Recent content by TheMetalChef

<--- is all about a big water stock and a long simmer. Whether veal, beef, or chicken, I'd rather give that pile 'o' flavor as much time as necessary to extract at low heat. Of course, I pretty much go straight from water & bones to consomme by delivering a healthy amount of loose meat to...

His method doesn't work particularly well for long grain Jasmin or Basmati type rices. Temperature is too high for those dense grains to really absorb enough liquid.

A risotto is supposed to be al dente. Cook it past this point and it turns to gummy gluey mess. If you're just making regular rice and it's coming out al dente, I suggest you make sure that you are: 1) Using a pot with a tight lid. 2) Adding sufficient water at the outset. 3) Not cooking it...

English Toffee - Recipe File - Cooking For Engineers It's the same stuff, just the sugar is cooked to hard crack stage to get that crisp consistency as opposed to the chewy "caramel" consistency some confectioners use for plain toffee.

Wasn't directed at you. Was aimed at the OP trying to figure out how to make a "Heath bar" when it's easier for them to find out how to make toffee. :chef:

Heath bars are toffee covered with chocolate. You'd be more likely to be successful at your endeavor if you first learned how to make toffee (much more reliable recipes out there by searching "how to make toffee" than by searching "how to make heath bars"). Once you've mastered toffee, coating...

Oxidation is them being exposed to air and losing flavor/getting hard/etc. Mold on candy is an extremely rare phenomenon, because usually the sugar and/or acid content is too high to promote such growth. Best anti-mold agents in candy making are either higher sugar content or the addition of...

The function of a preservative in most candy making is to inhibit mold and bacteria growth. Are your candies going moldy? If they're just losing their flavor after a week or two, you need to come up with a better storage medium. I suggest a vacuum seal system. Lots of those available out...

If it's already been slow cooked in liquid for eight hours, browning the outside won't accomplish the desired effect, because the natural sugars have already been pretty much extracted from the meat via osmosis. Whether it would "last" or not was a question you should have asked about the eight...

Which is why I prefaced my comment with "I don't know about you". :wink:

Worked for me. My neighbors even put up with a hardcore thrash band in our backyard on a Sunday morning shoot because the ribs were so good. And I live in a predominantly black neighborhood! :lol:

Well, it's definitely a backyard type of thing. If you dress it up proper, it can actually look pretty spiffy.

I heard that! See, that would be where my "Used Fridge" smoker application would come into play. Take an old fridge and cut out basically every bit of molded anything. Leave the insulation, it will help. Remove the divider wall between the fridge and freezer part too. Cut a hole large on...

I know exactly the feeling. I bought an entire sack of navy beans from a local Amish shop, did the overnight soak on about twelve pounds of them, and cooked them for what ended up being a total of nearly 36 hours before I gave up. Never softened, never broke down, and eventually the molasses...

I guess I should have added some smileys to the OP, because it was intended to be more of a humorous exposition on why exactly I hate the infernal devices. The "Is there any hope" part was supposed to be suggestive of something seriously not right in my brain, that I would refer to a cooking...