Good Hot Black Coffee

Mr. Beer Is Here

2009-12-09T10:17:00.006-06:00

Thanks to a last-year Christmas gift of a Mr. Beer kit, I've entered the world of home beer brewing.

The two batches I've made so far have come out pretty well, and it's also kind of fun.

I just wish I got along better with alcohol, because I like the taste of beer, but not always the way alcohol makes me feel (and none of the non-alcoholic beers I've bought and tried - and I've tried them all - taste very good to me).

Abid Clever Coffee Dripper

2009-11-23T10:38:00.002-06:00

I think I see one of these in my near future:

Abid Clever Coffee Dripper from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.

(FYI - the commercial tune is "Ziggy Stardust")

St. Arbucks

2009-11-20T07:38:00.000-06:00

Tell Me It Ain't So!

2009-07-30T08:41:00.001-05:00

And just when we were getting ready to start an organic garden:

Organic food is no healthier, study finds

Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:29pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

"A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance," said Alan Dangour, one of the report's authors.

"Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."

The results of research, which was commissioned by the British government's Food Standards Agency, were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Sales of organic food have fallen in some markets, including Britain, as recession has led consumers to cut back on purchases.

The Soil Association said in April that growth in sales of organic products in Britain slowed to just 1.7 percent in 2008, well below the average annual growth rate of 26 percent over the last decade, following a plunge in demand at the end of the year.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Simon Jessop)

Healing Herbs

2009-06-20T08:12:00.003-05:00

8 Commonly Used Herbs and their Healing Properties
By Dr. Maoshing Ni
Posted on Wed, Jun 17, 2009, 5:14 pm PDT

Dr. Mao's Secrets of Longevity
by Dr. Maoshing Ni a Yahoo! Health Expert for Alternative Medicine

Visit Alternative Medicine Home »
More By This Expert
4 Exercises to Sharpen Your Brain
8 Commonly Used Herbs and their Healing Properties
5 Secrets to Preserve Your Eyesight

Herbs have been part of every culture and medical tradition since the earliest humans walked the earth for treatment of everything from colds to digestive issues to depression. You may be surprised to learn that the herbs you have been regularly using to infuse your food with appetizing flavors also have amazing healing abilities. They are easily grown in your own home so you can have them on hand to use whenever the urge to cook strikes you. Read on to find the healing health benefits of these commonly used herbs.

1. Rosemary
Rosemary has been used as a brain tonic in Chinese traditional medicine for thousands of years. Rosemary contains volatile oils that help stimulate brain activities and increase brain alertness. One compound it contains, cineole, has been found to enhance the ability of rat to navigate mazes. So skip the harsh coffee and spice up your energy level with rosemary. Other benefits? Rosemary also aids in digestion and perks up your immune system. Steep it as tea, use in your poultry dishes and soups--or just crush some up to fill your home with an energizing scent.

Growing tips: Rosemary needs to live in a very sunny window and may even need supplemental light. It is sensitive to overwatering so keep it on the dry side.

2. Mint
Peppermint, spearmint, and other mint-family plants are considered one of the most versatile herbs in traditional Chinese medicine. Peppermint has many well-documented properties: It increases healthy gastric secretions, relaxes the intestines, soothes spasms, settles the stomach, and alleviates gas. In a culture marked by poor diet and digestion--and the heartburn that comes with it--peppermint can be your best friend. Additionally, peppermint is rich in antioxidants that support good vision and also cleanses your liver, helping to eliminate harmful toxins from your body. Steep peppermint as a tea and drink it a half an hour after mealtimes for untroubled digestion.

Growing tips: Mint is an easy-to-grow herb that is invasive, so be sure to grow it in its own pot.

3. Oregano
When you're suffering from cold or flu, steep oregano in a pot of water and inhale the vapors, which are antibacterial, antiviral and decongesting. This immunity-enhancing herb also settles digestion and prevents bloating.

Growing tips: Oregano needs a lot of light to grow so find a window with direct light or grow out-of-doors.

4. Sage
Chinese traditional medicine has long used sage to help prevent the loss of mental function that comes with age. Sage has been found to increase oxygen to the brain cortex and to help improve concentration. Sage is easy on the digestion. Cook it up in soups and poultry dishes.

Growing tips: Sage can be a bit difficult to grow. It is very sensitive to overwatering because it is more susceptible to mildew than other herbs.

5. Chives
A member of the garlic and onion family, chives have been used throughout history for natural healing because they contain a substantial amount of vitamin C as well as essential minerals such as potassium, calcium, iron and folic acid. In Chinese medicine they are used to clear stuffy noses, prevent bad breath, ease stomach aches, strengthen the lower back, and improve poor circulation that gives you cold hands and feet. Some serving suggestions? Chop up chives and add them to stir-fries or mix in with ground poultry to stuff ravioli or dumplings.

Growing tips: Chives are fairly easy to grow because they don't require as much light as other herbs.

6. Basil
A favorite herb in Italian cooking, basil's scent can perk up your energy level and it is filled with luteolin, a bioflavonoid that studies have shown to be the best protection of cell DNA from radiation.

Growing tips: Basil can be more difficult to grow. Your best bet is to grow it during warm, bright summer months.

7. Cilantro
Cilantro is an energy tonic that can boost your immune system and smooth out your digestion. Use it in your cooking to get its health benefits.

Growing tips: Cilantro, the name for the stems and leaves of the coriander plant, can be hard to grow. Sow the coriander seeds in a thick concentration in a shallow tray.

8. Parsley
Parsley is used in a Chinese folk remedy for cooling the liver and clearing the eyes. Parsley is packed with luteolin, and there is some evidence that this helps protect the eye from UV radiation damage and from glycation, a process in which sticky sugar molecules bind up protein, potentially damaging the retina. The age-old folk remedy recipe for vision protection is a juice blend of celery, peppermint, and Chinese parsley, made fresh daily.

Growing tips: Parsley doesn't need very much sun, but it is a slow grower, so don't expect a high yield.

Herbal Tea Recipes
Aside from use in cooking, all of the above herbs can be used to make aromatic potent teas. You may use the herbs individually or experiment with combinations. For example, to make a tea that soothes digestion and prevents bloating: Steep 1 teaspoon each of mint, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, sage and basil and in a cup of hot filtered water for five minutes.

Other herbal teas that can bring big benefits to your health are my specially formulated Ancient Treasures tea and Internal Cleanse tea, which will gently cleanse your body of toxins and bring you emotional tranquility.

Grow Your Own
To grow your own herbs, all you need is some terra cotta pots with drainage holes, high-quality organic potting soil, and a window sill that gets at least six hours of light per day. A southwestern-facing window is your best choice for good light. If this isn't possible, you can get a few clamp-on reflector lights with compact fluorescent bulbs and place them about six inches away from the plant. Keep in mind that overwatering is the biggest mistake people make when trying to grow herbs inside. The rule of thumb is to let the herbs dry out completely, and then water. Beginning with baby plants will be less troublesome than starting from seed. With practice, you will learn the best ways to grow and care for your indoor herbal garden.

I hope this article helps you make the most of herbs! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

--Dr. Mao

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Wake Up And Smell The Coffee!

2009-05-26T07:32:00.007-05:00

Coffee's Aroma Kick-starts Genes In The Brain

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2008) — Drink coffee to send a wake-up call to the brain? Or just smell its rich, warm aroma? An international group of scientists is reporting some of the first evidence that simply inhaling coffee aroma alters the activity of genes in the brain.

In experiments with laboratory rats, they found that coffee aroma orchestrates the expression of more than a dozen genes and some changes in protein expressions, in ways that help reduce the stress of sleep deprivation.

Han-Seok Seo and colleagues point out that hundreds of studies have been done on the ingredients in coffee, including substances linked to beneficial health effects. "There are few studies that deal with the beneficial effects of coffee aroma," they note. "This study is the first effort to elucidate the effects of coffee bean aroma on the sleep deprivation-induced stress in the rat brain."

In an effort to begin filling that gap, they allowed lab rats to inhale coffee aroma, including some rats stressed by sleep deprivation. The study then compared gene and protein expressions in the rats' brains. Rats that sniffed coffee showed different levels of activity in 17 genes. Thirteen of the genes showed differential mRNA expression between the stress group and the stress with coffee group, including proteins with healthful antioxidant activity known to protect nerve cells from stress-related damage.

Journal reference:

Han-Seok Seo et al. Effects of Coffee Bean Aroma on the Rat Brain Stressed by Sleep Deprivation: A Selected Transcript- and 2D Gel-Based Proteome Analysis. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, June 25, 2008 DOI: 10.1021/jf8001137
Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Absinthes

2009-05-13T11:06:00.000-05:00

May 13, 2009
SPIRITS OF THE TIMES
Absinthes to Go Mad Over
By ERIC ASIMOV

ABSINTHE? So devil may care, so deliciously disreputable, so ... louche. But it’s poisonous, no? It eats your brain and drives you crazy!

If nothing else, a century of prohibition on absinthe gave it the sort of aura of dissolute glamour that would-be brooding artists would drown their agents for. The two faces of absinthe offered possibilities to idealists the world over, searching for a muse or testing the limits of their risk-taking.

Consider the cast of mythological absinthe drinkers: the vulnerable painter and poet, too sensitive for this mean old world; the tormented soul, unable to snap out of his self-loathing; the rakish hedonist, seeking one big, lurid rush; the wealthy dilettante, dipping a toe in bohemia; and of course, all manner of willing women.

But now absinthe is legal again, and the romance of belle époque naughtiness must give way to what’s in the glass. Pull over, you disillusioned dreamers: with no laws to break, no frissons of danger, let the mystification stop right now.

Since absinthe was legalized in the United States in 2007, it has gone from forbidden fruit to virulent weed. Once smuggled from Eastern Europe or procured from back-alley producers, absinthe is now just another bottle on the bar. Yet mystique continues as marketing.

To give absinthe its moment in the harsh light of day, the tasting panel sampled 20 bottles. Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Audrey Saunders, an owner of the Pegu Club on West Houston Street, and Pete Wells, editor of the Dining section, who writes about drinks.

So what makes absinthe absinthe? Essentially it is a neutral spirit infused with myriad herbs and botanicals, centering around anise, fennel and a specific type of wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, from which absinthe takes its name. This wormwood contains small amounts of thujone, a compound once thought to affect the mind. It’s understood now that hallucinations and other health issues attributed to overindulging in absinthe were more a result of alcohol poisoning due to the high alcohol content, typically 50 to 70 percent.

Few things demystify absinthe more than the daunting prospect of 20 glasses in front of you. For instance, all those nicknames — the green fairy, the green muse, the green torment, the green oblivion — might lead one to believe that absinthe is green, right? Often, but not always.

The absinthes offered numerous variations on green, from pale celadon and shimmering aquamarine to extra virgin olive oil to dizzyingly garish shades that don’t exist in nature outside of South Beach nightclubs. But one absinthe was turquoise, which is near enough to green, I suppose. Another was mouthwash blue. A few were completely clear. Those were from Switzerland and included our favorite in the tasting, Kübler. More on that soon enough.

What was plain to all of us was that absinthe, stripped of its mystique, can be wonderfully enjoyable but also confusing.

For example, the ritual of service: the slow drip of water, from an Art Nouveau fountain through a sugar cube held in a slotted spoon over the glass, seeping down into a pool of green like sweetened tears. Oops, again with the mystique.

Here’s what’s important to know: forget the sugar, remember the water. Despite the reverence today for vintage bottles of pre-prohibition absinthe, much of what was produced back in the old days was harsh and industrial. Sugar might have been a necessary addition to make it palatable. The absinthes in our tasting had enough natural (and possibly unnatural) sweetness that adding sugar was unnecessary. The quality of most of them was unexpectedly good.

“I was surprised by how few lousy ones there were,” said Pete, whose experiences with contraband absinthes had not always been pleasant.

Without water, though, almost any absinthe would be difficult to endure. Absinthe in general is simply too strong to drink undiluted. Of our 20 bottles, 13 were 60 percent alcohol or more. Not only do they require water, they require just the right amount, anywhere from three to five parts water to one part absinthe, the amount rising — usually but not always — in tandem with the original strength of each bottle.

The best method, we found, was to begin with a three-to-one ratio, and then, if the absinthe still tastes harsh, continue adding until a seductive balance is achieved. With too little water, for example, Lucid, No. 9 on our list, was hot and harsh at 62 percent alcohol. By slowly adding more to achieve the right balance, the Lucid became mellow and inviting.

Water not only changes the flavors, it almost magically alters the appearance of the absinthe. As you slowly add water, the liquid in the glass seems to thicken, and transforms into an opalescent pastel cloud. The French call this effect the louche (which has the wonderful double meaning of turbulent in French and disreputable in English). Technically, when absinthe is distilled, the anise and fennel oils dissolve into the alcohol. As the water dilutes the alcohol, it frees the oils from their molecular prison, and they form a cloudy suspension.

The louche effect occurs even with clear Swiss absinthes, like our No. 1, Kübler, which turned a brilliant white in the glass. It offered rich, warm anise and herbal flavors that were deliciously subtle rather than greatly complex.

Among our top absinthes, the Grande Absente, the Pernod and the Émile Pernot Vieux Pontarlier all were beautifully integrated, with balanced flavors centering on anise, licorice and fennel, augmented by herbs and citrus. The next rank, particularly the St. George — with a spider monkey on its label beating on a skull — and the Jade Nouvelle-Orléans, offered greater complexity, with more pronounced floral and herbal flavors, and less focus on anise. Absinthe connoisseurs often seem to prefer these to the bottles that we favored.

One Swiss absinthe, Mansinthe, distilled to the specifications of Marilyn Manson, was not clear but a more common shade of green. Its brininess divided the panel. It was our No. 10.

I mentioned that we had 20 absinthes in our tasting. Actually, we had 19, with one absinthe substitute, Absente, which was distilled in France using a different species of wormwood and marketed in the United States during the ban. It’s not absinthe, but we liked it very much, particularly its iridescent louche and straightforward but rich anise flavor. The same distiller now makes Grande Absente, an authentic absinthe, which was our No. 2 bottle.

As appealing as we found absinthe, we did not agree on its best role. Florence thought it would be a good aperitif, like a pastis, which is made with anise substitutes like Pernod or Ricard and blended with water to the same pearly result. I disagreed, thinking that absinthe’s herbal flavors made it a better digestif, settling the stomach after a meal, like Chartreuse or amaro. We all agreed that flaming absinthe cocktails are silly affectations.

While a little absinthe can be quite pleasant, a lot, as with any other strong spirit, will make you drunk. Perhaps, if you are of an Oscar Wilde bent, too much absinthe will do to you what it did to him: “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were,” he said in one of his many disquisitions on absinthe. “After the second you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Personally, I prefer how martinis affected Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.

Tasting Report: A Worldly Spirit Revisits From Here and There

BEST VALUE

Kübler, Switzerland
$54
★★★ ½
53 percent alcohol
Clear, turns brilliant white; mellow, lingering and deliciously subtle with a chorus of variations on anise and herbal flavors. (Importer: Altamar Brands, Corona del Mar, Calif.)

Grande Absente, France
$64
★★★
69 percent alcohol
Rich, lively and seductive with complex, spicy flavors of licorice,
spices and fresh mint. (Crillon Importers, Paramus, N.J.)

Pernod Absinthe, France
$64
★★★
68 percent alcohol
Shimmering, with complex, lingering flavors of anise, lemon balm
and citrus. (Pernod Ricard, Purchase, N.Y.)

Émile Pernot Vieux Pontarlier, France
$54
★★★
65 percent alcohol
Iridescent, with well-integrated flavors of anise, mint and lemon.
(Tempus Fugit Spirits, San Francisco)

St. George Absinthe Verte, United States
$80
★★ ½
60 percent alcohol
Highly perfumed, with aromas of flowers, chamomile and licorice.

Jade Nouvelle-Orléans, France
$111
★★ ½
68 percent alcohol
Savory and almost saline, with lingering, toasty flavors of citrus,
mint, pine and fennel. (Viridian Spirits, Manhasset, N.Y.)

Obsello, Spain
$50
★★ ½
50 percent alcohol
Lively, appealing aromas and flavors of licorice and fennel.
(Esmeralda Liquors, Manhasset, N.Y.)

La Clandestine, Switzerland
$74
★★
53 percent alcohol
Straightforward, with flavors of anise and lavender. (Viridian Spirits)

Lucid, France
$60
★★
62 percent alcohol
Gentle and well balanced with smoky anise and spice flavors.
(Viridian Spirits)

Mansinthe by Marilyn Manson, Switzerland
$62
★★
66.6 percent alcohol
Grassy and briny, with aromas of lemon, balsam and sweet anise. (Tempus Fugit Spirits)

Ready Set Joe!

2009-03-11T12:56:00.033-05:00

I wrote here about how I have found that I could make a good cup of coffee with my 12-cup drip-brew coffeemaker while using a lot less coffee than I've been using in my beloved Aerobie AeroPress.

The other day I found Melitta's Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer (uses #2 Melitta filters with Flavor Pores, either white or natural brown - $3.99/100) at the Kroger grocery store after looking for it at half a dozen other stores (and failing to find it or its larger sibling), so I snatched up two of them for $2.99 each, one for home and one for the office. All they had was black, but it also comes in red (and maybe other colors as well). (Note: The new Ready Set Joe design replaces the older version by adding openings that let you see how much water has dripped into the cup, instead of totally covering the top of the cup; it also eliminates the side coffee-cup-like handle.)

As much as I've liked my AeroPress, I find that the Melitta makes a better-tasting (IMO) cup of coffee, with less effort and less cleanup (and less coffee needed per cup). I currently use an AeroPress scoop (~37 ml, vs. 30 ml for standard 2 TBSP coffee measure), ground at drip grind, and slowly pour (and repour) hot water after it's boiled in my teakettle into the filter until I've created about a 10-11 oz. cup of coffee. As the water drips through, gently keep pouring more water into the filter, being sure to wash down the grinds from the sides of the filter so all the coffee gets thoroughly brewed. Keep a second cup right next to the one you're brewing over so you can remove the Ready-Set-Joe when your cup has the 10-11 oz. you want and set it on top of the extra/overflow cup so it can keep dripping if it still has water in it.

I suspect that letting the water cool down a bit might make the coffee a little less bitter, if one prefers their coffee that way. Also, some suggest stirring the coffee slurry in the filter that you get after you first pour in the water. I don't know if this makes much of a difference if you slowly and carefully soak the grinds thoroughly. It can definitly foam up if the coffee is really freshly-roasted, so be careful as you fill the filter with water; the #2 filter is not very large, and you don't want it to overflow/overfill.

The nice thing about this system is that, like the AeroPress, it gives you total control over the coffee-making: i.e., the grind, the water temperature, and the brew/drip time. Automatic dripmakers largely take the water temperature control out of your hands, though some let you adjust the brew/drip time by an adjustable dial for the strength of the coffee. And make no mistake about it - the water temperature can make a huge difference in the taste. Brew two cups, one with water just after it boils in your tea kettle, and another after you wait 30 seconds after your hot water boils, and see how different they can taste. Some coffees taste better if brewed with hotter water; sometimes it depends on how old the coffee is - e.g., I may do a 20-second wait-to-pour with a fresh bag of beans, yet find that if I'm using the same beans 2 weeks later, a hotter water temperature is needed to make it taste better.

The paper filter, as in the AeroPress, absorbs the cholesterol-raising chemicals in coffee, yet the micropores (unlike the AeroPress) seem to (or supposedly) allow more of the coffee oils through, making for a better-tasting cup of coffee. All I know is that I like the coffee better than a French Press or the AeroPress.

Better-tasting coffee, at a better per-cup price. How cool is that!

Good Pasta, Less Water

2009-02-27T09:06:00.002-06:00

How Much Water Does Pasta Really Need?

The Curious Cook
By HAROLD McGEE
Published: February 24, 2009

SOME time ago, as I emptied a big pot of pasta water into the sink and waited for the fog to lift from my glasses, a simple question occurred to me. Why boil so much more water than pasta actually absorbs, only to pour it down the drain? Couldn’t we cook pasta just as well with much less water and energy? Another question quickly followed: if we could, what would the defenders of Italian tradition say?

After some experiments, I’ve found that we can indeed make pasta in just a few cups of water and save a good deal of energy. Not that much in your kitchen or mine — just the amount needed to keep a burner on high for a few more minutes. But Americans cook something like a billion pounds of pasta a year, so those minutes could add up.

My rough figuring indicates an energy savings at the stove top of several trillion B.T.U.s. At the power plant, that would mean saving 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil, or $10 million to $20 million at current prices. Significant numbers, though these days they sound like small drops in a very large pot.

The standard method for cooking pasta, found in Italian cookbooks and on pasta packages, is to heat to a rolling boil 4 to 6 quarts of well-salted water per pound of pasta. The usual rationales are that abundant water quickly recovers the boil when the pasta is added, gives the noodles room so that they don’t stick to one another, and dilutes the starch they release, so they don’t end up with a “gluey” surface.

To see which of these factors are really significant, I put a pound of spaghetti into a pot, added just 2 quarts of cold water and 2 teaspoons salt and turned on the heat. The water took about 8 minutes to reach the boil, during which I had to push the noodles around occasionally to keep them from sticking. They took another 10 minutes to cook through.

When I drained the pasta, it had the texture and saltiness I expected, seemed about as sticky as usual, and when tossed with a little oil, seemed perfectly normal.

So I tried reducing the water even further, to 1 1/2 quarts. I had to stir often because that’s not quite enough to keep all the pasta immersed all the time, but again the spaghetti came out fine.

Why can pasta cook normally in a small volume of water that starts out cold? Because the noodles absorb water only very slowly at temperatures much below the boil, so little happens to them in the few minutes it takes for the water to heat up. And no matter how starchy the cooking water is, the solid noodle surfaces themselves are starchier, and will be sticky until they’re lubricated by sauce or oil.

I described my method in e-mail messages to two of this country’s best-known advocates of Italian cuisine. Lidia Bastianich told me: “My grandmother would have thought of the idea surely as blasphemous. I think it is curious.” And Marcella Hazan said, “I am a very curious person, and I’m glad people are exploring new ways.” Both of them gave it a try.

Ms. Bastianich responded with a controlled experiment. She started spaghettini in pots of cold water and boiling water (4 quarts each instead of her usual 6) side by side and found the cold-water version lacking in the gradation of texture she looks for. As for the flavor, she said “I felt that the cold-water pasta had lost some of the nutty flavor of a good semolina pasta cooked properly.”

Ms. Bastianich agreed that using less water is O.K. “Yes, I think it’s doable to reduce the cooking water by one third,” from 6 quarts per pound to 4. “But please ‘butta la pasta’ in boiling water.”

Ms. Hazan tried starting a batch of shell pasta in a somewhat reduced amount of cold water, and found that it needed constant stirring to avoid sticking. “Maybe you save heat energy, but you also have to work a lot harder,” she told me in a follow-up call. “It’s not so convenient. I don’t know if I would cook pasta this way.”

Heartened by the experts’ willingness to experiment, I went back to work, this time starting with hot water. I found that it’s possible to butta la pasta in 1 1/2 or 2 quarts of boiling water without having the noodles stick. Short shapes just require occasional stirring. Long strands and ribbons need a quick wetting with cold water just before they go into the pot, then frequent stirring for a minute or two.

Except for capellini, which cooks too quickly, I find that both the cold and hot versions of the minimal-water method work well with the common shapes I’ve tried, with whole wheat pasta, and even fresh pasta, as long as any surface flour is rinsed off first.

I prefer starting with cold water, because the noodles don’t stick together at all as they go into the pot, and because I don’t notice a difference in flavor once they’re drained and sauced. It’s true, though, that no matter what temperature you start with, this method requires more attention. That’s a disadvantage when you’re cooking several things at once.

If you cook pasta often, try experimenting with different starting temperatures and amounts of water. You can even cook pasta in the manner of a risotto, adding the liquid in small doses and stirring constantly. Be sure to use a pot broad enough for the noodles to lie flat on the bottom, and to reduce the salt for smaller volumes of water.

There’s one other dividend to cooking pasta in minimal water that I hadn’t anticipated: the leftover pasta water. It’s thick, but you can still easily ladle it out by tilting the pan. And it’s very pleasant tasting: not too salty, lots of body, and lots of semolina flavor. Whole-wheat pasta water is surprisingly delicious.

Italian recipes often suggest adding pasta water to adjust the consistency of a sauce, but this thick water is almost a sauce in itself. When I anointed a batch of spaghetti with olive oil and then tossed it with a couple of ladles-full, the oil dispersed into tiny droplets in the liquid, and the oily coating became an especially creamy one.

Restaurant cooks prize thick pasta water. In “Heat,” his best-selling account of working in Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo, Bill Buford describes how in the course of an evening, water in the pasta cooker goes from clear to cloudy to muddy, a stage that is “yucky-sounding but wonderful,” because the water “behaves like a sauce thickener, binding the elements and flavoring the pasta with the flavor of itself.”

Mr. Buford suggests that the muddy pasta water should be bottled and sold, because home cooking never produces anything like it. Cooking one batch of pasta in minimal water can’t smooth out the starch as completely or generate those long-cooked flavors. But it does make pasta water good enough to sip.

Dollars and Sense: Drip Brew Vs. AeroPress (Part 2)

2009-01-05T08:41:00.004-06:00

Earlier I wrote a comparison of the cost-per-cup of drip-brew versus AeroPress.

During the holidays I made coffee in my 12-cup GE Drip-Brew coffeemaker. I used one 30 ml (2 TBSP) coffee measure of beans (ground for drip - i.e., halfway between espresso and French press) for every two 5-oz. cups of coffee = 30 ml beans per 10 oz. cup of coffee = 3 ml beans per 1 oz. coffee.

(I also did the same with my Hamilton Beach Brewmaster, but the coffee tasted slightly bitter; I suspect the HB heats the water to a higher temperature.)

Translating this to the 38 ml AeroPress scoop should give about 12.7 oz. coffee per AeroPress scoop. I made an 11 oz. cup with 1 AeroPress scoop of ground coffee (halfway between espresso and drip), stirring and letting the coffee "brew" for 1 minute, rather than the usual 10-20 sec. recommended, in order to extract more coffee flavor. It wasn't bad, and almost brings the AeroPress cost down to the price of using the drip-brew coffeemaker.

Maybe I'll look for a Melitta 1-4 cup cone for a truer "drip" brew.

Stout Stout

2008-12-04T07:48:00.010-06:00

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.

This stuff is good! (But if you don't like dark beer or stouts, you may turn your nose up at at - or it may make you change your mind about stouts.) But don't take my word for it. Google for reviews and read what beer-drinkers say.

The flavors are so complex, I have no idea what to pair with it. Someone has recommended pouring it over vanilla ice cream. Coffee, chocolate, malt - and if you pour it straight in the glass, a head that looks like the smoke plume on Mount St. Helens when it erupted.

$8.99 a 4-pack, and worth every penny. 9% alcohol, so drink it slowly and in moderation.

From the good folks at North Coast Brewing Company.

Enjoy!

NB: It tastes better cold than warm, IMO. When served too warm (even at the preferred or recommended temperature), the alcohol taste begins overpowering the other flavors.

Dollars and Sense: Drip Brew Vs. AeroPress

2008-11-28T12:24:00.002-06:00

The AeroPress scoop holds about 36cc, versus 30cc in a standard 2TB coffee measure.

I have been grinding and using 2 AeroPress scoops for about 10 oz. of coffee = 1 scoop per 5 oz. coffee = 0.20 AP scoop per 1 oz. coffee.

Last night, because we had several guests, I used the drip coffeemaker. I used 6 coffee measures of beans (= 5 AeroPress scoops), and ground the beans for drip grind (versus the finer grind I use for the AeroPress), and added water for 9 cups (= 45 oz.), which equals 5 AeroPress scoops for 45 oz. coffee = 1 AP scoop per 9 oz. coffee. It tasted pretty good.

This is just slightly over half (i.e., 55%) as much coffee per brewed cup, i.e., 0.11 AP scoop per 1 oz. coffee.

I'll have to make a 9 oz. AP cup using just one AP scoop to see how it tastes. Maybe I've been making my coffee too strong.

Breakfast Meats

2008-09-28T09:48:00.011-05:00

Hebrew National 97% Fat Free Beef Franks make a great low-fat breakfast sausage. 45 calories per 1-frank (49g) serving (15 calories from fat), compared to MorningStar Farms Vegetarian Sausage Links at 80 calories (25 calories from fat) per 2-link (45g) serving.

Brown them slowly in a frying pan like a link sausage. Their spices make them taste more like a breakfast sausage than a hot dog, esp. when pan-grilled this way.

Perfect Pizza!

2008-05-10T14:32:00.007-05:00

Easy Steps to the Perfect Pizza From Scratch

From: http://food.yahoo.com/blog/artsmith/3730/easy-steps-to-the-perfect-pizza-from-scratch

Making pizza is a great way for a family or circle of friends to get together and create a meal. This pizza is hard not to love: a crispy crust topped with slices of good prosciutto, spinach, olives, and one of my favorite cheeses, Manchego from Spain. I add the prosciutto after baking because the ham can become saltier when it is heated. To make it from scratch start at Step 1 the night before. Or save time with ready-made dough and begin at step 5.

EASY PIZZA DOUGH
Make the day before. Makes 4 Pizza Shells

1 cup warm water, 95 to 115 degrees
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (I prefer Lucini brand.)
3-1/2 cups all-purpose or multigrain flour
Pinch of kosher salt

Step 1: In a food processor, combine the warm water, yeast, honey, and olive oil and mix well. Process until the yeast dissolves and the mixture is bubbly. Add the flour and pulse. Add a pinch of salt and pulse again. Run the food processor until the dough makes a ball.

Step 2: Remove and place on a lightly floured surface and knead for 2 minutes.

Step 3: Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover well, and refrigerate overnight.

PIZZA WITH PROSCIUTTO AND OLIVES
Makes 1 (8- or 9-inch) pizza

1 Easy Pizza Dough recipe (see above) or 1 ready-made pizza dough
2 tablespoons pitted and sliced black or green olives
1/4 cup shredded manchego cheese
1/4 cup fresh spinach
12 slices prosciutto
Olive oil for drizzling (I prefer Lucini brand.)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Step 4: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with a pizza stone in the oven.

Step 5: Remove the pizza dough from the refrigerator. Divide the it into fourths. Roll out one of the pieces to 8 or 9 inches in diameter. (Or use ready-made dough.) Place the dough on a lightly floured pizza peel or baking sheet with no sides.

Step 6: Top the dough with the olives and manchego cheese. Bake on the hot stone for 20 to 25 minutes, checking periodically. When the dough has a nice crust, remove it from the oven and place the spinach on top.

Step 7: Top with the prosciutto, then drizzle with oil, and season with pepper. Cut into four pices and serve immediately.

Note: Tightly wrap the remaining three pieces of pizza dough in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

No-Knead Bread: Variations And Improvements

2008-04-21T09:08:00.015-05:00

From a comment in my previous post:

Unfortunately, Jim Lahey's no-knead bread recipe is pretty flawed; it works for some, but a lot of us followed it to the letter and produced flat, gummy discs. Cook's Illustrated recently published a corrected version that is total perfection--*that's* the one you should use.

I found the following comments re: the Cook's Illustrated variations/fixes for Lahey's No-Knead Bread recipe (The CI site requires a subscription):

Cook's Illustrated does their thing with No Knead Bread

Looks like they made some minor changes that resulted in a better-tasting loaf. A little vinegar, a little beer, and a quick knead (which also reduced the rise time from 12 to 8 hours).

Cook's Illustrated this month has an article on No-Knead Bread. Instead of 1-1/2 c. water, they used 3/4 c. plus 2 T. water. Then they added white vinegar (1 T.) and a little beer (1/4 c. plus 2 T.) to add a little more taste.

It was great, probably the best I've made. I used Bud Light, since that was the only mild-flavored lager I had. CI suggested mild lager and we usually have ales or porters on hand.

A great suggestion from Cook's Illustrated is to let the dough do its second rising after shaping on a 12 x 18 piece of parchment paper sprayed with Pam and placed inside a 10" skillet. Let it rise there for 2 hours lightly covered with plastic wrap. The skillet keeps it from spreading out too much. Then when your cooking pot is hot (this time I used a 5qt. Mario Batali Dutch Oven) lift up the parchment paper and set the whole thing, dough and parchment, in the pot. Cover and bake, 30 minutes covered, and 20-30 uncovered. When the loaf is done, just lift out the parchment and the bread comes out easily.

I tried the basic "New" recipe from CI about a week and a half ago and I did think the beer and vinegar added to the flavor. CI has you doing minimal kneading - I still did the one bowl, fold the dough in the bowl method with no kneading. I have plans to try their WW and rye variations, too. Here are variations that CI mentioned:

Olive, Rosemary and Parm
Add 4 ounces (about 2 cups) grated Parm and 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary leaves to the flour mixture in step 1.
Add 1/2 c chopped green olives with the water.

Seeded Rye
Replace 1-3/8 cups (7 ounces) AP flour with rye flour and add 2 T caraway seeds in step 1.

WW Bread
Replace 1 cup (5 ounces) AP flour with WW flour. Stir 2T honey into the water in step 1.

Cranberry Pecan Bread
Add 1/2 cup dried cranberries and 1/2 c toasted pecan halves to the flour in step 1.

Because of my dry climate I used 4 ounces of beer (Samuel Adams Boston Lager here) and a little more water. My loaf got a quite dark crust (tasted great but not so photogenic) so I didn't take a photo, but it was good.

Just this past weekend I made a No Knead bread. I was in a time crunch, if I had waited the 12 hrs for the first rise, then allow 2 more hrs. for the 2nd rise, I would have had to bake it off @2am. I didn't schedule it correctly, for sure.

Here's what I did & it worked for me. In a 2 cup glass measuring cup with 1-1/4 cups of water & placed in the microwave to boil, then placed the hot cup in the corner of the microwave. The "NKD" was in a plastic bowl w/its cover, I then placed the bowl as far away to the opposite corner of the MW as possible, there was approx 6" between the two. I did not open the "MW" door until I saw that it had risen.

An additional factor was, the oven was on for a good part of the afternoon. With the "MW" sitting above the stove, it may have been getting radiant heat to some extent, as well. If the oven wasn't on, then I probably would have reheated the water after 1.5 hrs., of course removing the bowl of dough.

In approx. 3 hrs. it was doubled, then placed the dough in the pot for the second rise. It all worked just fine for me. Saving a lot of time that I didn't have that particular day.

The World's Two Easiest Breads

2008-04-20T13:47:00.005-05:00

From The Week Magazine:

Recipe of the Week: The world's two easiest breads

There’s now no excuse not to bake your own bread, said Nick Fox in The New York Times. A year ago, a columnist for this newspaper, Mark Bittman, published what we called "the easiest bread recipe possible." The no-knead recipe was created by Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo. The response from readers "was so fervid you would have thought he'd revealed a foolproof way to pick winning lottery numbers." People desperately wanted to bake bread at home, and that recipe showed them how.

Recently Dr. Jeff Hertzberg, a physician from Minneapolis, developed an even easier bread-making technique. His recipe makes Lahey's method look "like molecular gastronomy." Both use 30 percent to 50 percent more liquid than most recipes that require kneading. Lahey's recipe, because it uses only a small amount of yeast, requires at least 18 hours of fermentation and often results in a very loose dough. Dr. Hertzberg's dough rises more quickly, and easily forms into a loaf that can be baked in a pan or on a hot stone.

Recipes of the week

No-Knead Bread (You can read more about this recipe in my previous post). Also see these Variations And Improvements.

Time: about 1-1/2 hours, plus 14 to 20 hours' rising time

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1-5/8 cups water
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1-1/4 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

In large bowl combine flour, yeast, salt. Add 1-5/8 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours (preferably about 18), at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour work surface; place dough on it. Sprinkle with a little more flour, and fold dough over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into ball. Generously coat cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal; put dough on towel, seam-side down. Dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel; let rise for about 2 hours. When ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. (It may look like a mess, but that’s okay.) Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid, bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on rack.

Yield: One 1-1/2-pound loaf.

Simple Crusty Bread
Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

Time: About 45 minutes, plus about 3 hours’ resting and rising

6-1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
4 cups water
1-1/2 tbsp yeast
1-1/2 tbsp kosher salt
Cornmeal

In large bowl, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature at least 2 hours (and up to 5). Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks.

When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough. Cut off grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating rounded top and lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes. Dust dough with flour and slash top with serrated knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour 1 cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 4 loaves.

Coffee: Why You Should Use Paper Filters

2008-04-20T11:07:00.004-05:00

As you can read from the links in this post, paper filters eliminate almost all of the LDL-raising diterpenes from coffee. The French Press method, considered to be the "ideal" way of making coffee, is thus not good as far as cholesterol is concerned, and metal (gold) filters also don't protect you from these diterpenes.

While you can rinse and reuse the AeroPress filters, the amount of diterpenes increases, per this post. (The test rinsed the filter after 10 uses, and it showed that a rinsed filter resulted in nearly double the diterpenes of a new filter; I don't know if rinsing after one pressing would show the same increase in the subsequent pressing.) Since the filters cost only 1 cent each, it probably makes sense to use a new filter each time, which is what I'll now do.

(This suggests to me that espresso, being unfiltered, is also not good for LDL levels.)

AeroPress: Less Coffee, More Taste

2008-04-13T08:17:00.010-05:00

Alan Adler, Inventor of the Aerobie AeroPress
As many have commented, the AeroPress uses more coffee per serving than other methods (e.g., French Press). I earlier posted my coffee-stretching/saving solution.

Alan Adler, the inventor of the AeroPress (and the Aerobie Flying Ring - pictured behind him), has this to say about getting more from the AeroPress:

For those who want more extraction from the AeroPress, here are some ways to accomplish that:

Use finer grind, that requires a VERY GENTLE pressing. That in turn takes longer and you get more extraction from the fine grind AND from the longer wet time. My experience is that you can push extraction up to 25% this way with no increase in acidity or bitterness.

Press more water through the bed of coffee. That both extracts more and reduces the strength of brew trapped in the puck. My experience is that this noticeably increases bitterness. But rasqual [a CoffeeGeek Forum poster] likes this approach.

Use hotter water. This may be better anyway for light roasts -- even if you're not seeking to reduce coffee expense.

Have fun, do a lot of tasting comparisons. They needn't be blind, but side-by-side comparisons are recommended.

Best regards,

Alan

I thus may tinker further with my procedure. Since I already use my grinder's finest setting, I'll try a combination of longer extraction times and less water (I currently press all 10 oz or so through a 1-scoop serving; maybe I'll cut that in half to about 5 oz. of hot water).

A Great Cup Of Coffee!

2008-04-08T22:44:00.003-05:00

Thursday night (4/3/08) I stopped by Texas Roast (Highland Village) and picked up a pound of fresh coffee beans because some friends were coming over for dessert and coffee.

I was told the coffee had just been roasted that day or the night before, and it must have been true, because it was still degassing (i.e., expelling the CO₂ that roasting causes the beans to give off), for when I brewed some AeroPress coffee with it, it foamed all over the place!

I bought the Fireside Roast, and in the words of Agent Dale Cooper, it makes "a damn fine cup of coffee."

Two days later I made a cup with beans I had ground Thursday night, and it was still fresh-tasting and great!

Better Burgers!

2008-03-11T17:39:00.002-05:00

A sun-dried tomato and feta stuffed burger.

(I know that Lent is a horrible time to post this!)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/taste/howtos/stories/030507dnlivburgers.1fde0f0b.html

A better burger, made at home
Mix it, stuff it, top it, elevate it to gourmet status 01:06 PM CDT on Wednesday, April 11, 2007
By TINA DANZE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Remember when burgers came only two ways: with or without cheese?

Back then, the better burgers hailed from greasy-spoon dives, while the better restaurants avoided them completely. How times have changed. As new ingredients continue to creep into the standard recipe, hamburgers have scaled the status ladder, gracing menus at swanky spots and fetching handsome prices.

If designer burgers can be cash cows for some restaurants, how about giving your own burger a makeover? It's not an expensive proposition.

Start by seasoning the meat with more than just salt and pepper. Chopped herbs, minced onions, garlic and bottled sauces add flavor when mixed with the raw ground meat.

Next, stuff your burgers with crumbled cheese (such as blue cheese or feta) or grated cheese (cheddar, fontina or Jarlsberg). Putting cheese inside the burger, rather than on top of it, results in a moister, juicier burger, since the cheese melts into the meat. Don't limit stuffings to cheeses, either. Sautéed mushrooms and earthy, ready-made pestos make good fillings, too.

But there's no sense in gussying up a burger without the right meat. And it need not be expensive, but it should be at least 15 percent to 20 percent fat. Any leaner, and the burgers will be dry and bland.

Ground chuck is widely acclaimed as the best choice, winning out over ground beef, ground sirloin and ground round. Unfortunately, package labels don't necessarily match actual content. Unless your butcher grinds the meat for packaging, he can't guarantee that you're purchasing 100 percent ground chuck.

The good news is that most supermarket butchers will grind a chuck roast for you on request.

If you want to venture beyond beef, try ground lamb, or mix ground lamb with ground chuck. But don't count on turkey or chicken for a juicy burger - unless you've acquired a taste for drier patties.

Finally, don't skimp on the toppings and buns. Besides the traditional lettuce and tomato, sautéed red and green bell peppers, caramelized onions and roasted green chiles make excellent toppings. Mixing other seasonings into mayonnaise boosts its flavor.

And a host of bottled sauces - teriyaki grilling sauce or barbecue sauce - can replace ketchup .

Buns can range from bakery-made hamburger buns (such as the small ones sold at Central Market) to rosemary focaccia bread (Whole Foods Market) and Poppy Seed Kaiser Rolls (Minyard bakeries).

You can follow our recipes for Blue Cheese-Stuffed Burgers, Mushroom-Stuffed Teriyaki Burgers, Mushroom-Stuffed Cheese Burgers and Feta-Stuffed Lamb Burgers or create your own versions, drawing inspiration from suggested combos.

Each recipe uses 1 pound of ground meat to make four small burgers, which require small buns.

If you want a heftier burger - big enough for the commercially made hamburger buns - use 1 1/2 pounds of ground meat.

Tina Danze is a Dallas free-lance writer.

BLUE CHEESE-STUFFED BURGERS

1 pound ground beef chuck

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup finely minced white onion (may use food processor)

2 tablespoons finely minced parsley

1 cup crumbled blue cheese (Gorgonzola is a good choice)

Combine meat, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, onion and parsley.

Form the meat into 8 patties, about 3/8-inch thick. Place an equal amount of blue cheese on half of the patties, pressing the cheese in slightly with your fingers. Cover the stuffing with remaining patties. Seal the edges by pressing them together with your fingers. Refrigerate.

Preheat grill to medium-high. Grill the patties uncovered for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes per side for charcoal grills, flipping once, until internal temperature reaches 160 F. (For gas grills, cook covered 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes per side.)

Serve on small hamburger buns or French bread with tomato, red onion and cooked bacon slices with lettuce or spinach leaves. Makes 4 servings.

PER PATTY (without bread): Cal 413 (62% fat) Fat 28 g (14 g sat) Trace fiber Chol 118 mg Sodium 992 mg Carb 3 g Calcium 197 mg

SOURCE: Tina Danze

FETA-STUFFED LAMB BURGERS

1 pound ground lamb

1/4 cup finely minced cilantro

3 tablespoons minced fresh mint leaves

1/4 cup finely minced or coarsely grated red onion

1 teaspoon Thai red chile sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried crumbled oregano

3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Sautéed peppers and onions (recipe follows)

Combine lamb, cilantro, mint, onion, chile sauce, cumin and oregano in a bowl.

Form meat into 8 thin patties, about 3/8-inch thick. Place an equal amount of feta cheese on half of the patties. Cover the stuffing with the remaining patties. Seal the edges by pressing them together with your fingers. Refrigerate.

Preheat grill to medium-high. Grill the patties uncovered for about

2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes per side for charcoal grills, flipping once, until internal temperature reaches 160 F. (For gas grills, cook covered for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes per side).

Serve on small hamburger buns with sautéed peppers and onions.

Makes 4 servings.

Sautéed peppers and onions: Slice 1 red and 1 green bell pepper lengthwise into 1/4-inch strips. Halve a white onion from root to tip and slice into 1/4-inch half-moons. Sauté peppers and onions in 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat until softened. May be prepared ahead of time, refrigerated, then reheated in a foil packet on the grill.

PER PATTY (without bread): Cal 459 (63% fat) Fat 32 g (14 g sat)

Chol 135 mg Sodium 449 mg Carb 9 g Calcium 180 mg

SOURCE: Tina Danze

MUSHROOM-FILLED TERIYAKI BURGERS

1 pound ground chuck

3 tablespoons minced scallion, white and green part

1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Mushroom filling (recipe follows)

Combine ground chuck, scallion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and black pepper in a bowl.

Form meat into 8 thin patties, 3/8-inch thick. Place an equal amount of mushroom filling on half of the patties, leaving a margin around the edge. Cover the stuffing with the remaining patties. Seal the edges by pressing them together with your fingers. Refrigerate.

Serve on small, sesame seed hamburger buns. Makes 4 servings.

Mushroom filling: Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a skillet. Sauté 1/2 cup chopped onion with 1 tablespoon garlic in the skillet over medium-high heat for 1 minute. Add 3/4 pound chopped mushrooms, and cook until the mushrooms have released their juices and the juices have evaporated (about 7 minutes). Add 4 tablespoons minced scallion, 3 tablespoons oyster sauce and 1 tablespoon rice vinegar and continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Cool completely before stuffing and cooking the burgers .

PER PATTY (without bread): Cal 326 (58% fat) Fat 21 g (6 g sat)

Fiber 2 g Chol 70 mg Sodium 805 mg Carb 10 g Calcium 27 mg

SOURCE: Tina Danze

MUSHROOM-STUFFED CHEESEBURGERS

1 pound ground chuck

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup grated Jarlsberg or Gruyère cheese

Mushroom stuffing (recipe follows)

Combine ground chuck, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and cheese in a bowl. Form meat into 8 thin patties, 3/8-inch thick. Place an equal amount of mushroom stuffing on half of the patties, leaving a margin around the edge. Cover the stuffing with the remaining patties. Seal the edges by pressing them together with your fingers. Refrigerate.

Preheat grill to medium-high. Grill patties uncovered for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes per side for charcoal grills, flipping once, until internal temperature reaches 160 F. (For gas grills, cook covered for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes per side.)

Serve on small hamburger buns or french bread with your choice of condiments. Makes 4 servings.

Mushroom stuffing: Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Put in 3/4 pound chopped mushrooms and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Put in 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon minced onion, and 2 tablespoons dry vermouth or sherry. Stir and cook until mushrooms have released their juices, and the juices have evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cool completely before stuffing and cooking burgers.

PER PATTY (without bread): Cal 384 (61% fat) Fat 26 g (13 g sat) Fiber 1 g Chol 107 mg Sodium 705 mg Carb 6 g Calcium 224 mg

SOURCE: Adapted from The Complete Meat Cookbook

UNDER THE BUN

Flavored mayonnaises

•Mix 1 to 2 seeded and minced canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce with 1/2 cup mayonnaise.

•Add 1 to 11/2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger to 1/2 cup mayonnaise.

•Combine 1 part herb, olive, red bell pepper or sun-dried tomato pesto with 1 part mayonnaise or to taste.

•Combine equal parts finely crumbled blue cheese and mayonnaise.

•Combine Dijon mustard with mayonnaise.

•Mix 2 tablespoons minced cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice with 1/2 cup mayonnaise.

•Mix horseradish or wasabi mustard with mayonnaise to taste.

•Mix 1 teaspoon curry powder with 1 cup mayonnaise or to taste.

Alternatives to plain ketchup

•Steak sauces

•Bottled Asian sauces (Thai peanut sauce, teriyaki grilling sauce)

•Barbecue sauces

•Jerk seasoning finishing sauces for the grill

•Specialty ketchups, such as chipotle or jalapeño

About mustards

Dozens of mustards grace the grocery shelves these days, from herbed mustards, cranberry mustard and champagne mustard, to Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam mustards. Central Market carries the widest selection, but the big chain supermarkets also carry an amazing variety.

BURGER HOW-TOS

Stuffing burgers

•Use clean hands to mix ingredients into the raw meat.

•Don't overwork the meat or else the patty will be too dense.

•If using a cooked filling, such as mushrooms, be sure to cool the filling completely before stuffing the burgers .

•Stuffed patties may be prepared 1 hour ahead of grilling and refrigerated until cooking time. T.D.

INSIDE THE MEAT

Other fillings for stuffed burgers (quantities are for 1 pound of ground meat divided into 4 small burgers)

•1/2 cup minced sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil (or use sun-dried tomato pesto) mixed with 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese.

•1/4 cup basil pesto mixed with 1 cup mozzarella cheese.

•2 strips cooked, crumbled bacon mixed with 1 cup cheddar cheese.

•3/4 cup Central Market's truffle mushroom spread (sold in bulk in the refrigerated case).

SAFETY TIPS

•Keep ground meat and raw hamburger patties refrigerated, especially if you form your burger patties before the fire is ready.

•Wash your hands before and after handling the meat.

•Thoroughly wash all surfaces that come into contact with raw meat.

•Do not cook burgers to rare or medium rare. If you're uncertain about doneness, invest in an instant-read thermometer, and cook until the internal temperature registers 160 F. T.D.

GRILLING TECHNIQUES

Preparing the grill

Heat coals in a chimney fire starter until they are covered with gray ash. Spread the coals over the bottom of the grill. Set the cooking rack in place, and preheat the grill, covered, for 5 minutes.

If using a gas grill, preheat the grill with all burners set to high and the lid down for 15 minutes. Use a wire brush to scrape the cooking grate clean. Oil the grate by dipping a small wad of paper towels in vegetable oil, and holding the wad with tongs, wipe the grill rack.

Cooking the burgers Cook over a medium-hot grill (test by placing your hand 5 inches above the grate; you should be able to hold it there for 3 to 4 seconds). Place the burgers on the hot grate, and sear the first side (this may take 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes). You want the burger to develop a crust on the outside. Don't flip the burgers repeatedly - one turn per side is enough. Don't press down on the burgers with a spatula - it squeezes out the juice and dries them out. When the first side is seared and crusted, flip and cook the other side. If you are using a gas grill, cook covered for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes per side.

SOURCE: American Classics

How Much Will YOU Pay For Good Coffee?

2008-01-24T11:21:00.001-06:00

I love coffee (good coffee, that is!), but I think this is a bit much: At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee

Be sure to view the slideshow of pictures.

A more down-to-earth opinion (that also corrects the $20,000 figure) from CoffeeGeek.com:

Posted Tue Jan 29, 2008, 1:34am
Subject: Re: $20,000 Coffee Machine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I paid a visit to the new Blue Bottle today. On my way in I saw James Freeman, who was leaving. After learning that he was illegally parked and that taking his space was not likely to save me a ticket, I asked him why the device I was going in to look at cost $20,000. His comment was something to the effect that the cost issue was overblown. Apparently the reporter asked him what the whole rather impressive-looking setup cost. Thinking it over, and factoring in the cost of the ice-drip apparatus, the burners, the sneeze guard, the installation and the 75 or so backup Hario pots ($100-150 apiece is my guess), he threw out a ballpark number of $20,000. This then became the story reported on the Continent and points east as the "$20,000 cup of coffee".

The place was busy. I successfully feigned nonchalance when asked for $10.85 for my pot of Sidamo DP, and sat down, fortuitously, right in front of The Apparatus. The theatre is impressive indeed. I want one of those things and I will likely strongly consider one for our next store. I may even fashion one to upgrade our existing Octagon location, where the Clover is overwhelmed by demand.

There were many things that caused some concern. Number one, the wait was almost 25 minutes, in which time I saw perhaps 5 pots go out. That struck me as excessive. Also, I think too much has been made of the bamboo paddle and stirring technique. I didn't get the impression that the two bartenders were exercising any particular skill. I may have missed that one, though. The price also seemed high, for $1.00 worth of ingredient cost, and a higher than average labor cost. Lastly, and this was the real kicker, the coffee was only good. I expected (hoped, is more accurate) to be floored. I wasn't. I place the blame for this specifically on the New York Times and generally on the culture of hype that surrounds our industry sometimes. I imagine that while it's great to have the publicity and the consequent lines of customers, James might concur with me on this last point. There is a pitfall in unrealistic expectations. This is vacuum coffee, afterall, such as any self-respecting CoffeeGeek would make at home, and that many of us grew up with.

The service was quick, attentive and professional. The lavender and sea salt "pairing" caramels were really good. The experience was great. I'll be going back. For regular old espresso. And the remarkable spectacle of the siphon bar. It's a bit like a Corvette that way. A fun car to watch someone else drive.

James, I hope I didn't offend with this commentary. I very much enjoyed meeting you, and I loved the new store. You deserve all your success. I'm glad you enjoyed Lulu's at the Octagon. Do ask for me next time you're in. I'd love to buy you a drink and chat some more.

AeroPress Update

2008-01-03T12:03:00.002-06:00

I have found an improved way to make coffee with my AeroPress that also saves on the amount of coffee one uses.

The recommended method is to use about 1 AeroPress scoop (36-38 ml versus a typical 30 ml (2 TB) coffee scoop) of beans per serving, put the ground coffee in the large tube, add the appropriate amount of water, plunge, and then fill your cup with water to make a full cup of coffee (i.e., ~6 oz. liquid coffee total per AeroPress scoop).

A method that seems to extract more flavor and hence uses less coffee (but it's only good for one cup at a time*), and also results in a better-tasting cup of coffee, IMO**, is to plunge all the water through the ground coffee. I.e.:

Using a bit less than 1 AeroPress scoop of beans, grind it fine (espresso grind) and put the ground coffee as usual in the large outer tube that is on your empty cup while you're heating your water.
Pour enough hot water into the inner tube/plunger to fill it (8 oz. all the way to the rim).
When the hot water is at the desired temperature (165-175° or whatever you have come to like), pour it slowly at first (to moisten and expand the grounds) and then completely into the outer tube.
Stir with the paddle for 10 seconds or so as usual.
Plunge for 20 seconds or so as usual.
Drink and enjoy!

If you use a full AeroPress scoop, you will likely find that you will have to add a couple more ounces of water to the drink, either to the outer tube in addition to the 8 oz. from the inner tube/plunger before you plunge, or into the cup after you have plunged the coffee, or the coffee will be too strong.

* If you want a larger cup, then use 2 shallow AeroPress scoops ground a bit coarser than espresso in the outer tube, and reserve 16 oz. of the heated water in, e.g., a 2-cup measuring beaker. When it's the right temperature, pour slowly as much of the water as you can into the outer tube until it's almost at the top, and stir it for 10 seconds or so with the paddle. Since some water/coffee will have dripped into the cup, top off the outer tube with more water just before you plunge, and then after you have plunged the coffee, use what's left of the 16 oz. measure of hot water to fill your cup, and stir. You will still have plunged most of the water through the coffee, so you'll have the extra-taste benefits this method produces.

** The new instructions for the AeroPress say:

If I am just making a single cup, can I push all the water for the cup through the press? Yes, but when you push a full cup of water past the grounds it extracts bitterness. Diluting your espresso-sized pressing with hot water makes a much smoother brew.

This has not been my experience, however. YMMV.

How To Make The Best Steak You Can - At Home

2007-12-29T21:18:00.004-06:00

Now that the Nativity Fast is over...

From The Dallas Morning News: How to make the best steak you can - at home

FWIW, we tried the skillet steak instructions with some New York Strip steaks. They were good, but not great - and indeed tasted better the second day with a brief reheating in the microwave - so I would go straight for the grill instead. Maybe Ribeyes - said to be the most flavorful steak - would fare better when using the skillet and oven.

Watch the accompanying videos:

From the December 2007 issue of Texas Monthly magazine (the cover story is on the best steakhouses in Texas, and you can read it all here):

How Now Brown Cow

A little over a year ago I started receiving annoying press releases on some kind of unpronounceable Texas-raised cattle called Akaushi. Say what? The stuff was ex-pen-sive, and you had to order it days in advance, even in restaurants. It sounded like a bunch of hype. I thought of the old joke about the difference between ignorance and apathy: I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

Fast-forward to September of this year. Two friends and I walked into Bohanan’s Prime Steaks & Seafood, in San Antonio, and the head waiter started raving about Akaushi beef. Damn. The cheapest cut was $95, for a twelve-ounce filet. Deciding to take one for the team, I ordered it. It arrived. I took a bite. Ohmigod. It was so delicious I almost fainted. My friends noticed and tried to sneak pieces off my plate while I was semiconscious. We were fork-fighting and groaning and carrying on like spotted hyenas. It was that good.

If Akaushi (“Ah-ka-oo-shee”) sounds like what’s called Wagyu, source of notably succulent Japanese beef, it’s because they’re kissing cousins. Actually, “Wagyu” is a general term meaning “Japanese beef.” The correct name for those famous fatties is Kuroushi—“kuro” meaning “black” and “ushi” meaning “cattle.” (In case you’re wondering, Kobe beef is Kuroushi raised near Kobe, Japan.) Akaushi means “red cattle,” though they’re really reddish-brown. In 1994 eleven lone Akaushi were imported by HeartBrand Beef to its South Texas ranch outside Yoakum. From that small pool, they’ve increased to five thousand and are the only breeding herd outside Japan.

If you were to compare Kuroushi with Akaushi, you’d detect little difference. They’re both fabulous. But some Kuroushi in Texas have been crossed with Black Angus, and that meat is generally of a lesser quality. By contrast, all Akaushi are purebred, so they always produce splendidly tender meat with loads of near–microscopically fine fat marbling. On top of this, beef from both Kuroushi and Akaushi is better for you than regular old American beef, because the meat has lots of monounsaturated (good) fatty acids.

But don’t take my word. Try some yourself if you can spare about a hundred bucks. That’s not much for a memory you’ll never forget.

Our new Super Wal-Mart store carries Wagyu beef steaks - $30 a pound!! After we test and master the cooking technique above, we'll try one and see how heavenly it tastes!

Cooking With The Bible

2007-12-14T14:07:00.001-06:00

I'd been looking for this book, COOKING WITH THE BIBLE: Biblical Food, Feasts, and Lore, by Anthony F. Chiffolo and Rayner W. Hesse, Jr., since it was published in August 2006, but no one around here carries it - probably because it has a $75 price tag, even from Amazon.com. That's more than I would gamble sight-unseen, no matter how good the reviews, especially since I am more of an eater than a cook.

Well, today I found that the authors have a Website where they seem to give many (maybe all?) of the recipes in the book, with other information, too.

Enjoy! (And don't forget to invite me to dinner when you cook something from this!)

We Have ... Coffee!

2007-11-22T18:28:00.001-06:00

Per some comments at Coffeegeek.com, I figured: "$9.99? Why not?" and bought this popcorn maker at Walgreens ($3.00 mail-in rebate, too!) and tried roasting some coffee. It's a 1200 watt popper. Everyone's favorite, the no-longer-made West Bend Poppery I, is 1500 watts, I believe, and the Poppery II is 1200 watts, I think.

I put 2/3 cup or so of some green unroasted decaf Sumatra beans I had bought at Dunn Bros Coffee a few weeks ago into the popping chamber, and used an empty canned green beans can for a chimney. You need the chimney because as the coffee roasts, it gets lighter in weight, and the spinning/blowing of the popper will propel the beans up and out of the popping chamber unless you have a long chimney.

(To make the chimney, I removed both ends of the can with a can opener and cut about eight 1"-long slashes around one end so I could compress the end diameter to fit into the opening of the popcorn maker - a soup can was too narrow for this popper.)

The plastic cover for the popper sits closer to the popping chamber than some others I've seen, and I was afraid the heat would melt it, so I roasted the coffee with the cover off and the chimney extending the height of the chamber.

I then went outside and plugged it in. It was apparently too cold outside, though, because after several minutes, while the beans had darkened somewhat in color, they were not roasting or smoking or cracking.

So I brought it inside and continued the process by the stove-top ventilation fan, and the beans started darkening in color and even cracked a bit and started getting a bit of an oily sheen. There was no chaff (decaf beans don't have chaff, but regular beans do - lots of it, apparently, which is another reason to roast outdoors so it doesn't blow all over the house) and only one bean caught on fire. I never did get any smoke, but I tasted a bean when it was looking pretty dark, and since it seemed done, I turned off the popper and cooled the beans outside by stirring them with a wooden spoon in a metal colander.

We ground and brewed the beans, and they tasted pretty good - a medium-tasting roast (though they looked darker than that), with a lot of "foaming" in the AeroPress since I didn't give them a day to degas.

I did another batch at about 10:15 p.m. indoors. I didn't get any smoke this time, either. Maybe it's the roasting chaff that creates the smoke, and since there is hardly any chaff on decaf beans, there is also little or no smoke. It took longer than I expected, and I couldn't hear the second crack, but the beans are fairly dark. I put them in a plastic bag for grinding and brewing in the morning.

The instructions say to use no more than 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels to prevent overheating. I tried roasting 1/2 cup of beans with the popcorn cover on, but I still had beans popping out of the cover, so it seems that I need to use the chimney without the cover. Also, 2/3 cup of beans seems to roast fine without overheating the popcorn maker.

The following isn't the best video, but it shows and explains the process. It doesn't show the inside of the correct popper very well, though, so you can't really see how the vents are on the side of the chamber, but if you examine hot air corn poppers, you'll easily see what it means for the vents to be on the side of the chamber.

Storing Coffee Beans - To Vac, Or Not To Vac?

2007-10-28T14:00:00.002-05:00

As a test, on 10/13/07 I put two AeroPress scoops each of Sumatra Decaf coffee beans that had been roasted on 10/12/07 into four pint mason jars as follows, to be tasted and compared after about 2 weeks:

A. Vacuum-sealed (with a home vacuum sealer and mason jar lid attachment), and not opened.
B. Vacuum-sealed, and opened and then vacuum-sealed again every day.
C. Closed (not vacuum-sealed), and not opened.
D. Closed, and opened every day.

I opened them all on 10/28 and did a taste comparison, using the AeroPress. My subjective opinion/results:

#1 for flavor: Coffee A.
#2 for flavor: Coffee B.
#3 for flavor: Coffee C. (Very close to B., however.)
#4 for flavor: Coffee D.

Vacuum sealing thus does seem to help retain the freshness. Probably the best thing would be to put a freshly-roasted pound of coffee beans into four mason jars, vacuum-seal the jars (and check them each day the first couple days, for they may still be degassing and undo the vacuum), and take out and grind 2 days' worth of coffee at a time to cut in half the number of times one would have to reopen and re-vacuum-seal the jar before finishing it and starting on the next jar. The resultant loss in flavor of ground coffee over 2 days versus 1 day may negate this benefit, though, and daily grinding might still be the best choice.

Also, I could take a jar to work and grind it there. Since the pint jar of beans will be used up in a few days, it won't spend two weeks being opened and closed, so it should taste better than Coffee D.

I only had 2 AeroPress scoops of coffee in each mason jar - i.e., about the equivalent of 2.5 regular 2 TBSP coffee scoops - so there was a lot of air space in the jars. I suspect that if I kept the non-vacuum-sealed coffee in a reasealable sandwich bag from which I could expel much of the air each time I opened and reclosed it, it would taste very close to the vacuum-sealed coffee. Probably the best system would be to use actual vacuum bags for the beans, and cut open and revacuum each day the one I'm using after taking out the coffee, which would pretty much eliminate all air around the beans while they're not being used. I think a good compromise between this ideal method and efficiency/cost (i.e., not having to pay for vacuum bags, and not having to vacuum reseal every day) would be to keep the beans in full vacuum-sealed mason jars with little air space, and keep the beans I'm using in a resealable sandwich bag. Since I only buy 1 lb. of coffee at a time, it will all be gone in less than 2 weeks.

"Good, Hot, Black Coffee"

2007-10-10T08:32:00.004-05:00

A coworker, for whom I made his first cup of AeroPress coffee yesterday, agrees with me that the reason most people do not like strong, black coffee ("black as midnight on a moonless night") is because they have never had a good (as in "great") cup of coffee. It's either been brewed at the wrong temperature or for too long so it's too bitter, or the beans were not freshly-roasted and freshly-ground, or it's a combination of some or all of these things. Thus, they doctor it up or cover it up with milk and sugar and flavorings and/or dilute it to weaken its bad qualities, not realizing that coffee isn't supposed to taste that way - and doesn't have to.

One day, some day ... I'm going to try roasting my own beans at home. But that's not so urgent, as I now have four reasonably close sources for fresh-roasted coffee: Bookish Coffee, Texas Roast, Dunn Bros, and Addison Coffee Roasters. If it's been roasted within two days of buying it, it should be about the same as doing it myself, since fresh-roasted coffee needs a day or two to degas (coffee gives off CO₂ for a couple days after it's been roasted) and reach optimal flavor before grinding and brewing.

But no matter how you brew it - whether with a drip coffee maker or a French Press or an AeroPress - the first rule for making great coffee is to use freshly-roasted beans that have been freshly ground. (The second rule is to use the right amount of coffee when making it - i.e., about 2 Tablespoons per 6 oz. cup. The third and fourth rules have to do with using the proper grinder and grind, and the right water temperature.) Whole bean coffee is good for a week or two after roasting, and ideally should not be ground until the day you are going to drink it. Don't buy any more coffee than you will use within two weeks of the roast date, if possible. This means that if you want the best coffee, you'll have to say "good-bye" to ground coffee and prepackaged off-the-shelf coffee beans and bulk beans that have been sitting for who knows how long. These can all be acceptable, and sometimes even good. But why settle for poor or at best "good" coffee when you can enjoy great coffee?

Now, watch this video:

Aerobie AeroPress - Great Coffee!

2007-09-29T20:23:00.003-05:00

After reading the reviews, I bought an Aerobie AeroPress. Yes, the flying ring makers have made a coffee maker that looks like a chemist's set and ... makes great coffee.

My first cup was smooth and rich-tasting as promised. Based on the many user reviews, one may want to experiment with the grind and the amount of coffee and water (and water temperature) to get one's favorite cup, but it can make a crema-less espresso (or near espresso) to drink straight or in a latte or cappuccino, as well as (by adding more hot water) regular coffee.

$30. No electricity. (You'll need a source of hot water - a microwave or electric tea kettle - and you can put your water in the plunger tube per the measuring marks and heat it in the microwave, so it's great for travel and a hotel microwave, or just use hot water from a hotel coffeemaker.) No moving parts. A little labor, and even less time, and ... voila! A great cup of coffee.

If only all the world's problems could be solved this easily.

You can buy it locally and internationally, as well as via Amazon.com (from third parties).

Read some of the reviews at Amazon or at CoffeeGeek.com, and those at the links at the bottom of the Aerobie AeroPress Webpage (and the "Frequently Asked Questions" link on that same page).

This test review demonstrates why it doesn't make true espresso, but great coffee, equaling or besting machines costing many times as much.

If you're a French Press person, here is my earlier post about French Press coffee, as well as about good coffee in general.

And ... these guys just opened up a shop 2 miles down the road from our house. On-site fresh-roasted coffee for about $10 a pound. I'll never lack for fresh-roasted beans again. (Sorry, Starbucks.) Whoo-hoo!

Watch the video on the AeroPress Webpage.

- - -

UPDATE October 3, 2007: After some minor experimentation, I find I like the coffee ground at espresso grind (the finest grind on my Starbucks Barista burr grinder) or maybe one step coarser. (Per the instructions, if you make more than 2 scoops at a time, you need to use a coarser grind, as it's difficult to compress the air in the tube with that much coffee at a superfine grind.)

I use 2 AeroPress scoops, which I press with water filled to the "(2)" level in the plunger, and pour a little hot water over the stirring paddle just before I press in order to wash the grounds from the paddle back into the coffee mixture. After pressing, I dilute it in the cup with hot water to about a 11-12 oz. cup of coffee.

The AeroPress scoop is about 36 cc (versus 30 cc for the standard 2-Tablespoon coffee measure) and doubles as an espresso server, holding the amount of a single espresso in case one wants to divide multiple servings among several cups. So I'm using about 20% more coffee per cup than with a French press (i.e., 72 cc for 12 oz. of coffee = 6 cc ground coffee per 1 oz. of water, versus 2 TB = 30 cc per 6 oz. water in a French Press = 5 cc ground coffee per 1 oz. of water), perhaps because the very short brew time requires a bit more coffee to achieve the desired strength, or maybe because I can make the coffee stronger since it has no bitterness.

UPDATE October 5, 2007: I notice that the coffee doesn't seem to have the aroma that coffee from my French Press had. At times it has tasted a bit "flat," too. This is a result of the paper filter absorbing some of the flavor oils (one reason I was a bit cautious about the AeroPress). Some have recommended letting it steep longer - i.e., for 1 minute or even a French-Press-comparable 3 minutes - by first inserting the plunger and then inverting it, and pouring the coffee and water in via the bottom of the tube (and covering it until ready to put on the cap and filter and turn it over and plunge it), or by pulling the plunger UP slightly after insertion to create a slight vacuum and prevent any flow-through until ready to plunge. (If you pull it up too much, though, it will suck the filter away from the cap, and the water will start pouring through!)

Even then, though, there are apparently limits that the AeroPress can't pass.

I discovered that I've been making it way too hot. I've been waiting a few seconds after my tea kettle boiled before pouring the water, but when I poured water into the plunger and first used a digital instant-read thermometer to see when it reached 175°, I was surprised that it took a lot longer than I expected. So I now pour out my water before the boil and use the thermometer to check the temperature before pouring it into the coffee, as the AeroPress instructions recommend 165-175° for optimum flavor.

UPDATE October 10, 2007: Despite the lack of some of the flavor oils, AeroPress coffee has its own flavor and quality that still makes it (to me) about the best cup of coffee I've had. While it may be worth the trouble to get a 5 micron polyester filter and use the inverted (i.e., upside-down) method to get the oils into the cup as the folks here suggest, I am currently pretty content with the regular AeroPress procedure with the AeroPress paper filters.

UPDATE October 20, 2007: I bought a second AeroPress today so I wouldn't have to bring mine home every weekend.

Shortly after I had gotten my $125 (retail) Starbucks Barista conical burr grinder, I did a blind comparison with my $20 blade grinder using my drip coffeemaker. The burr ground coffee had a noticeably fuller flavor.

Based on comments of other AeroPress users, I decided to see if there was any noticeable difference with the AeroPress between burr-ground coffee and blade-ground coffee. I ground 1.5 scoops of a fresh decaf Sumatra City Roast (roasted yesterday) in each of my grinders, and pressed/brewed them both at the same time with 175° water I had filled to the "(2)" mark in the plunger. As far as I could tell, there was not a noticeable difference in taste.

This means that I can take my quiet blade grinder to work and grind my beans there before making each cup. The coffee will taste fresher and I won't have to wake my wife up with the noise of the burr grinder (or even the blade grinder) each morning. On the other hand, it's quite a bit messier, esp. digging out the compacted fine coffee, so I may continue with my burr grinder, but grind it the night before or in another room.

UPDATE November 15, 2007: Though I initially used the Espresso grind setting (or one step coarser) on my Starbucks Barista Burr grinder, I found that the coffee was perhaps too fine, because it took a lot of pressure (and time) to push the water through. Grinding it three steps coarser than Espresso - i.e., about halfway between Espresso Grind and Drip Grind - seems to a better setting. While I found that the coffee tasted just as good if I used a blade grinder (and I even took mine to work for awhile in order to grind the beans right before brewing), the fineness of the grind made it very difficult to press, so I went back to using the burr grinder at home and taking ground coffee to work.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Bad Coffee

2007-06-07T08:21:00.010-05:00

Several months ago - late last year, in fact - a news article about this Website introduced me to the art and technique of making good (or, rather, better) coffee:

"Better office coffee is not hard to make. Anyone can do it. All you need are a few simple supplies, some know-how and a desire for better tasting brew. We spent nearly two years slaving away in our cubes figuring out how to use a French Press to make great coffee and this website was created to share our knowledge and experience with all the other cubicle workers of the world."

So, get yourself one of these:

and some of these:

and one of these:

and start off each day with a delicious one of these:

Fast Regularly ... And Live Longer

2007-05-03T09:01:00.000-05:00

(I wonder if any studies have been done on Orthodox monks re: their lifespans and general health?)

Read More: The Calorie Restriction Society

An alternative: Calorie restriction:

Intermittent fasting as an alternative approach

Studies by Mark P. Mattson, Ph. D., chief of the National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Laboratory of Neurosciences, and colleagues have found that intermittent fasting and calorie restriction affect the progression of diseases similar to Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease in mice (PMID 11119686). In one study, rats and mice ate a low-calorie diet or were deprived of food for 24 hours every other day (PMID 12724520). Both methods improved glucose metabolism, increased insulin sensitivity, and increased stress resistance. Researchers have long been aware that calorie restriction extends lifespan, but this study showed that improved glucose metabolism also protects neurons in experimental models of Parkinson's and stroke.

Another NIA study found that intermittent fasting and calorie restriction delays the onset of Huntington's disease-like symptoms in mice and prolongs their lives (PMID 12589027). Huntington's disease (HD), a genetic disorder, results from neuronal degeneration in the striatum. This neurodegeneration results in difficulties with movements that include walking, speaking, eating, and swallowing. People with Huntington's also exhibit an abnormal, diabetes-like metabolism that causes them to lose weight progressively.

This NIA study compared adult HD mice who ate as much as they wanted to HD mice who were kept on an intermittent fasting diet during adulthood. HD mice possess the abnormal human gene huntingtin and exhibit clinical signs of the disease, including abnormal metabolism and neurodegeneration in the striatum. The mice on the fasting program developed clinical signs of the disease about 12 days later and lived 10 to 15% longer than the free-fed mice. The brains of the fasting mice also showed less degeneration. Those on the fasting program also regulated their glucose levels better and did not lose weight as quickly as the other mice. Researchers found that fasting mice had higher brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels. BDNF protects neurons and stimulates their growth. Fasting mice also had high levels of heat-shock protein-70 (Hsp70, which increases cellular resistance to stress.

Another NIA study indicates that intermittent fasting may be more beneficial than cutting calorie intake. Researchers let a control group of mice eat freely. Another group was fed 60% of the calories that the control group consumed. A third group was fasted for 24 hours, then permitted to free-feed. [9] According to an Associated Press article (29 April 2003), the fasting mice "didn't cut total calories because they ate twice as much on days they weren't fasting. Both the fasting mice and those on a restricted diet had significantly lower blood sugar and insulin levels than the free-fed controls. A toxin that damages hippocampal cells was injected in all of the mice. Hippocampal damage is associated with Alzheimer's. Interestingly, the scientists found less damage in the brains of the fasting mice than in those that ate either a restricted or a normal diet. The NIA is planning a human study that will compare a group eating three meals a day with a group eating the same diet and amount of food within four hours and then fasting 20 hours."

In a television interview with Meredith MacRae c. 1984, Roy Walford mentions intermittent fasting and its dramatic effects on animal life span through "undernutrition without malnutrition".

- - -

Gene clue to longevity uncovered

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News

The mystery of how eating less boosts longevity is closer to being solved.

Studies have shown that severe calorie restriction markedly extends lifespan in mice and many other species - but the reasons for this remained elusive.

But now US research on nematode worms, published in Nature, has uncovered a gene linked to this unusual effect.

In the future, the find could lead to drugs that mimic the consequences of calorie restriction but negate the need for severe fasting regimes.

Sweet-spot

The life-lengthening properties of reducing calorie intake were first discovered in the 1930s, when laboratory rodents fed a severely reduced diet were found to outlive their well-fed peers.

Since then, this effect has been observed on organisms as diverse as yeast, flies, worms and dogs.

The consequences for humans of cutting calorie intake by about 60% while maintaining levels of vital nutrients are still unclear, although this extreme diet has a number of followers.

Andrew Dillin, an author of the paper and an associate professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, said: "If you reduce food too much, you go towards starvation and live less long. If you overeat you will succumb to obesity and have a short lifespan. Dietary restriction is really a sweet-spot between the two.

"But for 72 years, we have not known how it works."

A study using nematode worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) revealed that a gene called pha-4 played a key role.

The team found worms that had their pha-4 genes removed showed no enhanced longevity while on the restricted diet.

But they discovered that the opposite experiment - over-expressing levels of pha-4 in the worms - increased longevity when on the restricted diet.

"This is the first gene we have found that is absolutely essential to the longevity response to dietary restriction," explained Dr Dillin.

"We finally have genetic evidence to unravel the underlying molecular programme required for increased longevity in response to calorie restriction."

Feast or famine

Although the study was carried out on worms, the finding could also be important for other species.

Mammals, including humans, possessed genes that were highly similar to the pha-4 gene, explained Dr Dillin.

These genes play a key role in development, and then in later life in the regulation of glucagon, a hormone that has a major role in maintaining glucose levels in blood - especially during fasting.

In fact, scientists believe the life-increasing effect of dietary restriction may be linked to boosting chances of survival through times of food scarcity.

"Pha-4 may be the primordial gene to help an animal overcome stressful conditions to live a long time through dietary restriction conditions," explained Dr Dillin.

Scientists now plan to look at the gene in other species.

Should the longevity link also apply to humans, it could open the door to the development of drugs that mimic the effects of calorie restriction while allowing people to maintain their normal diet, the scientists said.

Professor Richard Miller of the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan, commented: "It is really hard to guess whether the connections that we see between the pha-4 system and calorie restriction in worms will have parallels in mammals, whose repertoire of responses to various forms of long- and short-term food shortages are far more complex than those of worms.

"But the Dillin paper provides both motivation to look and also clues about where to look. I think it's likely to be influential, even if the implications for mammals do eventually turn out to be a cul-de-sac - which they might or might not."

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6612411.stm

- - -

Extreme dieting: Eat less, live longer?

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists believe they are a step closer to working out why an extremely restrictive diet boosts longevity.

This well-documented calorie-cutting phenomenon has been seen in many species, from yeast to mice to dogs.

Although the effects of "calorie restriction" in humans are as yet unknown, some are undertaking this in a bid to live longer.

Here, Bob Cavanaugh, managing director of the Calorie Restriction Society, tells the BBC News website about his diet.

I've been doing calorie restriction for six years.

When I was 53, I had a physical and found out my blood cholesterol level was very high. My doctor wanted to try to control it with diet before resorting to drugs, and I was all in favour of that.

I had read a book about calorie restriction and ageing back in 1988, and was convinced by the science, so I decided to try it.

I use software to work out what to eat everyday. I believe without it, it is impossible to have proper nutrition.

You weigh your food, and it works out the calories, the ratio of fat, carbohydrate and protein and the breakdown of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, then runs a nutritional profile of what you eat throughout the day.

On an average day, I eat 1,800 calories. Younger people can restrict their calories more severely, but I've been told that, based on lab animal evidence, I have already accumulated years of damage to my mitochondria (the powerhouses of the cells), so I utilise my food less efficiently than a younger person.

On a typical day, I will eat an oatmeal-based recipe for breakfast, which is about 455 calories and it gives me about half of my daily nutrients.

I don't eat lunch - after this breakfast I just don't feel hungry - so that leaves me about 1,350 calories for my evening meal, which is a lot.

If you are smart, by eating small portions of meat and small quantities of starchy things, that leaves an enormous amount of room for fruit and vegetables. You wind up eating quite a large meal and it is very filling, nutritious and satisfying.

Exhilaration

Contrary to popular belief, you are not hungry on this diet, and I feel excellent. When I started the diet when I was 53, I felt like I was starting to get on in years and didn't quite have the vim and vigour I used to have.

But starting calorie restriction, that exhilaration that I used to experience in youth returned and my whole sense of well-being returned to levels I experienced as a child.

It really made me feel like I got my life back.

In terms of health, my cholesterol level has really dropped; I now weigh 150lb, and I haven't had any illnesses at all - not even a cold.

My motivation for doing calorie restriction was two-fold. One was to reduce my risk of age-related diseases such as heart disease - with the cholesterol level I had. I was in line for this.

And the prospect of extending your lifespan is very appealing - although I guess you have to be somewhat narcissistic to think you are worth living a lot longer than anyone else.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6617113.stm

- - -

Worm gene linked to longevity

LAJOLLA, Calif., May 2, 2007 (UPI) -- California researchers say they have located a gene that helps low-calorie diets increase longevity in animals.

The scientists say the discovery of the gene PHA-4 in worms may lead to new understanding of the "starvation response" in animals. The researchers said that could then lead to new drugs that delay the onset of age-related diseases in humans, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The report was published online in the journal Nature.

Senior scientist Andrew Dillin of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., said PHA-4 coordinates other genes that influence how the adult worm's body responds to a restricted diet. He said humans possess three genes that are very similar to PHA-4.

- - -

Calorie reduction may lead to longer life

LONDON, April 19, 2007 (UPI) -- An Imperial College London canine study suggests a calorie-restricted diet might result in extended longevity.

In the study led by Jeremy Nicholson, Labrador retriever dogs fed a calorie-restricted diet showed different lifelong patterns relating to energy metabolism and the activities of their gut microbes. The dogs lived nearly two years longer than similar dogs given a slightly higher-calorie diet.

Nicholson and colleagues from Nestle Purina Research centers in Switzerland and the United States noted previous studies also established calorie restriction as a proven method for extending the lifespan of animals. But that research did not explain how calorie restriction works.

The new study suggests some beneficial changes might relate to the activities of symbiotic bacteria that live in the intestinal tract. Those microbes, the scientists said, produce a range of biochemicals that might influence disease processes and alter energy metabolism in host organisms.

Researchers said although their goal was to help develop diets that keep pets alive and healthy for as long as possible, the findings might also be relevant to human dietary changes and obesity.

The study is scheduled for the May 4 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research.

"Not By Bread Alone" ... But Also Not Without Bread!

2007-01-20T14:58:00.004-06:00

Thanks to Rod Dreher of beliefnet for letting us know about these NYTimes articles.

(Be sure to read the Variations and Improvements post.)

Watch video here.

November 8, 2006

The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work

By MARK BITTMAN

INNOVATIONS in bread baking are rare. In fact, the 6,000-year-old process hasn’t changed much since Pasteur made the commercial production of standardized yeast possible in 1859. The introduction of the gas stove, the electric mixer and the food processor made the process easier, faster and more reliable.

I’m not counting sliced bread as a positive step, but Jim Lahey’s method may be the greatest thing since.

This story began in late September when Mr. Lahey sent an e-mail message inviting me to attend a session of a class he was giving at Sullivan Street Bakery, which he owns, at 533 West 47th Street in Manhattan. His wording was irresistible: “I’ll be teaching a truly minimalist breadmaking technique that allows people to make excellent bread at home with very little effort. The method is surprisingly simple — I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.”

I set up a time to visit Mr. Lahey, and we baked together, and the only bad news is that you cannot put your 4-year-old to work producing bread for you. The method is complicated enough that you would need a very ambitious 8-year-old. But the results are indeed fantastic.

Mr. Lahey’s method is striking on several levels. It requires no kneading. (Repeat: none.) It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques. It takes very little effort.

It accomplishes all of this by combining a number of unusual though not unheard of features. Most notable is that you’ll need about 24 hours to create a loaf; time does almost all the work. Mr. Lahey’s dough uses very little yeast, a quarter teaspoon (you almost never see a recipe with less than a teaspoon), and he compensates for this tiny amount by fermenting the dough very slowly. He mixes a very wet dough, about 42 percent water, which is at the extreme high end of the range that professional bakers use to create crisp crust and large, well-structured crumb, both of which are evident in this loaf.

The dough is so sticky that you couldn’t knead it if you wanted to. It is mixed in less than a minute, then sits in a covered bowl, undisturbed, for about 18 hours. It is then turned out onto a board for 15 minutes, quickly shaped (I mean in 30 seconds), and allowed to rise again, for a couple of hours. Then it’s baked. That’s it.

I asked Harold McGee, who is an amateur breadmaker and best known as the author of “On Food and Cooking” (Scribner, 2004), what he thought of this method. His response: “It makes sense. The long, slow rise does over hours what intensive kneading does in minutes: it brings the gluten molecules into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff.”

That’s as technical an explanation as I care to have, enough to validate what I already knew: Mr. Lahey’s method is creative and smart.

But until this point, it’s not revolutionary. Mr. McGee said he had been kneading less and less as the years have gone by, relying on time to do the work for him. Charles Van Over, author of the authoritative book on food-processor dough making, “The Best Bread Ever” (Broadway, 1997), long ago taught me to make a very wet dough (the food processor is great at this) and let it rise slowly. And, as Mr. Lahey himself notes, “The Egyptians mixed their batches of dough with a hoe.”

What makes Mr. Lahey’s process revolutionary is the resulting combination of great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor — long fermentation gives you that — and an enviable, crackling crust, the feature of bread that most frequently separates the amateurs from the pros. My bread has often had thick, hard crusts, not at all bad, but not the kind that shatter when you bite into them. Producing those has been a bane of the amateur for years, because it requires getting moisture onto the bread as the crust develops.

To get that kind of a crust, professionals use steam-injected ovens. At home I have tried brushing the dough with water (a hassle and ineffective); spraying it (almost as ineffective and requiring frequent attention); throwing ice cubes on the floor of the oven (not good for the oven, and not far from ineffective); and filling a pot with stones and preheating it, then pouring boiling water over the stones to create a wet sauna (quite effective but dangerous, physically challenging and space-consuming). I was discouraged from using La Cloche, a covered stoneware dish, by my long-standing disinclination to crowd my kitchen with inessential items that accomplish only one chore. I was discouraged from buying a $5,000 steam-injected oven by its price.

It turns out there’s no need for any of this. Mr. Lahey solves the problem by putting the dough in a preheated covered pot — a common one, a heavy one, but nothing fancy. For one loaf he used an old Le Creuset enameled cast iron pot; for another, a heavy ceramic pot. (I have used cast iron with great success.) By starting this very wet dough in a hot, covered pot, Mr. Lahey lets the crust develop in a moist, enclosed environment. The pot is in effect the oven, and that oven has plenty of steam in it. Once uncovered, a half-hour later, the crust has time to harden and brown, still in the pot, and the bread is done. (Fear not. The dough does not stick to the pot any more than it would to a preheated bread stone.)

The entire process is incredibly simple, and, in the three weeks I’ve been using it, absolutely reliable. Though professional bakers work with consistent flour, water, yeast and temperatures, and measure by weight, we amateurs have mostly inconsistent ingredients and measure by volume, which can make things unpredictable. Mr. Lahey thinks imprecision isn’t much of a handicap and, indeed, his method seems to iron out the wrinkles: “I encourage a somewhat careless approach,” he says, “and figure this may even be a disappointment to those who expect something more difficult. The proof is in the loaf.”

The loaf is incredible, a fine-bakery quality, European-style boule that is produced more easily than by any other technique I’ve used, and will blow your mind. (It may yet change the industry. Mr. Lahey is experimenting with using it on a large scale, but although it requires far less electricity than conventional baking, it takes a lot of space and time.) It is best made with bread flour, but all-purpose flour works fine. (I’ve played with whole-wheat and rye flours, too; the results are fantastic.)

You or your 8-year-old may hit this perfectly on the first try, or you may not. Judgment is involved; with practice you’ll get it right every time.

The baking itself is virtually foolproof, so the most important aspect is patience. Long, slow fermentation is critical. Mr. Lahey puts the time at 12 to 18 hours, but I have had much greater success at the longer time. If you are in a hurry, more yeast (three-eighths of a teaspoon) or a warmer room temperature may move things along, but really, once you’re waiting 12 hours why not wait 18? Similarly, Mr. Lahey’s second rising can take as little as an hour, but two hours, or even a little longer, works better.

Although even my “failed” loaves were as good as those from most bakeries, to make the loaf really sensational requires a bit of a commitment. But with just a little patience, you will be rewarded with the best no-work bread you have ever made. And that’s no small thing.

November 8, 2006

Recipe: No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
1-5/8 cups water
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

December 6, 2006

The Minimalist

No Kneading, but Some Fine-Tuning

By MARK BITTMAN

LAST month I wrote about Jim Lahey, the owner of Sullivan Street Bakery on West 47th Street in Manhattan, and his clever way to produce a European-style boule at home. Mr. Lahey’s recipe calls for very little yeast, a wet dough, long rising times and baking in a closed, preheated pot. My results with Mr. Lahey’s method have been beyond satisfying.

Happily, so have those of most readers. In the last few weeks Jim Lahey’s recipe has been translated into German, baked in Togo, discussed on more than 200 blogs and written about in other newspapers. It has changed the lives (their words, not mine) of veteran and novice bakers. It has also generated enough questions to warrant further discussion here. The topics are more or less in the order of the quantity of inquiries.

WEIGHT VS. VOLUME The original recipe contained volume measures, but for those who prefer to use weight, here are the measurements: 430 grams of flour, 345 grams of water, 1 gram of yeast and 8 grams of salt. With experience, many people will stop measuring altogether and add just enough water to make the dough almost too wet to handle.

SALT Many people, me included, felt Mr. Lahey’s bread was not salty enough. Yes, you can use more salt and it won’t significantly affect the rising time. I’ve settled at just under a tablespoon.

YEAST Instant yeast, called for in the recipe, is also called rapid-rise yeast. But you can use whatever yeast you like. Active dry yeast can be used without proofing (soaking it to make sure it’s active).

TIMING About 18 hours is the preferred initial rising time. Some readers have cut this to as little as eight hours and reported little difference. I have not had much luck with shorter times, but I have gone nearly 24 hours without a problem. Room temperature will affect the rising time, and so will the temperature of the water you add (I start with tepid). Like many other people, I’m eager to see what effect warmer weather will have. But to those who have moved the rising dough around the room trying to find the 70-degree sweet spot: please stop. Any normal room temperature is fine. Just wait until you see bubbles and well-developed gluten — the long strands that cling to the sides of the bowl when you tilt it — before proceeding.

THE SECOND RISE Mr. Lahey originally suggested one to two hours, but two to three is more like it, in my experience. (Ambient temperatures in the summer will probably knock this time down some.) Some readers almost entirely skipped this rise, shaping the dough after the first rise and letting it rest while the pot and oven preheat; this is worth trying, of course.

OTHER FLOURS Up to 30 percent whole-grain flour works consistently and well, and 50 percent whole-wheat is also excellent. At least one reader used 100 percent whole-wheat and reported “great crust but somewhat inferior crumb,” which sounds promising. I’ve kept rye, which is delicious but notoriously impossible to get to rise, to about 20 percent. There is room to experiment.

FLAVORINGS The best time to add caraway seeds, chopped olives, onions, cheese, walnuts, raisins or whatever other traditional bread flavorings you like is after you’ve mixed the dough. But it’s not the only time; you can fold in ingredients before the second rising.

OTHER SHAPES Baguettes in fish steamers, rolls in muffin tins or classic loaves in loaf pans: if you can imagine it, and stay roughly within the pattern, it will work.

COVERING BETWEEN RISES A Silpat mat under the dough is a clever idea (not mine). Plastic wrap can be used as a top layer in place of a second towel.

THE POT The size matters, but not much. I have settled on a smaller pot than Mr. Lahey has, about three or four quarts. This produces a higher loaf, which many people prefer — again, me included. I’m using cast iron. Readers have reported success with just about every available material. Note that the lid handles on Le Creuset pots can only withstand temperatures up to 400 degrees. So avoid using them, or remove the handle first.

BAKING You can increase the initial temperature to 500 degrees for more rapid browning, but be careful; I scorched a loaf containing whole-wheat flour by doing this. Yes, you can reduce the length of time the pot is covered to 20 minutes from 30, and then increase the time the loaf bakes uncovered. Most people have had a good experience baking for an additional 30 minutes once the pot is uncovered.

As these answers demonstrate, almost everything about Mr. Lahey’s bread is flexible, within limits. As we experiment, we will have failures. (Like the time I stopped adding flour because the phone rang, and didn’t realize it until 18 hours later. Even this, however, was reparable). This method is going to have people experimenting, and largely succeeding, until something better comes along. It may be quite a while.