Kevin72

Yes. They're a little bigger than normal as a result. And I did need to rely on quite a bit of flour to make it work. Still, I find 'em easier to do than making a stuffed pasta.

My VCR ate my tape so I missed the China show.

So, to sum up, the regions for Q2 are officially: April--Lazio May--Liguria June--Sardinia I know that it had been brought up earlier to switch Liguria and Sardinia to allow for a more summery clime for Liguria, but Sardinia, further to the south than Liguria, would probably profit even more from warmer weather.

Recent cooking exploits: Baked polenta with mushrooms, herb frittata: I used chervil, dill, fennel fronds, parsley, and lemon thyme in my frittata. The dill and lemon thyme dominated. Saturday night, I made dishes from probably opposite ends of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, so it's not so micro-regionally "pure". We started with gnocchi stuffed with pear and ginger: Plotkin lists these as one of several variants for Gnocchi di Susinne, a gnocchi made with prunes or plums that I’ve made before but wanted something a little lighter this time. The condimento was butter, sugar, and cinnamon. The cinnamon, oddly, seized in the butter and turned into a viscous goo right in the middle of the pan. Never seen that before. We then continued with cevapcici, another meal I recall fondly from last year’s cooking. These are little oblong patties that I made with a combination of ground beef, lamb, and pork, as well as ground cloves, cinnamon and salt (the spice used traditionally is ground mace, which I do not have on hand). I ground the meat myself, having recently undertaking sausage making at home thanks to a meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachment for my KitchenAid. The white sauce is more of the yogurt dill and caper sauce I made for the artichokes last week. The red sauce is haivar sauce, the more traditional accompaniment. This is cooked eggplant pureed with raw red bell peppers, garlic, and lemon juice. The haivar sauce, interestingly, really brought out the spicing in the meat patties, but both were really good with the meat in their own way. Downright Greek in some ways. To accompany, in the background on the left is Serbian-style goulash, which is peppers, onions, tomatoes, and Hungarian paprika slowly stewed together. On the right is “stakalsa” (sp? I can’t make out the font in Plotkin’s book), a stamppot-esque puree of potatoes and string beans, cooked in lard. Plotkin is rather firm on the point that this be cooked in lard as the potatoes absorb the porky flavor and he was dead-on: I could put away plates of this stuff. For dessert, palacinche, a crepe-type item, topped with sour cherry preserves and slightly sweetened sour cream: I really enjoyed this meal. I know there’s not much time left in the month, but I highly recommend trying all or even any part of it before time’s up. Sunday’s meal was a pork goulash with polenta: Pork shoulder and spareribs are cooked slowly with onions. No liquid; Plotkin says that it will throw off enough on its own after a few hours of slow cooking and again, he was right! But then, with these residual pan juices, you do add a cup of water with tomato paste and paprika diluted into it, along with some flour to thicken the sauce. I also made for lunches this week minestra di Bobici, bean and corn soup, for lunches. I omitted the pancetta/prosciutto the recipe calls for with an eye towards the previous meat-intensive weekend, but it really is lacking that meaty punch to send it home. Speck, I’d imagine, would also be a welcome addition to the soup. No pics, however. Just a bowl o’ potatoes, brown beans, and pork, nothing too challenging to the imagination.

How do you normally cook goose? I'm intrigued about trying it, but after my disastrous results roasting a duck I'm just not willing to spend the $40-$50 I see goose for here just to have it turn out like that. Are you back in the U.S. or still in Italy?

Great writeup, Hathor! Tired as I am of all this rich braised winter food, that all sounds incredible. I love that lunch place you talked about. Those are the kind of places that stick with you.

Adam, do you ever special order these fish you're getting? Do you go to one place? Do you have a dish in mind for the night's meal, or buy the fish, then think of how to prep it, and do you know how a fish that's new to you will generally taste and that helps you in thinking of the prep methods?

I haven't had a grit problem with mussels in I don't know how long, though I did get some issues with clams I bought last fall. Not to keep harping on the question above, but would soaking mussels allow them to purge some of the bile? Costco clams and mussels seem to be problematic, however: there was another thread in the past year where someone bought clams there and found them almost inedibly salty.

This will then be even more confusing after your post above. The Unicard in the DFW area is a way around being able to serve alcohol in "dry" counties or cities. Supposedly, it's a private "club" that you join that as a member, you get to be served alcohol since it was private. You're supposed to pay dues, but no one ever asks or enforces this part. I have like 3 of 'em. It was particularly common in Denton county and the I-35 corridor: Carrollton, Lewisville, etc. It's hopelessly complicated. I've read, time and again, articles about it in Dallas Observer or other papers and it still doesn't make any sense. Then you throw in what each city defines as "dry": no hard liquor? (Plano) no alcohol of any kind? (Denton?) Restaurants can serve anything they want but you can't buy a damned beer at a grocery store? (Lewisville) Last spring in Plano there was a vote on repealing the whole Unicard thing and making the city "wet". My wife and I went out and voted specifically because of this measure and the way it was worded was I'd say deliberately confusing, like a triple negative ("You are in suppport of not supporting not being able to not consume alcohol in places described in bill 145AJ. . . ). I asked the people running the voting station for clarification and they were only to happy not to help me. The guy next to me came in and was voting for the same thing and got pretty irate when they wouldn't clarify it for him, either.

OK, yeah, this is where I went. It was several years back but it was delicious. A fun and enlightening evening with helpful waitstaff and a complete revalation about a culture and cusine I didn't (and sadly still don't) know much about.

Yeah, you can't smoke in Dallas bars anymore either. Just another example of our downright Puritanical liquor/alcohol laws here--no alcoholic beverages can be purchased before noon on Sundays, the labrynthine wet and dry counties/cities interlocking, the DFW area UNICARDs . . . on and on.

Bad stuff from a good place. When I went to Kreuz in Lockhart the only thing they had left at that point was their regular or lean brisket and it was still mind-blowing. It was still suffused with all that great, smokey flavor and really cared for. When I lived in Georgia I was perpetually on a quest to eat at their top 'cue places and my frustration with them was how little the smoke played in flavoring the meat: it was for all purposes basically roasted or at the most grilled. It was good and hit the spot for what it was (I do like their tart, vinegary spicey sauces in that area) but it always left me wiftul for the Texas stuff at the same time. Edit: Dumpling, when you do get your report ready, please post a link on this board. I'm eager to hear about it!

It did in fact cease production in 2004. Learned that right here on eGullet from Mario himself during a chat!

Well, as long as you don't turn it into that item you have to consume every day . . . Glad the paparot turned out so well. It really defies expectations on how good it would be based on the description or ingredients, but I just go back to how nourishing it feels to eat it. And the frico . . . ah frico. There'd better be a statue or a Saint's day dedicted to the inventor. The vivid descriptions of the plate and accompaniments did the job perfectly.

I'm digging back up this thread to report on my long-overdue excursion to Lanny's, now in their new location on 7th Street a couple blocks west of University. No pics, though. It's set in a house and has an open, high-ceilinged room partitioned off into nooks and crannies. Lots of candles and soft, glowing, welcoming lights, perfect for the dismal day outside. Also, nice floral arrangments which my wife and mom went on and on about (otherise, I wouldn't have noticed). We opted to order from the menu, though I do want to do a Chef's Tasting there next time. Meal started with an amuse bouche that was a miniature tamale with creme frache. Washed it down with the house cocktail, a tart, refreshing pomegranate margarita. Every appetizer, salad, and soup sounded intriguing. I finally settled on the salad with duck prosciutto, persimmons, and romaine, dressed with a vanilla vinaigrette. My wife got a seared scallop salad; my parents ordered the butternut squash soup with smoked ham hocks. I'd had duck prosciutto before but this one was pretty strong, maybe even a little less cured than it should have been; it had a slightly "raw" taste and texture to it. I'm inexperienced with persimmons but found them distractingly tart. The few bites I had of my wife's scallop salad were good. My parents enjoyed their soup but pointed out that the "ham hock" was just a spoonfull of shredded meat at the bottom of the bowl that really didn't contribute much to the overall flavor of the meal. We were feeling adventurous and ordered a Mexican Zinfandel with the meal. It was very astringent and puckery tasting and not very pleasant. For the main, I ordered the braised pork belly with chipotle apple sauce and those German dumpling/pasta thingies whose name I'm drawing a blank on. The guy who brought it out said that it was his favorite dish on the menu: "it's almost like duck!". And indeed, there was almost a confit-like quality to it: big, deep flavors, cut by the tart/sweet/hot applesauce. Fantastic. Everyone else enjoyed theirs' but I'm struggling to recall what they ordered. Desserts were creme brulee and some sort of chocolate/fudge pie that was very thick and couldn't even be cut with a spoon. To close the meal, however, you do get a little cup of hot chocolate scented with lavendar. An enjoyable evening. I'm glad to have a real "destination" restaurant in Ft. Worth when we do outings there now and will definitely hit the Chef's Tasting next time.

Yes. Let's discuss mussels. I conversely find them to be at their best this time of the year, on up through maybe early June. From then on, they're flabby or tough, stringy, thin on meat, and have alot of I'll just call it "bile"--that pouch of black stuff that makes them taste like sweatsocks. I've repeatedly asked our fishmonger about seasons, etc., and he insists that since the kind they buy (except the greenlips) are farmed, it should have no bearing on their flavor; these are the Prince Edward Island mussels he's referring to, mostly. So, the questions: What really is that black stuff, and am I right in saying that it is what gives mussels their off flavor if it's much more prominent? Is this issue related to the spawning season? What is happening to them from June on that would impact their flavor, even if they are farmed? Or am I just imagining a flavor difference?

I'd say comparing strawberries to the average tomato would be more apt; I actually remember eating a good, sweet, juicy Red Delicious apple within the past year while it's been at least a decade since I bit into a succulent, drips-down-your-chin, stains-your-shirt-but-you-don't-care, strawberry. I keep getting suckered by the smell of the strawberries at our local Central Market but it always ends in tart, cottony disappointment with that first bite. Likewise with the Dallas Farmer's market, but that's related to a whole other topic.

Coffee. And, disturbingly, wine, as I'm finding out from some Lent-inspired experimentations on restraint.

Like, mrbigjas above, I did a little "inspired by" cooking and made shrimp with polenta Friday night: And, yep, another repeat from last year's efforts. Monday night, two dishes from Plotkin's Terra Fortunuata: Salmon with a ginger vinaigrette: Also, I saw some artichokes relatively cheap (2/$3) at Central Market and snapped some up. I served them with a yogurt, dill, and caper sauce: I kept the 'chokes whole, to dip the leaves in the sauce. Unfortunately, these were very dry, tough, older artichokes and didn't lend themselves well to the preparation. I love the seafood dishes of this region and the interesting if not unique for Italy styles and flavoring elements that come into play. They further exemplify the range of cooking and influences in Friuli.

When it gets on your cutting board, or shirt, or pants . . . Both beets and orzotto are used in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and somewhere, they just have to have been used together there, so I wouldn't worry too much about authenticity!

Cool site! That's fascinating about the strucolo and how they're boiled instead of baked; wonder why they're not more widely reported on after the breadth and depth he gives them.

It's got that firm, toothsome texture, not at all flaky or anything. It's definitely squid-oid in origin.

That rottolo you linked brings to mind similar Marcella recipes from her first cookbook. I undertook a number of them with disastrous results when I first started cooking, since I lacked cheesecloth to wrap it in and a vessel large enough to pre-poach it with. Then I just tried baking it off without a pre-poach which of course resulted in a dry, crunchy pasta. But of course, yours' looks solid; didn't realize it was common up in Friuli also. Radicchio and walnuts does sound good; would there still be ricotta in to bind it?

About a quarter inch thick . . . err, hold on, let me convert that to metric: .635 cm They come already scored so as not to curl up when cooking.

Yeah, they have a number of private rooms you can reserve and then have a multi-course feast in. That was one of our intentions of going back was to try a full-on feast there.