2010 – Tidbits

Sourdough English Muffins

They were pretty damn good, I must say. Toasting one right now….

Here’s a recipe, or as close as possible since I was free-styling it that morning.

SOURDOUGH SPONGE
The night before, take out of the fridge your sourdough starter (see my feature “Taming the Wild Yeast“). Transfer to a clean bowl and mix in the hootch (dark liquid on top) if you like more assertive sourdough flavors; pour off the hootch if you don’t. You’ll need about 1 cup of starter. Stir in about 2 cups of unbleached AP flour and 1 cup tepid, filtered water. Covered with a cloth and let ferment overnight.

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Makrut Limes – aka “Kaffir” Limes

Citrus hystrix dsc07772.jpg
Photo by David Monniaux

…a bit of trivia, a discussion I go through with many cookbook editors as I try to massage our language:

“Kaffir” was, historically, a word used in South Africa to refer to dark-skinned peoples. It differentiated the SE Asian limes grown in Indonesia (where the native Austronesian tribes had dark skin and curly hair) from the juicy and smooth-skinned Persian limes familiar to Europeans.

Word origins: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kaffir

It’s now considered extremely derogatory, a term that is outlawed, in fact, in several other countries. Users can be prosecuted in court for what we know here as hate speech.

I try to encourage my colleagues and students to use the name “makrut” or “magrut” lime. Obviously, we still have a ways to go, as our whole food industry in the west has absorbed the term without knowing its political background. I often put it in parenthesis, to clarify for readers, but have been working hard to weed it from our cookbooks.

And, as you can tell, continue my Quixotic, linguistic crusade….

Thy

Wok Rings and Electric Stoves

S. writes:

…how [does] one uses a wok in the contemporary kitchen (its called the science of the wok). I’m wondering, do you use a wok or a ring for your burner? I read a review on cooks illustrated that basically concluded that the wok doesn’t make sense on a standard (flat) kitchen burner. The shape seems more to me about the distribution of fats and the ability to have different zones of heat.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

S

Hi S,

Oh goodness, I’m not sure I want to take on the folks over at Cooks Illustrated! For all his curmudgeonly geekiness, Christopher Kimball is very thorough in his obsessive testing and retesting.

But since you asked… Continue reading “Wok Rings and Electric Stoves”

Lunar New Year Sweet Rice Dumplings

The Lunar New Year, or Tet as my peeps call it, brings with it many favorite dishes. Fatty pork and sugar dominate the holiday table, harking back to a time when ingredients fat and sweet were much more difficult to obtain, precious to use, and delightfully rare to enjoy.

While I can now buy a 10-pound bag of sugar and an equal amount of meat for less money than a couple of movie tickets, the most traditional new year’s dishes are still special for one resource that does remain valuable: time.

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Saul’s Seltzer Saga — Save The Deli

sauls seltzer If you’re reading David Sax’s recent book, Save the Deli, or follow his blog or moan, as many do, about the general state of the Jewish delicatessen, then you know that it’s a pivotal time in this most hallowed bastion of comfort food.

For years, locavores and vegetarians, calorie-counting suburbanites and couscous-loving Sephardim and even heeb-hopping hipsters have been bringing their own favorite dishes to the Jewish table. You might not know this upon stepping into a deli, where piles of salty, fatty meat and schmaltz in the chopped liver and never-ending free pickles every day of the year define good eating. It’s supposed to be a carefree zone where all the generations and sects can enjoy some chicken soup in relative peace.

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