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Reviews of anything that is related to food.

Maldon Sea Salt – Review

If you’ve ever watched Food TV or spent any time around professional chef’s you’ll notice an awful lot of them use a very course sea salt when cooking, the sea salt that is preferred by chef’s is Maldon Sea Salt. As someone who’s watched a fair amount of Food TV I was curious what all the hype was about, I knew it was expensive for salt, I knew it was coarse and uneven but I was curious if it was any better, or was it just different? I picked up a two pack, it was cheaper to buy two and what if it really changed my life, I didn’t want to wait to get more. I had to order it online, I looked at my local markets and none of them carried it, I guess it is sort of high end for salt, but come on it’s just salt! I ordered mine from Amazon but with some further digging Salt Works seems to have a better price.

At first glance I was shocked to say the least, see the picture of Maldon below

A nice, high quality box of premium sea salt – this is the stuff dreams are made of! Now look below and see the shocking part, a side by side image of my trusty old Morton’s Kosher salt next to the new dog in town, Maldon.

I’m thankful the big mean Morton box didn’t step on our new British friend, because it was laughable seeing the two boxes next to each other. Maldon is a British company, the salt is imported and has an interesting legacy behind it, read more about it on their site. Once the laughter wore off I was almost sick to my stomach, I just paid $8 for this tiny little box of salt compared to the $3 and change I normally pay for the giant Morton kosher salt. I don’t mind sending more if I’m getting something special and I don’t even mind splurging from time to time for something special, I just wasn’t expecting such a difference. The best way to put it the Maldon cost me roughly $0.94/ounce the Morton cost my around $0.08/ounce that is a huge price difference for “salt.”

Next came the appearance of the Maldon, this too was shocking.

Click on the image to see it full size, the variety of the individual grains is pretty extraordinary, it looks just like it does on TV! It varies from an almost powder like salt to little “nuggets” larger than a pea. Of course I had to try it and not to surprisingly it tasted salty! Though there was an enjoyable crunch present, unlike some other extremely large salt crystals I’ve had in the past these were enjoyably crunchy, normally large pieces of salt are like munching on shale, not in this case they taste light and fragile despite their “don’t mess with me” size.

Below is a picture of Maldon next to my regular Morton Kosher Salt – the Maldon is on the left/top and the Morton is on the right/bottom

Visually the difference is striking, the Morton is whiter which comes from it being “pure” salt, Maldon has natural minerals and natural additives/flavorings. Though keep in mind both salts are at least 97% sodium chloride so the minerals and additives in in the Maldon are minimal. Next comes the grain size, while Morton’s Kosher salt is no slouch in this department it is dwarfed by the king kong of salt crystals, unfortunately I didn’t have any iodized (table) salt in the house for comparison.

Now onto the taste, Morton is my staple, I’ve used probably 10lbs of it in the last 5 years, I know this salt very well, it’s versatile, affordable and a wise investment for any chef or cook who wants to explore beyond iodized salt (which I find to have a very sharp and unpleasant taste.) Kosher salt as a rule offers a mellower flavor than iodized salt, it’s more relaxed, not as sharp tasting and thus gives you a greater range of seasoning you can apply which is a great thing when cooking. Which brings me to an interesting and note worthy point, when heavily cooking or dissolving Maldon I can discern no difference in flavor, the wonderful crunch vanishes and it tastes just like the Morton’s. So when cooking, anything that will dissolve the salt entirely I would not recommend spending the premium on Maldon.

On the flip side, Maldon is GREAT when you can tell it’s still there. When finishing a dish, grilled steaks, broiled seafood and the list goes on and on, I find Maldon to be amazing. It’s even mellower than Morton’s kosher salt, it has a very light and crisp taste that is delightful. I know we are only talking salt here, but if you try both back to back you’ll see what I’m talking about. Yes it is a luxury but it’s an affordable luxury, I think most people can swing $8 on something that will last them for a year or two and it’s a great product to try and see if you really enjoy it. Some luxuries in the culinary world are absolutely insanely priced, this is insanely priced for salt, but it’s still an affordable luxury to try. We’re not talking about $1,600/pound white truffles here, but it is a nice treat to reward yourself with if you enjoy cooking.

To recap, Maldon Sea Salt is the rock star of the salt world, I think it even wears sun glasses. It’s extremely expensive by salt standards, nearly 12 fold the cost of regular kosher salt but not an expensive luxury item to try. I don’t recommend it to season soups or other dishes when it will be dissolved and essentially vanish. However, if finishing a dish before serving and applying some seasoning, or any other instance that the salt will hold up through the cooking process I think it’s well worth trying the Rolls Royce of the salt kingdom.

SodaStream Genesis – Review

By this point I suspect most of you have seen the SodaStream on display at various big box stores, they typically are at an end cap. I saw them at this type of store and thought to myself, that seems cool but totally useless. I am a soda drinker, I am mildly addicted to Diet Pepsi and in a pinch drink Diet Coke though I often find the off brand name soda’s to be unpleasing. Initially I thought the SodaStream system(s) were a gimmick and the current snake oil of the month, I was mistaken!

My parents drink more soda than I do and they purchased one from a local Bed Bath and Beyond using one of the famous 20% of coupon’s bringing the purchase price to around $80. This kit includes pretty much everything you need to make your own soda, minus the water itself. When I saw it sitting at my parents house I just shook my head and laughed thinking, I guess there is one born every minute. Then they showed it to me and gave me a demo and a sample, I was more interested. Then they explained the environmental benefits on just purchasing the syrup compared to shipping the heavy liquids, this benefit is I think one of the best values with the SodaStream. The energy saved by not shipping water (which is what the bulk of soda is) is huge, this starts with the large distributors, then the retail outlets themselves and finally you when you’re bringing the soda home, all in all it leads to a large decrease in fuel consumed to get the soda from the plant to you.

I try to be environmentally conscious, but I also don’t like to be fooled by hype. In this case the environmental benefits seem pretty clear, shipping weight burns fuel, reducing the weight being shipped significantly reduces the fuel burned to get your soda to you – seems about as simple as it gets!

The next benefit of this system is the cost savings, yes they exist too! I was very skeptical about this so I did quite a bit of research, computed what my average soda drinking cost, what it would cost using the SodaStream system and in about 18 months I’ll have broken even on the original purchase price. This break even point varies from one drinker to another, it depends how much you drink, what soda flavor’s you drink, some of them cost more or less than others. The regular soda drinker will break even in 12-24 months of the purchase price. While this is far from a great investment it is a decent way to save a little cash in the long term. To me the real benefit is knowing that I’m being environmentally smart while saving a little money and having fresh soda.

Now let’s get onto the soda making itself, I ended up going with the Soda Stream Genesis. The kit is pretty simple to use, I am typically very handy and intuitive when it comes to building things and putting the Genesis together was no exception. I didn’t even need instructions to put the kit together, it just makes sense. It’s also helpful there are only 4-5 pieces needed to initially construct the kits. From there it couldn’t get much simpler, chill water in the supplied 1 liter bottles – two come with the Genesis kit. Then screw them into the Genesis base and pulse the only button about 3 times or until you hear it make a change in the tone of the carbonation, I believe it uses a blow off valve once a specified pressure is reached within the bottle it stops filling the water with CO2. This makes it simple and very consistent, you never get overly bubbly or under carbonated soda, it’s always just right. To give you an idea of how simple it is, I can typically do this entire process in about 20 seconds from the time I get the bottle from the refrigerator to the point I’m unscrewing it from the Genesis with a full 1 liter of carbonated water.

I used to drink a fair amount of club soda, if I still drank that the savings would be even greater, because at this point you just carbonated your home drinking water and made club soda for pennies. However, most of us purchase this kit to make flavored soda or our own custom concoction. If you’re using the SodaStream Flavorings it’s a breeze and very affordable. Or you can get more creative and find your own extracts, sweeteners or virtually anything else you’d like to make a sparkling beverage. You can even buy the name brand syrups from your local Pepsi or Coca-Cola distributor if it’s a must have for you, the only problem is they typically come in large bags and are difficult to make smaller portions of, they are typically designed to work with commercial soda fountains. When it comes to the flavorings or sources for them the sky is really the limit, let your creativity run wild!

As I mentioned above I’m a diet cola drinker and thankfully the SodaStream diet cola is good, it’s a little earthier than Pepsi but still has that slightly overly sweet taste that I enjoy. What’s odd with my diet soda obsession is that as whole I don’t particularly like sweet things, but back to the soda stream. I’m also a fan of energy drinks when I need a little extra pep in my step, which is more often than I want to think about these days. The problem is they are really expensive, SodaStream has a great RedBull knock-off with their energy drink, again I get the diet and it seems to accomplish the same thing for a fraction of the price. Even though the energy drink from SodaStream is a little more money than the regular flavors it’s still a fantastic deal. If I drank more of that style drink I could probably bring my break even point down to 8-10 months.

Overall my experience has been superb, I have no complaints about the system or idea and now that I’ve lived with it for a few months I enjoy it and it is easier leaving the big, heavy soda at the store. I enjoy some of the flavors more than other’s but overall I think it’s a good purchase for a regular soda drinker. The beauty of the kit I received is that it was a gift – so I’m saving right away and doing good to the environment! If you’re the sort of person who already has everything this is a great new gadget that you’ll use, enjoy and save money in the process – not to mention doing a small part at protecting the environment!

Betty Crocker Warm Delights Review

By now I’m sure you’ve seen these in your grocery store, the Betty Crocker Warm Delights. The first time I saw them I literally laughed, a microwaveable cake mix in a little plastic cup, hilarious I know! For those of you who haven’t paid attention this is what they look like in the store:

We Purchased the mini’s and figured we would appease the purist sense of chocolate eating and went with the Molten Chocolate Cake (the one on the right). There are other flavors, including the caramel that is on the left of the above image and then they make the full size versions in additional flavors, including a Fudge Brownie, a Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookie and a Peanut Butter Fudge Brownie – there are additional flavors listed on Betty Crocker’s site but I’ve never been to a store that carries all of them.

I was very apprehensive before trying this, like I said I thought they were something of a joke, so I had the bar set really low. After reading the directions I was even more discouraged but we proceeded cautiously. When you open the package you’ll see two ingredient packets, one with the cake mix and the other with the fudge topping. You are instructed to mix the cake mix with “1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of water” which is an odd measurement, I used 4 teaspoons to keep it simple. Then you stir the water in with the mix and knead the fudge packet approximately 10 times and apply on top of the raw batter. We tried to be artful with our decoration but they both turned into fudgy train wrecks. Finally microwave for 30 seconds, I found ours needed 35-40 seconds but they still “cook” remarkably fast and cook time will vary slightly from one microwave to another. During this lengthy cook time I read “Finnegans Wake.” When we opened the microwave we were pleasantly surprised to see that it rose, cooked and smelled like a chocolate dessert! Please note, we cooked them individually, not both at the same time.

We let them sit for a minute or two and proceeded to consume.

We had a number of tiny ice creams we were sampling at the same time, but the focus of this post are the warm delights.

I have to admit I was remarkably impressed with these things! It is not a gourmet dessert, but it has no right being as good as it is for something that costs so little and cooks so quickly. It’s a very light chocolate cake, a touch spongy but by some miracle not rubbery. The fudge is gooey and rich, the kind that practically welds itself onto your spoon and you have to feverishly lick clean.

We will likely try them again and maybe modify it slightly, I like a denser cake, in particular with fudge when it’s labeled as a “molten chocolate cake” I picture a rich, dense, glistening chocolate cake with a gooey fudge center that oozes all over your plate as soon as you cut into it with your eating utensil. Experiment 1 will include using some sort of fat in the cake mix, either canola oil or more than likely butter to add a little richness and flavor – either way I suspect that will add to the cake density but may impact it’s cook time and rising. The other thing I am toying with is saving the fudge packet for after it’s cooked and stuffing the center of it like a jelly donut with the fudge, then I would have a real mini-molten chocolate cake. Then again it may require dual stage cooking, 20 seconds with no fudge, add the fudge to the center and then microwave for another 15 seconds. Either way I think these have promise and are worth trying. They are fast, simple and really not even terrible for you as far as desserts go.

I’m not a dessert guy and I try to avoid using microwaves as much as possible but think these are worth keeping around if you ever get that delicious chocolate dessert craving and are pressed for time. As we experiment with them more I will follow up with our results. Let us know if you’ve tried them and what you think!

Giant Banana Split

My last post was about a giant slice of pizza, this time it’s about a Giant Banana Split. I am a firm believer that quality over quantity is the best way to fly, but some things are just more fun when they are large! I have to give you a little more history this time around, I currently reside in Lexington, NC the self-proclaimed “BBQ Capital of World” and home of the celebrated Lexington Barbecue Festival which is featured in the acclaimed book 1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die . Why might I be giving you all of this boring information about some small town in North Carolina and BBQ? Great question!

One of the benefits of living in this area is there are no shortage of great BBQ places in town. I’ll have a separate write up on Lexington Style BBQ in the near future, promise! One of these places is called Barbecue Center and on their menu is an inconspicuous item that is simply called “banana split.” I would have just moved on and ignored it as I normally do with desserts, but the first time I was there someone ordered one of these monsters so I vowed to come back with an empty stomach and attack this monster in it’s natural habitat.

Fast forward to a year later, I had returned with an accomplice (Tiffany) to help with this mission. Before I build up any further anticipation or explain this marvelous ice cream concoction it’s time for a picture.

Giant Banana Split

Please collect your jaw from the floor, clean up the newly formed puddle of drool, and let’s get back to business. This may not be the world’s largest Sundae or Banana split, but it is one of the largest regular menu dessert items I’ve ever seen a human served. When it comes to ordering this you have choices; you have to pick what three flavors of ice cream you will be served. In our case we went for the highly unorthodox combination of Chocolate, Dark Cherry and Birthday Cake. The traditional banana split would come with Strawberry, Vanilla and Chocolate but we wanted to mix it up a little bit. You can get any combination of ice cream they have which is pretty nice.

The base starts with one banana cut in half length wise. Split, I guess you could say. After that they add three generous “dips” (which are called scoops where I come from) of each flavor ice cream. Then the fun really begins. Next, they add a generous helping of glorious walnuts in caramel: these nuts are life changing. It is like the richest, runniest German Chocolate cake frosting, sans coconut of course – Tiffany doesn’t normally like nuts but she made an exception for these. They then add a healthy coating of chocolate sauce, this was nothing super special just run of the mill chocolate sauce from a dark brown squeeze container – I’m not a chocolate expert so this is fine by me. Then they apply whip cream from a can and finish it with a single cherry on top. Sounds simple enough, but they have this down pat!

Here’s another image with the giant banana split in front of me, for a sense of scale and Tiffany moments before she attacked this behemoth.

As some added comedic relief, we had this on May 5th, 2011 – aka Cinco De Mayo. Not exactly traditional food for this celebratory day, but we got by just fine. In case you hadn’t noticed this is a ridiculously large amount of ice cream for 2 humans, in particular when one of those humans is named Tim and is mildly lactose intolerant. It was fun at first, mixing the various combinations of flavorings together to find out what we liked best, racing to eat it before it melts, as good as this Banana Split, seeing it and eating it with your eyes is half of the experience. Barbecue Center was fairly busy this evening and Lexington is a very family oriented city and naturally there were families eating dinner there while we were gorging on ice cream. We were the hero to every child in the restaurant, jealousy was very apparent as they were forced to eat normal dinner food and we were eating a ridiculous amount of ice cream.

As I mentioned above, initially conquering this beast was fun, but after a while it was a battle of human vs. ice cream. Eating it quick enough so it doesn’t melt on us, but not so quick that we suffer brain freeze. After 10 minutes or so I was actually full of ice cream, something I’ve never experienced before, it hurt and we still had two and a half “dips” of ice cream to go. Thankfully we triumphed.

But it did not come without a price, I think the look on my face accurately summarizes how I was feeling after we finished the Banana Split in a word, pain.

If you are ever in Lexington, NC, want to try something other than the famous BBQ, and have an itch that can only be satisfied by a giant banana split I STRONGLY recommend checking out the Banana Split at Barbecue Center – the best news, this monster was only $6.50!

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