|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 30, 2010 9:43:50 GMT
Seven stalwarts showed up between 22:30 and about midnight. Is this a record?
Subjects covered included the history of the English language, B&Q (including wood sealant), locations, KitKats, peaches, brazil nuts, broadband catastrophes, pears, Jammy Dodgers, the art market, prunes, Viscounts, Caro Emerald, fig rolls, bourbons, Internet sex techniques, and leftover faggots.
I tried to raise the tone by broaching the subject of cooking with semolina, but there were no takers.
No Riot. No Ev. No Trubs. No you-know-who-youse-are.
|
|
|
|
Post by everso on Oct 30, 2010 12:34:51 GMT
Yes, sorry I didn't make it. My brother and his brood were staying again, plus my daughter and family were over. Christ it was hard work but great fun. Mr. E. almost had hysterics because some purple coloured fizzy drink was spilt on our cream sofa, and much furious rubbing with damp cloths ensued. He really needs to take a pill occasionally.
Just to let you all know, and I'm sure the grrls on the board will cheer for me, I went tenpin bowling with Mr. E., my brother and his two sons last night and I soundly thrashed them all, even managing to get 3 strikes. Man, the bowling god was smiling down on me yesterday.
If anyone doesn't believe me, I'll scan and send the print out. I'm so proud. I haven't stopped smiling and reminding everyone how well I did.
Left over faggots. Shame I didn't make it last night. That could have been an interesting discussion.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2010 14:26:55 GMT
well done Everso  |
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 30, 2010 17:42:34 GMT
...some purple coloured fizzy drink was spilt on our cream sofa, and much furious rubbing with damp cloths ensued... Never mind the sofa, what about their stomachs? Sorry I missed the semolina last night - I love semolina - it was all about biscuits when I was there. |
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 30, 2010 17:54:00 GMT
Sorry I missed the semolina last night - I love semolina - it was all about biscuits when I was there. YOU started it! <I made that up.> Back to semolina. I recently acquired a Czech cookery book. Thirty or more years ago I had a very wonderful Czech meal somewhere in Bayswater, including sliced dumplings. They looked like slices of British cottonwool white bread, but they were nothing like that, and delicious. Perfect texture for a stew, without the fatty suet. Never seen them before or since, even when I looked for that restaurant quite recently. Gone, and the one I ended up in was rubbish. Faux Czech, I'd say. Apparently, in the absence of proper Czech flour, the answer is to use half flour and half semolina. For the texture. But it's not that easy to get without ordering online. Any ideas, Jean? |
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 30, 2010 20:57:44 GMT
Well, come to think of it, I haven't bought any for quite a while.
Have you tried a health food store?
Or failing that, why not grind your own?
|
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 30, 2010 21:58:39 GMT
Well, come to think of it, I haven't bought any for quite a while. Have you tried a health food store? None within forty miles, as far as I know. I'm going to Holland in a couple of weeks. Even if I can't find it off the shelf in shops there, I know a few working windmills that might well have some. If that fails, I do believe there's a quern masquerading as an ornamental stone somewhere in the garden. Now, Jean, where would I get the raw material for querning from? Please don't say "grow it". |
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 30, 2010 23:03:46 GMT
Please don't say "grow it". I assumed you already did. |
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Oct 31, 2010 6:43:24 GMT
Semolina is sometimes sold as ground rice, isn't it? Or is that something different?
Anyway, we did talk about things other than food on Friday, such as why you can never find a member of staff in B&Q (look in the sheds), the history of pronouns (Jean wisely disappeared at this point to watch TV) and who had the biggest collection of dictionaries. I kept quiet about my inherited two volume set of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (c1980s) lest I be accused of bragging about my big dics.
|
|
|
|
Post by philippa on Oct 31, 2010 8:24:23 GMT
Back to semolina. I recently acquired a Czech cookery book. Thirty or more years ago I had a very wonderful Czech meal somewhere in Bayswater, including sliced dumplings. They looked like slices of British cottonwool white bread, but they were nothing like that, and delicious. Perfect texture for a stew, without the fatty suet. Never seen them before or since, even when I looked for that restaurant quite recently. Gone, and the one I ended up in was rubbish. Faux Czech, I'd say. Apparently, in the absence of proper Czech flour, the answer is to use half flour and half semolina. For the texture. i read your plight with interest Weyland. i wonder if the flour you're after is matzo meal - it has a very slightly coarse texture and is the main ingredient for knedla, the dumplings you get in Jewish chicken soup. they are beautifully light and fluffy (depending on how they are made, of course) and do not contain suet. so far, to as far east as Swansea, i've been unable to track down that precious ingredient and as yet i've not managed to discover which particular type of flour is used as all the recipes i've checked just say to use matzo meal. so it could be semolina. |
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 31, 2010 8:48:17 GMT
It's quite likely that the 'proper Czech flour' was matzo meal, because a lot of ingredients we think of as Jewish survive in East European cookery, a sad, ghostly reminder of the lost Jewish communities. It's not the same as semolina though, because it's made from matzo already baked and then ground up. But the texture is probably similar.
In Poland they used to sell slabs of fat labelled 'Smalc' which I eventually realised were chicken fat (schmalz).
|
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 9:45:41 GMT
i read your plight with interest Weyland. i wonder if the flour you're after is matzo meal - it has a very slightly coarse texture and is the main ingredient for knedla, the dumplings you get in Jewish chicken soup. they are beautifully light and fluffy (depending on how they are made, of course) and do not contain suet. so far, to as far east as Swansea, i've been unable to track down that precious ingredient and as yet i've not managed to discover which particular type of flour is used as all the recipes i've checked just say to use matzo meal. so it could be semolina. Very interesting, Pippa. And what Jean says supports that idea for texture. It has to be worth a try, assuming I can track some matzo meal down. Don't think it's ground rice, Sparra. That's much finer and whiter, I seem to remember. Strangely enough, I DO have a jar of semolina, but it's not usable for at least two reasons: a) it's more than a decade old and b) it has bits of soft pastel powder in it. I sometimes "paint" with pastels, and semolina is good for cleaning the sticks when they've picked up other colours. It's quite coarse and off-white/yellowish. Can't remember where I bought it, not even which country. Here's what the OED says: SEMOLINA n.
(sEm@"li;n@) Also semoulina, qsemolino. [Altered form of It. semolino, dim. of semola bran: see semola.]
An article of food consisting of those hard portions of ‘flinty’ wheat which resist the action of the millstones, and are collected in the form of rounded grains. (See also quot. 1858.) Also attrib., as semolina pudding.
1797 Underwood Dis. Children III. 82 To broth may be added light puddings, made of bread, semolina, tapioca, or rice.
1845 E. Acton Mod. Cookery (ed. 2) 395 A good Semoulina pudding. 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Semolino.+ The commercial name for the fine hard parts of wheat rounded by attrition in the millstones, imported chiefly from Italy.+ In France the name semolino is given to the large hard grains of wheat retained in the bolting machine, after the fine parts have been pressed through its meshes. 1884 Bath Herald 27 Dec. 6/4 It is sought, while dividing the bran from the interior of the grain, to break up the latter, not into flour but into fragments known as ‘semolina’, or ‘middlings’. 1904 ‘E. Nesbit’ Phœnix & Carpet xii. 219 When lunch came it was just hashed mutton and semolina pudding.Jean: I might be growing the stuff already, but the garden's such a wilderness that I'll probably never know. |
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 31, 2010 10:04:10 GMT
SEMOLINA n.
(sEm@"li;n@) Also semoulina, qsemolino. [Altered form of It. semolino, dim. of semola bran: see semola.]
An article of food consisting of those hard portions of ‘flinty’ wheat which resist the action of the millstones, and are collected in the form of rounded grains. I thought that to get the coarse texture you just stopped grinding. From this, it looks as though somewhere there is always semolina.Semolina is always made from wheat, and ground rice is rice, but has a similar texture. So does polenta flour (from maize) which you should be able to get from any Italian shop - if you carry on grinding that, you get cornflour. (PS How do you pronounce qsemolino?) |
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 10:17:13 GMT
[Would someone with the power please move the "semolina" posts to a new thread in the Kitchen called "Dumplings", which I will create now. Thank you.]
What I'm talking about are Houskové Knedlíky. Recipes on the Web don't mention any special flour, but I'm going with the book, which seems more authentic in general.
I did find out how to make matzo meal from the Web: you just smash up matzos, which are readily available in any big supermarket. I'll report back in the course of time.
|
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 10:19:28 GMT
<waiting for posts moved from Rob's Chat Room>
|
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 31, 2010 10:21:17 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by jean on Oct 31, 2010 10:25:22 GMT
Weyland, how untidy of you! There are now TWO threads on this fascinating subject!
|
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 10:38:08 GMT
(PS How do you pronounce qsemolino?) The q is an undesirable artefact of the extent to which Oxford University Press and Proboards differ in their choice of Unicode character encoding, or something.  Hope that helps. The OED "Help" doesn't. Thanks for the polenta tip. I'll try polenta last of the three options. I don't want my dumplings to taste corny. |
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 10:39:38 GMT
Weyland, how untidy of you! There are now TWO threads on this fascinating subject! Not accidental. The other one is history. |
|
|
|
Post by Weyland on Oct 31, 2010 10:41:48 GMT
I'll report back in the course of time. Or even in the coarse of it.  |
|
