Smithy

Do you have a link to the recipe in question? This sounds like something I'd like to try.

I finally found time to try one of the many recipes I've had bookmarked: Crawfish Samosas. I love samosas. I've never made them, but I love to eat them. Here was my chance, while I had time and was traveling in seafood country. As with all the recipes, this offers clear instructions. First, make the dipping sauce from red bell peppers: cut to lay flat, broil, peel, then blend with olive oil and a touch of salt. As with most or all the recipes, this offers substitutions. That's good, because I didn't have crawfish but I did have tiny peeled shrimp. I didn't have samosa wrappers, but I was able to find eggroll wrappers at a grocery store. I took one other liberty with the recipe: the goat cheese I had, left over (unopened) from a dinner party over a month ago, contained dill and a decided bleuish funk. I substituted grated parmesan cheese for half of the goat cheese. I have no photo of the eggroll-wrapping procedure; I barely had enough hands without adding a camera to the mix. I had trouble controlling the oil temperature; judging by the color of the rolls, I may have overcooked them slightly. Still, we liked this very much...enough so that it was dinner for two of us, with leftovers. I will do it again, but try to do it when I have a deep fryer or a bodacious exhaust hood, or can fry outside. This dinner photo shows just how much value there is to a food stylist and a good photographer. It looks much better in the book - but even without the professional look it's well worth cooking.

You are an eeevil woman!

I want to report on collard greens, okra and adventures in frying. I more or less followed the instructions of my two advisors from Jerry Lee's grocery store to cook those collard greens. I washed the leaves, drained them but didn't shake them dry, and put the damp leaves in a pan filmed with olive oil. To that I added a few okra (saving most for other purposes), some chunks of the seasoning meat that I'd rinsed but not soaked, and a touch of salt and pepper. I cooked it all over gentle heat, letting the greens wilt and soften. There may have been a touch of vinegar added, but I can't remember for sure. We liked the greens and would do them again. Without the okra. The okra wasn't slimy as I'd expected, but didn't really add anything either. The seasoning meat was good in the greens, but I'll have to work to find something else to do with it: on its own, it had a very strong, not very good flavor. Maybe I need to soak it, per @rotuts' instructions, rather than a simple rinse. As for frying: well, I've written before about how much I hate doing it. I work myself into a tizzy even at the idea, but my darling loves fried shrimp beyond almost any other food. There was also okra to be fried, per @kayb's suggestion. I steeled myself to the ordeal. I discovered that okra, dusted with cornmeal, is quite pretty: prettier, I think, than before it's coated or after it's fried. Here's just one of many work-in-progress photos. Most of us have seen food being fried, but I like the geometry of this picture. Despite the colossal mess, the dinner was good enough that I did it again a few nights later. (I now know that it's the *underside* of the cabinets that gets the worst of the spatter.) With okra again, to finish the last of my purchase. I don't know that we'd go out of our way for okra, but we'd certainly eat it again. It's a bit like cucumber, a bit like green pepper, a bit like its own personality, and we may don't even know if this was good-quality okra. It isn't at all like the nasty, slimy stuff called "bamya" that we've eaten in Egypt. I never did get around to telling my darling that yes, he'd had okra before. He wouldn't have touched it. Thanks for the tips, folks. Our horizons and waistlines are expanding.

I think Porthos is referring to this post.

@pastryani, you may find this topic useful: Cast iron: seasoning, care and restoration

The nan-e barberi looks wonderful. Aside from the mess, @Anna N, was the m'smen also a success? Thanks for pointing out that website.

The food all looks good. (Nice sunset photo, too!) What can you tell us about Pollo ala Brasa? What seasonings do they use? The chicken portraits in that place crack me up. Is that restaurant a chain, or a one-off?

Lovely, inspiring, and delectable. Thank you for taking us along!

That is beautiful, @blue_dolphin. I love stuffed squash, but this filling is more intricate than I usually make. I'll be sure to try it.

Our last dinner in Gautier was at the Tiki Restaurant, Lounge and Marina. This waterfront place is slightly inland from Huck's Cove and seems always to have expensive boats in its marina slips. I don't know whether the slips are for transient boat traffic or residents. Probably a bit of both. The Tiki was washed away in some storm or other - earlier than Katrina, I think - but has been rebuilt beautifully. Photos and memorabilia document the original and celebrate the rebuilt version. This photo doesn't do justice to the intricate knotwork in this commemorative piece. I used to do macramé. I have an idea of just how much loving care went into making it. The atmosphere is quieter and more genteel, I'd say, than at Huck's Cove. There's a bar and deck downstairs; maybe that's where the rowdy folks go. We wandered in, unaware that it was "all you can eat snow crab" night until we saw huge platters of crab legs being delivered to nearby tables. After marveling for a time I went to one table of 8 and asked whether I could take a picture of the spread. They obliged cheerfully, all being careful to lean back out of the picture. (I hadn't asked them to do that, but they apparently didn't want to be documented with the extensive spread. ) I like crab well enough, but didn't consider it when I spied Oysters Rockefeller on the menu. I ordered a half dozen as an appetizer, then discovered that my darling wouldn't touch them. Oysters don't turn his crank, and cooked spinach didn't help make the case for him. Nope, he wouldn't try even one. Too bad! More for me! We drank our beers, ate salads and slaw and, in my case, oysters, and marveled at the steady train of crab being delivered to the party table. Here's another helping being delivered. I didn't count, but I suspect each diner put away two platters' worth. Not bad, for $25/person. I'm in no position to cry 'gluttony' at them, however. The oysters would have been plenty for me, but there was grouper. I considered trying catfish again, but I love well-fried grouper. In a nod to healthful choices, I chose grilled vegetables. The vegetables and the fish were excellent. His favorite: fried shrimp. I gave him my hushpuppy. He liked it all. The proprieter, a lovely and elegantly dressed woman, came by to see how we were doing. Through her we learned about the crab deal - a regular Tuesday special. She is a member of the family that built the business, and apparently the sole owner now. She cares about how well the business does, cares about her customers, and was pleased that I wanted to write about the place and post photos. But no, she didn't want her photo to be here. I realized much later that she was in the background of the "additional crab serving" picture above. It's a good picture of her, but a deal's a deal. Let's hear it for photo editing programs that can fade out the background. We groaned our way out the door, admired the table of 8 who were still going strong, admired the moon, and made our way back to the Princessmobile.

I got around to cooking one of those packages' worth of beets last night. These beets had been packed with butter and dill, then cooked sous vide until tender - more than an hour. (I have the time and temperature written down somewhere, if anyone's interested.) Since they cooled they've been stored in the refrigerator with no apparent ill effect. That's pretty good for something packed on 16 September, over 2 months ago. After I'd bought the bucket of beets and cooked them several ways, my darling informed me that he wasn't "much of a beet person". Last night he looked askance at me when I hauled out this package. I told him I had a new idea. He assured me that he doesn't actively dislike them, he just doesn't particularly like them. (We have this conversation often: when I protest something as he does, it means that I really don't like it. He assures me that he doesn't mean it that way, but it just doesn't turn his crank. So I cook something the way I really like it, and we have The Conversation again. Lather, rinse repeat.) I sauteed these in olive oil until they caramelized slightly. Sorry for the poor photo quality. We couldn't tell that dill had been packed with them, but the sweetness and the buttery flavor came through beautifully. Better than in this picture. Not only am I forgiven; he's decided he likes beets after all. At least, when they're cooked this way.

Impressive! I've been anxiously awaiting mine to arrive. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow, unless the winter storms delay it by a day. Unfortunately it's scheduled to arrive at home, and I'm traveling for the next few months. :-( I really wish they'd kept the original schedule, in which they promised an October delivery.

I don't know whether Yukon Gold is a specific breed or a trademark, but I've had much the same results from other 'midway' yellowish potatoes. Offhand the only breed I can think of is Klondike Gold. (Sounds like 'Pyrex' vs. 'Fire King', doesn't it?) I call it 'midway' because it's midway between the waxy end (red potatoes) and the starchy end (russets).

@Plado, welcome to eGullet! Please feel free to contribute to and revive this topic. Many members have joined since the last post, and may well be interested in joining the conversation. What are some of your favorite curries from this book? Do you have any particularly fine turns of phrase from the entertaining writing that you'd like to share?

I agree with the above: you can never have too many outlets! Check the reviews on that microwave convection oven to see how effective users think it is. We had one in our last trailer (I think it was a GE but don't remember the model) and it took a long time to come up to temperature - and used huge amounts of electricity. On the other hand, it DID allow me to have a second oven going when I needed it. I can't tell from the drawings: does that range hood exhaust to the outside? If not, what would it take to make it exhaust outside? Recirculating hoods are barely better than nothing. Edit: I also agree about the pull-out shelves for the undercounter cabinets. We paid extra for those and think it's money very well spent.

So much new to me! If I were there, I'd have to simply point and hope for the best. On that philosophy, years ago, I had a giant pickle for lunch one day and a very, very stinky plate of octopus another. At least I have you to answer questions. What is this? ...and is there a practical value to the way the fish in the third-to-last photo are so artistically harnessed together? Is that binding material seagrass?

Mustard goes well with grilled cheese sandwiches, or to spice up a cream or cheese sauce for those vegetables - like the gratin gfweb mentions above.

This will be fun. Is cheese common there, or was that mozzarella with the eomuk fishcakes a touch of innovation? And by the way, what is an 'eomuk' fishcake?

@gfweb, you may help me with my diet planning any time.

I'll keep y'all posted as to the results, but since I'm a novice at collards it may not be a fair test. The woman at the checkout line was very clear that collards get wrecked by too much water. The way she described it, it sounded more like a minimal-water braise than a boil. She hadn't heard of okra in collards either, but she used smoked turkey necks. They might add a bit of thickening as well as flavor. I'm planning to use some of the seasoning meat in it. Rest assured, I got the smallest package of okra I could find and still had far more than I plan to use with the collards. I'll fry the rest per these instructions.

Oh, I'm reading and marveling. I echo Wayne's question about the cream soup dumplings. I'd also like to know about that zucchini salad. It looks like one long, beautifully tangled ribbon. How do you eat it? Final question for now: does the sweet rose bun look so creamy because it's steamed? It looks much more like a creamy dessert than a bready substance. What did it look like inside? That platter is gorgeous. I hope it makes appearances in your later posts from home.

Welcome!

That sounds brilliant. If you ever do learn more about it, please let us know. Meanwhile, it sounds as though some experimentation is in order.

That is an awe-inspiring meal, rro. I'd love to have access to food like that - and oysters like that.