Random Food Tidbits

[kerravonsen]

• It is safe to eat raw eggs in Australia, because Australian chickens don't have Salmonella.
• Add vanilla + sugar + natural Greek yoghurt to your cream before you whip it. Makes it taste like cheesecake! Yum.

Comments

[thewayne]

Interesting thing about the eggs. The unwashed/shelf-safe aspect of British eggs vs American eggs I've always found fascinating, and I'm not sure how I would deal with that with my immune disorder. Same thing with milk. I CANNOT have non-pasteurized milk. I don't care if it's homogenized, but it's got to be heat pasteurized or I can't have it.

I assume you're talking about whipping cream for like whipped cream topping. I whip cream for chocolate mousse pie frequently, that's an interesting concept.

[kerravonsen]

I saw a documentary that basically said that there were two methods of storing eggs (that were used by various different countries) and that both methods were absolutely fine (as far as the statistics went). One method is to wash and then refrigerate the eggs, the other method is to not wash and not refrigerate the eggs (apparently washing removes some natural protective coating or something). Though if one is going the refrigerated route, they need to stay refrigerated.

Neither of these methods have anything to do with whether or not the chickens themselves have salmonella.

Let's see... the "default" cream here nowadays is "thickened cream" which has a little bit of gelatin added to it to make it thicker and easier to whip. That comes in a plastic wide-mouthed bottle. The default when I was a kid was plain cream (I think they may call it "whipping cream" nowadays?) which was thinner, had no additives, and came in a carton like a milk carton. I rarely see that nowadays. Then there is "double cream" which comes in a small plastic tub. It is really thick, like as thick as yoghurt. You can't pour it, you can only spoon it. It has like 45% milk-fat, and is really rich. You don't whip it. It is generally used for desserts, as in, you spoon a bit of double-cream on your chocolate mud cake or your Christmas pudding.

What is is the "default" cream where you are? I mean, if you have to say "I assume you mean whipping cream" then cream-that-you-whip obviously can't be the kind of cream you think of normally when someone says the word "cream" without an adjective.

[thewayne]

We have something called 'half and half', that people use in coffee.  No idea what it is as I don't drink coffee.

Upon further diving into Wikipedia, found this chart in the entry for Cream: Half and Half>=10.5%, <18%, Light cream>=18%, <30% Whipping cream>=30%, <36%Generally 33%.Heavy (whipping) cream>=36% Manufacturer's cream>=40%

Interestingly, the chart mentions that manufacturers usually make their product at the minimum percentage to meet the standard.  What a surprise.  It also says that manufacturer's cream is commonly available, but I've never seen it.

I once accidentally bought H&H, I think no other whipping cream was available, and found it doesn't whip worth anything, not enough cream in it.  I didn't know about the trick of adding things to break down the proteins and enhance its beatability, i.e. very small amounts of an acid: cream of tartar, lemon juice, or apple cider vinegar. We don't have the best of grocery stores here because it's such a small town and we're dominated by Walmart, I'm sure I could find more interesting things in Phoenix as it's the 5th largest city in the country.  Basically we only have H&H, whipping cream, and heavy cream.  I tend to buy only heavy cream when I'm able, and usually  it seems to be consistently available.  Sometimes the brand may vary and I might not be able to get the organic, bug I can usually get it. I was chatting with a friend on LJ in Iceland(?) and he was talking about a milk that they have that is over 50% higher milk solids than our whole milk, more of a cream.  He loves it, but because of the minimum bottle volume available and the fact that it's not pasteurized, it's hard for him to get through the bottle before it goes bad if he doesn't have a specific plan to use it all.  I suggested trying freezing it, as I've heard you can freeze milk without any problem, but he hasn't gotten back to me on it.

[kerravonsen]

Yep, you can freeze milk -- I do that regularly. It doesn't taste exactly the same, though; I think the freezing may slightly de-homogonize the milk. Don't know what that would do to the taste of his milk, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try.

Yeah, manufacturers tend to put in the absolute minimum required. If I recall correctly, the standards here for full cream milk is 4% milk fat. Thing is, it isn't quite that simple -- it isn't that they necessarily "thin down" the milk, but they do blend the milk, because different breeds of cow produce different compositions of milk. Airsdales (I forget the precise name; the black-and-white ones) produce higher volumes of less-rich milk, while Jersey cows produce smaller volumes of really rich milk, and other breeds of cow differ as well. I expect that Jersey cows are farmed mainly to produce cream, it would make sense to do that.

[thewayne]

We also have whipped cream dessert toppings that you can buy or whip cream and make your own, but I don't make or use those.  My usual application would be on my chocolate mousse pie, which has more than enough calories and doesn't need more!  My wife was once commenting on either my Burmese coconut cake or my flourless chocolate cake that she wanted something a little more, and I found a recipe for a salted chocolate caramel sauce that basically you could not burn as you melted the chocolate into caramel in heavy cream, and that turned out perfect.

[kerravonsen]

Whoa, that sounds rich.

[thewayne]

The salty chocolate-caramel sauce is really easy.  I found it on the Betty Crocker web site, and normally I avoid that site as I have found that it seemed most of their recipes had ingredients like "one can of Campbell's soup", and I don't cook like that.  But this one had quite an agreeable ingredient list. https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/silky-chocolate-caramel-sauce/4fefdf33-5740-4ee4-af07-2ed8e2202889 I add two more ingredients:2 tbsp vanilla extract 1 tsp kosher salt (optional)
and I almost always go 50/50 semi-sweet/bittersweet on chocolate when I'm baking or cooking. But it was great!  Caramel can be very tricky to make as it's very easy to burn, but with this, you're cooking it down in hot whipping cream and butter, so it doesn't have a chance to burn, so it's all but fool-proof!

[vilakins]

It's safe here too. Canadian friends were horrified that eggs in supermarkets aren't refrigerated, but they and Americans wash theirs and take the natural protective layer off. That said, I do put mine in the fridge when I get home.

I have a tiramisu recipe from an Italian friend which has raw eggs, and when I took it to a work function, the ex-American was shocked. She did try a bit after I explained though.

[kerravonsen]

Yeah, I get the impression that "Don't eat raw eggs!!" is a thing Americans are taught at their mother's knee, and it goes up there along with "Wash your hands!" as far as hygene/taboos go.