prasantrin

If you can't get yuzu, then just use whatever citrus (or acid) you think will complement the other flavours. There's really no point in trying to replicate yuzu flavour if you don't know what the dish tastes like using yuzu (assuming you've never made the dish before).

I once had a potato pancake-like thing that was topped with a mixture of diced tomato, cucumber, avocado, and maybe onion. I think it was lightly dressed with a simple vinaigrette. I loved it.

I'd freeze some of them (already mashed or cubed) in portions to use in smoothies. Avocado ice cream and shakes are awesome. This avocado, mozzarella, and tomato salad looks good. http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/avocado-tomato-mozzarella-salad .

Thanks! I already looked it up in one of the many kosher salt topics. It's something like 1:1.5:2 table:morton's:diamond crystal. (Something like that. I can't remember off-hand, but I know where to find the info again!) I should add, the ratio was for volume measurements, not weight.

In the absence of kosher salt, can one still make bacon (or cure other types of flesh--salmon, for example)? I'm all out of kosher salt, and a 1.5 kg box (or thereabouts) is more than US$10. I have fine sea salt that has no additives (unlike Morton's kosher salt which has an anti-caking agent added), and it looks coarser than table salt, but it's definitely not as coarse as kosher salt. I might be able to get coarse, but I'm hoping to make do with what I have. If I can use another type of salt (whether coarse or fine sea salt), should I adjust the salt measurements? For example, my usual bacon recipe calls for 2 1/2 tablespoons of kosher salt for 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly. Would I reduce the amount since kosher salt is greater in volume than seasalt?

Thanks, djyee100. The original recipe calls for both butter and shortening, but I didn't have any shortening. It's actually a bit difficult to find in Japan. I had some lard that I rendered, but I thought it might be a bit too piggy tasting. And to answer my question about leaving the butter out of the filling recipe. . . it still tastes good, but it falls apart very easily. Oh well. All crumbled up, it would probably make a great topping for ice cream!

In Japan, most people are covered by the National Health Insurance Plan or some sort of employee health insurance plan (like the Teachers Union Health Insurance). In the case of national health insurance, which is most likely what most restaurant employees are covered by, the cost depends on the person's income. I pay a whopping $3500 a year in insurance premiums, plus I have a 30% co-pay if/when I actually require medical or dental services. The average restaurant employee, even at high-end restaurants, makes much less than I do (I am assuming), so their premiums would be much lower. The restaurant, as far as I know, would not be responsible for any of the costs, so it would not affect the prices. Unionized work places, however, usually have employee health care plans. In those cases, the employer pays roughly half the cost of the premiums. I imagine as far as restaurants are concerned, this would only affect those restaurants in hotels, if even those.

Once someone offered to bring a bottle of gifted champagne serve at a brunch I was holding. I accepted since there would be no other alcohol, just tea and juice. I figured we could have a toast with mimosas or something like that. The guest brought a bottle of warm champagne. What could I do but serve it? I put it in the fridge for as long as I could (no room in the freezer), but we had warm mimosas to begin our otherwise lovely brunch. I almost always bring wine as a gift, and I never expect it to be served. Perhaps the author was just testing to see how many people would get their knickers twisted up by the article.

'Onion leaves'? Scallions, or chives? The green bits in the picture look fairly large, so I'm guessing scallions, right? Green onions/scallions, most likely. Everyone's recipe for the filling is different. My mother would never use stuff like green relish in hers, nor the vienna sausage or hot dogs some I've seen in some recipes.

You could call yours artisanal handmade chocolates. Handmade could be anything made by hand, literally speaking. But if you tack artisanal onto it, it implies craftsmanship and quality, in my opinion.

I just finished making "My Favourite Pecan Pie", the version without espresso, chocolate, or cinnamon. Question--if I accidentally forget to add the melted butter to the pie mixture, is that really a bad thing? I just took it out of the oven, so I can't taste it, yet. I made the Good for Everything pie crust with all butter. I used my food processor, and I underprocessed it, I think. I could see dots of butter in the dough, some bigger than others, but the recipe says "If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get the dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine." so I figured I was OK. But I got a lot of shrinkage, and quite a bit of butter seeped out of the crust making the pie pan rather greasy. Oh well, it's a good thing a like grease. And if I'm lucky, some of the butter from the crust seeped into the filling where it was definitely missing!! I will have to try again to make a proper My Favourite Pecan Pie.

Bringing this back up--will be in Manila for just a few days in December, right before Christmas. I'll miss the Salcedo Market by a couple of hours , but will be able to make the Legaspi Market on Sunday. Any suggestions for eats around Makati? Food of any ethnicity, but I'm always on the look-out for a good Filipino breakfast! I'm still on an ensaimada quest, too. I tried Mary Grace and I think Hizon? during my last visit, and thought they both sucked!

If she's really a beginner and has only mastered cookies and cupcakes so far, then I'd probably stick to a general baking book that has recipes that range from the simple to the more complex. Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours is an excellent example of such a book. I like Cindy Mushet's the Art and Soul of Baking, too. But if you're looking for something more studious where she can really learn techniques and know-how, when I borrowed them from the library, I preferred the Bo Friberg book to the Wayne Gisslen one, but I can't remember why. Personally, I'd go for the Greenspan or Mushet one, and then when she advanced a little more and became more confident, I'd get the Friberg one so she could start doing pastries and more advanced work/techniques. I've not looked at the Peterson one, but I've heard many good things about it. I'd get that one, too. Another thing to consider, though, is that since you're in the UK, ingredients (especially flour) may differ from those in the US and many of the books being recommended are for the US market and have been tested with US ingredients. You might want to look for one published in the UK for the UK market, so the recipes have been tested with UK ingredients.

How would you feel about doing a variation of roast chicken, like the Filipino rellenong manok? You can change the flavourings of the meat stuffing to suit your tastes. My mother has often made this for parties (it's one of the few Filipino dishes she can make), and it never fails to impress in terms of looks or flavours. Because of all the meat, you could probably get away with just doing one chicken, but I'd probably do two or one chicken and some other meat dish (like a smaller standing rib roast or rack of lamb).

If you use a cloth, you don't have to scrape. I think scraping leads to more oddly-shaped bread (though that doesn't really bother me, either), and I've found my dough is harder to get off a well-floured plastic board than a well-floured cloth. I don't really know if residue makes a difference to the non-stick qualities of the pot, but I prefer err on the safe side. If you coat a nonstick pan with baking spray, The residue tends to made the pan become non-stick, for example. And non-stick isn't non-stick for everything in my experience (some things baked in a non-stick pan, for example, will still stick), and dough is quite a different substance from foods you'd normally cook in a pot. It makes sense (to me) that it may react differently. Without adding any fat, does something like pancakes stick to you pot if you use it on the stove?

I've had my dough stick to a well-seasoned cast iron dutch oven thoroughly preheated and measured by my infrared temp gun to 450 degrees. Like I said, my pot has only been used for no-knead bread, so there's no other residue that might encourage sticking. Even a well-seasoned cast iron pot may have residues that may encourage sticking of certain items. I don't have an infrared thermometer, but I leave my Le Creuset in a 300C convection oven for 45-60 minutes (or till whenever I get around to putting my bread in). IIRC, the hotter the oven and pot the better, especially for that initial impact of the dough.

It's a very different situation, and cannot be compared with cooking shows. Smith went into the kitchen of a busy commercial bakery (not his own) and refused to wear a hairnet. That's a violation of food safety/preparation by-laws, of which I'm sure he was aware, having worked in commercial kitchens before. That's an ego of huge proportions. Interestingly, if you watch his earlier shows, he had no problem wearing a hairnet before. . . Ya, I think the "perfect" show was the one my mother was talking about. She really enjoyed it because it delved more deeply into a dish--sort of like a less-basic Cook's Illustrated. My cat had just had a snack, so I felt her picture was well-suited to eG.

The notch may be comparable to the notch on a sauce spoon, like this one.

Are you sure your pot is hot enough? I've never had my bread stick to the pot, no matter how sticky the dough was (that said, my pot has only ever been used for no-knead bread, so there's no residue that might encourage sticking). You could cut a circle of parchment and put it in the bottom of the pot right before you put the dough in and then use a pastry cloth or dish cloth to get your dough to the pot. I never worry about deflation. A little deflation won't make much difference in the final product. I let the dough to its final rise on a dish cloth coated with flour and wheat bran, then use the dish cloth to carry the dough to the pot and dump the dough in from the cloth. You can sort of flip the dough on the cloth, so it will go in the pot the right way (but I never bother with that, either. It doesn't seem to matter too much which way is up). Just make sure you have a lot of flour and wheat bran on the cloth, so the dough won't stick to the cloth.

So ego-less that he refused to wear a hairnet while visiting a bakery whiech likely resulted in the disposal of everything made during his visit. My mother no longer has TFN Canada (she just has basic cable), but Heston's Feasts was the only TFNC show she watched when she could. I think she also mentioned watching another very good Heston Blumenthal show once, but I can't remember the title--have his others shows aired on TFNC?

Just wanted to check in and see how things are going. Is the store up already? I'll be in Manila for a few days in December, and would love to swing by if we have time!

I use the Saveur method. I don't get much liquid seepage, but my unsmoked bacon turns out fine, afaict.

I hope you write about Gifu, too! I'm planning to go there in March (Shirakawago and Takayama). Thanks for the info about the barley. I actually bought some in Canada last summer, but I accidentally left it behind. I guess I'll just add the barley to my rice, and make fake risotto!

Where'd everyone go? Another question, has anyone tried to buy foie gras in Japan? I found some on chefpride.co.jp, and am thinking of trying some. I've never cooked with the stuff, though, so I'd rather try to get a smaller quantity for my first try. Any suggestions?

I'd love the Bialetti for home use, but I doubt you'd be able to pass inspection with it (when my parents had a restaurant, every appliance had to be rated for commercial kitchens). And it doesn't say how long it takes to make a cup of hot chocolate, or what the minimum amount is you can make. You don't want to keep too much on tap at any time--fresh is best! When I was in university (pre-super rich premium hot chocolate days), my favourite coffee shop just steamed chocolate milk with the milk steamer wand thing on their espresso/capuccino maker. Like rather be travelin' said, you may as will stick with what you already have, assuming you're going to have the machine from the outset (though quite honestly, unless you have a good barista, I'd not bother with it). My favourite low-brow hot chocolate place in Japan just heats milk up on the stove, adds the chocolate, and whips it up with a whisk. Fast and simple. I still think the ganache route is easiest way to get a good quality product. The ganache would easily melt in heated milk. But what about some kind of rich chocolate syrup? It might keep longer, and you wouldn't have to worry about the time it would take for it to melt into the milk.