mktye

What I'd love to know, and maybe this belongs in the cooking thread, but why is it so hard to make guac at home as good as it is at Cafe Atlantico and Rosa Mexicano?  Indeed, a dish that looks so simple can be utterly destroyed at other places.  Is it that certain restaurants have better ingredients?  Is it the recipe?

And I always wonder why restaurants can't make it as good as I can at home!

The type of avocados does make a difference. Be sure to use a Hass-type (see here for more info.) instead of the smooth-skinned Florida avocados. The very best avocados are those that have never been chilled, but they are pretty hard to obtain (I've only acquired them from my mother-in-law who owns a farm with ~135 avocado trees).

(I'll post my favorite guacamole recipe over on "Shopping and Cooking" .)

Yeast-raised, maple-glazed, homemade doughnuts.

While visiting my aunt last August, I decided to make her some fresh bread. "Of course I have some yeast" she answered to my query and proceeded to hand me an envelope of Fleishmann's with an expiration date of 1981! (I did actually proof the yeast to see if by any chance it was only mostly dead, but it was totally dead.)

But I am not much better... I have an unopened bottle of Chinese red vinegar in my cupboard that was purchased at least seven years ago. It has moved with us from Maryland to California and then back here again.

I need half-sheet pans, precut parchment liners, ring molds in various sizes, and a few other things.  Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma & etc. are OK, if expensive, but I want the real stuff.

I came across a site called Pastry Chef Central (click) while recently searching for some hazelnut praline paste. They appear to have a good selection of bakeware and such.

French-style (Gerbet, to be specific) Macaroons. Vanilla and non-traditional Maple, both types filled with matching-flavored buttercream.

Did you make the flakes yourself? 

Hmmm... yet another good idea mdt!

Bran flakes with 2% milk.

To the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"...

Space-space-space your post

will cause DonRocks great stress.

Miracle Whip, Miracle Whip, Miracle Whip, Miracle Whip,

and don't spell Power with an "S".

Cook's Illustrated had a good article on fruit sorbets in their July 95 issue. It is also available on their website if you are a member.

For grapefruit sorbet, their recipe uses 1.5 cups juice, .5 cups water, 1 cup + 1 T sugar and 1 T vodka.

The sugar/water ratio will affect the creaminess/iciness of the finished sorbet. The addition of alcohol lowers the freezing point of the water and allows the use of less sugar. You can try tweaking that variable a bit, but adding too much alcohol will make your sorbet taste like a drink and not a dessert (not always a bad thing ).

As to copying Palena's sorbets, most high-end restaurants now use pacojets for their sorbets and ice creams. This device freezes the ingredients at a very low temperature and then uses a whirling blade to shave off a thin layer to produce a creamy product. It allows restaurants to make sorbets in a way the home cook cannot (such as using far less sugar).

In Texas, y'all get a squeeze bottle of Ranch Dressing for your pizza "bones" (aka the crusts in central Texas-speak).

The dough was tough to manipulate because of its stickiness, but not frustratingly so.  I'll need to figure out how to make the dough more easy to work with.  (Attn: mktye.  Expect PM barrage.)

I like to use oil rather than flour while stretching the dough. It is a bit odd to get accustomed to, but it might make things easier. You can also add more flour at the start to make a bit firmer dough, but it will affect the texture of the end-product.

I am glad you were happy with the recipe!

I'd ask the same questions of a horse butcher that I'd ask of a local butcher who was selling grass-fed/whatever beef directly - do you know your supplier, are they reputable, are they following sensible management practices like a withdrawal period, etc. Essentially, the "would you feed this to your family?" test.

Which is pretty much the point I was (unsuccessfully ) trying to to make. Just because horses usually lead much nicer lives than many animals on big "factory" farms, does not mean they are any less exposed to various chemical substances which can linger in their systems. For those who go out of their way to get Niman Ranch pork,Sunnyside Farms beef and the like, I suspect that most horse meat is not something they'd want to eat.

Garlic Chutney

I make a very similar recipe and heartily concur that this chutney is delicious!!!

Smoky Tomato Ketchup

Hey mdt -- you were wondering what to do with all those extra tomatoes?

And then there is Vace for the rest of us

Noooo! You can do it, I know you can!!!

For inspiration (and to prove I practice what I preach)...

Mixing the dough, mixed, and after 40 minute rise

The dough, poured and then spread in the pan

The half-baked dough (and half-topped, since I am apparently half-witted and forgot to take the picture before I started putting on the toppings) and ready to go back into the oven (brushed with garlic oil and topped with tomatoes, basil & mozzarella)

Finished baking

Time to eat (I started the dough at 5:00 and it was ready to eat at 7:00 even though I got busy and left the dough to rise to an hour and 15 minutes.)

Edited to add: If you want a thinner crust pizza, you can use half the amount of dough and stretch it out more (just keep in mind that a thinner crust will take less time to partially bake before topping, only 10 minutes or so).

Have any of you all ever considered making your own pizza dough? Here is a recipe from “No Need To Knead” by Suzanne Dunaway, that is very quick and very, very easy. It can also be made ahead and refrigerated which is great for convenience and really adds to the flavor.

I use this recipe for my everyday pizza dough (if you are looking for a more complex company-quality crust recipe, PM me. I also have one for a spectacular thin-crust pizza and one for a really nice deep-dish pizza). The following recipe is originally written as a focaccia recipe, so you can also spread it out not quite as thinly, top it with some sea salt and herbs and use it that way also.

EASY PIZZA DOUGH

Makes one large pizza

2 cups water, warm

2 teaspoons dry yeast

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

In a large bowl (or bowl of mixer), sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until it dissolves. Stir in the 2 cups of flour and the salt and stir briskly until smooth, ~2 minutes (~30 seconds if using the flat beater in a mixer). Mix in the remaining 2 cups flour and stir ~2 minutes longer (~1 minute if using a mixer). Stir just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and the flour is incorporated. The dough will be fairly wet and sticky.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. (Or, for more flavor, cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let it sit, covered, before proceeding with the recipe.)

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone put it on the bottom rack of the oven (and if using a stone, preheat the oven ~1 hour before baking).

Oil a half-sheet or pizza pan generously with the olive oil (for ease in removal of the baked pizza, I like to line the pan with a piece of parchment paper and lightly oil the parchment). Pour the dough onto the pan, scraping it from the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula or flexible dough scraper. Liberally oil your hands and the surface of the dough with olive oil and gently press and stretch the dough with your fingertips until it covers the whole pan.

Immediately, place the plain crust (without toppings) in the oven (on top of the baking stone if you are using one) and reduce the oven temperature to 450 degrees. Bake for ~20 until the crust just starts to color. Remove from the oven, top with your desired toppings and then bake an additional 15-20 minutes until the toppings are heated through and the cheese is lightly browned.

And an extra special thanks to hillvalley for her adept handling of the cancellations and the wait-list.

Mystery Sauce 1-7 (Which I think was the Fermano's butter sauce, but my score sheet is still packed somewhere)

Ding-ding-ding... you picked the overall winner... Hunt's.

We also had some of the leftover butter sauce last night (it was a mixture of the leftovers from making all the butter sauces). Combined it with some chopped bresaola, egg, mozzarella and leftover rice, formed the mixture into patties, which were then breaded and fried until crispy on the outside. Served with a bit more of the sauce spooned over the top. Mmmm.

Gosh, this is so complicated and without seeing what you do, I can't respond properly.

I certainly understand that and really appreciate the time and thought you've given my question. Thank you.

I don't know why you make a sponge with your starter.  If your starter is well-tended it should eliminate the need for that step.  Sponges are generally made to add flavor and hydration to a dough but the starter should do that.

Yes, but I must confess that I am a notorious starter abuser... I only bake with my starter once a week at most and tend to leave it ignored in the refrigerator in the interim. So the sponge step is more of a feeding for my starter than anything else.

Your first fermentation is very long.  I hope you are folding the dough at least one time during the fermentation. 

A bit too slack to fold, but a stir might work. I've never tried that. Thank you. This is the step I have been thinking of tweaking to improve my summer version. I suspect that it is simply too long of a ferment with the higher ambient temperatures. I am making a batch today and cutting it down to 2.5 hours, so we'll see...

My favorite type of bread to bake is the baguette because it is the one I never get right.  And to eat, I most love a campagne.

Thank you very much for your insights!

And couple more questions, if I may...

What brand of flour do you prefer to use? And do you find a noticeable difference between different brands of flour?

As a former horse owner, I would not want to eat something that is regularly sprayed and injected with some rather toxic chemical compounds.

Printed in very large letters on most bottles of fly spray are the words: "Not for use on horses intended for human consumption." I sprayed my horse with this nasty stuff daily for 9 months out of the year.

And every other month, I squirted a large pesticide-filled syringe (with a similar warning label) into his mouth in an attempt to kill off most of the ever-present internal parasites.

So do you really want to eat some domestic horse?

This is all still happening, right?  I don't want to show up and have to eat all the cheese samples myself.

We're still planning on it, so we'll be there to help you out with the cheese even if no one else shows...

Chef Furstenberg, if you are taking technical questions regarding baking...

I'm an avid (or possibly even rabid) home baker and every summer my sourdough starts giving me fits. I am 98% sure it is due to the higher ambient temperature in my house, but I am at a loss how to work around it with my limited home resources.

My usual winter method:

Sponge:

8 oz. 100% hydration starter

12 oz. water

16 oz. flour

Ferment at room temp. ~5 hours.

Dough:

All of sponge

8 oz. flour

1st rise ~4 hours. Form. Proof ~8 hours (overnight). Bake.

Following this method in the summer results in thin-crusted, over-proofed loaves with less sour flavor than we prefer (my husband is a SF Bay Area native and is accustomed to that style of sourdough).

I have tried doing the sponge fermentation and the final proofing in the refrigerator, but neither of these variations gets me the quality of loaf I am able to produce in the winter. I suspect the refrigerator is just too cold and retards the loaves too much.

Do you have any ideas on how to overcome a warm summer house and make great sourdough year-round? (Short of converting my extra refrigerator into a dedicated retarder or the whole house into one using the A/C!)

Also, and this is probably like asking a parent to pick his favorite child, what is your favorite type of bread? To bake? To eat?

Thank you!!!

Cranky, picky, often going hungry out of principle and spite,

Which brings us back to the inital topic of this thread...

people are inevitably tempted to do really, really unnatural things with it.

It grieves me to say that not only have I witnessed this particular example first hand, in the name of politness, I have actually eaten it while being lectured by a stranger on the merits of "anonized" aluminum pots & pans.

I will pass along the praise to Mr. mktye -- it was his idea. He also proposed we should taste the bacon by itself, in BLT's and then in bacon cheeseburgers. And then eat all the leftover test bacon with garlic mashed potatoes and lots of sour cream!

But I don't know about waiting until JG's construction is finished... that could be a few years!

the last of the ricotta torte

The first one or the second one?!?

Hmm, we are also have something with tomato sauce for dinner tonight...