Chris Amirault

Hmmmm.... Maybe a taste test is in order the next time I whip up this rub....

Yes, of course, this sort of cultural relativism is what I was trying to get at with my marble-mouthed shorthand. Sorry for not being clearer up there!

Fantastic photos and notes. Thanks! Where'd you get that soup bowl?!?

We can wait. .... dum de dum dum ... .... hmmmmmm.... Ok, not THAT long, though...!

I've never seen it in the Thai restaurants around here, but it is one of four staple condiments (with salt, white pepper, and hoisin) at every Vietnamese and pan-South-Asian restaurant in town.

Those who stop at "Screw this" salute you!

This thread prompted me to add my recipe for chipotle ancho rub to RecipeGullet (great interface, by the way!) so that I could suggest the method in it. After toasting the chiles in oil and grinding them up with a few other things, the rub maintains a wet consistency that can be dried out in the oven if you want a dry rub or combined with liquid (we use lime but you could also use bitter orange, beer, a few other things) and oil to make a marinade.

What an amazing thing -- it takes my breath away to think of that cup's import on that journey!

What spices are in that, Jason?

Chipotle Ancho Rub This chipotle ancho rub is an item we always have available and use at least once week. I cannot deny that it is a bit of a production, but you can make a bunch of it and it keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator. This rub is an adaption of Reed Hearon's La Parilla: The Mexican Grill that has been edited for proportions and instructions. The book is excellent; I urge you to click the eGullet Amazon.com link above to order it if you use this recipe. The rub is amazing as is, sprinkled and mixed into salsa or guacamole. But it is particularly transformative when a few tablespoons are mixed with a healthy splash of olive oil and the juice of two or three limes for a quick marinade for pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, beef... you name it. Grill the flesh, toss some chopped cilantro on it, and squirt another lime over it, and you've got dinner. Two short but important notes before starting. (1) This recipe really requires a food processor. This stuff'll gum up your blender PDQ and the amounts will overwhelm your cutting board and wrist. (2) I warn you repeatedly not to burn the stuff. Heed my advice, friend; this goes from transcendent to horrifyingly bitter in a heartbeat. 7 whole, dried ancho chiles 5 whole, dried chipotle chiles 1/4 c Mexican oregano 1/4 c corn or vegetable oil 25 cloves garlic (yes, really), peeled and roughly chopped 1/2 c kosher salt (NOT iodized salt) 1. Seed and devein the chiles as best you can. You're not going for perfect here, as everthing will be ground up. 2. Toast the oregano in a medium skillet over medium heat until it gives a toasty smell. Be careful not to burn the oregano; if you do, toss it (yes, ouch) and start again, because the rub won't be worth squat. 3. In the same medium skillet (give it a wipe with a towel), heat the corn oil over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking, and fry the chiles, one or two at a time, until puffy and brown, about 10-15 seconds each. Err on the side of caution here: as above, you want to be very careful not to burn the chiles, and you must toss them if you do. Drain the chiles as you cook them by placing them onto a plate lined with paper towels. If you're feeling righteous, press down on each chile with some balled-up paper towels to squeeze out extra oil. 4. When cool, grind the chiles in a food processor until they are a "powder" (I like to leave some varied texture in the chiles, hence the quotation marks). 5. Add all the other ingredients and process until you have a slightly coarse rub. Pulsing and scraping may be necessary here. 6. Let cool and store in the refrigerator indefinitely. NB: If it gets too wet and clumpy for your liking, you can dry it in a 150 degere oven and reprocess, but (can you guess what I'm gonna say?) be sure it doesn't burn. Keywords: Condiment, Hot and Spicy, Mexican, Food Processor ( RG1210 )

Chipotle Ancho Rub This chipotle ancho rub is an item we always have available and use at least once week. I cannot deny that it is a bit of a production, but you can make a bunch of it and it keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator. This rub is an adaption of Reed Hearon's La Parilla: The Mexican Grill that has been edited for proportions and instructions. The book is excellent; I urge you to click the eGullet Amazon.com link above to order it if you use this recipe. The rub is amazing as is, sprinkled and mixed into salsa or guacamole. But it is particularly transformative when a few tablespoons are mixed with a healthy splash of olive oil and the juice of two or three limes for a quick marinade for pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, beef... you name it. Grill the flesh, toss some chopped cilantro on it, and squirt another lime over it, and you've got dinner. Two short but important notes before starting. (1) This recipe really requires a food processor. This stuff'll gum up your blender PDQ and the amounts will overwhelm your cutting board and wrist. (2) I warn you repeatedly not to burn the stuff. Heed my advice, friend; this goes from transcendent to horrifyingly bitter in a heartbeat. 7 whole, dried ancho chiles 5 whole, dried chipotle chiles 1/4 c Mexican oregano 1/4 c corn or vegetable oil 25 cloves garlic (yes, really), peeled and roughly chopped 1/2 c kosher salt (NOT iodized salt) 1. Seed and devein the chiles as best you can. You're not going for perfect here, as everthing will be ground up. 2. Toast the oregano in a medium skillet over medium heat until it gives a toasty smell. Be careful not to burn the oregano; if you do, toss it (yes, ouch) and start again, because the rub won't be worth squat. 3. In the same medium skillet (give it a wipe with a towel), heat the corn oil over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking, and fry the chiles, one or two at a time, until puffy and brown, about 10-15 seconds each. Err on the side of caution here: as above, you want to be very careful not to burn the chiles, and you must toss them if you do. Drain the chiles as you cook them by placing them onto a plate lined with paper towels. If you're feeling righteous, press down on each chile with some balled-up paper towels to squeeze out extra oil. 4. When cool, grind the chiles in a food processor until they are a "powder" (I like to leave some varied texture in the chiles, hence the quotation marks). 5. Add all the other ingredients and process until you have a slightly coarse rub. Pulsing and scraping may be necessary here. 6. Let cool and store in the refrigerator indefinitely. NB: If it gets too wet and clumpy for your liking, you can dry it in a 150 degere oven and reprocess, but (can you guess what I'm gonna say?) be sure it doesn't burn. Keywords: Condiment, Hot and Spicy, Mexican, Food Processor ( RG1210 )

Yes, let's figure this out! I slice, salt, wait, then dab with paper towels. I also only buy what I've been told were male eggplants (no indentation at the base) bc they supposedly have fewer seeds. Anecdotal evidence, always tricky, bears out the effectiveness of these two techniques, but I'd be interested to know what people think. Just checked the new McGee, and he says that the salting reduces the absorptiveness of eggplant, but as far as reducing bitterness, that probably just reduces "our perception of the alkaloids." I dunno what that means and have to take the dog for a walk, but if someone out there can explain, that'd be swell!

Stupid article; Reuters should be ashamed. It has little useful information, and is it really a news flash that food that has been deep fried or contains fats tends to have more calories and other things you shouldn't eat exclusively? Maybe next they can expose church suppers and Girl Scout cookies for the nutritional evils that they are.... Meanwhile, I must ask Yuki to clarify: We go regularly to our wonderful dim sum restaurant, Lucky Garden in North Providence RI, where two ex-HK chef brothers work tirelessly with their family members to produce happiness in my and my family's bellies. We are going there today, in fact, to celebrate our daughter's first month. And when we go, let me tell you, we are going to fill up, as in "don't need dinner tonight, kids" fill up. From the looks of the many other people who are there, some of whom hail from HK originally, they're filling up, too. So isn't it possible both to socialize and fill up? I get the little plate concept and I realize that there are different cultures of eating, but when you can get food like this only once a week or so, why wouldn't you want to enjoy it to the extent you can? edited twice to clarify the particular form of evil manifested by church suppers and Girl Scout cookies -- ca

What wonderful posts, everyone!

Emma, can I ask a different sort of question? I teach in Education Studies, and I'm interested to know the extent to which collaboration (either among fellow students or in forums such as this) is encouraged or discouraged. Seems to me that collaboration is the backbone of any good kitchen team, but preparing menus for homework might raise other issues.

I'll chime in! I'm wondering about the order at the top: sauteed fish, raw fish, fried blossoms, poached lobster. It seems to me that the order is off. I'd start lighter (sashimi -- which sounds more like crudo to me), then the heavier, creamier (havarti) fritti, then back to lighter but still rich (scallops), leading up to the lobster. Three out of four being so rich (not the sashimi), I'd also suggest moving away from the cream sauce for the lobster, especially if you're poaching that lobster in butter. Instead of playing on chowder, why not play on "creamed corn" and figure out a way to emusify some of the corn somehow w/o cream or butter? (I'm wondering here, too, if corn isn't less spring-y than, say, fiddleheads or pea shoots or something along those lines.) Finally, I'd just like to say that a perfectly seared scallop is sadly hard to find, and I'm very supportive of that!

Heather, is that the little green booklet? My mom has been baking cookies from that for decades. The molasses cookies in that booklet are to die for....

Quick follow-up on the different types of moussaka, from a trusted, expert source. Another major different between recipes involves whether or not there's meat. "Mussaka" or "mussaqqa" (Arabic to English transliteration requires flexibility, of course) is a mixed combination of chickpeas, zucchini or eggplant and tomatoes that doesn't usually include meat of any kind.

I know some Bostonians who will be surly to you, and you won't have to eat dusty cornbread or gloppy beans. If you're interested.

They're called clam cakes in Lil Rhody, to be served with chowder. (New England clam, of course, not that appalling red slop known as Manhattan clam. Yeesh.) Chewy bits of quahog in a deep fried flour batter. Like hushpuppies, they serve primarily to transport fried crust into your mouth; the clam bits are an excuse.

I don't use a bamboo steamer when I do large amounts. I use the perforated inserts in my steamer. It works fine. If you use a plate inside the steamer, then you will get an accumulation of liquid which may make your sui mai skin soggy. ← I have heard tell that the large metal steamers produce more moisture because the metal allows the steam to bead; the bamboo doesn't allow for that sort of condensation. Since hearing that, I always put the bamboo top on when I'm steaming anything whose moisture I need to be careful about (which is usually!). Is that just b.s.?

Thanks, Paula, for clarifying my post!

Can we see a few?? Pretty please??

Please do! I would also love some advice on selection and cooking each of them. Thanks in advance!

I'm drooling.... This thread reminds me of a pot luck I attended once, to which I brought a lovingly constructed country terrine not unlike the Peterson one above. After a brief walk, I returned to the kitchen to find out from the host that, because she couldn't find me, she had "put the meatloaf into the over at 400F to warm it up." I'm glad I didn't bring my knives.