Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I also think this is a great idea and I think I will join you at least once a week. Reviews of everyone's items sounds fun to me.

--Lisa

Paul, I have some Dashi right now that I just made - can you send me the recipe or direct me there?

Great, it will be a party. I got the ingredients for my medieval spiced chicken. It all looked pretty straight forward until I got to the medieval spice mix, see page 6. It called for "grains of passion" and "long pepper". Google and I found some subs, so I am back on track.

Alina, I told my husband I picked that book because it was the one he got me for Christmas. The truth is, it was out of the shelf.

Mary

Never heard of "grains of passion." Anything like grains of paradise?

Oh, that's it. I guess I was trying to sexy it up. This is new for me and I thought I was up on my spices. In my mix, it is going to be "grains of cardamom".

That is a new one for me as well. However, I might like it since I am not fond of black pepper. Here's what Serious Eats has to say about Grains of Paradise

PS: MySpiceSage.com has it and they have free shipping with no minimum now. I am having fun looking around the site seeing what else I don't need. So far I've found Spinach powder (use as green food coloring?) black garlic and truffle salt.

I am pretty well stocked from Penzeys but if anyone has recommendations of anything that they like better from these folks or that Penzeys does not have and is good I'd love to hear it. You get either free Saffron or free vanilla if you spend $20.00.

the spinach powder would be good to make green pasta.

I also love the idea. I'll have to see if I can commit to do it myself.

Sorry this is a bit late, but I'm pretty much not home on fridays, so didn't get a change to respond.



Basic Japanese Broth

300 ml dashi
60 ml mirin
60 ml sake
60 ml dark Japanese soy sauce
175 ml dried bonito flakes
2 scallions, including greens, finely sliced

Combine the dashi with the mirin, sake and soy sauce in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, stir in the bonito flakes, and let stand for 1 minute. Strain and stir in the scallions. Serve immediately.

I think really the directions and exact quantities are pretty random. I tend to make my dashi strong, so ignore the extra bonito flakes. I do the soy to taste, since soy sauce, particularly that supposedly from different countries, seems to vary quite a bit. With the japanese soy I use, less seems right (about 2/3).

(quick metric guide: 60ml == 4 Tablespoons, 300 ml == approx 1 1/4 cups, 175 ml < approx 3/4 cup)

That one was a waste of time, the verjus was so overpowering it really took over the whole dish. It was OK, but not worth the effort. I did like the spice blend, it would be great with duck or game. Again, it was lost in the mix. I used chicken breasts instead of chicken parts, but otherwise followed the instructions.
I did make a great ranch dressing. It was not from Sauces, he didn't have one in there. Luckily. I probably would have had to remove an unlaid egg from the orifice of a brown eared chicken to make the mayonnaise.

I like that the book has metric and whatever that other measuring system is. He is a lot fussier with the ingredients than the instructions, but it is clear enough. I think it will be more of a reference book. The recipes themselves are a bit clunky, most of the recipes I looked at has you using other recipes to make that same dish, which means a lot of leafing back and forth. This leaves too much room for me to mess things up. Tons of good information though.

I will pick next week's book tomorrow.