Mike Nolan

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  • in reply to: The Under-Equipped Kitchen #10934
    Mike Nolan
    Keymaster

      The Washington Post has an interesting article by one of their food writers comparing the Instant Pot to a cast iron Dutch oven on several recipes: coq au vin, pernil asado and black bean soup. The writer made versions of each recipe in both devices and had a chef blind taste them. The chef thought the Dutch oven ones were better for all 3 recipes and correctly identified 2 out of 3 of them as to which was made in which.

      Not sure if this link will work for everyone, but here it is: instant pot vs Dutch oven

      I may try the black bean soup recipe (without garlic, though.)

      in reply to: Happy Birthday BakerAunt #10914
      Mike Nolan
      Keymaster

        I don't see anything on wiki about key limes having been wiped out.

        in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 28, 2018 #10913
        Mike Nolan
        Keymaster

          Tonight was pot roast night. Yum.

          in reply to: Happy Birthday BakerAunt #10906
          Mike Nolan
          Keymaster

            Yes, happy birthday!

            in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10905
            Mike Nolan
            Keymaster

              I was looking at a KAF recipe for Westphalian rye bread yesterday, it's a 2-3 day recipe, with several very long rise periods (like 24 hours) and it bakes for 5 hours at 225 degrees.

              in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10899
              Mike Nolan
              Keymaster

                I made honey wheat bread today.

                in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10896
                Mike Nolan
                Keymaster

                  I wonder if the taste difference was due to the variety of chicken or the fact that the eggs were really fresh? We had a few chickens when I was growing up, I got to crawl into the chicken pen to fetch eggs every day or two.

                  in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10895
                  Mike Nolan
                  Keymaster

                    I didn't get the veal ragout made until tonight, but it was delicious, took about 90 minutes for the veal to get tender on the stovetop. Had it with a salad and a little cheese toast.

                    in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10890
                    Mike Nolan
                    Keymaster

                      Last night I also made a ground beef Stroganoff, served on toast. Tonight I'm going to be experimenting with some veal stew meat, tomatoes, peppers, onions and mushrooms. I bought a 7 bone chuck roast to make over the weekend.

                      in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10889
                      Mike Nolan
                      Keymaster

                        That's because your chocolate was not tempered. Heating chocolate higher than about 105 degrees causes the cocoa butter to lose all crystal structure, and when it cools a random mixture of various crystal states (alpha-1 through alpha-5) will form. Only alpha-5 is solid at room temperature. It might harden up some over time (a few weeks) because there's a sixth crystal state (alpha-6) that is also solid at room temperature but doesn't appear until chocolate sits for several weeks.

                        in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10873
                        Mike Nolan
                        Keymaster

                          Thanks for the status update, Len. You should drop then a note letting them know about your concerns and see how they respond.

                          in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 21, 2018? #10845
                          Mike Nolan
                          Keymaster

                            The weather is supposed to be taking a turn for the worse today, and I'll be making a batch of chicken noodle soup.

                            in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 14, 2018? #10839
                            Mike Nolan
                            Keymaster

                              Today I'm making Vienna Bread from the Double Crusty recipe, but I only used 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt instead of 2 teaspoons.

                              in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of January 14, 2018? #10837
                              Mike Nolan
                              Keymaster

                                Tonight I'm roasting a half-chicken with sage, rosemary and thyme seasoning. I'll probably throw the other half of the chicken in the stockpot tomorrow for soup. (It was a big bird, about 7 pounds.)

                                I'm no longer sure there's much point to searing the outside of a roast before cooking it. It doesn't "hold in the juices" as was incorrectly stated by German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1847 and then repeated for the next 150 years. All it really does is make sure that the outside is more well-done than the rest, and I'm far from convinced that's a good thing.

                                in reply to: Pizza-Making ? #10835
                                Mike Nolan
                                Keymaster

                                  The nutrition labels in the USA don't give you a lot to go on, because they usually consider a 'serving' of flour to be somewhere around 30 grams and they report protein content in gram intervals, so you basically will see 3 or 4 grams of protein per serving.

                                  4 grams of protein per 30 gram serving really means somewhere between 3.50 grams and 4.49 grams, which means somewhere between 11.6666% protein and 14.96%, which is a pretty wide range.

                                  So you can sort of tell whether a flour is a fairly low protein flour (below 11.66%) or not, but that's about it.

                                  I've been reading nutrition labels a lot more lately, because of my low-sodium diet, but I still think they are less helpful than they could be. (And I hold out zero hope that they'll ever be meaningfully improved.)

                                  Another annoying aspect of the labels is what they consider a serving. I bought a candy bar once that contained 2.5 servings. Yeah, right.

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