Richard 16's Profile
Fairview Heights/Belleville Area International Grocery Stores
Bob's Seafood is easily the best in STL for seafood & fish. Mostly wholesale; i.e. , restaurants,. so high turnover. Not as big a selection as WF but better & cheaper. (I'm a native New Englander and formerly a pro chef.)
If they don't have something you want, ask and they'll see what what they can do.You can usually get bones for stock - call first.
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Bob's Seafood
8660 Olive Blvd, Saint Louis, MO 63132
Best Pizza in St. Louis – WITHIN Parameters
Thanks for the heads up ammy! Sauce still has Laganini as having no wheel chair access..
Does Brown Rice Freeze Well?
You certainly can freeze. The best wayI know of is to reheat with steam.
Rice in a Pressure Cooker?
As I posted earlier using the "Mt. Fuji method" eliminates the need for measured ratios. You will find that printed ratios show that ratios of water to rice go down the more rice is used. And it's incrredibly easy!
Best Pizza in St. Louis – WITHIN Parameters
Laganini does not have a wheelchair access, so for me it's a no go.
Farraros has their second store in the South County. Slightly thicker than a New York style (few people would even notice) still easy enough to fold a piece. As Mario says, the crust is the most the most important part of a pizza. It's extremely good, if they had an 800° oven like LaPizza I would be much, much, fatter.
54th St.. Grill
Going to the 54th St., Grill on Wednesday (not my choice) for dinner with an old friend and my wife. He does appreciate good food, but somehow this was picked. If we do wind up going there is anything good there? What should I avoid? I'm easy to please but difficult to impress.
Tips and Tricks for Cooking Corn on the Cob?
I am certainly not going to make you like boiled corn. But it seems to me that with a couple of tricks it can be pretty darned good. (Although I do prefer roasted corn.)
1) I posted this earlier but I'll say it again: a save the boiling water, reduce, and freeze. add back some water, cook, reduce and reuse, each time giving the corn more corn flavor.
2) as others have noted add sugar to the water.'
3) Try a different sauce – clarified butter, umeboshi plum, roasted garlic/onion, etc. etc.
4) Flavor the water with some vegetables and/or herbs - such as rosemary. Not my preferred approach but some people love it.
Anybody catch Throwdown with Mark Israel of Doughnut Plant?
And it is *lobster* *truffle* mac & cheese! Sure, it is technically mac & cheese but with those two things it is a substantially different item. How do you compete against that unless you're willing to charge a lot more for mac & cheese –usually a lower priced item.
jackbauer:
Unlike Delilah (and most of us) you can see the future. It is easy to lambaste others when you can see what they can't.
Ask Sushi Man
I would hope get that simply asking for the *type* of crab used would get an honest answer. Quite frankly if the menu has "crab" we should be able to automatically get actual crab and not some substitute,
OTOH "krab" (or any similar euphemism) isn't *bad* per se, but calling it "crab" is wrong. I prefer (as with most of us) the real thing, but I've been known to order Krab occasionally.
What's your "secret ingredient?"
Allergy to anchovies is relatively common and can be very serious. Anchovies are also used in a variety of sauces including Caesar salad dressing sauce, fish sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Sure to ask your guests if they have *any* food allergies. Having a guest on the floor gasping can be a real downer to any party.
Pad Thai--is it an authentically Thai dish?
Exactly, thew. traditional, classic, and similar terms are tossed around seemingly to emphasize what the speaker wants it to. Are tomatoes an Italian Ingredient? if we go back only a few hundred years they are not -- since, of course, they originated in Central and South America. the same with potatoes and Ireland. Of course tomatoes were thought of as poisonous, as were nightshades and general -- hence the term deadly nightshade.
Does it bother anyone else here that terms like "classic" are tossed around by advertisers subverting their meaning? How can anything be an "instant classic"? I MO simply using terms like "traditional" only have meaning in context. This would make pad Thai either "traditional" because it is so ubiquitous, or not "traditional" in the sense that it hasn't been around for thousands of years in Thailand.
An antique car is, what, one that's over 25 years? (I don't really know...) as we all know, apples did not originate in the Americas -- but what about the phrase "as American as apple pie"?
in every place I've ever seen it Pad Thai i listed as a Thai dish. I make a great pad Thai and I'm a white Jewish boy from the burbs. Except for the fresh vegetables and proteins most of the items are in the Thai section. and I often use a great mirin in mine; obviously not a traditional Thai ingredient.
Oh well. I may be curious about its origins, but the best part is it tastes great!
Ask Sushi Man
Hmmmm... I guess I just didn't think of inari as a roll.
One of the best pieces of inari I've had had small pieces of arame in it. So easy to do at home; I add a few drops of toasted sesame oil. Something else I like to do a home is sprinkle red Hawaiian sea salt and black sesame seeds on top. Very pretty. The
Question: store-bought tofu skins are so easy to use. Are there any advantages to making your own?
Sukoyaka Genmai
Hi Amy!
It's really good! Makes great sushi rice texture-wise, with a touch of nuttiness yet gentle enough for the full regular range for sushi. It's good plain, too. Whiteness, when cooked, is very similar to white as it's the germ that's retained.
It's up there with my favorite, Tamanashiki. Let us know what you think!
Su-kinua (Quinua)
Amaranth goes great brown rice, even better with brown basmati, especially pressure cooked. I use about a 4:1 BR to Am ratio.
For straight amaranth (or even the combo):
Use a big pot with a tight fitting lid. Get the liquid to a rolling boil. Pan toast the grains until pretty hot. (Cute little popped ones if too hot.)
Turn down the heat under the liquid. Slowly add the hot amaranth to the liquid - it should boil furiously at first. Cover and cook; don' t peak.
Raw Food Diet
How is it a scam if you can to the library, borrow books, talk to people, go to web sites, etc. - all for free? And with a little thought the food is cheap and the preparation easy.
Of *course* there are scam artists out there. They range from individual book sales up to tobacco companies. There are fake olive oils, but not all of them are fake. Caveat Emptor. But to prejudge all of them is just plain, well, silly.
Su-kinua (Quinua)
Hi Folks!
Has anyone here used or heard of quinua being used instead of rice?
The recipe linked to below is more kimbap than sushi, but I wonder if the nuttiness of the kinua would work well with a su? Quinua is delicious and is *much* healthier than white rice.
I'm going to experiment anyway, but ideas will be appreciated.
http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=81e9c20ce2c27081578fd6354676c95f&topic=17493.0
Best Pizza in St. Louis . . .
Feraro's now has a location in S. County - Baptist Church at Tesson Ferry. I find the crust is just a little thicker than NY.; very foldable (to give you a sense of the thinness) with an excellent crust. No wood or brick, but an 800 degree oven.
Good way to doctor up jar spaghetti sauce?
Laugh all you want, but many of the top chefs in the world (such as Mario) will often use high quality canned tomatoes. (As above, I like the "fire roasted" Muir Glen.) Adding some of these to a jarred sauce just right before plating really perks it up.
Question: You use "Italian seasoning"? As opposed to fresh herbs? Or separate dried ones? Personally I find that being able to control the specificity of what I'm using lets me match a sauce better to the rest of the sauce's ingredients as well as the rest of the meal. This works very well with jarred sauces.
Best and Worst Cooking Shows
It's a pan mostly used for japanese omelettes and it's called a tamago-yaki. They keep the final product even across the width, whereas rounded pans make more of a cigar shape. (The latter OK for chiffonade and maybe just to eat, but difficult to slice evenly for sashimi or sushi.)
You can use use it elsewhere (where are my saute pans?) but it's more of of a unitasker.
Knives in St. Louis
Bertarelli Cutlery in the Hill is a small but well equipped restaurant supplier, including a small selection of good quality knives.They have a great knife sharpening service as well. A fun store to wander around.
How bad does accepting credit cards hurt small restaurants?
I'm not sure, but I'm reasonably certain it is a violation of a CC's contract to charge anything more - a cash vs. CC cost, a fee or whatever you you want to call it - for CC cards customers. You don't get charge less for cash customers.
Sukoyaka Genmai
I had been reading about Sukoyaka genmai, a partially milled rice. Finally bought some.
Has anyone else here used it for sushi? How does it compare in flavor, texture and stickiness? Any particular items it plays well with, or less well? Has anyone here experimented using different su mixtures?
How about other uses?
what do you think are deceptively difficult dishes? easy to take for granted if you're not knowledgable?
Sushi rice. I'm easy to please but difficult to impress. Of well over 100 sushi bars I've been to I've only been impressed with a handful. Too much or too little su with off-balanced salt, vinegar, no kombu, etc., falling apart or overworked. And it's not getting better with the focus on cutesy named complex rolls.
Macaroni & cheese. It's not hard to make one that's OK, but get the right texture, blend of cheeses, white sauce, etc. a great Mac & cheese is hard to find. (Except mine and yours, of course.
Tips and Tricks for Cooking Corn on the Cob?
Because not all people have ready access to a grill or the time to use an oven.
salmon belly
Good in a lot of things.
Be forewarned: Even in a deboned fish there often are bones.
Buttermilk substitute
Saco brand. Available in many, but not all, supermarkets.
http://www.sacofoods.com/culteredbuttermilkblend.html
Guy's Big Bite: What demographic are they targeting?
Melly - see my post above.
I am none of these things. Do ya'll have a source for your suppositions or do you just make it up as you go along?
This site is "Chowhound" - it is not "What Not to Wear".
Dipping or schmearing sauces & toppings for sushi & sashimi
Which ingredients can hold up to the strong flavor of a hot sauce? I'm a simple guy; spicy rolls are common way to use mediocre fish or other ingredients and/or rice. I'm paying the big bucks for great rice and fish, etc.
That's not to say that I always eschew (and how often get to say that?) spicy rolls or cutesy named complex rolls that have become so common to the point of popular prominence. A good way to try them is with a group where you can have a piece or two. Is this a "dart board" roll? (Made up that term myself!) Do the individual ingredients "work" together?
BTW, thanks Ross!
Even a simple roll can benefit from a touch of something. Example: I love a good natto roll, usually with a touch of green onion. I like a *little* schmear of toasted sesame oil - the taste of the natto can hold up to it. One of these days I'll experiment with a little ginger or roast garlic. (Perhaps some lemon?)
Dipping or schmearing sauces & toppings for sushi & sashimi
Obviously shoyu (isn't there a word for shoyu used for sushi?) and "wasabi" are ubiquitous. There are others, such as ponzu or eel sauce. Sometimes a swipe of a citrus. Some toasted sesame seeds or green onion. Various additions that add a subtle edge.
Pretend I know little - not a stretch. What goes with what, either classically or new? (I'm not interested in strong stuff, like hot sauces, unless there's something that can hold up to it.)
