daddio's Profile
Caramelized Honey - So Good! (moved from L.A. board)
I see it's been 2 years since this topic came up, but I just happened to see it after reading a how to on this very subject. So here it is, thanks to Randy Mosher, who was talking about making a specialized sugar for brewing. It just so happens you caramelize honey the same way.
Just take a pound of honey and heat it over medium heat in a heavy saucepan with 9 grams of ammonium carbonate (sold as leavening in Middle Eastern markets). I have also gotten good results with diammonium phosphate yeast nutrient. It will boil, and eventually start to darken. Every now and then remove a drop or two and drip it onto aluminum foil to cool, then taste. Stop as soon as the desired color is reached, and carefully add water to mix it back to the original consistency. - by Randy Mosher
What is meant by New York pizza....and does it exist in Chicago as I recall it?
I don't think most people under 40 or so even have a clue about what "Chicago Style" pizza really is. Deep dish pizza wasn't a big deal until the 70's, and there was Chicago Style pizza long before that trend. For some reason people have decided that Chicago is the home of deep dish pizza and are confusing this with the definition of Chicago Style. Sure a deep dish pizza is good - if you like big sloppy pizzas, but most people who were around before that deep dish craze were enjoying pizza a long time before the fad started. Real Chicago Style Pizza is simply decided by how the ingredients are added to the pizza. When the sauce is spread on the pizza dough and the ingredients are added before the cheese is, that is Chicago Style. The cheese is spread over all of the ingredients and the pizza finishes with a lot of stringy cheese covering everything. Other "style" pizzas are made with the cheese on the dough and sauce first and then the ingredients are spread over the cheese. Some would call that New York Style pizza. Either way, the pie is a thin crust that in Chicago is cut into rectangular pieces while New York style is cut into wedges, big wedges. Deep dish has noting to do with Chicago Style, and people who remember it that way are those younger folks who think the only way to get a pizza in Chicago is fat and overloaded on soggy doughy bread "crust". Sorry if this bursts your pizza bubble, but before the deep dish thing from the Silo and other Chicagoland pizzerias started, cheese over ingredients is what Chicago Style pizza was and is.
Trip Itinerary...Questions/Suggestions?
If you don't make it to The Gumbo Shop on the outer edges of the French Quarter you will be missing one of New Orleans' jewels. The ambiance is very nice and there is an open outdoor area in a quad within as well as nice indoor seating. The gumbo has been repeatedly awarded as the city's best. I concur. The menu has many genuine Cajun and Creole dishes that are not only well executed, but generous in proportion. I spent 4 days in New Orleans and was so impressed that I returned twice to try more of the food on the menu. The prices are good.
Does Saffron taste like plastic to anyone else?
Saffron never really was meant to flavor any foods as much as it was used to color certain dishes. Do you know why saffron is so expensive? It takes 750 fully developed stigmas (250 flowers) from the saffron (crocus) flower to produce one gram of saffron. Saffron is a poison (CNS Depressant and causes severe Kidney damage) in doses of 10-12 grams, but because of it's high cost most people could never afford enough of it to be in danger.
You may very well not even be tasting true saffron, but "fillers" used by unscrupulous dealers trying to make a buck selling bogus saffron. None the less, as said before it isn't even really meant to flavor foods.
