budrichard

Usually a fish is poached in a Fume made from vegetables and sometimes fish bones if you have them and they are not from an oily fish. A little white wine can be added along with herbs. I have not known of anyone poaching a whole fish in unadulterated Vermouth and I don't think it will be particularly palatable.-Dick

Just because these are suitable for external application on a baby does not mean that they are food grade and do not have substances that will be ingested that are potentially harmful. I would advise contacting Gerber and listen to what they tell you about the suitability for food grade applications.-Dick

How many Poster have ever actually done a whole pig of this size? You do not need to brine, in fact it will be counter productive. Remove internals and use separately. Salt and black pepper are all you need for seasoning, the pig and the charcoal will do the rest. This will require at least two people to manage off and on the rotisserie. Constant rotation is the best. The 'Cuban Method' too often results in non-uniform product. Lump hardwood is best and about 250F if you can control temp. If pig is ice cold, let warm up for a few hours before starting cooking. This size pig will need at least 12 hours but a meat therm on the shoulder and leg bone will be your determination when done. The pig will have to rest for about an hour after removing from spit and then you should have heavy rubber gloves for at least two people who can take the pig apart with hands and knives. Allow one hour for deboning and have hotel trays with foil covers to hold pig hot until you finish deboning. It's a simple process if you have the equipment, hardwood charcoal, at least two strong people to mange the pig and the time. Good luck.-Dick

"The overall dining experience was 89.5" How did your arrive at that number! Certainly fine dining is not an objective experience but purely subjective. Skimming your Blog, it seems as if you spend your dining taking copious notes and I expect pictures also. How can you enjoy what you are eating? For me, fine dining is about food, friends and good conversation and nice wine. I never take notes and rarely if ever take a picture unless its just a snapshot of the group for posterity. For me Trotter's was a so-so experience but we went with good friends and had a good time anyway. Would I go back-no, but I don't dine at high end restaurants anymore because the hype far exceeds the experience.-Dick

If you Post your location, I'm sure someone can come up with a good local butcher for some Prime beef, dry aged or not. The cost of Overnight shipping will equal the cost of your product but I have had good experience with Lobel's.-Dick

Read the fine print, you can't take a a picture with the cover installed.-Dick

"so even when you read about a new record being set for the price of a tuna at auction, which seems to happen every so often, that record-price-setting tuna has been frozen" What you are reading about occurs at the beginning of the New Year where the first Tuna sold in the New Year for auction conveys a cultural significance to the Japanese market and is sold for a price much higher than normal. While I would certainly agree that fresh properly processed and kept fish would be better than frozen, I doubt that in most cases one could tell the difference in a blind tasting between fresh and frozen and of course there would no way to reduce the variables by using the same fish! I don't usually concern myself with whether the fish has been frozen but concentrate on evaluation of the fish in question. The frozen fish I see for the consumer market in no way looks like the frozen fish for the sashimi/sushi market. Most of the fish I do purchase for cooking is fresh or at least i think so!-Dick

Worms have been a part of fresh ocean fish from time immemorial. Usually the processor scans (sometimes they are back lit) for worms but some do get to retail. It's just apart of the purchasing process. A lot of sashimi quality fish as correctly stated is frozen to kill parasites and some communities even have ordinances that require only previously frozen fish be served in restaurants raw and they check invoices(my community is one of them). That said, for fresh unfrozen seafood, I only purchase from vendors that I know understand the meaning of top quality sashimi grade product. For day boat scallops its Browne Trading and for most other fish its Mitsuwa in Chicago. Despite what a lot of fishmongers will tell you or post, the quality of their 'sashimi' grade is not high. As to prep for scallops, I only use lemon or if I can obtain it, fresh Yuzu rind. I just pickded up a copy of 'The Decorative Art of Japanese Food Carving', of which I hope to enhance my preparation skills. Another essential for sashimi prep is a good quality sashimi knife, it doesn't have to be a Morimoto brand but just about any knife made in Japan will do the job. Sharp cuts and untorn flesh are essential to the beauty of the prep. If you are lucky to obtain scallops in the shell, a scallop knife from Morty the Knifeman will help remove that beautiful creature.-Dick

As a child I vividly remember the conveyor belts off-loading fresh cod and haddock at Gorton's and other processors in New England. The process fascinated me and of course on Friday it was Gorton's fish sticks which were a palatable product back then. I do know they use Pollack now and I wonder what else but haven't had a Gorton's fish stick in decades! Even the quality of the surimi has declined compared to 15 or 20 years go. McDonald's Filet-O-Fish is of course Pollack also and has also declined over the years in quality. So I make my own Filet-O-Fish! I suspect there is more than just Pollack in many of these products.-Dick

"I'm now wondering how lungs sautee. " Not a clue!-Dick

Inspection is always assumed for parasites. If truly concerned then freezing will kill them also but it is the curing process that actually kills the parasites before smoking unless you just cold smoke a fillet. Had this once in a Sushi bar and it was unnerving because your mind says smoke and salt but your palate just says smoke!-Dick

Acquire a set of Pepin's 'The Art of Cooking', still the best single reference to technique and recipes ever put into print. Besides leading you through the deboning process, step by step, there are various fillings for your chicken. Makes the common chicken into a gourmet dish.-Dick

I make them all the time but because I don't mash up the fish, the shapes may not always be the traditional 'stick'. I use only cod sourced from a reliable fish monger that uses no preservatives and only sells fresh, never frozen. Cod when filleted properly has a unique two pronged appearance, simply purchase a whole filleted cod and cut to your requirements. I use 'Honey Panko' flakes only because the honey allows a very nice brown color and adds to the taste. Seasoning is up to you but for starts it white pepper and salt. Use the flour egg wash method and fry in peanut oil. You can make your own tartar sauce from what ever type of Mayo you choose from Non-fat to 'Kewpie' (my favorite!). Add chopped sweet, dilled or even capers and your ready to go. Hake has been showing up at my fish monger lately and besides chowder I may try to form sticks from it. 60 years ago Gorton's fish sticks were manufactured in Gloucester, Mass from cod and haddock. Those days are long gone!-Dick

Hot smoke them after curing. I don't have the proper equipment to cold smoke and unlike Alton Brown, I don't work with Rube Goldberg equipment so I don't cold smoke and i live in Wisconsin. I suspect you will end up with a half baked product with your method.(pun intended)-Dick

I still say you can't make a better waffle than Golden Dipt Belgian Waffle Mix http://www.goldendipt.com/ssl/gdbwm.html !-Dick

You do not want to use a stockpot as the high sides will inhibit moisture release and you will not get crisp cracklings. A saute pan is what you should use, short sides to allow water release and tall enough to help with any splatter. You also do not want to use water as that is what you are trying to eliminate in rendering fat. You are correct about neck and tail fat. The giblets could form the basis for a sauce but in any event duck liver by itself is a nice snack for the cook. Since you live in Chicago, let me suggest John's Live Poultry for you next duck.-Dick

Usually the liver is pureed and added to the sauce for the rabbit. Imported rabbits in the US come from China. I don't use them. Where did your rabbit come from?-Dick

Which exact Smeg did you purchase? Does it exhaust to the outside? I have a two fan Viking hood that does an excellent job but is large and noisy! I'd say my Viking range with 15k burners , broiler and convection oven was a game changer along with Falk copper cookware.-Dick

I've tried 'buffalo legs' but the much thicker leg is not as palatable as the wing 'drum' because of the meat to sauce coating ratio and other subjective information that I can't quantify. Each whole chicken that i purchase has its wings removed and stored in a freezer bag until I have enough for a meal for us.-Dick

"I'm mixing up the ingredients to cure bacon " From that statement and the melange of curing mixtures you possess, I would caution you to throw everything away and find a reputable text/source for curing and follow that source to the letter.-Dick

The Moulard breasts from Hudson Valley are really made for searing to a rare doneness. Unless you smoke cold or smoke at a very low temperature, I would be concerned you will wind up with a tough product. In any event, the rendered fat will be of no use if you could collect any at all.-Dick

Google 'Golden Phoenix Claws' and be sure to cut off the toenails, use the maltose and double cook. Not hard to do and you can tailor the heat if you want any-Dick

Short Form: Stew, maybe. Long Form: All shellfish sold commercially are to be sold with or have the harvest tag available for viewing by the customer with harvest date and where harvested. ALWAYS look at the tag. Shelled oysters are usually kept on ice or shipped with ice packs so the only way I can suppose the way they could be frozen was deliberately? So if i knew the harvest date and why they were frozen, maybe could be used for stew but if I didn't know how they got frozen, trash. Nebraska is as land locked as Wisconsin and I am highly suspicious of the quality of the sea food i purchase and always inspect.-Dick

"it would be interesting to see some science behind our assumptions. " The Science is as I Posted but as with all Science without an experimental confirmation, its just a conclusion. If you possess the background on how to conduct experimental testing while not introducing bias in to your results, you can do the testing yourself but I'm not sure you can define any objective end results that you can objectively test for and your conclusions if based on taste will be highly subjective. It's easy to ask a question but to answer definitively you must have a background in the Science your questioning. Since a marinade relies on liquid convection and diffusion and a higher temperature than a frozen state for any chemical reaction, I think its very easy to conclude that with the marinade frozen that the convection is zero and diffusion is very much reduced and the chemical reaction rate which is an exponential with temperature is quite a bit less, that nothing happens in the frozen state but since I have no objective properly conducted test results, I used the word "expect". -Dick

"From a basic science aspect, the rate of chemical reactions would be slowed down by the lower temperature, but I haven't seen any quantitative or qualitative research regarding this effect on marinades. " Temperature has an exponential effect on chemical reaction rate but if the material is in a frozen state then the diffusion is very slow for the chemicals through a solid and i suspect essentially zero for all practical purposes such as marinade, so i would not expect any noticeable effect from a marinade once the marinade was frozen.-Dick