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Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Many bakers recommend a mix of apple varieties; I like Grannys for texture and Golden Delicious for flavor.
How to Make Quince Brandy
I make fruit cordials all the time; I usually use a blend of white brandy and vodka. The ratio is always 2:1, though I'll tilt it one way or the other depending on the fruit - berries get more vodka, stone fruits usually get more brandy. I've made cordials from pome fruits (apples, pears and the like) both ways. Quinces are, of course, pomes, though I've never personally made a quince cordial. I do prefer my fruit cordials on the sweet side. I find the more brandy I use, the more it benefits from a longer aging (I have the dregs of a batch of cherry brandy made 3 years ago which is AMAZING now).
The earliest recipes recorded for such cordials appear in Sir Hugh Platt's Delightes for Ladies, published in 1594, and in Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswifes Jewell, published in 1596. (There is a book called Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, which is not conclusively dated and may have been written anytime between 1550 and 1625, so it MIGHT predate these.)
Where Does Your Thanksgiving Loyalty Lie?
I used to be all about the sides... but since my gastric bypass, I always focus on protein first. I only eat sides if I have room left after I've had an adequate portion of protein. Fortunately, I usually make the turkey, and I brine it, so I no longer have to worry about dry turkey. (And no pie for me - the sugar makes me sick.)
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Cook the Book: Jasmine Rice Pudding
Posted by Caroline Russock, October 8, 2009 at 1:15 PM
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Recent Comments | Response to Comments
Breaking: Hope for Canned Pumpkin Shortage
My local Super Stop & Shop (Yonkers NY) not only has plenty of Libby's, but has it on sale at 2/$3 for the 15 oz cans.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Many bakers recommend a mix of apple varieties; I like Grannys for texture and Golden Delicious for flavor.
How to Make Quince Brandy
I make fruit cordials all the time; I usually use a blend of white brandy and vodka. The ratio is always 2:1, though I'll tilt it one way or the other depending on the fruit - berries get more vodka, stone fruits usually get more brandy. I've made cordials from pome fruits (apples, pears and the like) both ways. Quinces are, of course, pomes, though I've never personally made a quince cordial. I do prefer my fruit cordials on the sweet side. I find the more brandy I use, the more it benefits from a longer aging (I have the dregs of a batch of cherry brandy made 3 years ago which is AMAZING now).
The earliest recipes recorded for such cordials appear in Sir Hugh Platt's Delightes for Ladies, published in 1594, and in Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswifes Jewell, published in 1596. (There is a book called Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, which is not conclusively dated and may have been written anytime between 1550 and 1625, so it MIGHT predate these.)
Where Does Your Thanksgiving Loyalty Lie?
I used to be all about the sides... but since my gastric bypass, I always focus on protein first. I only eat sides if I have room left after I've had an adequate portion of protein. Fortunately, I usually make the turkey, and I brine it, so I no longer have to worry about dry turkey. (And no pie for me - the sugar makes me sick.)
The Burger Lab: Turkey Burgers That Don't Suck
"By the way, any time someone claims to be allergic to MSG, just point out to them that Parmesan cheese is about 1 percent glutamic acid—a far higher concentration than is in your typical container of take-out Chinese food."
True, but not a fair comparison. Most of the glutamic acid in Parmesan cheese is bound up in the various proteins. It does not exist as free-floating glutamates; "Chinese restaurant syndrome" is related to rapid uptake of free glutamates causing release of epinephrine.
Video: Sarah Lohman, 'Historic Gastronomist'
There is a large community of "historic gastronomists" whose focus is on the post-Roman and Medieval time periods (600-1600 CE). We are the Cooks and Brewers of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and many of us strive for authenticity in our re-creation of period dishes.
Yours in Service, Reb Abraham haRofeh of Northpass, AOA
Grilling: Pumpkin Ravioli with Brown Butter and Sage Sauce
@Joshua: 2 cans? 15oz or 29 oz?
Cook the Book: Steak with Anchovy Butter
I keep and use anchovy paste from Amore (in the toothpaste-style tube) in my fridge all the time. How much of that do you think I'd need - 1/8 tsp? 1/4 tsp?
Grilling: Pumpkin Ravioli with Brown Butter and Sage Sauce
If I don't want to grill (or roast) my own, how much canned pumpkin puree do I need? I would guess a 3 lb whole pumpkin yields 2 to 2 1/2 lbs of puree?
Your Clever SE Name
Mine is the same name I use everywhere on the Internet, and not food related at all. Gaellon was a character in two stories I wrote about 15 years ago; I prepended the Dr when I got my MD in 1997.
The 10 Worst Food Trends? Really?
That's not an onion blossom; that's an onion loaf, and Tony Roma's Steakhouse has been doing them for over 25 years. An onion blossom is more like an onion ring, and was popularized by Outback Steakhouse's Bloomin' Onion. It looks like this:
http://luluslaundryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/bloomin-onion.jpg
Post-Mortem: Last Issue of Gourmet, With Subscription Offer?
I saw "The Best of Gourmet" at my local Costco yesterday; there was a large red sticker on the front saying "Get a free subscription to Gourmet with purchase of this book!"
Seriously Italian: Chestnut Honey
I love to use powerful honeys (buckwheat, tupelo, killer bee) to make mead; I can only imagine what a chestnut honey mead would taste like. Any sources to buy by the gallon without bankrupting myself? :D
Why Fresh Eggs Are Harder to Peel
"Old" is an entirely relative matter. Seven days are usually sufficient for the problem to fade away. Most supermarket eggs have been warehoused for two or three weeks by the time they hit the shelf. If you want to make hardboiled eggs from farm-fresh eggs, let them sit in your refrigerator for a week first. (On the other hand, fresh-from-the-chicken eggs make the best sunnyside-up eggs; the white is tight and stays close to the yolk, which will stand up nice and tall. In older eggs, the white gets runny and the yolk spreads out more, which will cause it to cook more.)
What's Your Favorite New York Cheesecake?
S&S on W 238th St in the Bronx, and Cascon in Whitestone.
Do You Have a Favorite Mustard?
Ba-Tam-Te Deli Mustard. The only brand I use at home (well, Maille dijon for recipes, but never on a sandwich).
Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 86: Is 200 Pounds Out of My Reach?
The tables (and body mass index ranges) are based on statistical risk of developing disease, not on what looks or feels appropriate for you.
One way to break a plateau is to cycle your intake - higher for several days, then lower for several days. If you're aiming for 2,000 calories a day, shift it around and do 1,500 a day for three days, then 2,500 a day for three days. Keep that up for a couple of weeks. The seesaw jumpstarts the metabolism (the higher calorie intake days rev up the metabolism, then the lower calorie intake days lead to more rapid weight loss; as soon as the metabolism starts to slow back down, the higher calorie cycle revs it up again).
Fluffernutter: Massachusetts' State Sandwich?
I'm a New Yorker... obviously, pastrami on rye. With deli-style mustard.
Cook the Book: Goat Cheese Bread Pudding
@AnnieNT: on further consideration, an 11x7x2 pan only hold 10.67 cups - so maybe you need 3/4 lb of bread - or a 13x9x2 pan (which holds just over 16 cups).
Cook the Book: Goat Cheese Bread Pudding
@AnnieNT: 1/2lb of French or Italian bread makes about 7 cups, give or take. I usually see ciabatta in 1lb loaves at my grocery.
The Nasty Bits: Crisp Fried Pig's Tail
So, in other words, USE A REALLY DEEP POT - much deeper than you need for the amount of oil. That will contain the worst of the splatters, and a splatter screen over the top should contain the rest.
When in Rome: Dar Poeta
I wonder how it can be "yeast-free" and still be pizza dough... unless you mean it's made by allowing wild yeast to inoculate a sponge like a sourdough. No yeast = no rise = matzo, not pizza.
Dinner Tonight: Tarragon Chicken Salad
Chicken salad with dried cranberries, walnuts and curry powder in the dressing (made with light mayo and sour cream). Heavenly.
The Burger Lab: Turkey Burgers That Don't Suck
I have these currently in the fridge - I am desperately hoping they will firm up as the mix seems awfully sloppy. Could lead to a deliciously moist burger, or one that falls apart when I try to cook it. Watch this space...
Breaking: Hope for Canned Pumpkin Shortage
I bought 8 cans of Libbys from Fresh Direct. I do not want to run out! That should last me till spring and not one pumpkin pie I will make. Breads, soups, oatmeals, and puddings yes.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Emily of Black Rock Orchard swears by Ida Reds.
If I've only got a choice of supermarket fruit, Golden Delicious is my favorite option, but at the farmers' market, I prefer talking to growers, sampling, and then selecting a mixture.
The Burger Lab: Turkey Burgers That Don't Suck
Made a few adjustments. I started with grocery store pre-ground turkey, which I find to be too readily available and affordable to ignore. Next, I cubed and microwaved the eggplant with just a drizzle of olive oil, substituted miso paste for the marmite (I had miso on hand from earlier experiments to make ground turkey palatable), and backed off a bit on the soy sauce. I was afraid the 1-2 punch of both miso and soy sauce would give too strong a soy flavor. Fried the burger with a little oil in a non-stick skillet to an internal temperature of 180F.
No soy, eggplant, or anchovy was detectible - just juicy and well flavored turkey.
It was delicious!
Thanks for the research. Eggplant and anchovy! Who knew?
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
My new favorite this fall is jonagold for pies. Made a perfect tarte tatin this year: soft, cooked, and held its shape, though with tarte tatin, the apples are more cooked than they are baked. I have to say that in an informal crisp test I performed (I make dinner at a shelter twice a month) golden delicous outperformed granny smith by a mile. The grannies turned to mush while the goldens were sweet and held their shape. I'd think it would be hard to do an apple pie test without any apple pie seasoning though. Who's to say that plain apples in the presence of cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. would still perform the same?
Breaking: Hope for Canned Pumpkin Shortage
Libby's was on sale here in the Bay Area so I bought some. But then I bought a Cinderella pumpkin at a farmer's market and I might never use canned again.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Cortlands should surely be considered, a pamphlet put out by NYS apple growers names them as the best for pie. I am a Macoun fan myself, both for pie and out of hand snacking.
Breaking: Hope for Canned Pumpkin Shortage
We've got canned pumpkin in our region.
If you can't find it, substitute squash or make sweet potatoe pie. Mmmmm!
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Winesaps! I had forgotten about them. Used to love them and think they were the best in pies! Haven't seen one in ages.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
New England tradition demands baldwin apples.
Baldwin:
Raw: bland and uninteresting
Baked: Full of layered spicy notes
I'm down in VA where Baldwins cannot be found, so I'm experimenting tonight with a heirloom variety called "gold rush" which is an ugly beast, but crunchy, tart, and with a lot of layered flavors when raw. We'll see how it cooks up.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
My mom always used Granny Smiths because she is not too big on sugary tastes so I used those until I took a baking class in Philadelphia years ago with a pastry chef from a well known restaurant who ONLY used Golden Delicious. I started using them then and have never looked back but I do sometimes use equal Golden Delicious and Granny Smiths to even out the sweetness. Northern Spy is an interesting thought but Macs and Empires I would think would turn to mush!!!
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Macintosh and Granny smith, heavy on the granny, are my winning combo.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Empires----an improved descendant of the Macintosh-------tart and crisp to eat and great flavor in pies, applesauce whatever. (Although Honeycrisp are still my faves for eating out of hand fresh---for people who don't see them as special, consider the source was it a supermarket (yuck) or fresh off the tree or farmers market, they don't do so well at room temp so if they've been off the tree for a couple weeks they become pretty inferior unless kept cool.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
I'm with you Kerosena! I always feel kinda silly admitting that in the baking world cause they're not supposed to be the best baking apple, but I love them and use them for everything.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Add me to the group who give affection to Macs and Cortlands--both are what apples are "supposed" to taste like, to my palate: like a great glass of fresh-milled cider! Both are great bakers, though I prefer Cortlands for pie and sauce and MacIntoshes for crisps or simple baked-apples...Yum.
I made a batch of applesauce this past weekend from Macouns, and was pleased with the results--an interesting fresh-sawed wood back note I've never experienced before. Not my fav, but an interesting twist.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Granny Smith and Braeburns are also good.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Macs and Courtlands are my favorite baking/cooking apple. they bake down, yet somehow hold part of their shape during cooking. Maybe it's my new england upbringing, but they are the only apple I'll be using next week for my pies.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
@Bemijohm, I think that since the pies were actually small tarts instead of full sized pies, it's perfectly logical to only cook them for 35 minutes. Otherwise you're going to over cook them.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
The best part of this article are the comments. It's amazing how different everyone's opinions are about apples, and how strongly they hold onto their apple beliefs!
The interesting thing about apples is that just 100 years ago, you could buy somewhere around 800 types of apples at stores and grocers, whereas today, you really can't find more than 80 types. Most of the heirloom varieties have almost totally disappeared, except for the stray forgotten orchard in someone's back yard. It does make you wonder what kinds of delicious flavors we're missing.
As for what I like, well, I guess it depends on the time of year. Year round, I love nothing more than to eat a lovely Gala. They're usually the cheapest apple in the store, stores easily and is pretty tasty. I love the soft skin. Later in the year, Macs and Cortlands are are top at my list, especially when the local orchard has pick-your-own. Lately I've been eating a lot of Empires, which are really good, sweet and crispy.
I hardly ever make pies, so the only thing I'm looking for in an apple is a pleasant snack.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
It seems to me you missed some of the classic pie apples: Granny Smith, Winesap, Macintosh, and Jonathons. Also in my opinion you cooked the pies for far too short a time. I have won awards with my apple pies baked fro 1.5 hours at 350.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
This is a fabulous post!
@Kerosena, Macs have been in my apple pies for years! We'd go apple picking in Massachusetts every Fall and fill our bushels with Macs and Cortlands, and we'd mix those for our pies. I think there's nothing that signifies Fall to me quite like a crisp Macintosh pulled off a tree and eaten in the orchard. I get teary just to think of it. It's hard to find really crisp Macs down here in Atlanta, because it's not the most popular apple to grow in these southern orchards -- so by the time my grocery store gets them, they are past their crispy peak.
Given the choice, I'd do a mixture of Macs and Cortlands, but I've also enjoyed going the Granny Smith route and upping my sugar just a tad. I love the tartness of the granny and how it holds up in the pie.
Taste Test: Finding the Best Apples for Baking
Honeycrisps are terrible for pies. Their amazing texture is best left raw. They're decent for sauces and stews but given that they're more expensive than other apples, you really shouldn't be cooking them - their texture when raw is unparalleled so just eat them as is!
The best apples for pies are Northern Spy, Stayman Winesap, and Newtown Pippin. I use a combination of the first two - there's something about that Pippin that I just don't like.
My favorite apples are Macouns - they work well in pies, too, but make sure to use small ones (large ones are overgrown and are mealy - Macs are meant to be small) and mix them with something else, like the Northern Spy.
The Burger Lab: Turkey Burgers That Don't Suck
These food lab articles are wonderful. I can't wait to try these turkey burgers. Keep 'em coming!
The Burger Lab: Turkey Burgers That Don't Suck
The Burger Joint, a small new chain in the D.C. area, is featuring the Thanksgiving Burger as the burger of the month.
While their regular burgers look to be significantly better than Five Guys Burgers and Fries, this sandwich should be called something other than a burger, I think. Gravy, stuffing and cranberries do not a hamburger make.
My article here.
How to Make Quince Brandy
Oh my gosh, thank you!!
I LOVE quince liquours. Can't wait to make this!
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Cook the Book: Jasmine Rice Pudding
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About DrGaellon
Website: http://drgaellon.livejournal.com
Location: Yonkers, NY
About: 39 y/o physician, theatre junkie and foodie.
Favorite foods: Matzo ball soup, lasagna, paella
Last bite on earth:
My local Super Stop & Shop (Yonkers NY) not only has plenty of Libby's, but has it on sale at 2/$3 for the 15 oz cans.