Boiling point

[gwyn]

Oh flist that knows everything:

If one needed a double boiler but one didn't have one nor the ability to get one soon, could one substitute a stainless steel bowl nested over a pan (i.e., a bowl that would not go inside all the way into the saucepan, but nestled on top)?

I nearly t-boned an SUV today. I drive back from the grocery store along Beach Drive, which is a very scenic street alongside Puget Sound, where you can see the Olympic mountains over on the peninsula and the islands of the lower sound as well. People are just stupid as they drive along, gawking. This stupid bitch in a bigass luxury SUV did some kind of pullout from the other side of the road or a U-turn or something, I'm not sure, because I had just come around the corner and was starting to speed up and never saw her from ANYwhere. And she turned right in front of me from the other side of the road. Going very slowly, I might add. I honestly don't think she even bothered to look, because even though it's not right on the corner, you never know when someone will come from that turny road that you didn't see when you last looked 30 seconds ago. She was so close I could see her freaking eyelashes. I almost had a heart attack or peed my pants or something. I doubt there was more than an inch between my bumper and her door, and I still don't think she even realized what she'd done, since she was so busy putting her fucking sunglasses on. Kill kill kill. I get that people want to see the scenery and park at the water and whatever, but people live there, too, and they have to drive on that road and actually GET somewhere, so they don't always expect people to be left turning right in front of their moving cars.

Comments

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

Re: the double-boiler: yes, that should work! At least I've done it before, with good success.

And wow. I'm so sorry to hear about your near-miss! That's terrifying. I'm so glad you're okay!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I kept thinking that I had seen people do that, or read about it, but I just was unsure enough that I figured I should ask.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

What you describe will work just fine as a double-boiler. It's what I use.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[tir.livejournal.com]

Yes on the stainless steel bowl, or pyrex, or even a disposable aluminum pie pan with some remolding. There are lots of workarounds. :)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You can tell I'm still such a noob about all this cooking stuff. I was sure I'd seen it somewhere, but I just couldn't remember for certain.

[torra.livejournal.com]

Doubble boiler: everyone else already confirmed that yes, it does work (and honestly, doubble boilers are kinda waste to buy unless you do a lot of candy makeing or somethign). I just thought I'd add that if you're using it to make something like chocolate or sugar work, be careful not to tip the top bowl so far as to let steam come up around and get water droplets into your mix. This is expeicaly true for chocolate, as adding any water while it's melting can cause it to seaze and turn into a sold lump of grainey stuff that you don't want to eat. But as long as you avoid that, it works great.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You know, the recipe also warned about seizing, and it totally did -- but they warned about cocoa powder when added to the melted chocolate. I ended up being completely miserable and it turned the recipe into something less than stellar -- I could never get the clumps to unclump completely, and now the ice cream has these little pieces of clumpy baking chocolate with powder. Ick. It's not the worst ice cream, but it wouldn't even really work in the dasher because I spent so long trying to whisk the lumps out that it ended up with an almost pudding consistency. This whole thing just baffles me. I thought about next time putting in the milk first and then the cocoa powder, but it sounds like liquid will just do that same thing. Oy.

[torra.livejournal.com]

Alton Brown has done a couple of episodes of Good Eats ("The Art of Darkness" episodes, at laest two, maybe more) where he explains how to cook with chocolate, how to use chocolate with doubble boilers (including the pan-over-pan method), and how to fix seazed chocolate. I'm alirgic to chocolate, so I didn't memorise the eps, but you can offten find Good Eats eps on SurfTheChannel.com (http://www.surfthechannel.com/), or torrent them though sites like Mini Nova.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

If one needed a double boiler but one didn't have one nor the ability to get one soon, could one substitute a stainless steel bowl nested over a pan (i.e., a bowl that would not go inside all the way into the saucepan, but nestled on top)?

Yes. This is what professional chefs/cooks call a bain marie (the other definition being a large pan of hot water holding another pan of something to be baked). No one uses double boilers in a professional kitchen - it's all jerry-rigged stainless bowls over aluminum pans filled with simmering water. And that's the trick to this sort of cooking (or melting or what have you): the water should be simmering and it should NOT touch the bottom of the bowl above it. Also, be careful of steam coming out from the edges between the bowl and the pot -- it can burn like an SOB. If what you're cooking will take a while, make sure you have extra hot water handy to add to the pot as it evaporates.

Hope this helps.

[(Anonymous)]

And that's the trick to this sort of cooking (or melting or what have you): the water should be simmering and it should NOT touch the bottom of the bowl above it.

Really? I was just about to post to make sure that the bowl is touching the water below it. My understanding was that the point of a double boiler was that if the top part was sitting in boiling water, couldn't get hotter than 212 degrees F (boiling point), whereas steam, being of a different phase, can get hotter than that. No?

[carbonel]

Er, that wasn't "anonymous," it was me. LJ logged me out when I wasn't looking.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That's really good to know. My experiment didn't turn out so well, I admit, but at least now I know that I don't have to go out and buy something special just so I can do my usual screw-up cooking!

[klia.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to figure out how some people get into cars and totally tune out pedestrians, bicyclists, and every other freaking car on the road.

So, the other day, after doing an errand, I was driving (slowly) through the shopping center parking lot, and a little distance away I saw a woman walking between some parked cars, looking like she was making her way to a nearby store on the other side of the one-way aisle where I was driving. She was facing the other way, yakking on her bluetooth as she walked, and when it appeared likely she was going to just walk right in front of me without bothering to look, I figured I'd be safe and stop, and just wait for her to walk by. And that was exactly what she did, too. She never once turned her head to look in my direction; she just kept walking and yakking, oblivious of the fact that a less cautious driver could easily have run her ass over. All I could do was sit and gape at her. It was unbelievable. I was really tempted to honk my horn, but figured she probably wouldn't hear it, anyway.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

And of course, those are the first people who scream lawsuit when someone does hit them. Stupid jackasses. I was driving with a friend once, and from way off in the corner on the right I saw a car inching out of a parking lot. I just had a feeling he was going to jet in front of me, so I slowed down, and he did. My friend said, "I can't believe you could tell he was going to do that. I wouldn't even have seen him." And I thought, well, that's why you've had so many accidents! Even some of the best drivers I know just don't pay attention to ANYthing else out there. Or as pedestrians.

[klia.livejournal.com]

And today was apparently the day for running stop signs. Just between my place and thevetia's, I saw it happen *4* times! Luckily, I was watching, and didn't have a problem. But still!