Valuable but inexpensive tips

MiniMax Hauser said:

To a request for inexpensive tricks for eating well, I suggested some of
these.

Buy unsalted butter and keep it frozen until needed. Freezing [censored]
oxidation (rancidity). Salted butter is also fine if you like the flavor,
but a basic reason why many cooks use unsalted butter and add salt is that
incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or rancidity -- just
like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes. Unsalted butter, like drier
Champagne, demands the highest-quality foundation.

Save in the freezer for making stocks or broths: not only the scraps from
any meat or fish (raw trim, scraps from plates, and, of course, bones) but
all kinds of ends and peelings from the "aromatic" vegetables -- carrots,
onions, celery, garlic, leeks, parsley stems, etc. Green of leek is
considered a magic stock ingredient by some very good chefs. (You might want
to take a little more care to scrub dirt etc. from the vegetables if you'll
be saving the peelings.) Freeze in a zip-lock bag after squeezing most of
the air out.

Replace dried herbs with new supplies after a year or (at most) two, but
don't discard all the old ones, mix your favorites in a large jar -- label
it "Herbes d'un certain âge" or something -- to toss into stocks while
cooking.

Buy basic cookware and dishes at restaurant-supply firms. Many of them are
in industrial neighborhoods and look more like warehouses than like elegant
department stores, but you don't pay for the difference.

If you do any amount of cooking with saffron, buy it at Indian spice shops
by the ounce (circa $1/gram in US, rather than gringo supermarkets and
"gourmet" shops for $5-$15 per gram). Seal it from air in multiple layers,
and it will keep for a year or two or even longer, and you'll have come out
ahead anyway after using just a few grams.

Seek out new and different specialty markets, and farmer's markets.

Cultivate a reliable wine merchant, they can save you serious money.

Keep notes of what works well. Keep them where you can find them.

Read cookbooks.

== MiniMax

Grind your own meat... oh, you just did.

Sheldon

"Bob (this one)" in news:[email hidden]...
| Max Hauser wrote:
|
| | Buy unsalted butter and keep it frozen until needed.
| | ... incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or
| | rancidity -- just like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes.
| | Unsalted butter, like drier Champagne, demands the
| | highest-quality foundation.
|
| This is nonsense. ...

Well, the principle I've tried to explain has proved out for some decades
and as usual, I urge anyone interested to check it out for themselves. The
core idea is that salting masks defects (like sweetness added to Champagne).
You may get salted butter that's as fresh as unsalted, but the unsalted
shows defects more plainly. Hence the traditional preference. (Evidently
not everyone is familiar with this. Of course information doesn't become
"nonsense" by being labeled so, any more than it becomes funny. [Strunk and
White.] )

US cooks may not draw routinely on 50-100 different regional butters as the
French long did but there now are regional sources of national repute.

| | Buy basic cookware and dishes at restaurant-supply firms.

| A lot of them won't sell to the public. Check first.

I agree about checking first, but the rest of that is strange to me. I have
dealt with such firms, again for decades, and I have yet to encounter one in
the US that does not welcome the public and its cash. This experience may,
of course, be atypical but As Usual I Urge You To Check For Yourself.
(Indeed, the public is seen as highly desirable by many restaurant-supply
firms because it pays cash, unlike some restaurants ...)

Bye -- M.

--
"I think it's Mary's blancmange that is so frightfully depressing. It's
like something out of a mortuary." [Agatha Christie, The Murder at the
Vicarage, 1930.]

"Bob (this one)" in news:[email hidden]...
| Max Hauser wrote:
|
| | Buy unsalted butter and keep it frozen until needed.
| | ... incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or
| | rancidity -- just like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes.
| | Unsalted butter, like drier Champagne, demands the
| | highest-quality foundation.
|
| This is nonsense. ...

Well, the principle I've tried to explain has proved out for some decades
and as usual, I urge anyone interested to check it out for themselves. The
core idea is that salting masks defects (like sweetness added to Champagne).
You may get salted butter that's as fresh as unsalted, but the unsalted
shows defects more plainly. Hence the traditional preference. (Evidently
not everyone is familiar with this. Of course information doesn't become
"nonsense" by being labeled so, any more than it becomes funny. [Strunk and
White.] )

US cooks may not draw routinely on 50-100 different regional butters as the
French long did but there now are regional sources of national repute.

| | Buy basic cookware and dishes at restaurant-supply firms.

| A lot of them won't sell to the public. Check first.

I agree about checking first, but the rest of that is strange to me. I have
dealt with such firms, again for decades, and I have yet to encounter one in
the US that does not welcome the public and its cash. This experience may,
of course, be atypical but As Usual I Urge You To Check For Yourself.
(Indeed, the public is seen as highly desirable by many restaurant-supply
firms because it pays cash, unlike some restaurants ...)

Bye -- M.

--
"I think it's Mary's blancmange that is so frightfully depressing. It's
like something out of a mortuary." [Agatha Christie, The Murder at the
Vicarage, 1930.]

Max Hauser said:

"Bob (this one)" in news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

| Max Hauser wrote:

| | Buy unsalted butter and keep it frozen until needed.
| | ... incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or
| | rancidity -- just like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes.
| | Unsalted butter, like drier Champagne, demands the
| | highest-quality foundation.

| This is nonsense. ...

Well, the principle I've tried to explain has proved out for some decades

Actually, the principle became obsolete after WWII with the birth of
supermarkets, consolidated manufacturing standards, and mass marketing.

Quoted message said:

and as usual, I urge anyone interested to check it out for themselves. The
core idea is that salting masks defects (like sweetness added to Champagne).
You may get salted butter that's as fresh as unsalted, but the unsalted
shows defects more plainly.

Butter is graded and the quality level is plainly marked on every retail
package. Once upon a time, salt was used to preserve butter at levels
many times the current practice. Look in old cookbooks and frequent
instructions call for washing butter to get rid of excess salt.

Nowadays, with efficient refrigeration, legally mandated
quality-preserving manufacturing, storage and shipping conditions, that
whole businesss is meaningless. "Defects" in butter are artifacts of the
past. Salting is still common because we humans like the flavor better
that way.

Quoted message said:

Hence the traditional preference.

That was then, this is now.

Quoted message said:

(Evidently
not everyone is familiar with this. Of course information doesn't become
"nonsense" by being labeled so, any more than it becomes funny. [Strunk and
White.] )

Nor is it necessarily true - for the same reasons. Black and white.

Quoted message said:

US cooks may not draw routinely on 50-100 different regional butters as the
French long did but there now are regional sources of national repute.

Butter in France is pretty much as standardized as American butter now.
There are still some niche marketers there as there are here, but they
typically serve regional markets.

Quoted message said:

| | Buy basic cookware and dishes at restaurant-supply firms.

| A lot of them won't sell to the public. Check first.

I agree about checking first, but the rest of that is strange to me. I have
dealt with such firms, again for decades, and I have yet to encounter one in
the US that does not welcome the public and its cash.

I started buying from supply houses in the 70's when I opened my first
restaurants. Many are closed to the public because they don't have sales
staffs trained to deal with home-cook issues rather than commercial
kitchen questions. Beyond that, the public buys small quantities and
expects retail-store service rather than how the trade buys.

Quoted message said:

This experience may,
of course, be atypical but As Usual I Urge You To Check For Yourself.
(Indeed, the public is seen as highly desirable by many restaurant-supply
firms because it pays cash, unlike some restaurants ...)

And it's seen as a nuisance by many because of their service and payment
expectations balanced against order size.

Pastorio

OK Bob, I'll indulge you here a little.

Max:
||
|| incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or
|| rancidity -- like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes.

Bob:
| This is nonsense.

I still don't know whether you missed my central point (responses leave that
unclear) -- that less salt is fundamentally more revealing -- or whether you
disagree with it, in which case could you please explain. It seems to me
that nothing cited here, so far, argues _against_ starting with fresh
unsalted butter, and salting to taste; so what's your point?

Bob:
| Butter in France is pretty much as standardized as American
| butter now. There are still some niche marketers there as
| there are here, but they typically serve regional markets.

Our chefs go to some trouble to get butters from specific farms in different
parts of the US that have particular flavors. (Of course, they could be
wrong.)

Max:
||
|| Save in the freezer for making stocks or broths: ...
|| Freeze in a zip-lock bag after squeezing most of
|| the air out.

Bob:
| But make sure it doesn't freezer burn. It won't offer good flavor then.

Yes indeed, that's the point of squeezing the air out.

Bob:
| I started buying from [restaurant] supply houses in the 70's ...
| Many are closed to the public because they don't have sales
| staffs trained to deal with home-cook issues ....

It may be even statistically that some restaurant supply houses in the US,
or in some parts of the US, resist public business. Again, I have bought
from them for years in various states, and have yet to encounter that. I'm
not making this up. Superior Products is a large US distributor with local
outlets that was practically soliciting public business a couple years ago,
as but one instance. (Request your catalog today. Note the offerings of
theater-type hotdog rollers, humidity-controlled pizza ovens, &c.)
Obviously (?!) if a restaurant supplier doesn't want to sell to you, don't
go there.

Max:
||
|| If you do any amount of cooking with saffron, buy it at
|| Indian spice shops by the ounce (circa $1/gram in US, rather
|| than gringo supermarkets and "gourmet" shops for $5-$15
|| per gram). Seal it from air in multiple layers, and it will
|| keep for a year or two or even longer, and you'll have come
|| out ahead anyway after using just a few grams.

Bob:
| There's saffron and there's saffron. Cheaper stuff
| is cheaper for a reason.

(Where oh where does all this negative assumption and assertion come from
nowadays? Is it just the times, the new generation of newsgroup
participants? [This group was more constructive in general, pre-HTTP, and
earlier, pre-1987,when it was net.cooks.] )

To anyone else who doesn't know me, I refer to quality Spanish saffron
purchased in much larger quantity than those little capsules you see in
gringo markets. Try it and see. If anything, my experience has been that
the Indian spice shops in my area (which compete with each other for a
sizeable market) offer higher quality. This is an established route for
good saffron at retail on the Pacific coast.

If anyone else has other suggestions that they've have found valuable, why
not post them here also. You are guaranteed of some readers who will try
to see what is valuable in them (rather than trying not to).

Max Hauser said:

Buy basic cookware and dishes at restaurant-supply firms. Many of them are
in industrial neighborhoods and look more like warehouses than like elegant
department stores, but you don't pay for the difference.

They often have restaurant items that are not available at department
stores that come in handy at home.

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

When measuring out honey for a recipe that also includes oil, use the
measuring spoon first for oil then the honey. The honey will slide
right off of the spoon into the bowl. (Note: I use a squeeze bottle
for honey, otherwise this would work best if you poured the honey into
the spoon. I don't think you'd want to dip a spoon with oil into a
jar.)

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

Curly Sue said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already settled
there.
:-)

Dave Smith said:

Curly Sue said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already settled
there.
:-)

That would work, of course, if the cans were the same on top and
bottom. Many cans now have rounded bottoms for some reason, which
means that the can openers can't get a grip and must be opened from
the top.

So there!

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

"Max Hauser" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

To a request for inexpensive tricks for eating well, I suggested some of
these.

When drinking beer from a glass, always drink from the rim closest to your
mouth!

Curly Sue said:

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:12:35 -0700, "Max Hauser"
<[email hidden]> wrote:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

When measuring out honey for a recipe that also includes oil, use the
measuring spoon first for oil then the honey. The honey will slide
right off of the spoon into the bowl. (Note: I use a squeeze bottle
for honey, otherwise this would work best if you poured the honey into
the spoon. I don't think you'd want to dip a spoon with oil into a
jar.)

Sue(tm)

My tip: Use an egg slicer in a criss-cross fashion for chopping eggs
for potato salad; use a stiff-wire pastry cutter to chop eggs for egg
salad (makes a finer dice). I also use my wire egg-slicer for slicing
giant strawberries quickly - works a treat and saves my
sometimes-arthritic hands.

Another: Store dairy products that come in cartons (sour cream,
cottage cheese) upside down after opening - they will last forever
compared with storing them right-side up. (Make sure they are
leak-proof.)

Another that I've listed before: When you bring ground meat home from
the supermarket and want to freeze it - don't freeze it in a big lump,
put it into a Ziploc freezer bag and squash it flat, spreading it in an
even layer through the whole bag - no freezer burn (little air left in
the bag) and very quick to thaw. Not only that, but even while it's
frozen, you can break the flat piece in half and half again, to thaw
and make a single burger or two-at-a time. One pound of ground beef
will perfectly fill a 1-gallon freezer bag.

N.

Dave Smith said:

Curly Sue wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

Quoted message said:

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already settled
there.

My tip would be to avoid commercially canned beans.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.

Quoted message said:

Dave Smith said:

Curly Sue wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

Quoted message said:

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already settled
there.

My tip would be to avoid commercially canned beans.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.

And my tip is: spend your time where it makes a difference.

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

Andy said:

"Max Hauser" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

To a request for inexpensive tricks for eating well, I suggested some of
these.

When drinking beer from a glass, always drink from the rim closest to your
mouth!

Warning, stove tops can be hot and freezers can be cold. Don't touch
either for any length of time.

Rusty

Curly Sue said:

Dave Smith said:

Curly Sue said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already settled
there.
:-)

That would work, of course, if the cans were the same on top and
bottom. Many cans now have rounded bottoms for some reason, which
means that the can openers can't get a grip and must be opened from
the top.

So there!

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

Okay, went and had a look at one of my cans... they look the same top
and bottom... but, being a creature of habit, I do always open them
"right-side-up" .... so if I remember, I'll store them upside down, and
if I don't, I'll open them from the bottom 🙂
Cheers
Cathy

--
I don't suffer from insanity - I enjoy every minute of it

Rusty said:

Andy wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

When drinking beer from a glass, always drink from the rim closest to your
mouth!

Warning, stove tops can be hot and freezers can be cold. Don't touch
either for any length of time.

Must be Cook's Illustrated readers......

"Max Hauser" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

To a request for inexpensive tricks for eating well, I suggested some of
these.

Buy unsalted butter and keep it frozen until needed. Freezing [censored]
oxidation (rancidity). Salted butter is also fine if you like the flavor,
but a basic reason why many cooks use unsalted butter and add salt is that
incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or rancidity -- just
like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes. Unsalted butter, like drier
Champagne, demands the highest-quality foundation.

Better yet, learn to clarify butter ( removing solids and water) to increase
its shelflife and smoke point. Properly clarified butter will keep for a
long time before spoilage

"Curly Sue" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dave Smith said:

Curly Sue said:

My tip: store canned beans upside down so that they settle at the top
of the can. When you turn them rightside up and open the can, the
contents will slide out easily. You won't have to dig out the beans
embedded in gunk at the bottom.

My tip........ open the beans upside down. All that stuff is already
settled
there.
:-)

That would work, of course, if the cans were the same on top and
bottom. Many cans now have rounded bottoms for some reason, which
means that the can openers can't get a grip and must be opened from
the top.

So there!

Yes, some consumer sizes have a rounded bottom to facilitae stacking/nesting
I guess more for market displays than for home cooks buying cases of beans
to be stored on a shelf. I mean hey, if I bought a case of cans I would
more likely leave them in cases anyway

Max Hauser said:

OK Bob, I'll indulge you here a little.

Oh, Max, you're too good to me. I mean indulging me and all. I hardly
know how to thank you... <Mmmmwwwwwah>

Quoted message said:

Max:
||
|| incorporated into butter, salt masks flavor defects or
|| rancidity -- like the sweetness in sweeter Champagnes.

Bob:
| This is nonsense.

I still don't know whether you missed my central point (responses leave that
unclear) -- that less salt is fundamentally more revealing -- or whether you
disagree with it, in which case could you please explain. It seems to me
that nothing cited here, so far, argues _against_ starting with fresh
unsalted butter, and salting to taste; so what's your point?

Bob:
| Butter in France is pretty much as standardized as American
| butter now. There are still some niche marketers there as
| there are here, but they typically serve regional markets.

Our chefs go to some trouble to get butters from specific farms in different
parts of the US that have particular flavors. (Of course, they could be
wrong.)

I *am* a French-trained Chef. I've owned restaurants since the 70's
after completing a rather intensive bit of schooling in Europe. An
astonishing amount of "what everybody knows" has not the remotest basis
in fact. I'd offer several books that clarify and explain a lot of it -
"Cookwise" - Shirley Corriher; "On Food and Cooking" - Harold McGee;
"How to Read a French Fry" - Russ Parsons...

A lot of what I was taught has been shown to be either misunderstanding
of what was actually happening or what the mechanisms were or how
processes unfolded, etc.

Quoted message said:

Max:
||
|| Save in the freezer for making stocks or broths: ...
|| Freeze in a zip-lock bag after squeezing most of
|| the air out.

Bob:
| But make sure it doesn't freezer burn. It won't offer good flavor then.

Yes indeed, that's the point of squeezing the air out.

Not much help in a frost-free. Because of the porosity of the materials
and the air spaces between pieces, the changing temperatures cause
moisture migration and it doesn't matter how much air you squeeze out,
there's a lot more inside the package between the bits. If you want to
freeze things for stock-making, do what we did in the restaurants.
Freeze them in water - they *never* freezer burn then. Use that water as
part of the total to make the stock.

Quoted message said:

Bob:
| I started buying from [restaurant] supply houses in the 70's ...
| Many are closed to the public because they don't have sales
| staffs trained to deal with home-cook issues ....

It may be even statistically that some restaurant supply houses in the US,
or in some parts of the US, resist public business. Again, I have bought
from them for years in various states, and have yet to encounter that. I'm
not making this up. Superior Products is a large US distributor with local
outlets that was practically soliciting public business a couple years ago,
as but one instance. (Request your catalog today. Note the offerings of
theater-type hotdog rollers, humidity-controlled pizza ovens, &c.)
Obviously (?!) if a restaurant supplier doesn't want to sell to you, don't
go there.

Exactly. The houses that will sell don't as a matter of normal course
solicit public business. They will take it, but don't market to that
segment.

Quoted message said:

Max:
||
|| If you do any amount of cooking with saffron, buy it at
|| Indian spice shops by the ounce (circa $1/gram in US, rather
|| than gringo supermarkets and "gourmet" shops for $5-$15
|| per gram). Seal it from air in multiple layers, and it will
|| keep for a year or two or even longer, and you'll have come
|| out ahead anyway after using just a few grams.

Bob:
| There's saffron and there's saffron. Cheaper stuff
| is cheaper for a reason.

(Where oh where does all this negative assumption and assertion come from
nowadays? Is it just the times, the new generation of newsgroup
participants? [This group was more constructive in general, pre-HTTP, and
earlier, pre-1987,when it was net.cooks.] )

It comes from decades of professional foodservice training and
experience in my case. I know how burdensome it must be to you, given
your altruistic efforts.

Quoted message said:

To anyone else who doesn't know me, I refer to quality Spanish saffron
purchased in much larger quantity than those little capsules you see in
gringo markets. Try it and see. If anything, my experience has been that
the Indian spice shops in my area (which compete with each other for a
sizeable market) offer higher quality. This is an established route for
good saffron at retail on the Pacific coast.

I bought saffron in 100 gram packages for my restaurants. Cheaper was
always cheaper because it should have been.

Quoted message said:

If anyone else has other suggestions that they've have found valuable, why
not post them here also. You are guaranteed of some readers who will try
to see what is valuable in them (rather than trying not to).

Oh, my. I think I've been chastised. Look up "passive-aggressive" when
you get a minute.

Pastorio

Quoted message said:

My tip would be to avoid commercially canned beans.

What kinda fercocktah tip is that?

Canned beans are very handy to keep in the larder and they're actually
less expensive than cooking dried from scratch. Last I looked 1lb bags
of dried beans cost close to a $1, some types more. One cup dried cook
up to about 2 1/2 cups. I buy canned beans (all types) usually on sale
at $1/3cans (15oz)... or sometimes 39¢/per. The large cans (40oz) run
around 89¢. I keep all kinds of canned beans on hand, lots of them,
my favorite use is in salads, salads of all types.... sometimes just a
can of beans with salad dressing makes for a quick, healthful, low fat
snack, very satisfying.... feeling ambitious add some minced onion and
celery, really ambitious toss with a ration of cooked pasta. I like to
add a can of white beans to tuna salad, stretches the tuna and adds
good nutrition, and fiber. I don't bother with dried beans much
anymore, certainly not during the warm weather... canned are so much
easier. And canned beans is one of the very few canned products where
there's absolutly no difference, other than price, between store brands
and big name brands.

Sheldon