What's cooking? part 4

Whoah. Reading back in saddyradish I just fell over this astonishing (to me) instruction: " “Pasta sauces may cook slowly or rapidly, they make take 4 minutes or 4 hours, but the always cook by evaporation, which concentrates and clearly defines their flavor. Never cook a sauce in a covered pan, or it will emerge with a bland, steamed, weakly formulated taste.”

WHAT?? Holy cow I've been doing it wrong forever.

Also a revelation: you can ROAST radishes?? This is the solution to the two bunches in my fridge, particularly the ones that are getting kind of old and I didn't know what to do with.

^^^roasted radishes are p good! They mellow out but are still kinda toothy.

sassyradish OTM about pasta sauces, what the heck you been doing girl?

Well covering, obviously.

My mother has made bolognese sauce (referred to just as "spaghetti") in a crock pot or covered on the stove my entire life! It never occurred to me to question.

sassyradish OTM about pasta sauces, what the heck you been doing girl?
i say with a goodnatured lol that this was my reaction exactly -- how else would the water evaporate to create a sauce instead of "stuff suspended in water"?
good thing my mom never cooked, i guess

my parents cover; I think this is a midwestern thing

I guess I escaped my midwestern cooking destiny on this one (see also: mushy vegetables)

I never even thought about it. Part of the cooking would of course always be with the lid off but during long simmering I thought the purpose was to uh meld flavors and/or cook things, not nec evaporation, so I put the lid on to KEEP it from drying out! Now that I think it through.

i guess i always figured it's the same concept as any reduction -- simmer off excess moisture and leave concentrated flavor

if you have a can of whole peeled tomoatoes, half an onion, and a half a stick of butter, throw that shit in a saucepan--NO LID--and in an hour or so you will have the most delcious simple marinara a la Marcella Hazan. Pasta optional--I can just sit down with a spoon and eat it straight from the pan and be in heaven.

I made a mental note of that recipe, that's where the NO LID comment came from, and I will CERTAINLY ATTEND to it just as soon as I make these beef short ribs that are thawing on my counter....

Thinking this recipe?

yeah I usually do lid off -- the only time I'll put the lid on is if I need to hold it over once it's done reducing.

in other news I've made kale chips twice now and I think that I don't like the taste that much? even tho I loooooooooove kale. the concentrated flavor of the baked chips is really, disturbingly close to broccoli. like super-veg flavor... kind of a deal breaker for this broccoli hater :(

I found myself eating them with apple pieces to accompany, just so I could get the taste out of my mouth. but I'll power through this batch and see if I can't turn a corner.

I don't like the earthy sweetness of cooked kale so I usually kill it with other, sharper flavors so mostly what I get from kale is the bitterness, which I like. Lemon juice, cayenne, lots of salt...no? More heat, maybe? Otoh maybe you just won't like kale. :)

i like raw kale salad...and I love braised kale...maybe it is bitterness that's my problem. (lol). I added lemon juice to some this time...also tried nutritional yeast, and a fair whack of sea salt. they're cooling now so we shall see how I go this round.

I did hear of salt & vinegar kale chips. which intrigues me.

maybe I should try a batch of those next weekend as my last gasp

there is a good marinara recipe from new york times i have used, and i also often use a mario batali recipe that uses shredded carrots and thyme

shredded carrots in marinara is v good

i just realized this says 2 cans of tomatoes and i have always been doing 1 oops http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/mario-batali-recipe-for-marinara-sauce.html

i think this is the other one http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/health/nutrition/13recipehealth.html

i just this minute realized that i learned to make pasta sauces from waiting tables and checking out what the cooks were doing during slow periods

ie none of the tables were mine

working on coffee ice cream - consistently have the exact same problem each time!

the instructions call for bringing the cream, milk, coffee and sugar to a "gentle boil"

seems like whenever i turn my back on the damn thing - even when set at low heat - instead of coming to a gentle boil, it starts forming huge bubbles and threatens to foam over the top like a chemistry experiment!

after that there is a faint taste / smell of popcorn associated with the cream, and although i think that pretty much goes away when i actually make the ice cream i can't help but feel like i'm doing something wrong here, or that it couldn't be improved by actually bringing the damn stuff to a gentle boil instead of a volcanic eruption

what am i doing wrong here?

homemade ice cream might be one of the most damn difficult things i've ever worked on, though i've never tried pastries and baking, i'm sure that's tougher

a) dont turn your back EVER
b) when bubbles start forming around the edge, turn it down a scooch - it doesnt respond as quickly as water to temp changes, so you have to anticipate
c) if you have to, take pot off heat to calm the boil before it swells

is it ruined as soon as it swells?

i made some coffee ice cream in my day, and yes, that is good advice -- don't turn your back, monitor the boil closely
also i have had to lift the pot off of the flame lotsa times, it's not a failure

coffee ice cream is so fucking GOOD

i don't think so, but i also don't have the world's most refined/selective palate
if it tastes like coffee ice cream at the end, i will eat it

also how is it that it knows EXACTLY when to swell - i turned my back for less than 15 seconds this time!

come to think of it, maybe it's *my* timing that's perfect, not the cream's

IME the forming of a skin and heavy steaming indicates it is just on the verge of gentle boil, at which point I pull it off! I don't think boil is strictly necessary? You're doing a custard-based ice cream, I assume? With eggs? Getting to the skin stage should be plenty hot enough for the requisite thickening.

the skin is a delicacy in some places! you can make postre de natas! http://www.unacolombianaencalifornia.com/postre-de-natas

there is an "artisan" ice cream maker nearby who gets his milk and cream from the family dairy farm, he's in his 60s or 70s (i think) and has been doing ice-cream-making professionally for like 50 years now, he make his with just milk, cream, sugar and one or two additions and he told me (in his opinion)

1) if you add egg you're making iced custard and not iced cream (sorry old dude, i add egg!)

2) it's very hard to do ice cream on a small / home scale

3) it's one of those foods that we're really spoiled on because we're used to the commercial stuff which is generally full of additives and/or subjected to processes you can't do in your kitchen

all that stuff sounds like it makes sense, still, i'm gonna get it right!!

I made coffee icecream once many years ago - it didnt involve infusing the coffe in boiled milk but did have some kind of custard base (milk and eggs or something) and oh man it was the most divine creamy thing I ever did eat.

he said a lot of his success comes down to using a big huge industrial beater to get the frothiness of the milk/cream mixture right and also getting the milk straight from the farm so that it has a different kind of fat globule than the milk you get from the store? i dunno, he's kind of vague about it (for obvious reasons)

i should see if he needs an apprentice

it's not nec *ruined* when it swells but that can scald the milk which would account for that diff taste you mentioned

never. turn. your. back.

yeah last i checked there's def a popcorn taste in there, hopefully it goes away with more chillin' in the fridge

I made a bunch of frozen burritos with TJ's whole wheat handmade or home style or whatever tortillas, brown basmati, and one of those $1.29 box/foil pouch of Chana masala. I just ate the first one and it was mad good.

I made some with the Punjab eggplant too for variety. 4 of each. Lunch is going to rock.

what part was frozen?!?

btw the toasted flavor does go away as the mix gets colder!

no I mean I just made a ton of burritos and individually wrapped them in foil and froze them.

ah, good thinking

this is a really stupid q but i have never made & then frozen burritos before; how do you heat them up stevie? do you just defrost & eat cold or do you have them warm?

microwave i imagine

I love those foil pouch curries! Thres one called TastyBites and theyre all vegetarian or vegan, the palak paneer one is deliciouusss, tho I add extra paneer or tofu squares to it as they're stingy on the cheese.

The chana masala is also nice, tho I feel weird eating a potato chickpea curry I could make myself in 10 mins flat with a can of chickpeas :/

a cool thing to do with the kale was to braise it in equal parts chicken adobo juice and chicken broth

!!!!

am so going to try that

I...would try that, too. Not tonight, my kale is gonna be a salad to go with short ribs and polenta. But soon.

stevie inspired me to go for burritos for dinner tonight too

smoked chicken, pintos, brown rice, and some sauteed veg OMNOMNOM

In "can I rly eat that?" news, I made chicken stock last weekend and decanted it into a lidded container and into the fridge pretty much right away. It developed a seal of fat on top and has sat untouched in the fridge ever since.

Is it still good after a week, you think?