Smithy

That is interesting information! My blocks of tamarind are brown, and the tamar hindi (tamarind drink) I've had in Egypt is a golden brown. I didn't know there was a green/unripe tamarind use. I wonder which "tamarind" we're using?

It shore do. FWIW, it doesn't have to live in the refrigerator, if you're short on space. My block has been kept tightly wrapped in the cupboard for over a year, and aside from being harder (I had to take a very large knife to it to get that chunk) it seems fine. I can't detect a stale or rancid flavor, for instance. I don't know if the refrigerator would prevent that hardening.

I get the blocks of tamarind pulp mixed with seeds. I put a chunk - say, walnut-sized - in a small bowl, pour about a cup of boiling water over it, and let it steep with occasional stirring. The concentration can be adjusted, of course. The liquid can go into all kinds of things, and this treatment is my main use of tamarind so far. Your post is quite timely, even though I'm not using paste, because just last night I hauled out my block of (old) tamarind after a long period of neglect. While it was steeping I washed and patted dry some chicken thighs, then sprinkled them with sweet paprika, salt, and crumbled saffron threads. Into a hot, lightly oiled pan they went. I seared the thighs on one side, added garlic, seared the thighs on the other side, then deglazed the lot with the tamarind liquid. Next I reduced the heat to a simmer and covered the pan, occasionally lifting it to turn the thighs to make sure they were coated as they cooked. Before they were quite done I took the lid off and let the liquid cook down, again turning for coating, and finished the cooking. I was very happy with that experiment. The spices played off each other beautifully, and I ate far more chicken than I should have as a result. I'd never before tried sprinkling crushed saffron threads instead of making an infusion. I was surprised at how well that worked. Hot tamarind drink is another fine use of the stuff. I'd think paste would lend itself well to that.

There's nothing like a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, squeezed from oranges picked just minutes before, still chilled from the California night. I most certainly drink orange juice that way, and I'll go to my grave with happy memories of such ambrosia, both during my childhood and later when I went home to visit my parents, back on our ranch. We'd salute each other with our glasses, and comment on the heavy fog protecting the trees, or the glorious sunrise over the Sierra Nevada, as the case might be, and start the day with good cheer. Each winter, whenever I visit, I come back with as many oranges (navels) as I can manage. Some get juiced. Many are peeled and eaten instead, because it's less messy than in the car. At this time of year, I still wonder whether I did the right thing, not staying on and taking over the ranching activities, but the place is in good hands without me now. (Note to the wondering reader: we called it a "ranch", as did our ranching neighbors. No livestock was involved. Regional dialects, and all that.) The rest of the year, I'll go for the Tropicana Grovestand because it's the closest I've been able to come to the Real Thing. Sunkist tried marketing the same thing for a while, but it didn't last. As for that stuff out of cans - well, it's an obscenity that doesn't deserve to be called "orange juice". I have problems with that Guardian article, but I'll be the first to admit that I may be biased. I'd really like to see the data supporting the contention that citrus is one of the most pesticide-intensive crops. I suspect the organization that funded the study has a bias of its own.

Please, step away from the Velveeta... trust me, it's not worth it to waste your time and effort on that Velveeta Fudge', we're still wondering WHY we did that to ourselves. ← Oh, I'll take your word for it. As for "why", well, it might be the same reason that suckers someone into putting tongue to pump handle in the dead of Minnesota winter. "Aw, it can't really be that bad, can it?"

I don't have such a space now, so can't provide any photos. I looked seriously once at buying a house that had a space, maybe 6 feet wide, maybe more like 8 feet, between the kitchen and the dining room. The divider was a counter/breakfast bar that served as a pass-through between the two rooms. Louvered bifold doors closed the space off to hide the kitchen mess. If we were to add on to our house so I could have my cherished dining room, we'd consider something like that. As I recall, cabinets were hung from the ceiling so that the space was too low to provide easy conversation between the two rooms, unless people in the dining room sat at the breakfast bar and chatted through into the kitchen.

Helen, I've been so ill myself I've barely had time to even skim your blog, and I've still found it wonderful. Thank you for blogging again. Add my wishes for your quick recovery to the rest of the readers' wishes. I'm so fascinated with the table, and it looks like a wonderful way to keep food warm. After a moment I realized that in our household there would be at least one of the 6 cats, at any given time, sleeping there when the heat was on. I waved goodbye to the fantasy. You commented upthread about how difficult it is to bring formerly-live things into New Zealand. What about coming the other way, from New Zealand to Japan? For instance - if you wanted to bring lemons into Japan, could you? This question harks back to a discussion we started in my foodblog. I've always wondered about the answer.

Oh my goodness...I didn't read the entire thread through before posting my query about the Ritz cracker "Mock Apple Pie." I guess this answers my question. ← Actually, my mother made that pie a lot back in the 60's or 70's. I think she tried it for the novelty, and kept making it because it was cheaper, easier, and got a laugh when people were clued in. Please note, my mother is an outstanding apple pie maker, and I'd stack her pies against anyone's (except possibly my own now, using her recipe ). It fooled a lot of people, including our minister; one memorable afternoon I watched my mother struggle with her conscience about whether to inform the admiring pastor that it wasn't really apple pie after all. The crackers weren't as crushed as the recipe seems to imply, and I think I remember a touch of apple cider, or perhaps cider vinegar, in the recipe. We could tell the difference if we were paying attention, but the difference was smaller than the recipe seems to suggest. Having said all that, I'll say that at some point Mom went back to making the real thing, to our great relief. Why have the fake if you can have the real thing? I haven't tried making it myself, and my assessment might be quite different now than it was then. Velveeta Fudge? Yowza! My faves: Toll-House cookies and, back when Dad was alive, the fudge from the Jet-Puff jar. I think that recipe's changed in the last couple of years.

If I live long enough, mine will be.

Yesterday I decided that, having had no time for baking lately, I'd make up for it by making all 9 variations of Christmas cookies featured in the latest issue of Fine Cooking. The premise is that with 3 basic doughs you can make 9 types of cookies. As the day progressed I had the mixer, both bowls, the food processor, the Ultimate Chopper, and various baking sheets, bowls, knives and spatulas occupying every flat surface in the kitchen. Based on that experience, I nominate Alice Medrich's basic almond cookie dough as the ultimate bowl-licking, spatula-scraping cookie dough of all time, with her cocoa cookie dough in close second. (This sounds like heresy from a die-hard Toll-House cookie fan, but there it is.) I had a hard time trying to decide whether to lick first - but then I'd have to wash everything before starting the next batch - or wait until all the mixing was finished, understanding that there's be some cross-breeding between the batches. I finally realized that I had enough bowls and spatulas that it wasn't a dilemma at all. The strangest thing of all for me was realizing that I liked the cookie batter even better than the Nestle's chocolate chips that went into some of it. I hope I'm not ailing.

Lori in PA, I'm so glad you asked this question - and even more glad you got the answers you did. I've had a couple of smaller jars of duck fat (and "duck jello" sitting in the back of my refrigerator, waiting to be used for some months. Now I don't have to wonder about it. Why I didn't make the connection between duck fat and bacon grease is beyond me. Our family kept the bacon grease jar around, not even in the refrigerator, all the years of my childhood. It was our main source of cooking fat until the country fell in love with polyunsaturated fats.

Have you read the article in andie's link? What you describe sounds like what that reviewer said. He chalked it up to the 100' transmitter range being reduced by obstructions, doorframes, things like that. Is there any chance that's what's happening with you? I ask because the Maverick looks pretty darned interesting and I'd like to know more about just how well it works. chezcherie, several of andie's links show remote sensing thermometers with generously-sized displays. You may just be in business!

My stock had been thawed in the microwave, and wasn't particularly warm, although there may have been hot spots. I think there may still have been some ice in it. It's hard to remember now; I made this batch a couple of weeks ago.

Interesting that this point should come up now. The oil broke out of my last pot of gumbo. It hasn't happened before. I followed Fifi's Gumbo Goddess method. I'd thought the source might be the chicken, but it wasn't especially fatty, and I'd removed the skin. I'll be watching this topic with interest. Sorry I don't have any insights.

I haven't seen anyone else stagger over this concept, so I must be in need of education. Would someone please 'splain to me what vacuum frying would be? Until now I'd thought that the point of frying was to bring the food in contact with a high-temperature fat in order to cook the food. Done properly, there would be steam driven out and a nice crispy surface produced with little fat impregnating the food. (Done improperly, of course, one gets soggy greasy fries.) The Gastrovac - I'm with you on that name, jsolomon - notes that there's no contact with the fat, and that the cooking is done at lower temperatures. How does this qualify as frying? Someone please enlighten me.

Amen. I have a Cuisinart ICE-50. My mother has a Krups equivalent. We both keep the bowls in our freezers, for those spur-of-the moment ice cream binges. If you do a lot of that sort of thing, you can buy a spare bowl, so that one goes into the freezer the instant another comes out. No muss, no fuss; great ice cream.

It's gorgeous, Abra! Thank you so much for finishing the story! As I recall, all the wines were supposed to be heavy on the oak. Were they? Were some more oaked than others? And in retrospect, were there some pairings that would have fared better with less oaked wine? My other question is more of a stagger: that looks like more food than we had at Thanksgiving yesterday! The food looks too fabulous for restraint, but I can only imagine myself waddling out after all that! Was it a 4-hour meal? I realize I must sound like a bumpkin! But I am curious about the mechanics of this event.

Lucy, this blog is so wonderful. It breaks my heart that I can't follow along more closely. Add my thanks to the rest of them, in case I can't get back in time. Now I have to ask: what will you do with that chicken head? Why leave it on? Does it add flavor, or is it mostly decorative? Is the head a delicacy? (Some enterpriseing eG'er ate the brain on another foodblog, not long ago. Can't remember now who it was.) When you say "It's really cold out there", how cold is it? I realize it's late November. What does that mean in Lyons? Do you get heavy rains, or little? What about wind? I've been admiring your gloves, so artfully arranged. I never can find such elegant leather gloves to fit my hands and still keep them warm. Aside from bagels and (perhaps) cranberries, what are the foods from the USA you miss the most? If you were to move back to the States, what would you miss most from France? (Aside from Loic, of course. ) Beautiful blog, beautiful photography. And...going back a few pages...I applaud your good luck and good eye at scoring so much Le Creuset at a garage sale, for a garage sale price! Finally...to further the questions that may go back to earlier blogs...how long have you been cooking? How has moving to France changed your cooking?

Ha! While you were flurrying over here, I was doing a low-slow cook of a venison roast. I just finished posting about it on your "One Dead Deer" thread. Sorry, I didn't realize you'd planned to cook all the meat now. I wrote about butchering and freezing it instead. At any rate: my first experiment with low slow braising on venison worked darned well yesterday. I'm sure it can be overdone, and I may have come close, but I can report that the connective tissue dissolved and the flavors were very good, just as with pork.

BTW, some people claim the fat is where the gamey flavor resides. I don't know whether that's true, but I do know that in my family I was the only person who'd eat the venison fat. It's a bit like lamb fat: concentrated flavor.

Sorry I didn't see this sooner, and sorry I won't be much help. I think the DNR is recommending boning all the deer. If you have time, check that recommendation before going to the trouble. Cut off the shanks (per Fifi). If you do have to bone, it's best to cut through joints instead of through the bones themselves. I did that last year, anyway. Last year I was flying blind on this. It seems to me that the muscle groups more or less presented themselves into logical roasts, and I broke the roasts out into sizes appropriate for our family. Last night I cooked up one of the roasts, labeled "rump roast", and I'd say it was about 2 lbs before cooking. If the roasts look too big, or ungainly, then you can cut across the grain to make steaks. There will be a lot of odd bits of meat left over from trimming, especially if you bone. Those become stew meat pieces. Wrap each carefully in butcher paper, taking care to squeeze out all air. Wrap each several different ways to ensure a good seal. Label them. Enjoy. FWIW, yesterday morning I cooked up the rump roast in question, and I'm pleased with the results - especially considering I was making it up as I went along. I stuck a bunch of garlic cloves into slits in that roast, then rubbed it with a mixture of sweet paprika, hot paprika, black pepper, white pepper and salt. I melted bacon fat in the appropriately sized Le Creuset, threw in a couple tsp cumin seeds, let them sizzle a bit, browned the meat, tossed in a red onion that had been cut into 8ths, let that soften a bit, then deglazed the lot with red wine. I added more red wine, red wine vinegar, water to the proper braising height (about 1/4 of the roast's thickness), 2 bouillion cubes (heresy, but I didn't have any thawed broth), a bay leaf, thyme, and some rosemary sprigs. I put a cap of prosciutto on top of the roast for barding. Covered the pot and stuck it in the oven to cook at 220F for 8 hours, and off I went to work. The internal temp when I finally got around to checking was 198F. The meat had fallen apart - not a bit of silverskin left, but you could see where it had been. The flavor was outstanding, and there was good juice to be boiled down and thickened (a step that got short shrift). The meat might have benefited from slightly less cooking, because it was a bit "thready" (dh's word) although not really dry, but the time got away from us. The onions were to die for. All in all, this was a treatment worth repeating and refining (mushrooms would have been good, and perhaps some potatoes, but I had none). You may feel free to play with it and see what you can do. Happy holidays!

What a great story! I tried Chufi's Braised Beef treatment on the venison round steaks tonight. I think the steaks might have been cut a bit too thinly to benefit from this treatment; they were around 3/4" thick at the thickest. After 3 hours they were edibly tender, but they certainly didn't have the fall-apart texture advertised in Chufi's recipe. I let the part I didn't put on my dinner plate keep cooking, and I'm none too sure they were any better at 4 hours. This may be one of those cuts that benefits from initial cooking, then cooldown, then recooking. Come to think of it, beef round steak benefited from just that treatment last winter, in the Braising Seminar. Texture issues notwithstanding, the meal was good because the flavor is fantastic. That is a winner recipe. Tomorrow night: venison roast. This time I will do the wine and rosemary thing. Fifi, you really need that book.

Further to the round steak question: I've settled on braising, based on where the cut comes from. Now I'm down to dithering among flavorings, and I'd best get going on it soon. Fifi, I'm glad you mentioned the red wine and rosemary - happens I have some of both, as well as some mushrooms and leeks, that need to be used. I've also unearthed interesting-looking recipes from Chef John Folse's Encyclopedia of Cajun Cookery (that may not be quite the right name, but Mayhaw Man is spot-on about that book's value), and from my ancient copy of Helen Brown's West Coast Cookbook. Then, there's Chufi's Braised Beef, Dutch Style that's been getting such raves. Decisions, decisions. This is another reason we usually eat late around here. Edited for spacing.

Low to medium heat??? What's up with that? ← It does seem as though you'd naturally get more even temperature distribution on low to medium heat. That's a funny way to brown things, though. I don't see any hints that they think it will brown better. How's your AMEX card doing these days, Fifi?

Simple but good, indeed. You are an inspiration. Lucy, that looks like a well-loved and cherished tart pan. Is it Le Creuset? I've never seen a round pan like that over here. It looks like the finish is chipping off? Does that change the way you handle or use the pan?