Adam Balic

These. They were a popular souring agent in the UK. I stole the image from this recent discussion. Barberries.

Adam, what did you use as a mould? What did you line the mould with? It really looks very good. Care to share the recipe? ← No mould, this is all chicken. The contrast on this photo is a little off I think. Basically, lay out the boned chicken on cheese cloth, fill roll and poach. Place under a weight when cooked. It is a corn fed chicken, so the yellow edge is actually the skin. edit: Eh, I just made it and didn't bother with writing down the recipe, but is a pretty basic chicken mousse (chicken, cream, eggs) flavoured with this and that. This is kind of a bad example as it is used odd ingredients, but I would be happy to make something similar and take some photographs if you like?

They can be as simple or as complex as you like. The galantine above is basically a de-boned chicken filled with a forcemeat of pureed chicken, cream and eggs. After that it is rolled in cheesecloth etc and poached. This is really easy. The fun is choosing the extra bits for colour, texture and flavour. An the really good bit is that you can make them well in advance. Or if you live in Paris you don't even have to make them at all!

I was just trying to find details on this book. It is one of the best I have seen on the subject. The funny think is that I also have my eye on the stuffed boars head. I even have access to the boar. Now all I have to do is get a different set of less squeamish friends then I can do it....

Ah, this (or something similar) is in the TIME-LIFE 'terrine' book, so I will try this soon.

I think that the squid is actually a blue ringed octopus. These are quite small and very pretty (although you have to poke them a bit to get the colours to develop). I have only ever seen them once in Victoria, but in this case every second rock had one. Locally common. Snakes are not really a major issue in Melbourne, we had then quite often in the backyard (in the countryside), but they most slither away if they see you. I have even stood on one and it didn't bite. There are numerous marketes in Melbourne, but I think that the Queen Victoria Market is the most fun. Good for everything. The even sell yabbies and live eels.

Another one. These are leftovers, so not the best cut. Basically trout and cod surrounded by a forcemeat baked in brioche dough. Foe reasons I can't explain the oven turned itself off in the first 10 minutes, I was too stupid to notice, so the brioch isn't as light as I would have liked. I am going to the Leeds Food Symposium tomorrow. I am making another historic british thing, sort of a beef terrine. I will try to take photgraphs of this as well.

I absolutely love making terrines/galantines. Due to my location (Scotland), I have mostly made game terrines. Aside from the French ones I have made various British relatives too (potted meats, pies etc). One thing that I would like to know is what base do people thing is best for fish terrines? I mostly use cream and egg to set the fish proteins, but find that this can be a bit dry. This galantine is based on a 17th century English recipe. Chicken, herbs, artichokes, nuts, barberries, flavoured with nutmeg and ginger.

Carswell - I agree with your points. Infact I once asked a winemaker how they managed to get such high alcohol wines when the yeast shouldn't survive >14%. He said that the just 'chucked a few more handfuls in' and that the fresh yeast survived enough to bump up alcohol content a notch or two. In principle, I can't see while perfectly good wine couldn't be make with a higher percentage of alcohol, there are plently of examples of good wine (Amarone, Rhone, Shiraz), but in practice.... And also this is going to depend on the particular wine/grape variety in question too. But at the end of the day, it is the variety of wines that interest me and I am against things that increases that amount of homogenous blah wines.

I can't help you with that exact question, but it would be interesting to know. I think that the issue is complicated by the fact that it wasn't one way traffic, some of the pasta in the far east are throught to have Persian roots via the Arabs and Mongols.

Yesterday: Lamb souvlaki with salad and garlic sauce. Tonight: Boston Hotpot. A traditional English dish from Bolton-le-Moor (now just called Bolton I think). Lamb, onions, mushrooms, kidneys, oysters and potato. The oysters completely disolve and act as a flavour enhancer (possibly due to glutamate?), the lamb remains very pink using this vessel to cook with. Served with roast parsnips, mint peas and sauted turnips.

According to the OED, "Arak" (and variations) comes from the Arabic araq which means juice or sweat, in terms of the alcohlic drink, possibly araq-at-tamr which is 'juice of dates. There are lots of very early English references, I guess the swedish sailors brought back the idea for the drink?

I would second the Bertani comments, excellent wines. I have also enjoyed dry sherry with food many times, no obvious alcohol burn etc. I would think that it would be a case by case basis, although I'm not a fan of >15% dry reds in general (too many zinfandels). Not that there will be many in this range, given the limitations of the yeast. Over all balance is more important then a strict reading of the alcohol content to me I think.

Absolutely. Given the popularity of the book, I wonder how many of "grandma's secret recipes" are actually derived from this book? I used Marcella Hazan's cook books for the first time recently. I thought that they were very good, but some for the recipes looked to have been parred down to the very basics, which is not a bad thing I guess. Given the diversity of Italian food, I think that it is very difficult for one book to cover all regions equally well. Maybe a better idea is to choose a number of more regionally focused books. Speaking of this, does anybody know of a good English language book on the foods of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and or other North Eastern regions?

Eating small birds is pretty common around the Med. (and also else where). In Tuscany it was they were very popular, hence the general lack of song birds there now. It is illegal to hunt them, but I recently saw these: These are sparrows, and have been imported from Tunisia. I assume that they are popular at there point of origin still?

I agree with Alberto's views entirely, I still love the book though. I love the fact that overtly it is about healthy eating, yet veg. are definately to be looked upon with suspicion.... The recipes are variable, but some of them really are quite amazingly good. The recipe for the rice fritters (no.1) is enough reason to purchase the book.

How interesting. The English form of the dish (most like now extinct) is called "Lobscouse" and was associated with being a sailors dish. A meatless version was called a "blind scouse" and from there you get the name for inhabitants of Liverpool. I had read that it was originally a Norwegian sailors dish, I didn't know about the german connection, thanks.

Thanks Peter, I have just ordered the book. You know I have books on Imperial Mongolian, Loas, Medieval Arabic foods, but a good German cookbook has been hard to find.

What suggestions would people have for a very good, in depth, English language, regional German(ic?) cookery book? I know several germanic types and they tend to get very grumpy if their regional foods are confused or otherwise buggered up. As for german food I was lucky enough to have some of this late last yeartreebread

Tagine/tagine etc are derived from the Greek "teganon", the word for pan.

Barberries are relatively common in Middle-Eastern food stores. They were once very popular in European cooking as a soaring agent, until it was discovered that they were an intermediate host for one of the rust fungi. At this point erradication occured. In the UK, they are now a very common hedging plant (mostly the purple forms). They are excellent in many dishes.

This was my mystery Asian herb for a while. Quite common in the Asian grocers here in Edinburgh. Have been using it in various SE-Asian dishes, but would be interested in seeing uses in Central and South American cooking.

Paula - you are very kind, but the tagine does most of the work for me. Also, it is amazing how crispy you can get chicken skin if you use a butane torch.

Another meal with the tagine. This time I cooked a whole chicken, along with a selection of root veg, preserved lemons, prunes and brocolli. The chicken was rubbed with ras-el-hanout and garlic. I like this technique, no water is added, yet you get a concentrated broth, the chicken is very tender, but very moist.

There was an anti-fish vote in the household, so steak is on the menu. These where T-bones from highland cattle. Shaggy, cute, photogenic and delicious. This steak is about 500gms in weight. After grilling, they were served with buttered purple sprouting brocolli and roast potatoes.