culinary bear

In the UK, we're meant to heat to 71C for at least ten minutes (now a legal specification if we're using unpasteurised yolks). *does calculations in head* that's 160F. Personally I find that the base I use : 1135ml double cream 1135ml whole milk 400g sugar 24 egg yolks 30g glucose 20g trimoline starts to thicken at about 74C, which should equate to about 170F. Also, be aware that ice-creams always have a better texture if the base is left to ripen for a period of about 12-24 hours before being churned. What happens is that the semicoagulated (thickened) proteins swell and take up water from the base, leading to a smoother mouthfeel and better texture. Think of it as syneresis in reverse (syneresis is what happens when you severely overcook scrambled eggs - the proteins contract and squeeze out water, leaving you with that white milky liquid). If I've accidentally slightly overthickened a base, I pop it in a barblender and then put it through a fine chinoise - it suffers very slightly in texture, but not a great deal.

Personally, I don't add eggs to frying batter, either yolks or white. Although the protein (albumin) content of the egg white will give some elasticity to the batter (and, I've found, make the fish slightly easier to coat) you sacrifice crispness of the final product. I have found in the past that the battered item will go soggy very quickly. For the last few years, I've used this very simple (and bomb-proof) recipe : 9oz self-raising flour 1 bottle (330ml) beer - I use Nastro Azzuro, but any fizzy lager will do salt freshly ground white pepper 1tbsp lemon juice. Make sure the beer's cold, and that if the batter's hanging around, it's kept on ice. It must be cold or it won't crisp up so well. Mix everything together and beat until smooth. Take your fish, and with more salt, pepper and lemon juice, season it thoroughly. Be generous with the seasonings. Place the fish into flour, and coat thoroughly. Hold the floured fish by the thinnest end, and coat with the batter. Allow the excess batter to drip off for a few seconds, then place the tip of the piece of fish in the hot oil, and lower down GENTLY. Aim for an inch of submersion every three seconds. Once you're half-way submerged the batter will have souffled up and the fish will want to float. Gently submerge the rest of the fish at the same rate and leave for three to four minutes. Turn the fish over, give it another three to four minutes, and drain thoroughly. Eat! :)

I will never, ever, lend my commis my ceramic steel, only to have him drop it on the floor. I'm wondering which I'm going to replace first, my steel or my commis.

I never oil the water, but if I'm making a large batch of pasta for reheating later in a chauffon, I'll oil the iced water I plunge the hot pasta into. This stops the pasta sticking together in storage. The grape-skin method is very workable; I've had four separate starters using the method and they've all produced very good bread. One is now over a year old. If you like, I'll put a thread together in the baking forum. How much notice do you need? :)

*takes off chef's toque, replaces with mad scientist's hat (it's like a chef's toque, only orange and green)* The answer is yes, although the salt levels in the water would inhibit (although probably not prevent) fungal growth. In my experience the water used for cooking pasta is saltier than that used for boiling the humble spud. The oil that most people add to their pasta water would also interfere with fungal growth. For sourdough starters, you really can't beat the bloom on the skins of organically-produced grapes - I find it works a treat. *dons chef's toque again* Oh, and while we're here, salt your bloody pasta water - otherwise I'm not coming around for dinner.

Bo Friberg's Professional Pastry Chef / Advanced PPC are extremely good books; their basic recipes are very workable, and they're not dumbed-down at all. I use them a lot at work.

Martin Wishart at Restaurant Martin Wishart in Edinburgh, Scotland, serves an amuse-bouche of a deep-fried bonbon of confit quail... I enjoyed it immensely...

most butter is 18-20% water, depending on salt content. A pint's a pound the world over? not in the UK, where we idiosyncratically have 20-oz pints - 25% larger than US pints. confusing, eh? :)

infuse vodka with them... you'd normally need to pierce them with a needle before packing them in a jar and covering them with vodka for a couple of months, but as they're frozen you shouldn't need to pierce them... drink ice-cold... goes very well with oily fish.

I was always taught equal weights; back at the balmoral making estouffade we'd use 12lb of flour and 12lb of butter at a time. Might I be bold and venture the suggestion that volume might have started to creep in allied to the habit of American cookbooks and recipes giving measurements in volume (cups, tablespoons) rather than weight? Professionals tend to use weight more than volume when scaling out ingredients anyway = it's generally more accurate (accuracy of 5g in 1000g on scales as opposed to perhaps 20ml in 1000ml reading a measuring jug) and more convenient, to the extent that bakers in this country (UK) have weighed water rather than measuring by volume when making bread dough for at least the last hundred years (at least according to the books of the time). I'll have a hunt through my books and see if I can find the earliest reference to volume in roux, though I doubt I'll find a reference to it in a professional work.

are those the dried crispy smoked ones they sell for dogs? they're rather tasty - I've tried them :)

The low oven's set to about 120C, and the fat is trimmed back completely - the caul provides all the lubrication when the meat's reheated...

It's lightly brine-cured and braised overnight, usually 12-14 hours. Wrapped in caul in a cylinder, cut into pucks, pan-fried on the outside and heated through in the oven.

Unless the cartilage has been braised to death, I'm not a fan of it either; I tend to strip the meat off. In the past I've managed to remove both sides of the ear away from the cartilage in one piece, then crisped them until crunchy, golden and crackling. Lots of salt, some sauce gribiche... oh my.

We've been using braised, pressed, sliced and breaded pigs' ears in the restaurant as an accompaniment to braised cheek and confited belly, and they work well, if needing heavily seasoned. Elizabeth David once deplored the british habit of disposing of thousands of pigs' ears from the bacon factories by using them as food for mink farms, a practice she compared to "feeding caviar to canaries". She gave a good recipe for pigs' ears Sainte Meinehould, which isn't too far removed from the method we use. Has anyone had any experiences with different methods of cooking what can be an exquisitely tasty part of the pig?

I've looked up my major references on Scottish cooking (F Marian McNeill, Catharine Brown) and can find nothing remotely resembling the confection you describe... During the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland there was much culinary interplay, and you'd be surprised what can turn up as traditional "Scottish" cooking, but I know of no traditional Scottish dish which would give rise to what you describe. I remember seeing a Claudia Roden programme on Turkish cooking, with a pie which might be similar to the one you describe, though...

Grab a very large syringe, and inject with liquid smoke. Please, put down the firearm, I'm joking... :) Have you considered a dry salt rub prior to cold smoking? I've used a dry pickle containing sel rose and a small amount of pimenton dulce, which has accentuated the smokiness subtly. An hour at 35F should be sufficient for blade.

Are we talking thymus or pancreas here? They differ structurally. Also, veal or lamb?

steamed jersey royal potatoes, fresh salted goat's butter, maldon salt, fresh black pepper. bliss.

There's a phenomenal blue cheese from the Asturias region of Northern Spain, but sad to say it's not very well known outside of the country. It's called Picos de Europa, after the Mountain range it's from, and it's sometimes known as "Valdeon" as the village which makes it is called "Posada de Valdeon". It goes stunningly well with both green and black figs; it has just the right level of saltiness and pungency to go with the base creaminess of the cheese... The figs add the fruity sweet element which seems to bring all the tastes together. Posada de Valdeon is such a pretty village, too... I have pics from when I went there a year ago, if anyone would like to see.

Coming in from the tarte tatin thread, dough sheeters are fantastic things... I used to work in a large hotel, and was rotated into the pastry kitchen for a time. We used them for all sorts of things. Towels wet and in need of quick drying, but don't fancy burning them in the oven? - a sheeter makes a good impromptu mangle. With judicious use of paper borrowed from the HR department, I managed to persuade one of the senegalese porters that the dough sheeter was a very old model of fax machine. Our sheeter could be set ~really~ thin, so made excellent pasta, much easier than the £200+ electric pasta roller which sat unused and unloved on a shelf. It crushed nuts evenly and at speed. Commis chef giving you altogether too much lip during the run up to service? - wait tuntil the next time he brings in his BLT sandwich from subway (the sous chef rightly considered this a mortal sin) and using the sheeter, reduce it to the dimensions of a business envelope. We used it for pastry too, occasionally... well, more than occasionally... we got through upwards of a thousand shortbread biscuits on a good day.

*bows in reverence to the power of the One* :) ta.

dough sheeter.... *drools* I had one of those in the pastry kitchen at the Balmoral Hotel... fantastic for all sorts of things, some of which involved pastry. :)

Danish dough has a significantly higher fat content than puff paste, and the gluten structure is more developed... I fear that a tatin made with danish dough would be inclined to flabbiness as the moisture from the apples precluded the full rising of the dough, and the tatin would lose its airy quality. Also, as atraditionalist, I find the concept repellant. :)

Clash of the Tatins?