Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
When selecting a chocolate, you need to match what you're using to the task at hand.
If you're baking, you probably aren't concerned with properly tempering the chocolate.
I'm concerned first with taste, and the percentage of cacao solids and cocoa butter both enter into that. (However, unless you're buying commercial grade chocolate, you probably won't get the cocoa butter percentage at all, Hershey's considers that information a 'trade secret'.)
Then I'm concerned with texture, and the percentage of cocoa butter affects that a lot. The more cocoa butter, the more solid it is. (Cocoa butter is hard at room temperature.)
Then I'm concerned with appearance, and that's also largely dependent upon the cocoa butter.
You need to watch out for things like emulsifiers (which are present in most chocolate chips) and whether what you're dealing with is really chocolate at all.
I probably have 20-30 pounds of chocolate on the shelf, most of what I have on hand these days is a couverture grade chocolate, at several different cacao levels. I have a basic milk chocolate, a basic semi-sweet chocolate and a couple of specialty products. I also have pure cocoa butter available so I can tinker with the fat ratio, and a few types of cocoa powder. I don't have any 100% cocoa solid on hand, powdered cocoa comes close, though.
I avoid 'coating chocolates', they won't temper properly, look waxy and taste like, well, I won't use that word.
We used several different types of chocolates in chocolate school, and also a number of specialty products. Some of this was to give us some exposure to the range of products available, Cacao Barry is, after all, a company that markets hundreds of products to chocolatiers and chefs.
That having been said, the recipe cited above is probably a bit too fussy as to what it's specifying, did it come from a source that sells chocolates and wants to sell a lot of product? (King Arthur Flour is guilty of that type of recipe-building, too.)
I'm not sure what the secret is to having buns that don't fall apart when they get a little wet. I'll do some research on the issue.
I have my suspicion that the dough needs to be enriched somehow to give it more structure.
Semolina is made from durum wheat, which is a high protein strain, but it has a different ratio of glutenin and gliadin (the protein groups that make up gluten), one higher in gliadin, giving it more extensibility (which is good for extruding pasta) and less elasticity.
I'm not sure you'd notice that when making buns if you're only using 10-15% semolina, but it also adds a nuttiness flavor that I like, especially in pizza dough.
I'm making Vienna Bread today.
My favorite whisk is one that ATK gave one of the lowest ratings to.
Today we had left over pork roast. I made a simplified Sauce Robert (I used beef stock instead of demi-glace.) It didn't come out as thick as a Sauce Robert, nor did I expect it to, since it didn't have any starch to act as a thickener, but the taste was close enough to the classic version I made two weeks ago that it went very well with the pork.
Next time I roast a chicken, I'm going to try a classic hunter's sauce, or Sauce Chasseur (mushroom sauce), with the rest of the demi-glace concentrate.
I remember reading a story during the floods in Houston about a bakery owner who was packing up stuff she wanted to keep out of the floods, including several large bottles of vanilla.
A #8 scoop makes a pretty big meatball, probably bigger than what I make by hand.
I was thinking a #40 or even a #60. I like them large, too, but my wife wants them a lot smaller.
I bought a spaetzle cutter a couple of years ago for about $15, it works in seconds, and as long as you rinse it right away it is easy to clean. These days I probably make spaetzle more often than I make spaghetti.
A spiralizer is the sort of gadget I'd probably use once or twice, at most. (But I don't have a fryer, so I'm not sure I'd use it at all.)
I don't understand the fascination with the French tapered rolling pin, either.
Vollrath makes commercial grade heavy duty (and heavy weight, too) pieces, for years you could only get them through restaurant supply houses. It has been pleasantly surprising to see that they haven't gone to a cheaper grade product for home use.
The best pizza cutter we have is still the one we bought some 40 years ago in Illinois. It has never needed sharpening, either, though we tend to use it on metal surfaces that would dull a knife.
The local pizza places tend to use the big curved blade knives, but they take up too much space and look dangerous!
I'm a tool/gadget junkie, but I'm getting more selective, probably because I'm running out of space.
My wife has been complaining about the size of my meatballs (too large) so I've been looking at meatball shapers. This one caught my eye, but so far I've resisted ordering it: Meatball Master I may just try a #60 cookie scoop first.
I got a Thermapen a year ago, and it's the best digital thermometer I've tried.
I must have a half dozen bench scrapers, some all-plastic. some all-metal, all of them get used frequently.
The crank on our Mouli broke, and since they're no longer in production (and scarce on Ebay), I've been trying to come up with a workaround. It did the best job grating cheese for a souffle.
When we were in Canada a few years ago, I got a nutmeg grinder made by the Microplane folks, it works very well but isn't very sturdy, so don't drop it.
By far my favorite gadget is my Bamix Gastro stick blender. It isn't cheap (around $200) but it has lasted me for quite a few years, and the lesser ones seldom lasted longer than a year. It has a long stainless steel handle so you can blend soup right in the pot, then just rinse it off in the sink.
I've got several mandolins, but most of the time I wind up just using a knife. For delicate knife work, I prefer a bird's beak knife.
My wife has hosted Pampered Chef parties, but has decided they are too much work. (And she's a former Tupperware dealer.)
Aaron, there's an amusing article on baseball and Passover on the Wall Street Journal site that made me think of you. Apparently even ballparks that have kosher concession stands generally close them down for Passover because the rules are more strict then.
I got a good chuckle at the suggestion that ballparks should give gefilte fish to the first 10,000 patrons.
Not sure if this link will work for people, because the WSJ keeps most articles behind their paywall, but try baseball and passover
Back when I was testing some recipes for Peter Reinhart, I was making baguettes 2-3 times a day for a couple of weeks. My family got tired of them.
This works on a small scale in the microwave, too. I still have a few hot cross buns from last Friday, I spray the top and bottom lightly with water, put them in the microwave for 20 seconds, and they're nice and soft. (Let them cool for a minute or two, though, the raisins can get quite hot.)
I've done it with stale hot dog buns, too. (Those I often wrap in a paper towel.)
I roasted two turkey tenders for lunch sandwiches, and I'm planning to do a pork roast for supper.
-
AuthorPosts
