I must admit to you my dears, my darlings, there is one thing that deeply annoys me during the Thanksgiving mealtime area. They scoff, they look dumbfounded, some have actually asked if my mind has stopped working. Here is the one issue.
No one ever believes me when I tell them how long a turkey takes to cook.
Two and one half hours. It should take no longer than that. Three hours total. Ten minutes to get it out of the brine and into the oven, half an hour at 500, two hours at 350. Then you rest it for 20 minutes before eating. Three hours from the brine to the table. Crispy, crackling skin. succulent, juicy, flavorful meat. Along with gravy handed down by Louis Servan himself.
Add in stuffing (dressing really), cranberry sauce and whipped potatoes that I produce along with the abomination that is Green Bean Casserole. It’s an abomination because I cannot create this dish “properly” without the canned ingredients. And I cannot do without the thing because “We hath always done as such, and shall ever do as such, forevermore.”
POINT BEING!
I produce perfection. Perfection on a plate.
I keep hearing people tell me I’m crazy, that you cannot produce the whole of the meal in 3 hours. But then I also hear complaints that the turkey they allowed to cook for 9 hours was dry and had a taste somewhat reminiscent of library paste, only less flavorful. Cardboard was a word someone used this year. Then you have my turkey, which has brought strong men to tears of joy and was produced in a third of the time.
I’m not sorry to sound smug about this but... do you suppose it’s possible that I know how to cook turkey and you do not?
It’s not your fault. If you are Generation X, like myself, then you are greatly unraised and untutored. Our parents were never taught how to cook properly, because their parents were never really taught how to cook properly. We’re the third generation of a system that was dedicated to making sure we could not fish, so that the marketers could sell us a fish every day. Our grandmothers were handed recipes in advertisements, that used all the companies canned goods, loaded with sodium and garbage. Our mothers were then handed these useless bits of information, and did their best to hand them off to us. Yes, I know, one of you had a mother that could cook and a grandmother that knew what she was doing. You are, I’m sorry to say, a rarity in this world.
As a result, I will write you out my method for a perfect turkey... but not today. Today I’m feeling too smug, too full and too drunk to write anything with any alacrity. If alacrity is indeed the word I want. Jeeves would know.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Goddamn Quiche Goddamnit!
There is a book called Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, and as far as I can tell, the contents are what it says on the cover. I don’t know if it’s meant as satire on the attitude that men don’t eat quiche, or if it really means it. I’ve never read it, and I’m not really interested, because we’re past that crap. Also, I read more satire before I was ten than most people read their whole lives. I know, it explains a lot.
Real Men are secure enough in their sexuality to eat whatever the hell they want. It’s the 400 pound gorilla issue really. Or, if I may get a bit True Scotsman on your ass, no Real Man would be afraid to eat quiche and pronounce it thus. Yeah, how do you like that? Now you gotta eat it or you’re a sissy little girl. Wait, that implies an insult to both sissies and little girls and I don’t want to limit my audience. Hmm, ah well, can’t worry about every damn thing. Let’s get to the quiche!
The thing is, quiche is actually pretty manly. It’s a pie, which is already 30-50 times more manly than cake. Second, it’s your whole breakfast in one bite. Done right, it should have egg, cheese, bacon, and ham in each and every mouthful. Yeah, we ain’t got time for sitting around breaking off bits of this and a corner of that WE IS MENS! We get the whole thing in each bite. It doesn’t fall apart, so you can eat it with your hands, and members of the advanced class can put raw steak in it. If quiche were any more manly, it would come with a cock!
Quiche is pretty simple really. What you need is three eggs and half a cup of cream. That’s it. That’s all. You can have a full cup cream or only two eggs, because personal preference comes fairly heavily into this. Personal preference can also come into dress as well. You can make your quiche while wearing a tutu, or a heavy camo army jacket. Advanced class members may wear both, but only if you also wear combat boots and a tiara. For my quiche though, it’s three eggs, one half cup cream. Your pie crust, amounts of filling, and how runny or firm you like things is going to have an effect on everything in this recipe, so experiment.
Eggs are cheap, cream is pretty cheap and you can use milk if you want. But I’m not just talking about eggs here. Buy some silk panties your size, wear a tank top, listen to Wagner, date someone of a variety you’d never thought to date before. Go out with people of both genders and all races, give everything a try. Drink heavily, at least once, just so you know what a hangover feels like. Go dancing until dawn and watch the sun come up while listening to soft Elizabethan music. Add pointless examples to a recipe to pad out your paragraphs. See what works for you, then do that. In all things.
For filling, the recipe is going to call for one thing and I’m going to tell you another. What I’m going to tell you here, between us, is that anything cooked can be used. Whatever leftovers are in the fridge can be used, from hash browned potatoes to that chicken chow mein from the other night. I suppose some raw things like celery or lettuce can be put in, but I’d feel more comfortable if you cooked them first. It’s going to end up cooked no matter what, but yeah, I’d cook things. The only thing you need to make sure of is that it’ll fit your pie crust before you begin. If you don’t know, then use the original method for pouring and filling described below.
Speaking of pie crusts, you can buy ready made from your grocer’s freezer. Here’s the really cool part about this... no one is ever going to know. Yeah, there are some things that are special and you want to do those things right, but this isn’t one of them. This is an egg and bacon pie. Just get a ready to bake crust and use that. Usually, the ones I buy come in pairs, so I always make two quiches at a go. You can bake them before hand, just to make them nice and crispy, or not. I’ve tried it both ways, and I’ve still not made my mind up. The pros say you should bake the crust before hand, which means beans or weights, or trying to gently flatten the crust when it tries to rise a bit.
Now my basic quiche is a ham and spinach number. I’m not a big fan of gruyere, so I used cheddar and parmesan. You know what you like? Get that. If you don’t know what you like, try everything. Actually try everything anyway. You want to be a person? You gotta try stuff, otherwise you’re just another useless lump of half-evolved non-humanity. Ain’t got time for that shit. Ain’t nobody got time for that shit. I get some finely diced ham, about ¾ of a cup, ¼ a pound of bacon, one clove of garlic, half a yellow onion, and a big handful of spinach that you’ve sliced. Now, what you want to do is slice everything small and put it in a frying pan. Bacon first, ham second, garlic third, onion fourth, spinach last. Now of course, when I make it, I double these amounts because of the two pie pans, so keep that in mind if you have two. Make sure the bacon is cooked before throwing in the ham, make sure the ham is browned before adding the garlic and onions, and let them sit for a little while before adding the spinach. Now remember, the spinach is going to look like a big old mess, but it will reduce in size with the heat. Just give it a tossing around until it wilts down and becomes manageable. This will all be fairly quick. When the filling is done, take it off the heat, maybe drain it if you don’t want to die of cholesterol poisoning, and set it aside. You have to let it get cool, or you will ruin everything and I will despise you.
Now comes the eggs! Put the eggs and milk into a bowl, add some seasoning if you desire. A bit of salt and pepper are fine, chives are nice, just make sure anything you add is chopped very small or is dried and crumbles well. Get yourself a whisk and do what a whisk was born to do. You don’t need to get it foamy or anything, just mixed up nicely will do. Now this is the unorthodox bit. Most the recipes for quiche I’ve seen have said you should arrange the ingredients on the crust and then pour the mixture over them. That’s the traditional way and you can have it if you want it. Here is a method I’ve used to some success though. You know that stuff we made a little while ago and put aside? I bet it’s cool enough not to cook the eggs right away. Let’s put it in the egg mix, with the cheese and then mix it all up before pouring it into the pie crust. This will ensure everything is held together by the egg and it won’t fall apart too much on the fork. However, if you’re interested in presentation, layering looks better. Really though, that’s not important. WE IS MENS!
What is important is that you remember to cook the quiche properly. Here is what I’ve found works best for me. I put it in a 475° oven, which I drop to 350° after about 5 minutes. Then I leave it for about 30 minutes, checking on it every ten minutes after that. When done right, the top should be set, but if you jiggle the pan you should see just a little bit of wiggling in the center. Not a lot of wiggling mind you, just a little. At that point remove from oven and let it sit for about fifteen minutes to firm up before cutting into it.
Now, here’s the thing, that is a hell of a lot of quiche. I mean, a lot of quiche. Even I can’t eat all of that quiche and I AM A MAN! So here’s what you do. Cut it into quarters, wrap each quarter in foil, put it in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer. This will ensure that shame does not fall upon your house and you won’t be forced to commit seppuku when the shogun shows up and asks for some quiche. The Shogun is an inveterate quiche bum. He never has any himself, and always wants some of yours when he shows up. But he can order you to commit ritual suicide. So... you know... have some on hand. When you want some, you can either microwave it, or put in the oven at about 350 for fifteen to twenty minutes. If you put it in the oven, let it thaw first, or it’ll get weird. Don’t let things get weird, don’t do that to me.
Let’s get something we can put on a printable card
For Quiche
2 ready made pie crusts
6 Eggs
1 cup cream
½ cup grated parmesan
½ cup cheddar
For filling
1 ½ cup diced ham
½ pound thick cut bacon
2 cloves of garlic
1 yellow onion (diced)
2 cups Spinach (roughly cut)
Cook all the pie filling together in a pan. Set aside and allow to cool. In medium bowl, whisk the eggs and cream together. Add the cheese and filling, continue to mix with a spoon, spatula, or food safe sex toy. Pour mixture into pie pans evenly, then place in a 475° oven. After 5 minutes, lower temperature to 350° and continue baking for about 30 minutes or until quiche is set with a bit of wiggle in the center. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Serves 8, but stores well and can be enjoyed later.
Friday, June 28, 2013
What I sometimes can’t say
I want to know about you, all about you.
I want to know where you’ve been, who you’ve been with, and what you’ve done.
I want to know about your former and current lovers, because it informs me more about you.
I want to know all about you, because I am deeply and irrevocably interested in you.
I want to share things with you, I want to show you things.
I want to be part of you, and for you to be part of me.
I want us to always want to be together, and to know we need to be apart.
I want to connect with you, separate from you, and then reconnect in different ways.
I would like to relate to you, and have you relate to me.
...
And, I would like us to fuck like methed up monkeys.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Crepes and Cherries
So you made a simple fried rice and some hibachi style steak for dinner right? Only you used one of your two eggs for the rice, and you want to make some crepes and all the recipes call for like... more than one sad fucking egg, yeah? NOT TO WORRY!
Check this shit out...
So you take your one sad-ass egg and you leave it on the counter IN A BOWL! The hell’s wrong with you? Don’t just leave a naked egg on the counter. The salt will get all randy and want to hump it and eggs are notoriously easy when it comes to salt. If the salt bangs your egg, you are fucked vis a vis the crepes. Yeah, I speak all kinds of French. Point is, the egg needs to reach room temperature. You also need to melt some butter, about half a table spoon, so leave that out next to the egg. The butter will chaperone (more French) the egg and keep the salt in its place.
NOW! While that whole... THING is going on, you got those cherries we talked about right? The fresh cherries? The ones I told you to get? Yeah, those ones. Slice ‘em, cut ‘em, rip their pits out. You’ll need about a cup or so, maybe two. Hell do nine pounds if it gets you off. I don’t care, but I will warn you, the salt likes to watch. Now put them in a pan with some brandy, or rum, or something equally nice. If you use vodka I will hit you, a lot. Then add sugar, about half a cup of sugar to a cup of cherries. Now boil it. Not too high of heat, but you want it to boil. Some water might be needed, if you’re kind of bad at syrup and can’t make the hooch behave the way you want it to. You need a syrup of medium consistency.
Done? Yeah? You sure? Okay! The syrup needs to cool a bit, so just let it sit there. You don’t need to set anything on fire. It’s not that kind of dish.
So now comes the hard part. Put one quarter cup of water, one quarter cup of milk one third of a cup of regular all purpose flour into a blender. Add the egg and butter, then set the salt to one side, and put a tiny amount in your hand. Put the salt in the mix, but don’t let the egg know what you’ve done or it’ll think it’s been ruined for marriage and the butter will commit seppuku because butter takes the virtue of eggs seriously and you don’t need that shit. Hit the button and mix the ingredients. Now, I know I didn’t explicitly tell you to put the lid on the blender, but that’s because I assumed you could put those particular pieces together. Was my faith in you justified? Only time will tell.
Now comes the hard part. Put the blender pitcher in the fridge for about half an hour. During that time you can remake your syrup if you screwed it up, or give the salt a lecture on moral fortitude, or go out and buy the ice cream that you forgot is needed for this dish, or have sex if you're quick, or listen to an episode of The News Quiz. If sex takes too long, not to worry, you do no harm to the mixture, an hour or two is okay.
You got a nice smooth teflon pan, yeah? About eight to twelve inches across? Nothing fancy, just a normal, shallow, flat, smooth, teflon, pan. Medium high to high heat, depending on how gutsy you are. Okay, get some more butter. MOAR BUTTER! You can either melt this, or use it as a stick to lube up the pan, or you can stick it in your ear or eat it whole. Again, this ain’t my kitchen and I’m rarely as happy about that as I am right now. Lube the pan and pour some of the batter in there. Not too much, but we want to cover the bottom of the pan. Shake it around a little to get a good covering and when it begins to slide around on its own try to flip it over. If it splatters, or isn’t firm on top when you flip, you put in too much, use less next time. You just want the other side there for a few seconds, just to make sure it’s done. Then take it out and put it on the plate. Either the person with you can start the desert, or you can WAIT A DAMN MINUTE! This won’t take long, there is only enough batter for four crepes.
Put the crepe on a plate, then put a single spoonful of ice cream (We used cherry from Oberweis, but life probably sucks for you and you don’t have an Oberweis near you) and some of the cherry syrup on the crepe, before folding it into a sort of cute little cone shape. Now if you’re a greedy motherfucker, you can load the thing up with more ice cream, or put whipped cream on it, but this dish doesn’t need that. It needs just a bit of ice cream and a bit of cherry syrup. Don’t make me come for you all Liam Neeson style because you can’t be trusted with dessert.
So now you’ve made crepes with ice cream and cherry syrup, or you’ve made a damn mess. Either way, I am proud of the effort you’ve made, and Fancy is proud of you and Ringo is proud of you, but I can’t give you this briefcase because it doesn’t belong to me.
Check this shit out...
So you take your one sad-ass egg and you leave it on the counter IN A BOWL! The hell’s wrong with you? Don’t just leave a naked egg on the counter. The salt will get all randy and want to hump it and eggs are notoriously easy when it comes to salt. If the salt bangs your egg, you are fucked vis a vis the crepes. Yeah, I speak all kinds of French. Point is, the egg needs to reach room temperature. You also need to melt some butter, about half a table spoon, so leave that out next to the egg. The butter will chaperone (more French) the egg and keep the salt in its place.
NOW! While that whole... THING is going on, you got those cherries we talked about right? The fresh cherries? The ones I told you to get? Yeah, those ones. Slice ‘em, cut ‘em, rip their pits out. You’ll need about a cup or so, maybe two. Hell do nine pounds if it gets you off. I don’t care, but I will warn you, the salt likes to watch. Now put them in a pan with some brandy, or rum, or something equally nice. If you use vodka I will hit you, a lot. Then add sugar, about half a cup of sugar to a cup of cherries. Now boil it. Not too high of heat, but you want it to boil. Some water might be needed, if you’re kind of bad at syrup and can’t make the hooch behave the way you want it to. You need a syrup of medium consistency.
Done? Yeah? You sure? Okay! The syrup needs to cool a bit, so just let it sit there. You don’t need to set anything on fire. It’s not that kind of dish.
So now comes the hard part. Put one quarter cup of water, one quarter cup of milk one third of a cup of regular all purpose flour into a blender. Add the egg and butter, then set the salt to one side, and put a tiny amount in your hand. Put the salt in the mix, but don’t let the egg know what you’ve done or it’ll think it’s been ruined for marriage and the butter will commit seppuku because butter takes the virtue of eggs seriously and you don’t need that shit. Hit the button and mix the ingredients. Now, I know I didn’t explicitly tell you to put the lid on the blender, but that’s because I assumed you could put those particular pieces together. Was my faith in you justified? Only time will tell.
Now comes the hard part. Put the blender pitcher in the fridge for about half an hour. During that time you can remake your syrup if you screwed it up, or give the salt a lecture on moral fortitude, or go out and buy the ice cream that you forgot is needed for this dish, or have sex if you're quick, or listen to an episode of The News Quiz. If sex takes too long, not to worry, you do no harm to the mixture, an hour or two is okay.
You got a nice smooth teflon pan, yeah? About eight to twelve inches across? Nothing fancy, just a normal, shallow, flat, smooth, teflon, pan. Medium high to high heat, depending on how gutsy you are. Okay, get some more butter. MOAR BUTTER! You can either melt this, or use it as a stick to lube up the pan, or you can stick it in your ear or eat it whole. Again, this ain’t my kitchen and I’m rarely as happy about that as I am right now. Lube the pan and pour some of the batter in there. Not too much, but we want to cover the bottom of the pan. Shake it around a little to get a good covering and when it begins to slide around on its own try to flip it over. If it splatters, or isn’t firm on top when you flip, you put in too much, use less next time. You just want the other side there for a few seconds, just to make sure it’s done. Then take it out and put it on the plate. Either the person with you can start the desert, or you can WAIT A DAMN MINUTE! This won’t take long, there is only enough batter for four crepes.
Put the crepe on a plate, then put a single spoonful of ice cream (We used cherry from Oberweis, but life probably sucks for you and you don’t have an Oberweis near you) and some of the cherry syrup on the crepe, before folding it into a sort of cute little cone shape. Now if you’re a greedy motherfucker, you can load the thing up with more ice cream, or put whipped cream on it, but this dish doesn’t need that. It needs just a bit of ice cream and a bit of cherry syrup. Don’t make me come for you all Liam Neeson style because you can’t be trusted with dessert.
So now you’ve made crepes with ice cream and cherry syrup, or you’ve made a damn mess. Either way, I am proud of the effort you’ve made, and Fancy is proud of you and Ringo is proud of you, but I can’t give you this briefcase because it doesn’t belong to me.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Marshmallows of Glory
Marshmallows
I do hope you’re prepared for the fact that you’ll hear the phrase “How do you make marshmallows?” again and again and again. People seem to think that marshmallows are simply plucked from Marshmallow Trees somewhere, probably in Morocco. The thing is, it’s very simple. Boil sugar and corn syrup and then put it in a mixer with some gelatin and mix for a while before pouring it into a pan. Yeah, that’s it, good luck!
...
Okay, it’s slightly more complex than that, but not by much. And yet, people will look upon you as though you had conjured the marshmallows out of thin air and will expect you to perform further feats of magic. Understand, you WILL be asked to bring poor Mittens back to life, to stop the seas from raging and if at all possible, to put things to right like they were in the old days that never actually existed. If you can handle the responsibility, then make these marshmallows with my blessing. If you’re worried about being able to perform the requests people will make of you, then you may wish to wait until I post my “How to stop the raging seas” and “How to bring kittens back to life” instructions. The only way to stop requests to bring back the old days is a short, sharp smack upside the head and a pronouncement that someone needs to understand reality. It’s helpful to have one of these marshmallows on hand after you smack someone, as anything can be forgiven after eating one of these things.
Yeah, I buy at Kroger.
Here is the method, so that you might make some on your own. Get three envelopes of unflavored gelatin. All gelatin envelopes are a standard amount, ¼ an ounce. At least this has always proven to be true wherever I’ve traveled and found the need to make gelatin products. If France, Germany, Japan, America and Canada can get along with the idea that a packet of gelatin should only contain so much, than I think Spain and Australia can be trusted to follow along with this program. So you want ¾ of an ounce of gelatin. If you’re of the vegan persuasion, you can get some agar powder, which I’ve been told can be substituted on a one-to-one ratio. Agar is kind of expensive, and I have no reason to need it, so I can’t say I’ve actually tested it. However, I don’t want vegans to think they can’t have any marshmallows, so I’m including this information. Either way, get the gelatin/agar and put it in your mixing bowl with half a cup of water to bloom for a while. It doesn’t mater if it turns into a mass of gel at the bottom of the bowl, it will melt when the hot syrup is poured on it. Speaking of syrup…
CHEAP!
You’ll need about 1 and ½ cups of sugar, or 12 ounces if you prefer. You will also need 1 cup of light corn syrup, which presumably doesn’t need to be weighed as I’ve never seen a weight measurement attached. One might presume that as a liquid, it can be trusted not to change volume when shifted, but as nothing else is measured by weight I think someone was just showing off. You’ll notice a moment ago I mentioned honey. Good for you spotting that, well done, three points for you. You can replace the corn syrup with honey, which will give the marshmallows a strong honey flavor. If you go for honey, you don’t need any other flavoring, although you can try to mix in things that will compliment the honey flavor. Also remember that depending on what kind of honey you use, the resulting marshmallows will not be white but a shade between very pale yellow to a nice light gold color. The darker the honey, the darker the marshmallow, but they’ll only get really genuinely yellow with food coloring. I would add food coloring to the gelatin while it blooms if I were you, if you desire coloring that is. You can experiment with this for a while because sugar, gelatin, corn syrup, and food coloring are all pretty cheap if you buy right. If you buy wrong, it could run into the millions. The only problem will be getting rid of all the marshmallows, which actually can be pretty easy as well. Once people have real home made, they seldom want to go back to the jet-puffed variety.
Now, you put those two items into a pan with half a cup of cold water and a pinch of salt, put the heat to them. You’re looking to achieve a maximum of 240° which can be divined with a candy thermometer, or a digital thermometer. It can be a bit lower than that, but only by a few degrees and it should not be any higher or you’ll have some real trouble down the line. I aim for 237° myself, but don’t worry too much. If it gets too hot, you can just re-add water. This should take seven minutes. If you don’t have a thermometer on hand, you can look up what the softball method means and use that. I have done both and they work equally well provided you know what the hell you’re doing, which I do. See, what you’re doing is boiling off the water to produce a perfect ratio of sugar to water. The temperature is a good indicator, because of a lot of science-y things that I’m not going to go into right now. Just be careful, because we are talking first and possibly second degree burns should you spill any of this on your skin.
DOOOOOO IIIIT!
When the mixture is to the proper temperature take it directly from the stove to the mixing bowl. I do hope you have a standing mixer, because otherwise you will be standing in one place for a long while. Ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the power of your mixer. Let’s assume you have a standing mixer, let us further imagine you have put the whisk attachment on and now allow us to imagine you are aboard a starship in orbit around an alien planet and have been asked to whip something up for the chief ambassador of the Jatravartid people that might really impress them. Hell, if we’re imagining, why pretend we’re in your kitchen hiding from your Aunt Margret? Start the mixer on low, to break up the gelatin and then slowly pour the syrup into the bowl. Don’t pour it into the middle, let it slid down the side of the bowl. Safety first. Remember what I was saying about second degree burns? Yeah, I wasn’t joking about that, and this stuff will stick to you and keep burning for months.
HOT!
Once the mixture in completely in the bowl, then turn up the mixture to full power, or maximum warp if you’re on that starship I mentioned earlier. Then walk away because you’ve probably got 12 minutes if your standing mixer is anything like mine. If you leave it longer, you’ll get slightly stiffer marshmallows, leave it a shorter time and you’ll get denser, squishier mallows. Either way, you’ve got time to spray a 13 inch by 9 inch baking pan with nonstick spray and then put ¼ cup cornstarch and ¼ powdered (confectioner’s if you must) sugar together into a sifter and sort of tap out just enough to cover the pan. Put a cover on the pan, either a cover that came with it or aluminum foil. Then shake it to make sure the sides are nicely dusted. Now, you don’t need exactly 13 by 9 inches, you can use two smaller pans, or a 12 by 10 or even a 10 by 8 in a pinch. However, the thickness will be affected, so keep that in mind. Just make sure you thoroughly dust the pan. Putting too much of the powder mixture on the pan is frankly preferably to having not enough. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but these things stick like crazy and if you haven’t dusted your pans properly then I wish you every bit of luck in your endeavor to remove them from the pan properly, but will offer no actual help.
Dust that bitch
By now, your mallows should have gone through their 12 minutes in the mixing bowl. During the last minute, you can add vanilla extract. If the mixture is a big massive ball hanging to the whisk and looks like it would be very hard to get off the tines of the whisk, you left the syrup boiling too long. This is not a problem, the marshmallows will just be a bit stiff instead of light and fluffy. If you watch carefully, you can add a little water during the mixing process and thin the mix out a bit, but that’s advanced class stuff and I suggest just dealing with the stiffer mallows for now. If it’s a thinnish mixture that doesn’t hold to the tines hardly at all, you didn’t boil long enough and I’m not sure if anything can help. If there is too much water, the mallows will keep being sticky and sort of slimy. You can use them to make rice crispy treats though, so don’t abandon hope just yet. If it looks mostly like liquid in the pan, but it’s holding tenaciously on to the tines of the whisk then you’re just about perfect. Now spray a spatula with nonstick spray and work fast. I’ll talk about clean up later.
Mix it up, get in there!
You need to get the mixture off the tines as fast as you can without worrying too much. You won’t get it all, just try not to waste much. Then pour the contents of the bowl into the pan, scooping out as much of the mallow-mix as possible, and then flattening out the mixture into the pan as well as you can manage. This will be a bit of a pain because the mixture doesn’t want to flatten out. That’s okay though, just try to get the top as flat as you can manage, we’re not looking for perfection here. Okay, I’m not looking for perfection from you, I always look for it in myself. Take some more of that sifter with the cornstarch/powdered sugar mix and dust the top of the marshmallow slab. If you powder your hands, you can press it with your fingers to achieve an even distribution. Now comes the easy part, walk away for 8 hours. You can cut in as little as 3, but I’m going to go ahead and suggest waiting the full 8 or even 10 hours before de-panning the marshmallows. Cover lightly with the foil to keep the dust off, but allow some air flow.
Imagine that this photo has the foil on the pan.
When it comes time to de-pan, get a cutting board bigger than the pan. Put a little more powder mix down on the board and then do something for me. With your fingers (which I would pray are clean but as I’ve never found and god to be greater than me, and thus never found one worthy of worship, I’ll simply hope are clean) gently pry the sides of the marshmallow mass away from the side of the pan. Just reach touch the edge and gently pull to see that it all comes away. If it does that easily, then you’re ready. The top of the marshmallow should be dry, there should still be powder mix on top of it. If you didn’t boil long enough, it will be wet and have absorbed the mix. If you’ve done it just right, it should be sort of springy, but firm. Now, turn the pan over and let the large marshmallow slip from the pan and onto the board. OR! If you’ve done this right, you should be able to just pull the mallow from the pan. Either way, it depends on how dramatic you feel. A good swirl and bang of the pan onto the board sure does get the cats’ attention. Complacent bastards need waking up now and then.
DUST ALL THE THINGS! ALL OF THEM!
Now, do you have the powder mix at hand? Good. Because you’ll want it. Now don’t mistake this giant marshmallow for your pillow, or you will have lived the reverse of that joke. Instead, using a pizza cutter, cut the mallow into long strips. You may need to put a little powder onto your pizza cutter. Once you’ve cut one way, gently pull the strips apart and lay them on their sides. There should be powder below them and the sides laying next to each other should be well powdered, there is but one thing left to do… powder the tops! Then, get back in there with your pizza cutter and cut them into cubes. Again, carefully pull them apart and roll them around the board with more powder until all sides are gently powdered and no longer sticking together. With luck, this can all be done on the cutting board and you can toss them back into the pan when done. Without luck, none of us can hope to survive past the age of three months. That being said, you can put the powder mix into a bowl and toss the marshmallows a dozen at a time if you like. Hell, you can drizzle hot sauce into the mix during the mixing stage and serve them up as a practical joke to the Jatravartid ambassador if it blows your skirt up. This is entirely up to you. I’m not here to tell you how to make your marshmallows, nor am I the marshmallow police. I am simply trying to tell you how you can make them at home, everything is up to you.
So let’s talk about adaptation for a moment. Almond extract is good, but you only need a quarter teaspoon because it’s strong stuff. Peppermint extract is nice, and though I’ve never tried it, I’ve been told that you can add Dutch process chocolate to the mix at the flavoring stage without much trouble. Just remember to add your flavoring within the last minute or two of mixing. Most extracts are made with alcohol, which has a low boiling point and will evaporate if left in the heat too long. You can even use pomegranate juice instead of water, which lends an interesting flavor and color to the mallows. I assume that cranberry, grape, apple, and prune juice would also work. As for clean up, this is 98% sugar. Just leave things to soak, they’ll more or less clean themselves. You’ll have to put things in the dishwasher, or go at them with a sponge, but just let them soak awhile and most the clean up work will be done for you.
I have no idea what the yield on this is. I can fill a gallon zip lock bag with them. Yeah, that’s your measurement, one gallon zip lock bag. They store for about three weeks, I presume, I’ve never had occasion to find out how long before they go stale. I will say though, don’t leave them out of the bag too long, they get… funky. The outside gets hard and ugly while the inside stays moist and it’s just unpleasant.
Okay, let’s try for the card sized version…
3 packages unflavored gelatin (or ¾ an ounce of agar)
1 cup ice cold water, divided
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup (Or possibly honey)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or other things)
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Nonstick spray
Place the gelatin in a bowl with 1/2 cup of the water. Combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, sugar, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook until the mixture reaches 235°-240° (F) approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Turn the mixer to high for approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the flavoring during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans. Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add the powder mix to coat the pan.
When ready, pour the mixture into the pan. An oiled spatula for spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Allow the mallow mass to sit for at least 4 hours and up to overnight. Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza cutter dusted with the powder mix. Dust all sides of each marshmallow with the powder mix.
FUCK YEAH!
This recipe owes much to Alton Brown and Bakingdom.
I do hope you’re prepared for the fact that you’ll hear the phrase “How do you make marshmallows?” again and again and again. People seem to think that marshmallows are simply plucked from Marshmallow Trees somewhere, probably in Morocco. The thing is, it’s very simple. Boil sugar and corn syrup and then put it in a mixer with some gelatin and mix for a while before pouring it into a pan. Yeah, that’s it, good luck!
...
Okay, it’s slightly more complex than that, but not by much. And yet, people will look upon you as though you had conjured the marshmallows out of thin air and will expect you to perform further feats of magic. Understand, you WILL be asked to bring poor Mittens back to life, to stop the seas from raging and if at all possible, to put things to right like they were in the old days that never actually existed. If you can handle the responsibility, then make these marshmallows with my blessing. If you’re worried about being able to perform the requests people will make of you, then you may wish to wait until I post my “How to stop the raging seas” and “How to bring kittens back to life” instructions. The only way to stop requests to bring back the old days is a short, sharp smack upside the head and a pronouncement that someone needs to understand reality. It’s helpful to have one of these marshmallows on hand after you smack someone, as anything can be forgiven after eating one of these things.
Yeah, I buy at Kroger.
Here is the method, so that you might make some on your own. Get three envelopes of unflavored gelatin. All gelatin envelopes are a standard amount, ¼ an ounce. At least this has always proven to be true wherever I’ve traveled and found the need to make gelatin products. If France, Germany, Japan, America and Canada can get along with the idea that a packet of gelatin should only contain so much, than I think Spain and Australia can be trusted to follow along with this program. So you want ¾ of an ounce of gelatin. If you’re of the vegan persuasion, you can get some agar powder, which I’ve been told can be substituted on a one-to-one ratio. Agar is kind of expensive, and I have no reason to need it, so I can’t say I’ve actually tested it. However, I don’t want vegans to think they can’t have any marshmallows, so I’m including this information. Either way, get the gelatin/agar and put it in your mixing bowl with half a cup of water to bloom for a while. It doesn’t mater if it turns into a mass of gel at the bottom of the bowl, it will melt when the hot syrup is poured on it. Speaking of syrup…
CHEAP!
You’ll need about 1 and ½ cups of sugar, or 12 ounces if you prefer. You will also need 1 cup of light corn syrup, which presumably doesn’t need to be weighed as I’ve never seen a weight measurement attached. One might presume that as a liquid, it can be trusted not to change volume when shifted, but as nothing else is measured by weight I think someone was just showing off. You’ll notice a moment ago I mentioned honey. Good for you spotting that, well done, three points for you. You can replace the corn syrup with honey, which will give the marshmallows a strong honey flavor. If you go for honey, you don’t need any other flavoring, although you can try to mix in things that will compliment the honey flavor. Also remember that depending on what kind of honey you use, the resulting marshmallows will not be white but a shade between very pale yellow to a nice light gold color. The darker the honey, the darker the marshmallow, but they’ll only get really genuinely yellow with food coloring. I would add food coloring to the gelatin while it blooms if I were you, if you desire coloring that is. You can experiment with this for a while because sugar, gelatin, corn syrup, and food coloring are all pretty cheap if you buy right. If you buy wrong, it could run into the millions. The only problem will be getting rid of all the marshmallows, which actually can be pretty easy as well. Once people have real home made, they seldom want to go back to the jet-puffed variety.
Now, you put those two items into a pan with half a cup of cold water and a pinch of salt, put the heat to them. You’re looking to achieve a maximum of 240° which can be divined with a candy thermometer, or a digital thermometer. It can be a bit lower than that, but only by a few degrees and it should not be any higher or you’ll have some real trouble down the line. I aim for 237° myself, but don’t worry too much. If it gets too hot, you can just re-add water. This should take seven minutes. If you don’t have a thermometer on hand, you can look up what the softball method means and use that. I have done both and they work equally well provided you know what the hell you’re doing, which I do. See, what you’re doing is boiling off the water to produce a perfect ratio of sugar to water. The temperature is a good indicator, because of a lot of science-y things that I’m not going to go into right now. Just be careful, because we are talking first and possibly second degree burns should you spill any of this on your skin.
DOOOOOO IIIIT!
When the mixture is to the proper temperature take it directly from the stove to the mixing bowl. I do hope you have a standing mixer, because otherwise you will be standing in one place for a long while. Ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the power of your mixer. Let’s assume you have a standing mixer, let us further imagine you have put the whisk attachment on and now allow us to imagine you are aboard a starship in orbit around an alien planet and have been asked to whip something up for the chief ambassador of the Jatravartid people that might really impress them. Hell, if we’re imagining, why pretend we’re in your kitchen hiding from your Aunt Margret? Start the mixer on low, to break up the gelatin and then slowly pour the syrup into the bowl. Don’t pour it into the middle, let it slid down the side of the bowl. Safety first. Remember what I was saying about second degree burns? Yeah, I wasn’t joking about that, and this stuff will stick to you and keep burning for months.
HOT!
Once the mixture in completely in the bowl, then turn up the mixture to full power, or maximum warp if you’re on that starship I mentioned earlier. Then walk away because you’ve probably got 12 minutes if your standing mixer is anything like mine. If you leave it longer, you’ll get slightly stiffer marshmallows, leave it a shorter time and you’ll get denser, squishier mallows. Either way, you’ve got time to spray a 13 inch by 9 inch baking pan with nonstick spray and then put ¼ cup cornstarch and ¼ powdered (confectioner’s if you must) sugar together into a sifter and sort of tap out just enough to cover the pan. Put a cover on the pan, either a cover that came with it or aluminum foil. Then shake it to make sure the sides are nicely dusted. Now, you don’t need exactly 13 by 9 inches, you can use two smaller pans, or a 12 by 10 or even a 10 by 8 in a pinch. However, the thickness will be affected, so keep that in mind. Just make sure you thoroughly dust the pan. Putting too much of the powder mixture on the pan is frankly preferably to having not enough. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but these things stick like crazy and if you haven’t dusted your pans properly then I wish you every bit of luck in your endeavor to remove them from the pan properly, but will offer no actual help.
Dust that bitch
By now, your mallows should have gone through their 12 minutes in the mixing bowl. During the last minute, you can add vanilla extract. If the mixture is a big massive ball hanging to the whisk and looks like it would be very hard to get off the tines of the whisk, you left the syrup boiling too long. This is not a problem, the marshmallows will just be a bit stiff instead of light and fluffy. If you watch carefully, you can add a little water during the mixing process and thin the mix out a bit, but that’s advanced class stuff and I suggest just dealing with the stiffer mallows for now. If it’s a thinnish mixture that doesn’t hold to the tines hardly at all, you didn’t boil long enough and I’m not sure if anything can help. If there is too much water, the mallows will keep being sticky and sort of slimy. You can use them to make rice crispy treats though, so don’t abandon hope just yet. If it looks mostly like liquid in the pan, but it’s holding tenaciously on to the tines of the whisk then you’re just about perfect. Now spray a spatula with nonstick spray and work fast. I’ll talk about clean up later.
Mix it up, get in there!
You need to get the mixture off the tines as fast as you can without worrying too much. You won’t get it all, just try not to waste much. Then pour the contents of the bowl into the pan, scooping out as much of the mallow-mix as possible, and then flattening out the mixture into the pan as well as you can manage. This will be a bit of a pain because the mixture doesn’t want to flatten out. That’s okay though, just try to get the top as flat as you can manage, we’re not looking for perfection here. Okay, I’m not looking for perfection from you, I always look for it in myself. Take some more of that sifter with the cornstarch/powdered sugar mix and dust the top of the marshmallow slab. If you powder your hands, you can press it with your fingers to achieve an even distribution. Now comes the easy part, walk away for 8 hours. You can cut in as little as 3, but I’m going to go ahead and suggest waiting the full 8 or even 10 hours before de-panning the marshmallows. Cover lightly with the foil to keep the dust off, but allow some air flow.
Imagine that this photo has the foil on the pan.
When it comes time to de-pan, get a cutting board bigger than the pan. Put a little more powder mix down on the board and then do something for me. With your fingers (which I would pray are clean but as I’ve never found and god to be greater than me, and thus never found one worthy of worship, I’ll simply hope are clean) gently pry the sides of the marshmallow mass away from the side of the pan. Just reach touch the edge and gently pull to see that it all comes away. If it does that easily, then you’re ready. The top of the marshmallow should be dry, there should still be powder mix on top of it. If you didn’t boil long enough, it will be wet and have absorbed the mix. If you’ve done it just right, it should be sort of springy, but firm. Now, turn the pan over and let the large marshmallow slip from the pan and onto the board. OR! If you’ve done this right, you should be able to just pull the mallow from the pan. Either way, it depends on how dramatic you feel. A good swirl and bang of the pan onto the board sure does get the cats’ attention. Complacent bastards need waking up now and then.
DUST ALL THE THINGS! ALL OF THEM!
Now, do you have the powder mix at hand? Good. Because you’ll want it. Now don’t mistake this giant marshmallow for your pillow, or you will have lived the reverse of that joke. Instead, using a pizza cutter, cut the mallow into long strips. You may need to put a little powder onto your pizza cutter. Once you’ve cut one way, gently pull the strips apart and lay them on their sides. There should be powder below them and the sides laying next to each other should be well powdered, there is but one thing left to do… powder the tops! Then, get back in there with your pizza cutter and cut them into cubes. Again, carefully pull them apart and roll them around the board with more powder until all sides are gently powdered and no longer sticking together. With luck, this can all be done on the cutting board and you can toss them back into the pan when done. Without luck, none of us can hope to survive past the age of three months. That being said, you can put the powder mix into a bowl and toss the marshmallows a dozen at a time if you like. Hell, you can drizzle hot sauce into the mix during the mixing stage and serve them up as a practical joke to the Jatravartid ambassador if it blows your skirt up. This is entirely up to you. I’m not here to tell you how to make your marshmallows, nor am I the marshmallow police. I am simply trying to tell you how you can make them at home, everything is up to you.
GET 'ER DONE!
Cut a bitch!
Cut a bitch!
So let’s talk about adaptation for a moment. Almond extract is good, but you only need a quarter teaspoon because it’s strong stuff. Peppermint extract is nice, and though I’ve never tried it, I’ve been told that you can add Dutch process chocolate to the mix at the flavoring stage without much trouble. Just remember to add your flavoring within the last minute or two of mixing. Most extracts are made with alcohol, which has a low boiling point and will evaporate if left in the heat too long. You can even use pomegranate juice instead of water, which lends an interesting flavor and color to the mallows. I assume that cranberry, grape, apple, and prune juice would also work. As for clean up, this is 98% sugar. Just leave things to soak, they’ll more or less clean themselves. You’ll have to put things in the dishwasher, or go at them with a sponge, but just let them soak awhile and most the clean up work will be done for you.
I have no idea what the yield on this is. I can fill a gallon zip lock bag with them. Yeah, that’s your measurement, one gallon zip lock bag. They store for about three weeks, I presume, I’ve never had occasion to find out how long before they go stale. I will say though, don’t leave them out of the bag too long, they get… funky. The outside gets hard and ugly while the inside stays moist and it’s just unpleasant.
Okay, let’s try for the card sized version…
3 packages unflavored gelatin (or ¾ an ounce of agar)
1 cup ice cold water, divided
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup (Or possibly honey)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or other things)
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Nonstick spray
Place the gelatin in a bowl with 1/2 cup of the water. Combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, sugar, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook until the mixture reaches 235°-240° (F) approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Turn the mixer to high for approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the flavoring during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans. Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add the powder mix to coat the pan.
When ready, pour the mixture into the pan. An oiled spatula for spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Allow the mallow mass to sit for at least 4 hours and up to overnight. Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza cutter dusted with the powder mix. Dust all sides of each marshmallow with the powder mix.
FUCK YEAH!
This recipe owes much to Alton Brown and Bakingdom.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Food Recipe: Lamb Patties and Self-Respect.
Food Recipe: Lamb Patties and Self-Respect.
I'm going to assume you've already set the oven to 475. I assume this because like me, you don't fuck around when it comes to dinner.
So you get an egg, just one, and you crack it into a medium sized bowl. Then you put about a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce in the bowl and mix them together with a whisk. Not a goddamned fork, a fucking whisk! If you intend to do this, do it right! Once it's mixed up, you put in a pound of ground lamb, because you are a monster and enjoy eating children. Then put half a cup of bread crumbs and a quarter of a cup of good quality grated parmesan cheese into the bowl. Note that I said good quality. If you use Kraft grated bit of white stuff, I will come to your house and beat you to within an inch of your life. Now you get your hands dirty. Mix that shit, mix it up. Punch it, grab it, squeeze it, call it names, talk smack about its momma. Once you're done, it should be a solidish ball of meat and goodness. Turn it into 8 small patties and put them on the wire rack you prepared earlier, with the half sheet pan underneath to catch the drippings.
That bitch? Goes right into the oven.
Now... for the other issue.
You remember that French baguette I had you buy? You remember that garlic and herb goat cheese? You remember the high quality balsamic vinegar and the infused olive oil? Get on that shit! Cut the bread, about half an inch rounds. Make ten, maybe twelve of them. Mix the oil, vinegar, some salt and spices of your choosing (Today it was Mrs. Dash table mix) into a jar and shake the living fuck out the muthafucka. Then you put the one on the other. Choose wisely, or you will make a goddamned mess. Use a brush if you must, just a bit though, don't soak the bread. A little goat cheese, some thinly sliced and diced yellow onion, a bit of thin or diced pancetta, half a cherry tomato, and some fresh and cut basil or parsley. Or hey, have a party and invite both. Don't be a coward, let those flavors gangbang your mouth.
With that all set up, that mean little bastard also goes in the oven.
Now, once in a while, take some of that oil and vinegar mix and dab it on the meat. Just to help things along. You'll need to turn the patties over once or twice. Just before removing, turn the broiler on and let the whole thing get a little color. Keep the meat on top or you will burn the bread and bring shame upon your family. Once things are nicely cooked, take it all out and serve.
Cut bits off the patty, put them on the bread, and take a bite.
Congratulations, you have copied my dinner for today. You have also cooked for yourself, stood up to the demons of starvation and said "Oh no motherfucker, not today!"
I am proud of you.
I'm going to assume you've already set the oven to 475. I assume this because like me, you don't fuck around when it comes to dinner.
So you get an egg, just one, and you crack it into a medium sized bowl. Then you put about a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce in the bowl and mix them together with a whisk. Not a goddamned fork, a fucking whisk! If you intend to do this, do it right! Once it's mixed up, you put in a pound of ground lamb, because you are a monster and enjoy eating children. Then put half a cup of bread crumbs and a quarter of a cup of good quality grated parmesan cheese into the bowl. Note that I said good quality. If you use Kraft grated bit of white stuff, I will come to your house and beat you to within an inch of your life. Now you get your hands dirty. Mix that shit, mix it up. Punch it, grab it, squeeze it, call it names, talk smack about its momma. Once you're done, it should be a solidish ball of meat and goodness. Turn it into 8 small patties and put them on the wire rack you prepared earlier, with the half sheet pan underneath to catch the drippings.
That bitch? Goes right into the oven.
Now... for the other issue.
You remember that French baguette I had you buy? You remember that garlic and herb goat cheese? You remember the high quality balsamic vinegar and the infused olive oil? Get on that shit! Cut the bread, about half an inch rounds. Make ten, maybe twelve of them. Mix the oil, vinegar, some salt and spices of your choosing (Today it was Mrs. Dash table mix) into a jar and shake the living fuck out the muthafucka. Then you put the one on the other. Choose wisely, or you will make a goddamned mess. Use a brush if you must, just a bit though, don't soak the bread. A little goat cheese, some thinly sliced and diced yellow onion, a bit of thin or diced pancetta, half a cherry tomato, and some fresh and cut basil or parsley. Or hey, have a party and invite both. Don't be a coward, let those flavors gangbang your mouth.
With that all set up, that mean little bastard also goes in the oven.
Now, once in a while, take some of that oil and vinegar mix and dab it on the meat. Just to help things along. You'll need to turn the patties over once or twice. Just before removing, turn the broiler on and let the whole thing get a little color. Keep the meat on top or you will burn the bread and bring shame upon your family. Once things are nicely cooked, take it all out and serve.
Cut bits off the patty, put them on the bread, and take a bite.
Congratulations, you have copied my dinner for today. You have also cooked for yourself, stood up to the demons of starvation and said "Oh no motherfucker, not today!"
I am proud of you.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Allow us to Discuss Car Kits
I have a car, and a back story. The back story informs how I feel about the car. How I feel about the cart, informs the following photographs.
NOW! Emergency means something different to someone like me than someone who say, lives somewhere not as suburban as I live. As a result, the kit is actually a multi-stage event. There is one kit in the glove compartment, one in the pocket of the back seat one in the trunk, and one that exists because of pure paranoia. We shall deal with them in reverse order.
Every piece has a purpose.
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