Varieties of STUFF in your Fridge or how many vinagers do you have???

[shroomgirl]

Sorry Extra Virgin and slut.....inside joke...if there is virgin and extra virgin then what do you call what's left over...slut.

I visit Whole foods throughout the US...mainly Texas, Cal anywhere I'm traveling I check out grocery stores(whole foods, Fiestas in TX,Zabars etc...) Farmer's markets,...chocolate shops, pastry shops, bakeries....DIE HARD FOODIE. I travel with maps, ice chests, empty bags and usually have to ship stuff back anyway.
This thread is what do you have in your fridge that is interesting......it amazed me to see the volumes of different varities of food products in my pantry and fridges.

[shroomgirl]

Popcorn rice....also known as fragrant rice...is out of southern Louisiana....much like basmati it has a wonderful flavor and scent
I just ordered 3

60#s 3to go in the boudin blanc I'll be making with the piggie
A&P went out of business here long ago.
Whole Foods is coming to town though!!!!!
Most of my treasures come from ethnic stores or travels....a few from UPS to restock the finds from past trips.
Got a case of various viniagars from Grapevine Co yesterday...orange muscat, raspberry champagne, pomagranite, pear lemon, fig something....it's a disease....viniageritis

Okay, Chrose, I've narrowed your origin down to either Bethesda or Reisterstown . . . probably the former, since that Sutton Place has been around a little longer!

I love to bring foods back from my travels, but a friend of mine totally set the standard for "personal food importation" years ago when he brought back 14 kilos of kippers from the Isle of Man. OMG, they were UNbelievable! I love those little guys.

That's something I'm noticing - that sort of "old world" stuff is getting a little harder to find if it isn't related to current cuisine.

[mudbug]

Shroomgirl:
You must have a lot of kitchen storage space! How many pantries and fridges do you have?

We have everything to make other stuff with from scratch. Not enought space to store flavored oils, vinegars, etc. We find that infusing, making what we're going to use is enough and more fun. We do have 6 different kinds of salt and 7 different kinds of black pepper, and 10 different kinds of flour, panko, black fungus, sambal, hot bean curd paste, shrimp paste, seaweed, spring roll wraps, various rices, all your asian sauces and then some, radishes preserved in chili (ummmm!). Just made a batch of fresh chicken stock last nite. We have a ton of spices including juniper berries, cocoa balls from Grenada, and whole nutmeg from Grenada, tapioca sticks. Had fresh lychees this summer from Wal-Mart of all places. Pretty good! (been years since I had fresh ones.) Oh, yes, can't forget smelt, tamarind, and demerara sugar.

This topic sounds dangerously close to "how many kitchen appliances, gadgets, stuff do you have?" (If you want, let's do this separately.)

Live_to_cook:
You're correct. Duck sauce = plum sauce, thick, sweet-and-sour condiment is made with plums, apricots, sugar and seasonings. Plum sauce is most often served with duck, pork or spareribs. Lorraine, that's interesting, duck sauce is not traditionally used in Cha Siu. The stuff in the packets is a weaker version.

Dried shrimp? Live_to_cook, you should pick up the package and smell them first. If you don't like the smell, you're not going to like them in you home and probably dislike eating them. I've found that a majority of the time, unless you grew up with them and like them in the first place, you're not going to like them in that form, better in paste. You can find them in many asian dishes. If you want to browse recipes, look here: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dr...=Google+Search

Sisi & Cape Chef
Hoisin sauce is not like duck sauce it is a slightly sweet and garlicky bean sauce that's often used as a dipping sauce. Available in Asian markets and in many large supermarkets.

MaryeO:
"tempering" - from epicurious
A technique by which chocolate is stabilized through a melting-and-cooling process, thereby making it more malleable and glossy. Commerically available chocolate is already tempered, but this condition changes when chocolate is melted. Tempering chocolate isn't necessary for most recipes, but is often done when the chocolate will be used for candymaking or decorations. Chocolate must be tempered because it contains COCOA BUTTER, a fat that may form crystals after chocolate is melted and cooled. If these crystals aren't stabilized through tempering, they can form dull gray streaks called BLOOM. The classic tempering method is to melt chocolate until it reaches a temperature of 115°F. Two-thirds of the melted chocolate is then spread on a marble slab and worked back and forth with a metal spatula until it becomes thick and reaches a temperature of about 80°F. This thickened chocolate is then transferred back into the remaining one-third melted chocolate and reheated to about 89°F. for semisweet chocolate, about 85°F for milk or white chocolate. The quick tempering method is to melt two-thirds of the chocolate to be tempered to a temperature of 115°F then add the remaining one-third (finely chopped) chocolate to the melted mixture, stirring until the mixture has reached 89°F and is smooth. http://www.epicurious.com/run/fooddi...entry_id=10554


MaryeO and Sisi
As far as "pistachio flour" I'm sure if you see a recipe and you combine the sugar, flour, and pistachios for the dough, you'll have something very similar. Otherwise there's always more than one source...

Sources for Pistachio Flour and Pistachio Paste

** Amoretti http://www.pastrychampionship.com/ar...i.htm#nutflour
Blanched Almond Flour, Natural Almond Flour, Roasted Chestnut Flour, Blanched Hazelnut Flour, Natural Hazelnut Flour, Roasted Peanut Meal, Natural Pecan Flour, Pignolia Meal, Natural Pistachio Flour, Pumpkin Seed Flour, Light Walnut Meal
-----------------------------------
** The American Almond Products Company http://www.americanalmond.com/Products/nutforms.htm

If you scroll down, you'll find everything from Watermelon Extract to Saskatoon Berry Extract (sorry it's in all caps, cut and pasted)

NUT PASTES - ALMOND PASTE, ALMOND MARZIPAN, KERNEL PASTE, MACAROON PASTE, PRALINE PASTE, FILBERT PASTE, PECAN PASTE, PISTACHIO PASTE, WALNUT PASTE

NUT BUTTERS - NATURAL AND/OR ROASTED, ALMOND BUTTER, CASHEW BUTTER, FILBERT BUTTER, HAZELNUT BUTTER, NATURAL PEANUT BUTTER, PISTACHIO BUTTER, WALNUT BUTTER

NUT FLOURS - NATURAL, BLANCHED OR ROASTED, ALMOND FLOUR, CASHEW FLOUR, FILBERT FLOUR, HAZELNUT FLOUR, PEANUT FLOUR, PISTACHIO FLOUR

FILLINGS - POPPY BUTTER, BAKER'S HUNGARIAN LEKVAR, PRUNE FILING

Lemon Pistachio Gateau with Orange Coulis

1-10 inch vanilla cake
orange zest
1 recipe lemon curd
berries
Cointreau simple syrup
paté choux butterfly (optional)
orange coulis
pistachio flour

Lemon Curd
2 cups egg yolks
8 oz. butter (1 cup)
1 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 1/4 cup sugar

In a bowl, combine all ingredients and cook over double boiler until firm.

Paté Choux

1 cup water
4 oz. butter (1/2 cup)
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
4-5 eggs

Bring first four ingredients to a boil. Add flour and stir until ball forms. Remove
from heat and add eggs, one at a time, until smooth dough. Dough should not be
runny. Pipe out with pastry bag with #2 tip on parchment paper. Bake at 350
degrees for 2-3 minutes until light golden. Watch carefully.

Orange Coulis
2 cups orange juice
1/4 cup Cointreau
1 cup sugar
arrowroot or cornstarch


Bring orange juice, sugar and Cointreau to a boil. Thicken slightly with arrowroot
or cornstarch which has been diluted with cold water. Cook 3-4 minutes on low
heat. Cool completely.

------------------------------------------------

Pistachio Tarts

Yield: 2 eight-inch tarts

Filling:
4 ounces sugar
2 ounces almond flour
2 ounces pistachio flour
4 ounces butter (room temperature)
6 ounces eggs

Mix all the ingredients except the eggs until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time.

Tart Dough:
Yield: Makes enough dough for two tarts

8 1/3 ounces flour
2 ounces sugar
4 ounces butter
* cup milk

Garnish:
Chopped pistachios

Mix all the ingredients in a mixer with a paddle attachment or in a cuisinart and put in the refrigerator one half hour to rest.

Roll out the dough with a pin and blind bake in the oven. Once the shells have cooled, fill with the pistachio filling. Place several thinly sliced pieces of rhubarb on top. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes.

To serve, heat up the pistachio tart and sprinkle with some chopped pistachios.

Cchiu, I am sitting here drooling at my desk - I can't step away because I would embarass myself.

I'm going to make the pistachio gateau at the first opportunity that presents itself. It sounds obscenely good.




Why isn't there a little smilie that's rubbing its little cyber-hands together?

[shroomgirl]

CChiu it is not always number but size....

shroomgirl, you are a gas!

[mudbug]

sounds like a shroom"boy" comment!

[Isa]

Cchui,


WOW Thanks. If Marye is dying for the pistachio cake, for myself it's the pistachio tart. It looks so good. I'll have to try it. Do you think the filling is like a pistachio frangipane ?

As for making my own pistachio flour, do youhave any idea of the proportion I should use? Would I do it like tant pour tant?

Thanks again for the great recipes!

Maryeo,
Bingo, Bethesda is correct. I do miss all the good food in and around the area, But until such time as I can get back Rochester is okay so far. Cchiu aren't your fingers tired!?
By the way have you ever had Shrimp Balichow it is awesome on rice and basic Burmese Chicken Curry!

Chrose - what is Shrimp Balichow?

I'm gonna have to quit my job and stay home and cook . . . y'all provide the most amazing recipes!

[Pooh]

I just cought onto this thread. I can't resist, I have to say:

«YOU ARE ALL SOOOO AMAZING!!!»

Funny thing though, I have most of the stuff you have in your fridge and pantry too!!

[Jill Reichow]

Not into the oils much, but do have 9 different types of flour and four different cinnamons, 2 different nutmegs, 2 paprikas, all the hot sauce my hubby imagines he needs, dried habeneros plus jalepenos and whatever other kind we raised last year....I'm afraid to look in the back of my frige..........

[shroomgirl]

This was a cool thread, thanks for bringing it back from the archives....
I now have "tada" stone ground organic flour that a farmer who wants to come to the market dropped for me to sample.... oat, winter wheat, blue, white and yellow cornmeal, buckwheat.....I love it....
Now to use it quickly. What a blast I'm having working with these farmers....now who has freezers on sale?

[momoreg]

Cool...I hope we get to hear about what you make with them.