Smithy

Thank you both. @ElsieD, you're still boiling the mix? I believe I read above that @kayb no longer does that because it isn't necessary with reconstituted milk. Do I have that right? If so, why boil the mixture? Incidentally, I'm eating some of my first batch for breakfast. Now that it's thickened, it's not bad for a first attempt. I still think I'll invest in fresh milk powder.

I grabbed these two posts as a reminder of the yogurt-making IP discussion, but there are others. Has anyone here adjusted the recipe or method for using the IP to make yogurt? I'm looking at my first attempt, currently in the 'drain to thicken' stage. I'm not crazy about the taste, but it's quite possibly because the can of Nido I fished out from the freezer is well past its "best by" date of July 2010 and tastes like - well, powdered milk. I'll get fresh stuff before trying it again. I made the yogurt in jars instead of directly in the pan, and now wonder whether a pot-within-pot method would have been better - or simply making it directly in the liner pot as some of you seem to be doing. Any opinions on that?

Are these mostly intended as decor for cakes or other pastries? If not, how would the curlicues be used? I'm thinking of the curled ribbons that seem to be alternating stripes of chocolate and clear (3rd photo above this post) as well as the chocolate coils (and green ones) immediately above this picture. For that matter, what happens to the marbled chocolate? It all looks delightful, but doesn't seem like something that would go atop a bite-sized confection.

I'd be puzzled too. Might a Gamay do the trick? It would be light and fruity; perhaps it would play well with the salsa. Otherwise I think I'd lean toward a GSM (Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre) blend as it's a reliably good food companion in my book. I'll be watching this topic with interest and hoping someone with more pairing knowledge weighs in.

I ended up doing a slow render on stovetop and final quick sear, skipping the sous vide altogether. The final result wasn't as rare as I might have wished, but it wasn't tough and the skin fat was mostly rendered. We liked it. In defense of the 120F for 6 hours objectors, those folks were discussing my treatment of a tri-tip: beef, not duck.

I'm so pleased to see Gulley immortalized in the custom silk screen. Did a finished product feature that print? If so, is there a closeup?

Thanks for that quick response. Now that I've taken the duck breasts out of the package I see that they're much thinner than the one you showed in the photo I quoted: ranging in thickness from 1/2" to 1", with the skin more than 1/4" thick. If I do the sous vide treatment with them, I'll need to remove the skin altogether and cook it separately: skin in a pan, duck in the water bath. Given how thin the meat slices are, that may be the safest way not to overcook it.

Sorry for the long quote, but this post is old enough to justify a refresher. I am debating whether to cook some duck breasts using sous vide or using the stove and oven. (It will probably not be nice enough tomorrow to grill outside.) I have a couple of questions about what you did. 1. What did searing this breast twice (before and after the long-term low-temp cook) accomplish that couldn't have been accomplished at one end or the other of the cook? 2. Did the fat render, or continue to render, during the sous vide cook? It looks as though it may not have, and I'm out to get duck fat for potato-roasting.

Wel, that was a no-brainer for me. I like the hardbound book and have been considering buying the Kindle version for road trips, but didn't want to pay the standard price. Thanks!

There are so many good inspirations on this topic! I want to comment on them all, but I'll spare the reader. @Kasia, your shrimp dish gives me an idea for my next shrimp-and-pasta dish. I generally go heavy on things like lemon and garlic, but a bit of a chile kick sounds like a great idea. @mm84321, that spinach looks like a smaller version of the cultivated spinach I see, but I've never seen wild spinach. Is it essentially the same cultivar, or is it a relative - say, the difference between cultivated asparagus and wild asparagus? @mgaretz, how did you keep that bright green color in your Brussels sprouts?

@=Mark seems to have at least two bbq sauce recipes out there. Is either of these the one you mean? South Carolina Mustard Barbecue Sauce is a stand-alone recipe; Carolina Pulled Pork contains a recipe for "Mid-South Carolina Mustard Sauce".

@Vijay, it seems there are two issues here: first, that you're planning to go off the YouTube video but use an alternate recipe that doesn't use eggs. I hope you're testing the intended recipe on its original scale today! There's been a lot of discussion here over the years about people who 'test' a recipe but make numerous substitutions, then comment that it was 'terrible'. It's an unfair treatment of the original recipe, and you can't afford to make that sort of mistake with your clientele. The second issue is how to scale up the recipe in question. You'll probably have the best chance of getting helpful information here if you list the ingredient quantities and recommended pan in the recipe you intend to use, along with the dimensions of the pans you want to use. I found several web pages that discuss how to scale up a baking recipe. They all note that you need to have approximately the same thickness of the batter in the pan as the original, so the dimensions of the pan in the original recipe and the trays you intend to use are important information in order to do the calculation. "2kg of batter" can fit into a great variety of pan shapes and sizes, and each pan will give different results. Here are a couple of discussions that may be useful to you for the geometry: Food52 -- How to Make Your Baking Recipe Fit Your Pan Size Baking Bites -- How to make an extra large cake (with links to a couple of conversion tables for pan size) Actually, there may be a third issue: whether a multi-layered, repeat-baked cake recipe will behave differently in a scaled-up production than in a standard-sized production. I would think that if you kept each layer the same size as the original layer size that the baking times and temperatures would be the same, but I have no experience with this sort of baking. The topic that @cakewalk lists above is well worth exploring for its recipe and its links (although a couple of the links are out of date).

That looks and sounds like an excellent dish. Thank you for the tutorial!

The macrons are a joy to look at, simply for their color. On the breakfast platter there appear to be 3 meats, with 2 placed between the Lurpak butter (nice to see a familiar friend) and the cheese slices. One is roughly the color of smoked salmon. Is that it? What about the other? Is good coffee available there, or is it more of a tea-drinking society?

I think your discussion about dual fuel is directed to Alex, but I'll clarify in case I'm mistaken: the Samsung dual oven I discussed above is dual only in the sense of becoming one or two oven chambers. It is strictly a gas oven and range.

What fun! Please tell more about the fried cheese app. Do you know what kind of cheese? What sort of coating did it have? eta: How was the calamari?

I tagged along with my best friend and her husband earlier this year while they shopped for a new oven and range. This Samsung Flex Duo Oven gave me a serious case case of oven envy. I bought the electric version of this 6 years ago when we remodeled our kitchen. I have liked the double oven arrangement, because within limits you can run the two compartments at different temperatures; on the other hand, you can remove the divider and operate the oven as a single standard-sized oven. This new iteration is a significant improvement over mine in two ways: first, the obvious advantage is that it's gas; second; the door now is articulated so that you can just open the top half if you wish. (The middle hinge is operated by a special latch built into the door handle; it's easy to operate but doesn't seem likely to be operated by accident.) Mine has a single door, so you lose heat to both compartments when you just want to check the upper compartment. The range looks like it would be easy to clean and control; it includes a good low-heat simmering burner and a high-heat burner of impressive BTU's. The grate includes a removable wok cradle to hold a round-bottomed wok over the burner. My friends couldn't see themselves using the double oven option, so saved around $1000 by buying the single-chamber version of this unit. They've had their new kitchen for less than a month, but so far they are delighted with their purchase.

Le trou Normand* as an offering at McD's? Now there's a concept! *"The Norman hole"

Do keep in mind liuzhou's comment above, that he has no trouble with tomatoes in his hand-operated blender. If "around town" doesn't help you, Amazon probably will. Good luck!

That truly explains everything. Reminds me of language lessons my pub mates used to give me, trying to teach me how to talk proper in York. We had a fine time of it.

Readers may also enjoy checking out this 2005 foodblog for more Derby ideas: eG Foodblog: zilla369 - Derby Eats, Derby Week: Louisville, KY

No. I put them into a small casserole dish that was set atop the trivet. (I had rinsed them before cutting, so there was a very small amount of water clinging to the skins - a trivial contribution of liquid, I think.) The instruction booklet said to add "at least 1 cup of water" for steaming vegetables, so I added 1 cup to the bottom of the stainless steel insert. That was enough to cover the bottom of the insert but not enough to submerge the trivet. Further information, though you didn't ask: the booklet said to cook the chunks of potato from 7 to 9 minutes with quick release. I split the difference at 8 minutes. For this purpose, using red (waxy) potatoes that would be cooked again later, 7 minutes might have been adequate.

My day is complete; I've learned something new. Now I'll just have to find the wine and try some.

Over in the Dinner topic, @BonVivant posted an image of a Riesling labeled "Brut". Now that sounds like something I'd like to try - but I've never seen it. The cork in the image suggests that it's a sparkling wine. Is it?

@BonVivant, you post some fine-looking meals, and drinks to go with them. What sort of seasonings go into the Saumagen?