Blogs : General Topics Digest
General Topics Digest Weekly highlights from the most interesting Chowhound posts on the General Chowhounding Topics board, such as the best frozen pizza, how to store chicken breasts, what restaurant to pop the question at, and where to find your mail order meats.
Brie: Should You Eat the Rind?
Are you supposed to eat the white rind on the outside of Brie cheese? It’s not required, says goodhealthgourmet. “Sure, some people may think you’re missing the best part, but it’s a matter of personal preference.” The French think it’s gauche to cut off the rind, says jayt90, but pikawicca has seen French people do it.
Whether you want to eat the rind may have to do with how good your cheese is. “Better quality, younger soft-ripened cheeses tend to have a softer, more pliable rind,” says caviar_and_chitlins. “I make my rind-eating decisions on the condition of the rind—if it’s tough and leathery, no. If it’s bloomy and cottony and delicate, then yes.” Cheese expert Laura Werlin says, for the most part, hard cheese rinds are not eaten, while soft cheese rinds are. But personal preference should always win out.
If you’re new to eating the rind of Brie, try it baked, served with apple slices and a baguette, suggests bulavinaka, who didn’t eat the rind “until I was served this at a French-style cafe back in the ’80s. After that, I was sold on eating soft cheeses like Brie whole.”
For more about cheese rinds, check out these CHOW videos.
Board Link: Weird Brie Cheese question
Posted by
| 1 comment
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, brie, rind
Gourmet Flavored Cottage Cheeses
Rachel’s Wickedly Delicious flavored cottage cheese comes in flavors like Lemon Verbena Berry and Cucumber Dill.
The sweet flavors are subtle and not too sweet, says rworange. Like yogurt, Lemon Verbena Berry comes with ready-to-mix fruit on the bottom, which turns it a pretty lavender color, says rworange. The taste is a light lemon verbena with a berry background. “It is not as sweet as I would expect and not as solid as some cottage cheese.”
Having said all that, rworange prefers the savory flavors. Cucumber Dill has a flavor a little like tzatziki. “They don’t overdo the dill flavor,” says rworange. “I’d buy it again for lunch. It has a little more oomph than plain cottage cheese.”
Posted by
| 0 comments
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, cottage cheese, rachel's wickedly delicious, flavored cottage cheese
Ume by Mail Order
Fresh ume, an apricot-like Japanese fruit, has a short season and is hard to find outside of Japan. But you can order them from Mitsuwa Marketplace in Torrance, California, and get them shipped by overnight mail, says mshenna.
You have to call or fax, says mshenna; the ume season is so short that fresh ume don’t ever make it onto Mitsuwa’s website. Fresh green ume are indispensable for making homemade umeshu (plum-flavored spirits) or umeboshi (incredibly sour and salty pickled ume).
Board Link: Fresh green ume, finally, by mail order
Posted by
| 0 comments
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, ume, salted plums, pickled plums, umeboshi, umeshu
The Essence of Soda
Is all club soda the same? And is it different from seltzer water? Absolutely, says danieljdwyer. Seltzer water is just plain carbonated water; club soda has mineral salts added. “The difference is minor when one drinks them plain, but it can become noticeable when those mineral salts react with various types of alcohol,” says danieljdwyer. Some kinds of alcohol get a strange, metallic taste from the mineral salts; others benefit from them.
Different brands of club soda use varying blends of minerals, and even before the mineral blends go in, the flavor profile of the water depends on the water supply local to the brand. Confusing things still further, soda can be carbonated to different degrees. For instance, “I always found Canada Dry to be very carbonated, with very large bubbles, but also that it went flat very quickly,” says danieljdwyer. BarmyFotheringayPhipps drinks a lot of seltzer, and can definitely tell the difference between the two locally available brands: “Polar seems considerably fizzier, while Adirondack has less pronounced bubbles but a notably more mineral edge,” he says.
If you don’t find any brands to your liking, you can always make your own carbonated water. “You can also use higher quality water than the bottlers do, and still spend a tenth what it costs to buy a bottle,” says danieljdwyer. “And making it yourself allows you to customize how carbonated the water is.” He uses the seltzer maker from Soda-Club and finds it to be very economical. (CHOW likes the Soda-Club as well.)
Board Link: Is all club soda alike?
Posted by
| 1 comment
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, wine and drinks, seltzer, bubbly water, fizzy water, club soda, soda water, carbonated water, soda club
Leftover Stew, A Precious Resource
What’s the best thing to do with leftover stew? Don’t think twice: Freeze it, says Quine. “Trust me, one night, you will have had a HORRIBLE day, be extra frazzled, and need good comfort food for dinner in under 30 minutes.”
If you also make a batch of biscuits, even canned biscuits, and simmer the dough on top of the stew and then finish the whole thing in the oven, you have a generous and comforting meal, says Will Owen. It’s a laid-back version of pot pie.
For a different sort of pie experience, wrap leftover stew in pizza dough and make “hand pies (or one big roll, which we call a ‘calzone’ even though it’s really not),” says Pia. “My favorite thing to do with leftovers.”
Board Link: what to do with leftovers of stew?
Posted by
| 1 comment
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, stew, leftover, recipes, leftovers
Cheese on Pastrami and Corn on Pizza
Cheese on pastrami is kind of like corn on pizza, asserts Mr Taster: “Many people do it. It might even taste good. But is it right?” The fact that pastrami has roots in kosher Jewish cuisine makes adding cheese seem a little bit dirty. Of course, what is normal and what is disgusting on a particular dish varies hugely by region. “Recently we got some Vito’s pizza for a friend visiting from Vietnam, and she insisted on putting ketchup on it,” says Mr Taster. “She wouldn’t even taste it without the ketchup!”
How about corn on pizza? It’s a fairly common topping in Asia. “Roasted corn on certain pizzas is ok, but I would not call it a ‘pizza’ anymore,” says stricken. linguafood delivered pizza in college and loved a pie that was half corn, onion, and tuna, and half ham, mushrooms, and spinach. “In Germany, pizza deliveries will not shy away from putting asparagus, speck, and hollandaise, or ground beef, bbq sauce, and beans on pizza. Ugh. Think Chinese chop suey pizza,” linguafood says. A popular pizza available from Domino’s in Tokyo is the Mayo Jaga: mayonnaise, potato, crispy bacon, paprika, onion, and corn. “And the mayonnaise was always in the criss-cross pattern,” says valerie. Wrong or not, eat whatever you like—even pastrami pizza!
Board Link: Cheese on pastrami is kind of like corn on pizza
Posted by
| 1 comment
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, pizza, toppings, corn, mayonnaise, cheese, pastrami, weird toppings
