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From Recipes

How to Make Crème Fraîche (in One Easy Step!)

By the way, if you want thicker creme fraiche, this strains very well -- just stick it in a Melitta or similar coffee filter and leave it for a few hours, or overnight if you're looking for something with a texture more like commercial sour cream. (We wind up having to do this in Ireland because the sour cream here is so liquid, and often not terribly sour -- a little creme fraiche serves nicely to reculture it and make it sourer overnight.)

EuroCuisineLady at 1:26PM on 02/22/11

From Serious Eats

A Primer to 'Star Trek' Food and Drink

@James Boo: Re the prune juice: you have the much-loved Trek novelist John M. Ford to thank for that. Mike inserted that detail into his early Klingon novel "The Final Reflection"; then the Trek staff writer (and later mastermind of the new version of "Battlestar Galactica") Ron Moore slipped it into televised Trek. :)

Regards -- EuroCuisineLady (aka Diane Duane, yet another Trek writer)(and foodie)

EuroCuisineLady at 10:00AM on 05/11/09

From Serious Eats

McDonald's Filet-O-Fish: Yea or Nay?

Agreeing with Bakerloo Line... this is the only thing I'll eat in McDonald's. Well okay, the fries. But only with the Filet O Fish.

EuroCuisineLady at 11:39AM on 12/15/08

From Talk

Hot Jalepeno Hands

Jenn, when I worked in the ER, we used to call this problem "Hunan Hand", and it happened more frequently than you can imagine. Fortunately the cure is simple.

You need to make a fairly weak solution of chlorine bleach in water -- a couple of tablespoons to a liter / quart of water -- and wash your hands with it. Repeat once or twice if necessary. The bleach breaks the capsaicin molecule and should stop the burn quite quickly.

Also, strangely enough, contact lens wetting solution will normally have the same result (and is obviously a lot better for dealing with situations when you've rubbed chili juice into your eyes: the bleach solution would be RIGHT OUT in such a case.)

Best -- Diane (EuroCuisineLady)

EuroCuisineLady at 9:46AM on 09/22/08

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From Recipes

How to Make Crème Fraîche (in One Easy Step!)

By the way, if you want thicker creme fraiche, this strains very well -- just stick it in a Melitta or similar coffee filter and leave it for a few hours, or overnight if you're looking for something with a texture more like commercial sour cream. (We wind up having to do this in Ireland because the sour cream here is so liquid, and often not terribly sour -- a little creme fraiche serves nicely to reculture it and make it sourer overnight.)

EuroCuisineLady at 1:26PM on 02/22/11

From Serious Eats

A Primer to 'Star Trek' Food and Drink

@James Boo: Re the prune juice: you have the much-loved Trek novelist John M. Ford to thank for that. Mike inserted that detail into his early Klingon novel "The Final Reflection"; then the Trek staff writer (and later mastermind of the new version of "Battlestar Galactica") Ron Moore slipped it into televised Trek. :)

Regards -- EuroCuisineLady (aka Diane Duane, yet another Trek writer)(and foodie)

EuroCuisineLady at 10:00AM on 05/11/09

From Serious Eats

McDonald's Filet-O-Fish: Yea or Nay?

Agreeing with Bakerloo Line... this is the only thing I'll eat in McDonald's. Well okay, the fries. But only with the Filet O Fish.

EuroCuisineLady at 11:39AM on 12/15/08

From Talk

Hot Jalepeno Hands

Jenn, when I worked in the ER, we used to call this problem "Hunan Hand", and it happened more frequently than you can imagine. Fortunately the cure is simple.

You need to make a fairly weak solution of chlorine bleach in water -- a couple of tablespoons to a liter / quart of water -- and wash your hands with it. Repeat once or twice if necessary. The bleach breaks the capsaicin molecule and should stop the burn quite quickly.

Also, strangely enough, contact lens wetting solution will normally have the same result (and is obviously a lot better for dealing with situations when you've rubbed chili juice into your eyes: the bleach solution would be RIGHT OUT in such a case.)

Best -- Diane (EuroCuisineLady)

EuroCuisineLady at 9:46AM on 09/22/08

From Talk

Irish soda bread recipes

EuropeanCuisineGuy says, "Leaving out the raisins --" (which he doesn't care for -- ) he is entirely in favor of the latter recipe. (And adds, "Wow, would that go with goulash!") Caraway is a commonplace, being one of the herbs that grows well here: I forget which writer it was who said, about potato cakes baked in a Bastable oven, "They came out hot and hot from the oven, full of caraway and soaked with butter, and we ate them greedily..." Whiskey was also mentioned. :)

EuroCuisineLady at 2:46PM on 03/19/08

From Talk

Irish soda bread recipes

Can I suggest our soda bread article and master recipe (with variations) here?

Peter's Mum's soda bread recipe

P's mum made soda bread on site in Ireland from the mid-1920's until she died last year at the age of 90. She passed me her basic recipe and (much more importantly) her method, which works brilliantly. At her instigation I added video tutorials a while back.

The secret for getting it right seems to be mostly speed. Also good ingredients, and (agreeing with others above) buttermilk rather than plain milk. Also, yes, the "plain soda" version of the bread is supposed to be a bit on the dry side. It's not meant to be a keeping bread, but something you make fresh every day. For a moister product, you do need to begin tinkering with the more authentic approach, or adding fruit, sugar, cream, etc, as in some of the tea breads mentioned further down in the article.

(The article, BTW, also has directions for soda farl, which is the less well-known version of soda bread -- a little more northern, but much loved, especially as part of the Ulster fry.)

Also: Just this morning I experimented (can't believe it's taken so long) with the same recipe using the NY Times-style no-knead, hot-pot method. It works absolutely perfectly (but then the cake style of soda bread baked "in the pot" or Bastable oven is the stuff of many childhood memories here).

EuroCuisineLady at 9:16AM on 03/18/08

From Recipes

Time for a Drink: the Emerald

From the depths of County Wicklow, a thought: garnish with one curl of lime peel, one curl of orange peel, for a drink that grants both traditions "parity of esteem" (as they put it up North these days). ;)

Best! EuroCuisineLady

(BTW: you do know, don't you, that "brogue" is derived from a naughty Irish word coined to describe the sound of English-speakers trying to speak Irish? The word has ties to the word for the tongue of a shoe ... suggesting that native English-speakers' tongues were about that flexible when trying to wrap around the liquid and melodic sounds of gaeilge.)

EuroCuisineLady at 9:46PM on 03/17/08

From Serious Eats

St. Patrick's Day Recipes

(waves) Thanks for the link back, folks! And Happy St. Patrick's Day to all from the wilds of western County Wicklow!

Best -- EuroCuisineLady

EuroCuisineLady at 2:32PM on 03/17/08

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