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GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Wed 24 Sep , 2014 9:33 pm
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I wouldn't think so.

So any tips on gravy? I made mushroom gravy the other night, but gravy is my nemesis. I swear! :bang: It tasted good, but it was definitely ugly and lumpy (tiny ones, anyway). I wasn't sure it'd even work there for awhile. I think the proportions in this recipe are not right. :scratch:
Quote:
Ingredients

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1/3 cup flour
1 quart cold beef, chicken or vegetable stock or broth
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Preparation
Melt the butter in a large saucepan, over medium-high heat. When the butter starts to sizzle, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring for 10 minutes, or until the mushroom juices have evaporated, and they've begun to brown. Stir in the flour, reduce the heat to medium, and cook for another 5 minutes.

Whisk in 1 cup of the cold broth. Once incorporated, pour in the rest of the broth, and add the thyme. Bring back to a simmer, reduce the heat to low, and simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste. Serve hot.


Note: For thicker gravy, turn heat up to medium, and reduce to desired thickness. For thinner gravy, simply add more broth.
Okay, so I doubled that. (I made this in honor of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday for our small group, so that's about 20 people.) 2 quarts broth to 2/3 cup flour. The thing is that proportion did not thicken at all. I pulled some of the liquid off, added another 1/3 cup flour, and tried again. Thicker but still basically soup. So I pulled off the liquid again, added another 1/3 cup flour, and that worked, though it was a bit thicker than I would've liked. And it was ugly.

So ideas on where I went wrong? (I mean, you know the butter plus the liquid that the mushrooms release add to the overall liquid content of the gravy. Does that account for it? Did I just have bad luck? Or what?)

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Wed 24 Sep , 2014 11:26 pm
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I'm no gravy expert, but I've made a lot of custards and the principle is the same. If your problem is lumpiness, what about stirring with a whisk rather than a wooden spoon?

If it doesn't look like it's going to thicken, try adding an egg yolk (or two). Whisk the yolk(s) in a bowl off-heat, then add a cup of the hot liquid. When it's mixed, take the pan off the heat, and whisk the yolk mixture into the pan, stirring constantly. Put the pan back on the heat, continuing to stir as you do. It should thicken as the yolk(s) cook(s).

Doesn't vison have a gravy recipe that people have raved about? I haven't tried it yet, but I've resolved to do so this coming Thanksgiving.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Thu 25 Sep , 2014 1:28 pm
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I did use a whisk.

vison's recipe would be good to find.

I don't think an egg yolk would work for gravy. :scratch:

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Thu 25 Sep , 2014 1:49 pm
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It works for custard - I'm pretty sure it would work for gravy.

Corn starch is also a classic thing used for thickening sauces. You could add a couple of tablespoons of corn starch to your flour. Or, if you use the same recipe, increase the flour if you know that it isn't enough.

I also question the wisdom of using "cold" chicken broth - I would have it at room temperature before adding it, or even warming it up slightly in the microwave beforehand.


Getting back to my peach problem, I'll need to leave them out for a few days to ripen. How can I avoid them making the fruit fly problem even worse? Will they still ripen if I put them in the fridge?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Thu 25 Sep , 2014 2:18 pm
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I just think an egg yolk would taste odd in a gravy. :scratch:

And I guess I was thinking that flour would work just as well as cornstarch.

I don't think they'll ripen in the fridge. Maybe you could put them in the oven. (I often put things in there that need to be "open" but not accessible to the cat. Does that make sense?)

Don't you know that vison would come in here and just tell us both everything we needed to know.

:bawl:

(I'm crying for real, actually. :( )

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Fri 26 Sep , 2014 5:40 am
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Lali, :hug: I've broken down myself several times in the past weeks. She passed away shortly after my MIL did, so I never quite managed a dedicated grieving period and I think it's catching up with me.

Plus Thanksgiving is coming up.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Fri 26 Sep , 2014 11:52 am
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:hug:

She certainly touched all of our lives in a profound way.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Fri 26 Sep , 2014 1:30 pm
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I agree - peaches don't really ripen in the fridge - and especially not in a couple of days.

I've tried putting fruit desserts in the oven to protect them, but a few fruit flies do get in there. We have a wall oven, though, so it might have more vents and spaces for them to get through. I suggest something like a glass dome. Cake plate, maybe?

I've cooked things that fruit flies like, while they're still around. They seem to have enough sense of self-preservation to stay away while it's hot. (Unlike my drink last night, where a couple of them died happy.) Turning on the stove fan might help, too. I'm not sure they're strong fliers - like mosquitoes, which tend to disappear when there's a good wind.


Lali, I'm no gravy expert, but that doesn't sound like much flour to a quart or more of liquid. With sauces like that, what I've found works best is to melt the butter, add all the flour, then add the liquid a little bit at a time, stirring constantly. Helps to avoids the lumps. If you need to add more flour later, add a little of the hot liquid to the flour so it forms a slurry - THEN add it to the gravy.
More time might help, too - it seems like things thickened with flour keep getting thicker as you cook them longer.

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Fri 26 Sep , 2014 1:44 pm
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Put the peaches in a paper bag and fold the top down several times to keep the fruit flies out. Fasten with a clip or even staples. The paper bag will concentrate the ethylene gases the peaches emit and cause them to ripen faster, while still allowing enough air to penetrate.

The gravy recipe has a major flaw. You can't add your dry thickener straight to hot liquid. That's guaranteed to lump. Whether you are using flour or cornstarch to thicken, you either need to heat it in the grease or oil first without water - if you are going for a roux like flavor (which is always good) and once it's a light brown, add your water or milk (depending on the gravy) and stir like crazy with a whisk.

If you are making gravy without the roux step, you heat your liquids (water, broth or milk) in a pan while you mix your thickener (flour or cornstarch) in a separate bowl with cold liquid until lump free. Then you can slowly pour your thickener liquid into your boiling liquid while stirring frantically with a whisk. Continue until all the thickener is incorporated and keep heating and stirring until the cornstarch or raw flour flavor is gone. Add more liquid if it looks like it might be going to set up solid. If you wait until that's already a problem, it's hard to reliquify it. Don't stop stirring after adding the thickener until you are ready to take it off the heat or the bottom will scorch.

I'll be making apple sauce tonight for the first time. We had the biggest apple crop yet, and there were lots of dropped and bruised ones. I'm going to can them as unsweetened applesauce, and then try to figure out some ways to use apple sauce as a base for things tomatoes might have been used for. Apple chili anyone???


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Fri 26 Sep , 2014 2:59 pm
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Apple sauce is nice. I am very fond of pickled apples.

Paper bag is a good idea

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Sat 27 Sep , 2014 8:18 pm
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Well, it appears that I just missed the peach season. *sigh*

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 29 Sep , 2014 1:40 pm
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Persimmon season has started here. After I got done making 50 pints of applesauce, we went out and checked the trees and gathered several pounds of wild persimmons. I ran them through the food strainer gadget and now have a quart of persimmon puree. The seed to fruit ratio is really high, so the yield per pound isn't great.

I might dehydrate the puree to make fruit leather... but this morning I added a tablespoon to our oat flour pancake batter and the pancakes held together much better than normal. Persimmons are supposed to have a lot of pectin. Maybe I can replicate the effect with a bit of pectin. I don't really want to use the puree as a batter conditioner. I'm hoping to make fruit leather and cut it into little bits and use them like raisins.

Wild persimmons are very sweet. I kept tasting them as I prepped them for the strainer, in case one wasn't really ripe-- but I only found a few I rejected. None with the full fledged alum-like pucker factor persimmons are famous for, but a few that tasted just a tad off. By the time I'd worked my way through the whole batch of persimmons, I'd had enough, even though I'd only had a tiny drop of pulp per tested persimmon. Too sweet becomes cloying fast.

Putting just a tablespoon in a 4 pancake batch of batter wasn't enough to flavor it, though. I could only taste a hint of sweetness. I've been eating them with butter only for a while now, and the difference was subtle, but detectable.

While we were out gathering persimmons, we checked the tree I'd tentatively ID'd earlier this year as a shagbark hickory tree. I like hickory nuts despite the difficulty of opening them, so we went to see if it had been dropping any yet. To our intense surprise, we found a few pecans on the ground under it! We have a wild pecan tree on our place! We had to wait 16 years before the pecan trees we planted started bearing. If we'd only inventoried the trees in our woods sooner,we'd have been able to have some much earlier. It's a big tree but the only nuts it's dropped so far this year have been bad ones. I'm hoping its nuts are as tasty as the tame trees we planted, but it will be a while before we can check that. The tree is in the middle of the woods, so there are no lower branches, andthe upper limbs are so far away we can't see if there are any nuts on it at all. I assume such a big tree is going to drop a lot of nuts, but we'll just have to wait and see about that.

We looked and looked for more pecan trees, but didn't spot any.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 29 Sep , 2014 2:36 pm
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What a cool surprise! :)

Our nut-bearing trees are black walnuts, which just don't have a great flavor. (I'd certainly eat them during a zombie apocalypse, of course.) Our hickories are bitternut and are inedible, obviously.

I'd like to try persimmons at some point. I don't think I ever have.

Jude, that's a bummer about the peaches. :(

Thanks for the tips on the gravy. I really do suspect that the flaws in this recipe are twofold: too little flour to liquid and the instructions to add the flour to the mushrooms after they've cooked for a bit. I don't see how that can make a proper roux because of the inability to whisk adequately. (How can you whisk with mushrooms everywhere?) What is trickier is how to do that all in one pan. I'm thinking you can't. I'm thinking I'd have to make a roux in a separate skillet and then add the cooked mushrooms to that after adding at least some of the broth to begin the gravy process.

Tonight's Growth Group theme is Mexican. Among the things I'm making is a cabbage salad. It's not Mexican but Honduran, actually. Anyway, I'll post it here because it's super easy, sounds weird, but tastes really good.

1 head of green cabbage, cut or shredded (I prefer cut.)
1/2 - 1 c. white vinegar
3-4 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. salt
1-2 tsp. cumin

Start with the minimum amount of seasonings and liquids and adjust to taste.

This is a nice dish to make when you have a head of cabbage and don't know what to do with it or when you need a quick side that is healthy.

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 29 Sep , 2014 2:42 pm
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If you try a persimmon, make sure it's one that falls out of the tree when you shake it or is already on the ground. An unripe one is bad enough you'll probably be put off forever.

We've got a lot of black walnuts, but I really don't like the flavor so we don't do anything with them.

Cumin & cabbage? Weird!


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 29 Sep , 2014 4:04 pm
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IKR? But it honestly works and tastes really good. I swear.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Sun 12 Oct , 2014 11:11 pm
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My latest batch of meringues actually came out good. :Q I mean, they could have been better, but this time they were a pleasure to eat and I wouldn't have been embarrassed to serve them to my guests. So that's a huge step forward.

vison would have been so pleased. I wish she were around for me to tell her. *sigh*

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 13 Oct , 2014 2:37 pm
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Awww, she would've been proud. :hug:

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Sun 09 Nov , 2014 1:00 am
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One of my cooking failures - I attempted Texas Brisket on the BBQ, and I thought I followed the Cook's Illustrated recipe to the letter, but it was severely overcooked - burned, in fact, in places.

I have one of the best grills in existence, so my guess is that because it's so good at retaining heat, I need to compensate by using less charcoal than the recipe specifies.

I've been using the leftovers as treats for the boys. Sam thinks it's great, but Bud keeps acting like he's doing me a huge favour by eating it.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 22 Dec , 2014 3:31 pm
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Nutella Truffles (courtesy of Cook's Illustrated)
  • 2 cups (2 ounces) cornflakes
  • 1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted and skinned, plus 24 hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
  • 1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) sugar
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1 tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 3/4 cup Nutella
1. Make foil sling for 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Spray aluminum foil with vegetable oil spray.

2. Pulse cornflakes in food processor until finely ground, about 10 pulses; transfer to bowl. Process 1/2 cup hazelnuts in food processor to fine crumbs, about 15 seconds. Spread processed hazelnuts in shallow dish; set aside.

3. Combine sugar and butter in bowl and microwave, stiring occasionally, until melted and smooth, about 45 seconds. Whisk in milk and cocoa until combined. Add Nutella and whisk until fully incorporated. Stir in cornflakes. Transfer mixture to prepared pan and press firmly into even layer with greased spatula. Freeze, uncovered, until firm, about 10 minutes.

4. Using foil overhang, lift mixture out of pan and transfer to cutting board. Cut into 24 pieces, then mold each piece around 1 hazelnut to encase completely. Roll truffles in processed hazelnuts to coat and transfer to platter. Freeze, uncovered, until firm about 10 minutes. Serve, or store in refrigerator until serving time. (Truffles can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 1 week)

Last edited by Jude on Fri 13 Feb , 2015 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Edited to fix typo. What in Varda's name is "begetable oil spray"?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: GRUB'S UP!!!1 Teh Cookery Guild
Posted: Mon 22 Dec , 2014 9:07 pm
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Thank you! :)

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