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franco posted:...my thoughts definitely can't be trusted. I would totally suck on a cube in a moment of weakness. So... There's lots of other options then, stay strong man. I totally get where you're coming from. I'd probably look at a pinch of vinegar in place of wine in most dishes for the acidity, or maybe lemon juice.
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Mar 23, 2021 05:13
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Chemmy posted:There's lots of other options then, stay strong man. I totally get where you're coming from. I'd probably look at a pinch of vinegar in place of wine in most dishes for the acidity, or maybe lemon juice. Cheers dude/dudette - it's very appreciated  I've got a lot of options to try now so I'm sure something will fit!
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Mar 23, 2021 11:45
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Simple question that may not be simple at all: What is a good 4 slice toaster that will properly toast things, actually obeys its settings long-term instead of one of the dials mysteriously stopping working after a year, and that won't burn the bottom half of the toast while leaving the top half completely untoasted? Etc? We don't even eat that much friggen toast and I still feel like we go through way too many toasters because they all turn out to be garbage and need to be constantly watched to make sure that setting 2/10 doesn't decide to just stay down so long that it blackens the whole bread. I just want a 4 slice toaster that works and will toast things without loving them up. Pan toasting things isn't an option. A toaster oven could be considered if it takes about the same amount of space as a toaster and meets the requirements. Requirements beyond what I said above - 4 slice, can do bagels (ideally only toasting the flat side), and a tray that comes out to remove crumbs (or some other method that doesn't involve trying to shake an upside down toaster). I'm not super concerned about cost if it will work well, but that doesn't mean I'll go and spend $400 on a stupid toaster either.
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Mar 23, 2021 13:43
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I bought some parboiled rice, because it is now cheaper then those big bags. Do I have to do something different when cooking it? I mostly cook in a rice cooker or pilaf style.
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Mar 23, 2021 13:47
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shortspecialbus posted:Simple question that may not be simple at all: Bread Thread recently discussed this. I'm on mobile or I'd link. Depending on the counter space the long 2-slice toasters that can do 4 pieces of normal bread (or 2 fancy slices) was the recommendation; a few Cuisinarts in the $30-60 range were recommended. Also a link to the Wirecutter toaster reviews was in that group of posts too.
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Mar 23, 2021 15:49
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The obvious choice should be a restaurant style conveyor toaster.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:12
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DekeThornton posted:The obvious choice should be a restaurant style conveyor toaster. That's a funny way to spell salamander.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:25
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effika posted:Bread Thread recently discussed this. I'm on mobile or I'd link. Depending on the counter space the long 2-slice toasters that can do 4 pieces of normal bread (or 2 fancy slices) was the recommendation; a few Cuisinarts in the $30-60 range were recommended. Also a link to the Wirecutter toaster reviews was in that group of posts too. I went and found those posts, thanks. I forgot about wirecutter and it looks like they recommend an inexpensive 4 slice one (and had complaints about the longer-sliced ones) so I may just go with that one. Thanks!
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Mar 23, 2021 16:52
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Thumposaurus posted:That's a funny way to spell salamander. For toast? Feels like that would require too much of your attention compared to the conveyors. I've only used them in a restaurant setting for melting cheese on things.
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Mar 23, 2021 17:42
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DekeThornton posted:The obvious choice should be a restaurant style conveyor toaster. I have nightmares about those drat things. Pieces of bread getting stuck in there and burning during Sunday brunch service and ruining your whole flow. Big oof.
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Mar 24, 2021 01:52
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What does achiote taste like/go with? I picked up some pre-seasoned achiote chicken because it was super cheap and am planning on doing my first grill of the spring with it.
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Mar 24, 2021 17:11
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Is there anything I should add to the pan when carmelizing an onion? Would beer be a bad idea?
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Mar 24, 2021 17:26
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Just butter / oil and salt really, and maybe a bit of water (as little as possible) if things are starting to burn. I suppose beer would play the same role as water, but you'd add so little (ideally none) that I doubt it would make much of a difference.
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Mar 24, 2021 17:44
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Lester Shy posted:What does achiote taste like/go with? I picked up some pre-seasoned achiote chicken because it was super cheap and am planning on doing my first grill of the spring with it. Look into Yucatan cooking. Achiote an important flavor in conchinita pibil, so maybe some tacos with sour orange pickled onions, habanero salsa, and corn tortillas. Edit to add: It's pretty distinctive. It's been a while, but I would say it's a bit dusty/earthy, so bright/fresh flavors should pair well with it.. Human Tornada fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 19:18
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Yeah I think earthy is a good way to describe achiote Edit: also "goddammit this poo poo stains everything"
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Mar 24, 2021 20:51
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DildenAnders posted:Is there anything I should add to the pan when carmelizing an onion? Would beer be a bad idea?
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Mar 24, 2021 21:19
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They end up extremely mushy and weird, be careful.
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Mar 24, 2021 21:22
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mystes posted:They end up extremely mushy and weird, be careful. But yeah, it's mostly gimmicky and I'd only do it, like I said, if you're planning on blending the onions or something. It does speed things up, though.
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Mar 24, 2021 21:35
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I find they get mushy even with only salt. If the goal is for the onions to be front and center then only use butter or oil.
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Mar 24, 2021 22:54
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Welp I tried it with beer. There was a nice sweet spot where the onions were very soft, jammy, and not browned at all where the beer tasted good, but when the onions started actually carmelizing it made them taste a lot more bitter. I don't recommend it for carmelizing onions, maybe if you want some other soft form of onion though.
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Mar 25, 2021 00:15
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If it's a very hoppy beer (especially a dry-hopped beer) then boiling/cooking can make it more bitter. During brewing the hops are boiled and the high heat causes some of the hop compounds to transform into bitter-tasting compounds (that's part of what you want from hops). So if you boil a hoppy beer you'll end up making it even more bitter since those reactions will continue. But like a stout won't do this as much since the hops are already boiled a lot so they won't get much more bitter. Not that that's what happened to you, you could have also just reduced it enough so that the bitterness is more noticeable.
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Mar 25, 2021 00:24
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DildenAnders posted:Welp I tried it with beer. There was a nice sweet spot where the onions were very soft, jammy, and not browned at all where the beer tasted good, but when the onions started actually carmelizing it made them taste a lot more bitter. I don't recommend it for carmelizing onions, maybe if you want some other soft form of onion though. I would recommend caramelizing the onions and then deglazing the pan with whatever beer you're going with.
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Mar 25, 2021 01:33
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I don't know anything about beer, but I used an old Miller High Life from the fridge that tasted fine.
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Mar 25, 2021 04:24
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Just an interesting note on caramelizing red onions: they will turn blue-ish black if they become too alkaline while cooking down, but a little acid (vinegar) will turn them back to a more appetizing color (takes a few minutes).
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Mar 25, 2021 06:36
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I tried my hand at making some kimchi and it's merrily bubbling away in its jar and causing my hallway closet to have to be aired out very thoroughly soon. How do I know when I'm done making kimchi, and will I be able to keep it in a tightly closed tub in the fridge without fear of explosion? e: also how do I make sure I won't die from some sort of fermentation misfortune, it's a remote concern but man, you never know with biology
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Mar 25, 2021 08:34
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Just taste it and decide when to stop the progression. It starts simple & crisp and transforms to complex & soft. Anything past a couple days is considered kimchi, the rest is preference. Salt-regulated fermentated vegetables have never had a documented case of toxicity to humans. The worst that can happen is benign but gross tasting mold, so just sniff first then taste and if you like it, you can eat it
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Mar 25, 2021 13:49
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Im not sure if youll ever get to the closed jar without explosion stage. It will produce gas for a long time since when you put it in the fridge it just slows down the fermentation a lot, but theres still stuff for the bacteria and yeast to eat so you need to crack the lid a bit just to be on the safe side. Edit: if its one of those sealed square plastic containers with a gasket, just looking at it occasionally to make sure its not getting too much pressure is also sufficient. And as far as safety its usually advised to let your sense of smell guide you in addition to inspecting it by eye. If it smells bad or off dont go there. Of course kimchi is a little harder since its funky to begin with.
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Mar 25, 2021 14:30
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Yeah, just eat it as long as it tastes good. I make kimchi by the gallon, and sometimes life happens and you forget about a few cups of it in the back of the fridge for 6 months or a year - that's when you make jiggae with it. It never really goes bad in my experience.
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Mar 25, 2021 15:10
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I have a container of infinity kimchi in the fridge. I just toss the dregs of my current batch in every time I make a new one. The oldest bits are probably going on 7 or 8 years now.
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Mar 25, 2021 16:04
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My Lovely Horse posted:I tried my hand at making some kimchi and it's merrily bubbling away in its jar and causing my hallway closet to have to be aired out very thoroughly soon. I generally leave it out at room temperature for two or three days then fridge it. I've never had an explosion, opening the jar occasionally when you get some kimchi is plenty. You may need to burp it a couple times at the beginning before it slows down.
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Mar 25, 2021 16:48
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My Lovely Horse posted:e: also how do I make sure I won't die from some sort of fermentation misfortune, it's a remote concern but man, you never know with biology You really, really won't. I make my sauerkraut in a mason jar on the counter, for pete's sake.
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Mar 26, 2021 02:25
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I've only had one kimchisplosion and that's cuz I had the great idea to make kimchi in the middle of august when it was like 90F out so it fermented in like 12 hours and then proceeded to spew fart gas and chili paste out the air lock.
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Mar 26, 2021 02:57
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Im naming my backup band The Kimchi Explosion. Flash Gordon Ramsay and The Kimchi Explosion it is.
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Mar 26, 2021 03:04
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Chiming in to say as long as you got the right amount of salt in your kraut/kimchi/pickles then you're not going to get sick or die. Once upon a time, nobody had refrigerators and we still managed to pull through as a species. Turns out that fermented cabbage had a lot to do with that.
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Mar 26, 2021 05:53
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I'm sure we all had a lot more bowel issues back then, as a species.
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Mar 26, 2021 08:27
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This may sound like a crazy question but has anyone ever seen a book or course or something structured that focuses on learning flavors? For example, I can make my own pasta sauce on the fly after enough times following different recipes and make something I enjoy eating, but I've got no idea what actually works and what doesn't. I'm just combining a bunch of stuff I've learned commonly make up a pasta sauce from past recipes and accepting it. Like I add garlic but I've never gotten a taste I'd recognize as garlic in a spaghetti sauce, but it's commonly recommended and even doubling the usual amount I might add doesn't make a difference I can find. And if I'm not detecting the garlic, I'm certainly not detecting the small amount of dried oregano or whatever like it. Obviously I could just make up multiple batches and taste test them but that's a waste unless I make super small batches. However when you're talking about going from serving just a couple of people to literally 1/3 of a person, how can I ensure everything is scaling properly? And the other option is maybe make a batch one night with one combination of ingredients and then a batch another night with a different ratio and see which I like better. Which I've done a few times, but I either rarely notice a difference or it's just bad. I literally tried to do something like that with salting meat over the course of a weak eating the same thing over and over again and I could tell when I put in no salt or a pinch, I could tell when I put in a huge handful that was basically eating salt, and everything in between just tasted no different. I'm sure there was a difference but it wasn't big enough to really notice over multiple days. And eating the exact same thing over the course of a week while only changing the salt level was painful. I'm not driven or creative enough to come up with my own way to do this, so I always just cook what I know or find random recipes I stick with until I can basically emulate them without the recipe and just don't try anything else. nessin fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 26, 2021 23:57
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nessin posted:This may sound like a crazy question but has anyone ever seen a book or course or something structured that focuses on learning flavors? For example, I can make my own pasta sauce on the fly after enough times following different recipes and make something I enjoy eating, but I've got no idea what actually works and what doesn't. I'm just combining a bunch of stuff I've learned commonly make up a pasta sauce from past recipes and accepting it. Like I add garlic commonly, but I've never gotten a taste I'd recognize as garlic in a spaghetti sauce, but it's commonly recommended. And if I'm not detecting the garlic, I'm certainly not detecting the small amount of dried oregano or whatever like it. It's not structured instruction, but rather a sort of handbook or index of different ingredients/flavours. Each consists of the ingredient name, followed by a list of other flavours/ingredients often paired with it, with typographical indications of more and less popular/common combinations. There are also sidebars with recipes illustrating some (but nowhere near all) flavour combinations. So not quite what you're asking for, but it's an invaluable reference for feeling out your own new recipes, especially when you're just starting to try.
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Mar 27, 2021 00:13
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nessin posted:This may sound like a crazy question but has anyone ever seen a book or course or something structured that focuses on learning flavors? For example, I can make my own pasta sauce on the fly after enough times following different recipes and make something I enjoy eating, but I've got no idea what actually works and what doesn't. I'm just combining a bunch of stuff I've learned commonly make up a pasta sauce from past recipes and accepting it. Like I add garlic but I've never gotten a taste I'd recognize as garlic in a spaghetti sauce, but it's commonly recommended and even doubling the usual amount I might add doesn't make a difference I can find. And if I'm not detecting the garlic, I'm certainly not detecting the small amount of dried oregano or whatever like it. Maybe you're already doing this, but the most instructive thing for me has always been eating at more restaurants.
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Mar 27, 2021 04:15
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I agree with whats been written above, but I think I would challenge this notion:nessin posted:Like I add garlic but I've never gotten a taste I'd recognize as garlic in a spaghetti sauce, but it's commonly recommended and even doubling the usual amount I might add doesn't make a difference I can find. And if I'm not detecting the garlic, I'm certainly not detecting the small amount of dried oregano or whatever like it. The end result is often more than the sun of its parts: you may not be able to recognise the separate flavours of individual ingredients in a dish, but I dont think that means they dont contribute to the overall taste.
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Mar 27, 2021 09:07
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I agree. If you don't mind cleaning two pans, making two nearly identical sauces minus one difference is the best way to learn. All the same ingredients except one has double garlic (or no garlic, but that makes my soul cry) Bonus points for tasting them blind - put them in cups, scramble them, and try to guess which one has the higher dose. Of course if something is being added late in cooking, like salt, soy sauce, vinegar, citrus, you can taste right before and right after the addition, either normally or with the blinded suggestion. Small side note - garlic, onion, and other alliums should be prepped at the exact way a recipe explains at least once - the difference between fresh minced and jarred minced garlic is huge. The difference between fresh minced and minced an hour ago because you wanted to prep is smaller but very noticeable. Same for minced vs. rough chopped. And yellow onions are not the same as white onions or sweet onions. Not to intimidate you -- a homemade dish with any of the above differences will still be better than most restaurant meals, it just won't be the balance the recipe author intended and can be the cause of your inability to notice the garlic.
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Mar 27, 2021 15:27
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