I don't know if I've ever seen fresh Anaheim chilis in NYC, though the internet seems to think they should be readily available. I bought some that I thought looked like Anaheims from the Dominican market but they rang up as Italian peppers, which are pretty bland -- but I've read so are the Anaheims. I think I've seen other similar ones which could be cubanelles.

So I'm making this dish, though with fish rather than chicken:

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipe/...

Would it be bad to roast the "possibly" Italian peppers in lieu of the Anaheims? Better to get cubanelles? I've seen poblanos suggested as a replacement and I can easily get those, but they always seem 10x spicier to me than the internet suggests they should be, and I'm a pepper hound, despite the lack of knowledge represented so far in this thread. I have dried mullatos, new mexicos (red), pullas, guajillos.

Any suggestions for how to best approach the recipe given this selection? Of course I'm modifying everything appropriate for fish rather than chicken, marination and cooking time and method, etc.

It seems some blistered fresh peppers would be ideal rather than dried, yes? Thanks!

Just for clarification, when we buy bulk grains etc., they are usually in enclosed plastic bins from which they either pour out or are scooped out. I haven't seen bulk foods much that are completely exposed to being touched, though I've seen some Mexican peppers like that, and olive bar foods. Come to think of it, we have one bulk store where the employees scoop everything out with scoops, but no one still really touches anything. I can't quite imagine what it would look like to have a completely exposed bulk box of rice, for example. So in my case I'm not worried because they're mostly protected, but even if they were open I wouldn't worry much because I wouldn't imagine people actually touching the rice etc. with their bare hands. If I often saw people doing that where I shopped I'd shop elsewhere.

I was going to say that I vote that rice cooked for the typical half hour or so in boiling temperature water should be in pretty good shape germwise after that. There are no guarantees in life though.

However, here's an article suggesting that cooking rice doesn't kill something in rice that's even independent of people touching it, so don't leave it sitting out for hours after cooking.

Google is a very entertaining friend.

http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkingh...

Worked with a pork shoulder this week for the first time, wish I'd have saved the skin to fry even if I ended up not eating it, but there's always next time. Made some fantastic chili'd pork cubes:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/20...

After making the dish, I still had a pound of pork left over to trim from the bones, presumably to freeze, which I did today. What I'm asking about are the tiny bits of pork fat with a little meat left over from trimming today's piece, might be 3/4 cup.

I was wondering if there's anything brilliant to do with it. I'm guessing I can just use it for some of the same things you'd use bacon/bacon fat for, frying potatoes, making refried beans, frying tortillas or eggs, sauteeing leafy greens. I know this because those are the kinds of threads that came up when I search for "pork fat" in home cooking.:

Am I on the right track with that? I.e., this fat is just as good to use for cooking as any bacon fat (some of it is much softer than bacon fat), and it's not a problem that there's somewhat less meat than in bacon, maybe 4:1?

Also, I saved 2 sets of pork bones with the trimmings that were too much work to cut off in the freezer, and would use them to flavor beans, bean soup, Jamaican red pea soup, etc. I don't really see a need for a specifically pork stock. I was surprised by how difficult it was to get at the remaining bits, so is it indeed normal to just leave those on the bone and boil them in soup or similar? Is it OK to do that with all the fat that's also left on the bones?

I guess maybe I know what I'm doing after all lol, I just need validation!:) And/or suggestions or cautions.

Happy Holidays!

I hale from Wisconsin originally, so on some level I know of what I speak, though I've been away for the better part of my life. As a kid a friend told me he was heating up fried cheese curds in the microwave at school, and my reply must have been "Ooooh gross". But it seems I was in the minority who did not know about the joy of cheese curds, and only figured it out much later in life, as a tourist in my home state.

I just received a holiday gift from a relative of many, many kinds of cheese, including 5 year old cheddar, and some summer sausage, and yes, cheese curds, all from a local dairy. Of course the cheese curds weren't as fresh as when we bought them in person, asking if they had indeed been delivered that morning, and one time even waiting for the truck to arrive.

They were shrink wrapped, as someone said, to preserve them, and they are quite salty. I had to test them before the partner got home (wouldn't want to disappoint her and all), and indeed, despite being shrink wrapped, no squeak at all. Tried the microwave thing. OK 30 seconds was defintely too long, though they'd make a great pizza topping. Next place, 5 seconds too short, 10 seconds, 15, hmm a little squeaky but not quite even. Next plate, 15 seconds right off the bat. Melted! Hmmm depends in part on the amount of curds on the plate.

Meanwhile the remainder were coming up to room temp and indeed getting nicely squeaky, just a little bit, but enough to make them legit. Now, I'm guesing, once they get to room temp 10 secs in the microwave ought to squeak them up a bit, but my feeling so far is that if you're microwaving, you're melting, so just be careful. Btw they're still really good a bit melty, sort of a diet fried cheese curds, if there can be such a thing.

OK I'm trying this again today. Last time I had soaked the pollack for only 5 hours or so, and tried to remove more salt by boiling it, but it fell apart too much. This time I've already soaked it for 2 days, changing the water twice a day, and I think it should work out better. While making the soup last time, II added 2 rounds of fish to half the soup, as the fish was what lent it its primary flavor, and froze the other half without adding that second round of fish, intending to do so after defrosting as I am today. It was a pretty great soup, with tomatoes and reconstituted dried pepper and beans. Today I'll add the additional fish and some dried epazote, just because I can. So yes, I believe the answer to my own question is overall it does indeed need to be soaked for at least a full day and preferably 2-3 days as is usually recommended.

Thanks for this thread. It's great to see people talking about this sort of thing. It turned up when I Yahooed "chicken curry leaves", since I too have a lot of curry leaves from the Indian grocery, which I don't usually have, and thus ordinarily avoid recipes with them.

I do cook lots of Indian (and Thai) food with whole spices and fresh herbs, in fact I made a great Thai green curry paste from scratch a couple of days ago. I also have some very authentic Indian recipe sites bookmarked (I'll share them below) , it's just that their internal search engines are very limited, hence the Yahoo.

I found out a few things that I thought might be of value to someone new finding this thread with a similar search. Sadly, it doesn't bode well for the Chicken Mangalorean recipe from Food Network, though it's a perfectly delicous-sounding preparation.

In the case of Food Network and other western sites with Indian recipes, I like to Yahoo the recipe name for comparison. There are a few chicken mangalorean recipes on indian food sites (I ignore ones from say grouprecipes.com), but they vary a great deal. Some have coconut, some don't. A decent number don't have curry leaves at all. Many use tamarind. The Food Network one doesn't.

I also found on Food Network the restaurant from which the cited chicken mangalorean recipe originated, and ironically it has closed. Bad sign? I see a few reviews violently panning it, though you know how that goes.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/surya-india-los-angeles

Anyhow, I then found a website for people from the city of Mangalore, India -- mangalorean.com - with a decent recipe section. The first link I found was for Chicken Sukka, which I haven't Yahooed for verification yet, but it sounds great and uses curry leaves, though just a few.

http://www.mangalorean.com/recipes/recipes.php?recipeid=188

I don't yet see a recipe on that site called "Mangalorean chicken" though of course they wouldn't call it that. (My SO told me a story of ordering Indian lunch with colleagues, one of whom was Indian, and someone saying to the Indian guy "We're thinking of ordering Indian food, or, as you would call it, 'food'."

That all being said, the rice recipe in this thread looks pretty good too and I'll probably make along with that Chicken Sukka, as I will be too worn out to search any more.

Some of my favorite resources for Indian recipes:

www.vahrehvah.com - he's brilliant in his videos
http://food.sify.com - the currently featured recipe is fish head curry
www.sanjeevkapoor.com - famous Indian chef

The first 2 of these include recipes submitted by readers, some of which are not specifically for Indian food (they like to cook other cuisines just as we do), but are also not necessarily good or clear so you have to watch out for that a bit. They also both have sections for recipes from experts.

PS as far as broiling yogurt-marinated chicken, my best luck is to bake the chicken first until 75% done, and then broil it for color a minute or two on each side. Broiling it from the get-go results in consistently burned chicken and 2 smoke alarms going off, fire department visiting, stuff like that.

It's been 9 years now, definitely don't eat it.:)

I love carribbeanpot.com! Made some very decent red pea soup and ground provision soup (I think he calls it something else.) Can't make decent jerk chicken under a broiler to save my life, darnit. The buljol looks good.

Yes the boiling made it fall quite apart, though that's OK for the soup. I realized it wasn't nearly enough though and got 2 more packs today, soaking from morning til late dinner time, then in in goes. Realized I won't be cooking it for hours in the soup either, duh. Well again the shopkeeper seemed to think that was OK, lol, so. Couldn't find any hits on bunjol, curious, do you have a link?

OK, so I soaked the fish for maybe 5 hours, changing the water 5 times. I then boiled it in plain water twice while I started sauting the soup veggies and then cooking the soup. The fish was not especially salty after those 2 boilings, in fact I wish I would have boiled it only once. Everything is cooking now and looks great so far. 24 hours soaking seems to be an exaggeration for using bacalao in this manner.

Yes it is pollack.

Thanks so far. I've been soaking it for 4 hours with 2 changes of water already. The water doesn't seem especxally salty now, but I don't want to rush it. It was sold in a plastic bag and was very salty on the outside, not the wooden box. I might try that test escondido, thanks.

Hey there. I'm going to make a fantastic soup with mixed beans, bacalao, mixed dried chilis roasted, soaked, blended and strained, tomatoes, and homemade veggie broth. The bacalao part was spontaneous as I was looking for something else the store was out of.

So, I saw some packages of bacalao saying to soak for 24 hours, some for 6-8. I spoke to the manager who is Dominican, and he said they don't even soak it at all for soup, just rinse it off. I figured I'd better soak it some, and while doing so, my online searches seem to be unanimous to soak it for 24 hours, even for soup -- even up to 3 days. I did see one Food Network guy saying to boil it for 10 minutes and drain and it's good to go.

Ideally I'd make this soup today, but I don't want to ruin all my other hard done preparation. So considering that I'm making soup in which the fish would be simmered for 1.5 hours, do I still need to soak it for 24 hours first with changes of water? Would it help to boil it or not? I've heard somehting about soaking salty things in milk, but maybe I'm dreaming.

So what do we know about using bacalao in soup? (It's filets, not whole) I would think the salt would just infuse into the unsalted broth, but Laylita's blog says it could cause bitterness. Thanks so much.

We purchased eggs from pastured chicken from out local farmers' market. Being not the biggest egg consumers, we hardboiled a couple of them 2 weeks later, on 2 separate occasions. The eggs were stored in the fridge.

The hardboiling method was to put the eggs in cold water and let the water come to a boil, cover the pan, remove from heat, and let sit for 15 minutes.

The eggs were then gentlhy put into an ice bath, ie water in a bowl witn a lot of ice for 10 minutes first try, 30 minutes 2nd try. The ice did not completely melt so the water should have been cold enough.

The eggs, despite being aged, were almost impossible to peel for either of us.

Thoughts?

I made some broccolini Indian style with the following recipe. I'll spare you all my tweaks, but it had food processed chili peppers rather than serranos and some grated coconut at the very end as I thought it needed another flavor level.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/brocc...

I made the first sauce on this page, with scallions and shallots instead of onions, and homemade shrimp stock instead of chicken broth. Added just a few tablespoons Pomi chopped tomatoes and chopped basil toward the end. No wine. Used milk instead of cream cuz that's what we had, and it was thick enough with the cheese, tomatoes and basil and just a couple minutes extra cooking. Oddly, we had exactly 1.75 cups of shrimp broth in the freezer so it was meant to be. Parmiagiano rather than Romano too.

Didn't think it overwhelmed the lobster ravioli at all. It was a little intense due to the butter and that it browned more than I would have liked after adding the flour, darn gas stove seems like it's on low but it's not always.

Asiago Cream Sauce

2 ounces unsalted butter
1/4 cup diced onions
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
2 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup shredded asiago cheese
1 ounce butter

In a saucepan melt 2 ounces butter. Add onions and chopped garlic. Saute over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add flour and mix thoroughly. Cook for 4 minutes, then add the chicken broth, let thicken and add the cream and reduce for 20 minutes. Add the salt, pepper and cayenne. Whisk in white wine and let simmer for another 5 minutes. Turn off the flame and whisk in the other 1 ounce of butter and asiago cheese. Cool in refrigerator.

http://www.nikibone.com/recipe/cream_...

You all might find these links interesting:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/06/the-allegations-against-hebrew-national-789.html

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/06/triangle-k-issues-statement-on-hebrew-national-class-action-lawsuit-345.html

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/fail...

One wonders, however, how it is that among a sub group of people that is supposedly so observant, that we see multiple comments on each message board by people on both sides of this issue, who are clearly lying.

I thought it worthy of note that the accusers have thus far remained entirely anonymous and have not described what kind of loss they exactly have taken, monetarily or religiously. One can conjecture, but it is necessary for them to both identify themselves and provide the details of their loss. Oddly, they have also provided no evidence other than hearsay.

I have no side in this issue but I find it surprisingly offputting the amount of deception here. It is up to the accuser to prove their claims, not the defendant to defend themselves.

In this country we all have the right to confront our accuser, and anonymous accusations without evidence are generally not the work of credible individuals.

The accuser(s) may have a point, indeed, but they are going about this all wrong. I don't think most people would be surprised to find that a huge meat company (owned by ConAgra) that specialized in hot dogs might be doing something not quite ... errr ... kosher.

Yeah I guess maybe my balsamic idea would be too sweet, that's my fear.

LOL OK, but is there some reason a bit of reduced balsamic vinegar would be a bad substitute? It's too easy just skipping, but I sure will if that's bad. Thanks for hte replies.

Cathy, I'm not vegan but that sounds like a great recipe, and you should indeed feel proud. I know it's a bit of an older post but I hope you might see that someone new to the thread appreciates it!

I'm making a mushroom sauce per the recipe below to try over some fresh manicotti from a local Italian shop. I think it might be nice to preserve the fresh taste of the manicotti and the fresh ricotta filling, rather than the traditional tomato based sauce. However, the recipe calls for a cup of dry marsala wine, and I don't want to put any kind of alcohol. I understand that many say the alcohol cooks off but I still don't want to use any. Trust, me, I'm aware the sauce won't be the same, but it could still be excellent I'm sure.

I've done a pretty exhaustive internet search for alternatives, but I'd like to hear opinions given the exact recipe I'm using.

As an aside, I wonder if it would make much difference to use the dried or fresh shiitake that we have both of on hand, rather than the dried porcini. Maybe it would even help with umami.

1) Just leave off the wine or wine substitute entirely.

2) Use balsamic vinegar, possibly reduce it or mix with agave syrup to balance out the sourness.

3) Stew some prunes or figs and strain them for a more full bodied result, possibly adding some balsamic to balance them out a bit.

4) Other suggestions? Apple cider vinegar? Apple cider itself?

I've seen suggestions to reduce grape juice but I'm pretty sure that would be too sweet. This is supposed to be a dry marsala.

I'm leaning toward using something, rather than just the homemade vegetable broth that I have. The easiest to me sounds like possibly making a balsamic reduction.

Here's the recipe. It's rather long, sorry. I can't seem delete the spaces between the ingredients to make it shorter. Whaddya think?

2½ pounds fresh mixed mushrooms, small and firm

½ ounce dried porcini, soaked in 1 1/1 cups warm water

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 sprig fresh rosemary, a tender stem about 4-inches long

1 sprig fresh sage, with 4 big leaves

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup shallots, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)

½ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

⅓ cup tomato paste

1 cup dry Marsala

freshly ground black pepper

4 cups hot turkey or vegetable broth

Prepping the Ingredients

Squeeze out the soaked porcini and slice them into pieces about 1/4-inch wide. Strain the soaking water and keep it in a warm spot.

Clean, trim and slice the fresh mushrooms into moderately thin slices, barely 1/4-inch wide.

Tie all the fresh herb sprigs together with piece of kitchen twine or enclose the leaves in cheesecloth.

Cooking the Sauce

Put the oil and butter in the big skillet (or other saucepan) and place over medium heat. When the butter melts, dump in the onions and shallots and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and stir well. Heat the onions to a slow sizzle and cook for 6 minutes or more-stirring often-until they're soft, wilted and shiny, without any browning.

Pour all the mushrooms into the pan-both the chopped porcini and sliced mushrooms-spread and toss them in the pan. Sprinkle another 1/4 teaspoon salt, drop in the herb bouquet, toss briefly, raise the heat a bit and cover the pan. Cook covered for about 3 minutes-shake the pan now and then- to sweat the mushrooms.

Uncover and continue to cook over fairly high heat, stirring frequently, as the mushrooms shrink and the liquid evaporates, 5 minutes or more. When the pan is dry and the mushrooms begin to brown, clear a hot spot, drop in the tomato paste and toast it, stirring, for a minute or so, then stir it into the mushrooms.

When everything is sizzling and browning again, and just starting to stick, pour the Marsala all over. Stir constantly as the wine thickens and evaporates. When the mushrooms again start sticking to the bottom, pour in the warm mushroom water and 2 cups of the hot stock. Bring to an active boil, stirring up any caramelization on the pan bottom. Lower the heat to keep the sauce bubbling gently all over the surface and cover the pan. Cook for about 20 minutes, occasionally stirring and adding stock to keep the mushrooms nearly covered in liquid; expect to add 1/2 cup or so. Adjust the heat to keep the perking steady but not too rapid.

Uncover the pan and cook for another 20 minutes, maintaining the simmer and adding stock as needed. When mushrooms are thoroughly tender and the saucy liquid thickened-but not too condensed-the sauce is done. Remove the herb bouquet and discard it (after you scrape off all the good sauce). Taste and add salt, if needed, and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Use the sauce immediately or let it cool. Store it in the refrigerator for a week or freeze, for use within several months.

I tend to have that effect on people lol. These really did come out as perfectly as I could want after my doctoring up. Her recipe I think was more work than necessary for the whole deal but it sounded like fun, took a couple hours somehow. She has you brown the chicken pieces and add apple cider to the recipe which make hers potentially different.

Yeah, I just wanted feedback on this recipe hence my mention of bisquick, not that there's anything wrong with it, and yes, if I were to use a mix like that I'd make it myself, it's so simple what's the point in buying it. But also, the powdered ingredients in this and other recipes I've seen are so simple I can'[t imagine really the point to making it all into a mix instead of just making it as needed.

It turned out stil fluffy with the added egg white to save it -- it was probably good I happened to have egg whites leftover so by not adding yolks it didn't make it heavy.

I'd say I'm pretty sure the dumplings were on top of the mix and didn't sink in much, though. I'm sticking with the not enough flour to water explanation.

Thanks for the great feedback jannie and everyone else. Jannie interesting what you point out about the ratio, that seems like what I'm looking for to explain the problem. Love to try that recipe you posted next time, thanks again!

OK. To the leftover dumpling mixture (less than half) I added 1-1.5 egg whites, enough flour to thicken it to a very thick consitency again, and a dash more baking powder -- what can I say I'm a cook not a baker -- strained some of the soup to get some liquid, added water to get more liquid, and made about a dozen new dumplings that are good enough for us! A little less egg white next time as they were a touch heavy, but not too much so. What a difference, however well they turned out, the idea of the original recipe is still intact for us after all our original hard work. Good night!

Hi, we tried to make this recipe of pioneer woman's tonight and it was very tasty but we ended up with dumplings that just fell apart and had no body at all -- they kind of flattened out which my partner said seemed like a binding issue. We still have 1/3 of the raw dumplings left and thought we might give it another go with those. Neither of us knows anything about dumplings whatsoever so maybe we did something wrong. Below is a link to her recipe, a copy and paste of the ingredients and directions, and what we did.

Please don't tell us just to use Bisquick like a lot of people did in her comments. We'd just like to know if there's something we could do differently to make these work better. We do have some leftover egg whites and from something else I read it might be worth trying to add some, maybe with some extra flour, to get them to hold together.

Original recipe for "chicken and dumplings" (it's really more of a soup)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/20...

Dumpling section ingredients and directions:

■Dumplings:
■1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
■½ cups Yellow Cornmeal
■1 Tablespoon (heaping) Baking Powder
■1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
■1-½ cup Half-and-half

While chicken is simmering, make the dough for the dumplings: sift together all dry ingredients, then add half-and-half, stirring gently to combine. Set aside.

Remove chicken from pot and set aside on a plate. Use two forks to remove chicken from the bone. Shred, then add chicken to the pot. Pour heavy cream into the pot and stir to combine.

Drop tablespoons of dumpling dough into the simmering pot. Add minced parsley if using. Cover pot halfway and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. Check seasonings; add salt if needed. Allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving

What we did:

We made these using fresh unbleached all-purpose flour rather than regular all-purpose.
We used brand new aluminum free baking powder.
We mixed half 2% milk and half heavy cream instead of half and half.

The dumplings sat unrefrigerated for about 15-20 mintues before adding.
The soup was at a simmer, not a boil or rolling boil when we added them.
After 15 minutes the dumplings seemed very loose and not cooked enough, so we cooked them for 15 minute more but they seemed the same. We let everything sit for 10 minutes and still the same.

They were tasty, just too soft and fall-y apart, no body, and not round at all.

Thanks for your thoughts! Again, not really looking for alternate recipes which we can do just fine, but rather how to make this one work better if possible. General dumpling tips would be OK too.

Yes, I think my original post (before I modified it) stated that I had already done a lot of research. My revised post contained only the line "The hazards of internet research". Sorry for the misunderstanding.

OK, and the answer is!: I think I had already said I found the pan was not so bumpy after all; I had simply started to hallucinate that it was after all the time I had spent trying to research my issue of the paper towel sticking to the pan when I tried to apply oil. Also, I'm not so sure the pan is cheaply made or particularly made in China lol, but maybe it is. It is clear that it is an excellent pan and my USDA prime steaks seared and baked in it wonderfully.

I decided I wanted to get Spectrum brand organic vegetable shortening, which in addition to being organic has no trans fats nor cholesterol. However, I didn't have the patience required to get to the organic store before my first use, since researching the pan was making me awfully hungry.

I solved the problem of the paper towel sticking to the pan by washing the preseasoned pan with soap and water several times to remove the preseasoning. I was then easily able to apply canola oil with waxed paper and clean up the excess with paper towel and had no problems with the towel bits sticking, which was my main initial question, though it seems to have been unclear from my post.

I have now managed to purchase the organic shortening and will season the pan with it once again and periodically. I am making some wonderful wild caught salmon tonight with cous cous and Moroccan spices (I cook mostly with whole spices that I toast and grind myself as in the recipe, and will use the cast iron pan again for this:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sa...

The lentiils will be prepared with homemade vegetable broth that I periodically prepare from frozen scraps.
That recipe has some problems but I understand how to fix them.

Thus endeth my quest, and it seems I had my own question answered before I posted but the confirmation from Ambimom was very helpful.

Sorry my original question was unclear. Looking forward to the next quest!

Oh, for those who may still find their confusion persists as to why I might want to use Crisco rather than bacon grease (which in my experience gets rancid), despite my finding the organic transfat and cholesterol free kind, since I do seem to be cooking things such as steak, the answer is that although I might eat something such as steak which has all those fats, I have no desire to needlessly add to them with the oils I use. If I want bacon, I'll cook it, but I have to desire to cook other things in bacon fat. Also, it is my understanding that shortening is highly purified and should have a much higher smoke point than bacon fat. Abientot!

lol that's what I thought too and nothing else.

I already had spent quite a bit of reading, hours actually, but had not yet found an answer to my specific question. You assume too much.