maher

sure you can stuff them. you need to make sure you get as much of the pith out as possible, since that is where the heat is (for some reason people still think it is in the seeds, but it isnt). i stuff thim with a little cheese, brush them with olive oil and stick them on the grill and they are amaazinnnng. i suppose you can also fry them, or bread them and fry them, but i have a grill going at least twice a week and rarely a fryer so i can recommend them as a pre-steak appetiser.

they taste just like chicken.... no, seriously, like anything else, their quality is more a function of the freshness and quality of the cooking. in terms of texture they are closer to liver than anything else, and in taste sort of a cross between sweetbreads/liver and, well, beef!! too many people just saute them and serve them as more of a novelty food, but they are pretty good braised with a good red wine and onions.

Pierre marcolini (shop on Kensington Church St.) is amazing... they also have the best chocolate ice cream

if he likes middle eastern flavors, add sumac to the rub for the pork. it will impart some nice tanginess that i often substitute for salt.

a good selection is available at http://www.uwajimaya.com/ and they also sell through amazon.com

fruitcake?? sorry, couldnt resist but i actually like fruitcake especially made english style with lots of alchohol. come to think of it, most english boiled puddings travel pretty well... spotted dick, maybe?

i have been ordering froma site called tinytrapeze.com for a few years. they are based in Mass. and have the most fantastic natural candy and marshmallows. they even sold for a while on the amazon.com gourmet food site. their website has been down for about a month (at least), and i have no idea what happened to them. does anyone know??

Interesting, I don't think I'd ever have considered roasting a mango. Do you roast them the same way one roasts a poblano or the like? And you mention that you simmer them in vinegar, it seems like you would need a lot of vinegar to simmer in, are you doing huge quantities? I agree on the use of overipe fruit, where the texture isn't necessarily as important, I usually let my tomatoes overipen for salsa or anything where I am going to cook them. Do any of you make salsas with dried chilies? I've found recently that I have to dilute many of my salsas too much in order to get the thin, smooth consistency I sometimes want. I am thinking of correcting this by holding back on the onions or any other thickeners. This doesn't seem to be as much as a problem with dried chiles though, as they are much more potent and can usually stand for more dilution. ... i just cut the mango open and roast in a hot oven until it starts to caramelize. with citrus fruit i slice into thick slices and do the same. i make about 30 bottles (6oz ea.) at a time for myself and friends, so the amount of vinegar in a smallish pot is about 1-1.5 winebottles? call it about a liter. ive used dried chilies that have been soaked overnight but i prefer fresh. i am using quite small potent chilies so texture is not a problem. if it is, run the whole mess through a ricer or tomato press and that will give you a more runny sauce.

a dry mix of sumac and powdered chilis

ive been over roasting any overripe fruit i find (favorites are all sorts of citrus, as well as mango and papaya) and simmering them with the chilies in wine vinegar (any red wine vinegar, i make my own). i blitz the mix in the blender and then put it in large jars for a few months before bottling. it makes one of my best received gifts for friends. i use spanish pil pil peppers that i grow (tiny ultra hot red chilies) but ive made the sauce with various other peppers with good results.

my experience with shark is that it needs to have the digestive system removed as quickly as possible after it is caught, and preferably without breaking the stomach lining on the inside so that the digestive juices dont contaminate the meat. the bile is extremely acidic and leaves a bitter flavor to the meat if this is not done asap. i do this quickly when i catch shark and then i segment off the filets with a clean knife and get them on ice within 20 mins or so. if the meat texture is tough to you soaking in milk overnight in the fridge will give you a much softer texture, just be sure you dont do it too long or you end up with mush. i dont have any experience with lemon shark but i have used this technique with several shark catches with no problems. good luck, id hate to see you throw out fresh fish.

WOW!!! most of us dip our toes in with a first post or two asking simple questions!! you have dived in with what is definitely on my list of all time threads on egullet! congrats and keep those road trips coming, i had a great time reading along.

ill try to do a photo step by step next weekend, but the main things you have to watch for are: 1. enough fat in the mix to bind 2. you have to beat it together enough to get it sticky. this isnt as much as you need to get a sausage bind, but close 3. supercold meat supercold skewers 4. keep dipping hands in ice water as you form the kebabs so meat sticks to skewer, not your hands. 5. i use heavy square metal skewers, you can see them in my post earlier in this thread. 6. when grilling, i start with four quick quarter turns so the outside of the kebab is seared. this prevents it from spilling and then you can grill it with only one half turn more. ill try to get a feel for fat percentage, i am so used to making these that i eyeball it, but im guessing around 20-25% by volume which would be somthing like 35-40% by weight.

for weird toppings, i add a teaspoo of the davinci iced tea concentrate. it adds a bit of sweetness but not too much and i like the taste

the dish is called Peka (sp?) it is sometimes called the Croatian national dish and it is quite an elusive thing to find on the islands. I spent quite a bit of time trying to track it down and was eventually guided by a cab driver in Korcula to a small place up in the hills where they agreed to make it for us. We spent a couple of hours waiting for it to be done and the process was a very interesting one, but our story did not have the greatest of endings as it turned out the final dish they served us was not very good. i will try to dig up the pictures and post them here. i should say though that i think that in the right cooks hands this could be a delicious dish. if you manage to find a place that will make it for you by all means try it, its a real experience.

Had a bit of lamb on the grill today so thought id post the pics since the cookoff is kebabs and skewers. I only had the camera on my phone so sorry the images arent worthy of the usual food porn on eG. Here are the skewers ready to go on the grill. From front to back, onions, cubed lamb fat (the heart healthy skewers), lamb shoulders marinated in yoghurt and coriander seed, and lamb tenderloin, with nothing but a little ground pepper. On the grill: from left to right, the lamb shoulder, chicken wings, and onions the lamb tenderloin on the grill. in this part of the world we use heavy metal skewers. i believe they do a good job of transmitting heat to the inside of the meat helping it cook faster, so you can have it medium rare on the inside with a nice crust on the outside. sorry there are no pics of the finished product, but my friends descended en masse and i had to scramble for the last pieces by the time everything was off the grill.

Did you click on each of the items? I just did and it worked ... ← It must be something to do with my computer. I just tried clicking on the articles again, and no joy. Just a strange "cluck" sound! ← i think you must have a pop-up blocker which is doing that. check if you have google or yahoo toolbar, and click on the button on it that allows pop-ups and that should take care of it

the new england cheesemaking people are great and very helpful with answers http://www.cheesemaking.com/ they also have a number of newsletters online that share some success stories, but they dont have a forum running that i can see. i have emailed them to ask, and will repost here if i hear anything. as far as Sheeps milk (should be Ewes milk i guess) is concerned, the reason it is less readily available in this part of the world (the Middle East) is that Ewes only lactate during the first months of the lambs life, which is springtime here, whereas goats reproduce and consequently produce milk most of the year. im not enough of an expert to know whether it is the same situation is cooler places like New England, but maybe someone can venture an opinion. also, i have been making and eating raw milk cheeses for years and ive never had anyone consume my cheese and suffer any health effects. summer temps here range from 80-100 degrees. I think the prohibition against raw milk cheeses is government nannying at its worst. the focus should be on hygiene rather than pasteurization. the parallel for me would be for the government to combat e-coli by prohibiting the sale of any meat that is not pre boiled for safety. .... heavily boiled ribeye steaks, anyone?

I've seen G&B and never bought/tried it... do they sell it in this combo form, or are you recommending combining the two at home? u.e. ← yes they do they sell a dark chocolate bar with ginger pieces in it.

you can also strain it in a paper coffee filter. if you stick one in a colander and put the yoghurt in it, that works fine

the key to keeping the meat on the skewer during grilling is to turn the skewers four quarter turns as soon as they sear otherwise the cooked side will 'pull' at the uncooked side and cause it to burst off the skewer

ive had nothing but good experiences there. it is only ocassionally as good as the one at RHR but it is still very good

theres a fantastic choice of spicy nuts, at trymynuts.com .... some of them, like the one with red savina which is just painful

the famous ortolan, grilled on a charcoal fire with just a little salt and pepper

i just subscribed to cooks country. it is quite similar to cooks illustrated and focuses on more homey or 'country' cooking. it comes out on alternating months from CI. if you like CI you'll enjoy it.