Curmudgeon's Profile
Koreana Kitchen Richmond Ranch 99 ?
The Tofu soup place was not good enough to not drive to Oakland. I'm wondering if the new place is the same owners and chef as the old Tofu place. \
If not is Koreana Kitchen in WC good?
Polenta, need help making it for the first time.
In Piemonte we had polenta bianca with a creamy leak sauce on top. When we quizzed them as to what polenta is they brought out the raw stuff and said it was wheat. Actually it looked like cream of wheat. We made the dish at home and it tasted exactly the same as it did in Piemonte.
Help! Grass-fed beef
I switched to grass fed a few years ago. I'd say it cooks much more quickly!
Berkeley’s Ramen House Ryowa – A new ballgame
Could you explain why you have ranked the ramen at Tazaki Sushi as better than Ramen Rama?
Strange, weird or hidden places to eat in the Eastbay?
The one on International is not nearly as good, and and the ambiance is very poor. It has a very cold feeling. The one on Foothill makes you feel like you have a Mexican mother who will cook anything you want.
Polenta, need help making it for the first time.
I made Fannie Farmer's for the first time a couple of nights ago. It was 3/4 cup of polenta or corn meal. (I used corn meal as I was out of Polenta) 1/2 a teaspoon of salt, mixed together in a pyrex bowl with three cups cold water, and 8 minutes in the microwave. Take it out and stir it up, let sit for 5 minutes and it's done. Or you can put it back and cook it a little longer to make it thicker. She also says you can pour it in a loaf pan and let it cool to a solid form . It was delicious.
Searching for French Restaurant Serving Christmas Goose Dinner
I had goose twice in 4 days in Vienna at the end of November, both times with delicious potato dumplings. According to Sturmi on the international board, it is the traditional dish for St. Martin's day which if I remember correctly is the 11th of November and hard to find after that. But in Vienna it must have been ganseklein as they serve a 1/4 goose. When I looked at geese here they were 11 -13 pounds and frozen. Anyone know where to buy a young and never frozen goose in the bay area? And thanks for the restaurant suggestions.
Picante in Berkeley--who cares?
"but I want them in Berkeley ; )" Even better for me on Solano Ave, with no price increase.
And if my Grandmother had been a man she would have been my Grandfather
I gots me a $50 gift cert to Barnes and Noble? Best Cookbook to get?
I am pretty proficient in the kitchen, and I think the cake bible is too fetishistic. It is really for a real pro. Also I don't really like those kind of cakes, they are of no interest to me. Give me an almond pound cake over any light frilly thing. Look at it noting the complexity of the recipes and see if it's for you. I've had it since it cam out, but never use it. I wasn't being insulting. I guess I'm thinking one can't be a fine baker, and have time to do much else.
But Madeleine Kamen is an excellent suggestion! I considered her for my list, but rejected her as too advanced. But the more I I think of it she is really the most basic of all, because she gives you not only the how but the why, which makes her book essential for people who like to improvise. In many ways it is the best of them all if you want to learn to cook rather than follow a recipe. The others are recipes without explanations of why. Also I've seen it in several places on remainder for $14.95 lately.
Maida's books are great, but I wouldn't add them to my collection of 5 to 10 cookbooks. Maybe when you get to 30 it would be time to add them, but definately before the Cake Bible. They are much more accessible to a good home cook and baker.
duck confit question
Yes. You need to find a fancy restaurant meat supplier. I SF area it would be Preferred Meats. BTW I have gotten unrendered duck fat from Chinese butchers. The just pulled it out of ducks and weighed it with the legs I was buying. I'd use a flavorless oil not olive if I were doing it that way.
I just heard about a way of making confit that I had not heard of before: Set the oven for 150 degrees F bring the fat up to that temp. Slide in the room temp duck legs. Turn it up to 170 for an half hour. Then back to 150 for 5 1/2 more hours.
I gots me a $50 gift cert to Barnes and Noble? Best Cookbook to get?
If I only had those few cookbooks (I have over 1000) I would get either Fannie Farmer, Settlement House, or the Silver Palate. I would not get Marcella, Maida Heatter, and the Cake Bible is so far out of your league that you would never use it. My logic is that Joy is not very good anymore, and you need to expand on your general cooking repertoire, not make fine cakes or Northern Italian. If Fannie or Settlement House sound too old fashioned, take a look at the Silver Palate. That's what nice about my local B & N--you can go in, sit in a comfortable chair and read every book in the store if you like. Have fun and try a new recipe every week, And then have a dinner party a month. After the first year dozens of people will owe you an invitation.
making pasta - do i really need 00 flour?
No you do not need 00 flour. This is not something to fetishise over. I've made a lot of good pasta without 00, including a 48 inch circle with which to make a timpano. It is nice to add some semolina if you have it but not really necessary.
Picante in Berkeley--who cares?
So what I read from this is: order the butternut squash tamales, tostada salad, manchamanteles tostada, skirt steak carne asada, jamaica agua fresca, sopas Azteca, chicken burrito with extra rajas and cream and plenty of hot salsa because it is flavored with children in mind, and the the chicken mole burrito is good , but not the chicken mole enchiladas. And avoid anything pork, or with mole, and if I am an ethical vegetarian who likes beans and drinks lots of beer and margaritas I might enjoy breakfast. Thanks hounds-- I think I'll go to Fruitvale.
Which Potato Variety for Salad, and Why?
Which potato variety do you use for potato salad and why?
I find flaky potatoes like russets fall apart or disintegrate unless they are under cooked. I'm trying to make the kind of potato salad like they make in Germany and Austria, with a little beef broth, glossy, slightly slimy, but with out a sauce of decomposed potato mixed with the dressing. I'm sure this has to do with potato variety. My best try so far has been with Russian fingerling potatoes.
Who Stayed In and What Did You Make For NYE?
I have a cold too. I made "French Onion Soup" (what makes it French?), My wife made Dinosaur kale cooked with shallots and pancetta served on Acme Levan, and a nice ripe raw milk Camembert on pumpernickel crackers with pears. She had wine, I had "cold remedy" tea.
Which whey do I go?
Feed it to your pigs before you turn them into Proscuittos, like they do in Parma.
Hot and Sour?
At some point in my life I became absolutely convinced that one has to consume hot and sour soup when one has a cold. The last time I had a cold I tried King Tsin, China Village, and ??? on San Pablo. I wasn't really impressed with the instantaneous curative powers of any of those three, though they were delicious and obviously did get better. I'd be interested in reading hounds howlings on the best Hot and Sour soup, even if it is not an authentic style. Obviously, I'll listen more attentively if your suggestion is in Albany/N.Berkeley, but I'll note for future reference any really good ones in the bay area. Thanks in advance, and I hope it works.
Trader Joe's Meats
Wow, Chowhound comes through. TJs is so close and yet I have been avoiding their meat till these very logical explanations were posted. Thanks!
First trip to London! Where to eat?!?! (Coming from San Francisco, LA and Chicago)
No tourists at all except us and we were ther with my local cousin. I can't remember the name of the place but it was the famous place in Muswell Hill. And it was good.
Picante in Berkeley--who cares?
I went to a Christmas party where they served butternut squash tamales which seemed pretty good, so I finally went to Picante after living in the neighborhood for 2 years.
What a huge disappointment. We had the ceviche which was too sweet and was filled with a thick tomato sauce and was unlike anything you'd expect to be served in a real Mexican restaurant let alone Mexico.
And the pork tamales were pretty dull and filled with a minuscule quantity of pork much less than the quantity of pork you'd find in the cheap 12 for $10 kind you get in Oakland, and not nearly so tasty as those.
And we had the enchiladas en mole. which was white flavorless chicken breast folded into a raw tortilla and liberally drowned in a too sweet and cinnamony mole.
The beans and the salsas were pretty good.
And just as everybody says, It's cheap and you CAN take the kids there.
For myself, I'm going to try every joint in Fruitvale before I go back for that stuff.
Hot Sandwich Hunt
ah...Phillippe's... I worked at the Terminal Annex P.O. on the 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift 40 years ago when I was in college. Phillippe's was still open at 9 p.m. for "lunch." I liked the beef dip, but the pork dip was what I lived for, and on.
Bouchon Du Centre in Amsterdam-Great Find
It doesn't take credit cards And after a lot of wine I am not sure but I think it was about 100 euro for the two of us. If you go will you post the cost, please?
Napa - Venezuelan restaurant in Oxbow Public Market?
I've heard from my old Napa sources that most of the eateries won't be open until sometime in January.
Merlot Jelly - what to do?
The real question is: Is it merlot wine jelly or merlot grape jelly? Wine jelly might be better with meat or cheese, grape with peanut butter.
Timpano-Now here's an interesting dish!
One final comment: I discussed this with my wife/victim. She thinks it would be better if it was served with extra sauce on the side. I think that's a good idea. So make it 2 gallons of sauce and serve a couple quarts on the side. Whew...... BTW my recipe will easily serve 40.
Timpano-Now here's an interesting dish!
After I saw it in Big Night I decided to try it. I made up the recipe based on the movie. By far the most difficult par of it was rolling out the pasta. I was doing it for a party so I used a huge stainless steel bowl as the mold. I've made it twice and I don't think it is good enough to make again. I think the problem is similar to the problem of cooking the pasta in the soup rather than cooking them separately and adding them to the soup. The flavor gets sucked up and diminished by the filling pasta. The second time I made it I made the sauce much spicier and put in less pasta, but I felt it was still under flavored and too much pasta for the meats. The problem with adding much more sauce it that it wil soak though in the drum and weaken it. Weigh the fact that I am overly critical of my own cooking when you decide if you want to make it. Here is the recipe and the comments I made at the time:
Timpano de Monte d’Oro
(Pasta “Drum” Filled with Pasta, Sausage, and Eggs)
Traditionally a timpano is made in a straight-sided, drum-shaped casserole, but I used a very large stainless steel bowl, so my timpano was semi-spherical instead of cylindrical. To maintain your sanity, make the sauce, cook the sausage, hard-boil the eggs, and roll out the pasta the day before. Then reheat the sauce, sausage, and eggs (I nuked the latter for a few minutes) when you’re ready to assemble the timpano, so that you don’t end up with an overcooked outer skin and an inside that’s still cold.
1 ½ gallons good tomato sauce
7 pounds Italian sausage
Pam no-stick cooking spray
18 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
2 pounds ricotta
½ pound fresh spinach leaves, cleaned and dried
2 pounds penne or another shape of dry pasta
2 pounds pennette or another shape of dry pasta
2 cups grated real Parmesan cheese
Pasta dough (see recipe below)
1 egg, well beaten
1. Watch the movie Big Night and take notes.
2. Cook the sausages in a large skillet in a small amount of water. Cool and slice the sausage. Skim some of the fat from the skillet and pour the remaining fat and other juices into the tomato sauce.
3. Make the pasta dough and roll out (see recipe) into a disk large enough to line the bowl you are using as a mold and wrap completely over the top of the timpano. The bowl I used measured 16 inches across the top and 22 inches rim to rim across the bottom of the bowl. That meant I needed circle of dough 40 inches across for the lining, including a couple of inches for necessary overlap. One good tip I got was to roll the dough out the night before. (It can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated overnight.) That way if things go badly you’ll have time to make another batch.
4. The day of serving, cook the penne and pennette in boiling water and drain. Heat the sauce and sauce the pasta generously. Reheat the sausage and the eggs.
5. Preheat the oven to 350.
6. Spray the inside of the bowl thoroughly with Pam.
7. Center the rolled-out disk of pasta dough in the bowl. Press the dough gently into the bowl, molding it against the sides. (I needed at least two small folds to get it to fit.) Quickly and thoroughly drape the portion of the dough hanging over the sides, and the top two inches or so inside the bowl, with plastic wrap, so that the pasta doesn’t dry out while you fill the timpano.
8. Arrange a layer of pasta in the timpano. The pasta shapes will make a subtle pattern on the timpano shell, so if you arrange the noodles artistically the final product will look very suave. If you just dump the pasta in, as I did, the finished timpano looks a little like a giant golden-brown brain.
9. Top the layer of pasta with alternating layers of reheated sausages, pasta, Parmesan, eggs, ricotta, and spinach. Pour some remaining sauce over the top. You don’t want to make it soupy, but the sheet of pasta will absorb moisture as it bakes, so be generous.
10. Remove the plastic wrap drape. Flop the pasta dough hanging over the sides over the top of the timpano, so that it covers thoroughly. Seal with beaten egg brushed into the folds, but don’t let any egg slop into the crack between the bowl and the pasta lining. 11. Bake for 90 minutes.
12. Remove the timpano from the oven. Carefully turn the timpano upside down on a large platter or tray. (This is really a two-person job. Wear aprons and have lots of potholders ready.) If all goes well, the timpano will slip out of the bowl onto the platter.
13. Remove the bowl and let the timpano cool for 15 minutes before serving. Cut with a large knife and use a large spatula to serve. Any leftovers can be frozen.
Pasta for a Timpano
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semolina flour (see note)
10 large eggs
1. Mound the flour on a large work surface. Make a well and crack the eggs into the well. Stir the eggs into the flour with a fork. With your hands, bring it all together into a ball and knead for about 5 minutes, until smooth. (Add an egg or more flour if needed.)
2. Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes covered with plastic wrap.
3. Roll out the dough. When you have a 20-inch circle, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest again. Then roll out to the full size you need and cover it in plastic wrap till you are ready to use it.
Note: Semolina flour is available at health-food stores.
Where to buy Ammonium Carbonate?
Call The Junket in El Cerrito, or Dittmer's German Delicatessen in Mountain View. There is also a continental delicatessen in Northgate Shopping Center north of San Rafael. Any self respecting German food store should have it. I think it is called "Hartshorn Salz"
Trader Joe's Meats
I've noticed that the packages of meat at the Trader Joe's I go to in El Cerrito are slightly ballooned. I assume that this means that the meat was packed very cold and then warmed up when it was put into the refrigerator case causing the air in the carton has expand. Do you think this meat is safe to eat. Or does anyone know another explanation?
First trip to London! Where to eat?!?! (Coming from San Francisco, LA and Chicago)
I'd say eat before you go or plan on coming home broke. We spent $100 for fish and chips for 3 in May. Granted it was a good fish and chips place.
Where to buy Chickpeas / Garbanzo beans in SF?
Canned vs Dried-soaked-drained-and cooked with fresh water:
Cook them yourself and they will result in less gas. Or cook them with kombu (Japanese seaweed ) and even less gas. (Useful information which will result in it being censored as tasteless.)
