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People are fascinated by the idea of cooking a potato in a pot of boiling
pine resin. Those who have had potatoes cooked this way say that they are
the best potatoes they've ever had. The secret lies in the fact that the
boiling resin distributes the heat evenly around the cooking potato.
Forest workers, sawmill employees, and just plain country folk in the
South used to tap the numerous pine trees in the region to harvest the
pine sap and sell it for making turpentine, among other uses. Somehow,
maybe by accident, someone found that a potato cooked in boiling pine
resin was exceptionally delicious. They got so popular in the South
that hardware stores used to sell a "rosin potato cooker" - a cast
iron pot pre-filled with rosin. You just put it over a fire, heated
it up until the rosin melted and started boiling, and carefully put
in your potatoes.
You don't wrap them in paper first - you put the potatoes in boiling
pine sap in a cast iron pot and let them cook until they rise to the
surface - that's the signal that they're done. Then, with a slotted
spoon or tongs or a stick, you carefully lift the hot potato out of
the rosin and roll it up in butcher's paper or a brown paper bag and
twist the ends to keep it hot until it's served.
When you're ready to eat the potato, you cut it lengthwise through
the paper and then add butter, salt, pepper, even sour cream and
bacon bits if you want. By the way - you don't eat the skin with the
resin on it, just the inside.
Simple, huh? Except that it seems that you can't go down to your
local hardware store and buy rosin cookers or bulk rosin any more.
I have searched the web several times, and the only rosin that I
can find for sale is small quantities such as are used by athletes
to dry their sweaty hands, and by artists. Of course, rosin is
expensive when bought that way. However, there does not appear to
be any place at all on the web that sells bulk pine rosin suitable
for filling a pot to cook potatoes. You might be able to get it
from a turpentine manufacturer.
While I was searching, I found a few web sites that seemed to want
to confuse pine resin with "pine tar". "Pine tar", is distilled
pine resin. It's pretty nasty stuff, and I'd think twice before
trying to cook potatoes in it. Also, please note that both pine resin
and pine tar are highly flammable. Cooking potatoes in resin is not
something to be undertaken lightly. The words "resin" and "rosin"
are used interchangeably. Just be sure it's pine resin and not
something else. There are other "resins."
Here's an art supply store that sells it for $3.00 a pound. See:
Artstuff.com"
If you know of a good source for pine resin or of a place that still sells
rosin potato cookers, please let me know so I can post it here.
On 4 Dec 2007 at 4:54, Christy wrote:
> Southern Kitchen was a restaurant in Dallas many years ago. They had
> the best Cinnamon Rolls in the entire world. I had the recipe which
> was posted in the Dallas Times Herald but lost it about 20 years ago.
> I would love to have it again.
>
> Thanks for the help!
> Christy
>
Hello Christy,
See below.
Phaed
Southern Kitchen Cinnamon Rolls
DOUGH MIXTURE
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water
2 1/4 cups flour
1 egg
Scald milk, add butter and stir until the butter is melted. Add sugar
and salt and stir until dissolved. Dissolve yeast in warm water and
add to milk mixture. Add 1 cup of flour and beat well. Add egg, which
has been beaten lightly, and beat about 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour
and beat well. Then add rest of flour and mix well. Place on floured
board and knead very lightly - about 8 times. Put in well greased bowl,
cover and let rise until double in bulk.
CINNAMON SUGAR MIXTURE
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, well packed
1 tablespoon cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter
Mix sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon together until well blended. Roll
dough out to 8" x 20". Completely cover with 1 tablespoon melted butter.
Spread cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over surface, reserving about 3/4
cup for top. Roll up and cut into 24 even pieces.
Melt 5 tablespoons butter in 7" x 10 1/2" pan and put rolls in pan
placing cut side up. Press down to force butter up around rolls. Then
spread remaining sugar mixture evenly over top.
Press down. Let rise until double. Bake at 375 F. until done - about
20 minutes. Serve warm.
> Around 1959 or so there was a Latin restaurant, run by Restaurant
> Associates, on 6th Avenue in Manhattan, in the Time-Life building. A
> beautiful restaurant, now, alas, long since defunct. Among their
> wonderful dishes was a cheesecake dessert called Suspiro de queso (a
> lovely poetic name for an ethereal dessert).. It'd play hell with my
> cholesterol, but I'd love to make it. Thanks.
>
> Howard
>
Hello Howard,
The name of the restaurant or the name of the chef would help....
Perhaps you are referring to the restaurant named "La Fonda Del Sol"?
It was a Restaurant Associates venture in the Time-Life Building, as
was "The Tower Suite". However, La Fonda Del Sol did not open until
1961. It was designed by Alexander Girard, and the dishes, furnishings
and even the matchbooks from it were designed by him and are collector's
items.
As for recipes, I cannot find any recipes at all from La Fonda Del Sol,
nor can I find a cheesecake called "suspiro de queso". The only dish
with that name that I can find is a savory appetizer called "suspiros
de queso". There is a recipe in Spanish for it here:
suspiros de queso
Sorry that I could not be more helpful.
Phaed
The cookbook is "Trail Boss's Cowboy Cookbook" by the Society for
Range Management.
This cookbook includes recipes with names like ""mule muffins",
"yella belly soup","son-of-a-bitch stew", "son of son-of-a-gun stew",
"slum gum", "grave-yard stew","garbage can dinner", "black night
barbecue sauce", "devil's steak", "frizzled beef","blackbird pie",
"roasted rattlesnake", "Australian barbecued emu", "Australian
camel stew", recipes for kangaroo, "mailbox greens", "prairie fire",
"storm at sea", "beef candy", "mystery pudding, "son-of-a-gun-in-a-sack",
"lumpy dick", and "spotted dog". It's also packed with old-timey recipes,
trail recipes, camp recipes, chuck-wagon recipes, old-west recipes and
Mexican recipes.
From this one I chose "Devil's Steak." It's said this recipe for steak
was created by a cook who was allergic to wheat flour, so she came up
with the idea of dredging the steak in powdered mustard.
Devil's Steak
2-3 lbs. round steak, 3/4" thick
2 tbsp. dry mustard
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. cooking oil, or as needed
1 10 oz. can mushrooms, bits & pieces
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup dry wine
Cut meat into small pieces. Trim all membrane and fat from pieces. Pound
each piece until 1/4" thick or less. Mix mustard and spices and dredge meat
on both sides in mixture. Have large frying pan medium hot with oil. Fry a
few pieces at a time 1 to 1-1/2 minutes on each side, until golden brown.
Keep warm. Drain mushrooms, but save liquid & set mushrooms aside. Add
mushroom liquid and Worcestershire sauce to hot pan pan. Simmer and scrape
off pan drippings. Add mushrooms and wine to this liquid and heat. You may
thicken with corn starch, if desired. Serve this sauce over the meat. Makes
8 to 10 small servings.
RecipeSource
Smorgasbord
Recipezaar
Swedish Recipes
Sedish Kitchen
DMOZ
Gretchen's Cookbook
Astray
Meraya Nyberg
Food Down Under
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