Malawry

Basting meat while it's in the pan on top of the stove is a neat trick. Especially good with something like clarified butter. Next time, try this: Sear the steak on one side using plenty o'fat. Flip it and put a piece of fresh herb--thyme, rosemary, etc, something not too delicate--on top. Tilt the pan so the fat pools towards the bottom of the pan and push the steak towards the end of the pan in the air. Using a spoon, constantly pick up the hot fat and pour it over the steak. This is best done in rapid-fire motion--spoon/pour, spoon/pour, spoon/pour. The hot fat will get infused with the fresh herb and help to flavor and moisten the steak. When Side 2 is seared, you can throw the whole pan in the hot oven until the steak is done to your liking. Pull it out, let it rest, toss the fresh herb, and then cut it. I like to put a pat of additional butter on top and then sprinkle with crunchy salt like Maldon. Ooh.

My vote is for the pomegranate--it's just. so. sensual. And all that red. And all those seeds. However, special props go to plums, specifically because of a Suzanne Vega song called My Favorite Plum:

Thanks for the article, Debbie. I can't believe you led with my question--but I seem to recall you busting out laughing when I asked it. (Doesn't everybody need to know if there's a fine-fine-mesh chinois available when they go to a Labor Day party? )

Thanks, Wendy. The Earlene's site had some especially useful information. What's the best way to cut this sort of thing cleanly? In the kitchen, if I'm cutting a cake, I usually use a serrated knife, and I get a pitcher of hot water and a stack of clean towels. Between each cut, I dunk the knife in the water and then wipe the knife clean on the towels. But I worry this would look kinda bad "in public." Do I have to rent fancy cake servers to do this? Earlene recommends just wearing a glove and using one hand with the knife, the other with the glove to cut and move slices.

I'm catering two weddings this fall. I've catered different types of events before, including a couple of dessert-and-champagne receptions, but I've never done a full-fledged wedding. (That was easy--I preportioned things that needed to be cut and put them in petit four cases...so they could be eaten with one hand if you had a glass of champagne in the other.) Both couples are outsourcing their cakes at my request--I can do simple cakes and do them well, but I'm not about to attempt wedding cakes on top of everything else on my plate. I'm having anxiety attacks about cutting the cakes for these two weddings. I will be asking the artists in question for guidance, but thought it would also be worth asking the pros in here. What do you wish caterers would do when you're done handing a cake over? Is it hard to follow cutting guidelines? I'm worried about running out by cutting the cake too large... For one wedding there will be a classic three-tiered cake to serve 80 guests. The couple has specifically requested that I not move the cake for cutting it (*knees knock*). There are two different sets of flavors--one on bottom and top and one in the center--and they plan to serve the top tier. I will be providing fresh fruit as well. They want to take some cake from the bottom layer to serve each other, and then they want me (or my staff, but most likely it'll end up being me since the buck stops with me) to stand there and portion the cake into slices. Then one of my servers will run them to a separate table with the fruit display for people to help themselves between dancing etc. How do you finesse doing this in public? For the other wedding, there will be several layer cakes--I think 3 or 4 types--not tiered or anything, for about 60 guests. They are specifically arranging for round cakes because they like that look of variety, and they didn't want something tiered. The happy couple plans to cut and serve each other from one of the cakes, and then they want the rest cut for self-service. Should I try to get the cake slices onto plates? We planned to display the whole cakes attractively on a buffet, which I will be setting up (I plan to use boxes/pedestals to create different heights on this table, and get some fall leaves to arrange attractively around them. As far as I know, the baker/pc will not be doing any sort of setup, especially since these are not tiered confections). How do I make it so the slices don't look wan--it looks better to plate them than to cut them and leave them on their trays for people to take their own, right? The couple is taking my guidance on this issue and doesn't seem to have much preference. Thanks for your advice.

How did you serve this? Cut it into wedges?

Report back from the field: The stuffed cabbage we ate for dinner last night was totally excellent and thoroughly satisfying. I am normally opposed to raisins like many in this thread, but I do like a few in the sauce for my stuffed cabbages. I usually have a ton of them around (my spouse likes them), but much to my surprise when I went to grab them last night, I was completely out. (How'd that happen? ) So I added some dried cherries instead. The tomato juice-ketchup-brown sugar combination was just right for the sauce, with the cherries especially. I did have to add a fair amount of water to keep things from sticking/hydrate the rice. We had gefilte fish and a salad with spiced pecans and a apple cider vinaigrette as our first and second courses. Wonderful Shabbat dinner. My dad was especially thrilled.

In my vegetarian days, I pan-fried till crispy and either used it for the reuben Behemoth mentioned above, or more often coated it lightly with BBQ sauce and ate it with slaw on toasted wheat bread for a wonderful lunch.

"Sour salt" is pure citric acid. It used to be sold in little pellets but now it's available granulated. You can buy it at Kosher supermarkets.

Mine's in the oven right now. So excited! I used Joan Nathan's recipe mentioned above--not the cranberry one, but the "classic American" variation listed at the end. The sauce is made of ketchup, tomato juice, brown sugar, sour salt, and I added some Normandy apple cider vinegar instead of a shot of lemon juice. The sauce tasted great. I'll report back tomorrow after we eat some.

I keep wondering when somebody's gonna do a knockoff of Daniel Boulud's foie gras-stuffed burger somewhere around DC. Or did this already happen somewhere and I missed it? I did sample such a burger in Hilton Head, SC of all places back at the beginning of the summer. Palena's burger is a favorite of mine, especially because of the roll, but it's not for everybody. Has anybody had a burger at CP Steak? (I thought I saw one on their lunch menu...)

For you vegetarians out there, I tried Mollie Katzen's recipe for stuffed cabbage--I think it's in the original Moosewood Cookbook--back when I was a vegetarian craving the real deal. It sucked. It contained all kinds of abominations like cottage cheese and nuts. On the other hand, once I made stuffed cabbage using Boca crumbles instead of beef. That wasn't half bad flavorwise. The only problem was texture--the crumbles won't hold together like real meat will when cooked, and so the rolls tended to fall apart. I ate a ton anyway. Ronnie, I remember your post about low-carb stuffed cabbage way back when. It's a beautiful and mouthwatering photo.

I shoulda known you two would swim in and comment on this one. It seems like recipes for stuffed cabbage are full of shortcuts--calling for canned tomato soup, ketchup, or other tomato products especially. I think it's that making anything stuffed is automatically extra work--and anything that gets this dish in the oven quickly before Shabbat has to be a bonus.

I'm hankering for some stuffed cabbage. I have in mind the sort you get from the counter at a Kosher deli--filled with ground beef and rice, in a thin sauce with tomato and raisin. I picked up some sour salt at the Kosher market yesterday in preparation for making this dish, and today I started looking through my cookbooks to get an idea of how to make this. Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America presents a version made with cranberries, and suggests a more simple ketchup-brown sugar-sour salt version for those not into nouvelle New England Jewish cookery. But neither of these sounds like what I'm looking for. Also, I've not worked with sour salt before and don't know how much to add "to taste" to a batch. Alternative versions of this classic dish are of course welcome in this topic as well. I'm looking for stricter guidance on the one I have in mind if possible.

I use mine to rapidly obliterate piles of carrots and cabbage into lovely julienne shreds for purposes of making Thai-style spring rolls. Also, you can cut things like zucchini and cucumber into long long thin even slices by pushing the whole vegetable along the blade. When I worked as a chef for a sorority and they wanted tea sandwiches, the mandoline made short work of several English cucumbers for cucumber sandwiches. Gaufrettes of any root vegetable are a neat trick. The mandoline is a fun toy--until you get cut that is! (And you will.)

Bonaparte breads are also sold at the TPSS Co-op, for you MoCo residents jonesing for a fix. I still say the best baguette in town is baked by Somchet Chumpapo at L'academie de Cuisine. Anybody who's tasted one knows what I'm talking about. I'd pay a lot of money for those--too bad they're not on the market anywhere.

I like to make boxty, an Irish version of potato pancakes, with the little kids I teach in the summertime. Mix leftover mashers with some fresh shredded potatoes, egg and flour. Pan-fry in plenty of oil. The little ones like them with ketchup but I think they're perfect plain.

Hmmm. I'd worry that a convection fan would blow the little thyme leaves around the oven as they dried. (Don't they detach from the stems easily once dried?) Have you done this, and had it work okay?

I like richer meats, like duck breast, simply placed on a bed of watercress while hot from the pan. The combination of juices and the wilting makes a delicious green.

And on another uniforms question...I saw that Crooked Brook site recommends a jacket with ties for pregnant women. I'm considering buying one maternity jacket since I will be teaching classes and catering into my 7th month at least, barring major health issues--and I doubt my current jackets would work. (I'm early enough in my pregnancy that I don't really show yet.) But I can't see spending $110+ on a jacket I'll wear only a handful of times. Should I just buy a larger size jacket, or are there specifically maternity-design jackets out there I can check out?

I did an allergy-free diet for about 6 months once. (It didn't help my allergies much, but it was worth a shot.) My allergies weren't as extensive as these but I did avoid gluten, dairy, and egg entirely--and I was a vegetarian at the time which didn't help! There are all sorts of good rice noodles out there. Rice cakes with jam and/or nut butters make a good snack. I ate lots of Asian-style rice crackers too. Diamond makes some great "nut thins" crackers that are addictive--I'd eat the hazelnut ones straight from the box. Investigate health food stores. They carry things like spelt quick breads that may be edible for your brother--there may be options like spelt tortillas that are yeast-free. If I was dying for a sweet, I either bought lemon sorbet or made Chex muddy buddies with rice Chex (I didn't have a peanut problem, but you can probably use almond butter instead in that recipe). I learned to eat a lot of foods that I'd previously disdained at that time in my life. Encourage your brother to explore produce and meats that he previously disregarded or believed he disliked. My palate changed and I found myself scarfing things like mushrooms that I'd never cared for before. Fortunately, this phase of my life didn't last long--but I tried to approach it as if it was a permanent set of changes (which it might have been when I started). After your brother eliminates all these foods and has cleared out his system for several weeks, he may be able to try adding some of those foods back in one at a time to see how he reacts. I still have food allergies--some of which I avoid entirely, others of which I consume anyway--but I know which ones will make me miserable and which might result in something minor like a little bit of eczema on my arm. This may not be a life sentence.

Thai-style spring rolls Sweet chili crispy wings Vegetarian fried rice Chicken and broccoli stirfry Shanghai cabbage with mirin and ginger Brownies and mint chip ice cream For 14. First time entertaining more than two folks in the new house.

So I had a tuna melt for dinner in honor of this thread. I don't usually make the roasted tuna salad with apples I mentioned above at home--I make a sort of tuna-and-egg salad based on my best friend's technique. Simple canned water-packed tuna drained well and mixed with 2 hard boiled eggs per can, with lots of dijon, celery, red onion, capers, fresh dill if available, mayo, and plenty of twists of the ol' black pepper. (I buy canned tuna at Costco, I think it's Chicken of the Sea brand. Regular, not the white Albacore.) I preheated my oven with a pizza stone to 450. Laid the salad on a pita (it was the only bread around) and topped it with some deli swiss cheese. It made a heavenly meal.

I read and very much enjoy this thread, folks. Don't feel like you're just talking to yourselves--many people are following along at home like me. About that melon/squash issue: For your reference, spaghetti squash has a more regular oval shape than a teardrop shape. It has a light yellow skin. You don't scoop out the innards before cooking it, either; it's not blessed with soft scoopable insides like some melons are. Just so's you can identify it better next time. Spaghetti squash is wonderful, I manage to buzz through a couple every fall all by myself.

Hjshorter and I lunched at Urban today. We shared a bunch 'o stuff--the infamous Soul Rolls with redneck fondue, a crab cake, some pulled chicken, some ribs, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, collards, and slaw. The place has an amazing aroma and gets quite packed at lunchtime--we were glad we showed up early, and when we left at 12:30 there were people hovering to nab our table. I enjoyed the Dominion root beer on tap. The counter service is very friendly and real. The ribs had a richly smoked flavor, were appropriately chewy-tender and seemed to have a thin glaze on them--they were great on their own but even better dipped in the red BBQ sauce. I thought the pulled chicken tasted good but was a little too chewy--it definitely needed sauce to tide it over. As for the crab cake, it's very creamy and has a rich flavor--it's not very large and appeared to have been coated in fine breadcrumbs. It's not lump-y for those into jumbo lump crab cakes, but I personally am willing to sacrafice some lumps for a more authentic crab flavor. Heather's collards are better than Urban's, but Urban's are respectable nonetheless, packed with real bacon and slow-cooked like God intended. The mac and cheese is very cheesy, but the cheese is a bit lacking in flavor--I'd prefer less cheese with more sharpness to it. The slaw is mayo-based and crunchy, not overly dressed, and not particularly sweet (though I was chasing it with the root beer, so maybe my palate was off). The soul rolls are one of those things I think you have to try once--egg roll skins packed with bbq brisket and cheese, deep-fried, and served with "redneck fondue" (a chili-cheese dip). They're just dandy without the dip, but I bet the fondue is great with chips (also available as a starter). I only managed half of one--each order comes with 4 halves, and I definitely recommend splitting this 4 ways if you come with some buddies to avoid overload. The cornbread really is good--slightly sweet, chewy, and packed with fresh corn kernels. I know this review is not that heavy on the BBQ itself, which is really the point of these sorts of places--but I'm having a hard time getting down a lot of meat these days, which is why I ordered the crab cake. Besides, I just went to NC for Varmint's pig picking over Labor Day weekend and ate my fill of NC-style pulled pork while I was there, so I couldn't bring myself to try Urban's pork BBQ. Next time I hope to try the brisket at least--I got some in the Soul Rolls but would like to sample it on its own.