Adam Balic

From another Evil Genius: Ha ha ha, oh my God! I almost didn't do it, I almost didn't do it! I thought, is this in bad taste? But you know what, I went for it. I went for it and I'm so glad I did! Ooooh, worth it, totally worth it.

The ladle thing is also suggested in English texts, but I have not done this. I might if I make a quaking pudding or other similar tender pudding though. The Germans still make a hugh range of excellent puddings/dumplings, I especially like the apple versions. This a "Clootie Dumpling" from my recent Highland trip. A "Cloot" is the Scottish for "Cloth". It looks like a Christmas pudding but is much lighter in texture and less rich. Absolutely delicious too.

Hey, I asked for the cheek! It was about as big as my fist. "Matchboos" sounds interesting, is it like a pilau?

One last image from Hydra. These large grouper were the 'surprise' mains from the conference dinner. Normally, I wouldn't eat large slow growing, increasingly rare fish, but they were dead so I did. My portion had the texture and flavor of milk fed veal, others were not so lucky and got a large portion of fish fat....

*Groan* you mean there's a technique to this? Here I was, all set to try something 'foolproof'. Care to share the secrets ahead of time, or do we have to find all the pitfalls the hard way? ← Nah, it is easy. I have put a demo of pudding cloth cooking on the end of this thread.

OK a demo in producing a pudding in a cloth. Pre-modern ranges much cooking was either done over an open fire or slightly later and enclosed firebox. Meat was roasted on a spit in front of the fire (meat cooking in an oven is "Baked"), or boiled in a large pot over the fire. Puddings were originally cooked in animal guts, as they make good, cheap, readily availble vessels. These guts either gave you long sausages of various lengths (using the intestines) or a round pudding (if using the stomach for instance). The haggis is the last British version of one of these early boil in the stomach puddings. Sometime during the 16-17th century the stomach was replaced to a large extent with a cloth. It has been suggested that this was to avoid the fllavors associated with the gut, but it is equally likely that people wil less access to guts were now making puddings and neaded a replacement. Even until quite recently Sussex was known as the region in England where this practice was cooomon and even gave its name many of these puddings boiled in a cloth. "Sussex Pond Pudding" is still popular with people that like to make "Traditional English Food", the modern versions is now made in a bowl and contains a whole lemon with a butter/sugar sauce. The "Pond" is said to be the butter sugar sauce that runs out of the pudding when cut. This is a 17th century version, the oldest I have found, you can see that the pond was originally something quite different. From “The Queen Like Closet” by Hannah Wolley, 1672. "To make a Sussex Pudding Take a little cold cream, butter and flower, with some beaten spice, eggs, and a little salt. Make them into a stiff paste, then make them into a round ball, and you mold it, put in a piece of butter in the middle; and so tye it hard up in a buttered cloth, and put it into boiling water, and let it boil apace till it be enough then serve it in, and garnish your dish with barberries; when it is at the table cut it open at the top, and there will be as it were a pound ["pond"] of butter, then put rosewater and sugar into it and so eat it. In some of this like paste you may wrap great apples, being pared whole, in one piece of thin paste, and so close it round the apple, and through them into boiling water, and let them boil till enough, you may also put some green gooseberries into some, and when wither of these are boiled, cut them open and put in rosewater butter and sugar." First the cloth, I use a good grade of calico, the cloth is first boiled for a few minutes then well floured to water proof the container. I have departed from the pastry in the origianl as I am not great with pastry, I find it easier to get a lighter pastry with suet, so instead of an all butter pastry I use a 50:50 blend of the two. Butter is frozen then coarsely grated. Fats are mixed with dry ingredients, then made up into a firm, but not crumbly dough. The dough is placed on the floured cloth, which is put into a bowl (which makes it easier to shape the pudding). As you can see I am making the apple version. I depart from the recipe in a few ways, first I stuff the apple with mince meat (Francatelli's 19th century lemon mince meat, now a year ols the best I have come across) and I use orange water, not rose water to flavour the apple. The apple is completely enclosed in the pastry, excess is squeezed off (I have taken it out of the cloth to demonstate this), then firmly tied up and boiled for about two hours. Always put a plate in the bottom of the pot to prevent the pudding from burning on the bottom. After two hours the pudding is turned out, as you can see it is an unattractive blob, so while not mentioned in this recipe I have glazed it with sugar, which wa a common practice with dumplings. Suet pudding crusts are very light, anybody that thinks they are stodgy has not had a well made version. It takes a light hand and boiling in a pudding cloth produces a lighter textured crust then using a pudding bowl.

Dude, there is pig skin and there is 'crispy crackling' (I forgive you for being an Texan and all and not being able to make the distinction). With all due respect to Alberto's wrath, while the cuts of pork may contain skin, they seems to be some effort made to remove it and use it in stews etc, rather then cook it correctly. I'm sure that there will be regional dishes in Italy. In Burgundy I was in one village that makes a savoury brioche that contains bits of pre-crisped pig skin.

You need to visit Europe again - Land of Pork Skin Products Back on topic - aside from porchetta, the Italians don't seem to be so keen on pork skin IMO, sound about right to you?

What, what, what! No skin on USA pork WTF is that about? Sausage I can deal with, I like sausage and it sounds like a good idea. But no terracotta coloured crisp crackling, busting with crunchy piggy deliciousness is plain wrong - not matter what Noel Coward has to say about it Any part of the piggy Is quite alright with me. Ham from Westphalia, ham from Parma Ham as lean as the Dalai Lama Ham from Virginia, ham from York, Trotters, sausages, hot roast pork. Crackling crisp for my teeth to grind on Bacon with or without the rind on Though humanitarian I'm not a vegetarian. I'm neither a crank nor prude nor prig And though it may sound infra dig Any part of the darling pig Is perfectly fine by me.

Man, you are such a tease. Now I think we need to discuss Porchetta. As far as I recall it is common in Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio, but most likely originated in Marche. A basic recipe is a bone pig stuffed with wild fennel and garlic, moistened with white wine. A variation in Tuscany I like is to include corinader seeds and fennel seeds in the stuffing. But, I haven't seen a recipe for Porchetta that includes sausage in the stuffing. Do you know how wide spread this is? I love Porchetta.

Kevin - you food just looks better and better and it always looked good. Q: Have just got a copy of "The Splendid Table" by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and are rapidly concluding that it is one of the best cookbooks I have. Have you cooked from it and if so what are your impressions?

Excellent, I am looking forward to this. Re:Halloween, I love the fact that pre-Americanisantion of the event, swedes were carved as Jack-o-lanterns, you still see then for sale at the supermarkets where they look like Mexican day of the dead sugar skulls. Did you ever carve a skull from a swede blinky?

del Conte mentions that the pasta sheets are more common, but the potato dough is method that her mother prefered. I have stumpy fingers, so I prefer the pasta dough. Cooking in a cloth is easy, once you master the technique............

Thanks. That name is "Rotolo di Patate e Spinici" and is based on a recipe from Anna del Conte. I should repeat that it has to be made ahead of time so that it can be successfully sliced.

The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy By: Odile Redon, et al. Looks interesting, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery By: Sri Owen. Have wnated this fantastic book for a long time Splendid Table: 500 Years of Eating in Northern Italy By: L.R. Kasper. Wow, what a wonderful book, pity about the quality of the photgraphs.

They look great, what would the basic sambal recipe be, I have one for cuttlefish, but that sauce looks a little more orange?

I bought back some raki/tsipouro that was produced in Crete. Triple distilled, so quite smooth compared to the Raki I am use to from Croatia. On the island I drank Ouzo until it came out my pores.

It would be better if it was a suet crust and filled with liver and bacon .

Actually most of the cats were pretty scrawny, but here is more well fed one that has managed to steal about €40 worth of scorpianfish.

A stuffed pasta that is almost English...."Spinach roll" (will look up the Italian name later. Basically, a thin sheet of potato gnocchi dough (lighted with a pinch of baking soda) is rolled out on a pudding cloth and covered with filling, in this case procuitto, spinach and cheeses. This is then rolled up to enclose the filling. Boiled for ~ 40 minutes, and allowed to completely cool. It is then sliced and browned in the oven with sage butter and parmesan. Pretty simple and it can be made will ahead of time. It is also nice when stuffed with left over ragu or other meat stews.

Speaking of Portugal I have one of those copper cooking vessels of yours on order, tah! Cuttlefish is my favorite fish. The water was like crystal, never seen such good visability. There were few fish about, but by the time I had finished cracking open sea urchins and turning over boulders, I had a cloud of adoring fish following me about, including some large (40 cm) bream that came up out of the deeper water.

Corinna - not actually I didn't so I am not sure that the Greeks use the zucchini in this manner. These were large zucchini, so difficult to get the fruit and the flower cooked at the same time.

Many fish images on my Hydra thread.

The crab looks amazing, what would be a typical recipe for the balitong?

Oddly enough, given the amount of bakeries about there were very few pastry desserts offered at the local tavernas. Desserts were either fruit or basic tourist stuff like creme caramel. This is a local cressant from a local bakery. Delicious, from the flavour and texture it contained butter, rice flour and was flavoured with mastic. Excellent with Ouzo whioe reading about Greek Myths and Legends...