The lime zest was more subtle but very good. I’d use lemon zest, if i had it.
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…ahem…for the HAL-i-but.
I couldn’t let the dad joke just sit there unsaid.
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Braised some chicken quarters with leeks and white beans, threw in some peas at the end. If you do this in a sauté pan you can keep the skin crispy. This time I used white wine, thyme and cumin, but it works really well with calvados, plenty of onions and sautéed apples.
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That can come from old baking soda, or the wrong ratio of butter milk to soda.
More often over mixing/wrong flour, if the bread gets to much gluten built up the mild leavening from the baking soda and butter milk can’t lift it. And the loaf ends up doughy, and dense. I’ve had luck mixing 2:1 pastry flour to whole wheat, or 2:1 AP flour with pastry flour. Irish flours are lower protein, ~10%, compared to American flour (~11-12% for standard AP, and our whole wheat tends to be bread flour at 12+%).
Or say fuck it and buy Odlums, it’s available online. The Plain Cream Flour is Irish AP, and the Extra Coarse Whole Meal is what you use for brown bread. King Arthur Flour makes a suitable approximation of Irish style Whole Meal, and their Pastry Blend is very close to the protien content of Odlums.
Cutting some butter into the flour as in making biscuits can also help control gluten. You want to mix the minimum necessary to bring the dough together. Then shape and bake promptly, the longer the flour sits in contact with water the more gluten it’ll produce.
Other reasons could be baking too low. It’s a quick bread and some of the leavening comes from steam. The recipes I use call for 400-450, and I usually bake at 425 since it seems to work well with my pizza stone.
It could also be the slots. Too many of them, and not deep enough or clean enough. Typically you just cut a cross, too many cuts and it may not hold together well enough to rise. If they aren’t deep enough the bread can’t expand and it’ll mush itself. You want at least 1/3 of the way through the thickness of the round. And you can take it as far as 2/3. I like 1/3 to a 1/2. If the cuts aren’t clean, the dough can kind of smear, and seal itself. So the bread won’t rise properly.
Or just tell people they’re farls, and it’s supposed to be like that. They won’t know.
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Any suggestions for a good set of non-stick and relatively durable and non-carcinogenic skillets? Two is enough, though three would be okay.
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We have the Tramontina professional. PFOA free. Works well and is fairly cheap.
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Have you ever tried Penzey’s Zatar? It can be used pretty much everywhere, but my one way gets it sprinkled on toasted crunchy bread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Great with soup, dishes where you want to sop things up, or even just as is. Delish!
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… We had a Scanpan ctx which I really wanted to love, but after a while, it began to peel. Plus it was $100+ so I didn’t want to take a chance on getting another one and have it happen again. The friend who recommended it, however, seems to love his.
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The Penzeys order is here!
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The white ceramic non-sticks have done well for me. They’re available in lots of price points; mine are Green Pans from Target. They are reasonably durable as long as you don’t use them a lot over really high heat and avoid using any cooking spray oils with lecithin in them.
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Yessir. I have a full set of the same ones that have lasted 6 years of frequent use. did not know about the lecithin, but I never use ‘cooking spray’. yuck.
goes without saying, never use a metal anything on these. scratches = sticks.
yet even 6 years on, I can scramble 3 eggs in a tiny bit of cowbutter with no stick. as you mentioned, lower temps work best, so use a wok to hi-temp stir fry, or similar.
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Yes, I have a bag of it in the pantry right now, as a matter of fact. 
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Coconut rice, lentils, and curry shrimp. Adaptation of a Tyler Florence recipe. Pretty good, once I adjusted for the fact that I mistook dry mustard for turmeric.
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First time grilling tofu last night and came out really good! Made a spiced tandoori-flavored oil by heating up oil with garlic, paprika, cumin, coriander, turmeric and lime juice. Painted it on both sides of drained, compressed extra firm tofu, then grilled on each side for about 2-3 minutes each. Added a little plain yogurt to the little bit of extra spiced oil and used as a garnish, sprinkled over with chopped scallions. It came out just like the pictures, a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth!
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Bacon and cabbage, with mashed potatoes and parsley sauce. Rounded out with a homebrew IPA. Cabbage, potatoes, onions and parsley from the garden. Yum!
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Is Penzeys a good place to order spices? I can’t seem to find dill seeds locally.
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New ferment. The last batch of pickles came out bland with this weird aftertaste. Even though it had 2 heads of garlic in a gallon. No crunch either- I didn’t put a tannin source in. This new one is in a quart jar with cucumber from the store. No idea what the cultivar is, but nice medium skin and sweet flavor. Placed in sea salt brine to see if the weird aftertaste is from the Redman’s salt I’ve been using. Added fresh dill, 1/2 head of garlic, tablespoon of mustard seeds, tablespoon of peppercorns, part of an oak leaf, and (on the advice of an article I read) 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar to get the party started.
Next to the pickles are the garden pepper experiments. Pickle brine with Redman’s salt. Jalapeño one has garlic and onion. I tired it yesterday and the flavor of the peppers is developing well (still has that odd aftertaste). Nice crunch so the oak leaf seems to work. Onions are tasteless.
I did not sample the habenero/ginger/garlic/onion one but my guinea pig reports nice flavor and crunch on the peppers. He didn’t manage to extract an onion. Giving them both a few more days to sour a bit.
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Penzey’s is great, stores or mail order. Good quality, fair prices and good people who own it.
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Sounds wonderful! I’ll have to get with the person who actually cooks meals in our house and see if he needs anything.
He cooks. I only make messes with salt brine or vinegar and food 
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