Adam Balic

Yep. I have had a similar drink/dessert in Venice made with grappa and lemon gelato.

OK this is a breakdown of ED's 'most successful' recipe: 1 lb strong plain flour 1/2 oz yeast 1 level tavlespoon salt 1/2 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons of fat (butter, lard or olive oil) ~3/4 pint (420 gm) of milk mixed with water rice flour for dusting Weight out flour place in an oven proof bowl and put into a low oven to warm (285F) for ten minutes. When the flour is warm stir in the salt and creamed yeast, then add the liquids (milk and fat). Mix the dough with a wooden spoon until elastic (it will be too soft to hand knead). Place in a covered bowl and allow to rise for 50 minutes. Break down the dough and divide into portions, gently mould these in to muffins and place on a rice flour dusted non-stick sheet. Dust again. Cover with a sheet of plastic and allow to rise until volume is recovered about 35 minutes. Cook on a non-stick griddle (or frying pan) over a low heat. They should take 8-10 minutes for each side. If you do this in batches, keep them warm in the oven. She thinks that it is the pre-warming of the flour and the oil that gives them there correct texture. The dusting with starch (in this case corn flour) is essential as it dries out the surface. Good luck!

These are Barley Bannocks made on a griddle, very little gluten in this flour, and you still get bubbles. These are cooked on a very low heat and the holes form very slowly. For muffins E.D. says similar things about the dough, if you want holes it has to be treated gently and a few of the details which I forget. I will look up the book for you tonight and see what she has to say.

Crumpets and muffins [English] were pretty much the same item, the major difference being the stiffness of the dough. Crumpets are mostly made with a ring as it is more liquid. Both had largish holes. Commercially produced English muffins in the UK now lack this quality and are pretty much just a bread dough with no real 'holes' to speak of, not really like the origianl product at all. In the USA there are several makers of English Muffins, which are much more like the original model in that they contain large holes. Ironically, most Englsih peole would not recognise these as being [English] muffins now. A lot more information on this subject and recipes for both can be found in "English Bread and Yeast Cooking" by Elizabeth David.

Yes, but they are made from sweet potato as the texture of the UK pumpkin is not good enough for this type of thing (without lime treatment maybe). Essentially, cut up veg into cubes, place in a saucepan and cover with an equal amount of sugar, leave overnight. This will draw out a lot of liquid. The next day heat to dissolve the sugar and turn up the heat to boil for 15 minutes. Leave overnight. Repeat this for 4 days. At this point the veg (or fruit, this is a common technique for producing candied fruits) the veg will be impregnated with sugar and quite translucent/bright. Yu can leave them in syrup or dry them and surgar coat them as I have. One think that is not stated enough in the Mexican cookbooks I have read is just how important the initial frying of the sauce is for removing the bitterness. It was only a passing comment by Ranch-Gordo that alerted me to this fact.

I made this Mole over the weekend for a Day of the Dead/Halloween meal. I made a few commnents there, but one thing that really struck me wa how simple preparing the Mole is, although there are a few pit-falls. Sure the list of ingredients is long, but most of these are regular pantry items. The most important tip I got was from Rancho-Gordo a while back, when he commeneted that the frying of chile pastes is important to remove bitter flavours. I have found this to be so and I think that getting this step correct is important to getting the sauce to work out.

I have to agree with Kevin on the inside-out nature of the saltimbocca. It would be just as accurate to say that it was inspiered by the technique used to produce a ham sandwich. Most fish roll things I am aware of don't require the wrapping Involtini di Pesce Spada for example.

I was thinking about pancakes recently and came to the conclusion that hearth/griddle cakes in one form or another are likely to be the most widely distributed food type on the planet and are also very likely to be one of the oldest cooked products. I thought that it might be interesting to make a note of the types people are aware of. Muffins ("English"), crumpets and pikelets are essentially regional variations on the same product (Hearth/Griddle cakes), although there is obviously some differentiation in form. In the UK, the muffin and the crumpet were originally very similar, a slightly firner dough produces the crumpet and the wetter dough supported by a ring produces the crumpet It is difficult to recognise this now as the commercially produce Englsih muffins are now very bready in internal texture. I believe that there is an American producer of Englsih muffins who produce an product with is more similar to the original.Crumpets in this part of Scotland come as both the 'English form' and a much wider and flatter local type, being very similar to what I would call a pikelet or drop scone, except the crumpets are much bigger and full of holes. These are some barley bannocks I made recently. Scotland has a mill that still grinds this meal, which is great as it is very tasty. As the flour is so low in gluten, if you cook them slowly you get a similar effect to a crumpet (cooked in rings) or and identical effecdt to the Scottish crumpet. Some Middle-Eastern pancakes are made in the same way, but are only cooked on one side then stuffed. In some cases they are then fried as well.

OK some comments and images. First - Boo! My "Shrine". You will have to imagine it with the lights turned off. Note the use of a Greek symbol for death (top left of first image - Globe basil plant) A very poor shot of the 'pumpkin' candy Red Snapper en Mac-Cum. Really rather good, I will make this again. It reminds me of some Middle-Eastern dishes. It would make a great tagine with fish Kofta for instance. The Mole Poblano de Guajolote. I imagine it is ment to be smoother, but there you go. Excellent stuff, I am going to make large batches of it and freeze it. You know the list of ingredients is long, but it is very easy to make. The only really issue I can see is lack of balance if you are not careful and overt bitterness if you don't fry it off correctly. I think that this sauce would work very well with venison after a little tweaking. The birds. These are a mixture of pheasant and grey and red leg partridge. These were a mistake as while they would be fine as a gussied up restuarant dish or a more intimate meal, they are simply too difficult for people to deal with in a setting like this. I imagine that some of the people at the meal are not sure about game and covering them in a blanket of sauce doesn't help either. Didn't think this one through, I am an idiot. Mancha Manteles de Cerdo (Pork Table Cloth Stainer). I can see were it gets its name, although it should be called 'Range and Kitchen surface stainer' as it really does splatter. I think that people though that this was the best dish of the evening and it is nice as the fruit (pineapple, banana, pear) tone down the richeness of the sauce and make the stew interesting. In the background you can see some refried beans cooking. These were crab-eye beans cooked with a serrano ham knuckle, lard, onion, garlic and epazote. Cactus paddle salad The Flan. You can see how firm it is in this shot, no need to faff about with the pressure cooker. Very, very rich though. That's it really. What an interesting and exciting cuisine. One thing that I noticed is how when you strip away the exotic ingrdients, many of the sauces are very similar in concept to Medieval European (some extant dishes) and extant Middle-Eastern and Asian dishes, in that they are a liquid base thickens with nut/seeds and flavoured with spice etc to achieve a layered effect in the taste profile. I think that I will have to play around with this now.

This is all very true, but part of the issue that is not being addssed by Clear labeling etc, is the type of confusion that occured on this site (this thread even). The word "Port" means specific things to different groups of people and it is quite common in discussions for people not to add "Product of California" to comments like "I had a lovely Port the other day". Mostly this doesn't matter, but I can see a clear case where the Oporto based wine producers will want to protect the image of their product. I cannot stand Zinfandel. If the first port I tasted was Zinfandel based it is unlikely that I would try another Port again. If the bottle is clearly labelled this shouldn't be an issue, but people don't always communicate all information when they are having a casual discussion, like the cases on this site. Furthermore, according to Portugal's Port Wine Institute the USA takes about 4.4% of the total Port (Oporto) market, so small potatoes. Internationally, I would be wanting to protect my brand in the countries that take a larger share of the market, so why wouldn't they insist on re-branding of non-Oporto products, especially given the points discussed above?

Another oldish Rum drink, this time from 19th century Anglo-Indian Calcutta. The drink is called a "Flash" and is equal parts rum mixed with lemon ice and then topped off with ginger beer. You are advised to drink it while it fizzes, hence the 'flash' I guess.

Well in the end I couldn't get the lime (Calcium Hydroxide) on time, although I now have a very good idea of what chemicals are sold in various ethnic food stores, some very useful if illegal. So I made the candy out of sweet potato, which holds its texture better thn the watery squash that the British have. I have photographs of all this that I will post later, but the menu was: Salsa (cooked chili, fresh tomato, salsa verde, guacamole) with tortilla chips and a cocktail from Southern Spain (similar to a Mojito, but the sparklig water is replaced with Cava). Red snapper baken in a Yucatan sauce (marinated with Seville orange juice, cumin, oregano and annatto, topped with tomatos, green onions and coriander in the last 15 minutes) *Mole with pheasant and partridge (grey and red legged). *Pork table-cloth stainer Re-fried beans, cactus paddle salad, jicama salad, soft tortilla. Crepes stuffed with with milk candy and toasted pecans Flan** I have difficulty giving not doing all the cooking myself, so I ran out of time to make tamales and bread of the dead. * The meat dishes were interesting as the chile combination is similar (mulato, pastilla, ancho), but the final flavours are very different due to the other additives. I was amazed by the Mole (will have to look back at my notes to work out the exact type), really complex and layered flavours, the spices were excellent as you get the initial flavour of cassia (which is always in the background), but the orange flavours of the corinader seeds come out at the end to live up the palate, so that it doesn't become boring. Not really sure why people refer to this as a 'chocolate' sauce as this is really a background note (a minor ingredient in the recipe I used). **The Flan recipe was excellent. I saw it on a TV show while I was in Lithuania. Two tins of condensed milk and two tins of whole milk, infuse this for an hour with a vanilla pod and the zest of two limes. Filter and mix with six eggs (temper first etc) bake in a covered water bath for ~ 1 hour. Very rich, but good.

Burgundy? Sherry? Malmsey? I would think that if the terms were still commericially important, the terms "Claret" and "Hock" would also be protected at point of origin.

I think that there are some valid points yu have made, but one of the issues with nomeclature that these threads has raised is that non-Americans find the use of the word "Port" to be confusing, obviously this isn't going to be such an issue in a wine producing country where the mind set is likely to be Port - local or imported?". I'm afraid I automatically think of Port as being the product from Portugal. As far as I know no or little of the American product is imported here on any large basis.. Now the thing is I am Australian and Australia has a longer continuous histrory of producing fortified wines in bulk, including Port styles. While we may have refered to these products as "port" for the last 150 years or so, I don't think that there is any serious issue with dropping this in favour of less confusing terminology (on the international market). It's not a big deal. "Vintage Port" becomes "Vintage fortified Shiraz (or other grape variety), Penfold's Grandfather Port becomes "Penfolds Grandfather Liqueur Tawny". As excellent as the Australian products are (and they are great), they are have their own identities and are definately not the Portuguese product. I actually, think that the re-naming is a good oppertunity to establish there own market and identity. So for me at least it isn't an issue of snobbery, it is an issue of reducing confusion.

I imagine that the original ajvar were dominated by eggplant as the older varieties are quite seedy and when prepared they may have a passing resemblance to real caviar (there are Englsih language recipes for Eggplant dips called "Poor Man's Caviar"). Variations off this root are easy to imagine (e.g. eggplat crop fails, make "caviar" from 100% peppers). As you can see from this Balkan supply store, even the products that contain eggplant are often pepper dominated.

Yes, the fat is userly more distributed as you say, but this one was a little different, maybe as it was a small producer? Does the USA allow import of meat goods like salami? Not the case in Australia, so I guess I assumed the same for the USA. Hell, I send you some the next time I am there if that is the case. Natural light or photoshop does the trick. A pity about the boar, but I have found that there is a big difference between the wild hunted stuff in Tuscany and the farmed Wild boar we get in Scotland, the latter is very mild, more so the domestic pork, the former can be quite gamey (I guess this comes down to sex, age and diet). So if you have access to good pork, try some of the wild boar recipes, especially some of the richer recipes, like the sweet and sour sauce with chocolate. You know, I wish I had been smart enough to have thought of doing this project of yours. Your cooking just gets better and better and I am in awe of you bread making skills.

Elie - I have looked up some more information on this product. In Serbo-Croat is is called "ajvar ljuti od paprika, in other words "hot pepper caviar". Tonight for dinner I tried a relish I bought in Lithuania and, yep another variation. Stupidly, I didn't get the name, but from the taste I am guessing that it has a little bit of horse raddish added, a nice variation.

It was a cheap joke at the expense of the Brits, which is fine as my response was a cheap joke at the expense of the Yanks. ← I see. Thankfully everybody loves Australians (even ones that are about to become British . I will let you know if the quality of my cooking declines at this point).

No, but I am pig sick of lazy generalisations about the food in this country. ← I dunno, DEFRA statistics aren't lazy generalisations and what they say is that in the last decade there has been an increase of "Ready meals & convenience meat products" eaten at home (from 133 gm per person per week to 198). Red meat, poultry and fish consumption remains steady, veg and fruit decline. 60 or so grams per week may not sound like a lot, but as a trend it is very interesting. Given all the food programs and food press over the last decade I am surprised that less British people are cooking at home then a decade ago. Mind you, I have been here five years and I would say that those of us that are cooking are cooking better (better range and quality of products) now. DEFRA From the DEFRA site: "Household consumption of beef and veal fell by 8.5 per cent in 2001/02. Consumption of lamb, mutton and pork remained at a similar level to 2000/01. There was reduced household consumption of uncooked poultry (-11 per cent) and bacon and ham (-9.8 per cent). Consumption of meat-based ready meals, including takeaways consumed in the household, increased by 15 per cent in comparison to 2000/01, which represents a 70 per cent increase compared to 1996/97. Household consumption of fish and fish products fell by 4.1 per cent in 2001/02. Overall consumption of fresh, frozen and dried fish remains similar to the previous year. Consumption of fresh, chilled or frozen white fish has declined by 21.7 per cent since 1996/97. Egg consumption rose by 1.9 per cent in 2001/02. "

Excellent recipes, thank you very much. I make Spekkoek for a Dutch co-worker's birthday and this was great and quite simple to do as well.

The article is a bit lame, it presentd GR's typical personal observation taken to an extreme, then countered it with 1) He is well known for making similar statements before, 2) two comments from female cooks. No attempt to find out if there is any truth to the claim or if it highlights a issue in the UK (given the recent School Dinners issue, you would think this would be picked up). But the articles job was well done as it is sold papers, which is the bottom line. As it happens I know more British men that cook then women, but have always assumed that this is because women only want me, while it is the me that want to be me.

Dude[ette] I work and cook, my missus doesn't cook much (although can and very well, it is just that I like doing it). Having a career certainly makes it more difficult (for either sex), but doesn't make it impossible. Possibly modern lifestyles break means that only those that like to cook will. Nothing wrong with that (unless you get to the stage we the UK is were utter shite is being fed to kids at home and school). One thing I have noticed is that many friends are intimidated by cooking and feel that it it doesn't look like a food porn shot then they somehow did something wrong.

Pecorino Senese/Senesi? It has a red rind from being rubbed with tomato paste (formally sheeps blood). Hey, your lucky to be getting all that, I have trouble getting it without traveling there. Absolutely the best finnochiona I have had was produced from the Cinta Senese breed of pig. The fat in this was as soft as butter and not cut up too fine. Guess you can't get this in the States? Nice picture, I had no idea that Texans were so competitive?

Cool, this is also very common thoughout the Balkans (I assumed it was Turkish in origin ), in some regions it is served with most meals. There is a variation on the recipe with eggplants as well as peppers and this is called "ajvar", which I think is a dilect word for caviar.

...and we're all deeply impressed by mom's apple pie over here of course. Run me through the entire canon of American home cooking not derived from your British ancestors would you, I've got 30 seconds to spare. ← Andy are you saying that the British are a nation of cooks? (Cue:Theme music; Jamies's School Dinners). Grandma Pickles (yes, it's true) made (actually still makes) excellent scones, rice pudding, roast dead things and tea. But the entire canon of Australian home cooking has moved on a bit. I have some British friends that cook, very well in fact, but I'm not sure that it is that common. Do you have access to those types of Stats, I have looked at the home office records a few times*, but it isn't very well organised. * Got off my arse and did it myself. Stats found here. In 2002/2003 the average UK weekly household budget was £42.70. Oddly enough, while the lowest 10% of wage earners spent £21 the highest 10% spent only £67. Good God I spend much more money on my weekly food budget then the upper 10% of wage earners!