Best potatoes for Gratin Dauphinois?

[mint]

Don't you buy that Milbona cream in a plastic bottle from Lidl?[8-)]

I always do and the Brits I had for lunch recently thought it was some special cream from the old country![:D]

[5-element]

Clair, I still have some Birdseye custard mix if I want "real" custard - although I had never used it during all the decades I was in England.

I hope that Alsa creme anglaise is not too sweet - which is a frequent problem with many of the mixes. Having said that, it occurs to me that I have never used mixes in the past, so I am not speaking from experience!

Sweet, do you mean the Milbona creme fluide in the plastic bottle? I never use it because it's 30% fat, I wouldn't go above 15% unless I make Chantilly. And if I am going to be so decadent as to want Chantilly (on strawberries for instance), then I buy the pschitt one.[blink]

[mint]

That's the one, 5-e.  It's not so decadent if you don't eat the whole bottle all at once![:D][:P]

Besides, a little bit of what you fancy, n'a jamais fait de mal à personne! 

[5-element]

Yeah but once you got the bottle, you got to use it. And the next thing you know, you end up making ice-cream...[blink]

[idun]

[quote user="5-element"]

then I buy the pschitt one.[blink]

[/quote]

 

I used to buy Pschitt lemonade in France. [:)]

[mint]

 Listen, you two, just pay attention, OK?

If you can't eat up all the cream, you can freeze it.  Yes, it goes a bit grainy but you can still use it to cook with.

As for pschitt lemonade, I make my own but I do admit that I have a secret ingredient.

I have some dried preserved plums (from the Far East), difficult to describe the taste or appearance, but you put a couple of those in the homemade lemonade (fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup), which will take on a slight salty tang and is nectar on earth!  Me, although nectar is supposed to be the drink of the gods, I wouldn't dream to giving the gods any![:D]

[idun]

Aren't dried preserved plums 'prunes'? I have seen them sort of 'confit' slighly sugar dusted, if you see what I mean, are these they?

[mint]

No, they are completely dried, nothing sugary about them but salty and plummy![:D]

Sorry, id, can't remember what exactly they are called but I have a very small pot of them left.

I might even dry some plums in the oven, sprinkled with salt.  Might also be nice with, for example, sausage casserole or similar?

[idun]

I didn't taste them, I thought that the white cristally appearance was sugar, but ofcourse it could have been salt. So how are they not like prunes, then? or are they?

Unless, I really cannot get hold of any, and am out in my freezer, I always make my sweet and sour sauce with plums in it. In fact I wouldn't dream of having other fruit in it.

[5-element]

Are those umeboshi plums, Sweet? Although, those are  normally not dry, but preserved with perilla leaves (shi-so). I love those - and have recently discovered that I accidentally bought a potted plant of purple shi-so leaves, which I keep munching.

I had no idea you could freeze cream!![:'(] Next time somebody tries to say I am wasting valuable, real-life time trawling the forums, I can tell them what an amazing source of information it can be![;-)] 

[idun]

As S17 said, it can go grainy, so I would always make ice cream with cream, in fact as my husband is away at the moment, I'm going to have to use up the cream that won't get used. I prefer to do it this way, I thought that you did too 5E?

[5-element]

Grainy doesn't sound good, so I probably won't bother. Idun, I go through phases of making ice-cream, and through phases of banning ice-cream in the house[6]. If I make "ice-cream"., I try to use as little cream as possible, or low-fat cream - in fact it often is frozen yogourt more than it is ice-cream, as I find real ice-cream much too rich. I make something in between sorbet et ice-cream (sorbet is good but again, you need to use so much sugar for it to work!)

[Frecossais]

[quote user="5-element"]If you are at a French dinner party, and the atmosphere is a bit flat, you can rely on livening it up by asking: "How do you make a real gratin Dauphinois?" - there are some passionate purists about that, and it hardly ever fails to provoke sometimes heated debates...[:D][/quote]

I will most certainly use this subject as a forum for discussion at my next English class when I return to France in October.

[5-element]

Yes, great idea, and then please report back![:D]

[Rabbie]

[quote user="5-element"]

Next time somebody tries to say I am wasting valuable, real-life time trawling the forums, I can tell them what an amazing source of information it can be![;-)] 

[/quote]And you meet such nice people too[:D]

[mint]

Umeboshi plums???[blink]  Is that what they are called?  Blimey, talk about learning things from the Forum.  I googled your plums, 5-e and I am not sure they are the same thing exactly but I bet these plums would work just as well!

They do something to the lemonade, gives it a bit of a salty taste to set of the sweetness of fthe sugar and, also, the plummy bits look so nice in the lemonade that would otherwise look bland![:D]

Me, I LOVE my food to be colourful.  I think that's why I love carrots and red chillies, spring onions, red cabbage, etc.  Just love a dishful of colours!

And I loved these foods before talk of superfoods and antioxidants or whatever......I like texture, colour and mixtures of taste like sweet and sour, sweet and salty, hot and tart, etc. etc.

 

[5-element]

Sweet, my kind of food too, looking for that elusive "fifth flavour" that comes (if I remember right) from a perfect balance between sour, sweet, salty, hot - a cooking genius friend told me that if you can't get to that 5th flavour, then adding some spicy chorizo could do the trick!

Umeboshi plums used to be a great delicacy when I was (for a while) following a macrobiotic diet. The flavour is very intense, and what a welcome explosion of taste after days of brown rice!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umeboshi and I now see they are also supposed to be a great cure for hangovers.

[mint]

I say, 5-e, DID you have to mention that they are a "great cure for hangovers"?[:-))]

What makes you think I get hangovers?[:P]

Anyway, I would have been more interested if you'd said that they put you off drinking alcohol because, when you are getting hangovers, you've already drunk too much, right?

Actually, I don't get hangovers as I usually know my limits and know when to stop before the Hangover Zone.

Those plums do look very nice, I must say.

[5-element]

Sweet, that was in no way aimed at you in particular, it was just a bit of information to be shared around, 'cos you might not get hangovers, but I bet some people here do[6].

In fact, I should have mentioned it to the friend who came this morning for a visit, as she DOES get hangovers, and finds getting up before 10 am quite a struggle. Her own remedy for mornings after is: pour boiling water in a cup, over 2 slices of lemon with skin - organic is obviously best - and have that beverage first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. Every day. She swears by it.

Whoops, sorry about thread drift, we are a long way from gratin dauphinois![:P]