace where free shipping is offered! I do a LOT of shopping with amazon.com. No driving, no parking, no hassle, no sales tax, and all I have to do is open the box!
The Trouble with Truffles...
Thanks! I'll put the white truffle money in the airfare-to-Italy kitty! '-)
The Trouble with Truffles...
Yes, but I have no problem with synthetics * IF* they accurately duplicate the original AND do me no harm from consuming them. '-)
Keller and Aduriz's Controversial Comments
MGZ, I would probably take your remarks more seriously if it was less obvious that you've made up your mind and not about to give serious thought to other views. That said, I have a problem with your use of the word "notoriety" in regard to Thomas Keller. That word has a negative connotation where I come from, that I don't think applies here. In case you're unaware of this, dictionary.com gives these synonyms for "notoriety": Synonyms 1. disrepute, ill-repute, shame, infamy. In my book, none of those apply to Keller. It's a language thing!
The Trouble with Truffles...
Oooooh... Truffle cheese. Now you've done it! Thanks. I've never tried white truffles. I'll pick some up.
The Trouble with Truffles...
The fungus kind, not the chocolate kind. The first problem with them is they're so damned expensive, AND so damned addictive! I LOVE them! I cannot afford them! But maybe the rules of horseshoes can work in the world of food? Let's shoot for "close."
Canned truffles are a big problem. The very act of preserving them with heat greatly diminishes their flavor and aroma. Bummer. Fresh truffles are seasonal, not to mention pricey, and shipping can be "iffy." So that leaves truffle salts and truffle oils. And I didn't know a thing about either when I started down this path. I did read all I could lay my eyes on, but that's not the same as trying things out first hand. So I set about giving them both a shot.
Truffle oils are a little scary, depending on who and what you read. Some say, ooh, they're made with the "essence" of truffles, and not "real" truffles. Well, for the life of me, I can't figure out what that means. To me, the "essence" of something is a concentration of all that is good about it, so what could be wrong with essence of truffle? Darned if I know! For me, the greater problem comes with the type of oil that is infused with the truffle essence or flavor. I don't think a highly flavorful olive oil makes a whole lot of sense. So a neutral oil is probably the best choice, I would think. After lots and lots of reading, I went with an oil from Truffle Hunter, in the UK. It's a family run business, and they write like they know what they're talking about. I bought 100ml of their English Truffle Oil. Hey, they don't offer any French Perigord truffle oil, so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. I considered a couple of other truffle oils, but a bad review or two on amazon.com pushed me this direction. I'll get back to this later.
Truffle salt is fairly straight forward. Small bits of truffle are mixed in with salt and the aroma and flavor bloom. I wish I could find a source to buy the small bits of dried truffle they put in the salt because logic says that would give me a way to concentrate more truffle flavor without adding more salt, but alas, I haven't found a source. So based on that, it is obvious that using a less salty salt is the better way to fly. So far, I have bought three different truffle salts. One was from WorldSpice, a spice source I am extremely fond of and the source for most of my spice needs, but they dropped the ball on this one. Seriously! The salt is way too salty. Fine table salt. And the truffles are way too un-truffley. I tasted it and gave it away, with instructions that if the friend doesn't like it, toss it! The other two truffle salts I've bought are Fusion brand truffled sea salt, and Dalla Terra, They are both products of Italy (French truffle salt is extremely difficult to find for some reason), and the Fusion only says "black truffle," while the Dalla Terra says "black summer truffle." The general consensus is that winter truffles are far superior to summer truffles, but once again, if they're available on the market, I couldn't find them!
So now to my point. My personal opinion is that truffle oil is not worth bothering with. I might give it one more shot with another brand, but I am not at all impressed with my experience so far. The flavor is easily lost, as is the case with many "finishing oils" in my experience. They tend to be easily washed away or overcome by other ingredients, so I'm not holding a lot of hope of finding any truffle magic in that direction.
Truffle salt is another matter. In my experience they are superior to bottled or jarred truffles simply because they retain and give off more of the truffle "vitality" that is so lacking in canned truffles. Of the two brands I have used, both are good, but the Dalla Terra is the best of the two. And that was a bit of a surprise because upon opening the jar and examining it, the salt grains were much finer than the Fusion salt, and I assumed it would mean it would be saltier and less "truffley." Boy, was I wrong! It is pungent, and it will let you know that truffles are present! Or at the very least, the spirit of truffles. I have found that adding it to a simple button mushroom duxelle really expands the illusion of rich full truffle experience. Hey, a few lies from the kitchen never hurt anyone! Well, let's just call them "illusions," not lies. Okay?
And just for the record, I also found out a bit more about my personal preferences for steak while investigating truffle oil versus truffle salt. I sous vied a couple of tenderloins at 56C for around 4 hours, then used a torch to char one and seared the other in a cast iron pan. Somehow, I had never gotten around to testing those two methods of finishing a sous vide steak side by side for comparison before now. What I learned was that, in my experience, the pan searing toughened the steak while the torch searing left it nice and tender, plus it adds more flavor than the cast iron pan could come up with. I used truffle oil on parts of each steak, and truffle salt on the others. Truffle salt rules!
With the possible exceptions of strawberries and other fresh fruits, I can't think of much that a little truffle salt won't make better. I just can't make up my mind if I want to try it on strawberries.... hmmm.... Probably not. But hey, for a fried egg sandwich that makes your taste buds dance, try frying the egg in rendered beef fat, then sprinkling it with a dash of truffle salt, put it on some thick sliced sour dough bread with a light touch of aioli and you've got lunch..! It's really nice to know I can enjoy the rich aromatic experience of truffles any time I like, and no longer have to wait for fancy holiday dinners. Not only that, now I get better truffle flavor than I ever got from jars of imported and expensive truffles. Life is good! '-)
Do French people drink foreign wines?
Well, if Frenchmen don't drink imported wines, they at least serve them to tourists. My brother and sister-in-law took a weekend side trip to Paris, while in England visiting their daughter. They wanted the tour that would do Notre Dame, but got stuck with Versailles because it was full. The tour guide took them to a small bistro for lunch. The wine (by the glass) tasted vaguely familiar, so my brother asked if it was imported. "I think so, but let me ask for you." The waiter disappeared, then returned grinning ear to ear, "Yes, sir. It is imported. It's Gallo, from California!" Vive la France. '-)
Keller and Aduriz's Controversial Comments
I do appreciate your passion on the subject, but for me there is a reality I have to face. Your voice and mine can and will be heard by some others, but will they be heard by people/entities that are powerful enough to initiate change? I don't think so. IMO, the ONLY thing that will change how food in America is cultivated, harvested, and transported to market is the corporate bottom line. Talk to those people! Surprisingly (or not), Walmart is one of the most aware-of-consumer-wants companies in the country. After years of abominable beef, they are now offering USDA Choice. They won't count me as a customer until it's USDA Choice grass fed, but until then, I'm sure they will do just fine without me.
I find the irritation with Thomas Keller perplexing. Or maybe it's a case of people liking to take a poke at the giants. Fact of the matter is that while Keller may not talk the talk as much as some would like him to, he damned sure walks the walk, and then some! Wherever humanly possibly, he grows his own produce just outside the kitchen door of his restaurants. It's not at all unusual for diners in his restaurants to eat food that was attached firmly to a plant with roots in the ground hours before they put it in their mouths. When he need items that are not available locally, he researches the best before "planting a carbon footprint" to bring in less than the best possible. He strives to do it right the first time, He leads by EXAMPLE. What could be better than that? I'll take one Thomas Keller over a dozen Alice Waters. But that's me. I'm sure there are some who disagree.
If you are invited over to friends' home for dinner...
You are a SAINT! Which provokes but one question: WHY? Those people are beyond tolerable.
New thread for discontinued products
I suspect you're buying Oroweat HONEY Wheatberry. Not the same animal. Pity, because if it was I'm be a happy camper! The Honey Wheatberry is much lighter in texture and just not even close to the original Wheatberry. But thanks for trying to offer hope! '-)
New thread for discontinued products
Tell me more! Who sells the flour? Recipe? I'm picking up two pounds of braunschweiger. Party time! Wanna come? '-)
New thread for discontinued products
Actually, the paper was a substitute for the traditional corn husk wrapping. I always suspected that real corn husks would be tenderized and rehydrated by the canning process but stil not be delicious. Licking the paper was always a secret pleasure. Probably why I never shared them with friends or family. I mean, there are some things you just don't do in front of children!
New thread for discontinued products
Funny you should ask! It's a loss that for whatever esoteric reason has been bugging the hell out of me again lately. Does anyone else still remember Oroweat's Wheatberry bread? It was a densely textured, toothsome, and moistly delicious brown bread. The loaf itself was compact. The last time I bought it -- with no thought of it EVER becoming just a memory -- must be creeping toward a decade ago, if not more? As I recall, it was becoming ridiculously expensive for a single compact loaf of dense brown bread. But without it, it is impossible for me to make a decent braunschweiger sandwich: Wheatberry bread, Hellmann's mayonnaise, thickly sliced brraunschweiger, a thick slice of vine ripened beefsteak tomato and butter lettuce. For me it was one of those timeless inseparables that ranked right up there with peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, cheese and crackers. My god, I miss braunshweiger on Wheatberry! I am hopelessly deprived!
A Historical Solution to Cast Iron Hotspotting?
I hope this is my last post on the subject! But first, have either of you looked at the photos (all of them!) of the pan that are up on eBay? I'm attaching the one that forced me to the conjectures I have posted here. Maybe a picture *IS* worth a thousand words. But meantime, I say this with all love and respect, but neither of you guys would make a good archaeologist because you carry too many "here and now" biases. The photos on eBay look like they were taken with a cell phone. Or by a bad photographer. They are less than "pristine." I've tried to clean up this enlargement of what I'm talking about by photoshopping it a bit. See the air between the trivet and the pan bottom at the top of the photo? I have now spent more time on the subject than the subject warrants. I have NO self control!!! '-)
Keller and Aduriz's Controversial Comments
I agree except that there ARE circles in this country and the rest of the world where the CEOs of Bugatti and Ferrari are a LOT more familiar than Keller and Aduriz. I just doubt that any of those people are participants in Chowhound. '-)
Keller and Aduriz's Controversial Comments
Write your congressman! That will have a LOT more impact than either of these gentlemen using only and exclusively "locally sourced" products in their kitchens.
I just re-read the NYT article interviewing Keller and Aduriz. I still see no conflict in what they say. According to Restaurant magazine's compilation of tippety top most elite chefs in the entire world, these two guys rank number 3 and number six, respectively. NEITHER of them says that they don't believe something should be done about global warming and/or the other problems associated with food consumed by humans in today's world. They simply said that they don't believe such a campaign is appropriate to their function as extremely elite once in a lifetime restaurant owner chefs. I don't have a problem with that, nor do I find it in conflict with what Mark Bittman is saying.
So let me pose another question: If the NYT did an interview with the CEOs of Bugatti and Ferarri, and they said they aren't in the business of developing economy cars that get 100 miles to the gallon, would anyone here be upset? I wouldn't because my chances of ever buying a 2.6 million dollar Bugatti Veyron Sport, or a two-plus million dollar Ferrari 599XX are not good. Not good at all. And the same holds true for me dining at Per Se or Mugaritz. Which does not mean I don't appreciate both and understand their place in the overall scheme of things i just don't expect a homogenized world where apples and oranges look and taste the same. No, thanks! '-)
A Historical Solution to Cast Iron Hotspotting?
Why do you keep thinking that things like the size of the trivet holes in a wood stove were standardized in the 19th century? Keep this in mind: Using non-standard sized trivet holes in a wood burning stove made that stove PROPRIETARY! If you lost or broke a trivet, you had to come back to them to buy a replacement. This has been common practice through the ages. I'm currently waiting for a latch for my dishwasher because there is no universal one-latch-fits-all-dishwashers. Can you buy a standard knob for ANY brand of gas or electric stove today? I don't think so! Making your product unique enough to require customers to come back to you for parts is not an unusual practice. Even in the 19th Century. '-)
A Historical Solution to Cast Iron Hotspotting?
I really thought I had explained it, but obv iously not! '-)
Okay. You have this hot fire raging inside the wood stove. You have trivets on the top of it that can be lifted off. Also, the entire top of the stove is, in most cases, also cast iron of the same thickness as the trivets or better. You following me?
Remove ONE trivet and set it aside and you change the whole convection/thermal flow of the fire chamber by providing a more direct vent that will produce more heat under a pan THEORETICALLY.
Cover the trivet hole with a pan that is big enough not to fall through the hole and you are (once again) closing off the draft dynamics of the hole and the heat level for the pan isn't going to be much better than just using a carbon steel pan on the trivet when it is in place.
BUTTTT.... Replace the original trivet with a VENTED trivet (the holes around the edges of the trivet attached to the pan) and you keep the thermal flow pattern of having the open trivet hole AND have a pan that won't limit that advantage by completely blocking the hole the original trivet normally occupies.
I'm too lazy to draw a picture and attach it...
Condiments That Do and Do Not Need Refrigeration
Justpaula, I don't (yet) have any first hand experience with truffle oil (I'm still researching), but in my experience ALL cooking/finishing oils can go bad, so it sounds like you did the right thing by disposing of that particular bottle of truffle oil. Or maybe, if you hand't had it longer than six months, you might have gotten your money back.
I do use truffle salt, and am still in the process of buying/tasting various brands in search of convincing truffle flavor without too much saltiness. Canned truffles are a poor duplication of the aroma of real fresh truffles simply because the canning process kills much of the original aroma. Of the truffle salts I've tried so far, "Fusion" brand black truffle salt comes closest to the aroma of fresh truffles, but not 100%. I'm wishing I could find a source to buy the small bits of truffles that are in most truffle salt, but I don't know whether they are using minced fresh truffles and letting the salt's desiccant qualities turn them into dehydrated bits or if there is a source to buy unsalted freeze dried bits of genuine truffles. I'm searching! I'm searching! '-)
Keller and Aduriz's Controversial Comments
Maybe I missed something, but I did not read in a "not our problem" attitude from Keller and Aduriz as much as I took them to be addressing the specific aspects of how to source "the very best" for the world's very best restaurants. I don't think either of them were advocating ANYTHING for cooks or chefs in any niche other than the exclusive niche in which they function.
A Historical Solution to Cast Iron Hotspotting?
I do not believe that all wood burning stoves had only 8 inch removable trivets. My great grandmother's wood burning stove, as I recall (she died before I started school but I remember her and her kitchen vividly) had at least two different size trivets, if not three.
A Historical Solution to Cast Iron Hotspotting?
Kaleo says: “Sorry Car, but I'm not tracking your edit epiphany. How do trivet and pan together make for "hotter and faster"? On a woodstove, all a trivet (even one that allows air circulation twixt pan and trivet) can do is slow and cool down cooking. If the maker wanted hottest and fastest, they'd have put on a simple circular flange that suspended the pan's bare bottom directly over the firebox, don't you think?”
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Sugarplum, you OBVIOUSLY have not had to deal with many wood stoves in your young life! ‘-)
First, do not think that the usual wood burning stove of 1833 was some sort of “fancy” console with an oven? The “oven” was a Dutch oven when baking was done, OR richer folks may have had brick and mortar “wall ovens” built into their kitchens. For families without servants (and possibly some with) cooking was done on a “wood stove” that primarily functioned as a space heater and secondarily as a cook-top, with one or more (I’ve seen up to four) cast iron “trivets” that could be removed by using a “handle” that fit into an inset in the trivet to move it aside for purposes that ranged from adding more wood (instead of opening the fire chamber door on the front of the stove) to allowing more direct heat for a cooking vessel.
On the model fry pan you offer on eBay, the ring of vents around the outside of the attached trivet would allow a fry pan placed directly over the opening in place of the solid cast iron trivet that was original equipment with the stove to pull a stronger draft from the fire chamber, thereby allowing for higher temperature frying than could be attained by a solid pan placed directly over (and completely covering) the trivet opening. A pan that did not entirely cover the hole would fall through!
We need to all keep in mind that in 1833, there was NO central heating in most homes, and nearly every room in houses of that era had a fireplace to heat it, including “parlors”, dining rooms, bedrooms, and most other rooms. The heat source for the common man’s kitchen was the dual purpose (no oven) space heater/stove that ALWAYS had a kettle boiling away on top of it to add humidity to the room to compensate for the moisture loss that free-standing hot-all-over wood stoves caused (that fireplaces do not). This type of wood burning stove was used in even the most humble one room houses. It was the most utilitarian multi-use “large appliance” found in homes for centuries. The pan you've found is a pretty damned smart innovation!
