Culinary Laws (or they ought to be)

[Zenster]

I've never been able to turn out good pie crust.

A few quick secrets for making good pie crust:

Have all of the ingredients stone cold. This includes the mixing bowl and rolling pin.

Cut the butter into small pieces before introducing it into the flour.

Use a multi-bladed pastry knife to cut the butter into the flour.

Do not overwork the dough. Excess friction melts the butter and makes for a grainy or mealy crust.

Hardcore crust makers use a hollow glass rolling pin that can be filled with ice water.

Work quickly and roll out the dough once the bits of butter are the size of baby peas.

Just a few efforts using the above methods should see you making a reasonable pie crust. A shepherd's pie is one of the most glorious ways to dispose of leftovers.

As to Brussels Sprouts: Most people dislike them because they really do taste bad. Then again, most people purchase and prepare sprouts the size of golf balls. As a member of the brassica family, Brussels sprouts contain mustard oil. Larger specimens will have a higher content of this sometimes offensive ingredient. Overcooking the sprouts washes out their vegetal flavor and only serves to highlight the mustard oil.

For the very best in flavor, the sprouts should be no larger than the end of your thumb. Peel off the the two outer leaflets, cut off any wood from the stem and steam or boil just long enough for them to become tender. Served with melted butter, they are a delightful side dish.

[MsRobyn]

As long as I can get ready-made crust from a box, I'm not making my own from scratch. Ready-made crust is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.

I'm with you on Brussels sprouts, though. Freshly steamed are awesome.

[longhair75]

Quoting my friend Silenus:

Yes, yes, no, no, yes, hell yes.

Velveeta is an essential part of Ro-Tel Dip. Russian Dressing is a must on a Reuben.

I admit I am powerless over my insidious addiction to properly made rotel dip.

A Reuben must have Russian dressing.

The last Reuben sandwich I ordered came with thousand island dressing and coleslaw......

[SpazCat]

Velveeta is an essential part of Ro-Tel Dip. Russian Dressing is a must on a Reuben.

Raw tomatoes make me gag. I have no use for Ro-Tel Dip.

Now I want a Reuben.

[longhair75]

The Reuben sandwich was invented in my home town, despite the claims of the NYC deli owner Arnold Reuben.

Arnold Reuben sandwich was:

The year was 1914. Late one evening a leading lady of actor Charlie Chaplin came into the restaurant and said, 'Reuben, make me a sandwich, make it a combination, I'm so hungry I could eat a brick.' He took a loaf of rye bread, cut two slices on the bias and stacked one piece with sliced Virginia ham, roast turkey, and imported Swiss cheese, topped off with coleslaw and lots of Reuben's special Russian dressing and the second slice of bread. He served it to the lady who said, 'Gee, Reuben, this is the best sandwich I ever ate, you ought to call it an Annette Seelos Special.' To which he replied, 'Like hell I will, I'll call it a Reuben's Special.'

ham, turkey swiss cheese coleslaw and russian dressing might make a tasty sandwich, but in 1925:

1925 - Another version is Reuben Kulakofsky (1873-1960), a wholesale grocer in Omaha, Nebraska and co-owner of Central Market in Omaha from 1900 to 1943, created the Reuben Sandwich. Kulakofsky belonged to a weekly poker group whose members apparently enjoyed fixing their own sandwiches every bit as much as they enjoyed playing poker. One of the players, Charles Schimmel, owner of the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, put the Reuben Sandwich on the hotel menu.

The Reuben at the Blackstone Hotel was:
Corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on Russian Rye bread and grilled. It was still on the menu when the hotel closed in 1976.

[OtakuLoki]

A Reuben must have Russian dressing.

The last Reuben sandwich I ordered came with thousand island dressing and coleslaw......

Okay - I don't get this. What, precisely, is the difference between thousand island and Russian dressings? I always thought they were interchangeable terms for the same thing.

[longhair75]

a very large difference:

Russian dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/8 cup ketchup
1/2 tablespoon minced parsley
1/2 tablespoon whole milk
1/2 tablespoon grated onion
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce

Thousand Island dressing

½ MED. RED ONION
4 STALKS OF CELERY CHOPPED
4 SWEET PICKLES (GHERKINS)
½ BELL PEPPER CHOPPED
2 ½ SPRIGS OF PARSLEY CHOPPED
2 TSP. PIMENTO OR CANNED RED PEPPERS
2 HARD BOILED EGGS
1 QUART MAYONNAISE*
1 CUP KETCHUP


Both tasty items, but hardly interchangeable....

[Julie]

a very large difference:

Russian dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/8 cup ketchup
1/2 tablespoon minced parsley
1/2 tablespoon whole milk
1/2 tablespoon grated onion
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce

Thousand Island dressing

½ MED. RED ONION
4 STALKS OF CELERY CHOPPED
4 SWEET PICKLES (GHERKINS)
½ BELL PEPPER CHOPPED
2 ½ SPRIGS OF PARSLEY CHOPPED
2 TSP. PIMENTO OR CANNED RED PEPPERS
2 HARD BOILED EGGS
1 QUART MAYONNAISE*
1 CUP KETCHUP


Both tasty items, but hardly interchangeable....

Thousand Island in my experience is Russian dressing plus pickle relish.

[silenus]

The wife made Brussels Sprouts as a side for dinner last night. Small, tight little green balls with bacon. Delicious! I had refused to eat the things for decades because I thought they always tasted the way my mother's did.


Silly me.

[JavaMaven]

Late to the party, but I've got a few additions:

*Buttercream frosting made from powdered sugar and butter whipped together is an abomination. Buttercream frosting is a delicate combination of egg yolks (for French buttercream) or egg whites (Swiss or Italian, depending on your cooking process), sugar, and butter.

*Guacamole never contains mayonnaise, sour cream, or--for the love of all that is sacred in the avocado--cheese. If you want things like this to go on your tortilla chips, make a bean or queso dip.

*Bacon fat should be saved, loved, and cherished for the culinary treasure it is. It's perfect for homemade refried beans or making home fries with onion and peppers. In a moment of madness and need (I was making biscuits for breakfast and was low on butter), I used cold bacon fat. The texture wasn't perfect, but MAN were those the tastiest biscuits I'd ever made.

*Scrambled eggs should never be browned--they're burnt and belong in the trash. The best scrambled eggs are done on low heat and stirred constantly, and have a texture close to a custard.

*Every home should own a pepper grinder, and never, ever purchase pre-ground pepper again.

*Ketchup with eggs should be illegal.

[OtakuLoki]

*Every home should own a pepper grinder, and never, ever purchase pre-ground pepper again.

Sorry. Hot & Sour soup is best with pre-ground pepper. At least I lack the patience to grind two to three tablespoons of the kernels at once.

I do agree that the uses for pre-ground pepper are rare and limited, but they do exist.

[JavaMaven]

Sorry. Hot & Sour soup is best with pre-ground pepper. At least I lack the patience to grind two to three tablespoons of the kernels at once.

I do agree that the uses for pre-ground pepper are rare and limited, but they do exist.

Ah hah--you do have me there. Still, for cases where I may need more than a few teaspoons worth of ground pepper, I have a specially designated electric coffee bean grinder that I use as a spice grinder (it just happened that I was gifted a coffee bean grinder only a month after I bought a new one, and I decided to keep it and use it as a spice grinder rather than return it). But, that's one of those things I wouldn't expect most people to do.

[Ferret Herder]

Quoting doesn't seem to be working for me atm - JavaMaven, you might like what I've seen described as the Japanese style of scrambling eggs, aka tamago. When I make it, I end up with a small saucepan over low heat, pour the egg in and stir with two chopsticks like you want your arm to fall off. You get a tiny, delicate "curd" to it, and it's very fluffy and definitely not browned. Linky.

[pulykamell]

*Every home should own a pepper grinder, and never, ever purchase pre-ground pepper again.

Sorry. Hot & Sour soup is best with pre-ground pepper. At least I lack the patience to grind two to three tablespoons of the kernels at once.

I do agree that the uses for pre-ground pepper are rare and limited, but they do exist.

That's what the mortar and pestle is for. Or a dedicated coffee grinder. I can't think of any use where preground pepper is preferable to freshly ground pepper. The difference is just so staggering. The preground stuff tastes like dust with a hint of pepper flavor. (That, and hot & sour soup should be made with white pepper.).

[SpazCat]

Late to the party, but I've got a few additions:

*Buttercream frosting made from powdered sugar and butter whipped together is an abomination. Buttercream frosting is a delicate combination of egg yolks (for French buttercream) or egg whites (Swiss or Italian, depending on your cooking process), sugar, and butter.

*Guacamole never contains mayonnaise, sour cream, or--for the love of all that is sacred in the avocado--cheese. If you want things like this to go on your tortilla chips, make a bean or queso dip.

Buttercream frosting: not if you grow up in a house with someone who's allergic to eggs.
Guacamole: I just told my Mexican roommate that there are people in this world who put mayonnaise in guacamole. He has declared such things Abominations and will be going on a rampage shortly.

[silenus]

I put a lot of stuff in my guacamole, and not once in 50 years did it ever cross my mind to add mayonnaise. My guess is people that do also eat their own boogers.

[Queen of Hearts]

Use butter; life is too short for margarine. "Spread" is a vile abomination and should be banned.

Although we tolerate everyone's "food weirdness" here, there are some things I don't want to watch, like putting peanut butter on my raised waffles. <gag>

Although proper chili does not contain beans, a pot of chili AND beans is food of the gods. Cincinnati chili should be nuked from orbit, lest it spread. Other pastas served with chili are "chili mac", and are perfectly acceptable under that designation.

[RobuSensei]

No matter how uncouth it is in Japan, dipping sushi in soy/wasabi sauce is awesome.

Uncouth? This must be some bizarre, otherworldly Japan, completely unlike the one in which I'm living...

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. It's not common, but I've seen several Japanese people do the "mix wasabi into soy" thing for sushi. It's far more common (in my experience) to see people doing it for sashimi.

As for my contribution to the thread, it's not a law in the sense of regulation, but a law in the sense of universal axiom: A good percentage of the time, when Japan attempts to do western cuisine, it goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Example: After World War II, fresh tomatoes were hard to come by, so many Japanese people -- both in restaurants and at home -- would substitute ketchup. To this day, you can find "Neapolitan" spaghetti on menus and at convenience stores, with a ketchup based sauce. (The convenience store version usually adds tamago soboro, green peppers, and coin-slices of sausage.)

And then of course there are the various...things...to which Japanese people apply the name "pizza". Corn/(mashed) potato/mayonnaise pizza, to name one.

[wolf-alice]

Coriander is vile and wrong and tastes like overpowering dirty soap, and I know it's all lovely fresh air flavour to half of the population, but in that case can't you give a girl a break and just use parsley?

Speaking of which, dried parsley is not parsley. Why would you even do that? It tastes like lint.

WAIT. STOP. HAMMERTIME. STOP DOING STUFF TO VEGETABLES. Stop freezing, frying, canning, salting, drowning in oils or otherwise masking the flavours with glup, stop any form of cooking that results in anything grey - it's not the 1950s, you don't have to boil lettuce until it's hygienic. Stop serving three slices of crinkle-cut carrot as an afterthought, stop serving me parsley garnish like a tassel on a hammer, stop using your catering City & Guilds to build me little chive wigwams like I'm meant to be impressed. Just eat your vegetables, just once, like they taste. of. vegetables!

... And breathe.

Bread, dipped in beaten egg and fried, is chucky egg. You eat this with ketchup. A soft-boiled egg is a soft-boiled egg, and there is nothing "chucky" about it. I will accept "dippy egg" from the under-sevens, and me. You eat your dippy egg with toastie soldiers and optional drawn-on face.

Don't salt your dippy egg! My word.

Don't scoop out your dippy egg and have it on toast. Were your raised by wolves? In a van? A dippy egg is consumed from an eggcup, hello, and then the empty shell is turned upside-down to resemble a full egg, to the confusion and delight of breakfast observers!

Also - and this is going to get me hung from my feet from tower bridge - but I think sugar in tea is a bit juvenile and weird. Man up, Britain! While I'm here, stop giving tea to children. It weirds me out. Me, yes, the dippy-egg anthropomorphiser. That's exactly how weird it is.

[silenus]

Bread, dipped in beaten egg and fried, is chucky egg. You eat this with ketchup. A soft-boiled egg is a soft-boiled egg, and there is nothing "chucky" about it. I will accept "dippy egg" from the under-sevens, and me. You eat your dippy egg with toastie soldiers and optional drawn-on face.

This is why you people lost your Empire. Egg-dipped and fried bread is French Toast, and it is served with maple syrup or strawberry jam, not ketchup! And soft-boiled eggs are an offense to all that is holy. I will allow over-easy and sunny-side up, although they make me want to gag, because my wife likes them that way. But a proper egg is fried (in butter!) until the yolk is solid. Not runny, not set...solid. Then you eat it on toast as a sandwich.

[Diana]

Then you eat it on toast as a sandwich.

Preferably with cheese and some sort of pork product.

[silenus]

Then you eat it on toast as a sandwich.

Preferably with cheese and some sort of pork product.

I thought that went without saying.

[wolf-alice]

YOU PEOPLE.

(And since I'm here, it's not called "eggy bread" either. This is the land of toad in the hole and spotted dick and other inexplicable culinary monikers, yes? Show a little regard for your proud nonsensical heritage! Descriptive naming of foodstuffs? Churchill must be positively revolving).

[Wheresgeorge04]

Coriander is vile and wrong and tastes like overpowering dirty soap, and I know it's all lovely fresh air flavour to half of the population, but in that case can't you give a girl a break and just use parsley?

Like we should all be punished for your inferior genetics?

Seriously, though, I fall in the middle. I like a little, but not a lot, and I don't taste the soap like some people do...

ihatecilantro.com

Joe