Adam Balic

That's farely recent. Until the "health food" movement got underway, white eggs were regarded as more "hygienic" and were always favored by institutions as well as most households. Both my wife (in England) and I (in America) can remember brown eggs being regarded as vaguely "dirty". The color is, of course, related to the color of the hen's feathers. ← The same health movement most likely made brown bread more popular as well I imagine. Regarding egg shell colour, the colour of the feathers is immaterial. White Plymouth Rock's lay brown eggs and black Leghorns lay white eggs for instance. White egg layers

Except in eggs, Anglo-Saxons like brown eggs for some reason.

The Yalumba wine is fortified (~17%) and very rich and unlike any most Old World muscats in many ways, so if might be a little powerful for many fruit tarts. Tarte Tatin should be no problem though, so enjoy. Catalan Creme, Mexican flan or Sticky toffee puddings are another good match. Bummer about the dairy through.

Adam, thanks for the more precise info. It's ironic that down through history, the gentrification of dress, cuisine (including bread), religion and race have often involved the "purification" of color. White is also an archetypal attribute of death. Go figure. ← Yes, one must wonder what your paternal ancestors were thinking when they changed their name from Browning? I wonder if the preference in colour reflects the swinging of the pendulum between austerity and romanticism in anyway?

They are called 'Pomfret' when you can get them. These are Silver pomfret Pampus argenteus.

And there’s the check-out counter, behind an ever-changing array of wild and tame mushrooms, including the portobello, Ah, there’s a story. I’m told that the name was a PR invention, designed to sell large brown mushrooms for which there had been no market. Everything is marketing. Portobello/Chestnut/Cremini is the remarketing of the older brown strain of the gilled mushroom Agaricus bisporus. This strain fell out of fashion after the development and hugely successful marketing of the white strain ("champignon de Paris") in the 1920's. What ever the market name I am glad they are back as they have more flavor then the white strain. It is odd to think that many of the classic dishes that use these as a ingredient or garnish, most likely didn't use the flavor lacking white strain at all. Excellent images, I look forward to more installments - especially regarding pressure cookers as I have the same model.

No the translation is correct, these are traditional to the area and similar to some of the cooker germanic type sausages. Both Turin and Asti have specific types, which contain cabbage, spices and herbs.

- That's high praise, many thanks By 'really big', how big do you mean?What recipe do you use for your pastry? What are the factors that affect shortness in a hot water crust? ← The biggest I have made was about 40 cm wide, but they can be made much bigger. The trick is to make a large sugar loaf shape (a round ended cone shape) of the dough, then cut the top on third off (to make into the lid). For the pie body you punch you hand into the middle and start drawing it out and froming a pie shape (a lot like making a pot). When it gets to the shape you want, fill it up, put the lid on and let it set hard before cooking. You can eat the crust, but it is really just there as protection for the filling. I am not a pastry person, but in my experience the thing that effected shortness of the pastry the most was the amount of water added. To little and the dough fails as it too short and 'sandy'. I imagine that the water is important to get the gluten network to form (this could be bollocks though). An example: Hannah Glasse’s "The Art of Cookery". Yorkshire Christmas Pie FIRST make a good standing crust, let the wall and bottom be very thick; bone a turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge, and a pigeon. Season them all very well, take half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of nutmegs, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, and half an ounce of black pepper, all beat fine together, two large spoonfuls of salt, and then mix them together. Open the fowls all down the back, and bone them; first the pigeon, then the partridge, cover them; then the fowl, then the goose, and then the turkey, which must be large; season them all well first, and lay them in the crust, so as it will look only like a whole turkey; then have a hare ready cased, and wiped with a clean cloth. Cut it to pieces; that is, joint it; season it, and lay it as close as you can on one side; on the other side woodcocks, moor game, and what sort of wild fowl you can get. Season them well, and lay them close; put at least four pounds of butter into the pie, then lay on your lid, which must be a very thick one, and let it be well baked. It must have a very hot oven, and will take at least four hours. More pie stuff - scroll down to see the Yorkshire Pie

Last night I made Zabaione (orZabaglione, actually "L' Sanbajon" in dilect it seems). Was great. However, a tip for idiots like me. Made with 8 egg yolks, 75 gm of sugar and 250 mls of wine, this mix to too thick to successfully squirt out of a iSi Gourmet whip after chilling for a few hours.

Another issue is that increasingly fish stocks are being reduced to the point that some species that most people would not be able to put a name to at all, are on the cusp of commercial extinction and potentially real extiction. BBC article

Oh. They are really common up here, the supermarkets (Tesco and Sainsbury) even sells them. A £3-4 a kilo, people buy them for there dogs to chew on. Fancy that. Will have to cook them now I guess.

Right this is the ingredients for a stew I made a while back, on the left of the plate is a Scottish cut of meat known as "Boiling Beef" or sometimes "Boiling Flank". As you can see they are layered and have ribs in them, are these the same or similar to "Short Ribs"? If so that would be nice as they are about the cheapest cut of meat we can get. Good for stock, but I usually don't eat the meat it self.

Excellent looking pie! This demo wonderful, better then the one in "Time-Life. Terrines, Pates & Galantines", and very few people in the last 30 years have managed that. A traditional variation is to put a layer of apple in, which is nice, but the pie doesn't store as long. If I ever get the time for yet another cooking project, I will do a demo on how to make really big free standing hot water crust pies.

Canard a l'aigre-doux I think that this used sour cherries. Soupe Brejauda Sounds very like the Piedemonte dish being discussed on the Italian board.

Finding a good chicken (or cock) for stock is near impossible for me. Either the chicken that is worth the effort is far to expensive to make into stock or the other option is to buy and old chicken from the Chinese grocer, but I can't bring myself cook a chcicken that is obviously ex-battery hen form it's appearance. What I wouldn't give for one of these guys. For what it is worth I quite like beef stock for a base in soups. Goes well with sherry.

I have seen Moon-fish for sale now and agian in Melbourne, but they are not common at all (being by- or accidental catch). I can't remember having eaten it though. In regards to crayfish/crawfish/yabbies etc. I think that freshness is the key, I would only ever buy them alive. Different types have different amounts of tail meat and they taste differs from species to species, but the cooking is pretty much the same. Boil briefly is water/stock/wine, peel the tails and eat. You can make excellent sauces from the heads and shells, but I haven't worked out how to keep the quality of the tail meat intact while doing this. So when you have these guys, the choice is tail meat or use them to make a sauce. In the UK sandwich shops sell red clawed/signal crafish meat imported from China frozen or otherwise preserved. This is flavourless and doesn't really do justice to the flavour of the beasts.

Yes I used swedes/rutabaga as the type we get in Scotland are very large and sweet, so better for this recipe then the white turnip which can be quite bitter (the local ones that is). Also "Swedes" are called "Turnips" (or even "Neeps") in Scotland, so I can get away with the subsitute on a linguisitic basis also. It really is a wondrful dish and I would recomend it for any rich meat dish, especially duck, goose and pork. A recipe can be found in Anne Willan's excellent "French Regional Cooking".

OK then. The regional dishes I know from this area are; farcidure, madeleines, broccana, clafoutis, brejauna, some hare dishes, canard a l'aigre-doux, numerous beef dishes. This is from the books I have on hand, I will do some more research on the area and list others

From whence comes this particular recipe? I'm always looking for ways to convert the turnip haters & this looks fabulous! ← As the name suggest, the recipe is from Colmar, which is the major city in the best wine producing country in Alsace. Or to be more exact, it is in the valley and the wine producing villages are up in the hills. In my mid-20's I backpacked around the wine producing regions of France, and the village in Alsace I really wanted to visit was Ribeauville. In the middle of december there are only a few local trains per day to the Ribeauville station from Colmar. This train I managed to catch, unfortunately the Ribeauville station is in the valley, some miles away from village it self. So I walked into town and as it was -15.C I nearly froze solid in the end. However, the food I ate in the tavern there is some of the best I had on that trip.

I was flicking through a French regional cookbook and found a description of a dish which is very similar to Valpellinentze. It is from Cantal and is called "Soupe aux choux et au fromage de Cantal". This is described as a cabbage, potato and bacon soup with layers of rye bread and and Cantal cheese. I wonder how wide spread this dish now.

This is all very good advise, thank you all. Lucy- the tourist bureau idea is very good and not something that I would have thought of doing on line. After my trip to Lithuania I decided that next time I travel to a region where I don't speak the language, that I would hire a translator to help me out at the local markets, but the on-line idea is very good. I also have a couple of good French friends, one from Bordeaux and one from the Dauphine. These are obviously another good source of information. I think that rather then try to cover too much in a superficial way, prehaps it would be better to concentrate on a specific region for a while. After all there are many recipes within a region and they vary a great deal from village to village. I will have a think about what region to look at in detail, but at the moment I am thinking of looking at The Centre (Limousin to Bourbonnais, Berry to Cantal) as this region is a bit of a unknow to me.

Hopefully, that's not what Balic has on backorder . . . ← Nope, I fisnished all my French donkey meat a while ago.

Hey, nice looking dish. I'm guessing that it is not a dish that generate good left overs though. That black kale looks very similar (OK identical) to cavalo nero, which is a very common winter veg in Tuscany.

OK, this is my first effort. Choucroute de navets a'la Colmar The turnip are cut into sticks and salted. This can be done for 3 weeks or so, which means you will get lactic acid fermentation etc or you can do what I have done and salt it overnight with juniper berries and pepper. After salting they are well washed and at this stage they are flexible, but not mushy. Onions are cooked in lard until softened and golden Now the washed and drained turnips are added, along with white wine to cover, juniper berries, bay leaves and some pepper. This is simmered until the liquid is absorbed and the turnips begin to fry. This can also be done in the oven. When cooked they can be served with ham, sausages, game or bacon. The flavour is buttery slightly acid with the resinous taste of the juniper berries. In this case I served it with some boiled and glazed wild boar gammon that I had. A really nice dish.

I think that I now know why you have never had a non-heavy steamed pudding . In Australia we have an old fashioned pudding called "Golden syrup dumplings" which is basically scone dough poached in golden syrup and butter and is similarly rib sticking. If I create a 'pudding thread' would it be OK to copy this recipe over? ← what are you saying? you're not clear. marlena a treacle sponge recipe note: i have one in the steamer right now. when i was making the sponge i added 3 tablespoons instead of the 1 to 2 that the recipe initially called for. it should be ready in.....about 15 minutes, its bubbling and steaming away. the sponge seemed light and fluffy; i tasted the batter on my finger of course. it was delicious: i licked the spoon and the bowl too. i almost didn't want to put the batter into the pudding bowl. further note: i made the whole thing in the food processor. i might eschew a microwave, but i love my food processor. ← Eh, just that I though I now knew what you meant when you said "But I've never eaten a light steamed pudding." as the recipe will be quite rich.