What can you expect in the Food Thread on PF?

[nismaratwork]

I will say this, I like Good Eats; I've gotten some excellent recipes from it, and there are many solid primers on technique. The whole "contest" (other than Iron Chef) stuff leaves me uninterested.

Oh, and I discovered Plyley's hard candies as a result.. their coffee cream and pineapple coconut (with coconut in) candies are... *moans*... really good. I'd say 95% junk, but the good stuff is, as nucleargirl says, vicarious fun, or in my view some decent tips.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, food competitions are no less reasonable than say, a football game. When in real life are you going to find a group of refrigerator sized men wearing armor and throwing a piece of leather at each other?

It's entertainment.

I don't watch team sports, either. Huge waste of time. If the Food Network had cooks of the caliber of Julia Child and Graham Kerr (who actually taught you things with their shows), I'd watch those. Some of Alton Brown's shows have been OK - but not the competition ones.

 

[Evo]

More sad evidence that Alton Brown is just an actor and not an even an interested "foodie".

Sadly, I just watched the new show he is hosting on Food Network "America's Best". The entire show was just a tired rehash of the same food and restaurants they've been showing for the last 2 years, the same tired food celebrities, yada yada.

The kick in the teeth came at the end when he was describing the NUMBER ONE food, the WINNER of the show! It was the mac n cheese at Zingerman's Roudhouse. The chef at the restauarnt describes what makes their mac n cheese so unique, they cook it on the stove top in a french Iron skillet, and they are showing the skillet on tv. Alton Brown starts his narration, and what makes them Number One is that they individually cook each portion in a CAST IRON skillet!". Uhm, no, Alton, although that's what your script says (they also have the same misinformation on the Food Network site), it's obviously not cast iron. So it wasn't a slip up by Alton, he was just disinterestedly reading his script and had apparently not even bothered to watch the video! Or worse, he doesn't know what cast iron is.

Here's what the pan was, perhaps not this brand. http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details.asp?SKU=17909&src=GoogleBase&cam=Products&kw=17909

I also read a recent review of the retsaurant and the mac n cheese and found out that it's not really good and it costs $17! Just for a single serving of mac n cheese!

http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/zingermans-roadhouse-comfort-food-at-uncomfortable-prices/

Alton Brown, yeah, he came up with a novel show premise "good eats", but he's a food fraud.

 

[turbo]

His tips on searing and cooking steaks are not bad, and his tips on brining turkey are useful. His advice on allowing itinerant nuts to sharpen your prized cutlery on belt-grinders was so bad that I wanted to puke. No chef, meat-cutter, or fish-monger with an ounce of sense would ever allow that! That was his worst show ever, IMO! People who love to cook are very attached to their knives, and if they have a couple of firing brain-cells, they know that you have to sharpen them carefully with proper lubrication and cooling. The thought of letting some nut "sharpen" my Thiers-Issard knives by overheating the edges and throwing sparks off a belt-grinder is repulsive.

There are very few Food Network shows that impart any useful knowledge, so I don't watch any of them. You could pick a random person off the street and force them watch the Cooking with the Neeleys show, and after an hour or two they would confess to the Son of Sam murders, the WTC attacks and the Murrah building bombing. Just make it stop!

 

[Evo]

His tips on searing and cooking steaks are not bad, and his tips on brining turkey are useful. His advice on allowing itinerant nuts to sharpen your prized cutlery on belt-grinders was so bad that I wanted to puke. No chef, meat-cutter, or fish-monger with an ounce of sense would ever allow that! That was his worst show ever, IMO! People who love to cook are very attached to their knives, and if they have a couple of firing brain-cells, they know that you have to sharpen them carefully with proper lubrication and cooling. The thought of letting some nut "sharpen" my Thiers-Issard knives by overheating the edges and throwing sparks off a belt-grinder is repulsive.

There are very few Food Network shows that impart any useful knowledge, so I don't watch any of them. You could pick a random person off the street and force them watch the Cooking with the Neeleys show, and after an hour or two they would confess to the Son of Sam murders, the WTC attacks and the Murrah building bombing. Just make it stop!

The point is that the information on his Good Eats show are from a script written by show writers. Some of the mistakes on that show have been doozies.

Sad that a show featuring someone that was a cook and scientific is just that, a show, fake. Oh well. I kept hoping he was at least interested in food.

 

[turbo]

The point is that the information on his Good Eats show are from a script written by show writers. Some of the mistakes on that show have been doozies.

Oh, yes, he has perpetrated some real stinkers. I don't know his history, but he was probably involved in producing a show or two and said "this food stuff is easy" and fell prey to his own ignorance/lack of experience.

The Food Network shows are produced in bulk and on a budget. Aside from "The Price is Right" etc, I can't imagine any TV shows that can be pumped out more cheaply with fewer sets and props. I can't stand the "competition" shows! My earlier comment about some celebrity cooks finding out that they "have" to include prawns, mangoes, and fresh ginger in their main dish shows my disdain for them. There is always an artificial time constraint, and the ever-present panel of judges at the end. How many ways can FN vary that format?? Apparently, they are going to beat that horse into the ground.

 

[nismaratwork]

Wow... I just meant that I enjoyed some of his shows, not that Alton Brown should be a messianic food-figure. No one should learn to cook via TV, so these things should be approached with a ready knowledge of food.

I will say, the knife episode was... very bad. Nobody touches my chef's knives but ME, the proper honing steel, and whetstone. It should be said that Alton Brown never claimed to be some kind of food guru, rather he worked into television specifically, and food ended up being the place he got into. I find him more entertaining than educational, but he's all about pretty basic techniques anyway.

Iron Chef is merely carried by Food Network... and I can't think of another show on there that I can stand.

 

[turbo]

Wow... I just meant that I enjoyed some of his shows, not that Alton Brown should be a messianic food-figure. No one should learn to cook via TV, so these things should be approached with a ready knowledge of food.

I know what you meant. I'm home about every day, and when the weather is bad, it would be nice to have some informative cooking shows on TV. Unfortunately, the Food Network falls far short of that mark. I learned basic French cooking, canning, pickling, etc from my mother, and learned how to manage meals for large groups from my grandmother, who cooked for a large log-driving crew every day for years.

For an example of what a cooking show *should* be, see if you can get 'hold of Michael Jubinsky's "Artisan Bread" Lesson on DVD, sponsored by King Arthur Flour. It's only 50 minutes, but it is packed with tips and tricks. My wife attended a milling and baking seminar last summer, and bought that DVD - it was well worth the investment. She now makes the best French bread ever.
Some critical tips:
~ keep your dough wet, and resist the temptation to add flour to reduce stickiness
~ don't man-handle the dough or knead it - stretch it using its own weight, fold it, and turn 90 degrees and repeat
~ don't dip your measuring cup into the flour. Use a scoop to get the flour out of the cannister, and dust it into the measuring cup for a fair measure. If you plunge the measuring cup into the flour, you'll end up with far too much flour because you have packed it tightly. Alternatively, you can weigh the flour.
~ those slashes on French breads aren't decorative - you make the slashes to relieve pressure during baking, to avoid "blowing out", deforming the shape of the loaves.

There's a lot more in that DVD, so if you'd like to make great French bread, the lesson is a "must-have".

 

[nucleargirl]

I watched food network today! and oh my god they've brought in a new and even more annoying (than Eva Garten) chef! she was doing some 'healthy eating' show, Elaine or something...

 

[Evo]

I watched food network today! and oh my god they've brought in a new and even more annoying (than Eva Garten) chef! she was doing some 'healthy eating' show, Elaine or something...

Oh, I don't ever watch her, she's got to be the worst and most annoying.

 

[nucleargirl]

and one of the adverts for this new 'good eat'(?) program was so patronising! maybe it was meant for kids or something, but I felt like they were talking to idiots! yes, I knew there was a reason I stopped watching...

anyway, today was my baking day! I made bread! yeah!
and I made a potato-lasagne with potato, pasta, onions, bacon, cheese, and left over mussel juice roux! yum!

 

[turbo]

Oh, I don't ever watch her, she's got to be the worst and most annoying.

Oh, the Krieger woman that is selling weight-loss programs. You can lose weight, keep it off, and never be hungry! Unless you are a normal person who gets cravings for specific foods.

I could lose weight on a steady diet of Kraft macaroni and cheese because I simply wouldn't eat that nasty stuff. Make anything unpalatable enough and nobody will eat enough of it to gain weight.

 

[nucleargirl]

Oh, the Krieger woman that is selling weight-loss programs. You can lose weight, keep it off, and never be hungry! Unless you are a normal person who gets cravings for specific foods.

I could lose weight on a steady diet of Kraft macaroni and cheese because I simply wouldn't eat that nasty stuff. Make anything unpalatable enough and nobody will eat enough of it to gain weight.

lol yeah! that's her! today she made some steak salad which looked really unappetising and ruined a good steak! steak should be served with potatos! NOT as a salad!

 

[nismaratwork]

Steak salad.

Turbo-1: Yep, lifestyle change is good for weight-loss... anything less is just begging for that weight to return.

 

[Evo]

Oh, the Krieger woman that is selling weight-loss programs. You can lose weight, keep it off, and never be hungry! Unless you are a normal person who gets cravings for specific foods.

I could lose weight on a steady diet of Kraft macaroni and cheese because I simply wouldn't eat that nasty stuff. Make anything unpalatable enough and nobody will eat enough of it to gain weight.

Why is it that health nuts are always so annoying? You don't have to be annoying in order to show examples of low calorie food.

 

[turbo]

Why is it that health nuts are always so annoying? You don't have to be annoying in order to show examples of low calorie food.

I haven't watched her show, but people who are selling weight-control programs are often just as annoying as the vegan proselytizers. "Evangenlical foodies!" Hate 'em. My parents' families were farmers/loggers, and they ate what would today be considered an "unhealthy" diet with whole fats, cream, butter, salt pork, lard, etc. My grandfather was 6'5" and less than 200# with hands like dinner-plates and a wedding ring so big you could pass a quarter through it. Even in his mid-70's I would defy anybody to out-grip that old guy. You can be healthy and eat stuff that is commonly condemned today if you burn it off.

Also, there are all kinds of healthy, low-calorie foods that are quite tasty, without submitting to some food nazi's ideas. As nismar said, yes, you have to commit to changing your diet to effect any permanent dietary/health changes, but you need not suffer in the process.

 

[Evo]

I know what you meant. I'm home about every day, and when the weather is bad, it would be nice to have some informative cooking shows on TV. Unfortunately, the Food Network falls far short of that mark. I learned basic French cooking, canning, pickling, etc from my mother, and learned how to manage meals for large groups from my grandmother, who cooked for a large log-driving crew every day for years.

For an example of what a cooking show *should* be, see if you can get 'hold of Michael Jubinsky's "Artisan Bread" Lesson on DVD, sponsored by King Arthur Flour. It's only 50 minutes, but it is packed with tips and tricks. My wife attended a milling and baking seminar last summer, and bought that DVD - it was well worth the investment. She now makes the best French bread ever.
Some critical tips:
~ keep your dough wet, and resist the temptation to add flour to reduce stickiness
~ don't man-handle the dough or knead it - stretch it using its own weight, fold it, and turn 90 degrees and repeat
~ don't dip your measuring cup into the flour. Use a scoop to get the flour out of the cannister, and dust it into the measuring cup for a fair measure. If you plunge the measuring cup into the flour, you'll end up with far too much flour because you have packed it tightly. Alternatively, you can weigh the flour.
~ those slashes on French breads aren't decorative - you make the slashes to relieve pressure during baking, to avoid "blowing out", deforming the shape of the loaves.

There's a lot more in that DVD, so if you'd like to make great French bread, the lesson is a "must-have".

Funny, since my mother made home made French bread, (loves, cloverleaf rolls, etc...) once or twice a week, so I grew up knowing what to do. You always think "everyone knows this".

Another thing I always knew, but seems many people don't, is that when you boil potatoes to make potato salad, that the potatoes need to be boiled whole in the skin, then cooled and peeled and *then* cubed. The skins prevent the potato from absorbing water.

Of course now it's common to see the skins of new potatoes in salads, and yukon golds don't need to be peeled, but still, do not cut your potatoes up before boiling!

It was also nice to see "real, authentic" mashed potatoes on tv last night, the way they were originally invented. That doesn't mean I don't also enjoy the lazy version of lumpy or "half smashed" potatoes that you see everywhere. But if you have never had the original recipe where the potatoes are run through a ricer to ensure the potatoes are creamed and then whipped with butter, you can't imagine what a textural sensation you are missing. Those were what I grew up on, since my mother was French. No surprise it is how Joel Robuchon and other 4-5 Michelin star chefs make them. Let me know if you want instructions.

 

[turbo]

Funny, since my mother made home made French bread, (loves, cloverleaf rolls, etc...) once or twice a week, so I grew up knowing what to do. You always think "everyone knows this".

Jubinsky's lesson DVD contains detailed instruction in the use of poolish (starter pre-fementation base) that is key in the development of complex flavors and textures in what is otherwise an extremely simple bread recipe. I had a couple of great-aunts that kept nurturing "starter" doughs for years and years, and they were great bread-makers. My mother made hers fresh every time with a time-line of less than a day, IIR.

I don't know if cloverleaf rolls are the same, but my mother used to put 3 lightly buttered balls of yeast dough into each compartment of a large muffin tin, and we'd end up with big puffy rolls that easily separated into thirds. They didn't end up with as crispy a crust as her loaves (perhaps due to the handling to make dough-balls), but they were nice light, soft rolls.

 

[Evo]

Jubinsky's lesson DVD contains detailed instruction in the use of poolish (starter pre-fementation base) that is key in the development of complex flavors and textures in what is otherwise an extremely simple bread recipe. I had a couple of great-aunts that kept nurturing "starter" doughs for years and years, and they were great bread-makers. My mother made hers fresh every time with a time-line of less than a day, IIR.

French bread is made fresh every day, there is no starter. American pioneers had no hope of fresh yeast, you kept part of a previous batch to use to "start" the next batch, it became known as "sourdough".

I don't know if cloverleaf rolls are the same, but my mother used to put 3 lightly buttered balls of yeast dough into each compartment of a large muffin tin, and we'd end up with big puffy rolls that easily separated into thirds. They didn't end up with as crispy a crust as her loaves (perhaps due to the handling to make dough-balls), but they were nice light, soft rolls.

Same dough, but cooked differently.

Turbo, come watch Hell's Kitchen with me, MIH & Cyrus! It's an inside look at working in a large professional kitchen.

 

[turbo]

Same dough, but cooked differently

Yes. The dough was the same and the result (rolls vs crusty loaves) were different. The rolls were softer and finer-grained, and the loaves were crustier with more internal voids. I never learned all my mother's baking secrets, aside from my mastery of flaky pastry biscuits. Her mastery of pie-crusts was very impressive. She got to the point that she could pre-make pie-crusts, fill the crusts with filling (tourtiere was a favorite), freeze the whole assembly, and pop it into a pre-heated oven on a moment's notice when company popped in, and come up with delicious pies that felt and tasted like they were made that day. My mother was a food wizard.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, come watch Hell's Kitchen with me, MIH & Cyrus! It's an inside look at working in a large professional kitchen.

I'm watching a NOVA show on Darwin. Maybe I'll learn something.

 

[turbo]

I just checked (curiosity) and I don't have Hell's Kitchen. Except maybe when I'm processing my chilies into relishes. I should post a Haz-Mat sign outside when I'm doing that.

 

[Evo]

I just checked (curiosity) and I don't have Hell's Kitchen. Except maybe when I'm processing my chilies into relishes. I should post a Haz-Mat sign outside when I'm doing that.

Fox is a channel you should get with an analogue antenna, so you have it.

Even if you can't find it, you can watch the entire show at the link I provided.

 

[turbo]

I didn't see a link, nor did I know that FOX is an OK place to get cooking advice.

 

[turbo]

Wow! I just watched about 10 minutes of an episode aired in August. I don't think I could watch a whole episode. So much contrived tension, insults, etc. Not fun. I can see how some people might find the show entertaining, watching Ramsey abusing the participants and waiting for them to crack, but it's not my cup of tea.

I want to learn new cooking techniques and want to learn not only the how, but the why. that's why I like Michael Jubinsky's DVD on artisan breads so well. He explains the science behind baking. It's no wonder that he uses that approach so effectively. From his bio:

Michael Jubinsky is a sought-after and accomplished bread baking instructor who just happens to be a consultant engineer in nuclear submarine safety. For more than 10 years, Michael was, by day, Director of Submarine Safety for the US Navy at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Connecticut; but come evening he could be found pursuing his avocation - teaching bread baking to as many as 500 people at a time. For over 20 years, Michael has taught various aspects of baking, specializing in bread. He is a Culinary Arts Instructor in the Connecticut Vocational Education System and has been a licensed Connecticut Retail Baker and a staff instructor for Connecticut Culinary Institute. He also pens a bi-weekly food column for "The Day" newspaper in New London, Connecticut and is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. As a spokesman for King Arthur Flour, Michael has also been a frequent radio and television guest. Today, Michael is particularly adept at traditional ethnic breads such as Stollen, Polish Babka and Challah. Students often watch in amazement as he demonstrates braiding techniques, balancing a bread board in front of him and deftly weaving as many as 6 strands of dough to form a braided bread. "It's easy," he explains. "If you can cross your legs you can make a braided bread!" He makes everything he teaches seem easy, often by drawing on secrets learned from his grandmother or by sharing tips gleaned from his students.Michael lives in Lyman, Maine, with his wife, Sandy and their bulldog, Emily.

I learned from a couple of very good cooks, but often had to fall back on monkey-see/monkey-do learning. Often, I'd ask about why it was necessary to do something in a particular way only to hear something like "That's the way my mother did it, and this is her recipe." I like Jubinsky's teaching method really well. He doesn't dumb things down and he is very thorough at explaining the "whys".

 

[turbo]

Have a garden or access to a farmer's market? If so, try baking your beets. I fired up our little quartz-heater oven to make supper, and before I prepared the baking potatoes, I washed some fresh beets, wrapped them in an aluminum-foil pouch, and put that in the oven at 450 deg about 20 minutes before the baking potatoes went in. When you unwrap the beets, slice off a bit of the root end, and the skins will come off quickly and cleanly (OK you'll get red finger-tips). The beets tasted great, with minimal loss of juice. Put those and the potatoes along-side fresh-grilled flatiron steak, and we had a wonderful end-of-summer supper on the deck.

 

[Astronuc]

In case one is looking for a good ginger beer:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/07/ginger-beer-taste-test-gus-ginger-people-reeds-fentimans-great-uncle-cornelius.html

I usually buy Goya, but I going to try and find Fentimans, Reed's and Uncle Cornelius.

 

[nismaratwork]

In case one is looking for a good ginger beer:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/07/ginger-beer-taste-test-gus-ginger-people-reeds-fentimans-great-uncle-cornelius.html

I usually buy Goya, but I going to try and find Fentimans, Reed's and Uncle Cornelius.

I would seriously consider adding http://www.barrittsgingerbeer.bm/ to the list. It's a true ginger beer; cloudy and on the mild side, but with a true ginger flavor. It's a nice contrast to the spicier Jamaican brews, but not weak by any means. The bottle is of course, the only way to go.

 

[Astronuc]

I've had several Jamaican ginger beers, but I can't recall the brands.

I'm going to try to find Barritt's too, but I haven't seen it in my area. The main stores tend not to carry the spicier drinks.

I used to get custom smoothies at a little shop in San Diego. The vendor would take raw ginger and puree it with apples, and the apple juice would carry out the ginger juice. Really spicy smoothies.

 

[nismaratwork]

I've had several Jamaican ginger beers, but I can't recall the brands.

I'm going to try to find Barritt's too, but I haven't seen it in my area. The main stores tend not to carry the spicier drinks.

I used to get custom smoothies at a little shop in San Diego. The vendor would take raw ginger and puree it with apples, and the apple juice would carry out the ginger juice. Really spicy smoothies.

First... that smoothie sounds out of this world.
Second... unto you I render Barritts! http://www.beveragesdirect.com/browse/search.asp?KEYWORDS=barritts

I've purchased from these guys before, and they ship fresh products, unbroken.

Oh, and the Reed's in the list that you've linked to is classic Jamaican.

For a great source of Crystallized ginger to make your own smoothies (or even ginger beer!), I've found this place to be the best: http://www.sphinxdateranch.com/Crystallized-Ginger-Slices-1-lb-Bulk-Dried-Fruit-Pack/productinfo/253/

Their Madjool dates are insanely good too.

Good Eats Ginger Beer (fermented at home, non alcoholic of course): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ginger-ale-recipe/index.html

and a different take: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/easy-peasy-ginger-beer-recipe/index.html