I hate “recipe websites” that bury the instructions in unrelated bodies of text. Enjoy.
“Making vegetable stock
Get three large carrots, an onion, two leeks, and a bulb of fennel. Peel the carrots and onion; discard all but the white and light-green part of the leeks. Wash the leeks and fennel. Chop everything up finely and put it in a big pot with a few glugs of oil.
Now you’re going to sweeten up these vegetables by cooking them over low heat. You don’t want to brown them—that will make a darker, richer variant of this stock, which should be bright and clean. Add a large three-fingered pinch of salt to draw out the vegetables’ juices and turn the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about fifteen minutes. Taste an onion. It should be quite sweet.
Add enough water to cover the vegetables, then add that amount of water twice more. Bring the water to a bare simmer and then let it cook for forty-five minutes.
I guess I can understand what you are saying. I have lived out of my vehicle off and on for about ten years, and having a full tine, good "chopping" knife that I can sharpen with what I might use on a shovel is really nice. I have had the same maine knife for 15 years. It is ok. I don't have to work on it much. It says "Chicago Cutlery" on it. It has been put up wet, been used in snow, and I have no money invested in it. It works great.
I also worked in a kitchen once, with really nice knives, it isn't that nice. But it was cheap. Full tine, and not that weird serrated but not serrated.
I’m not speaking on cooking knives as I already have a set of handmade carbon steel knives from a local blacksmith. I also have a cheap chinese made 1075 carbon steel cleaver from amazon. (One I had to modify to get it to be what I wanted.) I’m speaking from pocket knife experience.
I daily carry a Spyderco Tenacious, which if you know steels, has a pretty soft steel in the grand scheme of things. (8cr13MoV)
I’ve attempted trying knives with the “super steels” and it’s such a chore to sharpen them when they get dull that the time just isn’t worth it.
I honestly prefer the D2 from Boker as it holds an edge far better, but still is only slightly annoying to sharpen.
There are pros and cons to all these metals but that harder crap I tend to save for jobs that actually need that kind of steel. (Lean meats, etc.) Chopping some veggies wouldn’t call for me to break out my nice knives as they take too much care to keep in good condition for just chopping up some spring onions or what-not.
There is something to be said for a knife to be able to make a simple job that much smoother and easier for sure. Not worth the trade-off in total time consumed though. Cheap, shitty wal-mart knife and a honing rod > $800 1095 carbon steel Japanese super knife.
Had to remove that tab behind the edge because it was annoying. Had to chamfer the spine because it was sharp as shit. Then I had to stabilize the shitty handle it came with because it had splits and holes in it from their shitty attempt at stabilizing it.
Even after all that though it’s still a great knife for the price. Just needed a little love.
You might want to try Xanthan Gum as a thickener. It is flavorless, does not discolor or cloud sauces, and is temperature and pH stable. It does not need to be heated to work.
Most food to be honest. We always cook enough for leftovers because we’re lazy to cook up a meal in the morning, and somehow everything tastes better the next day. Asian food gets better as leftovers
I’ve had success with this recipe, which is in grams. I just made a baker’s % out of it and mostly use that now for flour tortillas since the recipe made more than I wanted.
Developing the gluten in the dough takes time and effort. No real shortcuts to use here. If you’re specifically talking noodles only, you can try the work>rest>work method: work 3m, cover and rest a few mins, repeat twice, with a little extra work at the end. Some people swear by it, but I’ve noticed only a minor change, of any.
Also, make sure you use a well made and properly calibrated roller when making your sheets. Some of the cheaper ones that don’t have decent spacing calibration will work the dough too quickly between steps. Speaking of which, don’t skip steps when rolling out your dough.
The only thing I can think of is that the jar he uses is very close to the diameter of the immersion blender, which restricts the oil incorporation into the emulsion. If you’re using a wider jar it might be allowing too much oil to flow in at once and breaking the emulsion?
I’d probably squeeze the juice and freeze it. Then use the skins for chimia (a type of jelly - see further info below*). Here’s the recipe:
3 cups of grape skins. Don’t include seeds, they get bitter.
2 cups of water.
1/2 cup of sugar.
1/2 cup of lemon or lime juice.
Cook the skins in the water. Let it boil for ten minutes or so, on low fire, then drain the excess water.
Add sugar and lime juice. Keep cooking it on low fire and stirring it. The skins should fall apart on their own and thicken the jelly, but if you want use a blender to speed up the process. Keep in mind that the final result will be thicker when cold, so don’t cook it too thick.
That’s it. If preserving it put it inside pots while still boiling hot, and they should outlast the thermal death of the Universe.
*further info: @FuglyDuck mentioned that the distinction between jam and jelly depends on the country for English speakers. Well… when you speak Portuguese it varies regionally in Brazil (and likely in Portugal, too), and it might have one to three categories. I grew up with three:
geléia or geleia - jelly made with whole fruits, either heavy on pectin by themselves or with added pectin (e.g. from the white part of lemons). It sets hard, with a gelatinous consistency.
doce - the word means literally “sweet”, and it’s used for stuff like dulce de leche (doce de leite) or desserts, but when it comes to fruits it’s usually “jam”. No pectin added, so it’s usually runnier
chimia - at least I see it as a type of geléia/jelly, but a lot of people see it as a third thing, aside from the other two. It’s traditionally made with pomace, as a way to reuse leftover skins from wine production; because otherwise the drunkards would make graspa aka bagaceira (grape pomace spirit) out of it.
That’s basically as far north as Paraná though. Norther than that (São Paulo) and people don’t use the word “chimia”; go further north and they take “geléia” and “doce de frutas” as synonymous.
Chimia sounds really interesting. I’ve never heard of it before. Thanks for the recipe!
Very interesting about the different types of jellies and jams. I knew about the whole jelly/gelatin thing (I’m from the US so I don’t refer to gelatin as jelly).
that sounds delicious. gonna have to give a go the next time I have too many grapes. Usually I go with blackberry jam boil the black berries until they’re easily mashed, mash through a fine strainer to get rid of the seeds, then add sugar, a little lemon zest, some cinnamon. some conrstarch. add some water to help things mix, and reduce to the right consistency.
It, ah, also makes an awesome topping for vanilla ice cream, if you add some whole berries back in while it’s reducing.
I’m a bit biased because I grew up with this sort of stuff, but I think that it is delicious. Just don’t skip the first step (boiling then straining the water), specially with darker grape varieties, otherwise the tannins get a bit too strong.
It, ah, also makes an awesome topping for vanilla ice cream, if you add some whole berries back in while it’s reducing.
That’s an amazing idea. And I think that blackberries are in season now here (it’s usually late Feb, early March in the S. Hemisphere), might be worth checking the neighbourhood for some.
This is a nice way of using the leftovers from making blackberry jam. We get about a gallon of blackberries from our back yard each year. I’m gonna give this a whirl.
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