FaustianBargain

poelage definitely says 'pot roast' in my notes..however...i take it that braising meat=pot roasting(is 'potroast' an american term?) however..when in doubt, i always look up Chef Simon ...my french is rusty, but i navigate well when there are pictures... both braising and potroasting have three things in common..covered pot/pan/etc, on a bed of vegetables/mirepoix and covered in minimally req cooking liquid..i am sure you can 'braise' a cut of beef or pork...and then you brown it...potroast or braising...the terms seem absolutely interchangable here?

roasted royals? edited to add google search result.

thanks...maybe tomorrow i'll get myself a nicely seared tuna...does tuna go with some kind of specific wine?... i am trying hard..but it sometimes freaks me out when stuff that isnt properly cooked comes to the table..it absolutely horrifies me as i keep thinking that something that was freshly pulled out from the floor of the ocean has landed on my plate...no...noone has died yet..i suppose...still..its taking a whole lot of reorientation with food to deal not just with meat/fish...but with the concept of undercooked(or...god forbid..raw) meat/fish..

dandy...for the next class, we are going to pot roast(poelage...i think it means 'pot roast' in french) a ballontine of guinea fowl...why on earth would we 'pot roast' fowl stuffed with forcemeat...i suppose we'll just be 'braising' it...i am getting ahead of myself and reading my notes way too early...the terminologies used didnt make sense to me...danke...will keep you all posted on how it goes..

indeed... do you think the grad students will be able to provide a list of their reference materials?

i have been over this again and again in my notes..isnt it the same technique with different names?

I understand that the right way to sear tuna is to leave it pink at the centre...why? i have seen people curl their lips derisively on mention of well done steaks..but 'well done tuna' seems to make them balk and sputter with sheer horror...is this a golden rule that is never meant to be broken?

I cannot imagine ending a meal without curd rice...it would be blasphemous!...tamarind is acidic..i have never heard of tamarind being 'cooling'...tamarind rice has a lot of chillies to counter the tangy/sourish/fruity tamarind essence(tamarind mixed well with heat..as in chillies)....have tamarind rice everyday without following up with curd rice and you'll have a problem in the wrong end of you...it cools you down in the hot south indian summers(our four seasons..hot..hotter..7th circle of hell..lucifer's nightmare)..altho' curd(more fat content) by itself is heat producing to the body..its buttermilk that cools you down...its not a subtle difference...curd rice is bland..it can be rich with cream or bare like a gruel...fancy with garnish or without...but it tastes so good...everyway other than that... as if south indians need an excuse to have curd rice!

I never liked Pasand...and i wasnt going to step foot into that place after that scandal..forgot the name of that guy anyways...never been elsewhere in that region because KV pulled me like a moth to fire..mostly because it feels like 'home'...i remember this one time when i sulked loudly that we get only pumpkin sambhar every sunday(only because i was wayyy too comfortable..i visibly shrank after i heard my own voice)...it was horrible..i couldnt believe that i actually complained like that...thats home to ya..when they bend over backwards to keep your tummy happy and you still bitch about this and that....i was touched when the owner sent me home with a bottle of 'milagu kuzambu'...and said that most people who arent tamil/south indian dont really recognise 'vathalkuzambu' as what it is..they say that its the 'worst sambhar' they have ever tasted...wonderful folks...also, it was the only place i can pop 'rasikalal' after the meal..tell me which other southindian restaurant in the US makes you feel like you are getting out of some mylapore mess...now i should stop talking and get my everexpanding ass off this chair ...its not a good thing to have vathalkuzambu in mind while making toulouse cassoulet for practicals..disaster, it will be...

We let the Sauternes soak the foie gras for a while for our class. What does it mean when you say 'The wine may have been a bit too much wine for the food.'? I find Sauternes very sweet and I just found out about the 'noble rot' that increases the juice in every grape..making it more sweet and give that extra alcohol content than for the other still white table wines. I am only now getting the whole hang of the food/wine pairing thing...ingenious

This link explains a lot. points to note: 1.The requirements of Europe and North America are met mostly by mining while in Asia, Africa, Australia and South America, solar evaporation is the main source. 2.In the USA for instance nearly 97% of the total production of approximately 40 million tons is used for non-edible purposes. 3.A major portion of salt produced in USA and Canada is by the dry and solution mining of underground deposits. There is a small amount of solar salt production along the California coast and in Utah and Arizona. 4.Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Holland mine rock salt almost exclusively. France and Italy have facilities for both rock and solar salt production. Russia and the Newly Independent Republics, Bulgaria and Romania have a relatively small proportion of solar salt production from the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; the bulk of their requirement is met by rock salt mining. Greece, Spain and Yugoslavia depend almost entirely on solar salt although they have rock salt deposits also. In the hinterland of Spain there are salt springs and saline lagoons from which salt is produced. Portugal produces rock salt and solar salt in almost equal quantities.

Is there a patron saint for cooks? master chef? Any Italian Mama, of course...even the French would agree that without Catherine de Medici,(I have permission to say so because our theory paper on History of French Cooking mentions it as clear as day!..so bite me!) French cooking wouldnt be what we know of it today..the world owes the French a debt for codifying every single technique, method and ingredient...for aesthetics of food...and all that...but even the French know that they owe it to the Italians...

I am currently slam bang half point of a cuisine diploma course at the Cordon Bleu, London. The blog is my way of keeping track of everything that goes haywire. It also reminds me look up info which I normally wouldnt do because I am lazy.

err...you actually counted the number of beeps? btw...this is EXACTLY why women should do all the shopping...there are some things men can do...like bring home the paycheck...let us do the dirty work..like shopping...and swatting rotten fish over yuppie lunkheads...

New Jersey more than NYC...considering that I am always thinking of bolting out the minute I enter NJ(Edison, specifically), I cant come up with any memorable dining experience...altho' in ny, I remember a dinky little place called Pongal...because they had this wonderful spicy buttermilk...

i'll pass on now i want a dosa. here is one for ya

The only SouthIndian restaurant in the US that i liked was in the west coast..sunnyvale,ca...the new jersey/atlanta/d.c restaurants werent upto the mark..for me anyways...the one i liked served fixed lunches.. hmm..they even have a website now >Komala Vilas edited to add: you can thank google for this .. the KV story I remember one of the owners telling me that his cousin had recently published a book on south indian food..maybe some of you have heard of it.. Monsoon Diary

Smoothly mashed creamy yogurt rice with mango pickle. vathalkuzhambu (concentrated tamarind juice with lots of dried red chilli peppers) rice with roasted pappadams(not fried)... rava (semolina) dosas with onion sambhar and coconut chutney upma (usually semolina) that is slightly overcooked and piping hot..so still mushy...with lime pickle..the one made from stale bread is also my favourite.. tapioca with green chillies and lemon juice is sun dried and then deep fried..these are called 'vadams'...the sun drying process...usually over plastic sheets..on our terrace... occurs during a very short window...peak summer in india..go figure...i am fond of fried vadams..but i am most fond of the liquidy..gooey..pearly chilli-lime tapioca mix prior drying..my grandmother always kept aside a bowl of it before piping them on the sheets before dawn...when i get back from school..usually 4ish...i'd have to rush before my cousins did... to peel some of the half sunbaked vadams...they'd still be gooey on the inside and kinda chewy on the outside....it takes about two days for them to dry completely, you see...and kinda chewy on the outside... mangoes..ripe and sweet..pit, skin and all..and oh....sweet... soft idlis drenched in milagai podi (dried red chilli + sesame + an assortment of dhals) mixed with sesame oil...the idea is to soak the idlis in the chilli-oil mix so that the outside is crusty with chilli-sesame flakes..but the inside is bland..some people dont like the hot chilli..alternatively...you can mix ghee and sugar for dipping the idlis...or just dunk them in sambhar and chutney pakoras ..onions dipped in spicy batter...piping hot ..during the ghastly indian monsoon season, i'd be dripping wet by the time i come back home from school...splashing puddles and dancing in the rain..while my grandfather dries my hair..grandmother would make the pakoras..i could never eat them after she passed away... weekends are when the idli/dosa batter is made...it has to be fermented and it was usually made in huge batches...when it was still fresh, it made great idlis..by the second day, the batter isnt good enough..unless you want rock hard idlis..that just wont do..so it slips into its next avatar as dosa batter..after one day of crispy dosas..it isnt good enough for dosas either..so now it becomes uthappam batter...basically thicker dosas with a slight sour taste to it because of all the fermentation...you top it off with chopped onions, green chillies and cilantro. Well..you still have some of the batter remaining..what do you do...you make appams..distinctly different from the keralan variety...this is called kuzhi appam..kuzhi literally means hole...it has a special utensil..seven depressions in a huge iron pot...think indian style yorkshire puddings....fill them half way with oil...drop the batter..with or without onions/greenchillis and pick'em up when they are a golden brown.. i have more..but i am afraid i cant go on..after my grandmother died...we had a 'schedule'...a very precise timetable...fucking killed the joy of eating... edited to add: so many references to 'grandmothers' in this thread...anyone else thinking what i am thinking?

Too much contrast in the 'fixed' image. Too much cropping...try shooting it again by lowering your camera..a little shallow depth of field wont hurt...we dont need *everything* to be in sharp focus...it definitely looks as though there is some sort of artificial light...tungsten bulb? what was your 'natural' light source... where was that light being reflected from...i.e. the sheen you mentioned?...re mylar....just buy a diffusion filter...i sometimes rub vaseline on the lens...well..actually the UV filter that is always stuck on my lens...but i wont recommend it....altho you can do some neat streaky diffusion tricks with it...wont work with espresso..but if you are ever venture into florals.......... what camera..what lens...what is your setting...re composition...it seems to me as though you are 'above' the cup...get lower...you are looking *into* the cup...its boring with just a cup of coffee..throw something on the side...a rolled up newspaper...or a pair of glasses...you get the idea...tell a story with your picture...it makes it all the more interesting...also..i am not very fond of centrally placed objects...but thats just me...its a good image...but its worth a reshoot... edited to add: get rid of the shadows...what was your light source..i think that is the key

i have used one of those. Not worth it. The rotis always turn out 'chewy' and 'wet'...

the idea of thickeners have been around for a long time...but flour browned with fat was imported from Italy to France when Cathetine de Medici married Henri II...the recipe for the modern roux is also found in 15th century italian cook books...who knows...maybe it was an accident...happy accidents are not uncommon in culinary history..tarte tatin, off the top of my head...can you think of anything else?

That won't make any difference at all in thickening properties. The thickening property is relative to the carbonization of the starch and has nothing at all to do with the fat ratio. However, a low fat ratio may leave some starch untoasted. To me that means a badly made roux without optimum flavor development and the attendant risk of burned bits. Why anyone would want to skimp on the fat is beyond me. The 1:1 ratio is strictly a physical thing in that it is easier to stir and get even toasting of the flour grains. When you do the math on the ratio of roux to a particular recipe, skimping on that doesn't usually mean much at all in a particular dish as far as limiting fat. If you are after limiting fat, you probably shouldn't be cooking with a roux at all. oops..my bad..he must have meant 25% more roux... btw..today i tried making a roux with duck fat(mmmmmmm.....) and flour instead of the beurre maine in the recipe sheet for the perigourdine sauce that went with the duck confit...i used double the flour to attain roux consistency....i just didnt need the fat.... gah...edited to add... roux entry I > a kinda tragic attempt to explain roux...as it was explained to me..Roux II and Roux III . Feel free to correct it if i had gotten something wrong....my online tutor deciphered this from a McGee text for me...

I asked my chef about roux today... 1.darker the roux, the lesser its thickening properties 2.darker the roux, its preferable to use oil than butter as the butter will simply burn by the time the desired colour appears 3.flour:fat > 1.25:1 if its a darker roux and you want to retain the roux with its optimum thickening properties

flour will somewhat absorb the extra fat..but only if its slightly about the 1:1 ratio..i think the 1:1 is a rough ratio..i mean 1:2 of flour:fat is absurd, no?...1:1 is probably strictly enforced to give enough leeway for the clumsiest amongst us....

i have cooked wild rice twice(its not really a type of rice..its the seed of a kind of wild marsh grass)...you can get wild rice(in the states, atleast) as pre cooked(supermktish places) or as 'raw' wild rice(i got mine from an organic store). just follow instructions with the former..with the later..soak it in water OVERNIGHT..yes, you heard me right..soak it for *at least* 8-12 hours before you cook it like you would any other kind of rice...it wasnt very pleasant..i prefered the packaged pre cooked type...but then again...for a rice girl like me, wild rice holds little appeal other than novelty and colour..