Zeldog's Profile
New source for Louisiana cooking items
I finally checked out the Fresh & Easy store that opened up a few months back on Silver Ave and although the store overall is nothing special, it turns out to be a great spot for a New Orleans ex-pat or anyone looking to cook up some NO dishes. Right next to the kosher foods, they have a little NOLA section that includes Cafe du Monde coffee and chickory, biegnet mix, Zatarain's mustard, file powder and various spice mixes, and most important for me, light red kidney beans (not Camelia brand, but just like them). You just can't make proper beans and rice with the red beans most stores carry.
Now, if they would stock some decent andouille sausage...
pizza
Yes indeed. A little high quality cheese goes a long way. Instead of tomato sauce you might try an antipasto spread, home made or store bought (Trader Joe's has nice artichoke and roasted pepper spreads). Be careful with whole wheat crusts. I've never used more than 25% whole wheat, but I suspect a 100% whole wheat pizza might taste like a graham cracker with toppings.
And if you use fresh veggies, be careful not to pile them on too thick. Most veggies will release a lot of water during cooking and you could end up with very soggy pizza.
Sausage making
Plenty of good recipes for fresh and other sausages here:
http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-recipes
and below. Try the Moroccan chicken sausage. And don't worry if you don't have the more arcane additives or binders in a few recipes. In my experience the sausages come out fine without them.
http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes.htm
Prague powder and all purpose cure
You are basically correct, although it's a question of cooking temperature, not cooking time or whether or not you use smoke. Cure #2 is for uncooked, dried sausages such as salami and sausages that are cold smoked and then dry aged. The nitrate is gradually converted to nitrite as the sausage ages.
Fresh Ham- Should I brine?
I would not get too worked up about botulism, particularly in whole cuts of meat. Not to get into another debate (there are plenty of CH threads on the subject), but botulism is more of a concern in sausages that are dry aged for a month or longer. I've never cured a whole ham, but have done shoulders weighing about 8 pounds a few times, and 10 days sounds about the minimum for a 20 lb ham if you score the skin before brining (I brine shoulder for 5 days). Leaving the skin intact will increase the brine time, but I have no idea how much. You can over-brine, but little longer is better than shorter. I do use nitrate most of the time because I like the tangy flavor it adds rather than the pink color. Once I cut the brine time a day short and when I sliced the meat I could clearly see by the color change that the brine had not penetrated all the way through.
BTW, the brine I use is 1 1/2 cups salt and 1 cup sugar in 1 gallon of water (plus whatever spices and herbs you like). You can brine faster using a stronger solution, but I would not do that with a whole ham or other large cut. The salt level is likely to be very uneven (high on the outside and low in the middle).
Help identifying Asian green?
Looks like sorrel to me. Kitazawa seeds lists it under "Vietnames herbs" (even though it's not native to Vietnam) and says it's also known as rau chua (sour herb) or rau thom (fresh herb) . But I would not describe the taste as funky. Sour is more like it, so if what you have tastes fishy rather than tart, I guess it's fish mint.
leaf lard..it's been frozen for a couple of years/toss or use and I do have to render, right?
I've kept home-rendered lard in the fridge for 6 months or more with no problems, so I expect as long as it was well sealed and hasn't absorbed any nasty flavors it should be fine if frozen for a year. Like jerry says, thaw some and give it sniff. Better still, give it a taste.
Substitute for Tilapia
Meldubya,
It's like you're asking if you could use sirloin instead of spam. Go with the reef fish. Tilapia is for people who don't like the taste of fish. Basa (also a fresh water fish) is pretty much the same as tilapia -- flaky, bland and dry, so use that if you really want to follow the recipe as closely as possible, but as Puffin3 says, "both are basically tasteless", and that's the bottom line. Tilapia is popular in the US because it is cheap and readily available even thousands of miles from an ocean, but any recipe will only be improved by using a mild, wild caught fish.
Tin lined copper roasting pan
Don't toss that chicken. You can roast at an oven termperature of 475 as long as you have a good amount of food and/or liquid in the pan, although that might be pushing it. On the other hand, if you left an empty tin lined pan on a stove burner you will be sure to melt the lining. I can testify to that. And that is why you should not overheat a tin lined pan, not health concerns.
Lemon juice is irrelevant. Tin is about as harmless as iron and relatively insoluble in acids, It's used as a lining because copper is more acid soluble and somewhat toxic.
Rick Bayless Cookbooks
I'll second Authentic Mexican. Not just a collection of recipes. Lot's of sidebars on various ingredients and basic sauces. The title is for real. This is not Frontera Grill cooking.
Good Ice Cream Machines?
The Cuisinart compressor model looks like the Wynter/Lello machine in the same way most freezer bowl machines look alike, but not so much that they seem to be the same design. I've never had the slightest problem with the Lello heating up after the first batch.
You're right about one thing: I have only a medium sized refrigerator/freezer and barely have room for one canister, let alone 2 or 3, so things like freezer and counter space (compressor models are rather large and heavy) can be deciding factors.
making your own Dulce de Leche
I see. Well, I'm way too old and too male to worry much about BPAs. But there is a canning lid that is BPA free. The brand is Tattler and they can be found at some Ace Hardware stores. I like them mainly because they are reusable, but if they are healthier, so much the better.
Good Ice Cream Machines?
That Wynter machine looks like a Lello Gelato Jr with a coat of silver paint. The Gelato Jr currently sells for around $160. A bit over the OP's preferred range, but far superior to the freezer bowl models. I bought one after a couple of years of using a Cuisinart maker and the convenience of not having to store the bowl in the freezer or remember to put it in the day before making a batch and the ability to make two or three batches without having to re-freezing the bowl for 12 hours between batches is worth the extra cost.
Canola, peanut or grapeseed oil for stir-fry and other frying
Consider safflower oil. It can be hard to find, especially at a good price (try Costco, but not all stores carry it). Neutral taste and high smoke point. American safflower oil is very high in mono-unsaturated fat (as is olive oil) compared to the imported oil you'll find in Indian groceries, which is mostly polyunsaturated, so check the label if that's important to you.
making your own Dulce de Leche
I've made dulce de leche in the can many times and hadn't thought about the can lining, I'm a bit skeptical about chemicals in the lining being an issue. Do those threads say exactly what these chemicals are and what their health effects might be? In any event, transferring the condensed milk to a canning jar sounds like a fine idea. Even if it's not healthier, now you have your dulce in a resealable container. If you don't have a crock pot, any pot large enough to cover the jars would work. But don't seal the jars tight or they might explode. Use regular canning lids and technique.
Just ate oil marinating with garlic..botulism?
Relax. I just checked the CDC web site and there are about 145 cases per year of botulism and only 15% of those are food borne, which comes to about 20 cases per year (and that's cases, not fatalities). I made garlic oil the way you did for many years with no ill effects and have 2 or 3 friends who did the same before learning about the risk. No way to know for sure, but there must be hundreds of thousands of batches of garlic oil made every year in the US, so the risk is very, very small. Don't panic, and stop putting a finger down your throat. You might aspirate some vomit and die like some rock star ODing on drugs (Sorry, I couldn't find how many cases of that there are each year, but I bet it's more than 20).
Where to Order Meyer Lemons From?
I wanted to make Meyer lemon ice cream but couldn't find Meyer lemons. I read somewhere that they are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a tangerine, so I blended fresh lemon and tangerine juice in roughly equal parts and it tasted just like Meyer lemon juice. It's a good alternative if you don't need whole lemons, and a lot cheaper than mail order.
Where to buy frozen crawfish / crayfish?
I've seen them sometimes at the larger Asian markets such as 99 Ranch. Langostino is not a precise term, but usually refers to a salt water critter that's more like a large prawn or small lobster, which would not be a good substitute. Use medium sized shrimp if you can't find crawfish.
In Louisiana, it's "crawfish".
Where to buy Asian 'Iron' wok(Not cast iron) with two handles(Southern style)?
Esme,
I've never heard of Asian iron, but wrought iron is just a low carbon iron alloy iron that is worked into a final shape while it is red hot. I've seen craftsmen work iron, and it involves repeated steps of heating and hammering the metal. I doubt very much that it's possible to to make a full sized wok, 2 or 3 mm thick, by hand. In short, Chem Kinetics might correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt there is such a thing as a wrought iron wok. Maybe there is a problem translating from Australian to US English. Can you post a photo of a wrought iron wok?
As for some of your specific questions, even distribution of heat and hot spots have more to do with the geometry of the wok than what it's made of. Uneven thickness will produce hot spots where the metal is thin. How fast the metal conducts heat also is a factor, but cast iron and steel are similar (steel is slightly faster). A wok that is overall thicker will be less prone to hot spots, but it will also be slower to heat up and less responsive to changes in cooking temperature. "Steel" is a generic term that includes many alloys, but most of the time means "carbon steel" or "mild steel", as compared to various types of stainless steel. Hammered steel is carbon steel that has been worked by beating it.
Helpful?
With love and squalor,
Zeldog
Smoking Dry Aged Steaks
My recommendation is don't do it. A dry aged steak is a wonderful thing as it is. If you want to add some smokey flavor you could cold smoke it for a maybe half an hour if you have the equipment, or rub with smoked paprika prior to grilling. But slow cooking a steak? Bad idea, I think, even if you finish on a grill.
Sodium Hydroxide ?? for Pretzel Wash
jvernice,
I'm sure you have the best of intentions, but your ALL CAPS warnings and lame analogy about using paint for food coloring (in fact, using hardware store lye instead of food grade is like, well, using hardware store lye instead of food grade) are just a little insulting to those of us who have used lye in baking or soap making many times and still have the use of both eyes and all our fingers. You may have been misled by the original post referring to a 4% solution. If you had checked some online recipes and done the math, you would have found that typical concentrations are 0.1% to 0.5% by weight. I've had such a solution splash onto my hands many times, and it is uncomfortable, but I just rinse with cold water and my hands are as smooth as an Easter lily (ok, maybe not, but at least they have no chemical burn scars). Yes, be careful because lye is indeed dangerous, but don't get hysterical.
Hand Hammered Wok from E-Wok Review
I was going to buy a 12" pow wok at $48 but the shipping would have been another $32. That's just obscene. Apparently they are shipping from China one wok at a time. No thanks, E-woks. Let me know when you have an outlet in the US.
Green meat - sausage and burgers and nuggets, oh my!
I think I'll stick with Soylent Green.
Flour For Making Pasta
I mostly use bread flour (King Arthur brand). I've tried 00 a couple of times and I can't say I notice any difference. You can add some semolina flour if you like, but if you add too much the dough will be too hard to work unless you have industrial strength equipment.
Dessert for sort of Mardi Gras meal....please help me decide
King cake is not really a desert. It's basically an overgrown cinnamon roll with artificially colored icing and sprinkles (not that there's anything wrong with that). I lived in New Orleans for most of my first 30 years and never had anyone serve me a king cake after dinner. Go with a proper desert. You could make creme brulee the day before, and if you screw it up, fall back on bananas foster.
Country Hams via Costco?
Please do, MGZ. I don't have much experience with country hams, but last time I bought one from Smithfield it was fine for seasoning red beans and rice and such, but way to salty to slice and eat. Costco seems to have some nice deals on whole hams and maybe this is one. I'd probably try one myself, but I still have about 5 pounds of that Serrano left.
Dessert for sort of Mardi Gras meal....please help me decide
All good choices, but for just 4 people I'd go with bananas Foster because it's so much easier than pie or pound cake or bread pudding.
Country Hams via Costco?
I haven't tried that particular ham, but the description "prosciutto style" is suspect. First, prosciutto is not smoked and is aged a year or more, not 6 months. And from the photo it hasn't been pressed during curing, although I don't know if it makes a difference flavor wise. They claim it can be sliced thin and eaten as is, so maybe it is less salty than a typical American ham. Perhaps even good enough to eat off the bone. But don't expect it to taste like prosciutto, especially when aged only 6 months. On the same Costco page there's a link for Serrano ham, boneless, aged 18 months. I have tried that (I still have few pounds in the fridge), and it is excellent. It's $200 now, but I bought one on sale when it was just a bit over $100. If you want prosciutto style, wait until those go on sale again.
specific recipe question about beans
If you don't soak beans they will tend to burst when cooking. This is not necessarily a bad thing since you end up with very creamy busted up beans (which is what the photo in the Emeril recipe link shows). But if you want lots of whole beans you need to soak them. It's a matter of taste. Some New Orleans red beans recipes say soak the beans, cook them til tender, and then mash them up a bit or puree half the batch in a blender. Same result, more or less, as cooking without soaking.
Who's familiar with honey vinegar?
I'm into fermenting things so I did some research and found this.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/52405044-80/vinegar-honey-james-ridge.html.csp
Pretty expensive if you can find it. Maybe you should try making your own.
