wattacetti

Moulard. The domesticated variety that's generally used for foie gras production.

I SV skinless duck breast similar to what NathanM and BryanZ have described: moulard breasts with salt, pepper, little bit of solidified duck fat at 130ºF for about 3 hours. When they come out I color them in a pan with some butter and a blowtorch. Maillard goodness, evenly-colored tender duck. Still playing with the best way to do crispy skin as accompaniment. Haven't quite worked out the crispy transparent skin chip technique but have tried and like Blumenthal's skin crochet.

Wow - PolyScience 8306C. If I can stop taking 122 flights/year I might actually get around to buying one of these. Did you get it directly from them? And have you conducted your bean experiment yet?

He's not dead, though Ronco appears to be gearing up to push the ChefnGo.

Too bad about the feet: great snack food and also very useful in enriching stock if you don't want to eat them. Kamozawa & Talbot over at Ideas in Food were making lardons from the combs (click here for link). Blumenthal was watching a chef identified as "Massimo" poach a proto-egg, replace the yolk with ragú, and serve it on a fried tagliatelle cracker.

Torakris has eaten chicken brain (I remember her chicken sashimi post from a few years back), and lots of people have talked about using things like the cockscomb if you have them. When we used to get feather-on chickens we did keep as many of the proto-eggs as we could get; they would be served in a variety of forms, but I remember soups and steamed dishes mostly. Heston Blumenthal watched an Italian chef use them for a somewhat avant-garde version of tagliatelle alla Bolognese. Edit: forgot that the entire bird (head to feet) is entirely used in whatever whole chicken dish one gets in Asia. Just a bunch of extra bits in the pot really.

I did use Waring's laboratory "tissue homogenizers" when still in the lab, and sort-of wish that I had found a way to retain its services. 4L capacity, could whip raw mussels (and other things) into smooth liquid without trying. $4K is a bit steep though ($2K for the blender, $2K for the 4L bowl). I have seen Waring's home blenders and they seem to be fine (cloverleaf or no), but I'm personally leaning towards a Vita-Mix.

The only one that I have (Ikea's Real Swedish Food Book) was a bargain: "free with the purchase of a $5.99 Manager's Special meatball meal" at the Port Coquitlam Ikea. It's got color photos and I've looked through it as a plating cross-reference for several Scandinavian recipes. It is surprisingly consistent against the recipes even with the product placement. I did get into trouble over the meatballs because my former manager in all seriousness used it as an example of poor fiscal stewardship at review time.

I'm curious about the quail, since a whole one will have a relatively large empty cavity (unless you spatchcocked the thing?). Have done duck magret at 54ºC for about 2 hours; comes out very pink but it definitely isn't bloody.

Liquid? I was originally going to serve a hot consommé with the oxtail wrapped as a raviolo but decided that would reek of effort. Thought I would get a better laugh if I ripped off the old Chunky commercials and got people to eat it with a fork. The oxtail is gelatinous enough that the broth will set up nicely even after clarification, but it stays light enough that it melts to a (sticky) liquid when you put it on your tongue.

It's snowing now, but the temperature was already starting to drop on Saturday so what better time to serve a nice oxtail soup.

How you got some of the oink somewhat bites: a 10 pound frozen bag labeled "misc" and 30 pound blocks of shoulder? I'm in for photos. For starters how about some of your proto-ham and bacon?

Is this stuff shoulder steak/roast?

Not quite. < 24 hours = no exemptions 24-48 hours = $50 exemption per person (no alcohol too) 48 hours to 7 days = $200 exemption per person > 7 days = $750 exemption per person

Just saw an ad which promoted Nadia Boudreau as the chef of La Gaudriole. Odd but when I loaded the restaurant's website, the previous site is no longer there and there's essentially placeholder text. So… does anyone know what happened with the original chef/owner Marc Vézina? I'd like to know since I liked his food.