HKDave

Beers of Europe stocks it: http://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/acatalog/Be...i_Beer_116.html If you're looking for a distributor in a specific country, e-mail the parent company in Thailand at info@beerthai.com

You've got it right; I should have specified holy basil in my previous post where I translated this as simply 'basil'. Here's what I was taught: Normal Thai basil = sweeter = purple =Bai horapah 'Holy' basil = stronger, hotter = green, maybe little bit purple; small hair, rough leaf edge = Bai kapao/krapao/grapao etc 'Local' or 'Lemon' basil = citrus-y = all green = Bai mang luk This website is a very good resource on Thai herbs and spices, with photos: http://simply-thai.com/Thai-Market_Herbs_and_Spices_eng.htm

That happened to me a couple years back, at a lunchtime place downtown (Bentall). Frozen solid sashimi --- I get shivers just thinking about it. I brought it back and asked if I could exchange it for something else, and they insisted that it was "supposed to be like that" and turned me away with my frozen fish and no money back. That was one of my worst experiences that I definitely cannot forget. ← All sushi in Vancouver, and most other places in North America, has been frozen... Here's what Vancouver Coast Health (the branch of government that inspects restaurants in the Lower Mainland) told me about this: "The answer to your question regarding sushi is yes…the fish is required to be frozen beforehand if served raw in order to destroy any potential parasites that may be in the fish. Typically, the fish is purchased from approved sources as sushi grade fish (meaning it was frozen at the supplier level)." This doesn't mean they're supposed to serve it frozen, of course... If you can handle slicing a piece of fish all by yourself, the best deal on sashimi in Vancouver is to buy it from the source: Angel Seafood, 1345 Grant St. They supply almost all of the better sushi bars in town.

Avoid this one like the plague: http://www.gourmetthailand.com/ Or at very least check it out in person before you send them any money. What they show on their website is very different than the current reality.

Bumping this up... I've just started trying MasterCook 9, and while it seems to do everything it says (well, except the web import 'feature', which I can't get to work at all), it's simply painful to use. I want to spank whoever came up with this user interface. Everything takes several steps more than it should, and nothing is intuitive. This program is headed for the garbage before it sucks up too much more of my time. I'm looking at BigOven next. Has anyone tried Resort? http://www.resortsoftware.com/

Slice the skin off, dice it and slowly fry to use as duck cracklings... nice on top of a risotto, or salted and left on a counter they tend to vanish all by themselves. You are then freed from the searing-skin-down thing, and can cook the magret any way you want. Stuff w/foie, or mushrooms, or apples... If you want to grind, I assume you're thinking sausage. Here are some ideas: http://www.paula-wolfert.com/recipes/duck_sausage.html - this one doesn't require added fat or hog casings; it's poached in cling film. She specifies leg meat but it should work with breast. http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes....LTRY%20SAUSAGES - traditional fresh duck sausage, in casings. I've had good luck with Len's recipes. Polcyn's Charcuterie also has a duck sausage recipe.

Grub, what is the Fat Duck method for this?

Bummer. I liked that place; it was an oasis of old-skool cafeteria cooking in the midst of a sea of fluffy pretension and bad cheap Greek joints. Where to go now for 1am post-work poutine, or a Sunday morning omlette bigger than your head? It had changed hands a couple of times in recent years, but I heard the original owner opened a Fresgo's in Surrey... is that still there?

Yes, it probably is the same dish. Grapao = kapow = krapow = basil. Neua pat bai grapao = beef fried with holy basil. The dish is often made with ground chicken, that's Phad Kapao Gai. For flavouring this dish, for 2 cups of meat I use a ratio of 5 prik kee noo chilis, 5 cloves of garlic, 4 corinader roots (or 6-8 lower stems if you can't get roots) all pounded, plus a pinch of sugar, 1T oyster sauce, 2T fish sauce, light soy to taste, plus a bit of dark soy for colour. I use unsalted stock because the salt should come from the fish sauce, and cutting back on fish sauce makes the dish unbalanced. If you can't get or make unsalted stock, just use water; there should only be a few tablespoons of liquid so it won't make a big difference. Finish with 1/2c of holy basil leaves.

Here's a plug for one of my former classmates, who does very nice work: http://www.malkin.ca/ She studied under Chef Marco at NWCAV.

Peeled or unpeeled?

The duck liver version of what Batali does at Babbo is on page 118-9 of the Babbo cookbook, which you can preview for free on Amazon (you have to sign in to preview the inside pages). I would not go with a brown butter sage sauce with this; Batali does a balsamic butter sauce which sounds like it might cut the richness better.

If I'm not mistaken, Harold McGee discusses the issue in the 2004 edition of On Food and Cooking. ← Unfortunately not. That was the first place I looked when I saw this thread. McGee says spuds should be boiled in acidic water as opposed to salted to get a more even texture when the potato is cooked through, but he doesn't address Pielle's suggestion that salt in the boiling water makes no difference to flavour. If McGee is correct about the salt affecting texture, that would imply boiled potatoes do absorb salt. I'm reluctant to dispute anything Pierre Gagnaire says, but given that salt is water soluble, if potatoes absorb water in boiling, they're logically likely to absorb anything dissolved in that water. I think Pielle is on the right track about this possibly being true for unpeeled boiled spuds, but not for peeled.

Sun 'Trade Talk' article by Malcom Parry said David and Manjy Sidoo (the majority owners of Rob's biz) plan on opening a Lumiere/Feenies in TO by 2008 and a Lumiere in Vegas by 2010, plus an outlet at UBC. And Rob has lost 20 pounds, wants to lose 20 more, and is going to be in an Amex commercial. We can still count on Malcom to provide those crucially important details; the article spent more time on Feenie's and the Sidoo's physical fitness than on the restaurants.

Yes. Not that the foie at Chambar or West sucks. But Parkside's is better.

It's basically a bacon-style cure. Here's Mario Batali's method: http://www.babbonyc.com/in-guanciale.html and here's Len Poli's, with his usual excellent detailed instructions: http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Guanciale.pdf

Yes and no. Pink salt is 6.25% sodium nitrite. Morton's Tender Quick is a proprietary mixture of sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, sugar, salt and propylene glycol. Because you now don't know the amount of sodium nitrite you're using (and Morton's doesn't seem to share this info anywhere), you don't know if you've got the recipe amount. Does this mean the bacon is unsafe? Not necessarily; it's quite possible to make bacon without sodium nitrite, and it's not super-precise how much gets absorbed in a dry cure. But one of the functions of the nitrite is to prevent botulism, and both too much and too little nitrite can be bad, so I wouldn't go off-recipe until you're sure about what you're doing. So if a recipe calls for pink salt, use pink salt. If you want to make bacon with Morton's Quick Cure, find a recipe that calls for it. Yes, pink salt can be unsafe if used improperly; but so can just about anything, including uncured pork.

$350 sounds very steep for one day, especially if it's just a demo class... most charcuterie takes time, so it would be hard to see how you could taste the results of your labour in a one-day class. And things like making ham and prosciutto, while interesting, are not very practical for many urban-dwellers. An alternative might be NWCAV's 'Serious Foodie Advanced' class, which is $550 for 8x3.5 hour evening classes, and includes lots of practical 'home charcuterie'. Students usually make rillettes, confit, duck prosciutto, gravlax and sausage, and it's fully hands-on; you work on every item. The class includes cooking full meals with the ingredients, and eating the results with a few glasses of wine. They also cover butchering duck, quail, fish and a side of pig. Details: http://www.nwcav.com/ncav_programs_events.php, click on 'Serious Foodie Advanced'. I've been a student and an assistant instructor at NWCAV in the past, but I'm not involved at the moment. Thread on the class from past eG participants: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=74479 The 'Advanced' class is discussed later in the thread.

Thanks to all for the info. We made the boudin (and spicy Italian, and Thai) sausage yesterday. For the boudin, we used cooked ingredients (meat, liver and veg cooked in one pot, rice in another), then cooled and coarse-ground the meat mix, then stirred in the rice and seasonings, then stuffed. Hmmm. Since I haven't had Cajun boudin before, I'm not sure how it's supposed to turn out, but I think we may have somehow emulsified it. After poaching, it's quite mushy-textured, and much livery-er than I thought it would be. Is this right? I had somehow envisioned them as being chunkier and spicier. Anyway, I've frozen mine without re-cooking them in the casings, we'll see how that works. Obviously, I need to make my way to Louisiana and try some boudin on their home ground.

Amanda, is your husband bring back cooked or uncooked boudin?

You mean, cook the rice before making the boudin; or cook the whole boudin before freezing? Apologies if this is a dumb question. I thought that boudin was always made with cooked rice, but you are talking about freezing raw rice, so I'm confused...

If you live near an Asian neighbourhood, there are a couple of leafy cooking greens that are pretty close, like 'Chinese' spinach (een choi) or water spinach (tong choi). Also consider mustard greens or turnip greens.

Did the classic last night: while using my rarely-used gravy separator to remove fat from braising juice, I very carefully poured the delicious fennel/apple/vermouth scented juice down the sink, retaining every drop of fat in the separator. I even stopped a couple of times while doing it, thinking 'Hmm, something's not right'. But then I continued until I was done.

I want to make some Cajun-style boudin (boudain?) here in Hong Kong this Sunday, which could be an interesting exercise because I've never seen it. But it sounds extremely tasty, and we've got all the ingredients and have made sausage before, so even if we make a mess of it, it'll probably be the finest - and only - hot boudain in all of Asia. The question is, how do we freeze it? I know it won't be as good as fresh, but it's not quite as simple making sausage here (I have to get casings from Canada, for instance) so we don't do it often. I know that some commercial boudain is sold frozen so it must be possible, but I'm a hesitant because of the combination of warm cooked and uncooked ingredients. So for freezing, do you cook it first, or chill the cooked meat before stuffing or grinding, or just grind it warm/raw like usual and freeze it anyway? And for reheating from frozen, what's the best way? Links to cherised and proven boudin recipes are also welcome. I've got a few dozen versions, but there doesn't seem like too much variation: some cook the meat then grind, some grind then cook, some add lots of veg, some not so much. Thanks kindly.

Jason, it's not a big problem avoiding most of the whole peppercorns; they tend to fall to the bottom of the hot pot as you serve the dish. You can see them. Ditto with the coriander roots and ginger slices. It could also be that she doesn't want to say 'curry paste' because Thai curry pastes - nam prik gaeng - by definition contain chilies, and this dish doesn't. In this case I disagree with McDermott; there shouldn't be a paste in this dish. The aromatics in woon sen hot pot should should perfume the dish rather than dominate it, and they should be left whole. The white pepper should be more of an aroma than a flavour. If you crush it, you'll get too much pepper flavour, as Jason found. I'd suggest substituting - 1 Tbs whole white peppercorn, - 5 lightly crushed coriander roots (if you can't find roots, sub 10 lower stems, not stems and leaves as she suggests - the leaves taste quite different) and - 3 slices of lightly crushed ginger for her 'pesto'. Don't make a paste, just quick fry these with a thin-sliced onion, then add these aromatics to the noodles + sauces before they go into the hot pot.