What I learned today (Take Two)

[Jenise]

So I did some digging here. Walmart shows ground lamb at the same price Karen quoted, 6.88, but it's also shown as Out of Stock as are all other lamb products so I'm guessing the fact is that, at least here, they don't carry lamb at all and that's an old number. Fred Meyer charges 8.49/lb and Whole Foods Market asks $10.49. So I called the store where I paid $20 and asked the manager how in the hell they can charge that much for ground lamb when we can buy racks for $18/lb. The store manager said I don't know ask the meat manager, and she transferred me to Sven. Sven said he didn't know, that "the price is set by Art in the main office". I told him to tell Art that the price is ridiculous and he'll probably never sell another pound of lamb in this town again. Sven said "allright!" and hung up.

Unfortunately the store Sven works at is a 7 mile drive away and all the others are about 20 miles, so I can't say I'll never shop there again but we only go there for the occasional thing we're out of. It's never where I do my main shopping.

Ground lamb $9.49/lb at local Stop and Shop, think it was on sale $7.49 last week

So I did some digging here. Walmart shows ground lamb at the same price Karen quoted, 6.88, but it's also shown as Out of Stock as are all other lamb products

I remember a story from many years ago. Some product that normally sold for (say) %5 went scare temporarily and was only available at one store. At a price of $10. One customer complained, "But X across the street sells it for $5." The shopkeeper replied, "If I were out of stock I could sell it for $5, too."

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

When I was a child, I loved LOVED a baby biscuit called Zwieback. I may not have spelled it correctly, maybe it's Zweibach. A Nabisco product I think, a box with a yellow wrapper and a picture of a baby's face. Plain, lightly and airy, they might have been teething biscuits. You're supposed to dip them in tea or milk which, of course, I would have never done but I bought them as a snack for myself well into adulthood. Eventually they disappeared; I haven't seen them in 30 years or so.

Well I shopped today at our new IndiaMart and learned that what I called Zwieback is also called rusk, and they had an aisle full--different makers and some flavored (I noticed fennel), some unsweetened and some only lightly sweetened but the pictures matched my memory. So I bought a package. And oh my, they're just what I remember!!!!

When I was a child, I loved LOVED a baby biscuit called Zwieback. I may not have spelled it correctly, maybe it's Zweibach.

"Zwieback" is correct, although it does have other names. German origin and means twice (Zwie) baked (back), because the toast is basked twice to get that hard crisp texture.

I loved those crackers too, I will have to look for them.
https://www.amazon.com/Brandt-Zwieback- ... B006C0UW78

[Jenise]

Thank you Rahsaan! And I get it about the twice-baked, the Indian girl at the store actually called them 'biscotti'. She was super helpful--I was trying to understand 'Idli rice' . It looked arborio-ish and I asked her if it was the same, she wasn't sure but we got into this long conversation about how Idli is made and eaten--I've never had it. I bought a frozen version she recommended to try along with a sambahr for dipping. This is a very cool new store in our town and a real paradise for dried legumes and spices.

Karen, go ahead and try some! I'm sitting here chomping at the bit to go down and grab a few for breakfast. So good.

Zwieback is popular across eastern Europe. As Jenise discovered, it's just one form of a whole class of crunchy twice-baked biscuits called a rusk in British English. They are very popular as food for teething babies. As a young kid I loved Zwieback. Every Indian grocery I've been in has a whole aisle dedicated to rusks and other English-style biscuits.

-Paul W.

I am posting this review from a poster on Rancho Gordo for Bianco Dinapoli whole peeled tomatoes with basil. I found it interesting about the calcium chloride.
Best Canned Tomatoes

I have been able to get these from a local farm store here in Arizona. They are so good! The NY Times rated them the best, even over some fancy imported canned tomatoes. They do not have the added calcium chloride that most American canned tomatoes have. According to America's Test Kitchen, it's the calcium chloride that interferes with softening beans when cooking, not the tomatoes themselves. You will love these if you want to cook dried beans with tomatoes.

BIANCO DINAPOLI WHOLE PEELED TOMATOES $ 6.75

I didn't know about CaCl in canned tomatoes. The packaged tomatoes I buy are Pomi brand and come in a cardboard box. They have only one ingredient listed on the label: tomatoes.

So we can add calcium chloride to the list of ingredients that interfere with the proper softening of dried beans. I have an Indian cookbook that warns against adding acidic things such as lime or lemon juice or tamarind to dals until after the dal has cooked to the desired softness.

-Paul W.

I didn't know about CaCl in canned tomatoes. The packaged tomatoes I buy are Pomi brand and come in a cardboard box. They have only one ingredient listed on the label: tomatoes.

So we can add calcium chloride to the list of ingredients that interfere with the proper softening of dried beans. I have an Indian cookbook that warns against adding acidic things such as lime or lemon juice or tamarind to dals until after the dal has cooked to the desired softness.

-Paul W.

These days I do not add anything to my dried beans except I use chicken stock to cook and always in my slow cooker. I used to add onions and garlic at the start of cooking but did not think the texture of the bean was what I wanted. I learned to cut an onion in half and add it whole to the beans. I love it! Beans are bright and look beautiful while still having the great pot liquor that many beans have. Adding tomatoes is done towards the end, along with salt, pepper, and oregano. I prefer the flavor of the bean to be the main flavor.

I add salt to my cooking water for dried beans.

"According to Cook's Illustrated, it all has to do with the calcium and magnesium ions in bean skins. As the beans soak and cook, sodium ions in salted water will gradually replace some of those calcium and magnesium ions, which in turn allows for greater water penetration into bean cells. This is particularly true of the tough outer skins of beans.

When unsalted beans cook, their interiors can end up swelling faster than their skins can keep up with, resulting in skins that rupture instead of enlarging along with the rest of the bean. Salted beans will grow proportionally, resulting in fully tender, creamy, intact beans that are well seasoned throughout.

Moral of the story? Make sure to salt your bean-soaking water to the tune of one tablespoon per quart (15 grams per liter), and season the bean-cooking water as well. Just don't season the cooking water too heavily—it can reduce and become too salty to eat as the beans cook."

[Jenise]

Salted beans will grow proportionally, resulting in fully tender, creamy, intact beans that are well seasoned throughout.

And that to me is the whole point, pun intended. I want a whole, intact bean.

[Jenise]

So what I learned yesterday, like I didn't already know it, is to buy everything I might need and then return what I don't want vs. presuming that if I buy two the other six will still be there three days from now when I come back to buy the rest.

Like I didn't already know that.

So I'm making Bobotie (a curried meat pie) for a South African wine tasting. The way this pie works is that the filling is made with cooked meat, similar to a shepherds pie, then baked with a custard topping. Could be a complication due to the fact that I'll have to make it at home and then drive it for an hour and a half to our destination. I can finish it on site but I need to be able to transport it without bacteria risk of too much time at room temp and all that. And I didn't want it to look like reheated leftovers. I want it to have the look and feel of a fresh cook. Though the dish is the homiest of comfort foods, I need it to be classy.

So I've been testing and tweaking recipes and meanwhile considering how I'll cook/plate it. I had intended to do a traditional rectangular casserole, but got the idea of going with ramekins while shopping on the edge of town where I found myself on another mission and seeing 10 and 12 oz ramekins in a special little housewares section this store added since I was last in there. I love ramekins. I have a whole drawer devoted to them, but I don't have this size. And complicating things as almost no one but me can, on Friday I bought both sizes to try, two of each, prepared to go back and blow another $24 (they're about $4 ea) on the rest of whichever size I chose if indeed I even decided to go this route.

So a few days back I made a version of the filling that I really liked--half beef and half turkey to tune down the meat fat--and divided that into two ramekins and one 8 x 8 square casserole. This go was all about serving size (was 10 enough, 12 too much?) and the custard. Recipes for the custard were pretty uniformly 2 eggs to one or one and a half cups milk, and since they were virtually all written by housewives as one big casserole there weren't any observations about why one was better than the other. So I had to play with it. And what I discovered is that with one additional egg and a little flour the custard, which sat flat on the square casserole puffed up into sensual little pleasure domes in the round baby souffle dishes. It brought the 'ooh' to the 'la la'.

And of course, that cinched it. And it's a perfect plan: make the filling at home the day before, load it into the ramekins, chill overnight, allow them to return to room temp on the way to the destination, there add the custard and bake the final 30 minutes for a fresh and lovely presentation. VOILA! So yesterday I scurried back to that store to buy the rest of the ramekins.

And they were gone. I can't believe it. This store is in the lowest net worth area of town. It's not like there are all these fancy people over there making creme brulees with their food stamp money. But unbelievably, someone did. So I was up at 6:00 this morning, searching on my phone in bed with Jane the cat on my feet, looking for six more.

Well I found them, but the cost to me is about double what I anticipated.

So I'm screwed, but I'll do it. My reasoning for a lot of things these days is that because of my husband's illness I can't travel to Paris but what I can do is spend what I have to in order to bring Paris to me. This is just another one of many.

Here is a link discussing when to add salt to cooking beans. I have read too much regarding this subject, and I think it has a lot to do with the age and type of bean. I have my favorites, and for me salting later renders me the results I want. Rancho Gordo beans are fresh and when they are sold out, they are gone until the next season. I recently ordered King City Pink Bean....because of the reviews and statements about the great pot liquor. I will be cooking them soon.

https://food52.com/hotline/23883-can-sh ... -the-beans

[Jenise]

Yesterday I went to a memorial for a dear friend who shockingly passed away--she was thin, vital, athletic, daring and the picture of health, herself a doctor, only 51; she was at a car race one night and dead two days later of pancreatitis. Anyway, her fiancee made the food for the memorial. Born in Tiajuana and still with a very strong accent, he made chicken tostadas (a very smart dish for a large group!) and made the pico de gallo too. To which he added diced cucumber! He said (and here is the "learned" part) that it's very common among Mexicans to do that, though none of us whities had experienced it before. Is there a compelling reason why to do that? Not really, but no reason to not go there either.

Are you saying the cucumber had something to do with her getting ill? There was a reall of cucumbers just last week I read about it.
As I recall, the states mentioned in the recall did not include CA OR WA and a few others.

[Jenise]

No no no. Faith died a month ago. The memorial was Sunday. I've just never seen cucumber in a pico de gallo before.

Of course, pico de Guy-o Fieri will have barbecue sauce and bacon bits.

No no no. Faith died a month ago. The memorial was Sunday. I've just never seen cucumber in a pico de gallo before.

Really? I always put cucumber in my pico. I bought it at the local market last week and it also had cucumber. It does add a nice crunch and freshness. I have also made it with zucchini.

No no no. Faith died a month ago. The memorial was Sunday. I've just never seen cucumber in a pico de gallo before.

Really? I always put cucumber in my pico. I bought it at the local market last week and it also had cucumber. It does add a nice crunch and freshness. I have also made it with zucchini.

Gotta agree with Karen.

And when I used to have real tomatoes, I occasionally made a wonderful pico de gallo that had cukes in it.

I add salt to my cooking water for dried beans.

I never add salt to beans.

Nor do I. Osmosis (absorption of water by the dried beans) is a big part of the cooking process. Salting the water will slow that down. Not what I would want, given how long some dried beans take to cook, chickpeas probably being the worst in the time-to-cook department. I add any necessary salt after the beans are done.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

No no no. Faith died a month ago. The memorial was Sunday. I've just never seen cucumber in a pico de gallo before.

Really? I always put cucumber in my pico. I bought it at the local market last week and it also had cucumber. It does add a nice crunch and freshness. I have also made it with zucchini.

Intersting! But nope, never saw it before. Strange since several of you are familiar with it. Alfredo contended, and he's not wrong, that the cucumber is a cooling element (he typically adds a lot of jalapenos though he didn't this time as he was worried about scaring the gringos).