Chris Amirault

Both, I'd say. It's definitely to provide some cooking fat, but salt pork also has a distinctive, if relatively mild flavor. In my opinion, to be really traditional you don't want smokey flavors in a chowder (salt pork is not smoked). So I wouldn't use bacon, unless you're talking about a nonsmoked bacon. ← That's what I'll be using: some nonsmoked bacon from the Charcuterie thread action.

We've been feeding our child little parts of our own meals for several months now. (She's about to turn one.) Last night, when we ate some duck noodle soup, she had a bit of steamed duck and noodles; two nights before, she had some rice, mushrooms, and a bit of cured salmon. Basically, we try to give her a bit of what we're eating broken down so that she can "chew" it, starting with small amounts until we check the diaper the next day. None of the obvious stuff, of course (capiscum, chocolate until recently, peanuts, etc.). There's lots of evidence that eons of people feeding their children their culture's solid food when they were able to do so safely produces healthy kids. So that's basically what we're doing.

I'm sorry to say that, while I've eaten spit-roasted baby lamb in the Middle East, it was always prepared by other folks. It seemed like a pretty straightforward affair, however: olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe a little lemon to start, then doused with the dripping fat as needed. (The heat usually came from the back side and not under the lamb, btw.) It was one of the truly fantastic things I've ever eaten, too, and seemed hard to do wrong. Good luck -- and please record it for us here. I'd love to see it!

What can I say.... I'll grab the digital camera next time -- and believe me, there will be a next time.

What binds the shrimp into the... um... disk? Are they just wedged in there somehow, or is there some shrimpy glue?

Oh, man. I decided I needed some duck this weekend, and so I bought a Bell & Evans pekin duckling, trimmed it, dried it, smushed some szechuan paste on it (szechuan peppercorns, garlic, scallion, ginger, dark soy, shaoxing), let it marinate on the counter for a couple of hours, then steamed it in a pyrex pie plate for 90 minutes. Turns out that was too long to make a good crispy duck -- the joints had degenerated in that wonderful way that would've made it collapse in a wok filled with hot oil -- but was perfect for shredding for soup. AND... at the base of the pie plate was an inch of the most remarkable duck stock I have ever tasted. I added a few cups of rich chicken stock and didn't add anything else to the broth. Assemby: after warming some cooked noodles in the broth, I placed the noodles in bowls, sprinkled some blanched bean sprouts in, then some of the duck meat, covered eveything with the heavenly broth, and then topped everything with some thinly sliced Chinese celery and scallion, some splinters of ginger, and a shake of the szechuan peppercorn salt. No photos because I didn't want to pause during the inhalation of this ambrosia. Oh, man.

Photos, s'il vous plait, Ron. I wanted to say that a quick trip through some boiling water as per our authors' suggestion reduced the salt level significantly in my latest batch of bacon. It's damned tasty, in fact! I've got five half-pound bags in the freezer: two blanched lardons pre-cut, and three non-blanched thick cut strips.

This sounds fantastic, Sam. I'll be very eager to check this out.

Funny you should mention this. I was snooping around a local Portuguese store for a good clay bean pot yesterday. I think you should give it a try, record it, and see what happens! Given Paula's new work on clay pot cooking, it's pretty likely she'd weigh in at some point.

Wow! Folks are going great guns! I'm so thrilled to see some chowdah down in Austin.... And Jason, thanks for the step-by-step. I'm hoping to make Jasper White's clam chowder with quahogs later this week. Glad to be beaten to the punch!

If I'm not mistaken, there is a fine ham made in parts of Spain from squirrels who eat only city acorns.

If memory serves, there was a great article in... um... the early 1990s perhaps about marketing vodka.

Beer wasn't the first drug that popped into my head, actually.

On this fine Friday night, while everyone else in the house is in bed, I'm up finishing my fresh bacon with the oven roast -- and I'm remembering that last time the "two hour" roasting period to get the belly up to 150F is a bit closer to four hours....

I just deleted a few posts in this thread that were personal attacks. Let's stay focused on the topic at hand -- and not enact the subject matter, eh? Thanks.

Cook-Off XX: Chowdah. (Ok... Chowder.)

Every now and then since December 2004, a good number of us have been getting together at the eGullet Recipe Cook-Off. Click here for the Cook-Off index. For our twentieth Cook-Off, we're making chowdah. However, most of the world is sadly located outside of New England, and thus erroneously spells and pronounces the dish chowder. In a magnanimous gesture to promote national, even global, harmony, I'll follow suit. (In this post.) Of course, spellings and pronunciations are just the tip of the contentious iceberg, friend. Take a good working definition of the dish. I'd like to say that chowder is a milk-based soup -- but that'd be wrong (think manhattan or red clam chowder). I'd like to say that chowder must include fish or shellfish -- but that'd be wrong, too (think corn chowder). And how about this fascinating disagreement: though many would argue it's a definitively American dish, is it east coast or west coast? Here's wikipedia on chowder: However, the contentious Australians at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Center offer this brief definition: I of course believe that wikipedia is certainly right. But who's to say? Perhaps chowder exists precisely to provoke these tiffs. Look, for example, at this snit between me, menton1, and a few others over the definition of Providence chowder. Grown men, I'm telling you, nearly coming to blows over the subject. Surely we can provoke that sort of heated debate here in the cook-off -- some real cassoulet- or gumbo-worthy arguments. Check out our own Sara Moulton's RecipeGullet recipe for oven baked chowder, lovebenton0's hearty scallop chowder, or Chef Matt's "Fat Guy" lobster chowder. And while there are eGS cooking threads here and here , but, honestly, there's not much around here. Yet. So get cookin', you chowdaheads!

Recipes, too, I hope, Dean. I'm particularly curious about how you'll prepare the duck in gumbo #1. What andouille do you use?

Welcome! What are the working arrangements exactly? Do you meet on a per-hour basis, or do you serve as the consultant-on-retainer, or...?

I don't get it. Ahden pronounces it right. It's not so hahd. Yeesh. Blog on!

Since I'm a technical idiot, I asked wikipedia for help:

Folks, I've had to delete a couple of posts in an attempt to keep this thread on track. Please refrain from personal and off-topic comments. Thanks a bunch.

Looks excellent! How did you roast the belly? Plain or with seasoning?

At the restaurant where I used to work, you would strain, rinse with tepid water in a bowl, and then strain again. Then you get the cheesecloth out. It's like rinsing rice.

We're utterly thrilled with our Maestro (non-Plus), which we use at least twice a day for our Rancilio Silvia. I don't really understand what the benefits of a Plus are, actually, but whatever they are, we don't need them to pull fantastic shots. What are those features? Why would you need them? Here's a side-by-side link.