Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Yes, it was a good article to read. My poor little Meyer Lemon is nearly dead, there are a few signs of life at the bottom, but I'm not sure if they're the Meyer Lemon or the rootstock it was grafted onto.
I'm looking to order a new Meyer Lemon tree this spring, once warmer weather arrives so it can be shipped. It'll never rival Cindy's tree for production, but if I can get a couple dozen lemons from it, growing up on the 2nd floor in a south-facing window, I'll be happy.
Yeah, the fact that there are links to buy the books is sort of a hint that the page is mostly a marketing ploy.
I've bought 3 books lately, the Pfeiffer baking book, the CIA textbook for cooks and a book by CIA on healthy cooking for home cooks (which is still in transit.)
Who's running those Ebay auctions and where do they store the stuff? Usually when a restaurant closes they've only got a few weeks to clear out the space. There used to be a company in Lincoln that dealt in used restaurant gear, they'd go to a closed restaurant and offer a price for the whole shop, but they had the warehouse space to hold it. However the guy running it retired and couldn't find a buyer for the business. Maybe there are some companies still doing that, but using Ebay?
I've been to a number of restaurant auctions over the years, and gotten some good bargains there, but only one in the last year when a local catering company closed. It was well-attended, most of the caterers in Lincoln were there and a few from 50-100 miles away. Stuff was going at prices far above what I was willing to pay.
At each of their bowl sizes, KA mixers seem to have two or three different motor options, so you need to be really careful, especially when buying a KA mixer at a low price from a large discount outlet. You can find a plate giving the wattage of the motor, but that doesn't tell the full story.
I always thought it was the lecithin that created a residue buildup on your pans. I haven't tried Vegalene, though I've seen it at the local restaurant supply house.
I"m not sure what the propellant is, it could be something flammable, so make sure you don't use it near an open flame.
I made some sirloin steak, I had mine with mushroom, a baked potato and salad, my wife had hers sliced and on bread, plus a salad.
For cooking I don't know that it makes much difference, though some people think iodized salt has a bitter or metallic taste to it.
The major salt companies advise against using kosher salt when baking because the larger crystal sizes may not dissolve and disperse in the dough properly.
My wife thinks Baker's Joy leaves a bitter taste on the surface of the cake.
The Pfeiffer (French Pastry School) book uses a butter/flour mixture to grease the pan for cakes, 3 tablespoons of European style butter to 4 teaspoons of pastry flour. I may have to try that for cakes, the KAF pan grease sometimes seems a bit heavy on the tongue on cakes, though not a bitter one.
When I make Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake I grease the pan with butter and coat it with cocoa instead of flour.
I do miss Mrs. Cindy, and I still have a few of her huge Meyer lemons in the freezer. Sometimes I wonder if her tree survived the Houston flooding.
I had to add a few of the ingredients to my Baker's Math Calculator recipe analyzer, but Clayton's recipe works out to about 54 ounces at about 82% hydration, which is going to make it fairly heavy. The hydration seems kind of high but the whole grains should absorb a lot of moisture.
I would not try it in my 4 1/2 quart KA mixer.
I'm not sure about a 5 1/2 quart KA mixer, but I would think the 6 quart models would handle it.
What's the total weight of the dough?
I'm not sure when KA started making the lift-bowl mixers, but I would think a 6 quart bowl with a spiral blade should be able to handle about 80 ounces of dough, or about 5 pounds. (The motor torque capacity is the key, and that's not always easy to figure out from the specs, that's one thing I remember from my electrical engineering coursework nearly 50 years ago.)
I find my 45 year old 4.5 quart mixer strains at about 60 ounces, and I have to be careful when making the Clonmel Kitchen recipe, which uses 32 ounces of flour, because if I don't do it right I get flour all over the counter. I've made a Challah recipe that was larger than that, but it was a really soft dough.
Above that, I'd look at other brands. I've seen some 10 or 12 quart tabletop mixers available from restaurant supply houses that are in the $750 - $1000 range and use a standard 120V outlet, though possibly 15-20 amps, and there's the $700 Ankarsrum, which some sources say can handle up to 15 pounds of dough.
The general rule of thumb that I remember was that a 1 HP motor will have an average load of 16 amps and a peak load of 1.25 times that or 20 amps. I think any device that draws over 15 amps is recommended to have its own circuit.
I made a 2.4 pound tri-tip roast today, I sprayed it with oil, dusted it with a little basil, pepper and onion powder, and roasted it at 425 until it was 145 at the center.
The hardest part was figuring out which way the grain went so I knew which direction to slice it. 🙂
I got enough drippings to make some gravy. Gravy without salt is kind of flat, though.
We spent about 2 hours practicing piping choux paste in pastry school, and I was TERRIBLE at it. Part of the problem is that I have trouble holding the bags the way they taught it because of arthritis. And I wound up with too many tails. The book uses a slightly different technique. (I may also try switching hands, using my dominant right hand at the bottom of the bag rather than at the top. I was trying that the last time I piped anything and it seemed to work better for me.)
I'm also going to try it using some Wilton bag clips. Also, the book says to use a slightly smaller tip than the one we used in pastry school (3/8" versus what I think was either 7/16" or 1/2".)
My wife won't eat chicken skin, even on fried chicken, so I really don't worry about whether it is nicely browned or not.
Roasting a chicken is extremely easy, though you can make it a lot more complex if you want. Sometimes I treat the inside of it like I would a larger bird, throw in some prunes that have been soaked in brandy or rum, some apple slices, lemon wedges and almonds. (James Beard recommended this inside a goose, but it works in chicken and turkey, too.) The drippings will make a wonderful gravy.
Sides, well, that's a matter of what you like. But that's a subject for another day and thread.
I've been reading about baking this week more than baking, specifically "The Art of French Pastry", by Jacquy Pfeiffer, co-founder of The French Pastry School in Chicago. Next week I'm probably going to spend a day (or maybe two) practicing with choux paste.
I don't roast a whole chicken very often, most of the time I'll do two bone-in breasts, or sometimes leg quarters or thighs, depending on what's on sale and what looks good.
The last time I had a whole chicken it was one of those 7 pound monsters, so I chopped it in half and roasted half after liberally dosing it with herbs, especially rosemary, then made chicken stock with the other half and turned that into chicken noodle soup.
In the summertime, if I do a chicken I'll often do it outdoors on the rotisserie.
I have sometimes roasted a chicken on a bed of onions, I think they add flavor to the meat. I usually do it at 425 then.
For lunch today I roasted a turkey breast fillet and then sliced it up for sandwiches, this should last me 3-4 days. For supper I did a stir fry with some sirloin steak, after cutting off a 10 ounce piece, which we'll probably have on Monday. (Tomorrow I'm doing a beef tri-tip roast.)
-
AuthorPosts
