Shalmanese

With the prices I've generally seen, a pair of duck breasts usually ends up costing more than buying an entire duck. One trick I've recently learned is to score & salt the breasts and then leave them skin side up uncovered in a fridge for 3 or 4 days. The salt & the dry air of the fridge dessicates the skin which leads to more rendering and a crispier skin.

This is where a wok seems to be especially handy. Rest your meat against the side of the wok and pour oil from the center. Any juice dripping is going to hit a dry wok and slide down the side, minimizing splatter.

Roasted Tomatos & Bell Pepper, half pureed & half cut into rough chunks make an amazing pasta sauce with just a bit of lemon juice, basil & sharp cheese. A bit of bacon, anchovy or garlic in there also doesn't hurt.

I can confirm that this technique also works on eggplants. I again used 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan for 1 eggplant and there was visible oil in the pan at the end of cooking. With eggplants, the texture of the finished product depends on how long it's spent simmering & how long it's spent frying. A longer simmer will produce looser, mushier flesh while longer frying times firm it up and add bounce & toothsomeness.

I use carrots as a test of sharpening and when I take it as far as I can go on a cheap stone, it requires noticeable pressure to get through a carrot, often more than before I started. Just two swipes on a finer stone and the pressure is noticeably reduced. 8 more and it's as sharp as it'll ever be.

I'm glad others are concurring with me about Tetsuyas. We had a meal there in 2007 & it was pretty bleh. Seasonings were inconsistent, flavor combinations were uninspired & only 2 or 3 dishes stood out as memorable.

If anyone is ever in Melbourne, Polly's is my favorite cocktail bar there. From the outside, it doesn't even look like it's even occupied but you walk in and it's plush and luxurious and the cocktails are fantastic. It's very much an insider's type place, people have to tell you about it or you'll never find it.

I don't know if this is the correct way of doing it or not but I use cheap stones to start and expensive stones to finish my knives. I sharpen on the rough side until I can feel a burr, maybe 30 strokes, then another 10 or so on the smoother side before finally finishing on a Japanese 4000 grit stone. If you don't finish on a fine stone, your edge will be horrible

So I tried this technique again tonight and it continues to dazzle. At it's core, it's a braise-fry. Here's how I did it: Slice dry mushrooms and add them directly to the pan on high heat, add 1/2 cup of water and some salt and clamp on the lid for 3 minutes. When you take off the lid, the mushrooms should be stewing in a pool of it's own juices. Continue cooking on high the lid off, stirring once in a while to prevent sticking. Once the liquid is almost gone, drizzle in 2 tbsp of duck fat and continuously stir the mixture. Once all the liquid has evaporated, it will transition from braising to frying and you want to keep it on high heat and stir until most of the mushrooms are brown. One other advantage of this method is that it sets the colors into the mushrooms. With the dry fry, mushrooms can leak liquids and discolor something that it's later stirred into. I put these mushrooms in a polenta and there's a tiny bit of darkness but the golden yellow of the polenta is largely intact.

In Jennifer 8 Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, she goes on a quest to find the best Chinese Restaurant outside of China and settles on Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine in Vancouver, Canada. I recently learned via a slate article on Vancouver that this restaurant is already out of business which is incredibly depressing. While there is a profusion of low-end Chinese around the world and even quite a few vibrant mid-high end Chinese places, it seems almost impossible to find a Chinese restaurant outside of China that is serving Michelin 2* or 3* level food. About the only one I can think of is the Flower Drum in Melbourne. How come high end Chinese has never been successfully exported and will it ever happen?

It's certainty traditional but, I think, underwhelming almost all of the time. The best gelato flavors are ones which are too intense in their natural state and require some softening and dilution with dairy & cold. Lemon, Chocolate, Mint, Strawberry, Coffee, Honey. Pistachio, on the other hand, is already such a soft flavor that it gets worse with dilution. I admit I'm prejudiced because I so rarely order pistachio gelato but I'd be very sceptical that I could taste a pistachio gelato that would change my mind.

Meatballs never struck me as all that hard to make. It takes what? All of 20 minutes to mix and portion them out?

Heat up the schmaltz separately until it stops bubbling to drive out all the moisture, decant into a measuring cup and wait for it to cool down and for the particles to settle out, then pour the top 90% into a bottle and leave the impurities in the cup.

IMO, skimming is one of those pointless french rituals which end up doing very little to the quality of the finished stock. Unless you care about perfect clarity, don't bother.

Wow, these are all some great ideas. A question about pot stickers: They're meant to be frozen on a sheet pan and then bagged up correct? If so, whats the best way of transporting them to people's houses without them sticking into one huge mass before they get to the freezer?

Lamb Olives Potatoes White Beans Root Vegetables Peas Squash

So my ultimate bolognese recipe veers quite significantly from the traditional but I think, in a good way. I use large chunks of meat instead of ground meat which is shredded at the end for a more interesting texture. I use red wine although I would be open to using white. I add just enough canned tomatoes & fried tomato paste so that it has a notable tomato note. I also throw in a bit of anchovy paste just to amp up the meaty flavor although the chicken livers might also serve the same role. I also add a shot of lemon juice at the end to brighten up the flavors. Also, never broth or stock. The meatiness should come from the meat, not added liquids. I like to cook it down until it's pretty dry and loosen it up with some pasta water if it's needed.

So I'm thinking of doing a food making party event with friends with the following concept: We all get together and make a seriously huge batch of a particular recipe. Then, it gets portioned out and each person takes home a dozen or so individually sized portions which they can then freeze and have a ready meal for when they need it. However, the end goal is more social than anything else. The food is there as an excuse for people to hang out and a way to have people make something together. There are a couple of requirements for foods that would be ideal for this: 1. It has to be scalable to ginormous quantities 2. It has to be able to freeze with minimal quality loss 3. It has to be difficult enough that the average person probably wouldn't attempt it on their own 4. It has to have enough labor involved that everyone feels like they're contributing For the inaugural party, I was thinking a ragu bolognese would be perfect. I've made the full blown traditional version only a couple of times in my life since it's such a production but, with a group, I think it could be manageable. The only other solid idea I've had is Chili. I thought I would throw it out to the ingenuity of egullet to brainstorm some other ideas. Would potstickers freeze & thaw well? What about mole? That's something I've never made before. Any other suggestions?

You could always make friends with a european egulleter and get them to fedex you some mustard.

For decent chocolate, the only ingredients that it should contain in appreciable quantities is cocoa powder, cocoa butter & sugar (trace amounts of lecithin & vanilla also). 3lbs of 60% chocolate translates into roughly 2.2lbs of 83% chocolate & 0.8lbs of sugar.

Ugh, I made the mistake of getting the 3lb tube of ground meat once and it was the worst ground meat I've ever had. Gristly and generally unpleasant.

And remember, if anyone complains about undercooking, just tell them you deliberately left it ropey because you wanted to preserve the toothsome quality .

I just now tried the Wet & Crowded Mushrooms technique from the cooking techniques blog and, wow, what a revelation it is! Unlike conventional fried mushrooms, these things barely absorbed any grease at all and there was a pool of fat at the bottom of the pan at the end of cooking. I can't believe I've been struggling with sauteed mushrooms all these years when something so simple turns them into something sublime.

I would say for 99% of kitchen tasks, the sharper the knife the better. But there are certain things for which I deliberately keep a range of slightly duller knives around for. The first is slicing avocados in the shell for which I reach for the dullest, broken tipped paring knife I can find. If it's even the slightest bit of sharpness, I end up breaking through the skin of the avocado. Breaking down chickens or legs of lamb, I have two knives, one wicked sharp and one slightly dulled. A too sharp knife makes it impossible to scrape against a bone without having the knife digging into the bone and what you end up with is small pieces of perfectly sliced off bone with your meat. What are other tasks where you reach for the not-so-sharp knives on your rack?

I'm convinced pistacho gelato is a failed concept. Either you need to use stupid expensive pistachos to get any sort of taste or you need to amp up the flavor with other nut extracts. Just each pistachos in their natural form and gelato other flavors instead.