Smithy

Lessee...I've given away one (count it) book some time ago, and gained at least 3 in the meantime: The Gourmet Cookbook (what was I thinking?) Paula Wolfert's Couscous and other Good Food from Morocco (that one's already gotten a lot of use) The Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuisine (I refuse to send Mayhaw Man a check for the suggestion that cost me more money, but it is indeed a fine book) That last book will make a good weapon if someone wants to challenge me in the kitchen. Mm. My mother passed a couple of cookbooks on to me also, although the names escape me at the moment. Count me for a net of 4 more since my last post. Don't ask me the total.

This all looks wonderful. Sorry if I missed an earlier explanation, but what is kabocha? It looks like eggplant? How to you fix it for that gratin? (Whether or not it's eggplant, I may change my plans for the eggplant presently in my refrigerator.) That bread looks terrific, too. I wish I could get a good olive bread around here, or learn how to make it myself. That raises a question about food variety available to you. The olive bread looks very European. European-style breads have only started to become available, possibly even common, outside major U.S. cities in the last, oh, 5 years from what I can tell. There's been a huge increase in variety of foods available in the Midwest, and in the quieter parts of California that I frequent, in the last 15 years. Now it isn't unusual to find different kinds of olives, rice, Middle Eastern food, panko, fish sauce in a middling-sized town. 10 years ago there wasn't an "ethnic foods" section in the grocery store, but if there had been it would have had Mexican, Italian and Chinese condiments. Have you seen a similar increase in "foreign food" availability during your years in Japan?

I always thought of iced coffees as a very Japanese thing... 10 to 15 years ago everyone in Japan was drinking iced coffee and when I would ask for it in the US people would just stare at me and have no idea what I was talking about. Matcha lattes are quite common and they even show up at Starbucks and other similar coffee shops. ← I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, where iced coffee had long been a well-known thing ... but up until relatively recently, if I asked for an iced coffee anywhere in the U.S. outside of the New York metro area, I'd get nothing but blank looks too--or at best a glass of coffee that was tepid because they simply dumped some ice in the glass and poured hot coffee in direct from the coffeemaker. Since Starbucks has taken over the planet, now at least seemingly everyone's familiar with iced and/or frozen latte drinks. But I still can get some puzzled looks in some places in the States when I ask for straight iced coffee. ← I grew up in California knowing about iced coffee from my mother, although I personally never took a shine to it. She knew it wasn't a local thing, though, because she often got strange looks when she offered it to others and she rarely could get it in restaurants. Eventually she took to ordering coffee and a glass of ice. Since she grew up in Florida, we always assumed it was a Southern thing.

Boy, howdy. It isn't just the obscure citrus. I weep at the loss of quality in oranges, mandarins, tangelos, and to some extent grapefruit (lemons seem to be an exception) from the present packing process. It isn't that they're being picked unripe as the stone fruits are; citrus is sturdy stuff and doesn't have to be picked early to survive shipping. Something happens in the packing plant - whether it's the fungicide to kill the bugs, or the wax that's applied afterward, I don't know - that blunts the smell and flavor so the poor things come to market tired-smelling and -tasting. I've noticed this in the organically grown citrus as well as the standard crops, so it must be common to both packing processes. If irradiation can keep that blue mold from growing (it really does happen overnight, but not on every orange) so the fungicide and wax can be avoided, more people would know how oranges are really supposed to taste.

I haven't tried this recipe yet, but the only questions I'd have had were already addressed by others. This part, however, made me smile: I wouldn't get a barometer to measure temperature, either. I presume you meant 'thermometer' in that sentence? I am thoroughly enjoying this thread. Thank you, chefzadi, for all this detailed work. It's a fine tribute to your writing that you are getting so many valuable contributions from the eGullet community, luminary or lesser-known. I really appreciate the linguistics lessons that are coming along with the food; I'm learning a lot, here.

It appears to me that confit serves two purposes: 1. Provide a rich, silky texture to the meat in question 2. Preserve the meat by storing it in fat, which process not only preserves it but allows it to age safely. I have a boil-in-bag system, old, that will seal foods in pouches but will not vacuum-pack them first. If I were to try the confit method in those, and then ice them down immediately after the long slow cooking, I would presumably accomplish the first objective above. Would it help with the second objective? Would I gain anything by using sous vide if I plan to pot the meat later? Or is that a silly thing to do with only 2 duck legs?

Very cool indeed. Thanks for posting that link. Hey! This Lebanese cookbook uses the word "tajin"! It's a fish tajin - fish cooked in sesame sauce. We now have that word in (at least) Moroccan, Egyptian and Lebanese cookery, although the cookware is different in each case. What does that word actually mean? Does it refer to a method of cooking, like a slow simmer? Cooking in a closed pot? (My Elias Collegiate Arabic/English dictionary shows a frying pan, complete with long handle, in the tagine entry. That's completely unlike anything I've seen yet....)

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I haven't had time to read through all of the recipes... I ordered so many books at once . Now I may have to get the other one you mentioned. ← Peanutgirl, you don't mention eggs, but you don't mention not-eggs either. Before you go buy yet another book, take a gander at page 99 of Kitty Morse's Cooking at the Kasbah. There, if your copy is the same as mine, you'll find Tagine B'Beid (Egg Tagine with Olives, Onions and Cilantro". (I've had this book a long time. I don't know whether it's been updated.) I happen to have it bookmarked as one to try soon, now that I'm on a tagine kick. Since I haven't tried it I can't swear it's good, but I haven't tried anything from this book that wasn't good. Cooking at the Kasbah also has at least one vegetarian couscous, and a recipe for roasted pumpkin with seasonings that look like they might almost redeem that misbegotten excuse for a squash. If your daughter likes pumpkin, you might consider this recipe too.

Keep a large box of baking soda around as the first response for a fat fire, and use the fire extinguisher only as a backup. Baking soda is less messy than the fire extinguisher, and if the fire is small it's just as effective. Not that you're going to need any of this, of course.

*bump* OK, I've acquired 2 ducks (White Pekin, the only thing I can find locally) and cooked one using Wolfert's Slow-roasted Duck with Olive Sauce recipe, from The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. The plan has been to use that duck fat to augment the rest and get started on duck confit. I've been reading and re-reading this thread, and will continue to do so before I ask ALL my tom-fool questions, but I'll ask a couple now. I plan to pick the meat off the bones and pot it, a la Culinary Bear's original post, instead of leaving the legs intact. With that in mind, is there a reason not to cut up and cook the entire duck for confit? If so, what is it? If I break the duck up and just confit those two legs, reserving the rest for other purposes, should I remove the skin from those and render it? Then it seems I'd be short-changing the breasts in their glory. Alternatively, should I forget about confiting any of this duck? I've read that Pekin isn't the best duck for this, but I'm reluctant to try the mail-order route first time out of the box. Advice will be welcome, and I apologize if I've missed the answers somewhere in this amazing thread. I'm new as a freshly-hatched chick to this business. Nancy

I am in awe after looking at these photos. I keep looking at my Egyptian pot - which is beautiful and cooks brilliantly - and thinking "yes, but it doesn't look like a Rifi tagine!" I *may* hold out until my birthday. Mid-May. Mid-May...Mayday on the credit card...

My husband has been asking that same question with regard to the Egyptian stuff I've started to use. I am mightily amused, and have been giggling for hours, at Fifi, the resident hypnotist, issuing a Wolfert Alert. Pot. Kettle. Black.

Thank you all for the links and extra information. My husband is wondering just what I do with all these cookbooks. Then we sit down and eat dinner, or he comes home in the middle of a cooking project, and he knows. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, I'd like to add my thanks and admiration for Paula and her work. I feel incredibly lucky that she's active on this forum that I stumbled into, and the cookbooks are wonderful!

Poor CtznCane. I logged in earlier today, prepared to ask "why aren't more people participating!" only to see that someone - that would be Cane - had. Cool. Then, tonight, I see that Cane has asked the question I was fixing to ask and is being flayed for asking. Let's see...so far, we have: 1. Don't know enough to participate 2. Know too much to participate 3. Too US-centric (based on a sample space of 7) and 4. A couple of polite (as befitting moderators and hosts) notes that not everyone will be able to participate or interested in participating. Fair enough. But I think Cane asked a valid question, and isn't getting very polite answers (for the most part). I'm going to stick my neck out here - much as I hate to, because I'm pretty new to this forum and would prefer to continue feeling welcome - and ask the same question. Instead of slamming the poster or the WOW structure, how would you improve it? Or is the participate/lurk ratio just to be expected? Edited to correct a number

I feel like y'all should be sending out cigars to celebrate the new arrivals. Congratulations!

Thanks! I'm glad you brought up the "microwave-safe" dish business. I always thought I'd heard that if the dish heats up in the microwave it had lead in it and shouldn't be used for food. That never made sense to me, particularly because my Mikasa everyday dinnerware gets pretty hot in the microwave and I'm quite sure it isn't leaded. Are you saying the microwave-safe business is to prevent cracking and explosions? Somewhere around here in another thread, there's a pointer to the "exploding water" phenomenon in a microwave oven. The basic explanation is that water can be superheated in the microwave if its oxygen content is low enough (for instance, if it's already been boiled once), and as soon as you disturb it or drop something into it the steam bubbles can form abruptly, and rather explosively. At last I know why those bubbles form so vigorously when I heat water in the microwave and then drop a teabag in. I quit doing that because it never made good tea. I never realized there might be a safety issue if I carried it far enough. OK, back to clay cookware...

Gaah. So you did! I even read it yesterday! Thanks for the extra information. Very useful.

I have a couple of guesses about the stable simmering temperature. First off, are you simmering over coals, gas, electric coil, or all of the above? I'm going to guess that you're referring to simmering over coals or coils, which will have a certain amount of temperature fluctuation, and that the effect isn't as noticeable over a steady gas flame. Am I right? If so, then what you're probably seeing is the heat content of the pot steadying out the fluctuations in the heat source. For instance, coals will burn out and have to be replaced, and there are bound to be changes in the temperature despite your best efforts as you add and move coals around. It has been noted in other threads that electric coils generally cycle on and off to maintain a low temperature - I doubt you have those, and I have to say I haven't seen mine doing that, but I certainly have seen my electric skillet doing that. (Drives me nuts, it does.) When that happens, the pot will want to transmit the heat change to the water. Water is pretty slow to respond to heat changes, but we all know it does. That's where the efficiency of heat conduction, and the total heat capacity of the pots in question, come in. The more efficiently the pot material conducts heat, the more quickly the water temperature will respond. The more thermal mass (heat capacity) the pot has, the more slowly it will change temperature, even if it's a good heat conductor. As an analogy, I'll use cars, something I have on my mind right now because of the gigantic frost heaves in our local roads at this time of year. Heat conductivity is like the suspension on your car: good heat conduction is like a stiff suspension that "lets" you feel every bump in the road; poor heat conduction is more like a nice soft suspension with good shock absorbers. Thermal mass (heat capacity) is like the weight of your car: the heavier it is, the less it will jump up and down with the bumps; the more heat capacity, the more heat the pot soaks up before it changes temperature. So, when I drive down the road in our heavy company pickup with cushy suspension, I hardly feel the bumps. That's like the clay pot, taking its own sweet time to register and transmit changes in the cooking heat. When I drive the same road in my Geo Tracker (I swear that thing has 2x4's for shock absorbers, and it's a very light car) I get jolted from here to tomorrow. The cast iron pot is likely to be "heavier" thermally speaking than the copper, and maybe heavier than the clay (that's a test I plan to do soon) but it still conducts heat jolts better than the clay does. I said I had a couple guesses, but after that dissertation I'd better stop and check. Do you see the same phenomenon with gas? I'd expect that to be steadier, so I'll have to think of another explanation if you get the same effect regardless of the heat source. I notice that you specify "a completely glazed pot". I assume that's because you lose water from unglazed pot as we've discussed above, and have to keep adding?

Adam, those are wonderful photos. I have some questions for you now: I just looked on Amazon and couldn't find a cookbook by Charles Perry (et al.) or one named Medieval Arabic Cooking (or even Mediavel Arabic Cooking, as you spelled it). Is it a rare book? I'm a bit confused about the discussion immediately above concerning modern recipes without a solid grounding. I thought these were older recipes? I know you're just guessing at quantities, but what else might I be missing with the old vs. new discussion? Elaborate on that, please. It is Really Not Nice to show a photo with a temperature probe, as your lamb did, and then not tell us the numbers. What temperature did you reach, and what did you hold it at? Finally, I want to thank you for the education. Until your post, I thought Jujubes were an American candy. Nancy

That reminds me, my friends called their child "Anna Banana" when she was a baby and toddler. At some point before she started Kindergarten, they realized she would not want that name when she was growing up, so the pet name was shortened to Anna B. Has a nice ring, doesn't it?

I'd be leery of trying it, Mark Bittman notwithstanding. I just looked at the recipe and wondered whether he really meant to bring the pot slowly up to medium heat before adding the pork, rather than immediately plunking the room-temperature pot down on a medium-heat burner. I really think one of the keys to protecting the pot is making gradual changes to heat. I am deliberately not defining "gradual" because I don't know the numbers, but I've been monitoring it by checking the bottom of the pot vs. the sides. If I note a big change in one without a corresponding big change in the other (this applies to rapid cooling, too) I get that pot onto a potholder or wire rack to stabilize. Here's the issue: clay isn't a very good heat conductor, and that means that if you heat one portion it takes a while before the rest of the pot catches up to the same heat. If you heat the bottom quickly, it will start to expand before the sides have begun to warm up and expand. CRACK! If you concentrate heat only on the center portion of the bottom, then the outer rim of the bottom will take a while to catch up and start expanding, and again, you'll get a crack. If the pot's thick enough and you put it over high enough heat, you might even get a crack through the bottom because of the outside expanding more quickly than the inside. The trick is to make gradual changes to the heat so the heated portion can pass the heat to the nearest unheated portion, which passes it on to the next unheated portion, and so on. Each portion has to have time to react by expanding, and if there's too much difference in the amount of expansion then you'll get a crack. Heating clay pots vs. metal pots is a bit like relaying a message 10 times and comparing the transmission rates and reaction times of different communication methods. Good metal conductors such as copper and aluminum relay the heat with the lightning speed of forwarding an email 10 times. Clay is, well, more like trying to relay a message through 10 successive post offices...or maybe even the Pony Express.

Metamora recorded a fun song to one of their babies: "Little Potato". My grandfather always called me half-pint. Not quite food, but food-related.

Avumede, are you using a diffuser over your burner? I don't think anyone else has discussed that yet. If you had the flame on low for 10 minutes, then increased it, you'd have been heating the center of the pot base first - providing uneven heat. Uneven heat can made clay crack, and that can apply to having too much heat in the center as easily as it could apply to pouring cold liquid into a hot pot. It's just another guess, inspired by the discussion above about radial tongues of flame vs. concentric rings. A flame-tamer (diffuser) would even it out.

I just read this and suffered the coffee-spraying-through-the-nose syndrome so ofted described on various threads. Thank goodness I have a "KeySkin" keyboard cover, otherwise my keyboard might be in sad shape at this time. For some reason, as I was reading the above, the scene in the movie Li'l Abner where the "Senator Phogbound" (or whatever he was) is orating and is followed by the song "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands." ... ← I guess it's a good thing I'm reviewing this thread. Now I understand why the refrain "Jubilation T. Cornpone, Jubilation T. Cornpone, dum dum dah dah..." has been ringing through my mental Muzak system all day.

Hear, hear! If that isn't someone's tagline, it should be.