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Everything posted by ned
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. . . if you're charged with creating a drink for a friend's wedding, someone suggests getting input from the very fabulous Brian at Pegu Club and you think "Aw shit I don't need his help." Oh wait, that's not snobbery. It's just hubristic poor judgement.
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I saw some monsters down in chinatown last weekend. I think they were on Catherine Street I think. Maybe under the Manhattan Bridge.
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Yesterday I caught a falling baby with a 9 inch slicer in hand. Talk about luck.
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If they're real fresh you shouldn't have to soak or boil them. They can be overcooked and don't need to be "set" like sweetbreads which may be where the idea of boiling for a while is coming from. Call Lobel's and see if they'll sell them to you. If anybody can be trusted to sell you a fresh kidney, it's Lobel's.
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I've never soaked a veal kidney. The threat of drinking pee is why most of my friends won't eat "rognons de veau." I'd do whatever Ms. Wolfert says. Larousse has tons of recipes. Look under offal. Pan: Either your dad was having you on or I misunderstood your post. Veal kidney and calf kidney are one in the same. Escoffier also has lots of recipes. See numbers 2684 through 2698. The Dione Lucas Book of French Cooking also has a few things.
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First of all cook them right away. Nothing worse than a bad veal kidney and they go bad fast. Smell then cook. I slice them into 3/8" thick pieces and dredge in salted flour, lightly. Sautee in butter till some brown. Not aggro sauteeing. Then deglaze with some red wine, maybe a little red wine vinegar. You could go toward sherry if you want. When wine is all the way reduced cook down rich veal stock and season with salt and generous pepper. There can be shallots too if you want. I know the place is a bit of a circus but my first and formative veal kidney experience was at Cipriani's uptown. Served with risotto milanese on a small plate, half kidneys and half risotto. . . man that dish when it's right on is the bomb. I've had trouble findiing actual recipes myself and have ended up just reverse engineering what I ate at Cip's. The next challenge is finding friends who'll eat them with you. Good luck.
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First of all cook them right away. Nothing worse than a bad veal kidney and they go bad fast. Smell then cook. I slice them into 3/8" thick pieces and dredge in salted flour, lightly. Sautee in butter till some brown. Not aggro sauteeing. Then deglaze with some red wine, maybe a little red wine vinegar. You could go toward sherry if you want. When wine is all the way reduced cook down rich veal stock and season with salt and generous pepper. There can be shallots too if you want. I know the place is a bit of a circus but my first and formative veal kidney experience was at Cipriani's uptown. Served with risotto milanese on a small plate, half kidneys and half risotto. . . man that dish when it's right on is the bomb. I've had trouble findiing actual recipes myself and have ended up just reverse engineering what I ate at Cip's. The next challenge is finding friends who'll eat them with you. Good luck.
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The Norwegians make a dry cured leg of lamb. It's called fenelar. They--yes all of them--are adamant that it must be sliced perpendicular to the way you and I would be inclined to do it. I've had it both ways and can say that they do have a point although it looks a little inelegant, whacking right into the leg that way. They eat it on flatbread with finely chopped red onion and creme fraiche. It's absolutely delicious.
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Had the cast iron skillet over the fire for a few minutes, heating up for a sear. As I passed it, a little bit of gunk caught my eye. Reached in with a finger to scrub the gunk out. . . .whoops! A dry pan that has been over very high heat cannot be scrubbed with a bare fnger.
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Here and there. Peking Duck House, Mainland, Mr. Chow. It's really hard to get such crispy skin and to also have such succulent and juicy meat. Yesterday, CB's Peking Duckist hit that ball out of the park. Not sure what you would have had me ask. It's their policy and they told me so when I made the reservation. I just don't like having to give the number for a casually made reservation. I'm not saying the policy is wrong. I'm just one voice out here in internetland saying that to me, it felt odd given the time and the circumstance. Friday night a day or a week in advance, it makes sense. Maybe they lose the revenue from that table if I don't show. Yesterday it would have been the same either way. Taking my card did them no good whatsoever and it made me feel a bit muscled by the reservationist. Then when I got there and saw that we could have just walked in with no reservation at all, well that made taking a card seem all the sillier. BTW, they were less full when we left (very happy, full of their delicious dim sum, duck and chicken) at three or so than when we arrived at 12:30. It's too many words on this topic already. I shouldn't have mentioned the card thing. This is a really good restaurant and I feel lucky to have it so close to home. Not that I wouldn' travel across the city to eat there even if they did make me give them a credit card to hold the reservation.
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Had a delightful afternoon meal at Chinatown Brasserie today. We started by sampling the majority of the dim sum menu. Uniformly delicious. Well not quite. Some of the items like the sparerib tips and the bean curd sheet rolls were exceptionally delicious. Then we ate chicken with yellow leeks and peking duck. Both were great. Other than the sauce (which I feel needed work) CB's peking duck is the best I've had in the city and that by a fair margin. Skin as crispy as a potato chip and meat juicy and flavorful. I'm going to nitpick. I made our reservation 2 hours in advance. Six people. Lunchtime. They asked for a credit card to hold the reservation. We got there and the restaurant wasn't even a quarter full. It seems a little excessive and out of pace with other restaurants in its price range and calibur. Nitpick over. I'll continue to return. Again and again.
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I bought a filling meal for three (delicious I might add) at Taco Bell not so long ago. Eleven bucks.
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Seems like a real chickenshit move to me. It's not a stance against humane killing or treatment of animals. It's a stance against the exposure of potentially humane killing or treatment of animals to a retail environment. I find this disgusting. Enough already with Americans' disconnection with the reality of the source and story of the food they eat. Whole Foods shows remarkable integrity in much of what they do. From there, this lobster debacle is a radical and unfortunate departure. If they really feel compelled to take this stance and maintain their integrity they must close both the meat and fish departments altogether.
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I use the Al-Wadi because it's available close to home at Kalustyan's. A fresh bottle is a good thing. I recently endeavored to make a batch of JuniperOtivos (thanks Sam) with an old bottle of Al-Wadi pomegranite molasses. Not good. The color was brown and the acidity mostly gone. Illogically I had to use more to get the same sweetness. I ended up using a little Pom, extra mint and doing this and that to rescue the drink. Wasn't terrible but also wasn't my finest hour. That bottle ended up in the trash. I've used Boodles, Miller's and Junipero. Like 'em all. I'm inclined to think using a gin like Tanqueray would result in disaster.
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Our favorite is the juniperitvo. gin mint lime juice pomegranite molasses Very fabulous
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It was the Desert Gin. I must have accidentally edited that out of the 1st post. Haven't had a chance to taste the other.
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I had the good fortune to taste Bendistillery's Desert Gin at the Zig Zag Cafe on a recent trip to Seattle. Delicious and direct stuff this northwest gin. Very forward and distinctive aromatics. I look forward to getting my hands on a bottle for some experimentation. . . . not that I think I could come up with anything better than Murray is producing at the very fabulous Zig Zag.
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Au contraire, sablefish is actually black cod
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I walked away from Reach thinking about an epic battle between media/corporate interest and the hopelessly sleep-deprived and underpaid chef/icons of our time. If you'll grant me a moment of idealism here: Every great meal I've ever eaten was cooked or overseen by its creator. And without any exceptions that I can remember, this has never been in a serialized restaurant. Call me crazy, but I think I can feel it when the King of the kingdon is ruling the kingdom from within the kingdom. And I like the way it feels. Keller had that at French Laundry, but while I found Per Se flawless it was also impersonal and a little cold, its identity diluted by the fact of its being a simulacrum. Achatz has that at Alinea. Masa has it in spades. What Ruhlman tells me is that the business is terribly demanding, high in risk and not financially rewarding. So when the Bellagio or some such comes calling with big money offers, who can blame a man (or woman) for saying yes to reward, recognition, and the delayed promise of relief (from clogs and a sore back maybe. . . ). I find it a little sad but totally understandable that this is happening and will continue to happen to our greats. We should all do our best to enjoy them at their peak just moments before the indomitable deep pockets of the American corporate/media juggernaught buy them off.
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that's all good stuff, though i'm sure someone will correctly point out that it contains a substance called domoic acid which is bad for you if you eat too much. i have never been in a position where i could make a diet of dungeness crab, so i don't worry about that too much. i use both the white custardy stuff (body fat) and the green stuff (tomalley). they have a very strong crab flavor. the easiest way to use them is to mix them with mayonnaise, minced tarragon and a little bit of tarragon vinegar, sieve this through a strainer to remove any tough bits, then spread it on sliced baguettes. run this under the broiler and it will puff slightly and brown. delicious. ← Thank you sir. Next time that's what we'll do. Gives me a ton of ideas already.
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Bueller?! Once more on that white stuff. It was on inside the shell, white, custardy. I'm thinking egg whites, albumen, coagulated crab blood? I put it in a bowl and had most of the guts separated but there was the odd bit of green. Over time that green turned blue-- not so appetizing. I skimmed the blue bits with a spoon but more appeared a half an hour later. What to do with this stuff? Thanks!
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Crabs are cooked and cleaned and I've got a bowl of white stuff that looks and acts like custard. Comments about what best to do with it?
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That's great advice. Thanks. And thanks for getting my back on the fisheries. Wouldn't want to get caught catching a fish that had oughtta be left swimming out there. What do you say about three white Springs? Great luck huh? It was all the salmon we caught over three days.
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The closure is news to me and also to the Canadian Fisheries guys that boarded our boat and checked my license and our catch. In re the crabs-- so there's no need to rip any guts or faces off before steaming or boiling? Thanks.