Abra

I'd use Picpoul de Pinet, from the Languedoc. It's evidently made from the picpoul blanc grape, and it a fantastic white for the price (about $11) as you can cook with it and it's also a pleasure to drink. It loves fish, and would be excellent with the Mediterranean flavors of your halibut.

I have to say, even though it's anathema and heresy, that adding 1/8 tsp of liquid smoke to the meat will give it much more of a recognizable hot dog flavor, for better or for worse. I got extra meat for another purpose, and I got 10 lbs of meat and fat from a little over 12 lbs of ribs - it really depends on the ribs. I had the butcher bone them out, and she probably did a lot better job of cleaning the bones than I would have. I've never heard of smoking guanciale, so I'll be interested to see what poeple have to say about a method. I made a good guanciale using Mario Batail's recipe, but it still wasn't as good as what his Dad Armandino makes at Salumi in Seattle. With no samples or hints, I just asked Armandino "why is my guanciale boring in comparison to yours?" and he right away said "Did you use juniper?" Why no, I didn't, but next time I will.

Wow, that sounds and looks just delicious! I need an excuse to make it soon.

I use the Grizzly vertical stuffer. It's wonderfully easy to use, although it does go better with four hands.

Ron, I love love love that knife. It's my instant fave too. The grip is just phenomenal, and since I always rock, it's the exact thing for me. I do have huge hands, bigger than lots of guys do, and it fits me perfectly. A person with small hands might not love it that much. And yes, next time I'd use hog casings. Skinny dogs might be authentic to Chicago, but I like more meat in my bun, if you know what I mean.

Well, rapeseed oil is just canola. I don't know if Bornholm is something special, but canola is a marketing whiz' answer to the problem of it being called rapeseed.

Well, I'm sure we all agree that Michael's a great teacher, but I have to confess to being an unruly pet at best. I have a tendency to talk back and do things my own way, but it was tons of fun in this case. I started with some wonderful short ribs (and my new show-off knife that I got myself as a birthday present) after dicing, the meat was ground once before the cure, and then once again after. Here's a nice clean grind with little to no fat smear and as Michael mentioned above, there's a lot of fat. In the bowl it looked like about 45-50%, just eyeballing it. Then the meat cured overnight before being futher seasoned and ground again. I was amazed by how much the coriander is the mystery flavor of hot dogs, something I'd never actually detected before. One thing I checked out for Michael was whether there was a big textural difference when you do the bind in the food processor, as opposed to the stand mixer. Here you can see that when raw it looks like the mixer ( left dog) produces a much coarser bind than the processor (right dog). It was easier to stuff the meat from the mixer, I think because more air was incorporated and it was less dense and pasty. My intrepid husband helped me with the stuffing, and we managed to do it all into sheep casings without mishap, a personal first. Later we decided that the result is a bit too skinny for a good hot dog, as you get too much bun-to-meat ratio in every bite. I was also testing cooking the dogs in the smoker vs. cooking them in a low temp water bath. I hung the dogs to be smoked in the fridge for an hour to develop a pellicle. The soon-to-be water method dogs just rested patiently on the shelf. This is a great use for those new silicone food loops, by the way. Then came the hard part. The water bath-dogs went into a shallow pan to slowly cook, and I hung the smoker dogs in my smoker by one of the most improvisational systems imaginable. This is my Hot Dogs in Hell shot. The tough thing was trying to follow Michael's instruction to smoke the dogs for one hour at 120. Have you ever tried to keep your smoker at 120? It's a total PITA, let me say. I sat by the firebox for the entire hour, feeding it one little chunk of cherry wood after another, with all the vents closed down, and even cracking open the smoking chamber from time to time, and it was still next to impossible. So then I did a little comparison of the methods From left to right: mixer-bound water-cooked dogs, processor water dogs, mixer-bound smoked dogs, processor smoked dogs. Here, although you can still see a mixer/processor difference in texture, it was pretty negligible in your mouth. However, the water/smoker difference was huge. To level things out a bit, I stuck one of the water dogs over the remaining flame in the smoker So here we have a water dog that's been grilled, which is WAY better that a water dog that's just been cooked in water, but is still not nearly as good as a smoked dog. So, you hardcore smoker folks, get ready for some finicky fun. Plan to make these on a day when you need solitude. This project will let you legitimately shoo everyone away from the smoker, as it will require your full attention, and a considerable portion of your vocabulary of colorful words and phrases as well. It's hard to do properly, but then, we love that, right? Dog challenge ahoy! Oh, and be sure to roast those short rib bones for stock, demi-glace, or your favorite canine. And then take the fat and drippings, get them hot in a cast iron skillet, fry up some croutons of good bread in the drippings, quickly and gently add some beaten eggs and scramble them with the fat and croutons. Plop this concoction over a salad of mixed garden greens and a light vinaigrette, and there you have a really delicious and offbeat lunch that you never would have had otherwise.

I wish I had the recipe for that goat's milk rosemary gelato, it sounds divine! LindsayAnn, are you sure you can't get goat's milk at Trader Joe's? Ours in Seattle carry it, in the dairy case next to the milk. It's all ultra-pasteurised here, though, unless you know a farmer. And as I found to my dismay, you can't make cheese with the UP milk.

I served it almost as shown. Cool, with a preserved lemon garnish, and a little salad with hazelnut oil and fig balsamic. I think it would be really good with a finely-diced potato salad of some sort, but besides the no-mushrooms person there was also a carb-avoiding person at the dinner. As to taste, it's pretty subtle as written. It's awfully hard to get shrimp that taste like much, anymore, so there wasn't an intense shrimp flavor. I could have improved that by infusing the cream with the shrimp shells before adding it, and next time I'll do that. And because I didn't use the mushrooms, there was no caramelized or buttery flavor. But with the touch of baharat and preserved lemon it was mysterious, haunting, delicate. Most people here don't recognize the flavor of baharat, so that added to the mystery. The salmon should have been seasoned before I set it into the terrine, and I'll do that next time too. Thanks for the compliments, everybody. It's ridiculously easy, so I really don't deserve them, but I'm happy to accept them anyway.

That's lovely, Moby. I need to do something en croute soon. Here's the Shrimp and Salmon with Spinach Terrine from Charcuterie. I seasoned it with baharat and added home-preserved Meyer lemons. I should have used more lemon. This is easy as pie to make and is quite impressive to serve.

As to the "kringle thingie" you were exactly right, Dan. I posted a bit about the technique here. The recipe I used was this one from Sunset Magazine, with the addition of cinnamon chips. The pancetta and cheese bread is the Casatiello from BBA, done as minis in little pannetone papers. Unfortunately, I don't remember what cheese I used, only that it was something relatively strong. As to the weather, it's not so much that it's too hot per se, although we don't have air conditioning here, so it can get pretty warm in the kitchen. I have a blackberry pie in the oven at this moment, so I can't claim that I don't bake in summer at all. It's more that in summer I feel like grilling, smoking meats, salads, fruit desserts, and all that. In winter I get much more into soups and baking breads. I know, I'm a wimp. Tino, how did you get that beautiful shine on the boules? I've got to try Bill's beautiful English muffins. That's something I haven't done well with so far.

Everybody should give the shrimp and salmon terrine a try - it's just such an easy bang for the buck. Takes no time to make, slices nicely, makes people on diets happy, and looks cool. I do advise cooking up a bit to taste for seasoning - that's what led me down the baharat road.

My attempt at a Vietnamese-style rice flour baguette for banh mi - turned out to be too crunchy Do cinnamon buns count? Cheese and home-cured pancetta bread A marzipan kringle thingie I'm almost looking forward to some cooler weather so I can take up baking again.

The only time I have ever had this happen is with Arborio, and yep, it was vile.

I got this fabulous recipe from ScorchedPalate. I hope she will be glad I posted it here for the world to enjoy. * Exported from MasterCook * Madison Valley Brandied Plums Recipe By : ScorchedPalate Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00 Categories : Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method -------- ------------ -------------------------------- 3 pounds Italian prune plums 1 inch long stick cinnamon 2 cups sugar 1/4 tsp salt 2 cups brandy Boil a stockpot of water as deep as the shoulder of your canning jar. (I use a 2-quart hinged-lidded jar for a full recipe -- you can always portion into smaller jars for giving away once they're done.) Wash and stem plums. Prick several holes around stem ends. Pack plums into the canning jar. Quarter and pit remaining plums and re-pack, placing quartered/halved pieces in gaps that form between whole plums. Add cinnamon stick. In a 2-quart saucepan, bring sugar, salt, and 1 cup water to a boil, then turn to low and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool for 10 minutes, then stir in brandy. Immediately pour liquid into jar up to 1/2 inch from the rim. Partly close jar, leaving room for steam to escape, and place in boiling water for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jar with a jar-lifter or 2 sets of tongs, and close the lid. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. They're good right away, but better after a couple of weeks. Leftover syrup (either before or after plums have steeped in it) is great in soda water or champagne, or over ice cream.

Daniel, I have 1 1/2 gallons of brandied prune plums in my fridge now, mellowing for the holidays. It's dead easy and quick to make, and it's astonishingly easy to create something wonderful with them in a matter of minutes after a month or two of resting. Does this sound like something you'd do? If so, run out now before the stores close and get a decent inexpensive brandy, 2 cups for every 3 lbs of plums, and I'll tell you the rest after I make supper. Be sure you have plenty of sugar, some cinnamon sticks, and some glass containers that you don't need for a couple of months.

It's a cow cheese, Pan, and is indeed super mild and creamy. It was cold when I cut it for the photo, as I was afraid I'd never be able to portion it after it warmed up, so it was really creamier than it looks here.

That looks just like my very first sausage, Chris, and I was pretty proud of it at the time. Amazing how experience and developing expertise makes you be hard on yourself! I see fat in the sausage, so I assume you weren't using ice instead of fat, as ComfortMe describes above, but ice in addition to fat, right?

I really liked Chefpeon's black and whites, never having had one before last night. If we hadn't been having jackal10's summer pudding for dessert, I would have certainly eaten more of the B&Ws. I like them in the same way I like a good marshmallow, something that's delicately sweet and whose texture feels good in your mouth. Gentle. Soothing. It cracks me up that they were iced upsidedown, so I hope she makes more and we can check out the crust theory. Last night's didn't have any snap of crust, they were uniformly soft, so I imagine they would be even better iced the other way 'round.

Here's the Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach. The original has mushrooms, but I had a fungusophobe at the table. It's dead easy to make, and is a lovely cool treat in our current hot spell. I added some baharat for seasoning to the shrimp mousse, and tucked in some slivers of home-preserved Meyer lemons. Next time I'll put the lemons all the way around the salmon, for more of a jeweled effect.

Next time you're at El Diablo, try the Cortadito. It's a very tasty little cup. Great job, guys. I think "the Ling and Lo show" is a perfect moniker, and you did us all proud with it!

Here's a beauty that I served last night. I've never seen it before and couldn't believe my eyes when it was in our (excellent) local grocery store. Le Regal de Bourgogne aux Raisins. The raisins are macerated in plum eau de vie and marc.

Michael, any update on when the hot dog recipe will be ready for testing? I really want to turn out some perfect dogs for 9/23.

The food at DiVino looks quite nice and home-style delicious, but I'd go there just to look at those light panels behind the bar. They're really striking in the photos. Do they call it their bar code?

Ok, I see that Bellevue is going to have to become terra cognita. Like you guys, we go there as little as possible, but it looks like Porcella might become a must-go destination.