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).

[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?)

[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.

[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.

[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".

[runeshower.livejournal.com]

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

[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]

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[brooksmoses]

Yup. There's probably a reason that the usual way of preparing corned beef (so far as I'm familiar with, anyhow) is to boil it with lots of water (and usually with cabbages, carrots, onions, potatoes, etc.) for several hours. The boiling undoubtably leaches out quite a lot of the salt in the beef.

[brooksmoses]

tiger_spot may or may not have some of the herbs that came with the spice rack they bought from someone who got it as a gift and never used them for probably a decade. Those were some very sad-looking spices; it was quite obvious.

It may be useful to do some experimenting -- pick a jar that's well-used, and get a fresh one of the same thing, and do a taste-test and see whether it seems to make a difference or not, and whether it's enough that you care.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

The potatoes help pull out some of the salt.

If things are ever OMFGBBQ too salty, toss a potato in. Cook for a while. Remove potato and add to compost pile. Do not eat it. A sacrificial potato can pull out some salt and sometimes bring something back from the inedible. However, there are situations beyond what even a potato can fix.

Another thing for insanely salty meats... rinse and presoak to get some salt out. This is also good for things like capers and sauerkraut, otherwise their salty flavor will take over the world.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Go to an Indian Grocery.

They have every spice in creation there, whole, ground, squooshed, and in forms I can't recognise.

And... you may buy as much or as little as you need. Want two bay leaves? Cool. Need six ounces of paprika? Fine. Want one tablespoon of onion seeds? You got it.

Buying them in this way prevents the waste of the grocery store where everything comes in the same size bottle whether you want the same amount of it or not. I love the Indian Grocery Stores.

[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.

[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.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen one here. That might be an eastern thing. MAN those are good.

[jtidwell.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put something that salty into my compost pile! Methinks the plants wouldn't like all that salt... The basic potato idea is sound, though.

[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... :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I want to do that... for chipotle peppers. I couldn't find those at the grocery, so I didn't do the chipotle pork recipe takhisis gave me last weekend. I'm going to try a run to a couple other (probably not better but different) grocery places tomorrow, if I have feet left for it.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Point taken. It might make the rest of the pile Unhappy.

I don't know what to with it at that point, it's kind of food toxic waste.

But it saves the meal, which is FTW.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Nah, there's one here in Fremont, about four blocks from my house. There's *definitely* at least one in San Jose, on Winchester.

You want ham bones? Email me, I'll get you ham bones :):).

(Although I actually prefer smoked ham hocks in split pea soup and in white beans.)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Are you looking for chipotle in adobo? Because Safeway carries them, canned, in the Mexican section.