ISO "The Swiss Cookbook" by Nika Stand Hazelton - [Cheese] Fondue Recipe

It's vaguely possible that the Epicurious recipe is an adaptation of Hazelton's. She was one of the earlier cookbook writers to describe it (the copyright on the 1st edition of THE SWISS COOKBOOK is 1967). Interestingly, she also thanks Hans Baertschi in the acknowledgements section of the book -- he was associated with the SNTO office in NY -- and the Baertschis were the original owners of Chalet Suisse, so it's also vaguely possible that her recipe was the one from the restaurant. (All speculation of course.)

You used champagne in fondue? Wow, extravagant. :) Don't forget the nutmeg next time, though: it really does make a difference.

dduane in Home Cooking

ISO "The Swiss Cookbook" by Nika Stand Hazelton - [Cheese] Fondue Recipe

"EuroCuisineLady" here -- I'm glad other folks were able to help you find the recipe in time to be of use to you. Hazelton is a super writer and was one of the few to get the basic Swiss recipes right. -- DD

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Ripening stollen????

A cold pantry would normally be a good ways above freezing but also a good ways below room temperature. In the mid- to low 40's F, anyway (though some might run lower). While the temperatures are refrigerator-like, though, the point of a cold pantry is that it doesn't have the drying/dessicating effect that a fridge does on things. The humidity is high enough so that cheeses and so forth can be kept there without drying out. A stollen would mature nicely in such conditions.

dduane in General Chowhounding Topics

Really Crappy Unhealthy Disgusting Toe-curling Junkfood!

Simply: ditto. Back in the day I went to nursing school in a place where the only fast food for miles around was JitB. Addicted! Now I live in Ireland, and dream of the damn things. Every time we visit a US region that has them, my first stop is for a bag of half a dozen or so of these pestilent things. Gone in a matter of minutes...:)

dduane in General Chowhounding Topics

In search of better butter.

Interesting that you should mention Kerrygold. In Ireland it's just one more supermarket butter: the one that's really in demand is called Cuinneog -- it's unusual over here in that it's a cultured / cured cream butter (all the other native Irish butters are sweet). Really good stuff! (rummaging for their web address) http://www.cuinneog.com/products/cuinneog-irish-farmhouse-country-butter.php ...They also make a dynamite natural buttermilk: not cultured -- the real thing.

dduane in General Chowhounding Topics

Holiday Problem: Too Many Goose Livers (is there any such thing?) [moved from General Topics]

Wow, that one looks terrific. Thanks! The same site has this one:

http://www.roastgoose.com/recipes/goose_liver_pate.htm

(argh) Decisions, decisions... :)

dduane in Home Cooking

Holiday Problem: Too Many Goose Livers (is there any such thing?) [moved from General Topics]

Re the goose fat: We will shortly. :)

But I don't have a favorite (poultry) pate recipe... it's not something I've ever made: usually I wind up buying it. I get to change that today, though...

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Holiday Problem: Too Many Goose Livers (is there any such thing?) [moved from General Topics]

Cousins -- After a visit to our local craft butcher in Ireland to pick up our holiday goose, I have an unusual problem.

I said to our butcher, "I need the giblets and hearts and livers, and keep the neck...!" -- this being something you have to specify in this neighborhood. Once upon a time in Ireland, no one would have let a chicken, turkey or goose escape them without the innards: but sometime after WWII (known locally as The Emergency), respect for the Insides began to shift, and people began to be embarrassed about wanting, or eating, the parts of a bird that only poor people would need -- or so it was thought. Later on, as the Celtic Tiger and the wealthy times came upon the Island of Saints and Scholars, no one here in their right mind would be seen with a giblet... something that made me sad over the course of many expat Thanksgivings. The butcher could only shrug and say, "The suppliers don't send them along to us...."

Geese, though, are another story, it would seem. Being greener by definition -- all free range, raised on grass until Michaelmas (in late September), then finished on grain until Martinmas (in November), they come to the butcher with all their bits (so to speak). When I picked up our goose from the local craft butcher, he went out of his way to show me the bag containing the giblets and other useful bits. In an access of hope (fueled by a pre-pickup drink or two down at the local pub) I said, "You wouldn't have any more of those, would you?" For other neighbors had been picking up their birds as well.

Our young butcher looked at me as if I'd recently arrived from Mars. "Sure I'll have a look," he said. And shortly thereafter he arrived with the results -- the cleanings of several other people's geese -- and handed the package off to me as if faintly glad to be rid of it.

So now I have a whole pound of fresh goose liver. (I say nothing of all the giblets and hearts, which are simmering happily as we speak.) It's not foie gras: just good old goose liver. Who has a really good recipe for goose liver pate? Or something similar? (Nothing has been done for these except that I immersed them for about half an hour in acidulated water to sweeten them: now they're drained and in the fridge.)

Thoughts?

dduane in Home Cooking

how to get pepper oil off my face and hands

Don't waste time with soap: it may shift the oils that carry the capsaicin around a little, but the capsaicin itself will already have bound to your skin and be doing its thing.

I helped out once or twice in the ER at New York Hospital some years back (I was a psych nurse), and on one of these stints a resident taught me the trick (we always had an upswing in cases of "Hunan Hand" as the holidays came on...). The cure is simple and straightforward. You dissolve a couple of tablespoons of chlorine bleach in a quart of water, mix well, and immerse your hands in it. The bleach solution snaps the capsaicin molecule in pieces and renders it harmless. This provides more or less instant relief (the quicker you apply this remedy, the better). Wet a cloth with the solution and use it carefully on other areas of skin that may be suffering.

Obviously you can't use this stuff on your eyes. But for that there's another remedy. Contact lens wetting solution breaks the capsaicin molecule in exactly the same way as the weak bleach solution does.

Meanwhile: next time wear gloves even if you think you've got tame peppers. ;)

dduane in General Chowhounding Topics

Wien / Naschmarkt

Hi Sturmi! A question about Naschmarkt: I'll be passing through town next week, and my husband has asked me to bring him some Hungarian paprika (we live in Ireland and it's sometimes hard to get anything but Spanish paprika here -- not nearly as good as the Hungarian). Are there any stalls or stands at Naschmarkt that you'd particularly recommend for this? Thanks! -- Diane D.

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Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

Val, I was using Arborio... found a jar of it socked away that I'd forgotten about. :)

dduane in Home Cooking

Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

Well, it came out extremely well. Thanks again for that base recipe! The hubby ate it and pronounced it good (though he did want to pour some more cream over it, which is a very UK response to desserts in general).

Afterthoughts: It was a little on the dry side: after the first hour I needed to add some more of that rich milk. Also: there was just a spot of "scrambled egginess" about it. Next time I'll cook the egg/milk mixture to custard first and not add it until late in the process, possibly the last fifteen minutes or so.

Thanks again, all! :)

dduane in Home Cooking

Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

Val, thanks for that! I used it as the basis for what I wound up doing.

I took 1/2 a cup of Arborio rice and sauteed it very briefly in a small heavy iron casserole with a few tablespoons of butter.

While this was going on, I added about half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a few grinds of nutmeg from the nutmeg grinder.

Meanwhile I took a cup of the former-clotted-cream-milk and beat an egg into it. I set this aside.

After about five minutes of gentle sauteeing I added:

Two cups of the rich milk
About a quarter cup of vanilla sugar
Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
Half a teaspoon of Lacobi pureed lemon zest (This is a German preparation that we pick up when we hit the grocery stores over there: unfortunately I can't find a Web image or other resource to link to. Regular lemon zest would probably work fine)

I stirred all this stuff together with the rice and let it come up to a simmer. Then I took it off the heat, added the final cup of milk-with egg, stirred it a little, and stuck it in the oven.

I'll leave it there for an hour or so: then stir it a little and give it another hour. We'll see how it turns out. Stay tuned... :)

dduane in Home Cooking

Really Crappy Unhealthy Disgusting Toe-curling Junkfood!

Oh dear. For me it's the godawful cheap tacos at Jack in the Box. The 99-cent ones. (They used to be 99 cents, anyway: it's been a while since I last hit a Jack in the States, so I'm not sure if they're the same price still.)

Those things are such desperate junk. There can't really be meat in them: or maybe th company occasionally walks a token cow past the factory where they make the stuffing mix. But I *cannot* resist those things. It goes back to when I was in nursing school on Long Island, and a Jack was the only fast food to be had in the neighborhood. Now, every time we get back to the US, the hubby has to suffer through watching me seek out the nearest Jack, buy about half a dozen of them, and eat them *all.*

I'm not proud of this, believe me. (mournful look)

dduane in General Chowhounding Topics

Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

Thanks for all the good ideas! I too prefer to improvise when putting together something like this, but I thought I'd check to see what ideas people had first.

The stewed fruit idea sounds really good. I have some dried pears, etc, down in the store-cupboard... should take a look through there and see what looks good.

Oooo, hazelnut milk! Yeah. I picked up some hazelnuts just the other day. Mmmm!

dduane in Home Cooking

Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

Hmm, this gives me some thoughts. Start out as if making a risotto (saute Arborio rice briefly in butter...), then put in the baking pot, add milk, seasonings... hmm!

Lemon and cinnamon, that's a good thought. Orange and cinnamon would be too. I have some great German fruit zest puree I could use.

Thanks for the thought! :)

dduane in Home Cooking

Hunting the perfect baked rice pudding

My husband and I were down in our local pub last night discussing food and cooking when the topic of rice pudding came up. (Partly because I had just made a small batch of clotted cream / Devonshire cream, had some very rich creamy milk left over from the process, and was thinking about making rice pudding with it.)

When the topic came up, my husband suggested that I was completely out of my mind for wanting to waste this great milk on something as awful and boring as rice pudding. It should be mentioned here that he's a Brit (born and raised in Northern Ireland), one of that generation who went to school long before Jamie Oliver started raising the UK's consciousness about the routine awfulness of school food. For him rice pudding is one of the most disgusting of the desserts routinely presented to kids as part of their school lunch (or "school dinner" in the local idiom).

So I obviously have some rehabilitation to do. I definitely have the urge for rice pudding at the moment, and want to offer Himself something that will look and taste nothing like the dreadful crap rice puddings he had to put up with in school. These (as far as I can determine) were always stovetop puddings, made with as little milk or flavoring as the school kitchen could get away with -- just sort of vaguely sweet glop with rice in it. So what I'd rather do is a baked rice pudding, something with some texture to it and good flavorings, something that will develop a nice crust, and that can be based on that lovely rich milk left over from the clotted cream making (I've got about a US pint and a half of it).

Can anyone suggest a favorite recipe that would match these criteria? I don't want to get too exotic about it: I just want to produce something that will suggest to the husband what rice pudding can really be like if you take some time and care over the process, and use quality ingredients.

And the sooner the better, please, as I have to keep him from just raiding the fridge and drinking that milk. :)

Thanks! --
Diane

dduane in Home Cooking