Adam Balic

Is it puck or plucks? Anyway, I was at the Queen Victoria Market today, and Thompson Meats has "plucks" for sale....it looked to me that it had the heart, liver, etc. all together in the one lot. ← It is "pluck", Puck is somebody else entirely. At the time I approached them and it was a case of "íf we have it we have it", which isn't useful as you can't plan around this. As well as the pluck the stomach is required and to get them all together you really need a butcher that will get them all for you at once. No willing to do this. Next year I will have to go back to the parents farm.... I really think that Australia is poorly resourced in this respect in comparison to the USA/UK. Have been trying to get starter cultures for fermented sausages and this is also proving to be difficult to impossible on the scale of a hobbist.

If they have claws on, bright blue when raw and are frozen in an Asian grocer they are more then likely farmed fresh water shrimp Macrobrachium rosenbergii. These are appearing everwhere and on several USA TV programs (including Iron Chef America) I have seen them described as "Langoustines", which they aren't and also for sale in Australia as "Scampi" which they also aren't. Many supermarkets in the UK have been selling them as shell on or off tail meat, you can identify them from the way that the taper much more quickly to the tail them marine species and by the way that the tail shell segements overlap.

I think that "Mısır Ekmeği" means corn (Indian) bread, this is popular in central and eastern Anatolia. Because the term is so general the bread can be made numerous ways. Mostly this is simply loaves, but in some cases balls of bread are rolled flat, spread with melted butter, rolled out again, spread with more butter and grilled on both sides until crisp. is yourtube demonstration of making another time of Ekmeği which is very interesting.

I think that "Ekmeği" means "bread", so it may be hard to get a specific recipe without addional information?

Actually it is all offal, which pretty much just means any part of the animal that would normally end up as waste, not just internal organs. Offal is a funny thing, haven't thought about it for a while but I had crumbed lambs brains last night. A few months ago my wife and I went to Vue de Monde with a friend, when we were asked about preferences my wife said "anything but offal", my friend and I asked for the opposite. Oddly enough, my wife recieved a dish with little cubes of Scottish style black pudding (called "boudin noir" ), while the only offal my friend and I recieved were some sweet breads. I guess the cute little pied cubes of blood and oats are not considered to be offal. I have tried desperately to buy offal with mixed success in Melbourne. I wanted to get a whole sheeps puck (heart, liver, lungs) for haggis making, but this proved to be near impossible (not illegal, just a logistical nightmare), suet I had to order in advance from a butcher as it is mostly removed from the carcass in the abatoir before it gets to the butcher - A$10 per kilo! Blood is illegal to collect in Victoria, so if you want blood products it has to come from South Australia. Unfortunately this blood isn't suitable for the uses I want it for. Tripe is fine, but I need a source of all four calf stomachs for one dish and that isn't going to happen either. Oh, has anybody seen steel cut (pinhead) oats in Melbourne?

If you add saffron you will have something close to Risotto alla Milanese. I'm not sure what your plan with the risotto is, but paired with meat it is very good, but equally you could add some asparagus if you wanted it as a stand alone dish.

I use bone marrow in making Risotto alla Milanese, but in this case you use the marrow as a source of fat for the initial frying stage. The fat and aqueous content is where a huge amount of beef flavour is contained and this is what it was used for. I think that what you are doing adding some bone marrow cracklings to the end which is different. I think that this could work out well (I like crisped pig crackling through "SE-Asian salads"), but I would use some of the rendered marrow fat to flavour the risotto and I wouldn't roast and extract. The bone marrow has blood vessels (and a bit of free blood) around and through it. When you cook this it turns black, which is not something you want for the presentation of the dish. I think that you are better extracting the marrow and soaking it overnight in milk to remove most of the blood, then patting dry and then frying (or follow the process described by cricklewood, which I have just read). Unless you have very small cubes it will not crisp all the way though and unless you are careful the effect you might end up with is lumps if greyish fat on an already very rich dish.

Wonderful stuff. Although you have reminded me that I can't get robiola in Oz . Nice looking ( ) Ribollita, it is said that it should be thick enough to stand a spoon in. The zucchini flower pizza is a really nice example of the prefered type of crust, almost like a cracker rather then bready. One very anal thing - the spelt in the soup will not be spelt (Triticum spelta) even if translated as spelt. Farro in Tuscany will almost certainly be emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) its production in Tuscany has a geographic identity protected by law. Production is certified by a co-operative body, the Consorzio Produttori Farro della Garfagnana. Such is the demand for the product that much of the non-certified farro sold is indeed spelt. I'm not sure why this annoys me so much.

Um, as a parasitologist I wouldn't serve kangaroo tartare. The risks are low, but there is potetially for passing on some interesting parasite infections. That aside, kangaroo is availble for the Chicken Pantry at the queen vic. Natto - from Asian grocer next to the queen vic. Marrow bones - many butchers from the queen vic. Speck - what type of speck? A range is avaible from the Polish deli in the queen vic. Make sure you state what you want or you may not get what you expect. Chorizo - various deli and at Spanish grocer in Johnston St. Uni - hit and miss, contact fishmonger and pre-order. Kim Chee - from Kim Chee making store in Brunswick street.

Ah yes, but where were you in 2002 when I needed the suggestions? Actually on a serious note, I enjoyed shopping at the store. Ground level was a nightmare, full of American tour groups wearing matching T-shirts and berets, in the basement I found cookware that was better quality at the price then anything similar I could buy locally at the time.

I still regret to this day not being able to work out how to get the turbot kettle in the basement back to Scotland on a Ryanair flight.

Nice idea. Salmagundi - as it is fun and creative and fits in well with modern meal structures. Chicken pie with grapes and verjuice sabayon - as this was "Chicken Pie" from the 14th to the 18th century. Again it can be modernised. Possets - served in shot glasses these are a nice winter drink. Nesselrode pudding - I think that this is the perfect Christmas Pudding replacement for an Australian Christmas. Puddings of all sorts - a cheat, but there are so many more interesting puddings then most people are aware of.

Some of the traditions are not that old either I suspect. The first OED reference for "faggot" in the culinary sense is only from the mid-19th century for instance and I imagine that Roman pie had a pretty short life span. Rooks were eaten (or their young was), but one has to wonder how widespread the practice was, in other words is it a forgotten British Food at all? The use of specific named dishes is a bit odd too. "Faggots" are hardly a forgotten dish for instance, resorting to Mrs Langland’s Faggots seems to be pushing the definition of "Forgotten British Food". A similar case could be made for Robert May's salad (which I have made), why not "salmagundi" as a better representation of a class of dish? It's interesting and I like the idea, but the way it has been put together seems a little strange.

Definately not a young lobster or a Langoustine/Scampi/Dublin Bay Prawn. As mentioned above it is most likely a farmed tiger prawn, in Scotland some of the local fishmongers marketed them as "gambas". A commonly farmed prawn, the Black Tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) can grow up to 35 cm in length. When caught wild they are often called "leader prawns" as they are found associated with great numbers of lesser sized species (such as Fenneropenaeus spp.), the low numbers of the Tigers, along with their much greater size lead people to suggest that they were in charge of the others........

I seem to be in a minority here, but I think that any wine which is heavily botrytised element would be wrong for this dish. Botrytised with poultry liver pate, great, excellent can't get enough of it, but Crostini Toscana (or Crostini di Fegato) which is what this recipe is trying to be I think wouldn't work very well at all. To be honest I think that the recipe is such a deviation from any Tuscan Crostini di Fegato recipe that I have come across, that the addition of vin santo or replacement wines seems a little odd. Actually, I don't think that any wine is necessary to the recipe.

I forgot to add that, what ever you do, don't use cheap vin santo as it is nasty shite. Chicken livers should be sweet enough without the need for the sweet wine. As many Tuscan recipes actually use dry white wine, sweet wine isn't "a must". The Vin Santo is most likely added for a little bit of complexity in flavour, so I would still stick to a light madeira.

Vin Santo doesn't resemble either Port or madeira(s) much in flavour, but for a substitute I would go for the former. Some people use dry white wine. I have to say that the recipe doesn't resemble any crostini toscana I am familiar with, especially the fresh ginger, cream and orange zest.

The temperature of "boiling" water at sea level is the same (100.C), when at a rolling boil or at simmer. But the amount of energy being put into the system is different. Think about boiling water at a very high heat verses a low heat - the former boils dry (water turns to steam) much quicker. Haven't quite worked out what the consequences for cooking are, but in theory this should mean that more water molecules interacting with food and passing on their energy. I boil dried pasta at a rolling boil to help prevent the pasta from sticking together.

The advise I have is that it is possible (results not as good as in a mincer), but once you go through all the effort of trying to get optimum results in the food processor, it is actually a lot more work then going to the store and buying a Mincer or attachment.

Grape vines are cultivated from cuttings, that is how they remain the same decade after decade. Ditto roses, fruit trees and any other plant that you want to remain gentically pure (with the exception of mutations occuring). "Thompson Seedless" is the common USA name for the seedless Sultana grape. To get large elongated berries they are commonly treated with giberellic acid (which is naturally produced by fertile seeds and normally results in berry grouth), without treatment the berries are very small. In Australia the smaller untreated grapes tend to get called "sultana", where as the larger treated grapes are called "Thompson Seedless", but they are the same variety. Manyseedless fruit are triploids, this can occur naturally (eg. seedless banana) or be bred. Essentially if you cross fertile diploid and tretraploid parents you get sterile triploid progeny. The triploids tend to be bigger also. You can also have normal chromosome plants with genetic issues, which results in a block in seed development.

I'm aware of that, but nevertheless the name convention is turned on it's head in Veneto.

From my Tuscan food diary I think. Scroll down to the Mercato Centrale bit.

I'm surprised that candlenuts aren't on sale locally, as I was able to buy them vacuum packed even in Edinburgh (cheaper then macadamia nuts too). They should be cooked before consumption (roasted for example) as they are thought to be mildly toxic.

Could be a regional thing. Most of Italy calls air dried cod stoccafisso (stockfish), but in Veneto it is called "baccalà", which is what the rest of the country calls salt cod.

Nice looking chicken. This dish and technique is pure genius. If you are having a outdoor party it is perfect as you can braise the chicken the night before (which only improves the dish as the surface of the chicken skin dries out which is just right for getting crispy skin) and reduce down the sauce. Grill the next day and look like a cooking god, what could be better. In response to moving back to Australia last year, I really got into Indonesian cooking (Balinese in particular). I have to say that I think that if is one of the worlds great regional cuisines and the "Cradle of Flavor" is a wonderful introduction to this region. I love Thai cooking, but sometimes it seems that SE-Asia = Thai cuisine when you look at the cookbooks on offer. Malay, Laos, Nonya and Indonesian cuisines deserve to be equally recognised.