Most of the rice I cook (jasmine and various sushi short grains) do a lot better with 1.25 water to rice. At least, for smallish quantities (generally a cup).
Yeah, my normal rice is regular extra-long grain, but jasmine can definitely take a little less water, as it seems to have a decent amount of moisture to begin with.
I measure salt and yeast, flour and water, though not much else.
I wouldn’t trust that list to be either comprehensive or accurate, given that there is no such thing as “Hawai’i salt.” Sure, you can buy specialty salt here, because various businesses make salt products by mixing salt with assorted locally produced/obtained additives, like alaea salt. Notice they carefully avoid saying that the salt is a naturally occurring substance - instead, it is a “blend.” I can buy a lot of other such products here (mostly at tourist shops), featuring lava, seaweed, etc.
Not sure that would be enough, as the quantities would be off.
When I baked with a friend of mine in middle school. She put flour in the measuring cup, and then tapped it on the counter to make the flour settle. Added more flour, tapped it on the counter. Not sure how much more flour she had in the end. And she didn’t pack the brown sugar.
Thank you for the clarification. I looked at the book description more carefully, and it says that it is sea salt from Hawaii with additives, such as bamboo leaf, activated coal, etc.
The cookbook is definitely not exhaustive, but I find it extremely helpful for understanding Swiss recipes and cuts of meat.
one thing you have to remember is that 90 percent of American recipes are made by people pushing an agenda …i mean how many people have found out grandmas secret pie recipe came from a free cookbook given to her my the “apple Growers Washington” whose job was coming up with ways to sell more apples in 1921 but over the years just made from either memory or a unsourced card so the source was forgotten
Or mom’s fudge recipe was the recipe that was on the back of the marshmallow cream jar?
If you want to see how American cooking /was is manipulated by companies and groups look up the "baking powder war "
Lava in food? That’s a little weird. But what’s wrong with seaweed? That’s just food. I keep some in my desk at work for snacking on after my long commute.
Obsidian? Obsequious!
Clearly, most/all recipes come from somewhere, person, package, book.
Unless you’re in the kitchen just experimenting (who has time for that when everyone is hungry?) you’re following time honored directions you know work for you.
Yeah, my reaction that many recipes are just “back of the box” recipes for products is “so what?” Are they good? Yes? Who cares if the recipe was passed down by Carthusian monks over the centuries or just something great-gramma liked on the back of a tin of Clabber Girl or some promotional cookbook?
Back of the box recipes are at least tested by some professional.
The recipe Ms. Jones gave you in the grocery check out line might be a bunch of junk.
I get lots of recipes from a magazine my Electric co-op puts out. Some successes.
I’ve made a number of these, and they are all good to great.
Disagree on this one. Demiglace is easy to make, freezes really well, and is a better gravy than gravy. The trick is to make a ton of it at one time.
Many of my back of the box recipes have been modified a little. I do a nice cinnamon star that was inspired by a recipe published by King Arthur flour, but i looked up a couple other recipes online and interpolated a bit.
My brownie recipe is the one that used to be on boxes of bakers chocolate. Except my husband adds chocolate chips, and that’s really good.
I think recipes evolve. Ingredients change, or the size of packages change. Tastes change.
The Unprejudiced Palate. All about cooking by feel. A classic, and recommended.
I just finished reading a collection short stories published in 1955 or 56. One story has two women in their early 40s who grew up together reconnecting after a long time. One woman is reminiscing about making homemade mayonnaise with her mother. Her mother beat egg yolks while the daughter dripped in the olive oil drop by drop.
Based on their ages I’d estimate the mayonnaise-making was sometime in the 1920s. So, olive oil was not completely unknown before the foodies invaded. It was not mentioned in any way to draw attention as some exotic ingredient either.
That might depend a bit on their ethnicity. My late aged MIL was a child back then. But the child of recent Italian immigrants. Olive oil is what they knew. Nothing else was edible. Likewise perhaps the Greek immigrants from the next town over.
The folks in other US towns with ethnic origins in England or Germany or France or ???. Probably not so much.
100% correct.
WASP isn’t the default setting for American, and hasn’t been for a while now.
What a lot of people find as “snobbery” now has been just normal cooking for others for decades now
These were Southern (Georgia) WASP ladies.
ETA: @Chingon 2 above.
Well, in the 1930s when late aged MIL was a kid, being Italian was definitely being one of Those People, not one of the Good Ones.
Nowadays it’s a different list of Those People, but as you well know there still is quite a list.