culinary bear
-
Posts
857 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by culinary bear
-
-
You know why Gwyneth called her Apple, yes?
She spent nine months in cider.
*hides*
-
Documented on film by Jacques Tati(n)? :)
-
I was in Slovakia for Christmas 2001 and I was fortunate enough to be taken out shooting on the 26th - many hare met their match in a slivovitz-fuelled (yet very well run) shoot.
The hearts, liver, lung and kindeys were sauteed with onions, tomatoes, garlic and paprika, then finished with sour cream - really nice with some dense chewy local bread.
I imagine the same would work for rabbit.
-
I have, but only in Kent - I can't remember the name of the company which supplies them.
I'm off to Rungis Market iin Paris in a few weeks; I'll see what I can find there.
-
I dislike the taste of sodium hexacyanoferrate in my salt, so I find table salt pretty rank.
You don't need kosher salt; rock salt is reasonably pure and will do fine.
-
I've had good results with Coxes - the New Zealand season is in full swing and they're fairly tasty, but they don't have the aniseed overtones of a november English Cox.
I have had to physically restrain the pastry chef at work from using Golden Delicious, or worse, Bramleys. The prole.
I find Braeburns get a little mushy, and Gala, PInk Lady and Fuji are just plain wrong in a tatin.
One presumes for authenticity's sake that Orleans Reinettes might be a good choice?
Moby - There's a good red onion tatin recipe in Jean-Christophe Novelli's "Your Place or Mine"...
-
*howls with anguish*
heresy!
how on earth can you contemplate cooking the pastry separately?
*keening noise*
that's akin to making a stew by making the gravy and then tossing pre-cooked lumps of beef in it and warming it through before serving.
-
Pigs ears breaded a la Sainte Meinehould are a delight.
-
And yea, Moses did came down from the mountain bearing God's definitive words on the subject of brining, as expressed by Jane Grigson's book; "French Charcuterie and Pork Cookery" Non-kosher editon, obviously.
It has, in Jane's inimitable style, everything you need to know about brining, and had the singular honour of being transalated and sold in France, to wide acclaim (no mean feat there, I assure you)
Personally, I think brining is good in moderation, and can elevate a good piece of meat into a sublime one. This does, however, have its time and place and the, how shall I say, less traditionally sensitive element of the professional cooking community tends to carry it to extremes. I was expecting the day to come when some enterprising soul was going to put brined banana on a menu. Probably at the Fat Duck in Bray.
And if you'll forgive the appropriate pun, brining will rarely make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
-
Oh god - Morningside's finest, the Canny Man.
avoid at all costs.
I've had the degustation menu at Restaurant Martin Wishart, and it was solid, technically flawless cooking... Worth the Michelin star, as is Number One at the Balmoral (Jeff Bland being Edinburgh's other stellated chef). Interestingly, Martin used to head up the Brasserie kitchen at the Balmoral and Jeff was the Exec chef when I worked there.
Duck's at le Marche Noir is reasonable, though can have off days.
The Atrium is still a pretty decent place to go, and James Thomson's clutch of three restauraunts (Witchery, Tower and Rhubarb) are of a fair standard.
Rhubarb's head chef is Kenny Coltman, who used to be Number One's sous chef; anyone would think there was a Balmoral conspiracy going on :)
-
And Moby - I agree completely... you need that slightly bitter burnt caramel edge to it - undercaramelised tatins are a disappointment.
-
Pate brisee is, I think, the traditional one to use, though I much prefer puff.
I've always found that quick puff pastry (or rerolled scraps) actually gives a better (less soggy) result than virgin puff pastry.
Tatins, to me, are a divine example of few ingredients intermingling very well - and when warm and slightly congealed are just about my favourite dessert.
I find russet apples give the best result - any opinions?
-
yes! *smacks forehead*
I remember reading a recipe... it was called chocolate "chantilly" and if you give me a while to plumb the depths of my tortured brain I may remember where I saw it... I remember it being said that it was stable and servable next day.
-
I have seen it done by a young pastry chef I used to work with, but I was a lowly commis at the time and never acquired the recipe.
One of my favourite choc mousse recipes uses a substantial quantity of extra virgin olive oil, and it gives a wonderful result. Indelicate, but gutsy.
-
such cruelty to moles - how do you dig them up first?
seriously though, we don't have much choice in mole spicings over here (UK) but the cool chili company does an excellent dry spice mix which only needs chocolate and lime to bring it up to speed. - I have made this into a paste before and it keeps in the freezer well; I presume the pre-made pastes would keep similarly (you might want to freeze in an ice-cube tray).
-
My exec chef insists on cleaving the lobsters into two lengthwise, and then boiling the halves.
heresy.
I'm trying to wean him off the habit.
-
If I'm shelling out for good vanilla extract (and has anyone ever seen it get cheaper, ever? :)) I make sure the lid is on so tight it needs a corkscrew to get out.
keeps the kids from accidentally drinking it, too :)
-
I have very VERY fond memories as a child of battered fish and chips cooked in a cauldron of hot beef dripping... and my gran reliably informs me that during the war bread and dripping was a real treat.
-
At 70 degress below boiling point (142F, 61C) you're not going to be doing much extraction of flavours.
At a rough approximation of the speed of a chemical reaction ocuring twice as rapidly with every 10C increase in temperature, a temperature of 142F will give an extraction rate eight times slower than a temperture of 193F, which is the typical temperature at the surface of a simmering liquid. The temperature at the bottom will be at or just below boiling point (the height of liquid above the heat source acting as a buffer to full boiling, which is why stocks tend to be made in tall stockpots).
At 70 degrees below boiling point you'd be running a serious risk of bacterial contamination and souring of your stock. Current European guidelines recommend a temperature no lower than 83C for the holding of a nutrient-rich liquid (83C is approximately 30F lower than boiling point).
-
if you'll read my post you'll realise I wasn't recommending that you don't.
I wa pointing out that not all flavouring compounds are fat soluble, some are water soluble.
Some, not all, are soluble in both, and are carried better by one over the other.
Your blanket assertion that 'fat holds flavours better than water' is a scientific (and culinary) falsehood and is worthy of correction, in the interests of clarity and understanding.
-
-
Fat holds and carries fat-soluble flavours.
Water holds and carries water-soluble flavours.
Technically, simmerig is boiling, as the part of the stock nearest the heat source is at 100C. Presumably what you're referrring to as 'boiling' is a rolling boil, with maximum heat applied; I think most of us know that this is not the right action to take with stock, as can be found in the stocks section of eGCI.
-
not to seem anally retentive...
but if the bottle is stoppered, surely any condensation results from evaporation of the original liquid in the bottle (unless you have 20ml of extract in a litre bottle), and any condensation which results merely 'dilutes' the extract back to its original strength before any evaporation occurred?
-
I keep mine (madagascar vanilla extract) in a dark cupboard at cool room temperature.
I think the main considerations are lack of light, a constant temperature, and keeping the bottle well-sealed.
The Tarte Tatin Topic
in France: Cooking & Baking
Posted
YKL - one of the best tatin recipes I've come across was in Alastair Little's "Keep it Simple"... pretty foolproof.