Adam Balic
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Posts posted by Adam Balic
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Perhaps the photo is deceptive but the Pesce Bandiera looks like a ribbon! Garfish have more girth. The face looks familiar, and the teeth!
In Cajun country we used to catch garfish in canals and make what we call a roast (pot roasted on the stove) stuffed with lots of garlic. Or the meat would be rolled into boulettes (meatballs) and fried. Wonderful stuff! You don't see that very much these days, unfortunately, and I suppose restaurants can't serve them for some reason (never seen it in a restaurant).
I would be curious to know how this fish is cooked elsewhere.
Sea garfish in English these chaps below. American freshwater gars are another fish again (a very primative fish), the three are not closely related. However, Andrew's fish does occur in American waters (although not commercially fished it appears).
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None of those cheeses taste like cheddar, nor has a similar texture or cooks the same (try making Aligot with cheddar and see what happens). Being a similar looking semi-hard cheese dsn't make them Cheddar (even if Cantal is sometimes "promoted" as French Cheddar. Also, in a historical context I wonder how restricted the consumption of these cheese types was in France?
Cheddar is one of the great cheeses of the world. The West Country Farmhouse Cheddar PDO, restricts this to a few dozen, and the Slow Food movement recognise three "real" cheddars. There are some versions made in Australia that I like and I quite like some of the similar Dunlop/sweet milk cheeses from Scotland. But most "Cheddar" is crap. Which is OK as the world needs crap too.
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I think that the question was more directed at why don't a similar high acid cheese seem to exist within the vast world of French cheese production.
I guess you could turn the question around and ask why the UK doesn't seem to have any great soft cheeses (even before various UK goverment bodies stepped in to shut down all cheese production).
I think that it is simply that cheese making is too specific a technique for similar cheeses to independently arise and potential there has no great market for this type of cheese in France historically (what is the most popular UK cheese in France? Cheshire?) to stimulate the reproduction of this cheese type within France.
Most "Cheddar" is bland industrial crap after all.
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Did you get to eat these guys.. How were the prepared, how do them come served.. Shell or no shell. How did they taste.. They look really sweet... Do they have that fat resevoir in the head that shrimp do? How much were they? They all have this pathetic "please dont eat me face"
I did try them that night. They were served as part of an antipasto plate, cooked very simply and served sort of on the half-shell, with the inside carapace removed. As I mentioned above, they were sweet (though not especially distinctive), sort of like shrimp crossed with crab. At the restaurant, the price was expensive- but everything in Venice is expensive. I don't remember how much the raw canocce are; if I have a photo with the price market, I'll let you know.
I do love their little "eyes"; those are actually their tails. And the blue stripe limning their tails is just terrific. Don't remember about the heads: I think they were served headless.
The weird thing about seafood antipasto in Venice (this is based on the vast experience of two meals, mind you) is that it's served warm. It's usually been my experience in Italy that seafood starters are served at room temperature or slightly chilled; but there you go.
These guys are mantis shrimp. If you look carefully you can see there real eyes and the praying mantis like front claws.
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Was that tuna caught locally? I didn't think they got that big in the Mediterranean.
The worlds largest species of Tuna (Northern Bluefin) is found in the Mediterranean and is highly prized.
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Lovely photgraphs and comments Andrew.
This fellow is a Saber fish (Trichiurus lepturus ) *click*. They are fairly common (even in US waters). Very popular in Sicily when I was there (at the Syracuse market actually) and also popular in Hong Kong.
Basically they are cut into sections and fried. Flesh is mild and similar to a very fresh mackeral/sardine.
I think that the banded fish above the mackeral are pilot fish and the small fish are definately anchovies.
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OK, there are lots of different cheesecake recipe in England. Originally, they were made with fresh curds (the cheese), like an extant Yorkshire curd tart, but by the 17th-18th century the curds were often substituted for ground almonds etc.
I have a recipe for Lincolnshire cheese cake at home, but this is of the curd type. I know of other recipes with ground rice, but these are 17th century recipes.
If you want I could post a few recipes and you could try your luck?
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Amazing site, but also a great illustration of the richness and diversity of British cuisine.
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For the French I think that I will buy a chicken and some intellectualised debate about correct way of cooking it.
Actually, scrap that the French team will not last as long as the debate.
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Is this a historic recipe or a modern one.
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A very interesting book, I have a facsimile of the book, I especially like the pies and the illustrations of what they should be shaped like. See Ivan Day link for more information.
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Melissa, you are The Woman. Thanks for the great start.
I know someone on eGullet has done mulberry purple haze. Are they really tasty enough to use in a cobbler or a pie?
Maggie - there are several types, but I am assuming that they are from the Black Mulberry tree (which has the best tasting fruit), not the White Mulberry. My grandparents have a tree, I use to make myself sick with them as a kid I ate so many.
I like them much more the blackberries, which I think are rather pointless (unless in jam). They don't even taste very similar to blackberries, more of a rich wine flavour. Infact, if you drink a glass of Wynns Coonawarra black label Cab. Sav., this always reminds me of the flavour of mulberries.
They make excellent preserves and would be great in a fool or a cobbler etc. When I was a kid I would swish them up and mix the juice with soda water and ice.
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There are a special section for these foods in British supermarkets I have noticed. We refer to it as "The Weird British Shit Section", and this is generally where I make phone calls to the wife from in the supermarket, as nobody actually buys this stuff (it is a nostolgia display is my guess), so you are not in the way standing there.
Mostly it is tinned bomb shelter goods:
Tinned pies, corned beef (like dog food, but for people it seems), canned cod's roe (why?), mackeral with tomato sauce, cockles in acidic liquid, various tinned meat things, which are essentially lips and arseholes with sauce. I would proberly like lips and arseholes if cooked à la plancha and served with a nice green sauce, but tinned, they actually do taste like a cat's arse.
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The truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of lamb in general. Perhaps its the sum total of a number of bad childhood experiences where the lamb was always fatty, greasy or overdone. I've usually shied away from cooking with it because I'm always afraid of getting it wrong. The concept of lamb neck totally perplexes me. A bit like ox tail. I'm not sure the end result will justify the effort.
Lamb neck fillet then. No bone, no fat, good amount of connective tissue, excellent in a braise etc. Think best end rather then scrag.
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Strangely enough, I saw the same things last week. There are sort of a proto-pasta made in the southern part of Ligurian near the Tuscan border. Essentially, they are sliced, boiled briefly and treated like regular pasta.
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Mushy peas? Must be a NSW thing. I haven't really ever seen yabbies at a BBQ (which isn't to say you couldn't, but prawns are much more likely).
Apart from the presence of flies and European wasps, I'm not sure what an Australian themed BBQ would be. Regarding pacific-rim, much of Australia is outwith the Pacific and in terms of what I had as a kid is was either plain grilled lamb, beef, sausages, onions, tomato sauce, beetroot and salads (Anglo-side of the family) or whole spit roasted pig or lamb with salads (non-Anglo-side of the family). Salads were plain green salads or potato salads.
As we got older, we often had fish BBQ in Melbourne, but a combination of seafood, lamb, pork and beef was also common.
Can't speak for non-Victorians, but I would most like do a combination of SE-Asian and Mediterranean.
Most likely satay fish/pork and combination of plain and marinated lamb chops and some snags obviously. If you can get small pork sausages (snag = sausage), these are great to eat with fresh oysters.
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Good points, but I think that with these definitions different individuals will have different boundries and these boundries are in flux.
That's is why I think that these show was flawed. The UK doesn't have a cohesive enough idea of "British Cuisine" to allow useful definitions of "regional" cuisines. Sure, Hotpot is easy, but it as at one polar extreme of regional v generic British food. Look at the trouble the judges have had with this format.
Better if they said, British chefs from different regions, do your best.
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Good point , but Indian based/inspired food has been popular in the UK for 250 years and it was a former colony. It is part of British cuisine just has much as many other elements considered more 'traditional' - so not quite the same 'popular' as MACer's.
That isn't quite the same thing as some of the dishes being considered too 'Italian' or too 'French'. Although, I must admit that the judges are not very consistant in this. A dish like a souffle that has been know in the UK since Louis Ude's "The French Cook" (1813) is "too French", where as non-traditional ways of preparing venison salmon etc are 'Very Scottish'....
I guess it is a question of identity and all that, but it appears to me that neither the judges or the chefs have a really strong idea of what 'British food' (if there is such a thing) is.
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I would guess that feuilles d'ouarka is "Warka", which isn't very similar to phyllo. It is made in a different manner and has different cooking properties. You can sub phyllo, but have to change the recipe slightly (warka is more moisture resistant the Phyllo).
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Trotters and Tripe?
Actually, Hindle Wakes would have been a good choice for cheffing up.
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Thanks. It was a very interesting week. I regret that I was actually there for work and had very little time to examine the food more closely, especially food in other towns/regions.
But the main issue is that if you see yet another article/program on "Country X, worst food in the world", be wary of it.
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Tandoori style chiken in a gravy sauce (Chicken Tika Marsala) is about the most popular dish in the UK isn't it?
Queen Victoria regularly had "Indian" items on her formal menus, so although the present queen isn't Empress of India, I guess you could squeeze that one in.
So far I haven't seen much evidence of regional or seasonal dishes in most of what has been done. I think that to target Kochar's for lack of these properties is pretty much saying that Indian food has no place in a British menu. Not sure that I agree with this.
To be frank I would say that an Indian meal is much more representative of British food habits then the either "regional" or "seasonal". So why live with this pretense? Why not encourage a better version of what people actually eat in the UK.
That Hotpot. Of the regions of the UK I have visited and collected recipes from, Lancashire seems to have the strongest extant regional dishes. But why Hotpot in the summer and not something a bit more creative? Paul Heathcote's cooking suggests that it is more then possible.
I like Hotpot, but it is a bit of a caricature of regional British on UK Food TV. Everytime somebody beats the drum about regional British recipes being on par with regional French/Italian (always these two only), this is the dish that gets trotted out. Regarding Fort's comments about oysters, I'm pretty sure that most versions now made do not contain oysters (they were a cheap filler when used) and in historical recipes hotpot containing oysters (+ mushrooms, kidney) was specifically "Bolton (le-Moors) Hotpot"?
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I have been hijacked into a BBQ competition this weekend and have been given the task of finding something / someway to preparing a Kangaroo shoulder.
I have never had this, seen this, or even thought about it. I have gleened a couple of things from reading the thread but if anyone has any suggestions,
I would appreciate it.
Cheers
I would have thought that the shoulder would be a relatively tough cut for grilling?
Anyway, I would mince it and make it some type of grilled meat ball thing. There is a recipe of a Balinese temple satay (usually made with pork) that might be good as it contains coconut cream, so that may keep it moist. If you would like the recipe let me know.
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Lovely post highchef. I will be staying just outside of Cleggan for a week in a month, so I will be thinking of your post when I am there.
The Cooking and Cuisine of Sicily
in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Posted
An extremely quick question chaps. There is a famous Sicilian pasta dish (often using orcecchiette)of broccoli, anchovies, pine nuts, currants/sultanas etc ectc, which I have made many times, however I have read recently that in Sicily, cauliflower is called "broccolo" (rather then "cavolfiore").
So is it possible that I and pretty much every English language cookbook that has this recipe, have been using the wrong veg?