Roasting Coffee in the winter

The weather has gotten a bit cooler in Boston recently. The drop in ambient temperatures will affect your coffee roasting results if you don't make any modifications to your set-up. The beans will just not get dark or even to first crack. So, I took a cue from Ryan Jacobs, who simply puts the Poppery into a cardboard box and puts one flap over the Poppery to recirculate the hot air.

If it's cold outside, one of the first things you might notice is that smoke comes out of your popcorn popper. If it smells like your coffee beans roasting, then don't worry about it. However, if it smells like burning plastic, turn the machine off and make sure the machine is not melting. The smoke should be just the steam coming out of the beans as they are roasting. After first crack, you might see a bit more smoke as the beans getting darker. Just monitor the roasting process and trust your nose.

Some air poppers roast hotter than others
I recently saw a Popcorn Pumper at the Goodwill and just had to buy it, even though I already had a Poppery II and a Popcorn Pumper. I'm glad I got it because I discovered that poppers don't all roast at the same temperature. When I used the most recently acquired Pumper, I managed to get to first crack in a shorter period of time and I was able to get a darker roast too. If you get an air popper and it doesn't seem to roast hot enough, try getting another one. If you get the poppers from thrift stores, it won't be a huge investment.

Back to the winter roast

All in all, the cardboard box technique seems to work quite well with all of my air poppers (both the Popcorn Pumper and the Poppery II).

The Popcorn Pumper in the Coffee Bean Direct box works just fine.

At first, you might see some smoke.

To increase the ambient temperature even more, flip over one of the flaps.

Happy winter roasting!

Ghazal Indian Restaurant - Review

Ghazal is a relatively recent addition to the row of restaurants on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain. They might not have the following of Bukhara but that's just because people just don't know about Ghazal yet. All of my room mates who have tried Ghazal love it and either go to Ghazal more or at least just as often as they go to Bukhara. You have the option of dining in or ordering takeout or delivery (on the phone or via Seamless web). (By the way, if you use the Seamless web link here, you can get a $5 discount on your first order, if you're new to the site.) It's one of the few places that don't charge a delivery fee on top of the tip. I like that.

The fact that you can choose to have your food as hot or mild as you like is a great thing. If you think you can take it, the nice chefs at Ghazal will make your meal "Indian hot," which means that it is way hotter than any American food you've ever had. Seriously. Personally, I'm too much of a wimp for that sort of thing. Medium is about as hot as I'll go.

Ok, so what do you order when there are so many choices on the menu? If I'm getting delivery, I like to get the Special Dinner for one. If you're eating with someone, there's also a dinner for two (which is probably enough food for 3 or 4). For less than $25 per person, you will get more than enough food for one meal, unless you're a football player, in which case it will be just enough (see picture below). It includes a samosa, soup, rice, naan bread, crispy things (sorry, I don't know what they were but they were really tasty), a curry dish of your choice, rice pudding (aka "kheer"), and coffee or tea. Oh yeah, you also get 3 sauces: a green one, a brownish one, and a reddish-orange one with onions. The green one is spicy and minty, the brownish one is sweet, and the reddish-orange one is spicy with oniony goodness.

So, how was it? I enjoyed all of it except for the samosa, which was ok but nothing to write home about. Perhaps it would have been better straight out of the fryer. Next time, I'll put it in the toaster oven for a minute before eating it. All of the dishes were nicely seasoned and balanced. The curry dish I chose was the lamb and spinach one (saag?). The fact that they give you rice, crispy things, and naan is great because you can have different dipping instruments for your curry (and soup). That just makes eating Indian food fun! The mulligatawny soup was flavorful and complemented the curry and samosa. For desert, the rice pudding (aka "kheer") has some cardamom in it, which adds a nice flavor to it. After a big meal, the rice pudding was perfect because it was light. The coffee came in a deli container and it was what it was. All in all, it was a really good Indian meal and I would definitely order it again for delivery or take-out.

Meal for one - enough for at least 2 meals!

Rice pudding "kheer" - flavored with cardamom - Perfect ending to a big meal.

Review: Goya Beef Potato Puffs

These snacks were $3.29 a box at BMS Paper Company. Considering the fact that they're easy to prepare and quite tasty, they were a good purchase. All you have to do is put them on a tray and pop them into the toaster oven for 30 minutes at around 350F. In a regular oven, you need to set it at 375F.

Package

Potato puffs in the toaster oven

The inside of a beef potato puff

Basically, these are just balls of seasoned ground beef wrapped in mashed potato and deep fried. When you put them in the toaster oven, the outside browns and the inside gets nice and hot. They are really good comfort food and one or two would be an ideal afternoon snack with some tea. I suppose a whole box could be a meal.

If you want to get fancy, perhaps you could throw them in a stew and they could be like dumplings or something. 'Nuff said.

Popeye's Chicken - Crawfish Tackle Box review

Now that I have a scooter, I can get to the Popeye's Chicken that's only a 10-minute scoot from my house. Last week, I went there and tried their "Crawfish Tackle Box," which is shown in the picture below. It includes fried crawfish, fries, a biscuit, and creamy horseradish sauce. For only $4.99, this was a pretty good deal. There's a KFC about a block away but I would much rather go to Popeye's just because their breading is lighter and crispier. The Cajun fries have some nice seasoning making them better than the plain salted KFC fries. The creamy sauce is ok for what it is. Personally, I like to make my own seafood sauce with ketchup and horseradish. Of course the part that I really love about any Popeye's meal is that light and fluffy biscuit. Awesome! I recommend this tackle box deal.

The "Crawfish Tackle Box"