The food thread

[scott wurcer]

Gyromitra? Helvella?

Gyromitra, Cal, I would generally ban surimi from my table due to the general availability of the real thing here on the east coast. Just my personal bias, no biggie.

 

[Cal Weldon]

Yes, it is the first time I have used it and probably the last. I don't put crab on pizza so why did I try this?

And yes, we have an abundance of Dungeness if I so have the urge...

Oh, and it spiked a couple months back when we got word the Chinese had acquired a taste for it but it quickly went back down to $6/lbs. and the supply is constant. Every market seems to have live seafood now.

 

[Cal Weldon]

Just spent two hours cracking Hazelnuts. Two hours I'll never get back.

 

[hitsware]

Just spent two hours cracking Hazelnuts. Two hours I'll never get back.

Yes ! I won't eat crab unless my wife cracks
and picks it for me .......
Consequently I only eat crab at public functions
where she allows me to look big by cracking my
crab ......

 

[analogkid455]

Here are some of my meals from over the years.

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[scott wurcer]

I don't put crab on pizza so why did I try this?

You need to try some of the varieties offered in Japan like squid ink pizza. Surimi is getting way too popular at asian restaurants at the current prices of the real stuff. A friend took me to her favorite restaurant and I ordered king crab tempura at a very stiff price, surimi, politeness kept me silent.

 

[Cal Weldon]

C'soned salt. Measures in grams. I still own a triple beam scale.

900 - Kosher salt
200 - Paprika
150 - Onion
150 - Black Pepper
100 - Garlic
60 - Mustard
50 - Turmeric
20 - Cayenne
15 - Chili flake
15 - Dill seed
10 - Fennel

 

[evanc]

Pizza at our place. Our trick is parchment paper. Stretch the dough on the parchment as thin as you want and cook on stone in the oven. The paper burns a bit and the crust comes out excellent. The dough uses a starter that is about 8 years old now.
Evan

 

[SY]

We did the same thing for years- works great. But then we recently discovered some reusable plastic (presumably silicone) sheets with high temperature resistance and good thermal conductivity. We still get a good bottom char on the crust, but don't go through reams of parchment (yes, we cook a lot of pizza!). The sheets have had no problem surviving repeated cycles in a hot oven on a stone.

Is that ricotta with the tomatoes or a fresh mozzarella?

 

[Cal Weldon]

Hey Evan, that's a pizza only it's Daddy could love.

I bet it tastes great though, what do you do for sauce? It's as important as any other ingredient but we don't seem to discuss it much.

 

[evanc]

sauce in order: olive oil, 1 anchovy,hot pepper flakes, celery, grated carrot, onion ,garlic, tomato either frozen from the garden or boxed from Italy. My wife has something against what they line tomato cans with.

 

[vinylkid58]

My wife has something against what they line tomato cans with.

Strained tomatoes come in jars too.

jeff

 

[jackinnj]

My wife has something against what they line tomato cans with.

Does she like her DOP San Marzano tomatoes with or without botulinus?

 

[evanc]

It's the bpa in the cans that she want's us to stay away from. We get a brand called "pomi" It comes in a box and is very good. We now freeze the tomatoes we grow to preserve them, but for many years we jarred them. I believe as long as the ph is low enough that botulinum can't grow in the jarred tomatoes.

 

[jacco vermeulen]

Does she like her DOP San Marzano tomatoes with or without botulinus?

Odds are higher that she'll prefer botulinum toxin without the pomodori.

 

[jackinnj]

I will ask the thermoplastics expert SY to opine, but the aseptic packaging liner for POMI is probably polyethylene with plasticizers for flexibility.

We use the POMI tomato paste too, but the DOP San Marzano's can be found in Kings Supermarket.

 

[SY]

No plasticizers in PE. But there's other fun things in many bag linings and coatings. The effects of BPA appear to be pretty minor- it has a mediocre binding affinity to estrogen receptors- but other endocrine disrupting chemicals in plastics can potentially be quite a bit more hazardous. The potential hazards are mostly to children and pregnant women and are still a matter of some controversy.

Avoiding BPA-containing plastics by switching to different plastics is poor strategy if one is actually worried about endocrine disruptors.

 

[Cal Weldon]

^what he said^

 

[evanc]

I reported to my wife what was said here. She did a little internet research. Good news and bad news. We can now buy tomatoes in any kind of package we want, but this coming fall I need to make at least 80 jars of tomatoes.

 

[jackinnj]

Instead of just canned ("jarred") tomatoes -- try making some diy ketchup as well -- i did this a few years back and it was worth the time, and you won't have Theresa Heintz to kick around either.