The Kitchen: all things delicious and disastrous

As you seem to like your cheeses with a bit of personality and being good melters, might I recommend you keeping an eye out for Gruyère or its clones (of which there are many)? Might be worth your while.

Good Emmentaler, too, is a great cheese... but, beware the most plastic of knock-offs. Personality-free zones of pointless fat, just like the worst "cheddar" offenders. xP

edited 12th Jul '16 10:50:54 PM by Euodiachloris

So for the past few weeks I've been trying out a sourdough recipe, with an actual starter. Yesterday I started an actual recipe for sourdough bread and put it in the fridge overnight.

I may have been overhasty with the starter. The bread hasn't risen much after a night.

The mistake was the fridge: yeast doesn't like it cold. Cool, sure: you don't want it hulking out and taking over. But, fridges put it into snooze-mode (which is OK if you're leaving home for a week and can't find anybody to starter-sit — as long as you slowly get it back up to room temperature, feed it sugars and tell it you're sorry for a few days before even thinking of trying to use it).

Dim, dark pantries, airing cupboards and damp towels are your friends. Anything under 5°C or 7°C and your starter won't start.

A large coolbox is an idea to think about if you don't have a nicely insulted space. But, it's got limits: yeast also likes to breathe.

edited 13th Jul '16 6:03:26 AM by Euodiachloris

Okay. It's a good thing I halved the recipe so there's not much dough to throw out. And I just got a new bag of flour.

But I need bread, so using the backup instant yeast to get it done by tonight.

Lera, if you haven't already, you don't have to throw out the dough, let it rise on the counter for a bit, add some flour, flatten it out and you'll have some great pizza crust or a vey dense loaf of sourdough-ish.

sourdough from self-starter is a tricksy little hobbit, but definitely fun and fascinating stuff!!

I was given a very large bottle of baker's yeast (about the size of a modest apple, which is very large for the amount of baking I was doing) and I kept it in the refrigerator because I didn't use much. Eventually I realized my pizza crusts weren't rising very well, but I only ended up throwing it out when I realized the bottle was a few years past its use-by date.

You might have been able to make a starter-pet from it, you know. But, if you don't bake bread much, there's no real point.

I think you can also turn dough into pancakes or whatnot. Just ignore the fact that there is yeast in the dough, and mix in the eggs and milk that pancakes need. (I might be wrong about this)

There's also the pasty/calzone approach: not-quite-pastry-not-quite-bread-but-all-stuffed-and-pie-like.

Or, whacking the dough into the microwave for a couple of minutes, then letting it wake up the rest of the way up for an hour or two. The danger there is over-nuking the beast, though. <_<

Doughzilla, born of irradiated dough.

You know it's gone too far when it's climbing out the bowl and skroinking or going belly-up at you with two Xs.

The main reason I inherited that jar from a former housemate is because I was baking pizza crusts (badly I think I spread everything too thin) monthly or so. But then I moved back home and stopped doing my own baking.

Cold front coming in this weekend (Monday's going to be down to the mid-80s! Locals are pulling out their fleece!) means it's cool enough for grilled cheese and tomato soup to not be an unbearable thought. Low heat and patience made for good sandwiches.

Oh sweet. There was this one place that had a tomato based sauce for dipping your grilled cheese sandwich in. Not sure about dipping it in soup. Might go well with onion soup.

Back home we'd have soup and cornbread nights and I'd dip my cornbread into my tomato soup. Or my chicken and noodle, but the tomato was better for dipping.

I've spent the past few days tearing my hair out trying to make Cacio e Pepe that doesn't break. Every technique I've tried has ended up with pasta coated in olive oil with large rubbery clumps of parmesan mixed in - which is particularly annoying, since I've been buying the good parmesan. Any tips to avoid breaking?

edited 15th Aug '16 12:58:45 PM by KyleJacobs

For starters, don't use parmesan in the actual sauce—sprinkle it over the dishes at the end, but it's not a melting cheese.

Also, don't use olive oil. It tends to keep everything well separated.

What other cheese are you using? I've only ever seen cacio e pepe recipes use pecorino. Also, do you leave some pasta water to help the sauce along?

edited 15th Aug '16 2:50:12 PM by Leradny

Decided to try the made-fresh guacamole in the produce section at HEB rather than the stuff that isn't actually just dip but is stocked with the dips at both HEB and Walmart, since it has a cheaper unit price than the small packages I've been getting. It's quite likely it'll go bad quicker, especially since it's of a size between the large and small tubs of the other, but it is so damn good.

Cacio e pepe is the the best. Better than the tougher alfredo.

I know two versions. Cook the pasta. grate a huge amount of pecorino and a lot of coarsely ground pepper. Strain the pasta and in a mixing bowl, quickly stir all three ingredients together.

Cook the pasta, strain. Put butter on it. Work it until most of the pasta is covered. Microwave if the butter is not melting. Dump on store bought dry parmesan and some pepper.

I've had it with a mix of both young and mature Fontina with Sbrintz. Served with a lovely pinot noir. Aosta valley, though: they do things differently there.

Never picked up the knack, myself. <shrugs>

Righty-ho. The little brother is going to try an experiment tomorrow: a big chunk of beef, slated to be cooked in stock and wine and then roasted in the oven. I've bought all the ingredients and offered to help (as much as I can, anyway, given that I work fulltime), but this is going to be his show.

Fingers crossed for the rosbif au vin.

(In completely unrelated news, I should probably lay off the Polandball.)

A dash or two of Worcester sauce could be your friend...

Recommendation noted, ma'am!

Remind me never to attempt scotch eggs again. Way too much effort for something that's honestly not that tasty.

Rosbif au vin status report: it worked. Granted, the recipe basically ended up being "beef simmered in wine sauce (also use an oven to do this for some reason)" and we didn't use top-quality beef, but hey.