MMM BAKING. Basic cooking questions.

[cjsmith]

I came home last night to discover that Rob, when tidying up to leave for the weekend, had tossed three perfectly good squishy brown bananas into the trash. Those are now in a big loaf of banana bread. (It turns out they weren't quite squishy enough yet, but they were fine after sufficient violence from me.)

Then I pulled out the Northern beans I was soaking for soup [original typo: soap] and tried to figure out what to do with them given that the local grocery store didn't have a ham bone. Seriously. They had ham hocks... SMOKED ones. Last time I substituted meat-that-had-had-something-done-to-it for meat in a recipe I was very sorry. So I turned that into a sort of Tuscan white bean and sausage soup. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on chopping up stuff for soup when the aroma of banana bread is taking over your brain?

Now I could start a yeast bread dough rising, and I should, soon, if I want fondue tonight, but I'm restin' my feet for a bit.

Time for a poll:

[Poll #1143214]

Comments

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

For the ham hock, substitute any of the following: Chopped ham, salt pork, bacon, or any kind of delicious sausage (andouille is particularly good if you like spicy things).

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that's good to know! I actually had the salt pork in my hand and was thinking of it for a while, until I remembered the recipe that actually called for sausage. That's when I just decided to switch tracks instead of blazing a trail. :)

[grump html-edit aaaah-that's-better]

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

One thing to remember tho.

When adding a ham bone, you are adding flavor and very little salt. That goes in at the beginning.

Anything salty doesn't get added to beans till they are darn near cooked. Otherwise the salt hits their skins, they toughen up and become mysteriously impossible to cook soft no matter how long and how much you beg and plead with them. Beans get cooked about 2/3 of the way first and then the salty goodness gets added. I learnt this the hard way. I do not recommend this as a way to learn. It was sad.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point: maybe I put the sausage in a bit early, because I tossed it in after the first boil-and-drain. Sausage is stuffed with salt. I guess I'll see. It's smelling reeeeeeally niiiiice... :-)

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

Do ya'll have Honey Baked Ham?
Vickie buys ham bones there for like, $2.25, and she makes the best soups.

[brooksmoses]

Speaking of that past experience, I do feel compelled to correct some of the egregious misunderstandings by your commenters about corned beef. The "chemicals" that it is soaked in are almost entirely sodium chloride, not "nitrates and nitrites" (though those are occasionally added as well), and the process long predates adding nitrates to preserved meat. In other words, it's basically just pickled in salt brine. And thus has about as much resemblance to raw uncured beef as, say, a kosher dill has to a raw cucumber, except that the corned beef isn't packed in vinegar after the pickling.

(Corned beef is also not, as a high-school friend of mine was convinced, made by force-feeding cows pounds and pounds of salt until they died.)

Smoked ham hocks would probably have been just fine in your bean soup, though they would likely have added a bit of a smokey flavor. (Which might be a good thing; who knows?)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Huh. I know squat about corned beef, so thanks for the info! That explains why the major result I experienced was YIKES THIS IS WAY TOO SALTY TO EAT. :)

I was a bit worried about the smoke flavor. I should note that I don't know how smoked ham hocks SHOULD look, but those things looked like they'd been smoked for weeks.

[brooksmoses]

To explain the "other": On beans, I have no idea (and I figure the poll is asking what I know, not what I could find out). I would look it up if I were sufficiently curious. :)

Dried herbs are worthless when they've started to go beige and dusty. They lose flavor before that, which can IMHO be compensated for by using more of them. Spices also vary; I gather that freshness makes a significant difference to the strength of powdered paprika, for instance, whereas whole cumin seeds I would expect to be pretty much unchanged after a few years. But you asked about worthless, rather than "less perfect than they could be" -- and, for that, most herbs lose so much by being dried that it seems to me to be a bit odd to be picky about the freshness of one's dried herbs.

Anyhow, if one's feeling dubious about one's herbs or spices, tasting them is always the easiest way to check.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

They lose flavor before that, which can IMHO be compensated for by using more of them.

That is what I've been doing for the last (mumblemumble too many digits) years. :) Nothing's gone beige and dusty yet, but I do wonder if it's worth replacing some of the older specimens.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I said 3-5 on herbs and spices, but really it's going to vary depending on what you've got there. They lose a lot within the first year, but you can make up for it by using more; I don't know that they ever really get completely worthless, but there's definitely a point where new spices would be way lots better.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I guess "completely worthless" is a nonuseful way to ask the question. Of course, "worth replacing" depends a lot on one's budget, how one feels about waste, how important that spice is to the recipe at hand... eh. Oh well. I guess I got the general gist from the pattern of answers and from a few comments: they just sort of taper off into cardboardness over the span of a decade or so.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Randy makes me throw out any herbs or spices older than 1 or 2 years, depending upon what the spice is. I've never gotten the exact aging algorithm out of him.

That having been said, it's my distinct impression that he sniffs each spice before using it, and tosses anything that doesn't smell pungent enough.

I haven't ever been able to explain to him that all of the lasagnas I've made that he's adored have been made with spices and herbs that would be long-past-throwing-out under his standard. He insists that's not possible, and he would have been able to taste if the herbs and spices had been "past their expiration date".

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I haven't ever been able to explain to him that all of the lasagnas I've made that he's adored have been made with spices and herbs that would be long-past-throwing-out under his standard. He insists that's not possible, and he would have been able to taste if the herbs and spices had been "past their expiration date".

*snicker* That kind of thing always amuses me.

[runeshower.livejournal.com]

The smoked ham hocks would probably have been very nice in the soup.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I was worried about just how smoky the soup would get. Those things were dark and shriveled. I wonder if they weren't smoked so much as survived a major conflagration. :) Maybe that's what a smoked ham hock always looks like.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

you're supposed to pitch spices? whoops. i grew up using the exact same can of paprika ... it was so old, i suspect what was coming out was actually rust, not spice. Dad and Diane have spices that date to the beginning of their marriage ... to their original spouses!! (40ish yrs ago each)

i think it's high time i visited my little spice/bulk foods shop. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Never throw anything away! Just use more and more of it! :-)

(well, okay. Until your fondue turns out brown and crunchy from the nutmeg, or your rosemary bread turns out green and very crumbly!)

That's what I've been doing, anyway, and I suspect it'll be easier on me to get some fresh stuff.

Beans "other" explained

[nosrednayduj]

I'm too lazy for dried beans. The canned ones work very nicely and turn out your food much quicker. No need to sort through them for the occasional stone, either.

Re: Beans "other" explained

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could think about that. I'm seduced by the long-term storage possibilities of dried beans, but when I think about it, canned stuff doesn't exactly go bad in a month either.

Re: Beans "other" explained

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

[labrat2.livejournal.com]

Funny. I soaked some Great Northerns last night and have a smoked ham hock (actually a shank since they didn't have hocks) on the stove right now! I'm making bean soup and always use the smoked ham parts to make it.

Mmmmmmmm.... soup.

I've used canned beans in soup, before. It ususally comes out fine. I just like to have the dried ones on hand and actually use them because they store so nicely.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, what's your recipe? How'd it turn out?

That's what I love about dried beans: you can store them for so long in such a small space. I guess canned will store for a good while too, now that I think about it.

[labrat2.livejournal.com]

Doh... I was going to edit my comment...

EDIT: And even though I responded about the spices and herbs the way I did, doesn't mean I actually throw them out when I'm supposed to. I hate for things to go to waste. The closest I came to actually following that guideline was when we were moving and I pitched the older or less expensive stuff. Sheesh... I managed to get a bunch of cardamom at a really good price in some Indian grocery in the Bay Area before we moved. I'll be doing my best to preserve that because it's bloody expensive if you buy it in the regular grocery.

[recordersmith.livejournal.com]

Just started bread (well, in the bread machine) largely as a result of this thread. Thanks! :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! I love it when something good, like homemade bread, is "contagious"!