Shalmanese

Well, the eating has begun, this was at a friend of the family's house tonight, 14 people. Sorry about the crappy photos, all I could do to make 10 very hungry adults and 4 hungry kids to stay away from the food while I snapped a few pics. Top left: Tofu strips with some kind of vegtable I don't know the name of in english. Long, thin and cylindrical, very crunchy. top middle: Pork fried in some sort of sauce with peanut bits top left: Seaweed and vermicelli bottom right: Deep fried glutinous rice balls bottom middle: Tofu with 1000 year old eggs top left: Seaweed and vermicelli again top middle: Pork with snow peas top right: Pigs ear, braised in soy bottom middle: Chinese Fried fish bottom right: rolled beef tounge, braised in soy top right: Chicken with hard boiled egg and green bell pepper bottom middle: Pork ribs braised in what I think was coca cola. bottom right: Jumbo Prawns This came out later in the night, deep fried rice thingies with chicken, tomatos and mushrooms.

I guess this technically isn't candy but I'm a sucker for Chinese sunflower seeds. They're more addictive than pringles!

"Tang hu lou" - Candied Haw It's 4 or 5 whole haw berries, stuck onto a stick and coated in a light toffee coating. Served either hot or cold by street vendors in chinese cities. I eat about 4 a day every time I go back because it's one of the very few things completely unavailable elsewhere.

Potato and Fontina White Truffle Gratin My local cheesemonger got in a wheel of aged fontina with slices of truffles inside and I of course, jumped at the oppurtunity. Last night, we had fresh egg pasta in some butter sauce with shaved truffle cheese and tonight, we finished the rest off in a gratin. The truffle aroma infused into the entire dish. Smelled and tasted amazing. I think I'm all truffled out this week. Braised beef short ribs This came out a bit too soupy but we were too hungry to care. I had it in the oven on low covered for the first hour but I needed the oven for the gratin so I moved it onto the stove uncovered. In retrospect, uncovering the entire time might have helped punch up the flavour through reduction. Braised cabbage in some White Wine vinegar Something to set off the richness of the other two dishes, paired very well when sopping up the sauce from the beef.

For Dinner: Potato and Fontina White Truffle gratin. I scored some fontina cheese with little white truffle bits in it so I layered it in with the potatoes. Delicious, I had to almost physically restrain some of my family members from trying to take it out early because the truffle aroma was wafting all through the house.

Hoo boy, this year is the major one. We're planning on having 45 people over in total, 25 on Tuesday, 20 on Saturday. My mother is cooking and I'm just a lowly sous chef so I don't know what's on the menu yet. I'll post back after the event.

I doubt this would work in a restaurant setting but at home, I tend to slightly over sugar my sorbets and freeze it. Once I check what consistency the sorbet is, I can sort of eyeball how much extra water is needed and just add that and mix well and freeze again. Because it's semi-liquid at the start, you can mix it much more throughly and get a lot of air in and then mix it again before serving to give that ultra-smooth texture.

I think it's about time the scientific method finally made it's way substantially into the kitchen. Not just stuff like talking about proteins and melting points, but even very simple stuff like double blind testing and controlling variables and building a meaningful ontology is something that should have been present in cooking a very long time ago.

Does anyone know of a reliable way to pick a good pomelo? It seems to be the most variable fruit I've ever seen except possibly watermelon. One comes out juicy and sweet/sour while another comes out dry and tasteless.

Stolen from this thread in another msg board: QtM's killer spaghetti sauce 1/2-1 lb favorite ground red meat (beef, pork, italian sausage, emu, etc) 1 large onion, chopped a few tbsp olive oil 2 or 3 large garlic cloves, chopped 29 oz. can diced tomatos or tomato sauce (even better, 4 cups fresh tomatos, chopped) 12 oz. can tomato paste 2 tbsp parsley flakes 1/2 tsp basil 1/2 tsp marjoram 1/2 tsp pepper 1/2 tsp oregano 1 tsp sugar if desired 2 cups liquid (water, beef consomme, chicken broth, whatever but make sure the liquid is relatively low salt) 2 tbsp lemon juice 1-2 tbsp Vegemite 1 bay leaf Beef Stew With Vegemite 1 pkg Schwann's frozen Sirloin beef tips in gravy (or about a pound of stew meat) 4-6 potatos, peeled and cut up into smaller bits a few cups of carrots, cut up two onions, cut up into yummy-sized pieces 8 oz tomato sauce or a cup of spicy V-8 or both 1 can beef consomme (campbells works nice) 1/2 tsp black pepper 1-2 Tbsp vegemite Some Worcestershire sauce if desired Mix it all together in a pressure cooker bring it up to pressure for about 18-20 minutes let cool thicken liquid with cornstarch if desired eat Pot Roast 3 lb beef pot roast 8 potatos 3 large onions lots of carrots I cup beef consomme 1 cup spicy V-8 1/2 tsp black pepper 1/2 tsp MSG 1 tbsp vegemite olive oil 2 bay leaves Sear pot roast in olive oil, dump into pressure cooker. Add veggies. Mix spices and vegemite and liquids in a bowl, stir up good pour over pot roast and veggies seal pressure cooker, cook on high for 80 minutes remove solids, thicken juices with cornstarch if desired to make yummy gravy serve add bay leaves Cuppa Vegemite: 1 cup hot water 1 tsp vegemite

We've always done our home hotpots in an electric frypan thing with the built in heating coil in the bottom. Every family I know uses one of them, only restaurants use gas/charcoal.

I've only done Wagyu ribeyes. They came out like butter, just as the promotional literature said it would :D. I was alarmed by how much fat ran into the pan but there apparently was still enough in the steaks to keep it nice and tender. I think next time I might contemplate cooking them until bleu instead of rare. Does anyone know of a supplier in Aus that dry ages their wagyu? would it do anything special for the meat? I figure with something so special, going the extra mile should be worth it.

No, I don't personally speak japanese and I've certainly never seen the japanese show nor know where to obtain it but I do know several Japanese people and have spent quite a bit of time discussing such cultural differences with them. The main theme that I have picked up is that Americans seem to value personal preference and opinion more while the Japanese feel that there are objective standards to judge and experts who dispense wisdom from on high based on soundly reasoned principles. If you listen to the english translations of ICJ, you hear a lot about balance, enhancing the natural flavour, contrasting texture, subtlety etc. This is the search for why a food tastes good rather than just how good it tastes to you at that moment. Even though the guests were admittedly not food experts, they all seemed to understand that food follows a certain set of protocols designed to fulfil a certain set of goals and that tasting food was akin to appreciating art in that the pleasure is derived from discovering and uncovering these principles in the food. I also have noticed that it was very rare in ICJ for a taster to object to a particular presentation on personal grounds. I'm not sure if it's from carefully vetting of the guests or the japanese willing to be more adventerous, but I'm also willing to bet that a lot of the tasters, while personally not appreciating a dish, were still perfectly capable of elucidating objectively why such a dish might appeal to people.

I was referring to the Zagat lady primarily as I have not seen the 3rd episode yet but the first two both struck me with the shallowness of the comments. As with all generalisations, there are ample exceptions to the rule, which I did point out. But I am saying that America as a culture is not one that is used to intellectulalizing and analysing food in a deep manner. Food is judged on a personal and sensorary level. Because of this, it's not very conducive to TV presentation. Again, I stress that this is not a bad thing.

If you would allow me to get on my soapbox and pontificate a bit: [soapbox] Americans simply can't talk about food. Sure, the company on egullet is the exception that proves the rule but I think IC has clearly demonstrated that, possibly apart from Steingarten who is paid to talk about food, even people with significant culinary experience just plain don't know how to talk about food. In America, food is either "delicious" or "not very good", maybe if it really is exceptional, food might be "very delicious". It is essentially rated on a one dimensional scale. Now why I think this is is because Americans view eating and tasting food as an ultimately innate skill. While it might take many years and lots of effort to be able to make great food, tasting food is a skill that everyone possesses. It's a purely sensory reaction to how you feel when the food has entered your mouth. On the other hand, the Japanese mentality seems to view such things more as an artform, an intellectualised activity. Like tea ceremonies or flower arranging, what was once something done for pleasure has now been turned into an artform. It promotes a more introspective, analysing look to food. While the Japanese tasters might be no more qualified than the American ones, they knew that there was something beyond purely personal taste to food and tried to elucidate that (often rather hilariously when they made some utterly boneheaded comment and you could see the chef struggling with all his might not to let off a tirade of abuse. In fact, I would have to say that it was my favourite part of the show.) I'm not saying that one is neccesarily better than the other but I think the Japanese approach definately makes for better TV. It's as if two people were looking at a Picasso painting and one said "It looks depressing, it makes me feel sad" while the other said "I think his use of lines was interesting, they bring out the dynamic nature of the scene and really propels user into the picture". Of course, I know barely anything about art criticism so for all I know, both statements are equally bullshit, but the second is more interesting to the viewer. But I still think it's very sad that even some of the most powerful people in the food industry can't even speak coherently about balance, proper seasoning, brightness or anything else descriptive about food. [/soapbox] After watching the first few episodes, I think it definately has potential. I love the witty banter between the floor and the stand, it brings a lot more intimacy and familiarty which was missing in the original. I also think plating in ICA has been a cut above ICJ. While there have been some truely ghastly plates put out *cough* flay's jackson pollock in sauce *cough*, it seems to play a more central role this time around. There are some fairly major issues but I think many of them can be optimistically be attributed to teething troubles and might work themselves out once they get their stride. Please let's have an intro on the challenger, 2 - 3 minutes isn't much to ask. Instead, you can cut out the pointless explaination of the scoring and trim the overly long intro segment. The colour commentator, I think many people have been too fixated on the Hattori/Fukui dynamic and have wanted to emulate that over here. I actually think Alton/Bourdain would work great as a team. With no disrespect to bourdain, but it seems as if his culinary education was deep but not wide. He knows and cooks what he loves to eat but he doesn't venture much out of those boundarys, Sure he might have eaten a lot on A Cooks Tour but he didn't seem to really go behind the scenes. On the other hand, he seems to deeply respect chefs and the cooking process. He provides the grizzled restaurant veteran commentary to Altons encyclopedic book knowledge. Talking more about the chefs, techniques, dynamics rather than the food. In short, providing us with a glimpse of how restuarant cooking is fundamentally different from home cooking. The editing seems to be a huge mess, theres no real sense of coherency to any of the dishes until about the 20 minute left mark when, wham, it all seems to come together. I don't really feel like watching 20 minutes of chefs prepping onions when I have no idea what they are going into. Show us some of the unique preperations and get the commentators to guess how it's all going to come together. Of course, you need 3 - 4 commentators to pull this off.

A chilli?

It's not so much saving money so much as they just can't handle the typical western deli/cafe type foods. Even though the chinese seem capable of eating every bodily part of every animal, a few slices of roast beef between some bread freak them out. Odd I know :P.

It's interesting that so many people put eating last. I have a theory that the set of people who love to cook and the set of people who love to eat might be fairly independant of each other.

Heres something which I don't think many people practise. The whole point of the big vat of oil is so that you can bring the fries up to temp without having a huge spike in cooking temp. However, once the fries are at equilibrium, theres no real point in using up so much oil. So, instead, if you need to make up a large batch of fries quickly, have one big pot of oil over high heat and several smaller ones just big enough for a batch of fries over lower heat. Drop one batch into the big oil and wait for the temperature to recover, then move it into the smaller pot and proceed with the next batch. This way, you can get far more fries done in the same amount of time. Which also means your oil won't break down as much so you can use it longer.

Our local farmers market (Fox Studios, Sydney) sells wagyu, $69/kg for ribeye, $59/kg for sirloin, $39/kg for rump, no brisket AFAIK but I'm sure you could ask for some. The name of the farm is Condobolin Wagyu. I spoke to the guy at the stall who is the son of the owner and he wasn't sure how to get it in Melbourne but if you phone his dad on (H) 02 6895 3116 or (M) 0428 953 116 ask for Peter, he can find you a source. I've heard good things about bangalow and my local organic butcher has some. However, I've been quite happy with some of the stuff from the local asian markets which is about 1/7th the price and they also aren't afraid of a bit of fat. PCL: What makes Wagyu brisket much better than normal brisket? I thought the appeal of wagyu was the marbling which meant essentially high heat, quick cooking, for a long cooked brisket, the fat would have all melted out and would be indistinguishable from normal brisket. Am I wrong?

Eating last, and a tossup between planning and cooking. I've found that eating without cooking, no matter how sublime the food, always seems to be missing something. Even the best restaurant meals I've been to don't leave me as satisfied as a simple plate of homecooked pasta with butter and parmesan. Planning I love to do for big elaborate setpiece meals, trying to co-ordinate several courses while trying to incorporate what happens to be particularly excellent at the markets and showcasing some unique ingredients that I've just discovered. I can easily ponder and tweak a dinner party menu for a month before I'm completely happy with it. On the other hand, simple, daily cooking is also deeply satisfying, starting with a big pile of raw ingredients and methodically disassembling them. It's soothing. I guess it all depends on what mood I'm in.

Bourdain reccomends 280F/140C in Les Halles for the preliminary blanch, I found that results in nice, soft soggy fries which I sometimes even prefer to the twice cooked ones. edit: If you don't want to blanch, you can always cut into shoestrings which only need one fry.

Are you putting them over dry heat? clay pots need at least a bit of liquid in them or they will crack. But some of the clay pots I have go back 20 or 30 years and they are still going strong. Clay pot cooking seems to work differently from normal vessels, the bottom seems to get stuck on the inside of the pot and brown which means you get a very flavourful broth which you don't normally get. The only bad thing is you need to sear in another pot. Doing pork neck bones in a clay pot for 8 hours produces silky smooth meat and bones that crumble, delicious. And leaving the cover off means the broth evaporates leaving you with a intensely concentrated sauce to go with it. I also like doing Boeuf Borguignon and Coq a Vin in a clay pot.

Surely a preliminary boiling will get rid of all nasty virii/bacteria.

No, I would take a car, the reason why I said 20 minutes walking is that I have no idea how long it would take in the car as I have never driven down there. According to wikipedia, sea water is 3.5% salt so about 30 liters of water is required for 1kg of salt. I think I use about 1 kg of salt every 6 months so it sounds reasonable practical to me. I'm not too crazy about dehydrating it though, it seems like a huge waste of time when most of the time, my salt is going to be eventually re-hydrated again anyway. Since sea-water is so concentrated, I doubt subbing water for dried salt is going to throw out most recipes significantly. If I need dried salt, I think I'll just buy it.