SobaAddict70

It might work....but then the slimy texture wouldn't be present. (Would it? I don't think so...) Its texture and seeds add to the experience of the dish. I'm a fan of okra. SA

Vegetable minestrone, lots of OJ and lots of rest. I hate colds... SA

If you ever manage to get a hold of regular sized or jumbo eggplants, you can try making pakbet. There are different versions of pakbet all throughout the Philippines, but this is a common enough version: Bagnet (pork crackling; see below), sliced Peanut oil Shredded ginger Minced garlic Minced shallots Tomatoes Bagoong, strained Patis (fish sauce; optional; as above, go easy on this as patis is extremely salty and used injudiciously, can overwhelm a finished product quite easily; 1 or 2 t. is sufficient) Okra (I prefer to leave the okra whole. Okra is an important component of pakbet...although I can understand someone leaving it out b/c of its texture. Pakbet without okra is like ratatouille without eggplant, imo.) Ampalaya (bitter melon), quartered Eggplant, cubed or sliced into sections Bagnet: pork belly (a whole piece of pork belly if you can get it) crushed garlic 2 bay leaves pinch of sea salt To make the bagnet, place the pork belly, garlic, bay leaves and salt in a medium-sized sauce pan or pot. Add sufficient water to cover and cook for about an hour. Remove pork and dry in a moderately hot oven, in a baking dish, for about 20 minutes. Deep fry the pork belly in oil, at low heat, for about an hour, turning every 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely. To finish, re-heat oil, and deep fry until crisp and golden brown. --------- Heat oil in a saute pan and saute the ginger, garlic, shallots, tomatoes, and bagnet until the liquid has reduced, then add the bagoong. Add the patis if you want. From this point on, stir once or twice every few minutes or so. (Some ppl would advise you to keep stirring to a minimum. I prefer to stir every so often, but its up to you.) Lower heat and simmer until the sauce has thickened somewhat. Add the okra, ampalaya and eggplant; cover and cook for an additional ten to fifteen minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Stir to mix thoroughly, and serve with steamed rice. SA

If you are not adverse to Filipino food, you might try making inihaw na talong (broiled eggplant, with vinegar and garlic): Broil eggplant with a little EVOO or peanut oil brushed over each one until tender; peel and mash the pulp. Toss with distilled or rice vinegar, salt, pepper, a little sugar, and A LOT of crushed garlic. (If the taste of raw garlic isn't appealing, you can fry the garlic in some peanut oil until browned; remove from heat before the cloves blacken or over-brown.) Garnish with chopped onions, tomatoes, and green mangoes. (I sometimes make this by sauteeing the onions and tomatoes in some peanut oil.) You can substitute bagoong for the green mangoes. Bagoong is fermented shrimp paste. Fry the bagoong briefly, until the liquid evaporates and the paste turns a little crumbly, then fold chopped minced garlic into it. One clove is sufficient per three T. of bagoong, but you can more garlic if you want. Go easy on the shrimp paste. A little goes a long way -- by a little, I mean a smidget of paste can flavor an entire bowl of rice! Another very simple dish is ginataang talong (yes, talong is a Tagalog word that refers both to "eggplant" and a specific type of eggplant indigenous to the Philippines): 1 onion 1 c. coconut cream (or coconut milk; freshly made coconut milk beats the canned version anytime...although you may not be as patient as other ppl since making fresh coconut milk can be a tedious process) Salt and pepper to taste Eggplants Roast eggplants in oven or over a gas flame. Peel and chop finely. Chop onions finely. Heat peanut oil in a large saute pan and fry the onions until translucent. Add eggplants, and saute for a couple of minutes, until the eggplant is cooked through. Add the coconut cream (or coconut milk), lower heat, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until the milk has reduced slightly and thickened. The consistency of the sauce should lightly coat the back of a spoon. Season to taste with salt and pepper, remove from heat, and serve immediately. I like talong as an omelette: boil or broil the eggplant, then peel and mash. Be careful to retain the stem -- you want the mashed fleshy portion to fan out when done. Dip the fanned portion into beaten eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper. Fry in unsalted butter until cooked through (as you would an omelette). Serve with banana ketchup. SA

I'm battling a cold, so count me out of this one. Fortunately (for me), it's in the "stuffy nose" stage, meaning the sore throat and aches are gone for the most part. I took off work today with a headache this am, which is mostly gone. Slept all day... Anyway, I expect a full report. SA

Adobo lechon. (I'm not partial to adobo rellenong, but that counts too.) Sinigang. Dinuguan. Anything with vinegar and garlic. Meatloaf. Leftover roast chicken. NOT hamburgers. SA

Saturday: Minestrone invernale (topped off with EVOO), a baguette. Salad of shaved fennel, lemon juice, parmegianno-reggiano. Perrier. Baked caramelized pears with fresh ricotta and honey. Last night: Pasta with fresh vegetable sauce (in this case, pureed roasted acorn squash which had been mixed with unsalted butter, light cream, and caramelized onions), topped with fried herbed bread crumbs. Sauteed kale with EVOO and garlic. Tonic water w/ lemon. Flambeed roasted bananas w/ vanilla ice cream. SA

I've never had fondue, so that's something for my "to do" list (and "places to visit" list). Is the one at Artisanal the traditional one (with kirsch in the mix)? Does it have the usual crust at the bottom? (I've read about it, so that's how I know it.) Do they have raclette on the menu? With boiled potatoes and gherkins? When are y'all going again? Response via PM is fine. For that matter, I've never had port/Stilton either. (A taste or small-ish glass is fine re the port, esp. given my alcohol preferences.) SA

I prefer to confit plum tomatoes. FG's recipe sounds just about right. By a lot of EVOO, that would be at least 1 c. You basically want enough EVOO to partially submerge the tomatoes. Light salt and pepper. Garlic or other aromatics if you want. If using larger toms than cherries, peel and core them, then place them core-side down. About one to one and a half hours in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. The oil (and toms) are muy delicioso with pasta... SA

No stew. Just steak (topped with pan-seared foie gras). SA

huh? What is it exactly that you're looking for? Gomasio crusted green tomatoes? SA

So define it already! heheh I think the line is where bistro/peasant food ends and refined cuisine begins. So using your example, a soup based on the essence of crustaceans -- bouilliabase (sic) isn't HC...far from it. A good lobster bisque has elements of it, but probably isn't it either. Certainly stockmaking and saucemaking are necessary elements. That same lobster bisque, first presented as a mound of peekytoe crabmeat and lobster tailmeat, over which is poured the bisque, and then topped off with a lobster cream (in which tomalley from the lobster is incorporated) probably borders on it. SA

She is the New York City incarnation of the Goddess of e-gullet. SA

You're excused. But that is a very limiting viewpoint, even if you are technically correct from a purely semantic view. As a tradition, kaiseki has evolved from its roots in the Japanese tea ceremony (which was a social requirement among the samurai class -- I'm weak on my Japanese history here, so perhaps others can fill in), and been refined through the centuries to the point where it can legitimately lay claim as a form of "haute cuisine", replete with a philosophy/strategy and any of the innumerable elements that French haute cuisine can claim as its own. SA

That's my point. You can't fit something like "haute cuisine" through one narrow set of conditions and traditions. There will always be permutations that don't fit the accepted view. However, I can be magnanimous and say that regardless of which view you're discussing, there seem to be overlapping elements (i.e., artistic presentation, transformation of ingredients, use of luxury materials, variety of cooking styles). GJ -- I would define "sophisticated and elegant" as "a level above and beyond mundane and common so as to seem informed in matters of taste, complex in matters of design, yet simplicity personified in matters of execution". Food for thought, eh? So by that definition, Craft definitely fits the bill. SA

By that definition, the food served at Craft would be haute cuisine. But in the context of Escoffier, probably not. Wilfrid -- your criteria fits the bill if you were talking about the French definition of haute cuisine. But kaiseki cuisine is most definitely haute cuisine, albeit more along the lines of a Japanese view. The style is different -- in kaiseki, you're trying to establish a balance between the natural world and the world of manmade artifice while keeping in mind the harmony of nature. This is not an aesthetic that seems to be present in the Western view of le cuisine d'Escoffier. And then, you have haute cuisine in the context of Imperial China and also of Moghul India. So, I'd have to say, you'd need to expand your contextual basis a bit. I think its safe to say that the definition of haute cuisine depends on an individual's subjectivity, as in most things like art and philosophy. SA

Sure. Let's hope I don't have to work late that night (will PM you the day of in case I have to). Directions pls. (I'm a slacker.) SA

Sounds positively delish, HP. BTW, welcome to e-gullet. SA

Roast a butternut squash until flesh is tender; scoop out seeds and discard or save for another use. Scoop out flesh, and puree with some light cream, unsalted butter, salt, freshly cracked black pepper. You can fold in some mascarpone if you want, but this is unnecessary. Fill buttered cookie cutters or ramekins and unmold onto a plate, being sure to run a warmed or heated knife around the edge of each cutter or ramekin to ease unmolding. Top each round of squash with a fruit chutney, or chopped fresh herbs. When I make this recipe, I prepare the chutney in advance, about a week in advance to let the flavors develop. At this point, stone fruits combined with cinnamon and other sweet spices, along with apple cider vinegar and peppercorns make for an ideal chutney. SA

*sigh* I just realized I deleted my own post in favor of a post about what I made for dinner last night. Anyway... If you're in NYC or happen to visit NYC sometime soon, you might check out Sugiyama. The restaurant happens to offer the closest possible approach (imo) to formal kaiseki cuisine, short of travelling to Japan. I think that if you were in Japan, that the hot lava rock with the Kobe beef and lobster course would be left out. I feel, and this is just speculation on my part, that Nao offers this course as a catering to Western tastes, and also because ppl seem to expect the utilization of Kobe beef if ppl are going to be spending $125 a head for a multi-course dinner. (The lava rock course pales in comparison to the rest of the meal, in my opinion.) If you were in Japan, and you had a kaiseki dinner, there would probably be a meal focused on the matsutake mushroom which is in season right now. (Jin? I could be wrong here.) There might be a course, for example, utilizing the caps; a course utilizing the stems, as a major ingredient; a course involving matsutake broth; etc. The idea is to create a meal involving the senses with an eye towards an awareness of the seasons and harmony within nature, and a focus on the ingredients while utilizing the simplest possible means. (Jin?) SA

Last night -- standard workout dinner: steak, steamed rice. stir-fried veggies, w/ garlic and ginger. Evian. ricotta cheese and eucalpytus honey. SA

With a Ginsu chef's knife perhaps?

Cold red-cooked chicken, with any of the following dipping sauces: sesame oil, minced scallions, Chinese black vinegar and shredded ginger; salt, pepper, gomasio and ground dried orange peel; mushroom (or other type) soy sauce, chili oil, minced garlic and shredded pickled ginger. And of course, there's cold jellyfish and cold beef tendon with chili paste. SA

hm in a chutney as part of a salsa you could make green tomato jam (a savory jam, for use as a condiment) I'm sure other ppl will contribute... SA

nothing extraordinary....I mean, this IS e-gullet after all... Monday: with some duck from a local Cantonese take-out joint -- shredded the duck meat, and stir-fried with some Napa cabbage, carrots, onions, and Chinese black mushrooms, mushroom soy, red bean paste, scallions, ginger and garlic. Steamed rice. Szechuan pickled turnips. Ginger tea with honey. Tangelos. Tuesday: Broiled salmon, coconut and red bean rice, sauteed spinach w/caramelized onions. Evian.