Poll #1297139 Eggzact Measurement Needed
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

On a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is "Hell no" and 5 is "Couldn't keep me away," based solely on the name, would you eat at a restaurant called Egg Heaven?

The results are in! It is official: Pie N' Burger is a good place to eat, knowing nothing more about it than the name.

For those of you who initially said no, no, I cannot give my tastebuds to such a place, I wish to tell you this: You may have been wrong, but we will honor your decision, and we will honor it by inviting you to... the ACTUAL Pie N' Burger!

I call for all Americans to stand behind Pie 'N Burger. Because hey. Pie and Burgers!

Apparently Pie N' Burger is actually reeeeeeally good. I shall visit and give my own review forthwith.

And unlike that other cheesy election, this one lets you decide how strongly you feel about your decision.

Poll #1291306 Decision 2008
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

On a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is "Hell no" and 5 is "Couldn't keep me away," based solely on the name, would you eat at a restaurant called Pie N' Burger?

Ganked from dlayiga, the hundred foods that every gastronome should eat, or something like that.

1) bold those you have tried
2) Strikethrough those you wouldn't eat on a bet.
2a) Italicize any item you'll never eat again.
2b) Asterisk any items you'd be interested in trying but have not yet.

1. Venison
2. *Nettle tea*
3. Huevos rancheros
4. *Steak tartare*
5. *Crocodile*
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (I can't say that I had the best of borscht, but it really wasn't bad.)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari I'm allergic to shellfish. REALLY REALLY allergic.
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. *Aloo gobi* I might be interested, anyway, assuming that "aloo gobi" doesn't mean shrimp in squid sauce or something
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. *Epoisses* Never heard of these either, but willing to try assuming it's not see above.
17. Black truffle Yum.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Eh.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (It's pretty good, but it's WAY better seared. Oh my, yes. Yes.)
24. Rice and beans
25. *Brawn, or head cheese* I'll give it a shot.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (Gimme a break. I'm also not going to eat raw plutonium.)
27. Dulce de leche (Serious yum here)
28. Oysters (See above re: allergies)
29. Baklava (The one time it's awesome to have a bunch of Armenian classmates is the "international potluck." Because they all bring baklava.)
30. *Bagna cauda* (I'm pretty sure I've had this under a different name, but as I understand it it's soft roasted garlic, and yes, yes, yes.)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl See above, allergies, blah.
33. Salted lassi (I have no freaking clue what this is.)
34. Sauerkraut Eh.
35. Root beer float (Dude, how awesome is a good root beer float?)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I've never had the fat cigar part, but I've gotten close enough, and hey, good cognac.)
37. *Clotted cream tea* (I've had tea, I've had clotted cream. I'm certain they go well together.)
38. Vodka jelly (I assume you mean Jello shots.)
39. Gumbo (Eaten it, made it, enjoyed it.)
40. Oxtail (Way better than you'd think.)
41. *Curried goat* (Sure, why not?)
42. *Whole insects* (Sure, why not?)
43. *Phaal* (I have no idea what this is, so for the moment I'm saying sure, why not?)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Damn straight, and it ruled)
46. Fugu (Bleh, fish.)
47. *Chicken tikka masala* (I know that this is basically a fake-ass chicken recipe made up by English folks, and so I'm down.)
48. Eel (Above, allergies, etc.)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (When fresh, deeeeelicious.)
50. Sea urchin (allergies)
51. *Prickly pear*
52. *Umeboshi* (assuming it's not some kind of shellfish)
53. Abalone (you know the drill)
54. *Paneer* (sure, why not)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (But it's SO MUCH better with just a hint of vermouth!)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Mmmm... Fin Du Monde)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (Eh, gimme chocolate)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (Really, quite delicious.)
63. *Kaolin* (Huh?)
64. *Currywurst* (I'll probably try any kind of wurst)
65. *Durian* (I hear it's seriously delicious as long as you don't smell it)
66. Frogs’ legs (Tasted like chicken)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (You know what? I don't feel the need to try this. Screw you.)
69. Fried plantain (Not a big fan, really.)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (Bleh. Salty nothing.)
73. Louche absinthe (Dunno about "Louche," but I've had absinthe.)
74. *Gjetost, or brunost* (Sure, why not)
75. Roadkill (Don't really feel like I'm missing much, unless you're letting, like, Wagyu cows onto the road or something.)
76. *Baijiu* (Assuming it's not shellfish.)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (And it was good, too)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Toam yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (Though to be fair, it was "Men's" Pocky)
84. *Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant* (Freaking hell yeah I want to try this)
85. *Kobe beef*
86. *Hare* (boing boing boing kill yum!)
87. Goulash (In the Czech Republic, even.)
88. Flowers (I forget what it was but something we got at Gordon Ramsay had flowers on.)
89. Horse (I would feel bad. Maybe I shouldn't. But I would.)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (Bleh)
92. Soft shell crab (Do I even need to explain this anymore?)
93. Rose harissa (Don't know what this is)
94. Catfish (Bleh)
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (allerg..oh, you know)
98. Polenta (I also make a pretty fine polenta.)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I don't like coffee either)
100. *Snake* (You know what, I hate snakes a lot. So I'm going to come out in favor of eating them, and hope that we eat them all into extinction.)

My wife and I have been patronizing the finest restaurants in Los Angeles. L.A. is a pretty good food town, though hardly the equal of New York. But I have to give credit to any chef who can overcome the usual concept of Los Angeles as being a place where people want to eat a 30-dollar plate of sprouts.

That conception is really the trouble. Nouvelle Cuisine managed to both save us from shitty food, yet also screw things up, especially in California.

See, the idea of Nouvelle Cuisine was to move away from the heavier French sauces and to present ingredients on their own, to let the flavors shine as much as possible instead of drowning them in a roux-based sauce. Things like vegetables not steamed to within an inch of their lives but grilled, or maybe sauteed, but not drowned and turned into mush. Who knew that veggies could actually taste good?

Unfortunately the message that America got, apparently, was a $30 plate of sprouts. Too little food for too much money, and it was all veggies besides. Nouvelle Cuisine was a huge boon for the Dave Barry-wannabees of our nation, and naturally it was in Los Angeles that they said these things were happening.

(The flourishing existence and expansion of the downtown Los Angeles-based Tommy's chili-cheeseburger chain was, of course, ignored. When it comes to comedy, it's all about giving your idiot readers what they want, and what they want is to read about people in Los Angeles is not 3-dollar chili-cheeseburgers, it's sprouts at $30 a plate. Makes the folks back in Missouri feel better about their own lives, yes it does.) The fact that no such thing has ever happened really need not enter the conversation.

Still, though, Nouvelle Cuisine saved us from shitty food, and indeed many of the entrees you can find at your local Applebee's owe a debt to the movement. These days, nobody would serve a good steak doused in a heavy sauce. But that was the practice not so very long ago. If you or anyone you know has ordered a grilled salmon, they largely have Nouvelle Cuisine to thank for it. There is a lot of great food out there, and Nouvelle Cuisine has only added to it.

Unfortunately a few restauretuers took it just a bit too far and got a lot of press for serving tiny artistic meals for a huge price and now, even though those jerks went out of business very quickly, everybody STILL thinks that if you're paying more than 20 dollars for your meal, what you will get is a shred of meat and a hint of potato and think that it's "haute cuisine."

*sigh*

Speaking of stores and pricing and whatnot, I'm kind of annoyed at the general practice of butchers everywhere, selling ground meat in quantities just over what you actually need.

You need one pound of ground beef/turkey/pork/chicken or whatever for your recipe. When you show up at even a good butcher shop, or the supermarket, or wherever, they have this ground meat packaged and available, only it's... 1.2 pounds, give or take.

I suspect that this overage is perfectly titrated to be an amount which you will both purchase, and then end up either immediately using or wasting the excess. If they sold it in 1.5 to 2 pound batches, you could easily divide it and save the rest for another meal.

But what the hell are you going to do with two tenths of a pound? Why, you'll probably just throw it into your, say, meatloaf or taco meat recipe, and assume that it will come out okay. If you are fastidious, you'll weigh it out and wrap up that 2 tenths of a pound and never have a use for it to the point where it will eventually go bad. Or you'll freeze it in a little ziploc bag and largely never think of it again - and why would you, it's not like you'll be able to buy eight tenths of a pound of ground whatever the next time you make a meal. What will actually happen is that some day you'll be pawing through your freezer looking for demi-glace or something and come upon the tiny bag of meat and say "Oh good grief, am I still saving 75 cents worth of ground turkey?" and throw it out.

Oh, the stores, they have our number.

And sure, it doesn't seem like much when you're buying it, c'mon, the stuff costs 4 or 5 bucks a pound, so you're only paying another 80 or 90 cents. But in the meantime, over, say, one hundred to two hundred people buying that ground meat the store has just increased its margin by 25 percent, almost certainly without any future loss of sales.

Dicks! Giant dicks. But very clever dicks, I have to give them that.

But my girl and I are going to beat them. We're going to establish a Meat Overage Freezer Bag in which we put these little bits into, and when there is enough... we'll make some kind of loaf out of it. Enough onions and garlic and gelatin and it'll be fucking savory, oh yes.

So I had no point except to bitch about the irritatingness and wastage over the years, and to give you our solution. Also, if we make this work, we may invite you to come try The Loaf of Many Meats. It is like Joseph's Coat of Many Colors, only edible, largely all of the same color, and significantly less religious (unless it's *really* good). Perhaps we will serve mashed potatoes on the side.

Be ready, people.

I don't really know much about economics except what seems right to me, in combination with what I think I know about human nature. So, two recent situations occur to me:

1) We had a minor yet still quite obvious earthquake in Southern California today. No doubt all of you who have any LJ friends in Southern California... er... such as, well, me, heard about it. One thing this earthquake reminded me of is something we've somewhat neglected over the past few years, namely the need to have a few supplies put away - some bottled water, some canned food, etc etc. Currently we have one very elderly 2.5 gallon water bottle which seems to have evaporated to about 1 gallon, and a few cans of green beans and corn.

I expect that I am not the only person noticing this. I further expect that those who run grocery stores are also noticing this. If I were them, right now I might raise my prices on these "supply" things just a bit - perhaps from $2.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug of water to $3.29. Not gouging, just... taking advantage of a situation. We're adding no more than a dollar or two to each shopper's bill. Same deal with, say, canned green beans. They normally go for about 69 cents. Why not charge 79 cents? It's not like you're denying anybody any food. Nor are you making obscene profits. Is it any different than charging more for heavy coats in September, or for bathing suits in April?

Is this a problem? I don't even know whether it's happening. It would be different if we'd had a major quake that knocked out all services and somebody was charging $20 per gallon of water... wouldn't it be?

Anyway, I intend to stock up a good-sized earthquake larder in our otherwise useless garage. But I'm going to wait to buy the supplies for a week or two. Hopefully the earth will cooperate. Only God and Tom Kovach know.

2) Gas prices. They've been coming down a bit recently, which seems to fit with what I've heard inasmuch as the current supply is much larger than it normally would be at this time of year - usually, in mid-summer, refiners are scrambling to keep up, but currently (apparently) there is a larger supply than normal. Clearly, demand is down, and people are driving less. To which I say hey, cool. There are both left-wing, right-wing, and entirely non-political reasons to use less oil, all of which appeals to my semi-libertarian self.

Still, though, it seems like prices are coming down awwwfully slowly as compared to per-barrel prices. Now, according to the guy I heard on NPR, many refiners and gas station owners were slow to raise prices and were thus taking a hit, so now is their time to recoup those losses. But I have to wonder... were they ever actually selling at a loss, or were they just selling at much less of a profit than they were used to? And is this, as with me the theoretical store owner above who is willing to snag an extra 10 cents per shopper, even a problem?

It's worth noting that gas station owners buy their gas in massive multi-thousand gallon chunks when they fill up their huge underground tanks. So even if crude drops to $44 a barrel tomorrow, the station owners bought their gas when it was being refined from crude at $144. So they really *can't* drop prices... unless they can because they know that they'll be getting better prices for their shipment in a few days and they can slowly drop prices now, charging more expensive prices on the cheaper gas they'll be buying in a few days. Or... something. It's all very complicated. I know someone I can ask about it, who used to own five gas stations, but I don't see him very often so for the moment I'm asking the Internet.

3) Today I saw a sign today which had clearly been professionally painted onto a store window which said "Over a 100+ designs." That seems wrong to me. Either it's "Over a hundred" or "Over one hundred" but you can't have it both ways. Your thoughts?

Tonight we patronized ("yes, oh, what a good restaurant, we'll hang it *right here* on our refrigerator!")... er, we went to the opening night of Gordon Ramsay's new Los Angeles restaurant, called, imaginatively, Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood.

We expected some opening-night jitters, we expected things to be a bit amiss... and to a tiny extent they were. The service was a bit uneven at first. But in the end it didn't matter, the food was absolutely fantastic.

Things that were a bit off: For starters, the place was half-empty at 8:20 when we showed up. Surely a celebrity chef's opening night, on the Sunset Strip, should be more packed with celebs and, perhaps, the chef himself? But no.

Nevertheless, these things should not be important - what should be important is the food. And I can tell you, that on the first night of service, the food delivered. We would have been quite happy to order the chef's tasting menu, but unfortunately it contained far too much fish and shellfish (not to mention pineapple and coconut in the dessert portions) for me. So my wife and I were confined to the a la carte portion of the menu. Luckily, we were not disappointed.

I enjoyed a small salad of burrata mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes with some other sort of cheese and a dark and deliciously sweet sauce; then an incredibly tasty asparagus risotto with baby asparagus on top. This was followed by the only somewhat disappointing dish of the evening - duck's tongue with foie gras. The two tiny duck tongues (about the size of a small paper clip, though a bit thicker) were served on a little heap of some sort of frizzled salad. They were quite tasty, sort of fatty and meaty and salty at the same time, and so in that their small size probably served them well - you wouldn't want much more than just a tiny bite. The rest of the dish was kind of "eh." But all doubts were wiped from my mind when I received my last dish, a small rack of lamb with "pomme" puree. (Why did they call it "pomme," the French word for potato, when the rest of the ingredients were either local or English? I'll never know.) Anyway. Deeeeeelicious, that lamb. And the potatoes. Holy crap. Well done indeed, Mr. Ramsay.

My wife, however, won the food sweepstakes.

Her first dish was seared tuna, which I had a tiny bite of (I'm only allergic to shellfish, I just don't normally like fish) which was darned good. It rested on a slice of marinated daikon which gave it a delicious saltiness to set off the smokiness of the tuna. Then she went on to have what may have been the winner or at least the runner-up of the evening, quail with seared foie gras. Basically it was two little pieces of quail, one on some sort of chutney, the other on seared foie gras. And I have to tell you, the seared foie gras was one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. Holy crap. That stuff has GOT to be grilled. Then she had scallops which she says were transcendent but which I avoided in the interest of continuing to breathe, and then she got the dish I would have had if she hadn't: Pig's head. Yes, really. Now look. They don't bring you a bloody great pig head to the table. They take the meat off the head and they skin it and all and when you get it, at least at this restaurant, it's a rectangular cubish thing, about the same size and shape and color of a thick chocolate bar. Or possibly a small, thin, brick. A small thin brick of joy.

Now... how do I describe the taste of the pig's head, because regular adjectives like "delicious" and "tasty" and "yummy" really won't do... how about this: When GOD HIMSELF created pork to eat, this is the pork that GOD eats. Apparently He created pigs for the sole purpose of eating their heads. God is kind of a dick that way, actually.

Anyway it was caramelized and incredibly intensely melty pork flavored and amazing. Now, you needed a sip of wine after each bite to cut the fatty flavor in your mouth. But. Holy crap. And the portion was perfect - you couldn't have taken much more.

Value-wise, I was also impressed. We each had a fairly expensive cocktail, then I had two cheap(ish) glasses of wine and she had one more expensive glass of wine. Moreover, we ordered four items each and left stuffed, at about 200 bucks for the evening. Had we not boozed it up, I think we could have easily had three items each and left nicely filled, for probably about 100-120 bucks. Which is, of course, not cheap - but for food this good, is absolutely worth it. Not every day, not even every month, but at least once or perhaps once every now and then.

So. I asked Robert Wolke, author of the book What Einstein Told His Cook and What Einstein Told His Cook 2, about this crazy "putting oil in pasta water" idea. I didn't really expect a response, but it turns out that I actually got one.

What he had to say may surprise you (as it did me, just a tiny bit), though largely, of course, I was entirely validated.

According to Professor Wolke (and I trust him, as he is a teacher and writer of and about chemistry and physics as well as a great cook):

As you recognize, the surface tension theory is hooey. And so are the foam
theories, including those that say oil keeps the water from boiling over.
The only reason to add oil is to help keep the noodles from sticking to one
another during the early stages of cooking. They'll tend to stick if
(a)there isn't enough water or (b) it's not boiling vigorously enough to
keep them agitated, or (c) you don't stir them enough to keep them
separated until they lose some of their stickiness. If you have some oil on
the surface, you can use it to lubricate the noodles by lifting them up
through the oil layer a few times. But it's not necessary if you have lots
of vigorously boiling water and you stir the noodles for the first minute
or so.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised to learn that theoretically you *could* keep the pasta from sticking together IF AND ONLY IF you lifted the pasta out of the water some.

Which, honestly, if anybody had ever said they did, I would have grudgingly admitted that maybe there was some lubrication effect there, but people mostly just pour some oil on top of the water and expect things to be all lubed up. Lest you doubt, I have seen this exact scenario happen at least several times.

In any case, Dr. Wolke entirely, essentially, agreed with me, and that's what is important. If you have enough water, you may as well save your expensive olive oil. But even if you don't, for some reason, have enough water, just stir it some for the first minute or so. Problem freakin' solved - minus the oil. As for foam, the oil doesn't do a damned bit of good.

Poll #1056082 Delicious Breakfast
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Most Delicious Breakfast Ever

G'head, some other dang thing.

At long last, the answers to the Cooking 100 Mid-Term Exam. I also unscreened the comments, if you'd like to go back and see what people said.

#1: When cooking pasta, you should put a bit of olive oil into the water to help keep the pasta from sticking together.

Answer: False.

This is a pretty common myth, and I've gotten into arguments with people before about it. But oil and water don't mix. All you're doing is creating an oil slick on top of the water. The best way to keep your pasta from sticking together is to use a large enough pot and plenty of water, to give the starches that are released from the pasta a place to go.

#2: Speaking of boiling pasta, you should put some salt in the water because:

Answer: It seasons the pasta

Most of you got this right, but you'd be surprised at the number of people who really believe that putting salt in lowers the boiling point of the water and makes the pasta cook faster. As boffo pointed out, the first thing wrong with that is the physics. Salt raises the boiling point of the water, so theoretically the water would be hotter than it could normally get, thus cooking the pasta faster. However, a few teaspoons of salt in 6 quarts of water raises the temperature by an almost immeasurable amount - your pasta may cook faster by a few milliseconds. In plain English, "It doesn't do a damned bit of good." So salt in the water doesn't make the pasta cook faster, but it will definitely make your pasta taste better.

#3: When shopping for ingredients in the supermarket for a tomato sauce, you should almost always purchase:

Answer: Diced or crushed canned tomatoes

There may have been some confusion - when I said "Whole tomatoes," I was referring to whole, fresh tomatoes, not whole canned tomatoes. Sorry if I messed you up. Anyway. The reason to get canned tomatoes instead of the fresh ones is that canned tomatoes are picked at the absolute peak of freshness, and that tasty goodness is sealed into the can. Whearas except for a month or so out of the year, "fresh" tomatoes at the market are out of season, flavorless softballs.

#4: Whether you are roasting, pan-frying, braising, or even stewing meat, you should always brown the meat on all sides first because:

Answer: The browned bits taste good

This one fooled quite a few people. Sometimes the simple, stupid-sounding answer is right. If I'd said "The Maillard reaction which occurs when meat proteins are exposed to high, direct heat creates complex flavor molecules" I bet a lot more people would have guessed that. No amount of crust will keep any of the juices in. Can't be done. But those brown crunchy bits on the outside sure are deeeelicious.

#5: You're just finishing a delicate sauce (probably involving minced scallions and cognac - yes, THAT delicate), but on tasting, you find it needs a bit of seasoning to be perfect. What kind of salt should you use?

Answer: Any of the above are fine

If it's a soup, a sauce, or anything where the salt is going to dissolve, it doesn't matter what kind of salt you use. NaCl is NaCl. Even fancy-ass Sea Salt With Minerals From The Finest Seas In France are generally about 99.85% pure NaCl. I don't care WHAT the minerals are, if they make up only 0.15% by weight in a pinch of salt, you aren't going to taste them. You probably wouldn't even taste them if you put the stuff directly on your tongue. (But you might fool yourself into thinking you do, because by god you did NOT just waste 15 dollars on a little bottle of salt.)

Note: None of this is to say that there aren't some times when you do want to use a specific kind of salt - table salt for baking, kosher salt for seasoning meat, sea salt if you want some crunchy salt bombs on your tomatoes, stuff like that. (But I still think it's dumb to pay extra for minerals, a.k.a dirt. Oh, and here's a dirty little secret the Salt Barons aren't telling you - a lot of stuff that's sold as Sea Salt actually comes from mines. Doesn't bother me any personally, but you foodies may want to rethink your salt purchases.)

#6: Speaking of salt, if you oversalt a soup, an excellent remedy is to throw a halved raw potato in for a few minutes to soak up some of that salt:

Answer: False

It just doesn't.

#7: Short-order cooks cooking burgers on the grill often press down or put flat weights on the patties. Why?

Answer: It makes the burger cook faster, at the expense of losing some of the juiciness

Most everybody got this one right. Short-order cooks don't really care how good your burger is, if they can get it onto a plate 30 seconds faster. Can't say as I blame them, but I shake my fist at them nonetheless.

#8: When cleaning mushrooms, you should only ever wipe them with a damp towel - rinsing them in water causes them to absorb water, which can make them rubbery when cooked.

Answer: False

A lot of people, people who should know better, believe this. As misskaz notes, just about every chef on every show on the Food Network will tell you to never wash your mushrooms. And every single one of them is wrong. The only way to get your mushrooms to absorb any significant quantity of water would be to leave them soaking in a bowl of water for half an hour or something similarly ridiculous. A quick rinse under the faucet will not harm your mushrooms in the slightest.

#9: In most applications, fresh herbs are better than dried herbs.

Answer: True

Yep. There are some places where you want dried - if you're making a rub, or in something that is going to slow cook for a long time, a few other times. But mostly, you want your herbs to have as much as possible of the oils they contain which give them, and your food, a distinctive flavor.

#10: Red wine is often called for in tomato sauces because the alcohol in the wine reacts with the tomatoes to release compounds which help to flavor the sauce.

Answer: False

This is another one that a lot of people believe. While there *are* compounds in tomatoes (called "esters," I think) that can be released by alcohol, the proportion of alcohol in wine is too low to do much, at least in the quantities you'd put into a sauce. You'd need something ridiculous like 10 bottles of wine to get any appreciable amount of the esters out. The same goes for vodka in tomato sauces - there just isn't enough alcohol to do the job. So why put wine or other booze in? Because it cooks down and tastes good. There's plenty of non-tomato sauces that benefit from a bit of booze.

#11: When grilling with charcoal, regular briquette charcoal is pretty much the same as hardwood chunk charcoal.

Answer: False

I'd actually meant for this to be true, but I neglected to mention that I was talking about "how it makes the food taste." However, the two charcoals certainly do not act the same as far as how hot they burn and how long they last, so as written this is totally false.

#12: ADVANCED EXTRA CREDIT #1: In five (5) words or less, what is the basic technique for making a roux?

Got some pretty amusing answers to this one, which you're welcome to see for yourself. Here's my answer, in four words: Cook flour in fat. That's the absolute basic technique. Depending on what you're doing with it, the proportions of flour to fat can be different, the fat can be anything from butter to vegetable oil to bacon grease, and you can cook it anywhere from barely any browner than the flour itself all the way to a deep rich brown.

Why would you do this? To thicken stew, or gumbo, or soup, or sauce, or etc. If you don't cook the flour before adding liquid ingredients, it tastes floury and is likely to clump up on you. It won't cook in a dry pan, either. The fat and cooked flour also add flavor and color to your concoction. The darker you cook it, the more flavor is developed, but the less liquid it can thicken.

ADVANCED EXTRA CREDIT #2: What's in a mirepoix?

Celery, onions, and carrots. All chopped up. Props to the few of you who gave the proportions, which are 1 part carrots, 1 part celery, and 2 parts onion. I guess it's quicker to say "mirepoix" than all of that. Plus you feel all chef-ly saying "And now, I make the mirepoix." Laughing Gallicly through your nose is optional.

It's the usual French veggies used as aromatics (er, as flavoring) in just about everything. Sometimes you eat them, sometimes they're only there to give up their flavor and are removed.

Interestingly, a lot of cultures have a similar "trinity" of veggies that are commonly used - Cajun cooking uses onions, bell peppers, and celery that they actually call the Holy Trinity. Spanish cooking has the sofrito, which is garlic, onion, and tomato. Indian, Chinese, and many other cultures have these trinities.

So there you have it, the answers! Let the kibbitzing commence.

That may be the best title I've ever had in all my years of LiveJournal entries.

Anyway. I'm not grading this "exam." In fact the less you know about cooking, the more I hope you'll answer as many of these questions as you can. In a day or two I'll post the correct answers and explanations (and unscreen the comments).

Poll #1054050 Cooking 100 Mid-Term Exam
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

When cooking pasta, you should put a bit of olive oil into the water to help keep the pasta from sticking together.

Speaking of boiling pasta, you should put some salt in the water because:

When shopping for ingredients in the supermarket for a tomato sauce, you should almost always purchase:

Whether you are roasting, pan-frying, braising, or even stewing meat, you should always brown the meat on all sides first because:

You're just finishing a delicate sauce (probably involving minced scallions and cognac - yes, THAT delicate), but on tasting, you find it needs a bit of seasoning to be perfect. What kind of salt should you use?

Speaking of salt, if you oversalt a soup, an excellent remedy is to throw a halved raw potato in for a few minutes to soak up some of that salt:

Short-order cooks cooking burgers on the grill often press down or put flat weights on the patties. Why?

When cleaning mushrooms, you should only ever wipe them with a damp towel - rinsing them in water causes them to absorb water, which can make them rubbery when cooked.

In most applications, fresh herbs are better than dried herbs.

Red wine is often called for in tomato sauces because the alcohol in the wine reacts with the tomatoes to release compounds which help to flavor the sauce.

When grilling with charcoal, regular briquette charcoal is pretty much the same as hardwood chunk charcoal.

EXTRA SILLY CREDIT #1: Real men don't eat quiche.

EXTRA SILLY CREDIT #2: Which of the following are appropriate reasons to cook bacon?

ADVANCED EXTRA CREDIT #1: In five (5) words or less, what is the basic technique for making a roux?

ADVANCED EXTRA CREDIT #2: What's in a mirepoix?

1. There is a coalition called Operation Traffix, consisting of a number of California state and city agencies. Operation Traffix' main campaign is one which urges you to "Watch The Road." I'd like to suggest to this coalition that perhaps one place your banners which ask me to Watch the Road should NOT be is high on light poles over Venice Boulevard, where I have no choice but to take my eyes from the road to read your message.

2. One thing about making leg of lamb for Easter dinner is that you don't have to care about religion to do so, although you're welcome to. However, you *do* have to be committed, at least if you're making the Cook's Illustrated recipe, 'Garlic Roasted Leg of Lamb.' Because they say to trim pretty much every bit of fat off the thing, and having done so, let me tell you that it's worth it but it is not fun. It takes forever, especially if your butcher leaves the skin on (I'll know better next year). It's worth it because the usual weird, slightly "off" taste that you can get with lamb disappears more and more with every bit of fat you trim off. Also you should buy American, instead of the New Zealand stuff they sell at Costco. Not out of any misguided patriotism - I love the Kiwis, they're great folks - but grain-fed tastes way better than grass-fed.

But, and here's the actual point I was getting to, it will also leave you with a huge pile of trimmings, and no matter what, no matter how much of a hurry you are in, you absolutely must take that pile of trimmings straight out to the outside trash. Wrapping it in 5 or 6 shopping bags and maybe a thick garbage bag probably isn't such a bad idea, either. I know this because I just emptied my kitchen garbage and was greeted with the most astonishingly horrible smell the moment I started to pull the bag out. Mind you, this had only been thrown away on Sunday afternoon. The bag of trimmings was at the very bottom of the garbage bag, and I can only assume that the smell festered down there, waiting merely to be disturbed by my garbage-emptying to violently assult my nostrils. Moreover, despite the fact that bag had dripped no liquid of any sort I could see, the can itself was also infested with the foul smell.

I have now probably scandalized our neighbors by ferrying eight quarts/liters at a time of hot water (the first time with about a quarter cup of bleach) to pour into the garbage can, then shuffling out to the street with a full and extremely heavy garbage can to pour several dozen gallons of hot water (and a quarter cup of bleach) into the gutter. But it seems the foul stench is gone. I think.

So now you know: The next time YOU trim a leg of lamb, make sure you throw the trimmings into a container that's already entirely befouled and most importantly not inside your house. Or, you can just come to our house, where I've already learned. Because hey - for all the before (and after!) pain in the butt, the lamb itself was seriously delicious.

Dammit, Where Is My Food: An Examination Of Trends In Hunger In Southern California
by D.O.T. Future

In our enlightened time here at the end of the middle of the first decade of the first century of the third millenium (Common Era), food distribution is rarely cited as a pressing problem for most. And yet, in one specific Los Angeles location, food which was ordered some time ago has yet to appear, leading to a growing gnawing feeling in the stomach of the author, who was indeed already hungry when the order was placed at 2:33 PM. Now, at 3:18 PM, the author had already expected to have satiated his hunger - but instead, contrary to projected models, the hunger has in fact become more severe.

It seems unlikely that even in this parched high desert location, that the small amount of rain would account for this unaccountable delay. We can only assume that the normally speedy China Wok has burned to the ground, in which case the wontons will almost certainly be overcooked.