Adam Balic

Well they won't be free range for very long now will they, no matter how cheap.

They have more fresh green flavours and I find them to be much hotter. If you have any SE-Asian stores near you they should have some. I haven't used them in European cooking, but I would be interested in finding out how they work. You can see them here on the right of this image.

Lucy - have you compared the fresh green peppercorns that are widely avalible now with the more traditional (in Europe) brined version?

In Australian waters a close relative Zenopsis nebulosus are landed. They are usually cheaper then John Dory, but much larger (up to 60 cm). Scientific names do rule.

This type of dish is quite common in older (especially mid-19th century) cookbooks, where the emphasis on food was largely in part the figurative aspect. Often the macaroni was layered verically, which a base of short tubes on their ends. I haven't made the pasta case version, but I have made versions with the sweet pastry case from Emilia Romagna and also tried to replicate the pie from il gattopardo (as one does). Actually, they are not that difficult to make. You make a lot in individual ingredients and assemble them, bung it in the oven and make a salad.

Now there is an image....

The recipe's name (surprise!) is "cuttlefish with spinach". My interpretation uses fish stock and does not add tomatoes. ← I was actually thinking of what the name would be in Greek as there is a similar dish in Italy (Liguria) Sepia in zimino, which is very good.

Bugger me. class issues with flounder. I will admit to never having caught my own, so I am happy to be corrected on this.

Excellent, my favourite cephalopod. What is the name of the recipe?

Yes I compared the two fish directly a few months ago on this thread and came to the conclusion that texture was similar, although the flavour and structure of the fillets was different. Both stellar fish though, and I would be happy to replace Sole with Dory. In some dishes this may not be possible as you need the structure of the sole fillet (terrines etc), but will most likely not be an issue in the majority of cases. In the states the FDA approved fish marketed as "Dover Sole" is Microstomus pacificus, which is a West coast flounder (also know as a slime sole), but I was unther the impression that decent restaurants that sold "Dover Sole" were actually refering to imported Solea solea. What's your impression on this? I'm curious as the East Atlantic fish is one of the great fish on the world, whereas the flounder is not thought to be so great. For Shinboners - In Australian waters there are a few species of flounder, don't substitue these for Sole as the are really quite nasty, unless you like the taste of mud.

Added to this issue is that fish from all over the world turn up in unexpected places. I have seen Indo-Pacific fish sold off wheelbarrow type stalls in Liguria. Scientific names help a great deal, but are not practical at the market, which is where being familiar with the fish is important, which you should be anyway if you want to cook it sucessfully.

Australian waters have fantastic fish of it's own (the selection is better then in the UK also), but substitution is always a problem. Sole (as in Dover Sole (Solea solea)). There is no substitution for this fish in terms of flavour, but one if the Dorys (there are several in Australian waters) is close in firmness, if not in overall structure. Many of the sole recipes are using the fish for the shape/engineering aspects of the fillet and that can't be substituted. Plaice - have never eaten it. Cod/Haddock - use a large flaked white fish for the Cod (Blue Eye etc), for haddock rockling or flaqthead tails are fine. Herring, think of a larger more robust sardine. Australian sardines are smaller, but can be substituted for flavour or try another oily fish lik some of the mackerals.

That was Steingarten's conclusion too . Adam, can the breast remain pink and be well done and not stringy at the same time?? ← Sure, it's just a matter of preserving the myoglobin intact. Personally, I'n not so bothered with pinkness, just as long as the meat is tender.

There are many recipes for this, but unless you have a very young bird, there will be a lot of fat going into the braise and you will have to work around this.

Not sure anyone really has actually. Ever read Steingarten's "Supergoose" article in his "Must've been something I ate" book? He tries every trick under the sun with many geese and never could manage to roast a perfect goose, with medium done breast, tender legs and crispy skin. ← I'm glad to know that it's not just me, but it makes me wonder how roast goose was ever popular. Or maybe the modern varieties just aren't suitable for roasting. April ← Goose is my favourite meat, but I'm unsure about the "medium done breast, tender legs and crispy skin". If you cooked chicken until medium rare, I doubt that you would get tender legs either. If you want a medium-rare goose and tender legs, then they really have to be cooked seperately I think. Mostly I do very long slow cooking times, the legs covered in foil to stop them drying out, the breast meat is pink but well done.. Geese haven't been 'intensively' bred like chickens, so the breeds used now a pretty much what was around a hundred years ago etc. The fat content varies a great deal, but you really don't want to roast a very fatty goose as by the time all the fat has rendered out the meat will be very well done.

The "Dory" bit in the name refers to the golden sheen on the skin of very fresh fish. In English the fish was know as "dorre" (various spellings) long before it gained the 'John' attachment. For some reason the English went through a period of attaching personal names to the pre-exisitng ones of various birds, animals and fish etc. Most are no longer used ("Jenny Wren", "Tom Tit" etc), but at least one has survived "Maggie Pie = magpie". In Australian waters we have a 'John Dory' which is the same genus, but a different species. Regarding Talipia, the species found in the Sea of Galilee is Sarotherodon galilaeus galilaeus, there are many different types of this fish found thoughout Africa and I am betting that the species used most often in Aquaculture are not Sarotherodon galilaeus galilaeus, therefore I would look to marketing, rather then tradition for the naming of fish you see on the slab. As for St. Martin. The one I know about is commonly associated harvests (especially wine) and geese and kicked out the pagans from the Loire. There are likely to have been more then on chap with the name though.

I ate some last night that had been stored in the fridge and it was fine. The texture of the pudding is sort of light, moist and cakey with out being wet. The recipe as stated uses the pulp of four large apples (roasted in the oven to avoid excess liquid), 1/4 pound of Naples biscuits (sponge fingers (savoiardi)), 10 eggs, 1 pint of cream and nutmeg. pinch of salt. The apple pulp is mixed with the finely crushed biscuits and nutmeg, to this is added the cream and 7 whole eggs and three yolks. The remaining whites are whipped and folded into the mixture,which is then baked. I actually used 8 eggs and substituted some of the cream for milk as I misread the recipe and didn't buy enough cream. It is important to have an apple with good strong flavour and some acid. I used Bramley's and Cox's, but something like a Gravenstein would be very good.

Even with my glazed tagine, I don't actually add any liquid to lamb dishes. With chicken a tiny amount has to be added. I'm not sure of the point of comparing a tagine to a Dutch oven, they produce such different results. The problem with these debates is that you look like an appologist for whatever cause you support. I have gone to some effor to buy various ethnic earthenware 'stewing' pots and own several Dutch ovens. The thing is that they produce different results. So I could not use my straight sided earthenware daube to produce the same result as the tagine (they require different amounts of liquid) or visa versa, the Dutch oven is an excellent allround cooking vessel and the one I use the most, but it requires more liquid top up. When I was in Morocco I observed people making 'taigine' in a whole range of vessels, ranging from traditional terracotta to aluminium cooking pots to pressure cookers. There is nothing wrong or 'in-authentic' about using different vessels to produce the same dish, but the result will be different. However, I still find this requirement to find 'the best' to be deeply depressing and quite frankly misses the point in many cases. "Stew" covers such a wide description of cooking techniques, that it is almost useless as a precise term. What were they trying to achieve other then a test of their personal preferences based on a subjective tasting?

Yeah, it's really easy, and it's in Plotkin's book. Though it looks like there's many variations, as Pontormo pointed out. A small cooked eggplant, two red bell peppers, and two cloves of garlic pureed together. ← It's extremely popular in the Southern Slavic regions. The root word for the name comes from "Caviar", in Serbo-Croat is is called "ajvar ljuti od paprika", in other words "hot pepper caviar". Could be a Turkish thing possibly.

Not sure it this should go here as it doesn't contain suet, but all the British puddings might as well be kept together in one place. From an English cookbook of 1817. This is a recipe for an apple tart. It is basically apple puree , mixed with crushed naples biscuits, eggs and cream. As the mixture souffles, the solution at the time was to put a puff pasty collar around the dish. As the mixture expanded, so did the container. At a slightly earlier date puff pastry would have been laid under the mixture as well. Very light and delicate. There are many variations on this theme (orange and lemon being very popular). Odd that they fell out of favour, and the more sturdy suet boiled puddings marched on.

This thread is of a recent trip to Hydra. Although, this is quite a touristy destination the food was of a pretty good standard for the most part. On thing that was quite obvious was that by comparing what was on sale at the grocers and what was offered at the taverna's, it was pretty clear that the home cooking was substantially different in character, especially regarding veg. and greens.

If I want something specific and more difficult to source (sea-trout, wild turbot, langoustines etc) then yes I pre-order, but for the vast majority of time I I just show up and look for what looks good or interesting.

I haven't had any issue with grit in mussels as they are farmed as johnnyd describes above. Sometimes in the Victorian (Australia) farmed mussels there are pea-crabs, but other then that not problems. Were these blue or green lipped mussels?

Is the majority of bacon in the North America smoked?

It is wormwood, an Alpine wormwood (Artemisia genipi, glacialis or mutellina), but it has none of the hallucingetic of the species used in absinth. This is the French version from my trip to the Dauphine.