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Website: http://cookingmonster.com

Location: Alexandria, VA

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The Ten Most Recent Posts By DaveFaris

From Talk

Saving the Brine?

Posted by DaveFaris, March 31, 2008 at 2:32 PM

I recently picked up The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson, and was reading through it. In it, he has a recipe for a brine that you'd use to make meats like pork, chicken, shellfish taste better. I'm well aware of brining, and how it's become quite a popular technique around Thanksgiving, due mostly to the efforts of Cooks Illustrated. But here's the thing that threw me. Fergus talks about nurturing the brine like an old friend, using it over and over. "a nurtured friend, whose character should improve with time and should give delicious results." (He does take a bow to fears of bacteria by suggesting it be kept cold in the back of the fridge, as opposed to keeping it anywhere else. And he recommends using a non-corrosive bucket.) Still, I'm afraid of the perishable stuff that comes out of the meat, like blood and other stuff. So, what do you think? Do you use it once and toss your brine, or do you think it'd be ok to use and reuse it?

(His recipe contains 1 part superfine sugar to 1.25 parts sea salt, plus herbs and seasoning, like juniper berries, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves, but not much else besides water.)

8 Comments

From Talk

When Anxiety Is at the Table

Posted by DaveFaris, February 7, 2008 at 11:31 AM

There's an interesting article on the NYT website that describes the harrows of obsessive-compulsives eating out. Have you ever suffered this way in a restaurant, and if so, how did it manifest?

7 Comments | Tagged: articles, New York Times, obsessive-compulsive

From Talk

Pickle Juice

Posted by DaveFaris, January 19, 2008 at 12:00 PM

I buy several jars of refrigerator pickles a month (claussen), as I love to snack on them. I end up just pouring out the brining liquid, as well as the chopped garlic, down the drain. It seems to me that there must be some practical use for it. I've already thought about using a little in potato salad, but can you guys think of any more possibilities?

24 Comments

From Talk

Scaling a recipe and cooking times.

Posted by DaveFaris, December 24, 2007 at 6:41 AM

So I've got a recipe I want to make for a crowd. As written, the recipe says it serves 4. I need it to serve 18. I can handle the math when it comes to increasing the quantities, but is there any formula for calculating the new cooking time, or should I just resign myself to cooking them in separate batches? (If you're curious, the recipe will be for the braised short ribs for Alton Brown's Good Eats Beef Stew.)

2 Comments | Tagged: recipes

From Talk

Myths in the Kitchen

Posted by DaveFaris, October 31, 2007 at 11:02 AM

Sometimes cooks just do things without really thinking them through. They heard or read somewhere that such-and-such was true, but they never really checked to see if there was any basis in fact. For example, for years and years, people always said that you should remove the germ / sprout from a clove of garlic because it tends to be bitter. But when then you realize that it's not bitter, but actually kind of tasty, and all these years, you've been throwing it away.

So, what kitchen myth have you seen perpetuated that you've since found to be completely off the mark?

24 Comments | Tagged: food myths, myths

From Talk

Natural Casing Hot Dogs

Posted by DaveFaris, June 22, 2007 at 3:29 PM

Based on a post made here a week or so ago, I went out of my way to buy hot dogs with natural casings. I made a couple of them for lunch and they were quite tasty. My usual method for cooking hot dogs is to put them in a frying pan with a little bit of water, and a bit of butter. I let it boil with the lid on for a few minutes, and then remove the lid to let the water evaporate so they'll start frying. (I usually like to cook em until the skin is a dark mahogany color.) So all went well until the water evaporated, and then the skins burst. As I said they were very tasty nevertheless, but what did I do wrong? My first inclination was that I didn't piece the franks with a fork, but I'm beginning to think that had I done that, it would have been even worse.

Help me, Serious Eats. You're my only hope.

7 Comments | Tagged: hot dogs

From Talk

Pick Your Own Produce (VA/MD/W.VA)

Posted by DaveFaris, June 5, 2007 at 12:31 AM

A week or so ago, the Washington Post ran it's annual "Pick-Your-Own" list of VA/MD/WVA farms that let you pick your own produce. I took the time to enter the locations listed into Google Maps.

3 Comments | Tagged: Maryland, pick-your-own, produce, u-pick, Virginia, West Virginia

From Talk

Don't Miss Food between SF and Seattle?

Posted by DaveFaris, May 31, 2007 at 10:30 PM

I'll be taking a road trip this July from San Francisco, up the Pacific Coast Highway to Seattle, and I need any advice and recommendations for must-see (or must-eat) on my way. Our itinerary is loose, so we're willing to go off the beaten track. One caveat, money will be tight, so high-budget restaurants are probably gonna be out of our reach this trip. Thanks in advance.

12 Comments | Tagged: California, Oregon, Pacific Coast Highway, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington

The Ten Most Recent Comments By DaveFaris

From Talk

Old cookbooks

If you're a fan of old cookbooks, Google Book Search is an excellent resource. I was struggling to find a specific recipe to feature on a blog posting (Waldorf Pudding, served on the fateful night in the first class dining room aboard the RMS Titanic), and I found two contemporary recipes through this great online resource.

DaveFaris at 2:29PM on 05/14/08

From Talk

Cast Iron Pans: Seasoning Issues

Short of the self-cleaning cycle, you can also put your pan on your charcoal grill with a full bucket of hot coals underneath it, put on the lid, then walk away. It saves your house from smelling. I did this with a Griswold pan I inherited, and it turned out spanking clean and ready to season.

You can put soap in a iron pan, but only if you're willing to start seasoning from scratch. If your first attempt is uneven, then it can't get any worse to scrub it completely clean with soapy water, and start all over again.

cooking monster : seasoning a cast iron pan

DaveFaris at 2:22PM on 05/14/08

From Ed Levine Eats

Scans from the 'Grand Theft Auto IV' Manual

Please. Enough with the GTA IV marketing spam.

DaveFaris at 12:04PM on 05/01/08

From Talk

starting a food blog ........

How about "Keeping My Thumb on the Scale?"

DaveFaris at 1:04PM on 04/29/08

From Talk

Lunch at Whole Foods

One of my local WF's makes a chicken salad sandwich with avocado and bacon on whole wheat. The other one doesn't add the avocado. The first one is much better.

DaveFaris at 9:29PM on 04/20/08

From Talk

Talk Improvements

I'm not sure if the "older" link at the bottom of the page works the way it's supposed to.

DaveFaris at 11:48AM on 04/20/08

From Talk

Kewpie Mayo: a little disappointing

My brother brought me back a little bottle from Japan when he was there on business. I was eager to taste it, but I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by it, too.

DaveFaris at 8:31PM on 04/14/08

From Talk

Does anyone miss Escargot?

I know you're lamenting the loss of them in restaurants, but just the other day, I saw a huge mound of escargot shells filled with their yellow-green butter, just waiting for a broiler, at the Whole Foods seafood counter.

DaveFaris at 6:18PM on 04/12/08

From Talk

For the record.......

Why can't we just agree to disagree sometimes, and not take things so personally?

DaveFaris at 4:58PM on 04/11/08

From Talk

In SERIOUS need of recipes!

Wow. I envy you. Someone in your family is a hunter I get. I wonder if it would be too gamey for Kefta? Mix it with chopped onions, some softened butter, and whatever spices you like, and let it chill for a little while in the fridge. Then, take handfuls of it, and form it around kebab skewers, as big around as your big toe. Either grill, or cook on a grill pan, turning often. I make this with ground lamb, and it turns out quite well.

DaveFaris at 4:55PM on 04/11/08

Responses to Comments by DaveFaris

From Talk

Cast Iron Pans: Seasoning Issues

Can't add anything on seasoning but if you stack your pans to store them. Put a sheet of wax paper between pans. It helps prevents rusting. Both of my grandmothers practiced it.

boomer53 at 5:24PM on 05/15/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

I am a huge collector of vintage cookbooks. It amazes me how families can have estate sales and dump Grandma's old cookbooks. Why don't they want them? I love the ones where you can tell the most loved recipes by the gunk stuck to the pages; the ones which have hand-written notes and those which contain clipped recipes stashed between the pages. These are true cultural documents and I really treasure them. Yes, there are some humorous and mysterious references in some of them as well.

For some fun with vinatage cookbooks, visit http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/

robincat at 11:46AM on 05/15/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

I've noticed the abundance of jello moulds and there is a section on frogs legs as well. Fits well with the time as you say.

But I love how everything is so simplyfied. There's no 100 item list of ingredients to make something delicious.

stickychewygooeyjen at 11:05AM on 05/15/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

They don't mention food processors because they hadn't been invented. My copy of "From Julia child's Kitchen", which is circa 1977 or so talks about them as originating in France, and I had certainly heard about them by then. RoboCoupe I believe was the brand. The gelatin molds are a good example of how food fashions change. I vaguely recall the tomato aspic period of food history, but my mother never made them, thanks to picky-eater me.

lemons at 10:29AM on 05/15/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

I hvave a pile of American Cookery Magazines, which are subtitiled - The Boston Cooking School Magazine from the 1930's

The recipes are "casual" and, for the most part uncomplicated. The real hoot are the advertisements. The Kitchen Aid Mixer looks almost the same as it does today.

suegsf at 2:25AM on 05/15/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

Old cookbooks RULE. They always have the best recipes, though the recipes assume you know how to put everything together and are usually without more than a list of ingredients.

A yeast cake is nothing to be afraid of. It just had yeast instead of baking powder or baking soda as the leavening agent, like a brioche or kugelhopf. If you want to make it work in a modern kitchen, you can post it and see what the serious eaters think the ingredients and instructions mean.

I was recently given two old Mexican cookbooks, and I'm slowly reading and translating them so I can cook authentic dinner forevermore.

butterface at 11:16PM on 05/14/08

From Talk

Old cookbooks

I find it interesting that in my cookbooks from the 50s and 60s there are recipies that you don't see in modern cookbooks, such as a wide variety of jello molds. Also, I notice they don't mention the use of appliances such as food processors.

SavtaShayna at 5:35PM on 05/14/08

From Talk