From Smoked Fish To Sourdough

Q: Our last three children were adopted from Russia last year. One food they long for is "salted" fish. It is not cooked, only salted. Nikolai (11 years old) offered, "You salt it -- then it sits down. Other fish got hangered on the wall so it was not wet -- it got hard." Fish is something I know absolutely nothing about! I have no clue how to even buy fish let alone "salt" it. Salmon and some type of white-looking fish is all I know is used for salted fish. As far as the "fish that got 'hangered' on the wall," not one clue on what that could have been! Any advice? --Sheila Paul

A: Any fish can be salted, although lean fish will keep longer than oily ones. Oily fish like catfish are superb when salted and smoked, though.

I've always preferred large fillets for salting and smoking, myself. When filleting, leave the collarbone just behind the gills intact, to make it easy to hang the fish for smoking. Score the thickest parts of the fillets ½ inch deep to allow for adequate salt penetration. Brine the fillets for 30 minutes in a solution of ½ c. of pickling salt to 1 gallon cold water. Drain thoroughly before salting.

For a full rundown on the salting procedure, the fine folks at Michigan State University have the information in their food preservation database right here.

The salted fish can then be smoked after it is "freshened," which involves soaking out most of the preserving salt in cold water, with frequent changes over 8 to 48 hours, depending on your taste.

Q: What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? Or is there any difference? --Karen Leonard

A: An excellent question, what with Thanksgiving right around the corner!

What you know as a yam, that potato-looking item with the orange flesh, is in fact a sweet potato. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that the label "yam" always be accompanied by "sweet potato."

Unless you shop at some pretty exotic grocers, you'll likely never see a real yam. They're grown primarily in the Caribbean and have a dry, starchy texture and mouth feel. They're not nearly as sweet as our sweet potatoes, and in fact would be downright foul in most of our "candied yam" recipes.

Q: Good sourdough bread is hard to find. Some of it is there, but it tastes as if they just added vinegar to the dough instead of making and using a starter. There used to be here in Houston a bakery that made wonderful sourdough bread, but then they changed the recipe and it is not nearly as good. Do you have a good recipe I could use to make it myself? One that has a good country taste, but does not taste like vinegar - ugh! Thank you, Mary D. Morse

Now, I don't normally do recipes here in Ask The Cook, preferring to e-mail them directly to questioners, but I've had a zillion requests for a sourdough starter recipe.

One marvelous thing about sourdough is that, as it ages, it will take on the character of its area. Microbiologists have found differences in starters that "live" in San Francisco (the sourdough capital) compared to ones from Tokyo and New York. The native yeasts will infiltrate and contribute to the flavor of the whole. Thus, if you moved from a city and just can't find that particular sourdough taste you were used to, there may be a good reason!

Basic Sourdough Starter

Remember: NEVER store sourdough in a metal container or stir it with metal utensils. You'll kill it. Also, always feed it unbleached flour, as the traces of bleach in regular flour can kill it.

Dissolve 1 tbsp. dry yeast and 2 tbsp. honey in 2 c. warm water in a glass, plastic, or crockery bowl. Stir in 2 c. unbleached white flour; cover with a towel and let sit in a warm place for several days, or until foamy and soured. Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator. Use a larger container than you think you'll need, to allow for dramatic expansion.

You'll need to feed the starter weekly, even if you don't use any. First, remove ½ to 1 c. of the original starter. Throw it away, give it away or use it. Stir in a mixture of 1 c. unbleached flour, 1 c. warm water, and a little sugar (optional). Let sit at room temperature for a few hours; stir and refrigerate.

When you let it sit, keep it uncovered as much as possible to let those native yeasts come and visit!

Q: I'm Sherry Machado, formerly from Hawaii and now a resident of the "Frozen North" in Michigan. I receive your newsletter via e-mail. I have a question about chocolate cakes. What is the difference between Devil's Food, Fudge and German Chocolate cakes? Other than color, I don't see much difference.

A: The first difficulty we run into is definition. Yes, there are cooking encyclopedias and dictionaries aplenty, but for something as general as "fudge cake," no one claims supreme authority for defining the term. Devil's Food is a bit easier, being by definition a dark, dense baked good (cake).

German Chocolate Cake is easily differentiated from other chocolate cakes primarily by the caramel frosting, which is made with coconut and frequently also toasted almonds. It's not my personal favorite, but to each his own.

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