American cookery terms

HOLsale

ChocClare wrote:

SLIGHTLY off the subject, I know, but how much is a stick of butter? Is it 2oz? I've often wondered (did see sticks of butter when I was last in the States but didn't have the sense to check to see if they were 2oz or 4oz...
Also...
You make jerky????? How d'ya make jerky? My daughter just said the other day, "what's beef jerky, can we have some?". Is it worth making? Or do you need a dehydrator thingy?

it's not off topic at all, it's part of the converion from american to british!

this site is brilliant for all conversion from money to food etc i've taken you specifically to the butter section!

http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_butter.htm

1 stick is 4oz or 113.398 092 5 gram

well, i haven't made any for awhile but i used to make turkey and chicken jerky all the time though i have made it with beef and pork in the past
basically you need a marinade that has either salt or sugar and preferably some vinegar in it

i tend to use a bunch of soy sauce, malt vinegar, spices of choice and sometimes honey or golden syrup for a teriayki type flavour

with beef you don't have to cook it first but with poultry it MUST be cooked first or you risk salmonella posioning (having nearly died from a severe case i can tell you it's not a good idea, take my word from it, and NO it wasn't my jerky that made me sick, it was egg fried rice from a chinese takeaway)

you soak the meat (i shred mine though you can use mince and just toss the lump in or make meatballs) it needs to be completely covered and should marinate for at least 8 hours though i prefer 24 to really get the flavour in there.

remove the meat from the marinade and allow most of the liquid to drip away then place it on your dehydrator racks (you CAN use a low oven and baking sheets but you really have to watch them if you do it that way)

you want the meat to dry until it is dry but not bone dry. it should look like it's going to be chewy, if you dry it til it's crisp it's hard to eat and loses a lot of the taste! if you do wind up with a crisp bunch put it through the food processor or the coffee grinder and use the powder in soups or as a seasoning. i tend to use pieces of chicken or turkey about the same thickness of my middle finger, this keeps them from drying too fast. with mince i make little patties about the thickness of my finger. these are actually gorgeous and very moreish! don't worry, they do get 'cooked' (albeit very very slowly) the vinegar helps kill off bacteria so you won't get ill if you do them properly.

i also have mary bell's just jerky book and once of these days i'll get around to using it

squeaky

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arkonite_babe, Pink-winged and squeaky

descartesmum

Have you ever tried making your own kandy kakes? Now, if you aren't from the Philly area, you won't know what I'm talking about. Small disc of cake then a layer of peanut butter and then the whole thing is covered in chocolate.

I've tried making pretzels but they just didn't come out right.

To make pumpkin pies, you can buy tinned pumpkin, which has a fool-proof recipe on it. I find the tins at Waitrose.

I too, am an American living in the Home Counties for the past *gulp* 29 years.

HOLsale

howdy pardner ((futile attempt at john wayne accent))

i'd not heard of a kandy kake before, might have to try that one

i have a recipe somewhere for honeycomb toffee (think it's from the we'll eat again recipe book by marguerite patten) it tastes JUST like the 'brittle' in peanut brittle, i'll have to see if i can find it to share

i added peanuts to it and it was just like peanut brittle though next time i'll be certain to put it on grease proof paper, i spent days chiseling it out of a bowl :rotfl:

i've got a really nice pretzel recipe from the complete tightwad's gazette, it makes the really nice thick kind like you get from shops in the mall, i've made it many times and it's lovely, again i'll have to look that up to share (i'm assuming this is the kind you want, you can get the crispy type here no problems)

i had to learn to make my own pumpkin pie by actually baking a pumpkin to make the puree but you know what? it tastes even better than libbys! granted libby's is easier and in the states it was really cheap but i can get at least 4 pies plus a load of soup out of a medium pumpkin here so not so bad

what part of the states do you hail from descartesmum?

skipkoo

Sorry to go off thread again HOLsale (and a great thread it is too) but I have a great, simple recipe for chinese chicken and sweetcorn soup using creamed sweetcorn, the Jolly Green Giant brand. I buy it from Tescos and Somerfield.

HOLsale

skipkoo wrote:

Sorry to go off thread again HOLsale (and a great thread it is too) but I have a great, simple recipe for chinese chicken and sweetcorn soup using creamed sweetcorn, the Jolly Green Giant brand. I buy it from Tescos and Somerfield.

ahhh brilliant thanks! i'll have to look for it again then now i know where to look :T

why would that be off topic, we discussed creamed corn earlier and hey, since you CAN find it here now (which obviously not everyone knows) then it's completely on topic

and thanks for the compliment

i'm just happy to help if i can i've got dh to answer most of my questions about what's what over here but realised many people don't have an american to ask for what's what over there (actually, these days i consider myself more of a scotswoman previously known as an american but you know what i mean)

thriftlady_2

Hi,Holsale,
Am I right in thinking cucumbers are smaller in the States?

I've seen US recipes that call for what seems like an enormous amount of them,and also recipes that call for 'English cucumbers'.

I'm assuming English cucumbers are the ones we have here and the others are those little bumpy ones about 6-8 inches long that you sometimes find at farmer's markets.Is that right?

I've made bread and butter pickles with the little ones,very nice too

atrebor

ChocClare wrote:

SLIGHTLY off the subject, I know, but how much is a stick of butter? Is it 2oz? I've often wondered (did see sticks of butter when I was last in the States but didn't have the sense to check to see if they were 2oz or 4oz...

A british block of butter works out at just about as 2 american sticks so if you just want to cut 1 block exactly in half you get 2 sticks and no scales to wash up.

dejoxy

dinkydee wrote:

Hi Holsale, you are one of my favourite posters on this website your posts are always full of great advice. Anyway my question is what is "cream - style corn", I got the More with Less cookbook and to make the corn bread you need 1c of cream style corn. If you could help, I'd be obliged. As I go through this book I'll probably have more questions, but it is great to know cornmeal is polenta, I had no idea.

Hiya, you can get tins of creamed corn in oriental supermarkets like wing yip, see woo etc. I usually buy them to make chicken and sweetcorn soup, they're about 55p a can if memory serves me right.

mpcus

When american receipes refer to cups, i.e. cup of flour, cup of brocolli or cup of liquid, what are these equivilent to in ozs.or grams.