Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Here’s my cat tax - actually not fighting for once!

And just to prove we get lovely fall colour around here, here’s a tree outside the pub near us.

Hello new thread.

I have never attempted sourdough and I have never used the airing cupboard for proving bread dough. This house is hot though and if it’s not warm enough to prove dough unaided there will be a big radiator to stick a bowl of dough on. I most likely to bake Pitts though and for that the dough happily lives in the fridge until I break a chunk off to stick in the air fryer.

I’m intrigued by that pub @Britinme

What you can see is storage units outside. It started off as a consignment shop, but he owned the whole building and he converted the other end of it into a pub and got a local restaurant called Bayou Kitchen to come and do the food for him. They're open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's not fine dining but they do excellent burgers and delicious New Orleans-style beignets.

I've gone through my entire life without ever hearing of a beignet until today. Well, now I know.

I've heard of beignets but don't think I've ever seen one in the wild.

I'm thinking more Ena Sharples.

I'd never heard of them either, but they've made me think of Dutch oliebollen with apples in them and now I want some. Leaving the recipe here to remind me to make some.

taravanderdussen.com/blog/oliebollen-new-years-day

Damn Americans and their stupid bloody cups!

Sounds nice, though. Do you reckon eating apples or cooking apples, Veg?

There is that, yes.

I also now discover that I've been living under the misconception that "all-purpose flour" was American for self-raising, whereas in fact it is American for plain.

There's a UK recipe here. Personally I'd leave out the raisins and currants.

https://www.recipesmadeeasy.co.uk/oliebollen/#recipe

I imagine there'd be a bit of trial and error involved in the size of the balls, temp of the oil, and frying time. It's a long time since I deep-fried anything except chips. Years ago I used to essay samosas.

The ones I had were a bit bigger than a golf ball, but I shall do some experimenting and see what happens. It's been nearly 25 since I've had apple oliebollen, far too long. I can't actually remember the last time I deep-fried anything.

I never watch these Bake-off shows, but saw a few mins the other day, probably via Gogglebox, and this guy was deep-frying something, and it completely broke up into pieces and was ruined, and I recalled distant memories of making falafels. Well, sometimes they worked!

Heh, my attempts at falafel never worked either.

Those sound tasty, but deep frying scares me.

Felafel can be shallow fried. The key to holding together is giving them a really good squash, ideally with a felafel press.

I can't imagine many of us on this thread have a felafel press sitting in that drawer where we keep the utensils we don't use very often.

Cups are pretty easy actually - a cup is 8 fluid ounces so anything that fits exactly into a cup that size (cheap and easy to buy a set of cups that measure a whole cup, half a cup, a third of a cup and a quarter cup, also a set of measuring spoons) is a cup. It only gets tricky when you read instructions like "packed" (which is usually brown sugar where loosely piled-in brown sugar is going to weigh a lot less than brown sugar you've packed down firmly into the cup). General instructions with cups are that you spoon the ingredient into the cup and level the top with a knife scraped across the top of the cup. For baking I generally weigh things but most Americans don't. Otherwise cups are generally good enough.

I have a set of American measuring cups (but not a falafel press, obviously), but seldom use them. But then, I'm a big fan of weighing 'everything', including liquids.

I first read of beignets in one of Sharyn McCrumb's Elizabeth McPherson mysteries. They sounded good, particularly if they were made without the arsenic coating featured in the book. Then saw them in an episode of NCIS New Orleans where I think the person who enjoyed them then got blown up.

Trouble is, they now seem a bit dangerous.

I've just been misgendered on a TV thread. How exciting, this is my first time! 😀I said nowt, though.

anything that fits exactly into a cup that size is a cup

The problem I have is that they are so often used for things that don't fit, or fit very differently depending on a detail that's omitted - cup of green beans, or a cup of cubed cheese. The beans hang over the edge, or should I pack them in vertically? If so, do I trim them off at cup level or leave them full length? What size cheese cube?

You know where you are with 8 oz or 200g.

I hope you've had a cup of strong sweet tea/large brandy to recover from the assault, duc.

Unnecessary, Bint. I am completely at home with my feminine side. Did make me smile, though.