chappie

Well this morning I fired up the Weber with hardwood charcoal and put many of your suggestions to work. I halved four medium/large eggplants and started open-side down, charring the flesh, then flipped them over and allowed them to cook for 20 minutes or so until completely gooey and soft. This time, I didn't squeeze out all the liquid, and after tasting it, wonder why so many recipes call for doing so. I did what one of you suggested and mashed everything by hand (including one whopping clove of elephant garlic, which I made into a paste with kosher salt). I added just one lemon, a big spoonful of tahini, some kosher salt, fresh parsley and a splash of fruity olive oil. The result is a much looser, juicier baba ghanouj with distinct smoky flavor and dark bits of charred flesh (and a few small bits of skin I couldn't separate out). It's slightly chunky, not the homogenous spread the Cuisinart turns out (though that had its own appeal...). The garlic seems just right: defitely a flavor component but doesn't distract from the eggplant's taste. This seems how it should be, though I doubt it is what my friend had in Atlanta (his first criticism of my old batch was that it tasted "just like eggplant spread"). And by the way, I emailed him and his source wasn't a Lebanese market but rather ... well, here's his exact words, with a description. I used to eat the good baba at a place called "Mediterranean Grill" in Decatur. Now that you mention it, there was a strong smoky flavor to theirs as well, but still had a "creamier" flavor than your mashed eggplant.

One more thing: what should the consistency be? Another comment my friend made was that my baba ghanouj was too thick, hence the experiments with yogurt. My only liquids usually are lemon juice and some olive oil.

Thanks Scott... I'll try your method tommorrow morning. Should I halve the eggplants before charring them? And what about using a little bit of the charred skin in the mix as a friend had suggested? It could add to the smokiness factor. (By the way, on a completely unrelated topic I made a hot sauce last night I think compares to sracha, almost by accident. ... See my post under general topics, Making Hot Sauce thread if interested).

I think I may have accidentally made a sauce very much like sracha, which I love and happen to be out of at the moment. Last night I took a few dozen serranos (both red and green) from my father's garden, two anchos, half an onion, two carrots, a pinch of salt, a big clove of elephant garlic and a handful of sugar and boiled the works in cider vinegar (plus a splash of rice-wine vinegar) until the carrots were soft. Oh ... I roasted a red pepper and threw that in there, too. Blended it, adding a little vinegar to thin it out, and what I've got tastes a lot like sracha only deeper, more complex. Garlicky, subtly sweet and a layered heat with the fruity undertones of the ancho. It's great! This was the first time I've tried making a cooked hot sauce. Before I used to blend up serranos raw with garlic, salt, vinegar and sometimes fresh carrot juice.

As I've been roasting them whole so far, pierced liberally with a fork, I haven't been pre-salting. I've seen a recipe (in Nourishing Traditions, the Weston Price Foundation book) that calls for salting the flesh after it's been roasted. But I've just been taking the cooked eggplant and squeezing it as dry as I can in cheesecloth. Would a little bitterness hurt?

I forgot to mention raw garlic in my list of ingredients in the original post. But I think if I use the grill, I might as well throw some garlic on to roast. Maybe use both raw and roasted garlic?

With plentiful summer eggplants I've been making what I thought was pretty good baba ghanouj: roast them, squeeze as much liquid as I can out of the flesh with cheesecloth, and puree in food processor with lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika and a dash of cayenne. I've been eating it nonstop for weeks, but I gave it to a visiting friend, and he said it doesn't taste "authentic," like the stuff he bought at a Lebanese market in Atlanta. He suggested adding yogurt, which we did; I thought it made it taste like eggplant-flavored yogurt. Another friend, a restaurant owner, says he likes to cook his eggplants over hardwood charcoal, sliced in half to encourage browning and absorption of smoke, and also to add a little charred skin in the food processor when he blends it. Does anyone have a different method for making baba ghanouj or any tips to improve it?

Sometimes late at night I like peanut butter with sweet/hot pepper relish and/or sweet pickles. Basically anything pickly and tart on peanut butter. Also oyster crackers on ice cream.

I have only travelled between Anchorage and Denali, though during the summer I spent working on a fishing vessel in Bristol Bay, I did see much of the Aleutians and stopped for a few days in Kodiak.

Not at all; in fact, the heat elements seemed to seal the chops and minimize any drippage. But hey, if there had been a residual pork-fat essence clinging to the slots, the better the toast would taste! I even pulled out the crumb tray and didn't notice any significant mess.

A weekend back, after an all-night party at a friend's shack, two of us remained standing at sunrise, ravenous in a bachelor kitchen full of beer cans, cobwebs and a sinkful of dishes that long ago took root in their own compost. In the freezer I found four frozen pork chops. Without a pause, I slipped them vertically into a four-slot toaster, rubbing with spices after one cycle, then continuing to retoast for about eight cycles. They were perfectly crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside. What I did with them next is a different story: sliced them and served them in potato rolls with corned beef hash, fried egg, cheese and hot sauce. But the method worked great, and it was certainly better than that crap-ass George Foreman Grill.

I agree in the case of whales, great apes (a growing source of "bushmeat") and any other "higher mammal." It just defies logic and ethics for one who can easily satisfy their nutritional needs otherwise to chow down on whale out of curiousity or as an arcane means to identify with their forebears. The Inuit have a case for continuing to consume whales, as they still subsist on their surrounding resources; who's to tell them they should shop Wal-Mart and eat frankenfarmed beef. Where I live, white-tailed deer are overabundant and practically farm animals judging from their steady diet of farmers' corn and soybeans. I hunt them and enjoy greater peace of mind eating them than I do a slab of meat from Safeway: I know where and how they lived, they travelled and lived naturally, free of hormones and supplements, and their flesh actually has a unique flavor compared to the bland, grain-fed beef coming out of the giant slaughterhouses. Nobody is grinding up deer carcasses to feed deer. Plus, the DNR is annually disappointed at a low harvest; the more we clear woodland, the more deer thrive, to the point of overpopulation and disease if unchecked. I've never read of whales being overpopulated anywhere. And I've also never read of deer potentially possessing language skills comparable to our own. So my argument lies somewhere between those lines.

Han Sun Oak in Falls Church is authentic and very dependable (try it on a Sunday night when it's packed with Korean families and often has a Korean tourbus parked outside). If you're further east, I've been hooked on place on Ritchie Highway in Glen Burnie that has no English name on the outside other than "Korean Restaurant" but features a cartoon logo of a duck's wiggling rear end. Therefore I call it "Duck Butts." (I think really it's called Blue Garden). It's quite new, spacious (perhaps overly so; it never seems as busy as it should be), and while you can't grill at the table, it boasts and extensive menu and tons of interesting panchan to start the meal. They even bring out a pair of pan-grilled fish, which I think might be smelt, on the house.

If you have a good homemade chicken stock, you could go right ahead and use it — and even add chicken meat to the chowder — but try boiling the corn "bones" in the chicken stock. Might add even more corn flavor. Without the chicken or chicken stock, this is a cheap way to both use leftovers and make a fantastic dinner.

I can't attest for Jersey corn, but on the Eastern Shore of Maryland we have quite a summer bounty. I cook it according to whatever heat source I'm using that night, but I like to grill it. I soak the whole ears in water (which I'm not sure is even necessary; I've done without in a pinch) and throw them over — and sometimes right on — hot coals. But lately I've found a way to stretch my corn even further by boiling down the leftover ears into a stock that tastes remarkably like fresh sweet corn. Last night I had about six ears in the fridge left from a farmer's market spree and created a chowder by cutting the kernels off, making stock with the ears, rendering salt pork, cooking the kernels, a chopped onion and a clove of garlic — along with some cumin — in the fat, adding the stock and potatoes, two chopped ancho chiles and two chipotles, and finally seasoning and adding cream when the potatoes were cooked. Fantastic; just ate leftovers tonight with a dollop of sour cream, chives and sweet paprika sprinkled on top. Have you tried making corn stock?

I created a fantastic rub for some freshly caught striped bass filets a few weeks ago, cooked using a fish basket on a gas grill, then repeated the following day on a hardwood lump charcoal-fueled Weber. Into the food processor went several handfuls of the mint that grows profusely at Dad's house, a bunch of lemongrass he grows (it tastes similar to but isn't the thick-stalked type found in Asian markets; you could interchange them or use lemon zest and a splash of juice in a pinch), olive oil, salt, pepper and a heaping tablespoon of Dijon mustard. I rubbed the filets liberally, let them sit for about 20 minutes then grilled over high heat. Some of the best fish I've ever tasted... Mint pesto is also easy to make and works well for grilling, both as a rub and as a sauce on the side.

According to this India agriculture web site, "Curry powder is a British invention to imitate the flavor of Indian cooking with minimal effort. " And curry leaves (they actually are apparently the original source of the word "curry") ... are rarely found outside of India. I borrowed (permanently) Jamie Oliver's cookbook "Happy Days with the Naked Chef," in which he presents a curry recipe and talks at length about curry leaves and his attempts to get more grocers to stock them. I wonder if that's just in the UK, though. A chef/owner I know says he's familiar with them and can order them.

I made today an eggplant curry I saw Tyler Florence prepare on Food 911. He makes his own curry powder by toasting and then grinding the following: 2 tablespoons coriander seeds 1 tablespoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon fennel seeds 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds 1 tablespoon cardamom seeds 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns Then I added a tablespoon of turmeric and whizzed it again. The curry had a sauce of ghee, onion, dried coconut, cashews and coconut milk, plus a heaping tablespoon of the aforementioned curry powder. It was tasty, but not remarkably so (at least not yet; maybe all it needs is to sit awhile and meld). Are there any additional spices I should use in a curry powder? Should I seek out the curry leaves I've been reading about lately? Did I perhaps not toast the spices long enough, or is there a chance they're old and have lost some of their oils? Again, this is a good powder, but not as distinct as it could be. Any curry experts out there?

I've never even had a Rum Swizzle... but a lot of books, pamphlets, magazine articles and such will claim it to be the "National Drink." Some will claim the Dark'n'Stormy is as well.

My favorite way to make a Dark'n'Stormy is to first muddle a slice of fresh ginger root in the bottom of a glass with a dash of habanero sauce. Then I add lots of Goslings and top off with any good spicy ginger beer (Barritt's is authentic but not integral; Stewart's works well and Goya is fantastic). The hot sauce and added ginger keep your lips tingling. I use lime, also. They go quickly at parties. Incidentally the official drink of Bermuda is, I think, the Rum Swizzle. A friend made me a rum drink the other night he called "Crippled on the Rocks," consisting of dark rum (he had Myers), orange juice and habanero hot sauce. Sounds and looks pretty vulgar but tasted delicious.

I've long been making Guinness ice cream (reduce a pint or more with a touch of sugar into a syrup, sometimes with a vanilla bean husk in it, add to a reach, 9-yolk custard base and freeze in ice cream maker), but your recipe sounds great. Do you make the Baileys and Guinness bases separately, then mix them together? How do you make the Jameson caramel???

I must know more about 24-hour, slow-roasted lemon puree. Can you share the recipe/technique, and some applications for it? Also, do you make the tomato jam and persimmon hot sauce? We have an abundance of wild persimmons, and we grow hot peppers...

After devouring a pair of fatty, perfect lobsters a few days ago, I boiled down the shells with some veggies, a touch of white wine, a few peppecorns, lemon and tarragon. I've reduced it down to a wonderful stock to freeze, but was wondering if anyone had some ideas on how to use it in a dish that does not contain lobster meat -- as I don't often have that lying around! Would it be good in a fish chowder of sorts? Also, I pureed the tomalley and roe with some butter, heated it gently in a double-boiler just to soften, and strained it. Any idea on how long this will keep or ideas on how to use it?

I thought I found the ultimate maté site: www.todomate.com On second glance, maybe not... the logo is great but they really don't offer much. I'll stick to eBay.

I eat everything and would even try the partially formed duck embryos or a recipe for garden slugs. I have researched (though not followed through) cooking wasp larvae. I believe insects are the next great food revolution, especially when pureed and formed into a maleable protein product, like surimi is to fish. But...... I absolutely detest calf's liver. Chicken livers? Fine. Paté? Delcious. Fois gras? Even better. But no matter how much bacon you serve with it, calf's liver makes me retch. Every couple years I try it again and still the same result. But get this: my girlfriend doesn't eat red meat of any kind — EXCEPT liver. She wrinkles her nose at my teriyaki glazed venizon tenderloin, a heaping plate of sticky spareribs, sausages, melting lamb shanks — but will slurp down liver without a blink. She also eats scrapple.