johnnyd

Thanks for the Tsujiki visit - I'm a seafood nut and that market is the holy grail, dude. This is a terrific topic. A highlight for eGullet. Thank you!

The poblanos tasted just fine, thank you very much! The "Clam-pirinha" seemed a logical extension for ceviche since it's prepared with lime juice and sugar. Earlier I had shucked 8 countnecks into the juice of one lime, a minced clove of garlic, a splash of orange juice, one minced thai pepper and a small pile of young cilantro with stalks. As the peppers were roasting under the broiler, I had a couple clams and started preparing a regular caipirinha. It hit me that one of these clams might be pretty good in a little cachaça. I chilled about half a shot and added a clam with about a tablespoon of ceviche mixture. [edit to add: includes clam liquor] Down the hatch! It was good enough for another and that's the picture.

Cinco de Mayo! Clam ceviche was delicious. So good, in fact, that I decided it was a good time to invent the Clampirinha! Over the top? You bet. If anyone attempts this un-holy shooter, make sure all elements are well-chilled. Chicken Enchilada - the sour cream version, no tomatos, And then our anaheim and poblano chili relenos with saffron rice - red sox on the side. Viva Puebla!

Remember when you discovered pancakes and maple syrup?

Dude! You mean my soba "vermicelli" doesn't count?!! and as a bonus, we get to use my in-house karashi mentaiko a (not-so) tall pillar of which you see here! And now you have a dose of cream goin' on. Gee, I dunno. Well, since I have so much of the stuff now, I should open the door to any and all suggestions. I'll try 'em!

Yes! It did work out nicely but there are a couple places for improvement - now that I've had my mentaiko lunch and still taste the kosher salt in the pre-brine, I know that has to be toned down. I couldn't see removing the roe sacs in step 5, but maybe I didn't understand it completely. I imagined all the eggs drifting around in a soup so I left the membrane on. Mid-week, I thought about slicing open the membrane for better absorption - especially since the color was a little gray and not the hot-red I wanted, but I was worried it would still all fall apart. But while opening the first one, I tasted a little bit all the way down to the tail and there was definitely sake and pepper flavor going on, so absorption through the membrane did occur. The membranes were a lot tougher than I thought. Now that I see how firm this stuff is, I am going to remove a couple membranes and continue to soak the roe in pepper/sake marinade to see what happens. Maybe it was the pre-brine that firmed up everything? Still, the little pillar of roe I formed broke down in the tsuyu so maybe it can't hold up without the roe sac? Per your suggestion, I will freeze a couple complete roe sacs and a few bags of roe sans-sac to see which thaw out best.

With all the talk about mentaiko spaghetti flying around I decided to try my creation with some soba noodles, cooked in a dashi. I added some chives, cilantro stalk and leaf, toasted nori and a healthy dash of soba noodle soup-base - which I guess is called tsuyu - and formed a "brick" of flounder mentaiko in the center. I mixed it all around and after a while found the roe blending with the tsuyu, coating the soba with glistening roe. The flounder roe added a depth to the noodles - I especially liked the subtle heat of the pepper powder. This was a great experiment! As I type this I realize there is a little salty after-feel in my mouth, so next time I will measure the salt for the pre-brine a little more carefully - a 10% reduction wouldn't hurt. Now I have to remove the rest of the roe from the other sacs and freeze in four or six ounce bags. Suffice to say, any eG members who come calling can expect to find one stashed in your pocket, thawing slowly as you hurtle down interstate 95.

I confess I was a bit disappointed that the roe didn't have that electric kool-aid, acid-red that I get when I order mentaiko at a sushi bar, but after thinking about it I speculated that commercial mentaiko might be dyed that un-holy red anyway. I sliced the roe sac open and tasted some... yeah, hey now! That is really good! Sanresho's recipe worked! The bite of the pepper mingled nicely with the shoyu/sugar/limejuice and sake/konbu/katsuobushi - everything was there. Even the flounder roe! So how do I get this stuff out of here? I had been treating these things carefully throughout the recipe, but for the first time, I realized just how tough the sac membrane is. Even though I sliced easily into it, it was not as delicate as I thought. In fact, when I tried to gently separate the roe from the membrane, it would not come quietly. Actually, not at all. My vision of a complete, skinless roe sac was not to be. So instead I scooped a bunch out - about the size of a quenelle - and found it quite pliable. It wasn't at all runny or gooey. It reminded me a little of dough, or a ball of coarse wasabi that you roll around in your hands and shape into a small mound. So that's what I did. After scraping almost all of it off the membrane, I ended up with three golf balls of pickle-peppered flounder roe!

At last! Time to open the bag after nine days. During the weeks marination I occasionally pulled out the tray and shifted the roe sacs around. Let's take one out and see what happened... Hi there, handsome!

About an ounce each of soy and mirin goes in and bubbles up right away. Swirl the pan so the scallops get coated. The liquid evaporates quickly and the sauce thickens. Remove scallops to plate and pour sauce over them - be careful not to let the sauce get too thick. Pour water into pan to facilitate cleaning. Bon Appetit!

I get a quarterly newsletter from the The Cheese Iron #200, Rte 1 in Scarborough. Vince and his crew import some rare cheese from Europe and select fine American cheeses as well. They have monthly "classes" on the subject of cheese. The next one is May 22nd. Click here to join their mailing list.

New Hampshire duo, Justin Rosberg and Jason Parent, owners of The Meat House with locations in York, ME and six others in NH, will open in Mill Creek Plaza, right over the bridge in South Portland. From their website: The space recently vacated by a Curves franchise is about 2000 sq/ft and is completely empty right now. The Dover shop tells me that location and one in Scarborough will be opening simultaneously on July 4th 2008.

New Hampshire duo, Justin Rosberg and Jason Parent, owners of The Meat House with locations in York, ME and six others in NH, will open in Mill Creek Plaza, right over the bridge in South Portland. From their website: The space recently vacated by a Curves franchise is about 2000 sq/ft and is completely empty right now. The Dover shop tells me that location and one in Scarborough will be opening simultaneously on July 4th 2008. ------------ edit to add: I realized this post has nothing to do with Portland Restaurants so I created this topic for Portland area food sourcing.

I was just wondering what to do with a small whole chicken tonight. In your photos, I see a couple onions chopped, 60g or so of paprika, then are you parboiling your chicken pieces? Combine with onion/paprika and bake with a little oil, maybe? Add sour cream after a half-hour? I don't need amount breakdown or deep detail, just a suggestion and I'll make it work! This... this is wonderful. If I had room in my sig line I'd tuck it in, pronto.

My lips have recovered from my sake/salt brine adventure and per instructions I let the roe sacs chill overnight. Unfortunately, my day was so busy I didn't get to the next step until now - or 8 hours after the recipe calls for re-brine - but the flounder roe looks firm and smells faintly of sake so on with the experiment. Steps 6,7,8,9 - pepper/shoyu/sugar/limejuice paste is mixed and sake has been boiled, konbu and katsuobushi added and strained, I put the un-cut roe-sacs in a freezer bag (step 5 called for splitting the sacs open and place face down but I didn't bother - seeing how firm they get now, I will certainly try it next time) and poured in the pepper mixture (which tastes delicious). See you in a week.

Oh, good. The Vaughn Street crew seem able enough to make the Lighthouse work. I had a horrific sandwich there just before they closed. Here is local blogger "Type A Diversions" visit to Evangeline where she gives a Type A review of their first night. w/pics.

Salted Roe has been refrigerated for one hour, Step 2: Roe placed in Sake (2.15 cups) to clean, then strained, boiled with salt (2.11oz) Cooled in ice bath, and deposited with roe in ziploc, With all the handling, the stuffing is starting to ooze out of the roe sacs, causing little clouds of eggs to float about the brine, which, if I may add, is excrutiatingly salty. So far, this experiment looks like an unmitigated disaster! But as we all know, some of the weirdest preps yield terrific results. Let's just say how pleased I am to have the rest of eG along as we watch johnnyd make a complete and total hash of this recipe! No, but seriously, we'll see what happens. Step 4: Pre-brine in place. Step 5 slated just before bedtime, 10pm.

So the first hurdle is weight conversion. The recipe calls for 120g of roe which is about 4oz. I bought 1 and 1/3 lb and fried up a good size handful for lunch yesterday, so I'm betting (since I don't have a scale) that I have at least 3/4 lbs left, so I'm going to triple the measurements on sanrensho's instructions. I know that the results may be dire, but it's worth a try. The photos on sanrensho's link are marginally helpful, as the first show two roe sacs and subsequent photos show at least ten, which is closer to what I have currently salting in the fridge, but mine are clearly a larger size. If I actually have a pound (or 453g), it will just be a milder result. Frankly speaking, the flounder roe is the mildest roe I've had in memory so this could be a benchmark to measure other experiments. I asked the Fish store if they ever keep cod roe and they said it's cut at sea and rarely kept on board. Tossed to the gulls, in other words. I have to change that routine, yessiree.

At last! Freshly cut today: Flounder roe has returned to my fishmonger at $2.99/lb. I will begin sanresho's mentaiko preparation later today and let's see what happens.

Welcome Rehovot! I have always wanted to visit Prague so I am looking forward to this foodblog. I see people at the market in jackets - is it still cold there? Picasa is terrific - my "go-to" photo software for eGullet projects. PM me if you have any questions, but your pics look great so far. Have fun!

Thanks, dude! Come up and have some.

I had a hankering for scallops today and bought a handful for lunch, Sauteed ginger slivers in peanut oil, six scallops (a little over an inch wide) about a minute or two on each side, then a bath of mirin & soy sauce that boils when added. A few seconds of that thickens the sauce. It's like candy I tell you!

Fat Baxters East End Market at 88 Congress St, has been purchased by the folks at Rosemont Market and Bakery, Brighton Ave - who are famous not only for their fine deli and provisions but for giving birth to the legendary Portland Green Grocer back when you could actually have a food market on Commercial Street. I have to call John and see what he and Scott have planned for the space. Tonight is John Myers (eG member fatdeko) last night at Local 188. The notorious barkeep moves back into the Old Port by joining Chef Harding Lee Smith at Grill Room - the space formerly burdened by Natasha's at 82 Exchange St - sometime in early May

You can do that? My 12" fry pan bulged out a couple years ago and I'm tired of propping it up with a salt shaker.

There goes the neighborhood!