Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumLiquid smoke, America's best kept secret?
I have a lot of American cookbooks and liquid smoke is an oft used ingredient. Up until very recently it was unavailable in the UK. Now one supermarket has started stocking it, and it's brilliant.
Phentex
(16,334 posts)a little goes a long way and you can always add more. But too much is icky
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)Use as you would salt, to taste. Also great on dry rubs.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)(Alright I know it's not quite like that.) Liquid smoke is just something that was unavailable is the high street, and we don't have anything like it. We've got lots of smoky barbecue sauces, but nothing like that.
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)Mix with water and you have liquid smoke, blend with salt and use to taste.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)It may or may not make its way here. So many things fall foul of our additives rules, (not complaining mind.)
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)There's plenty of directions on the interwebs.
I don't use it all that often, but I have a smoker so there's little need for it. There's no substitute for real smoke.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Barbecues are just for the Summer, and sometimes not even that.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)I'm sure it's expired and I should throw it out.
BTW, I hope it's not our best kept secret.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)They were nothing like our comics, for a start they were in colour and had a lot more adverts. These were for strange an exotic things that were unavailable over here. Chief among them were Hostess Twinkies. Their adverts were something else, it was another story involving Spider Man the Hulk or another superhero saving the day and saving the Twinkies.
For years I wondered what they were like, but when I finally got the chance to try one they were really horrible. Liquid smoke on the other hand is everything I'd hoped it would be.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)Going to the store when you had enough money to buy one and first biting into the yellow cake, and then creamy filling was heaven. If a bag of crisps with vinegar was offered to us, we would have touched our tongue to one and spit it out, vigorously.
These are tastes fixed in one's mind from childhood. For me you don't put ketchup on a hotdog...only mustard and relish. My wife from the Midwest grew up with it on hotdogs, and now my kids use it so. My oldest son, the only one, gets vinegar chips...blahh.
The smokey liquid, maybe I should look into that again. I figure a little dab here and there couldn't hurt.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)As it was I didn't have them until I was in my twenties. You're right, childhood tastes can stick. That's especially true of chocolate, which is why Hersheys is very much a niche market over here and why Cadburys is only associated with eggs where you are.
I do miss these, brought out for a few brief years in the 70s when I was a kid, never to be seen again.
And if I'd not had this as a kid I wouldn't go near it as an adult, as it is I enjoy it as occasional comfort food.
All dried ingredients, tastes nothing like actual chow mein.
Tab
(11,093 posts)You don't put ketchup on an all-dressed. Personally I hate mustard too, although I can tolerate a nice one now if the quantities aren't too bad, but that tumeric-laden French's stuff is for the birds. Did I say birds? I meant toilet. But not in a bad way. I know some people like their bright-and-yellow squirts, far be it for me to judge it for others. But personally I think it's for the birds. I mean toilet.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)My reasoning is that mustard is necessary for bologna and hotdogs...corned beef too, unless used in other ways such as a Reuben (thousand island there), or a New England boiled dinner. And mustard is needed for ham when on a sandwich.
Ketchup is meant for beef and French fries. Tartar sauce is meant for fried fish and fried clams.
Chicago pizza is not a worthy pizza, though it may taste excellent, it is not a perfect pizza, because the search for the perfect pizza can only be found in the northeast.
I didn't make these rules. They were established before I was born. And I follow them, like a religion, because it all tastes great.
Tab
(11,093 posts)There's something that's known as an "all-dressed" hot dog that Chicagoans take serioiusly. If I may quote Cecil Adams (answering the question of why there's no ketchup on an "all-dressed":
Ketchup smothers the flavor of the hot dog because ketchup makers add sugar to their products. That takes the edge off the highly acidic tomatoes, but it takes the edge off everything else, too. Which is exactly why a lot of parents like it, according to Mel Plotsky, sales manager for the David Berg hot dog company in Chicago. (Chicago is one of the hot dog's holy cities.) Put ketchup on it and a kid will swallow anything and from there it's a straight shot to Velveeta cheese, Franco-American spaghetti, and Deborah Norville.
For that matter, you want to watch the mustard, too. Plotsky says your mainstream brands like French's put in too much turmeric and whatnot. What you want is some unpretentious mustard like Plochman's that enhances rather than competes with the flavor of the beef. You should also steam or grill rather than boil your hot dogs water leaches away the flavor and softens the wiener till it becomes non-tooth-resistant mush.
But getting back to the original question you say you like the taste of tomatoes. Fine, then eat tomatoes, as God meant them to be eaten fresh sliced and piled on top of the hot dog. The recommended ingredients of a hot dog with everything, in order of application, are mustard, relish, chopped onion, sliced tomato, kosher pickle spear, optional peppers, and celery salt. (Many think you have to get kraut in there too, but Cecil wants a hot dog, not Oktoberfest.)
People get pretty emotional over the ketchup question. Mel Plotsky opened our discussion by describing the condiment as a "catchall of garbage." Over at crosstown rival Vienna Sausage, they refer to ketchup as the "K-word." If you go into an authentic hot dog joint and ask for ketchup on your hot dog, the counterman will pause and look you in the eye. He may or may not say, "Ketchup?" with a tone of disbelief. But you may be certain what he's thinking: "Behold this creature that walks like a man. It wants ketchup on its hot dog."
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/679/why-is-there-no-ketchup-on-a-properly-made-hot-dog
Personally I just think ketchup sucks.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)i saw your note, can't send PM's until I've posted at least 50 times.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)I don't check them nearly as often as I should. It's Friday night and I'm drinking beer so I may talk shit later on.
i never liked Twinkies, even as a kid. I really hated the taste of spun sugar with dry coconut. Never understood why they were so popular.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)leaving aside the fact that individuals all have different tastes, some tastes are regional and some are set as a kid. Lots of people hate marmite, but, despite the company's claim, not so many love it. A lot of it comes down to having it as a kid, I did, and I quite like it, but only now and then.
Chocolate is something else, we like the chocolate we had as a kid which is why I like Cadburys so much, more than really good chocolate. Americans over here used to crave Hershey's, because it's what they had as a kid, and until recently it wasn't available. I've got some miniatures I bought ages ago, and I use them for cooking, I just don't like them.
Americans tend to have a sweeter tooth than us, but having said that my daughter really loves Twinkies so go figure.
glitterbag
(45 posts)mr. Glitterbag has a terrible sweet tooth. If I want to make sure there are cookies or ice cream when my grand daughter visits, I have to hide it. It's become family folklore, the last time she was over, she had something she quite liked and when I was cleaning up the kitchen she said "hide it in a really good place, grandma". I don't try to deprive him of any of the things he likes, but if anyone else has any hope of chocolate, I tuck a few extras away.
Several years back, an old co-worker had been to Belgium on business and he brought back these divine dark chocolates. Wow, they were the most superb chocolates I have ever had.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Years ago I won tickets for a coach trip to Amsterdam, and we stopped off at Bruges on the way back. You end up being spoilt for choice and not knowing which one to go for.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)short of a hurricane, BBQ and grilling is always an option.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)I've never seen that as BBQ.