Abra

How would you do a nori caramel? Is it just a caramel with nori strips, or a pureed nori caramel sauce, or what? It sounds so intriguing.

Richard, tell us more about brisket bacon. Now there's a concept! It was hot here for a few days and the temp in my garage curing chamber seemed too high, so I haven't started any new projects. But now we're having a cold snap, and I might be able to get going again. Elie, what did you end up doing with your peperone?

gfron1, those are gorgeous! Tell us how you did the crisps.

I made the kebab just like we all make sausage, meat chilled way down, marinated in the spices, ground with onion, stirred in the roasted red pepper afterwards, paddled over ice for a minute or two to bind. There was no added liquid called for, but it seemed sticky enough to bind, probably because of the ground onion. I did add extra fat, though. When I ground the lamb I estimated that it was only about 15% fat, and I'd read that a true Turkish kebab would be up to 30% fat, so, lacking the proper lamb tail fat, I did grind in a few ounces of pork back fat. I chilled the mix before shaping on the skewers, and chilled the skewers before grilling. I formed the small (cat-turd sized) sausages around the skewer, but Elie, you're saying to form them first, then skewer them? I'd really hate to mince it by hand, and paddling for 15 minutes seems really extreme. But I guess I'd do it if that were the only way to get the texture right. Does everyone agree with Heinz that that's the way it has to be done? Elie?

Melange, that is a beautiful plate. I'm dying to try that beet ice cream, although I know the very mention of it would send my husband screaming from the house! What's that on the far left side of the picture?

Thanks, Heinz. I do have caul fat, and I did think of using it. What bugs me, though, is that in a Moslem country where no pork would be used, they have some way of doing it without caul fat. I think an egg white might do the trick, for next time.

Tonight I made Megan's madeleines for my husband. I didn't have Grand Marnier or orange zest, so I used a little orange flower water, a little Cointreau, and a drop of vanilla. I am not a real madeleine fan myself, but he ate quite a lot of them "frosted" with chilled homemade hot fudge sauce, which is sort of a spreadable ganache-consistency when cool. I made the sauce with Spanish cocoa, and it is incredibly deep, dark, and adult. I wasn't very happy with the edge definition, though. It's a mini-madeleine pan, so I'm not sure if it's the nature of the little ones to be less defined, or if there's something I could do to get them to look more professional. Ling, for the sauce you caramelize the palm sugar (2/3 cup), then add a can of coconut milk, a smushed lemon grass stalk, and a cinnamon stick. Simmer together for about 15 minutes, then thicken with a cornstarch slurry of 2 tsp cornstarch to 1 tsp water. It's really delicious cold the next day, when it has a perfect pudding consistency.

Rob, as it happens, I did everything exactly as you suggest. The only thing different is that my skewers evidently aren't wide enough. Although I might should have added an egg or some little panade for helping it all stay together.

I'm glad to see you made it to Oyama, Henry. See what I mean? The place is awe-inspiring.

Last night I made Adana Kebabs. Ok, I know this recipe isn't in the book, but I used all of our now-established sausage making techniques (including adding a bit of back fat, which I'm sure would horrify a Turk), freezing, binding, and all that. The result was a terrifically succulent lamb sausage that gave me a lot of skewer problems. If anyone knows the trick to keeping the formed meat on the skewers, maybe you could help me out, either here or where the rest of the dinner is, here.

I think that Batali quote about Seattle's famously damp climate is a bit disingenuous. I've seen Armandino's curing chambers - you can bet your bresaola they're enclosed, super-clean, temperature and humidity- controlled rooms. It's not like he's hanging the odd bits of meat out in the Puget Sound breezes or anything! We've got Copper River sockeye for $8.99/lb now, so I see no way to avoid smoking/curing/sausaging some salmon, pronto. It'll be my maiden fish-charcuterie voyage, except for the gravlax I did last December.

I've never seen nor tasted red velvet cake, but I find this discussion pretty fascinating. Here's an interesting article about the nature and derivation of food colorants.

Well, now we know that Mark and Ron are available to be our green-meat canaries, but I'd sure hate to lose either one of you. Personally, I'm an utter chickenshit when it comes to potential food poisoning. Chris, are you still alive? I actually think your mold soup looks way gross - how come you don't try the Bactoferm innoculant instead of homemade spore broth? Someone has to say this sometime, so it might as well be me, since I'm possibly the only one of us with a ServSafe certificate and a semi-anal approach to food safety. You know how we say that people have been doing this meat curing stuff for millenia? Well, please, don't be too macho! People also used to die regularly from food-borne illnesses. Let's not repeat that part of history!

Klary, I love that idea, especially with the "triple-aged" Gouda we can get in a couple of places. I'm really looking forward to making those.

Good eye, LMF. The egg dish is indeed from Rover's. One of us interned there, and so she knows that dish intimately. I'd never had it before, and it's wonderful. The bloc de foie was in a tin, and I think it came from the caviar store, if such a thing is possible. I can check with the person who brought it. I got the wines at our local wine shop, which gets a small allocation. If you can find that Varner anywhere, grab some. It's gorgeous, very French in style. Varner is here, but what we had was a 2002, which isn't showing on their website. Bavila, last night I had garlic scape tempura at a little Japanese place here - now that was heaven!

Sartain - I've never had much liquid come out of a pork belly. I think it really depends on the pork, and possibly it's pork that's been injected with water that releases liquids. Definitely don't toss it! I'd go with Ron's advice, for sure.

Wow, Richard, that's quite a list! I envy your the easy access to goat, since it's almost impossible to get here. Have you experimented yet making sausages with Indonesian flavors? And you probably can't get pork fat, right? That's usually the key to juicy, as opposed to mealy, sausages.

Yetty, nice to see you back. I was just thinking the other day how I hadn't seen you in a while. That batter I used had 7 T of sugar, which is really a lot. There was nothing else about it that would make it stick except the sugar. Sam, are you able to do a sweet batter in your same-as-mine pan?

I really don't know, and I was going to ask that here myself. It has a bit of pink salt, but it's already been in the fridge for a week. I'm planning to use it all up and give some away during the coming week. But you know the stuff you can buy commercially is sitting around for far longer than that.

Newsflash! There is a way for my boudin noir to taste divine. This is a slice of the sausage I tossed in the fridge last night, after I had sauteed it in duckfat. Like this, cold, on a slightly sweet cracker, with crisp Walla Walla onion and a nibble of sage, it's luscious. I am so relieved - I hated to waste all that blood! Lovely lamb prosciutto, Mark, and now I have serious slicer envy. Too bad you had to lose that pork, but at least you hadn't already worked on it. Thanks for panting over my pate, folks. It really is even better than it looks. I'll talk to Seagal about whether she or I should post this recipe. I don't really know whose recipe we're working with now. Let me say that this version had ground pork and veal, as well as backfat, pork liver, and pork confit.

The thing about that Leonetti, for me, was while it's a very good Merlot, with a lot of weight and presence, I don't think it's a good value. Compared to the Cayuse, which cost 35% less and was an absolutely kick-ass mind-blowing bottle, the Leonetti seemed over-hyped. The Cab of theirs that I had last year was really excellent, but I think this merlot is just very good. And for that price, I want more than very good!

Of course they're too thick, they were baked in a sheet pan! It made only a 4-layer cake, when it should have been 20-30. Well, a lot of batter did get wasted, but you know what I mean. But the batter did taste excellent, with all that sugar, and the browned butter. I did think the flavor was actually quite superior, but unless I can figure out the technique, I'll have to sacrifice that flavor.

Yes, I brushed the pan with canola oil between each and every attempt. Was he using a non-stick pan? Were you? Am I just a dork?

Ok, isn't it about time someone reported a failure? And shouldn't it be me? So, I've been longing to make that mille crepes cake. I faithfully followed Megan's batter recipe. First one stuck, second one stuck, third one stuck. Shit. I even tried making little dollar sized crepes. Stuck, every one. The batter tasted delicious, I can attest to that, but I couldn't produce one usable crepe. Ever made crepe batter in a half-sheet pan? It's a desperation move, and I don't recommend it, but I already had the pastry cream made and it was delicious, and I didn't want to throw out the batter, so I cranked the oven up to 500 and baked the batter as a sheet. Cooled it, trimmed it up, stacked it with the cream, which I'd flavored with Paula Wolfert's Basque Aromatic Mixture. The cream is awesome, and merits a much better base. About the best I can say for baking crepe batter in a sheet pan is that it does produce an edible dough. The texture is all wrong, of course, but the delicious cream sort of compensated for it. Now I want to put that cream in pate a choux puffs, or as a napolean. But I think I'll stick to unsugared crepe batter from now on, unless somebody can tell me what I did wrong.