Shalmanese

I think the key was that after the braise, I seperated the meat from the veggies from the sauce, degreased the sauce and reduced it down. Because the meat was out in the open, it dried out and there was no slime. Also, if you have a full service butcher, I highly reccomend you get him to cut the shank above the knuckle if possible (but still give you the knuckle!). I belatedly found out that my shanks were slightly too big to fit into my pot so a few minutes with a hacksaw and the knuckle was off. Because the bone marrow was exposed, the sauce had an incredible rich, marrowy flavour which I loved and I could suck out the marrow after I was finished with the shank.

Starter was a Tuna Salad with Cos Lettuce, Avocado, Tomatos and Croutons. Lamb Shanks Braised in Red Wine with Polenta I'm very slowly improving my presentation and, IMHO, this is the first braise I've done that doesn't look like turds. Dessert was Cherry Frozen Yogurt and Cherry Sorbet (we forgot we had 3lb of cherries in the fridge until it was a bit overripe for eating out of hand).

Heh, that reminds me of this post in which ronnie_suburban pairs up caviar, sour cream and tater tots. The kicker: he had the caviar and sour cream lying around the house but had to drive out and buy some tater tots.

Hah, right, try coming to Australia then. For the prices the local "gourmet" suppliers are charging for copper pans, I could fly to the US, buy a skillet and a saucepan, fly back and still have it come out cheaper.

Golden Century in ChinaTown.

Cherry Frozen Yogurt with Summer Berries

Salad of Roasted Beets, Walnuts & Blue Cheese with a Pomegranete Vinagrette Home Made Frozen Cherry Yogurt with Summer Berries

There was another one where the theme ingredient was abalone and the iron chef used 3 whole abalone to flavour a soup and then discarded the abalone meat.

I've had a king crab that costed over $1000 USD. The crab was over 15kg in weight IIRC. However, that served like 15 people.

I don't know about you but I use maybe 100mL of vanillan a year. I doubt that this is going to significantly affect much of anything in a major way. Compared to the myriad other products that I am using daily which generate toxic byproducts in their production, vanillian constitutes a blip on the radar. cupcakequeen Why exactly does that bother you? The chemical compounds are exactly the same in both. It's not like there are wood pulp atoms and vanilla bean atoms. theabroma have you tried doing a pure double blind? Maybe a lot of the difference is psychological.

1. Not everyone has access to pigs bladders 2. Not everyone relishes the thought of eating something cooked in a pigs bladder 3. Not everyone like CLEANING a f*%king pigs bladder in X changes of water to remove all the urine taint 4. Food is cooked at sub-boiling temperatures so the entire portion is cooked evenly 5. You can leave food in as long as you want and it wont get overcooked 6. You can cook tough cuts of meat for long periods of time so that they stay medium rare and have their collagen gelatanise 7. No aromatics escape during the cooking process 8. You need less flavouring liquid to cook the meat with 9. Any idiot can do it 10. It's new and therefore good. After a few months, it'll be old, and therefore bad 11. Did I mention no pigs bladders involved?

I was in Seattle recently and, due to a supercomputer convention in town that day, the only remotely affordable hotel was stuck somewhere out in the boondocks in the middle of a strip mall. So... I'm hungry, in the middle of a strip mall and without a car, a situation I'm utterly unfamiliar with coming from Australia where such abominations simply do not exist. So anyway, my dining choices were pretty much limited to a couple of quite frankly skeevy greasy spoons and... Outback Steakhouse... keeping in mind that I am from Australia. Oh... My... God... I now tell my friends that I now know what Che Gueverra would feel like if he were still alive today. The final kick in the nuts was that the meal ended up costing me MORE than the delightful almond crusted ahi that I had at McCormick & Kuleto's in San Francisco.

Cooks Illustrated believe that it's almost impossible to tell natural vanilla from vanillan in baked goods anyway. Why not do a double blind on a batch of whatever your making and see if anybody can spot the difference? If not, you might save a bundle by switching to vanillian.

Spaghetti with Peas This is an incredibly simple but incredible tasting dish. I love it because I always have the ingredients to make it on hand. 500gm dried thin spaghetti 500gm frozen peas 100gm butter salt & pepper (serves 6) Thats it. Cook the pasta until al dente, cook the peas for 3 minutes, then put the peas and some cooking liquid in the blender along with the butter and blend until it's pureed but has some texture to it. Thin out if neccesary with more pasta water. Season to taste and then add whatever you want to it. In this case, I also added some buffalo pecorino, sauteed salami and some red pepper flakes but I've also done pancetta, bacon, parmesan, roasted garlic, basil, mint, smoked salmon etc. Not all at once of course .

Mmm... I'm getting back into sorbet making in a serious way. Yesterday was a pomegranate sorbet and, although it was a major pain in the ass... OH MY GOD it was THAT good. About 1/2 an hours work to get 1/2 a cup of juice but the flavour was out of this world. Today is about 2L worth of Cherry sorbet. Others I've made so far have included lime, kiwifruit, apricot, watermelon.

Wha? I've always stored my onions and potatos together and I've never had a problem.

Hah, yes, I went thought that exact same process many times. Basically, it involves me trying to build an entire menu around one signature dish, then realising the signature dish didn't work with the menu so it was scrapped and another dish was chosen as a signature, then the process is repeated about 5 or 6 times. I think at the end of my menu planning, every course had been changed substantially at least 3 times.

After thinking about it a bit more: Do you need both creme brulee and cheesecake? Would just one do? Are you set on them? I would far prefer an acidic fruit dessert after a meal like that rather than a creamy rich one. How are you going to prepare the brulees, it can be tricky doing 7 and getting them all right at the same time. What starch are you going to serve with the Beef? Apart from the ravioli, theres no starch on the menu. You have to watch the starch carefully as that's what really fills you up. What sauce are you doing with the ravioli? The menu as a whole seems a bit too mushroom heavy (both the scallops and the beef), I would probably put the rav after the scallops and make a sauce that contrasted with the earthiness of the mushrooms to prevent fatigue. Do you really want to start off the meal with something deep fried? Whats the batter? If it's not done properly, it's going to leave a greasy feeling over everyones palates which might dull it for the later courses.

I did a 10 courser for 4 once. That took about 5 hours all up, starting from 5pm and going till about 9:45 but we were working at a pretty relaxed pace. We were going pretty slow because we spent quite a bit of time between plates just digesting the food and having good conversation. My best advice to you would be to not get stressed and try to rush it. My menu format was pretty similar, emphasis on easy to prepare and reheat items. However, looking back, I felt pressure to get the plates out as soon as possible to minimise the time spent away from guests. An extra minute or so is going to get lost in a 4 hour dinner and spending that extra bit of time means you can take care with the plating and make sure you don't miss anything. Plating is often more complicated than you imagine in your head. First, you have to clear out enough counter space to put down 7 plates, then you have to plate each one, garnish, wipe and serve. Be careful about portion sizes, I would serve the soup in a cup and probably limit it to 2 - 3 ravioli and 2 - 3 scallops per person. Overall, it seems a very heavy menu. Putting in some quick and easy palate cleansers between course also helps with the timing and digestion. I would be hesistant to eat something as rich as a creme brulee right after a rich Bouef Bourguignon. Maybe a small sorbet course in between would lighten it. I also did a slice of watermelon sprinkled with a bit of chiffondale mint and some maldon sea salt just before the main and I thought it worked out to be a really good palate cleanser and easy too. I would also think about more cold courses, maybe drop one of the apps and put in a salad? Of course, it's your dinner party but I would reccomend looking at the eCGI lesson on menu planning. When working with multiple courses, rhythm is very important and theres nothing more disappointing that reaching the end of a epic meal like that and coming up with plates which look and taste fantastic but your just not in the mood to eat.

Yeah, apples should be stored in a cool, dry, dark place as well so it should work.

What about that one that Ferran Adria is always raving about? Seems like a good pick to me.

Yeah, the problem with simple distillation is that you capture all the water back as well. What you really want is fractional distillation. The glassware for that costs on the order of $1000 which is not too bad but the volume is very low. Maybe if you get into more fancy stuff like using a still you could get better output but it's not something you could put on a countertop.

Thats another thing I have been experimenting with is, trying to capture what I call the top notes (flavour compounds that have a boiling point below 100C and are, thus driven off by boiling). My first attempt was a jury rigged system which involved placing a large metal bowl over a pot of simmering stock and then dumping a load of ice on top of the bowl. In theory, the steam should hit the bowl, condense and then drip down the sides to a jury rigged al-foil collection pan. However, there wasn't enough cooling power and I could get the water from the steam but not the volatile top notes. My next attempt has been rather more successful, I've mentioned the pressure cooker I have several times already in other threads but one unique difference about it is that it relies on a computer controlled thermostat, not a flame. This means that not one drop of steam escapes once the lid is attached. I can bring something up to pressure and press the pressure release valve, while holding a cup over the vent and capture all the top notes into the cup. I've been meaning to write up a lot about what I've been doing but I haven't had time yet. Long story short, top notes are often more unpleasant than I would have imagined although there are some surprises. However, I don't think that's the problem with watermelon, the flavour of watermelon doesn't seem especially volatile (Smell watermelon, it's not very fragrant) but it gets tranformed by cooking so another method is needed of reducing it. The other idea I've had is inspired from eating ice-blocks as a kid. If you take a block of frozen juice, you can suck it so that all the flavour is sucked out and only the ice remains. If I could build a machine to do that at home, I could make an effective reduction without resorting to heat or a vacuum. It would have the added benifit of preserving all the top notes. However, I haven't had time to sit down and nut out any engineering diagrams yet.

He deboned the rabit leg. A rabbit loin is easy to debone. Just follow the spine along to seperate.

I like to bring the milk just to a bare simmer and then whip it with a stick blender until I get a nice frothy head. My recipe for hot chocolate involves 1 heaping tablespoon of hot chocolate powder, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 3 squares of dark chocolate and 1 cup of milk. Powdered sugar is sprinkled on top once it's in the mug.