babette feasts's Profile
Coterie Room or Quinn's Early Sunday Dinner
What day of the week was that? I was there Tuesday around 5:30 and there was no wait at all. Of course Sunday after the farmers market might be a different story.
Coterie Room or Quinn's Early Sunday Dinner
I'd say Quinn's, but I'm pretty sure they don't open until 5 on Sunday. Walrus has more than just oysters - I had a nice duck rillete with grilled pineapple and radish salad with foie gras butter there earlier in the week. Unless you're completely against seafood, reconsider walrus.
Coterie room is OK. Food is good, except for desserts (avoid), but the atmosphere is a little cold. The night I was there last, a band came and set up directly behind us 1/3 of the way through our meal. Not pleasant.
Best Korean or authentic Chinese (any region) in Shoreline? Dinner out tonight!
Regular menu. When I go out for Korean food I always end up getting soft tofu kimchi stew and I wanted to try something different. It was different, and delicious.
Best Korean or authentic Chinese (any region) in Shoreline? Dinner out tonight!
I had black goat stew at Haenam Galbi a few months ago that blew my mind. It was my first visit, but a good one.
ginger creme brûlée keeps breaking - help!
Agreed, too much fresh ginger will make dairy separate, especially once heated. I learned this when adding fresh ginger juice to ice cream base and having it separate. Dried powdered ginger does not have this effect. When adding dried spices to custards, I add them to the egg/sugar mix rather than to the liquid, as I find they incorporate better and don't just float on top.
Sorbet won't freeze, I know where I went wrong.. Is it possible to fix it?
No, granita has even less sugar than sorbet and should be light icy flakes, not syrupy slush.
Restaurant that can Accommodate Large Party (Capitol Hill area)
Zoe can take up to 14, I believe, and Barrio can fit some large tables too.
Visiting my daughter and need advice
You might consider this for tea: http://www.laromanza.com/#/the-tea-room/4555897091 I have not been, but if you want to get out of downtown and maybe include a stop at Alki... or just go to Bakery Nouveau, grab a table and all the pastry you can eat, and have at it :)
I like oyster happy hour at the Brooklyn, 2nd and university downtown. But Howard is right, most non-HH oysters around town will be $3.
Say what?? Cooking comments that baffle you
oh, you know, it's just like chicken tenders, but from a pig.... the other white meat...
Food Network Star
Interesting that there is now no chef as a judge, only the programming and marketing departments.
Does Giada really hate Alton, or was she just hamming it up for the camera?
Couverture Chocolate
Yes, save a bit from the last tempered batch. Chocolate is expensive, and when molding you always need to temper extra. I generally melt my scraps first and use new chocolate from the bag for my seed, but as long as your scrap was tempered it shouldn't matter. You can melt and temper the same chocolate over and over as long as you don't get water in it. It's not going to wear out!
Brushing or spraying the first layer in will give you a fantastic finish and help avoid bubbles. Tedious and time consuming, though, so it's up to you to decide if it's worth it. For me, polishing and one layer of decoration is enough fiddling. Bubbles are a bigger problem in molds with more angles and corners, so they haven't been an issue with the dome shapes I've been using lately.
If you need to melt and temper out of temper chocolate without the addition of tempered seed, you may have a more challenging time of it but it should be possible. The cocoa butter hasn't been destroyed or compromised, it's just out of order. If you can table temper without using seed, you should be able to re-temper without it too, right?
"500g (1lb) strawberries, washed, hulled & halved"
A large egg is around 50 grams (excluding the shell).
"500g (1lb) strawberries, washed, hulled & halved"
Yes, a pound is 454 grams, but hey, what's 10% more or less?
Are macarons cliche?
Bakers and pastry chefs? People who know the difference?
See that's what I mean - if we need to define the cookies every time we talk about them, how ubiquitous can they be?
Some are definitely better than others, like anything. I guess I put macaron in the same category as many other French classics - creme brulee, clafouti, croissants - things that are nothing new but that are classics because they are good. Take souffle. It seems really old school and nobody cool makes that anymore, but a nicely done souffle can be really special. But soon kouign amann and cannele will seem 'so 2012', no matter how good they might be. And so it goes.
Couverture Chocolate
Thanks. I do a little chocolate work.
Usually melting to 50c is recommended. Seed chocolate has to be already tempered, that is the point of it, to add stable crystallized cocoa butter to the mix of melted fats. If you do have solidified chocolate that is out of temper, you can melt and re-temper, but it will be easier if you use tempered seed from another batch. The cooling to 28C is more for tabled tempering, where you have to encourage the crystallization manually with agitation rather than using seed.
You remember the steps well. Some fillings will require more time to form a crust and solidify enough to support the weight of the bottoms. An hour or two in front of a fan can really speed that along. I usually do 2 or 3 layers on the bottom; the first layer shrinks and the second is the 'beauty coat'.
Less cocoa butter = thicker chocolate, more cocoa butter = runnier. Pure melted cocoa butter is very liquid. A little does go a long way, if you needed to thin your chocolate you would probably only add up to 5% cocoa butter.
I generally just use couverture.
Are macarons cliche?
So whomever makes the first foie gras kouign amann will be way ahead of the curve?
:)
Couverture Chocolate
Couverture just refers to chocolate that has a higher minimum cocoa butter percentage. It will be more runny and better for getting thin shells in the molds. Sometimes it just depends on the chocolate, and you can also add straight cocoa butter to thin your chocolate if it is too thick. I usually use Valrhona or Felchlin, but there are plenty of other good chocolates. Barry-Callebaut products usually show 1 to 5 droplets on the package to indicate viscosity, fewer droplets is thicker when melted, more is thinner and better for molding and enrobing.
I have not used a tempering machine, hopefully it comes with instructions? You seed with solid tempered chocolate because that introduces the more stable fat crystals that you need. Tempering is about crystallization. I temper by hand using the seed method. I add a fair amount of solid chocolate and stir occasionally until that is melted. When the chocolate gets down to about 95, you want only a few solid pieces left, so that they will melt on the way down to 90 while providing stable crystals. You don't want too many unmelted pieces because they can stick in molds and also induce too much crystallization, making the chocolate really thick at normal working temps. If this does happen but the chocolate is still in temper, raise the temp a degree or two to melt out some of the crystals. Don't go by temperature alone. You can have chocolate in the the right temp zone but that hasn't been properly pre-crystallized and is not in temper. Dab a little on parchment to test how well it sets up, and test again any time you're not sure of your temper.
Hope that helps. Have fun!
Are macarons cliche?
Yes, kouign amann does seem to be appearing in more and more places.
Are macarons cliche?
Yeah, but are macaron shops springing up all over? It seems like existing bakeries have added them, and I guess if you can get them at trader joe's they're hardly exotic... but not to the level of cupcakemania.
Are macarons cliche?
A local food writer described salted caramel macarons as a 'double helping of cliche'.
Now, its true that salted caramel everything has been everywhere the past few years, but are macaron over-done too? I thought half of America was still confused that they aren't made with coconut?
If you could only eat in five Seattle restaurants for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
Hmm, time to update. I do love Quinns but in truth I've probably always loved Zoe more. Pizzeria 22 boots Via Trib, and I need to make room for Mashiko somewhere. Need to go to Harvest Vine, seems like its been years.
San Francisco Hound Coming to Seattle: Please Critique My List for the Emerald City!!!
Did "fancy" at S&F several weeks ago, and dessert was the definite low. That night it was a really bland gummy ricotta cheesecake with a thick, soggy, mushy crust. Not worth eating. Didn't try dessert @ W&C.
YMMV.
Where should I grocery-shop on the cheap near Capitol Hill?
Yeah, I don't really shop there, just when I need the occasional random bulk item. Beacon Hill should have a more Mexican focus to the grocery stores if you're not looking for strictly Asian.
Where should I grocery-shop on the cheap near Capitol Hill?
There are several Asian food markets around 12th & Jackson. Viet Wah to the northwest of the intersection and name escapes me to the southeast offer the biggest variety of dry goods, most of the others are more produce-centered. On the hill, Madison Market has a pretty good bulk section, but I don't know how there prices compare.
Really mad right now, why do my pastry cream fail?!
Bring the milk to a full boil. Forget the stand mixer, just whisk the eggs, sugar and starch together by hand in a bowl big enough to hold everything. Whisk in hot milk, return to pan on medium-high heat. Return to a boil over medium high, whisking constantly.
It should look thick, but remember it will be thicker once cool, so don't expect it to be super stiff in the pan.
