ludja

There are excerpts and a discussion on Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen here in The Daily Gullet. Andrea Nguyen is an eGullet member under her own name. She includes some recipes in the excerpt as well: Caramel Sauce Nước Màu/Nuoc Mau * * * Pork Riblets Simmered in Caramel Sauce Sườn Kho/Suon Kho * * * Beef Stewed with Tomato, Star Anise, and Lemongrass Bò Kho/Bo Kho * * * Salmon with Tomato, Dill, and Garlic Soup Canh Rieu Cá/Canh Rieu Ca I excited to check this out as many of my Vietnamse books were written before the easier availability of some ingredients.

Sometimes the converts are the strongest believers... As only a temporary Southerner who grew up in New England myself, I also fell in love with Southern food. A good friend (who grew up in Atlanta) did not grow up with much tradtional Southern food there and is always arguing with me when I make something from Lewis or Bill Neal and label it as "Southern". The typical response is, "I never ate that growing up in Atlanta". He enjoys the food just the same though...

Perusing my Austrian and Hungarian cookbooks I found a few traditional stuffings for goose necks: Austria: mincd lean pork, chesnuts and sauteed mushrooms (typically made when roasting a whole goose which is itself not stuffed or else very simple with apples. The stuffed neck is added in half way through the roasting time) Hungary: mix together onions sauteed in goose fat, roll saoked in milk and then squeezed dry, and diced goose meat. Add an egg, s&p and paprika and run through a meat grinder twice at the fine setting. Finely chop up goose liver and add to the mix. Cook slowly in goose fat in a cover pan; remove lid for the last 10 min or so to brown. Serve hot or cold, as an appetizer or as luncheon dish. variation: Can use half grown veal or pork and 1/2 goose meat. Procure goose meat from scraps or use chicken. Thanks for sharing your experience, bleudauvergne! I had coincidentally been looking at roast goose recipes for a potential dinner party, but may not have had the wherewhithal to try stuffing the neck without this thread. It sounds like a delicious appetizer. Eager to see your finished dish.

Wow, that slice of bread look amazing; thanks for sharing the photo of the slice. I'm not too experienced of a bread baker but I may need to try this out. Your photo gives me incentive to try this!

Wow, looks great. The bread is surely an impessive loaf! How was the crumb texture? Somehow, I 'm picturing a firm, semi-dense crumb.

Sure, I believe that too. I just thougth that LaurieB was looking for some reference in a food context.

Are any Trader Vic afficionados (and more importantly, owners of Trader Vic books) willing to describe the recipe for the Suffering Bastard? I've found various recipes on the web but they didn't seem to be correct. Once I scribbled down the recipe after stumbling across a Trader Vic book somewhere but I lost that... Bonus points if you suggest the rums one might use. Thanks in advance, ludja

Now I understand the "K&K" reference. K&K" refers to Kaiserlich und Königlich, or "by appointment to the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary" and therefore can include dishes from the greater Austro-Hungarian Empire. There is/was movement of many dishes between the countries so I guess this is a good moniker for desserts/foods from that era. Austrian cuisine in particular adopted many dishes with varying amounts of changes from around the empire.

Swisskaese started a thread on Gesztenya Torta or Hungarian Chestnut Cream Torte in the Pastry and Baking forum here. I've been eying making some Kastanienschnitten (Chestnut Slices) out of Rodger's Kaffehaus for an upcoming dinner. Anyone have other favorite chestnut desserts to share from the area?

Maybe I'm relying on memories from too long ago...

Fresh Dunkin Donuts; I like the heavier style better. KrispyKremes are fun to get once in awhile.

That eclair does look great... After hearing a friend's description of his time in Strasbourg I 've always wanted to go; your report reinforces this desire! Tarte flambee...

I've done it both ways. I've started from fresh chestnuts when making Kastanienreis and used canned chestnut puree in a cake. The most common way I had chestnuts growing up was to roast them in the oven or in the fireplace. I haven't tried the George Lang recipe yet but will type it up and pm to Swisskaese and anyone else that is interested. It's difficult to find chestnut dessert recipes and for those that are passionate about them; they are special. The cuisines I've seen the most chestnut dessert cookery in are Austria, Hungary and Italy (the north, I guess). Oh, and Japan has a lot of European-inspired chestnuts desserts as well. Did you pick your chestnuts somewhere in Europe, oli? Most of the chestnuts in the US are inedible horse chestnuts. Love your reminiscence of grinding up chestnuts with rum and sugar...

I've been thinking about making this recipe also. Did you end up using their curry mix? Any other comments? Thank you...

I have some chestnut cake recpes from Hungary and Austria. Some have chestnut puree in the actual batter and others not. In George Lang's Cuisine of Hungary, the recipe he gives for Gesztenyetorta is a basic walnut cake (3 layers) without chestnuts in the cake batter and with a filling and frosting composed of chestnut puree, chocolate, butter, vanilla sugar, egg and rum. He suggests that you can grate chocolate shavings over the top. So, this is a chocolate-chestnut recipe which not be what you want. I tihnk one could also omit the chocolate if desired. To make more of a chestnut cream dessert, I have recipes for slices (schnitten) in which a chestnut cream filling is made by flavoring chestnut puree with vanilla and powdered sugar. Then lightened by folding in whipped cream. You could frost and fill the cake with this and then grate some sweetened chestnut puree (w/o the whipped cream) on top. Then, top wtih grated dark chocolate or not. I love chestnut tortes and slices, as well as Kastanien Reis (Mont Blanc). I was thinking of making a chestnut dessert for an upcoming dinner party. I tend to like the recipes that go light on the chocolate (i.e. just shavings, etc) so that I can really taste the chestnut flavor. At least in Austria, I've also typically not seen cherries with chestnut tortes, etc. Looking forward to oli's and other's comments and let me know if you want any of the chestnut filling recipes.

I try to follow this rule as well! I think it's helped me to make the most of my acquistions and to avoid excessive redundancy although my cookbook wishlist is as long as ever... Tha description of your cake is making my mouth water; it came out so lovely.

These are very nice apples for eating out of hand-crisp and tart. We had a tree growing in the backyard when I was growing up. We used them for baking also; I think they're tart enough. Thanks for sharing your baking extravaganza, juliachildish. Pretty impressive you could do all that in a dorm kitchen!

That reminds me of chimichurri and piri-piri...

I've heard some people rave about this pumpkin-chocolate tart and have thought about trying it out. Pumpkin Chocolate Tart It has a chocolate crust flavored with cocoa. You spread chopped chocolate over the warm blind-baked crust and then let it cool. The pumpkin filling then gets poured over the shell and the tart is baked. Melted chocolate is also drizzled over the top of the finished tart. So, it looks like your idea of painting the bottom crust with chocolate and then baking with the pumpkin filling on top of it has some precedence. Let us know if you test someething like this out; it would be interesting to hear what you think of the combination.

Thank you for sharing the wonderful photos and descriptions of your time in Prague. Your duck breast dish looks wonderful. I wonder if it is just hit or miss to get good dumplings in restaurants because the Czech Moravians and Bohemians are certainly famous for their variety of dumplings! There is an art to making them so perhaps some restaurants take shortcuts or prepare them indifferently. Bread dumplings can be very good and are also popular in Austria with saucy dishes that have a gravy. There are also potato dumplings, dumplings made with or without yeast, with or without meat fillings and dumplings made from Farmer's cheese which may or may not be served sweet as dessert or as a meatless main dish. The sweet ones can be filled with apricots or plums and may or may not be sprinkled with poppy seeds or butter-sauteed ground nuts sweetened with sugar. (See the photo in my profile... ) Did you see kolaches being sold in bakeries? I'm not sure if they are a more seasonal treat for the Christmas/New Year's holidays. Another dish I associate with the area is goose although that also might be seasonal.

I was curious about Malbec also, as I've heard about it but that's about it. Here is some info from wikipedia:click The article also talks about the varietal's roots in France (the Loire and Cahors). It has been used as a Bordeaux blending grape but is increasingly becoming known as an Argentine varietal wine.

Thank you for posting what looks to be a great recipe, pizzabrasil--andn thank you for all the specific tips as well. These empandas sound delicious. The meat filling reminds me of a Mexican filling, "picadillo" which I've always wanted to make. I look forward to trying your recipe.

Thank you for a detailed description. Wie Schade, I had heard good things of Meinl am Graben. Did this restaurant close relatively recently and why did it close? (if anyone knows) Is Joachim Gradwohl at a new restaurant in Vienna? In any case, I guess it joined history with another legendary Tafelspitz place I've read about, Meissel and Schadn's. edited to add: If anyone has any other recommendations for places selling brotchens, I love to hear of them. I'll have plenty of time to check out more than one place...

Thank you everyone for the all the recent information, including the Palais Coburg menu provided by David McDuff and the informative links by Cronenberg. I'm hoping to visit Vienna for a week or so next summer so this is really whetting my appetite. I've been to Vienna several times but only as day trips from Graz! I love the tip on the Trzesniewski brotchen place! Brotchens are one of my favorite snacks to get in Austria, perhaps with a Pfiff or more of beer. Trzesniewski's brotchen are interesting in that all the brotchen they show are of the 'spread' type rather than some with slices of coldcuts like salami, etc. That being said, Fleischsalat is one of my favorite toppings. Does anyone have opinions on Plachutta and whether that is the place to go for a classic Tafelspitz with all the accompaniements? Thank you... ludja

Here is the link to Kevin72's year of cooking through Italy: click Is there an index somewhere for the monthly group cooking threads through the regions of Italy? If not, it would be nice to have that as a pinned thread in the Italy Forum. Maybe we could have an index thread that gives links for compilations or posts for indexes.