The Best Condiments?

Tapatio, branston pickle, beaver horseradish, and taco bell mild sauce are all you'll ever need. But if you can only pick one, Tapatio all the way.

well I guess if you consider pickles to be condiments...

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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I always liked the smell of cooking mole', used to have a good chocolate mole' every once in a while, but not really a "favorite" per se.
by "choclate mole'" i assume you mean mole negro. it contains cocoa, peanuts and/or peanut butter, sunflower oil, and various peppers, among other things. it's an acquired taste for most, but having grown up on it, it's sort of my comfort food.

btw, the "e" in mole does not have accent on it. it is pronounced, "MO-leh".

Originally Posted by sonick

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I don't care what my friends say, McChicken sauce is NOT plain mayo!

Of course it is. But at least it's real mayo, not that salad dressing crap you get in other places.

Hellman's is the best store-bought mayo. I use it as a base to make lots of different condiments for sandwiches or dipping sauces. Mix it with dijon mustard, with tapenade, with harissa (the best )...

Originally Posted by matadorpoeta

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by "choclate mole'" i assume you mean mole negro. it contains cocoa, peanuts and/or peanut butter, sunflower oil, and various peppers, among other things. it's an acquired taste for most, but having grown up on it, it's sort of my comfort food. btw, the "e" in mole does not have accent on it. it is pronounced, "MO-leh".
Well, yes and no, see the recipie didn't contain cocoa, it actually contained semi-sweet bakers chocolate which was the closest us poor people could get, I'm not sure it had any nuts in it (I think maybe the neighbor who cooked it was allergic) But I'm not sure. She never called it mole' negro, she always called it chololate mole'. Its not a common dish where I live, and I've gotten into the habit of assuming that people really have no idea what mole is. (besides a burrowing animal) I know how its pronounced and will say it that way, but anytime I have to write it down, I always try to accent the e so that people know that you speak the "e", and also so people don't think we are talking about the burrowing nocturnal pest, which is what people are automaticlaly going to think of when this discussion is seen.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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Well, yes and no, see the recipie didn't contain cocoa, it actually contained semi-sweet bakers chocolate which was the closest us poor people could get, I'm not sure it had any nuts in it (I think maybe the neighbor who cooked it was allergic) But I'm not sure. She never called it mole' negro, she always called it chololate mole'. Oh, and from wiki: Its not a common dish where I live, and I've gotten into the habit of assuming that people really have no idea what mole is. (besides a burrowing animal) I know how its pronounced and will say it that way, but anytime I have to write it down, I always try to accent the e so that people know what the hell it is that I'm talking about.
i would think that if you wanted people to know you were not referring to the animal, you could either accent the "o" (mo'le), use italics to show it is a foreign word (mole), or both (mo'le). spelling it mole' only encourages those unfamiliar with it to mispronounce it. also, if you use the word in the context of discussing mexican food, that should be enough for the reader to know not to pronounce it like the animal (especially if you use italics), but that may be giving people too much credit.

Mo Mo Mo! Le Le Le!

Originally Posted by matadorpoeta

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i would think that if you wanted people to know you were not referring to the animal, you could either accent the "o" (mo'le), use italics to show it is a foreign word (mole), or both (mo'le). spelling it mole' only encourages those unfamiliar with it to mispronounce it. also, if you use the word in the context of discussing mexican food, that should be enough for the reader to know not to pronounce it like the animal (especially if you use italics), but that may be giving people too much credit. of course, if you accented the "o" i'd ***** about that too.

For some reason though, accenting the "e" is what most other people do when they say, print it on a menu. At least, thats what I've seen, on the rare occasion I've seen it on a menu up here. I agree that accenting the "o" would make more sense, it's just not how its done. I just assumed that the pseudo-mexican pronunciation council up here decided that this was the preferred method of getting people to stop saying "möl" I figure that if I'm going to perpetrate the wrong spelling of the word for the sake of clarity, I might as well be consistant with the way other people do it. Remember too, that this is the same general part of the country where many people still can't correctly pronounce the word "quesadilla". As in, "Make yourself a dang kwesa-dill-a" (Napoleon Dynamite was filmed in Idaho, but generally around the same longitude)

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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+1

And HP sauce..
That's the one I was trying to think of. Definitely HP sauce.

I like a to use a honey-mustard recipe I learned from a local British pub. Mix up whole-grain mustard with mayonaise and honey - delicious!

Originally Posted by iammatt

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Olive oil is a can of worms. There is so much pretense in the use of olive oil that it is mind boggling. I even see people sauteeing with $30 bottles of olive olil which is the same thing as burning money.

Not only that, even inexpensive olive oil can impart a flavor to what is being sauteed. Sometimes this is desireable, sometimes not. Depending on what you are cooking, canola or safflower oil is often a better choice. Canola is nice because it has the highest smokepoint. Safflower has the most neutral flavor, basically no flavor at all.

No one - besides me - on the forum a fan of Lingham's Hot Sauce (formerly Lingham's Maylasian Chili Sauce)? A key ingredient in a tenderloin medallions with five mustards and cognac I trot out when trying to impress guests.

Originally Posted by PITAronin

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No one - besides me - on the forum a fan of Lingham's Hot Sauce (formerly Lingham's Maylasian Chili Sauce)? A key ingredient in a tenderloin medallions with five mustards and cognac I trot out when trying to impress guests.

5 Mustards and cognac? Recipe! Please!

Originally Posted by Manton

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Not only that, even inexpensive olive oil can impart a flavor to what is being sauteed. Sometimes this is desireable, sometimes not. Depending on what you are cooking, canola or safflower oil is often a better choice. Canola is nice because it has the highest smokepoint. Safflower has the most neutral flavor, basically no flavor at all.
very true, grapeseed is also good.

For Alter - and anyone else who wants to try out the mustard/cognac recipe (which lends itself to all sorts of tinkering, combining various quantities of the mustards/sauces, etc.) This recipe will feed six, but can be cut down easily.

2 pounds of beef tenderloin. Pat dry, salt, pepper and then sear in a skillet with 1 1/2 sticks of butter. When you have a good sear on both sides, add 1/4 cup of warmed cognac and flame it. Take the beef out of the skillet and set aside while you finish the sauce (you'll want this pretty rare)

Into your skillet, mix
2 T Dijon mustard
1 T Bavarian mustard with seeds
5 t white Dijon mustard
3 t Moutarde de Meaux
3 T Lingham's Maylasian Chilly Sauce
5 T steak sauce (your pick)
A bit of demi glace or 2 T of beef bouillon
Heat and stir to marry the flavors

Slice your tenderloins into quarter inch medallions, return them to the skillet with the sauce and let them cook just a minute or so more

Serve with pasta or basmati rice and a side of a green vegetable and either an India Pale Ale or a really serious cabernet.

Final note - the specific ingredients and proportions can be juggled wildly, depending on what's in the refrigerator and what mood you're in that day, and the basic taste of the final dish is virtually guaranteed not to disappoint.