mamagotcha wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:

Kennyz wrote:Just bring a big pot of water to a boil, then drop the eggs in carefully and set the timer for 9 minutes and 50 seconds (because it will take you 10 seconds to get up off the couch and to the stove).

Nutty, perhaps, but it has produced consistent and excellent results for me for decades. We do a dozen or more at a time this way and I pretty much have it down to a science.

Maybe I'm being an idiot... but do you continue boiling the eggs for those whole ten minutes with your method, or are you removing the pot and letting the eggs sit for ten minutes in the water?

Off the heat once it hits a rolling boil - then 12 minutes and an immediate cooling-down. I've used the same pot forever so it may just be a function of my familiarity but it works like a charm.

mamagotcha wrote:Cooks Illustrated has been my teacher for years now. My family has suffered through a lot of my Learning Experiences, and while I've never directly poisoned anyone... let's just say there were a few failures that even the dog wouldn't finish off.

That is why Lou Malnati's is there. Used them many times.

toria wrote:Aren't "loose" boiled eggs considered soft boiled eggs?

Hi,

My Grandfather would tell the waiter, "I want my eggs to look like snot." This is looser than most soft boiled eggs: loose egg white in addition to a loose yolk. He was a warm and breathing definition of eccentric.

Regards,

mhill95149 wrote:I can make grilled cheese!

Today's lunch, grilled cheese with pancetta.

You've inspired me to try again! (I was doing mine with prosciutto, but I also thawed out some caramelized onions with the idea of doing a grilled goat cheese & caramelized onion sandwich. That stupid "America's Next Great Restaurant" show (which has a grilled cheese sandwich competitor) + a great place in Petoskey, MI, (that I'm blanking on the name of, but which serves a great trio of grilled cheese sandwiches) has put me in the grilled cheese mood. I will perfect my technique!

Hi,

This thread influenced my dinner: I had a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn't understand the nuances of a grilled cheese sandwich. I liked them, but didn't understand how they were made.

Subject: School Lunch Memories

Cathy2 wrote:The how-to's of grilled cheese escaped me until I attended a church retreat in 8th grade. The Catholic church school provided cooked lunches for their students and for this occasion the kids who went to public schools. The highlight of the day was seeing grilled cheese sandwiches in process.

***

Cynthia wrote:My trick for identifying hard-cooked eggs is adding to the water before boiling a couple of pieces of those crisp, pale brown layers that enclose an onion. You don't need much. It will turn the shells pale brown, so you never again have to wonder which ones are hard cooked.

Years ago in another life, I boiled some eggs to take with me. When it was time to leave, I took the eggs from the refrigerator and popped them into my coat pocket.

A friend began teasing me, "Are you sure those are cooked eggs?" "Yes, I boiled them last night." "Are you really sure those eggs are cooked?" This conversation went in circles a few times until I decided to demonstrate. I slapped my hand over my pocket to prove they were hard, then gasped as I felt the eggs break. The tearful laughter took quite a while to settle down.

I now mark cooked eggs with a pen. Onions skins are a fine idea, too.

Regards,

chgoeditor wrote:
You've inspired me to try again! (I was doing mine with prosciutto, but I also thawed out some caramelized onions with the idea of doing a grilled goat cheese & caramelized onion sandwich. !

That sounds really good! I make a pizza with goat cheese and caramelized onions

I had some prosciutto in the 'fridge but the pancetta was a few days older, first in first out....

toria wrote:Aren't "loose" boiled eggs considered soft boiled eggs?

In between hard-cooked and soft-boiled are oeufs mollets. The white is hard enough so you can peel the eggs whole; the yolks thicken but still remain runny. Timing is tricky.

Some previous eggy threads:

Coddling eggs

Egg salad

Chinese tea eggs

For hard-cooking eggs, I remain an advocate of the cover with cold water, bring to simmering, remove from the heat method. All of the others rely on room-temperature eggs for even cooking and precise timing for removing from the hot water. This method lets you take them straight from the fridge and it doesn't matter if they sit a few minutes too long.

I also disagree with the "butter the bread" grilled cheese folks. I melt the butter and then add the bread, often assembling the sandwich in the frying pan. And I use good cheese or it isn't worth eating. If it isn't a very melty cheese, sometimes I cook the bread a bit on what will be the inner side, so the cheese contacts hot buttered bread.

LAZ wrote:For hard-cooking eggs, I remain an advocate of the cover with cold water, bring to simmering, remove from the heat method. All of the others rely on room-temperature eggs for even cooking and precise timing for removing from the hot water. This method lets you take them straight from the fridge and it doesn't matter if they sit a few minutes too long.

Nope. I don"t know what "even cooking" means when it comes to boiled eggs, but I take 'em straight from fridge into boiling water. Then into cold water 10 minutes later. Done, and perfect every time.

Thank you for the boiled egg guidance, Kennyz.

Me too on omelettes. I can't seem to get any part of it right: egg quantity, timing, additions prep, cheese melting, folding, nothing.

Pork chops. I can do pork shoe soles, but not pork chops.

Bread doesn't usually work out for me, or pizza dough. I wanted to get better at both this year, but would be content just to be able to do pizza dough decently.

Frozen pot stickers - I follow the instructions on the package to the letter, but they still fall apart at the end and I'm left eating little naked pork meatballs and torn remnants of what should have been the wrapper. I've had my best luck so far with steaming them, but still, not much luck.

I've pretty much given up on soaking dry beans. I seem to always be the ones who bought the really old ones that never soften completely no matter how long I soak them. Canned beans are not as cheap, but still cheap.

mhill95149 wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:
You've inspired me to try again! (I was doing mine with prosciutto, but I also thawed out some caramelized onions with the idea of doing a grilled goat cheese & caramelized onion sandwich. !

That sounds really good! I make a pizza with goat cheese and caramelized onions

I had some prosciutto in the 'fridge but the pancetta was a few days older, first in first out....

I love making pizza with goat cheese & caramelized onions.

Well, I tried the grilled cheese again today. Maybe part of my problem is that rather than master the basic white bread & American cheese, I tried to go straight to more sophisticated stuff. Things I learned today:
1. Butter that's too cold will tear the bread
2. Goat cheese doesn't work well with very soft bread, particularly soft bread that's been torn while attempting to spread cold butter on it.
3. The softer or more generous the amount of cheese that's used, the more you need a bread with structural integrity. Soft breads & soft cheeses may not work well together.

(Seriously, I can caramelize onions -- the 5 hour method -- and I can't make a grilled cheese sandwich? It amuses me, which is good because otherwise I'd be very frustrated.)

I have always caramelized onions on the stove, but I recently read a book called "Lunch in Paris" by Elizabeth Bard. In it she gives a method for making onion soup where she cooks a bunch of sliced onions and some herbs in a covered dutch oven at 400 degrees for an hour, sets the lid askew and continues cooking them for another 90 minutes. After that time is up, she finishes them on the stove for the last 10 or 20 minutes. I tried it recently, I was just going to caramelize the onions and use them in other things, but I had some stock handy, so I ended up making the soup after all. It was delicious!

My SO & I became infatuated w/ French onion soup after the recent blizzard. She found a recipe somewhere where the onions were baked/roasted/what have you in the oven low and slow for a long time. We tried it and the results were fantastic! It seems to increase the 'OK' window--you don't have to keep such a close eye on the onions. It's great for doing a large amount of onions. We're sold!

bean wrote:My SO & I became infatuated w/ French onion soup after the recent blizzard. She found a recipe somewhere where the onions were baked/roasted/what have you in the oven low and slow for a long time. We tried it and the results were fantastic! It seems to increase the 'OK' window--you don't have to keep such a close eye on the onions. It's great for doing a large amount of onions. We're sold!

I do a low & slow version on the stovetop that's a bit more labor intensive. I'll have to try this method.

If grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee fall into the category of "things everyone but me can cook," then caramelized onions fall into two categories: "Things a lot of people think they can cook, but can't," (the people who think it's just a matter of browning them) and "things that are really much easier to cook than most people expect."

I finally got the hang of hard boiling an egg from Geo in a different thread:

In their inimitable empiricist manner, Cook's Illustrated tested all the usual suspects on the way to the perfect boiled egg. It is surprisingly like method #3, above.

Put six cold eggs in a sauce pan in one layer [and before kennyz asks me for the H2O mass, in grams, let me say this: pretty much cover the entire bottom of the pan with eggs, eh?! What's that mean, a 1.5-2 liter saucepan? Let's stipulate that.] Fill with cold H2O to a height of eggs + 1 in [that's 2.54 cm, kennyz.... just trying to be precise, here. ] Raise rapidly to the boil. Cover, and remove from heat. Wait 10 mins., then shock the eggs by dropping them into an ice-water bath.

It works like a champ, time and again. No green ring, either.

Geo

I made egg salad last night and it was horrible. I like to add a little celery. Instead of chopping the celery by hand, I used a food processor. After just a couple pulses, the celery became too fine and almost turned the salad with my perfect eggs a bit green. (I know, perfect for St. Patty's day, but it gave the salad an odd taste and texture.) I remember reading here that most posters just mash the egg with salt and pepper. I did that, but added my celery mush, mustard powder and sweet pickle relish. I think here is an example where less is more.

Also, I should be able to make a turkey, but I can't (or should I say won't...maybe I should move this to the food phobia thread). I have never made one. If I tried, I would need a very good recipe with detailed instructions.

Turkey's easy as pie. Just clean the thing, make sure you dig the bag of guts out of the ass end, brush it with olive oil, dust with herbs and spices, place in a roasting pan on a rimmed baking sheet, and stick in a preheated 325-375 degree oven. After 2 hours (375) to 4 hours (325), stick a thermometer in the thigh (not touching bone) and see if it's about 175. Or check if the bone is visible in the leg; if so, it's done. Of course, that's the simple version - there are glazes, bastes, stuffings, etc. that I never bothered with.

HI,

Grilled cheese
- I don't bother to butter the bread, I cannot wait for it to warm enough to spread. Instead, I melt the butter in the pan.

Egg salad
- I use a box grater on coarse or fine to deal with cutting it up.
- I never put celery in an egg salad. If I did, I would mince it with my French knife.

Regards,

Grilled cheese- I don't bother to butter the bread, I cannot wait for it to warm enough to spread. Instead, I melt the butter in the pan.

Genius!

One of the emailed cooking newsletters (maybe Cooks' Illustrated) had an article on grilled cheese sandwiches this week. It suggested brushing the bread with melted butter and then pressing the sandwich down with a weighted cake pan while it cooks. I may give it another shot for lunch today. I'm thinking of using a TJ's cheddar with caramelized onions & some prosciutto. Cross your fingers for me!

I use a cast iron bacon press. Since I make bacon in the oven this is all it gets used for...

Eggs are my weekend breakfast "treat" and to soft boil, with firm whites but runny yolk, I put the egg in boiling water for 7 & 1/2 - never more than 8 minutes. My toaster takes exactly 3 & 1/2 for perfectly browned wheat toast.

For hard boil , as for egg salad, you cannot go wrong with Jacques Pepin's directions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idAUo_fyHW4

a pinprick on the rounded edge to release air pressure and 10 minutes in a gentle boil. Then into ice water.

He says to leave in the water till cool and that will "dissipate the sulphur". Gawd, I love this guy's videos. If anyone can tell me a better chef to watch for home cooking tips and techniques I'd love to hear about it - Jacques is the master.

Hard-boiled eggs? I'm sticking with with what Geo (quoted above) recommended. (BTW, the green ring, so far as I know, comes from sulfides (inc. H2S as an aromatic) due to long cooking times; so it's not the cold-shock that prevents the ring, it's the short cooking time.)

The kangaroo wok is perfect for making light, fluffy scrambled eggs. A friend (from Oz, natch!) cooks not-over-whisked eggs (with a tsp of oil whipped into the half dozen) very very slowly in quite a bit of butter. Just barely rubber-spatula'ing the eggs up the incline of the wok. Wonderful stuff!

French press coffee. I fill a standard coffee grinder (sizes don't vary much) with beans so that there's a summit of beans a little bit (half inch?) over the plane of the grinder opening, grind/chop until I get to the size I want. I've got just boiled water in the press, warming the whole assembly up. Emptying water I add the coffee, and enough just-recently-boiled water to come to w/in, say, three-quarters of the rim, stir twice or thrice, and put the nicely warmed metal parts in place. Three minutes later, I press. Why three? might you ask? Well, because the bitter coffee principles (tannins, for the most part) don't come out as much with a short brew time. I use more coffee, and less time, to get strength but less bitter. Solubility here is the issue.

Grilled cheese. I've made a study of this one, actually. As noted above, the perfect melting cheese-like substance is Velveeta. It has a higher melting temperature than real cheeses, and, IIRC, has some processing 'tricks' that aid melting. But the best part of this is that Velveeta is a great solvent (a fact made use of by N Y Times in their mac 'n cheese recipe) for other cheeses. Hence, if you interlay strips, or interlayer slices of Velveeta and real cheese, you'll get a great melt.
Use a hot non-stick pan, stick a good blob of butter on the top of the sammich, push it onto the hot surface, and slide it all around with hard pushing. That spreads the hot butter nice and evenly. Oh yum!

What can't I cook? .... I've *never* learned to grill a steak properly. There, now it's out. Pls don't tell Gary!

Geo

I wanted to share this for those who have trouble with hard-boiled eggs: boil them in your electric tea kettle! Just drop them in, with an inch or so of water over them, turn it on, and once it's come to a boil, leave them for 12-15 more minutes, then pour out the hot water and refill with cold water/ice to cool them. Voila! Tried it tonight to quickly make hard-boiled eggs for a potato salad, and it worked a treat.

mamagotcha wrote:I wanted to share this for those who have trouble with hard-boiled eggs: boil them in your electric tea kettle! Just drop them in, with an inch or so of water over them, turn it on, and once it's come to a boil, leave them for 12-15 more minutes, then pour out the hot water and refill with cold water/ice to cool them. Voila! Tried it tonight to quickly make hard-boiled eggs for a potato salad, and it worked a treat.

I usually cook the eggs with the potatoes. I will bring it to a boil, then lower the heat until the eggs are cooked. Once the eggs are out, I bring the potatoes back to a boil until done.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Years ago in another life, I boiled some eggs to take with me. When it was time to leave, I took the eggs from the refrigerator and popped them into my coat pocket.

A friend began teasing me, "Are you sure those are cooked eggs?" "Yes, I boiled them last night." "Are you really sure those eggs are cooked?" This conversation went in circles a few times until I decided to demonstrate. I slapped my hand over my pocket to prove they were hard, then gasped as I felt the eggs break. The tearful laughter took quite a while to settle down.

I now mark cooked eggs with a pen. Onions skins are a fine idea, too.

Regards,

Just another tip on this topic: if you are unsure if an egg is hard boiled or just not cooked you can spin them. A hard boiled egg will spin on its side for a good amount of time, an uncooked egg will spin a few times then stop.

I spin them on their end, and if it stays upright it's done, and if it immediately tips over it's not done.

Fish scares me. I'm really don't want to spend $$ and then overcook it, so I avoid it at home.

I also tend to overcook veggies. I like veggies that are a bit more than crisp tender -- and trying to get that right -- not crisp, not mushy texture is tough. I have yet to master it, although I have hit it a couple of times. Sheer luck.

While I can make pizza dough pretty well -- I cannot, for the life of me, stretch it out without making it look really unappetizing. I mean -- I cannot make a pie! It's the bane of my existence and makes me crazy because I really love good pizza. The elasticity of it really confounds me.

For the best grilled cheese and bacon, get one of there Mirromatic Whiz grills.
Usually $5-10 in thrift stores:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-1970S-M ... 3a81977496

For omelets, I actually have a new silly gadget that the local cub scouts love. One of those Rollie verticle egg cookers. I usually do a few dozen ahead of time with peppers and sausage, and just heat them up when "cabin camping" and put into grilled hot dog buns. No silverware or large clean up required. To be honest, I also have a hamburger mold to make them shaped like hot dogs (too much pain in my hands to do it manually). Works out great as well with being able to cook them with hot dogs on a commercial roller. Quick, easy, no clean up from feeding the kids.