JockY's Profile
Can I repair my own Cutting Board?
I agree. I would recomend looking for a food grade glue though.
What in the world is a "perfect" hard boiled egg?
The white should be soft and tender - not rubbery which is a sign of overcooking. The yolk should be firm but not dry and should not have a green tint around the edge caused by sulphur trapped inside the shell.
Brown gravy
Their "gravy" comes in a 5 gallon bucket and has stuff in it you really don't want to know. A guilty pleasure? Sure. And if that's your knock yourself out but reproducing it at home will be near impossible.
Wheat Gluten Flour-- clarify please?
Wheat gluten is used to suppliment the naturally ocurring protein in the flour. I've never used it but I see it available in bulk at health food stores.
It would help to see your recipe but I imagine it doesn't call for more than a tablespoon or two of wheat gluten. The need for additional gluten and how much of it depends on the kind of flour you are using. A hard wheat, high protein flour has enough naturally ocurring gluten that you don't need to add any more. A softer wheat flour may need added gluten to provide the structure necessary for bread.
If I may make a suggestion I'd recommend using a white whole wheat flour. It has all the qualities of regular whole wheat but with a lighter texture and less of the bitterness that is a characteristic of red whole wheat.
Making bread with 100% red wheat flour produces a very dense loaf. OK if you like that but the bread made with 100% white whole wheat has a more open crumb and a lighter texture.
What type of flour should I dust on Sweet Potato to make Crispy Sweet Potato fries?
Try Wondra flour. It absorbs moisture without clumping up. 375 degrees is as high as you should go. At 450 the oil will burn and possibly catch fire.
New pans, what to make?
I don't mean to rain on your parade Mateo but in my humble opinion the only benefit to copper pans is the bragging rights. In terms of heat conduction they do perform a little better than aluminum but there is nothing they can do that any other good quality pan can't.
Pizza dough problem
If the added water brought the dough to the right consistency it isn't the problem. If you added a liitle too much, that is not necessarily the problem either but very wet doughs require special handling.
I'd say the lack of stucture is a result of insufficient kneading. Kneading the dough a little more when you take it out of the fridge before resting it for a couple of hours should help.
No life in the yeast? Yeah, it has probably lost its potency.
Baking Question - getting things ready?
I find that egg yolks left for any length of time will develop a skin, making them difficult to blend properly. I would leave the eggs whole till you need them.
Chocolate Bread Pudding - Preparing Ahead?
I'd say not. You risk the bread turning to mush. The pudding will still taste good but the texture will be wrong. You can prepare the mix and the bread separately and assemble them in the morning.
SCONE RECIPE WANTED: must be good [Moved from U.K./Ireland board]
I made some this evening and they are seriously good. I have been using Cook's Illustrated cream scone recipe but I think this is my new go to scone recipe.
Unidentified vintage cookware
There is a US company called "Made in France". Could it be they are the manufacturer?
Let the pizza dough sit in the fridge overnight?
Absolutely. The long, slow fermentation time allows the enzimes to extract the maximum flavor from the flour.
F non-stick... now what
This looks like the same process Magnalite used for their professional series. The surface is very hard indeed and does stand up to abuse from metal utensils but.... acidic foods will degrade the finish and if stored in the pot for any length of time will remove it altogether.
The benefit of using a light colored enalmel or stainless steel finish is that you can see the color of the fond on the bottom of the pan. A balck surface doesn't show that too well.
Cooking pasta - risotto style
I've done this with fried penne. Stir fry the penne in EVO till it is evenly golden brown all over (not something you can walk away from otherwise the pasta will scorch) then add the broth a cup at a time allowing the pasta to soak it up as you go. Toasting the pasta gives it a nutty flavor and slightly chewy texture that is different and IMHO tastes good.
I dress the pasta with a cream mushroom sauce made with shitake and porcini mushrooms and, well, cream and finished with a handful of parmesan cheese . Very simple and deliscious and a good weeknight dinner.
Measuring flour?
I prefer to weigh the dry ingredients when I can. Trouble is, not too many recipes give weights - only volume (cups and spoons.)
When I'm using the cup method i aways stir up the flour with a large spoon to loosen it up a bit. As it sits it tends to compact and can give you a false measure. Then it's a quick scoop and swipe (usually with a finger and it's good to go.
I have my flour in a wide mouth container that lets me get the cup measure in and out easily without having to fight the paper bag it comes in.
Flour Issue
Flour is bleached to simulate the aging process that would produce the same result over time. Bleached flour is less dense than unbleached and has better baking qualities as a result. In the bad old days flour was left for a few months to age naturally but producers discovered that bleaching produces the same result much quicker. That leads to faster turn arounf time and more $$$.
Unbleached flour has more flavor than bleached and I for one will happily live with slightly less baking efficiency than consume the chlorine in bleached flour.
Cake flour is always bleached because the color of the final product is important to cake bakers as is the rising qualities of the flour.
Green Peppercorns
I buy mine in a small jar in the grocery store on the same shelf as the capers. Safeway and Whole Foods have them. I used some the other day to make a pepper sauce for Steak Diane.
Starving for BBQ
I haven't tried Memphis Minnie's either but it was featured on a recent episode of Check Please Bay Area and all 3 panelists loved it. I plan to go soon when the hubub from the TV plug dies down.
Update...No-Knead Bread 2.0 (Cook's Illustrated)
I made this bread today with 100% white whole wheat flour. I upped the hydration to 80% and gave it a 14 hour fermentation time. It is very, very good. The crumb is light and open and not the least bit dense. The taste is slightly sweet and complex.
Sourdough Bread Starter with Sour Milk?
And to round out Maria's excellent synopsis, a word about wild yeasts...
The sour in sour dough breads as Maria says comes from the production of lactic and acetic acids as the starter (or Barm as it is sometimes called) ferments. The acid would kill commercial yeasts but wild yeast has a high tollerance for acid and can survive to do its magic in the bread making process.
Carnitas Recipe
Too bad. I was thinking it might be like the suet dumplings my mother used to put in stews when I was a kid.
Carnitas Recipe
That's the one Candice. It never showed up when I did a recipe search???
Yeast : Rapid Rising vs. Regular (for Focaccia)
OK here's the scoop on yeast...
There are 3 different kinds of yeast for bakers: Fresh, Active Dry and Instant (Rapid Rise) and they are all interchangable in these ratios:
1 part fresh to 0.4 parts active dry to 0.3 parts instant.
That means for a given quantity of instant called for in a recipe, use that plus a third more of active dry. Or, conversely, for a given quanity of active dry called for use 3/4 that amount of instant.
No other ajustments to the recipe are needed.
Carnitas Recipe
This is for 4# of pork country style ribs or shoulder cut into 2 or 3 inch chunks:
add 2 cups water, 1 1/2 cups OJ, zest from an orange, 1 tsp sea salt and 6 cloves of garlic to the meat in a large pot. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 2 hours. Remove the cover and boil another 15 minutes or so. Add 1/4 cup of brandy and cook till the liquid has evaporated. The pork will start to crisp up as it frys in its own fat.
I usually do this in a 12" stainless steel chicken fryer and finish it in a non stick saute pan where the pork won't stick and burn.
BTW, I was mistaken - this was in the May 2003 issue and not the March issue.
Question about puff pastry
Puff pastry "puffs" because of steam generated from the water in the butter lifting the layers of flour. The weight of the apples would prohibit the dough under them from rising while the pastry around the edges will puff and flake nicely.
If the underside looked underdone perhaps the oven temp was too low. The juices from the apples may have left the bottom crust a bit soggy. I usually toss the apples in a mix of sugar and cornstarch and a pinch of cinnamon. You could try increasing the oven temp and/or put the galette on a lower shelf.
Pizza Stone Help
Interesting idea.Did he happen to say how he covers the drain hole?
Carnitas Recipe
I don't think it is on the Epicurious site. I've looked a few times. Luckily I have the March 2003 issue it was printed in. I'll post the ingredients later when I find it.
Pizza Stone Help
No, it will crack along natural fault lines in the stone. You might want to keep it for baking though. Put it in the fridge for an hour or two and it makes a great surface for pastries - especially laminated doughs (Danish and the like.)
