budrichard

The reason for using the biggest piece of beef/veal or what have you in a 'Wellington' is to assure that the puff is done and the center of the meat stays a pink rare, not raw but pink. After the puff is done the 'Wellington is rested to allow the meat to further cook. Using such small sizes of meat almost guarantees your meat will be well done. I also make my own puff which is really the other most important part of the dish. Pepin has a short method for making puff if you are short of time.-Dick

The reason most manufacturers develop new products today is because they are cheaper to make or they think they have defined a market for a cheap product. Next, the advertizing genius's write copy to sell the cheap product to the masses without scientific training. From reading the copy, it appears they are trying to correct a defect with non stick burning and/or the new coating will burn under high heat, so they are touting the ability to brown over medium heat so you don't burn your food with the new coating. In any event, these coatings have been developed to sell Al cookware which is lousy anyway. -Dick

1. If your turkey is frozen it is probably basted with a salt/soy solution. In that case I would not brine it. 2. The time will depend on if it is truly thawed and if stuffed. Cook until a meat thermometer registers about 175 to 180F in the leg joint. Let rest for 30 minutes and it will come to 185F. -Dick

Salmon used for Sashimi is almost always frozen to kill parasites. sometimes it also soaked in a salt solution and then frozen. Do not eat raw without this treatment. Salmon comes in many different types. King is gnerally considered the best followed by Coho and at the bottom is chum. The Salmon get mushy after making thier way up river and spawning and die except for Atlantic salmon which return to the sea to live again. The quality of your Coho is dependant on many things including where and how caught and kept, shipping and handling that to comment on what made it mushy is not possible. -Dick

budrichard: What price are they selling those ShaoXing wine at? Just curious. ← Price is $5.99/bottle for each plus State and county Liquor taxes or $13.25 for both bottles. The 3 and 5 year old are different sizes hence the same price. The 'cooking wines' have salt added and are not classified as alcoholic beverages and escape the taxes. They are not suitable for anything and are not what we are talking about. We are discussing chinese wines used for cooking but not 'cooking wine'. $6 for 'cooking wine' sounds high. In ChinaTown 'cooking wine' sells for about $3/bottle.-Dick

My favorite carving set is from Randall Knives http://www.randallknives.com/carving.asp Order today and delivery is about Feb 2010! I have a 32 cm Wusthof which is very good. The best pure carver is a custom http://www.dozierknives.com/ 10" Dozier which Bob made for me and is very sharp. I currently am working with a double edged Japanese 27cm from http://www.shop.niimi.okayama.jp/kajiya/en/index_e.html Takeda that is a Yanagibabocho with Aogami Super Steel and is super sharp but thin. -Dick

Mystery solved! After searching ALL of ChinaTown and Sam's with no luck other than salted cooking wine, on my back to Wisconsin I did my usual stop at Mitsuwa where I had originally thought I purchased the wine. There it was, 3 & 5 year old without salt! Imported by JFC International even though the website dosen't list it. -Dick

The Berkshire pork at Mitsuwa is excellent; nothing better for Tonkatsu! And the price seems very reasonable. Thanks for letting us know about their butcher. I wanted to order some larger Wagyu steaks (the ones in the meat case are always sized for healthy Japanese meals), but I never asked. But now I will! ← Call ahead for your order. They get 1 whole rib/week, I wanted to purchase the whole rib but he couldn't sell it to me becuase he needed some for others. -Dick

Happi Sushi first started in Arlington Heights and we spent many many wonderful nights there with the head chef Nobuo. We had our own bottle of Chivas, the clientel was mostly Japanese business men and we were well taken care of and made some wonderful friends. They moved the restaurant to Highland Park and it really was never the same because the chef's changed and the clientel became Yuppie WASP. They still serve the cubed avocado with Maguro in the avocado shell but the restaurant is shell (pun?) of what it was. Heat on the other hand does a marvelous job of nouville cusine and we were served Toro with sliced fresh chile among a number of other great preperations including a Mangrove Snapper freshly killed, looking us straight in the eye as we ate its flesh.-Dick

I don't think that it is going to be easy to get non-biased quantitative results. The variables are many. You must use the same ingrediants for each roast you make and then have a blind tasting panel for judgement and even then the tasters bring thier own preconcieved notions of what is good to the table, so to speak. The best you will get are qualitative results that probably are not translatable to other users. I really believe that a good cook/chef could cook with just about anything and get good results. Its more about quality of ingrediants, technique and effort. -Dick

Mitsuwa sells Bershire Pork and it is very good but not having tasted Lobel's Kurabota, I can't compare. You can order from Berkshire's site direct or call the butcher at Mitsuwa. He is not Japanese and has a good command of the English language and I have found him to be very responsive. -Dick

We have done a Prime Rib every Christmas Day for years. Over the years I have tried a few other sources including an organic Standing Rib Roast from the Outpost in Milwaukee, and other sources. The regular guests have made it clear that they expect Prime Rib from Zier's and no other! Zier's dry ages the beef for about 17 days. Don't try for longer because they won't. We purchase the whole rib section and on Christmas morning we ascertain the number of guests and cut the roast to fit if needed. The remaining cut goes into the freezer for the grill! I have a small Waygu rib roast from Mitsuwa in the freezer which we will have soon. This is low Prime @ $20/# according to the butcher at Mitsuwa. He can get top Waygu Prime but that is $40/#. I will post on the results.-Dick

Bone out your duck before cooking and use the bones for your stock. Typically after cooking there is not that much left in the bones although it can be done.-Dick

I bone out the head raw and use everything but the brain and eye balls. With the increase in diseases such as CWD in deer and Mad Cow in bovines as well as some reports of CJD from squirrel brains and other animals, we do not eat any part of the nervous system anymore and we also avoid cutting into the nervous system while butchering. Head cheese is then usually the end product. We just did a whole pig sans head a month ago and the head cheese received good reviews from the crowd. -Dick

http://www.navaching.com/forge/heat.html for temps versus colors. Hopefully the wok color is in the low range. -Dick

The 'Ceylon' that Penzy's sells is a subtler cinnamin than the Cassia. We use both in various forms. For a strong cinnamin, the Cassia is the way to go. For a milder and floral taste, 'Ceylon' is superb. -Dick

Sodium Nitrate is a compound that if kept in a suitable container, dry, will basically last forever. It is mined from geological deposits that are millions of years old, like salt. -Dick

sodium nitrite is now sold under various names--butcher-packer.com sells it cheapest and best. saltpeter is postassium nitrate, a different salt that isn't used much in the states anymore. Nitrates are required to prevent botulism in dry-cured sauages. nitrite is not needed for this kind of pork preparation, but it will keep it bright pink and give the pork a distinclty hammy flavor. ← You are indeed correct as I read the label on the 6 oz pharmalogical grade bottle I have had for about 20 years. I add a little to everything we corn to keep the color and it works quite well. -Dick

Your Wok burner is nothing more than a Propane device and appears very similar to a 'Turkey Fryer'. You can purchase a 185,000 btu/hr or more burner from the following USA source http://www.bayouclassicdepot.com/propane_g...rner_29_ctg.htm . Purchashing a product made in Thailand that has not gone any type of US certification is fraught with danger. These southeast asian countries simply do not have safety standards comparable to the USA and you will also keep the money in the US. BTW, there is no way that one could be able to install this device in a residence legally. There is also the chance that if you did install this device in your residence that you would be certified 'Insane'! Lastly, the orange color coming from Wok is an indication of the very high temperature of the Wok. The temperature is probably starting to affect that wok structural integrity becuase as mild steel heats, it loses its strength. The physics are understandable to anyone who saw the World Trade Center collapse. The steel columns lost thier ability to support load because they were heated by the fire from the jet fuel. You run the risk of the wok simply blowing a hole in the bottom and the contents falling into the flame with resulting flame. The more i think about your use of this device, the more it looks like an accident waiting to happen. Be careful.-Dick

The reason you bird looks as it does is because to transport game birds you have to leave a feathered wing on for indentification. Just thaw the bird and cut off the wing. The bird should be already cleaned and plucked. Wild pheasant typically do not have much fat, so larding or liberally coating with butter will help. Roast at high temp 450F for about 20 minutes and check the joints and breast. You want the meat still pink and certainly not the way one would cook a domestic chicken. An alternative is one that we use a lot and is to braise the bird in sour cream with herbs of your choosing until tender. In terms of aging or hanging, do not attempt this as it could cause sickmess or death. The flavor from hanging resulted from a lack of refrigeration years ago. It is not what people would tell you. I don't know of a single hunter that knows what he or she is doing that 'Hangs' game anymore. It is simply to dangerous. Oh yes, get rid of the wings and any feathers before cooking, they are contaminated from the cleaning process. -Dick

If planning to use indoors, I suggest that you peruse your local Fire Codes and contact a Fire Inspector. Flames that are not contained in NFPA approved equipment are considered 'Open Sources of Ignition' and if you have any property or personal damage or injury, your Homeowners Policy will not cover you and no one but yourself is liable for damages. Best to take a cold shower and use approved equipment indoors. Most municipalities also have ordinances about outside burning and these should be consulted also. The concept is certainly appealing to those of us that Wok and want to Wok authentically but common sense and safety must prevail. -Dick

I conducted a blind tasting for 2 individuals using a store chicken and a veg Smart Chicken both purchased from the same source on the same day. The individuals were knowledgable chicken eaters. Each chicken was cut up, flowered, egg and seasoned bread crumbs. they were then put into the same oven at the same time and roasted at 450F initially until a crust had set up and then finished at 350F. A slice of breast meat was served hot from each chicken to the testers. No difference in taste was noted by the tasters. The only difference was the moisture content. The store chicken was judged juicier. Looking at the breast meat, one could visualy see the Smart Chicken was more like turkey breast meat which should be no revelation considering the difference in processing. The Smart Chicken did not impress me as having anymore flavor and certainly not to the taste standards of the local poultry we purchase freshly slaughtered for us. So while the idea is good, the premium of a $1/# for the veg and over $2/# for the organic is not justified. A word about preception. Perception is supposed to be reality and it is in many instances. That is how advertisers sell products. They sell a preception whether it is perfume, beer or automobiles. Very few individuals conduct blind testing to justify thier perceptions. In some instance it is impossible to conduct a blind test such as for automobiles. Many individuals when confronted with the opportunity to test thier favorite product will resist and prefer to live with thier perception. In the case of Smart Chicken, my limited testing shows only a moisture difference which one would suspect would be the case. -Dick

Generally a lttle saltpeter (sodium nitrite) is added to keep the color from turning gray if using a wet corning method. -Dick

Try poaching in olive oil slowly and cooling. Fully cooked tuna will always be dry. Was your tuna purchased fresh or frozen? A lot depends on the quality and preservation of the fish. We use sashimi grade tuna for all our needs bcause we serve it raw inside. -Dick

We have been using Penzy's since they just had the one store in Waukesha Wisconsin. The spices they carry are of the best quality along with no worries about insects. I used to purchase some of my spices from the Indian merchants on Devon Street in Chicago but two rounds of insect infestation ended that. Since I switched to Penzy's we have had zero problems. I personally go to Penzy's to purchase our needs and I can tell you that the entire operation is top notch. -Dick