- Joined
- Jul 4, 2012
- Messages
- 1,904
- Reaction score
- 3,493
Archie Goodwin, leading a client in to see Nero Wolfe, while Wolfe was in the middle of burning a dictionary in the fireplace, for such sins as saying you could use imply and infer interchangeably, explained to the client that "he once burned up a cookbook for saying you should remove the hide from a ham before putting it into the pot with the beans."
What are your worsts?
I have two. The first is from an otherwise-wonderful recipe for tonic water, from Imbibe magazine, in which, after you simmer the spices and cinchona and citrus, you add all the sugar to make a thick syrup, then spend days trying to filter the muck through coffee filters. Daft. By adding the sugar later, you can do your filtering in minutes, with cheesecloth.
The second, alas, is from the woman who wrote the cookbook that got me started in Chinese cooking. In an otherwise wonderful recipe for "Wine-Simmered Duck," which I am actually in the middle of making for guests tonight, she says, about the noodles that go into the clay pot with the simmered duck and carrots and dried mushrooms: if they are frozen, defrost them thoroughly, then add to boiling water...
That does not work. If you defrost Chinese egg noodles, they stick together. It took me years to learn the trick: just add the frozen noodles to the boiling water, fiddle with them with chopsticks a lot, and they will cook beautifully.
What are your worsts?
I have two. The first is from an otherwise-wonderful recipe for tonic water, from Imbibe magazine, in which, after you simmer the spices and cinchona and citrus, you add all the sugar to make a thick syrup, then spend days trying to filter the muck through coffee filters. Daft. By adding the sugar later, you can do your filtering in minutes, with cheesecloth.
The second, alas, is from the woman who wrote the cookbook that got me started in Chinese cooking. In an otherwise wonderful recipe for "Wine-Simmered Duck," which I am actually in the middle of making for guests tonight, she says, about the noodles that go into the clay pot with the simmered duck and carrots and dried mushrooms: if they are frozen, defrost them thoroughly, then add to boiling water...
That does not work. If you defrost Chinese egg noodles, they stick together. It took me years to learn the trick: just add the frozen noodles to the boiling water, fiddle with them with chopsticks a lot, and they will cook beautifully.