Not so jammin'

So just a few updates on what I've been doing lately. As for my beloved ricotta salata I was trying to attempt, the curds were way too overcooked, and so they didn't press so well, giving me a cheese that was tasty, but really crumbly in texture and dry in an uneven way. Next time I'll definitely up the citric acid and hope I get better yields. But definitely not adding any more heat is the way to go. Hey, it was worth a shot though. Only cost me about the price of a gallon of milk and some time to experiment.

As for an earlier post involving my apple pectin stock, it did set up. Sort of. But when the big test came for it to be used as pectin stock in a black cherry with pinot noir jam recipe, I got....that's right, cherry sauce. So I now have lots of tasty, runny black cherry sauce and pretty much useless apple pectin stock (but decent apple jelly, if you like that sort of thing). Oh well, maybe I just need to resign myself to using a little bit of commercial pectin for certain recipes.

in other food epiphany news, on Friday I used a coupon at the new Bristol farms to buy some very pretty albacore tuna steaks since they looked good at the store, but wasn't sure what to do with them. I decided to lightly sear the top and bottom of each piece (after seasoning it with salt and pepper and adding toasted sesame seeds) till the inside was about med rare, and serving it with a wasabi compound butter on top. For a side, I did a personal house standard of shredded carrot and shredded radishes, sometimes thinly sliced green onion, with some ginger and rice vinegar (let sit for a bit to get everything all nice and vinegary). It was so incredibly good! And the wasabi butter part totally contrasted with the fish in a nice, smooth way. I love asian-style cuisine.



As you can see form the picture, it made quite a nice sight sitting on a plate. Of course, I'm still experimenting with good ways to take food pics, but now I have a new fancy camera to take better pics of. Yup, we finally succumbed to a new small, sexy camera, the Canon Powershot SD600. It's so pretty and shiny! But now I actually have to get better at taking food pics because I no longer have the "I have a crappy camera" excuse. Oh well, hopefully people won't be afraid to give me lots of tips.