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deangold

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Posts posted by deangold

  1. Softshells. Spot thinks we are cooking then to torture him. 

    Pan sauteed dusted with flour & Grotto spice rub. Served with spaghetti w/homemade ramp butter & ramp pesto.

    Bread courtesy of DanielK's wife.

    Wine was Alcesti Bianco from Sicily. Nice, simple white to go with the spicy and rich crab. A higher quality wine would have been lost. 

    Spot was so put off his food by our tormenting him that he finished all his pizza, ate all his evening chow, and told us he would see us at 3am. 

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  2. On 6/16/2020 at 1:23 PM, deangold said:

    The success of the puree project is making me thing of making something with the extracted berries after the shrub making. I will have to see what flavor is left. I don't want cloudy shrubs as this will affect their shelf stability. 

    This week I am trying to score other berries. 

    The strawberry shrubs are mostly done. I used different vinegar pairs for each. The white sugar was balsamic & champagne vinegar. The turbinado was with sherry & rice wine. The dark brown sugar has the least strawberry flavor and I vinegared it with Red Wine and Seasoned rce vinegar that you usually use for Japanese cooking. That came out interesting but I am not sure.

    The shrub extracted in the balsamico & red wine vinegar was with no sugar. I added all the rich brown sugar simple syrup I had. I forgot I used all the brown sugar, so I used some Lyle's Golden sugar and a little water to finish it. The strawberry flavor needed puching up so I pureed the strawberries in to the shrub. Now my shrub has a 1" layer of foam. We shall see.

    The 1.5 pounds of berries in the 3 sugar extracted shrubs wwnt into the vita mix along with some blood orange juice & zest and water. We got 20 oz of a wonderful puree for margies or daiquiris from that, not in the freezer. 

    I ran out of gas on the cherries so I will finish them tomorrow, along with the second batch of puree. 

    I got 3 pounds of cherries

  3. I am sorry, but the current Post article to me seems to be the kind of exposure to the causal nature with which white people accept racist behavior. 

    I had customers at the Grotto and Dino make comments about my staff based on race. They were kicked out or told off in no uncertain terms. I banned a regular customer from Dino over his unacceptable statements towards a team member of mine with visible challenges. It is unacceptable and you cannot accept it. 

    Here was a quasi official affair and something unacceptable happened. When two BIPOC called out the woman in blackface, the hosts of the party were already in the wrong.She should have been asked to leave already. That one of the hosts did not provide the harrassed woman the full information and lied about it, he became complicit. If this had been a dinner party with just friends, the fact that the hosts were insensitive and complicit in a racist act could have remained private or could have become an issue affecting attendees. But that is not what happened here.

    This is one of those parties where you have a large number of people who work at the post attended. It became a quasi official affair because of this. Workplace harassment can happen on the job, but it can happen at social events. And this workplace is the Washington Post. And Toles is a Pulitzer prize winning member of the Post's editorial page. And he blew it. 

    What should happen? To me, this article is the bare minimum. I do think HR at the post should be investigating it if they are not already. I think Mr. Toles has opened himself up to public scorn. Should he be fired? I am not doing the investigation and I do not have input from the harassed employee. But this should not be swept under the rug and especially Mr. Toles does not get a pass because of liberal cred.

    This situation is very similar to me as outing. There are a lot of people who think outing a political figure with a track record of anti LGBT action is wrong. I am not one of them. When people in power use their positions to harm and hide, there need to be consequences. Aaron Shock was outed not because he was gay, but because he was actively harming gay families by lying about who he was and using his position to inflict that harm.

    This case is not the same, and Mr Toles offence not at the same level. But his outing is a good thing as was Shocks. 

    I don't know if this offends any one, but if it does so I will be glad to know and eliminate you from my life. I don't have time for casual white supremacy. Our country does not. 

    • Like 1
  4. 2 hours ago, genericeric said:

    2018 Titus Napa Sauvignon Blanc (actually about 95% SB, 5% viongier).  Crisp, clean.  I don't like the strong lychee found in many SBs, and this was restrained but still represented a new world style nicely.  At $25, a nice wine for the price.

    The lychee is a characteristic of the Musque clone. The use of certain yeasts can exacerbate it. I like it in low oak styles. 

    • Like 1
  5. I scored some soft shells live from Cold Country Salmon. I am making crab pats for a couple of Grotto customers to pick up tonight. Contactless pick up of course.

    So we decided to quality control the crabs as soon as we got them. We took two, I cleaned them {cutting the face off a live crabs always gives me the creeps} and coated them in a mix of flour & Grotto spice mix. I pan fried them in olive oil and they came out pretty deliscious. It was good to get back into cooking crabs as there are some adjustments I will make in how I handle them tonight.

    Very juicy, very heavy, lots of meat. I mixed some homemade fermented hot sauce and some homemade roasted garlic mayo for the sauce.

    Hearing eating sounds, Spot came out and ate some dry food. His look he gave us told us he is up to something. His so far 3 hour cat nap tells us he is too lazy to implement his great plan even if he could remember it.

     

  6. Korean BBQ inspired dinner. 

    Local pork belly unseasoned and done in the yaki niku grill.

    Roasted local veggies: purple cauliflower, kohlrabi, daikon, red radish, broccoli, carrots from Linda Vista, Barajas, Spring Valley. All seasoned with olive oil, grotto spice rub, S & P.

    Doenjang, gochujaru paste, salt & sesame oil. 

    Japanese salt pickle with leaves {kohlrabi, radish and outer Chinese cabbage,} slicing cukes, soy, mirin and persimmon vinegar dressing. 

    Baby new potatoes from Spring Valley. We wound up toasting them on the grill and making Ssam. Potatossam with doenjang and gochujang are amazing!

    Linda Vista romaine leaves. 

    local cherries from Spring Valley. 

    Flattened garlic to go on the grill. Garlic ssam are as good as the potato ones. 

    A few shots of soju and a bottle of makkoli.

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    • Like 2
  7. I used the one in the Cusinart recipe book with mods. It is based on using a 1.5 quart batch.

    start with the Mexican style chocolate recipe.

    increase the vanilla to 1 TBSP. If you can get the double fold vanilla, use 1-1/2 tsp vanilla and 1-1/2 tsp old grandad or some other budget priced GOOD bourbon.
    I used more pepper but it was Aleppo and I used over a tablespoon of mixed fresh ground spices: Allspice, clove, a little black pepper, a tiny bit of black cumin, Ceylon cinnamon, Aleppo flakes. I started with less and added moe to taste. This was added as I scalded the milk and let it cook before tempering the eggs.
    6 farmers market egg yolks.
    64% Valrhona Manjari chocolate. Probably closer to 7 oz. 
    1/4 teaspoon grey salt
    add one scraped vanilla bean to the milk mix before scalding. Two if you are feeling flush. Get good vanilla beans and extract. Pensy's is not good but it is acceptable. Beanilla is great and standard pricing for really good vanilla. If you buy them 10 or more at a time, you need to have a vacumn sealer to keep the beans from drying out. 

    On the technique,

    I do not add the vanilla to the milk mix initially. I want the alcohol.

    I scald the milk up to 190 to 200 degrees with a fair bit of stirring as I am creaming the yolks and sugar on the lowest speed on a stand mixer.

    When it hits temp, I let it cool to 140 degrees, stirring often to help it cool, then I start tempering the egg mix and the milk/cream mix. I find tempering the egg mix at 190 degrees leaves an eggy residue that gets strained out. Do not strain the mix at this point, but just dont pour the vanilla bean as you temper. 

    Once the egg mix is fully incorporated, reheat is over low to medium heat until 200 max, 190 is OK. Now strain over the chocolate and use a whisk to make sure it all melts and incorporates, but try not to get a  lot of air added at this point. 

    When the cooked custard reached about 140, add the alcoholic additions. You can go up to double, but your gelato will wind up softer. I love it that way, but YMMV.

    Let cool to 70 degrees on the counter, you have 2 hours in the safe zone. Refrigerate overnight. You will need to use a scraper to get the gelato base into the cuisinart.

    If you deviate from this suggestion by any manner whatsoever, Spot the Cat {@SpottheCat6 on the twitts} will come and be very loud in his disapproval, and expect you to feed him Greenies. Don't say I did not warn you. 

  8. 2 hours ago, zgast said:

    Veering between sharing your reaction and about to explode.  Forget the crazy political and social views for a second, who thinks that treating employees like this is remotely acceptable?  What made them stick around for so long?  Not blaming the victims, but we've got to do better teaching people to out this early and often.

    It is hard to be the first one to speak out so I am glad you are not victim shaming. But he threw his employees under the bus as well as harassed them. This is beyond my comprehension on his part. 

    • Like 1
  9. 7 hours ago, deangold said:

    I am in no mood for more booze, but you know, quality control is important. Only half of the last sentence is true. 

    Just to report back for scientific purposes.

    Buffalo Trace is a warm, lighter bourbon. I look forward to mixing with it.

    High West Double Rye is a smokey big mouthful of spicy rye. Outstanding. Almost Islay scotch-like smoke.

    Redemption Rye is a more delicate, lighter style. Very tasty and quite a good buy at $33. {22 at Macarthurs. This is going to be my house mixing rye when I am out of Old Overholt.}

    Now that my palate was calibrated on rye, I went on to consider Templeton and Willet Family Reserve. again for science.

    The Templeton was light and sweet. While this rye has grown on me, it still does not justify its price IMO.

    The WIllet was very round and less spicy than the High West. Fuller and rounder than the Redemption. I think the High West is my favorite, with the Willet Redemption behind. But with the redemption $22, The High West $29 to $35 and the Willett $59, the Willett is going to be a rare treat.

    I was checking pricing on Willett and the big takeaway is that my favorite spirits are $7 a bottle cheaper in DC. Worth a trip.This is not going to be a good thing for my wallet.

     

  10. I had a rough day and was not feeling well so Kay did all the cooking. I gave some instructions.

    We had some Japanese salt pickle working in the fridge made with kohlrabi and radish leaves. The Kohlrabi leaves were very tough so they have been sitting for several days. We did some with lemon slices and that was what Kay picked out. First she squeezed out the juices. Next was sliced baby Kirby cukes from the farmers market. Then she flavored it with an Asian pear dressing we had used before on a similar pickle. She added some soy sauce and persimmon vinegar. Came out perfectly and just the thing to sooth my stomach.

    Left over sweet potato with ramp pesto, served cold.

    Strawberry gelato with fresh strawberries. 

    Kay made me a 4 to 3 Gibson with Plymouth, Dolin Dry, and a pair of bitters: Peychaud's aromatic and Angostura orange bitters. Kay has a tendency to under bitter martinis but this time she hit it right on. I get the cocktail onions from one of my old suppleiers, IGF. They are small but very tasty with more than just a brine flavor. 

    I scored a bottle of Buffalo Trace Bourbon, and one of Redemption Rye. These are hard to come by at the VABC so it was a lucky day. Also, the High West Double Rye was on sale for 15% off, so I was forced to buy one too. I will quality control all three tonight. I am in no mood for more booze, but you know, quality control is important. Only half of the last sentence is true. 

    Spot, in recognition of my not feeling well, was an asshat to Kay, and not me, tonight. I did not follow the details but he finished his pizza in record time. Usually it takes him 3 or 4 hours to finish half a can. Tonight, first shot and the bowl was almost licked clean. 

  11. At 36 hours, none of these seem completely extracted. I have moved all of them to the wine cellar temperature. I am shaking 2 times a day. They smell amazing. The Queen Anne's cherries seem the most extrated. The vinegar maceration seems less strawberry like than the sugar extractions. 

    The puree came out amazing. Just dumped the liquid and the extracted berries into a blander ajr and pureed it. I got 5 x 4oz jars of puree in the freezer. And that was after 2 tragic leakage incidents. It is so good that I put up another quart. I am figuring that 4 oz will be perfect for two frozen drinks. If it is too much, I will just make bigger drinks.

    The success of the puree project is making me thing of making something with the extracted berries after the shrub making. I will have to see what flavor is left. I don't want cloudy shrubs as this will affect their shelf stability. 

    This week I am trying to score other berries. 

  12. Over the past 2 days I put up a whole lot of spicy condiments.

    Sunday;Thai

    Fish sauce & lime juice w/garlic & fresh chilis {Nam Pla Prik}

    Chiles w/sugar, MSG. salt, garlic & rice vinegar {Prik Nasom}

    Prik Dong {thai chiles in rice vinegar}

    Prik Si Iew Wan {chiles in sweet soy sauce, this is going to be amazing, the bhii extraction into the thick, sweet dark soy is slow and complex.}

    King Ki Mao {ginger in bourbon, rice vinegar & fish sauce. Never heard this one before but I cannot wait to try. }

    Monday hot chili oils {all made with half Indian mustard oil and half virgin peanut oil, all involved heating oil to high temps {190c+ and then pouring the oils over the chili flakes 3 to 5 times}

    Chili oil w/lots of toasted Korean gochujang red pepper flakes, Sichuan red peppercorn powder {toasted and ground at home}fresh chilis, garlic, MSG, salt, black vinegar, sesame oil & soy. Blindingly hot. The oil was infused w/cinnamon, fresh scallion, garlic & ginger, allspice, black pepper, black cumin, star anise}

    Sichuan inspired chili sauce w/Korean red pepper flakes, Aleppo flakes, Sichuan red peppercorn powder, soy, black vinegar, salt, sugar, msg. The oil was infused w/cinnamon, fresh scallion, garlic & ginger, allspice, black pepper, black cumin, black cardamon, star anise} This is more of a dumpling/noodle style chili oil/sauce. Blindingly hot.

    Sichuan hot chile oil The oil was infused w/sichuan red and green peppercorns, cinnamon, fresh scallion, garlic & ginger, allspice, black pepper, black cumin, black cardamon, star anise} and poured over Korean pepper flakes. I have not decided if this is to be strained or left on the crispy flakes. I have enough of it to make 2 batches. Blindingly hot, more of a cooking ingredient than a condiment.

    Chili Crisp {inspired by a video on Chinese Cooking Demystified where some of the only people in the world more into detailed descriptions of the food they cook than me, riff on Lao Gan Ma chili crisps, Reddit link here, but this was my own riff on a riff} Again ,the combo of oils was infused with nfused w/cinnamon, fresh scallion, garlic & ginger, allspice, black pepper, black cumin, black cardamon, star anise. But in this recipe, all the ingredients were fried in the oil as opposed to using a hot pourover technique. Ingredients: fresh Thai chilis, Sichuan mixed preserved veggies, fermented w/ginger black beans soaked in Bourbon, not having baijou, fermented preserved bean curd, fresh ginger & garlic, homemade and hand ground sichuan redpeppercorn powder, Korean red chili flakes both toasted and not, Aleppo pepper flakes, salt, sugar & MSG. This is pretty amazing already and will improve for a week. More flavorful and not all that spicy, but still pretty fiery. Worth the prep time and the long, staged cook time.

    Sichuan peppercorn oil. Infused oils: ginger & garlic & cardamon then red & green Sichuan peppercorns were cooked in the hot oil & strained. Not spicy but very tingly and aromatic. A cooking condiment.

    Projects still to come: Scallion oil. Garlic oil. Ginger Green onion oil. But I need more mustard, and virgin peanut oils. These oils are available at India Bazaar in Falls Church for not a lot of money {like $15 a gallon, $5 a quart. I used up 2 quarts total, 1 of each. I am looking for virgin or unrefines rapeseed oil.

    A lesson relearned: Nitrile gloves keep all the chili heat on the glove and no contamination of hands underneath. 

    Successes besides the wonderful sauces/condiments:

    I did touch my eyes, nose or penis while I was wearing my chili infused nitrile gloves.

    I got a 4 oz jar of mixed hot oils which went beautifully on our dumplings for dinner.

    I did all the hot chili work on a plastic cutting board and not my wood one so no left over chili heat cross contiminating into everything. 

    I did not infuse the air of the apartment with chili to the point where Kay had to be rushed to the emergency room. Spot was upset but then again, Spot is always upset. He just demanded greenies. When he woke up later. 

    Did I mention I did not touch my penis with chili infected gloves?

    Lasting question to ponder: re: virgin mustard oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil. How do you define virgin if the seeds/nuts do not take part in penetrative sex? How do you f^ck a mustard seed if they are?

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1
  13. A bag of really good Korean pork dumplings advertized as potstickers but steamed with hot oil, black vinegar & soy dip.

    Romaine salad w/anchovy, parm reggiano, sherry vinegar, roasted garlic rosemary oil. 

    The last of the greens soup. 

    Makkoli. Anxo Cider with strawberry syrup. Makkoli. 

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    Spot had a concert he performed. It featured new and old favorites.

    "Someday my pizza will come."

    "Feed me more Damnit!"

    "Nessun Dorma"
    {Can anyone deny the poignancy of these lyrics: No one sleeps when I am hungry and it is 2 hours until feeding time. At dawn, I shall be victorious! victorious!! victorious!!!}

    followed by "WHAT??? Its 12 hours till you are feeding me more?"

    Spot accepting his adoring fans:

    1130654761__copie-0_cattreat.jpg.39d6d16f3bc877d48fd0cbb2cf5d59a0.jpg

    His production values continue to increase! He now does multimedia {singing and tripping and begging} in multi venues!

    • Like 4
  14. Not drinking any of it yet, but we scored big time on the fruit at Westover Farmer's market. 5 boxes of incredibly ripe and juicy strawberries and 2.5 quarts of great cherries {1 qt black, 1.5 qt Queen Anne's.} So I am making cold process syrups and shrubs. Shrubs are drinking vinegars and were a way to preserve fruit in pre-refrigeration days. We had made them at both Dino and the Grotto using both hot and cold methods and I always thought the cold method better. On syrups we always used a hot method and I loved that, but now I am trying cold and will see. 

    Strawberries

    One shrub is strawberries macerating in vinegar {50/50 balsamico & champagne, the sugaring to be done with simple when the strawberries have been fully extracted 24 or 48 hours after being put up.This one is macerating at wine cellar temperature. 

    The other three are macerating in either white sugar, turbinado sugar and dark brown sugar. I will wait to taste them before deciding what vinegars to use. I have a wide range from Asian to more standard. We will see which method is tastier. Strawberries will still be available next week as far as anyone can tell. These three and the cherries are macerating in the fridge. I may try one more batch at cellar temp. 

    The syrup is strawberry and it is a quart of berries macerating in 1/2 cup sugar. I will puree them when the berries have mostly melted into juice. I will freeze in 2 daiquiri size containers. 

    Cherries

    Cherries are macerating in sugar. I reversed the order I wanted to do so the Queen Anne's are in turbinado sugar and the black cherries are in white sugar. The Queen Anne's are more delicate in flavor and they ave the stronger flavored sugar. Oh well! My current plan is half balsamico and half red wine for the black cherries and half sherry vinegar and half champagne or rice vinegar for the Queen Anne's.

    Shrubs are fabulous in water, carbonated or not. We pay about $8 or $10 for a liter of commercial. These will work out to less money and be all natural and I will have more control on sugar as you can always add more vinegar as it is a natural preservative. 

    I plan on making 16 oz to a quart of various fruits as he season progresses. I am using 250 grams a batch of fruit and of sugar for the shrubs and maybe 500 grams of berries to 1/2 cup sugar for the syrup. Hopefully next week I can pick up raspberries and blackberries. I may try Snow Pears from the Asian Market. I will have a lot more data by then. While shrubs were once a way to preserve and stored without refrigeration, today's fruits are much less acidic than fruit of yore, so we will refrigerate them. 

    • Like 1
  15. Menu sizes are reduced at a lot of labor intensive restaurants as they are at lower capacity. Shorter menu is less labor intensive. For a pizza joint, the advantage is one prep can go into a bunch of dishes. Some restaurant have this mentality built is and can have relatively longer menus. 

  16. 2 hours ago, DonRocks said:

    Intriguing. You've had numerous different Banh Mi, so I take this seriously. There actually *is* a good store-bought mayo I've had recently - I had it just today in a wonderful chicken salad.

    mayo.jpg

    I also like Veganaise, but only the grapeseed oil version. My former boss at Whole Foods was partners in Follow Your Heart which was a health food store in LA. His partner tried to get him to help launch Veganaise as a retail product. My boss wanted no part of it so he traded his interest int he recipe for the other partners half of the store. 

    My former boss wound up a bigwig at Whole Foods and cashed out with big bucks. The guy from Veganaise cashed in big time. But for a long time, my boss looked like ha made a bad choice. 

    I make my won mayo at home and store it in a mason jar in the fridge. That way I can thin or flavor it as I want. The current batch is roasted garlic & anchovy. I buy 5# or 3# jars of peeled garlic so we usually have roasted garlic which helps the turnover. We have not bought a jar of mayo since we moved. 

  17. We took out a container of greens soup made from radish, turnip, beet greens and kale, cream, lots of seasonings. The soup is a rough puree with some noticeable roughage but quite delicious. All it needed was a drop or two of soy sauce to freshen it. 

    Cold veggies from last night rounded out the dinner. Grilled asparagus, spring onion, two preparations of summer squash, sweet potatoes w/ramp pesto.

    A shot of bourbon neat after. Evan WIlliams 1783.

    • Like 2
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