Franci

Tonight we had Red lentils soup with chards and lemons (Ottolenghi), not bad but I prefer the more classic lebanese version with brown lentils. Then steamed turbot chinese style and chinese steamed flower rolls

So, 120 F is 48 C, same internal temperature I read on my thermometer. Although I admit it is an old and sometimes I don't feel is too reliable. I used a LeCreuset terrine mold different shape, the 800 ml size. So I'm not sure what went wrong. You are right on the experience factor... I'll keep you posted with next experiments, maybe someone else will benefit from it.

Hi. I tried to search on this topic on egullet but what I got where pieces of info here and there. I still have many doubts. By next year we are likely going to move back to the US, so I want to take advantage of being still in France, where plenty and cheaper foie gras is available expecially around Christmas. I'm planning to try some recipes in the next months, so I hope you could bear with me in my experimentations. I'm speaking of fresh liver, foie cru 1. I read that is easier to devein at room temperature but if gets too hot when the foie is cooked is going to render more fat. I deveined the foie at room temperature and it was easy enough task but I'm not sure how to do a good job with cold liver. Tips? 2.I made a terrine of foie gras and I was not very happy with the result. The overall flavour was good but the texture and appearance was far from desiderable. I followed to the letter the recipe in Fat (J. McLagan's book) and she suggests an oven temperature of 120 C, bainmarie at 70 and internal temperature at 48 C. At the end of cooking my liver looked a little overcooked and then I checked online and many call for a much lower internal temperature. I started with a 650 g fresh foie and I poured out 350 ml of liquid (fat + juices). In Ripailles by Stephane Raynaud I read cold foie by fridge, cold bainmarie and oven at 100 C for 30 minutes for 1 kg of foie. To me this is a pretty cold internal temperature. It's just a personal preference? On M. Ruhlman blog, here, I read that " Foie gras is mainly fat so, unlike the moist protein environment of meat, it’s not very hospitable to bacteria. Plus it’s soaked and cured for a day. You could probably eat one raw, veins and all, straight out of the bag without worry". And, in fact, Stephane Raynaud in Ripalles has a recipe for raw foie gras, simply brushed with Sauterne. So, to recap. Deveining room temperature liver or cold? In terrines, foie straight from the fridge? Cold or warm bainmarie? Oven temperature? Internal temperature at the end of cooking? 3. Saute' foie gras. I tried only once with a pair of presliced escalope of foie. And also I did not do a good job. I must have burned it because it was bitter, the inside molten. So a bitter outside with a cold, molten inside was not pleasant. I had in restaurants and was indeed nice. So I guess I just need to watch for the heat. So far I tried. *foie gras au sel, cured in salt. It was very easy and very nice. *terrine de foie gras. Need to repeat. *Escalopes saute in a pan. Need to repeat. Plan to do *Saute' escalopes again *Terrine of foie mi cuit again *Poaching a whole lobe *Cooking escalope en papillotte *Making a torchon I just bought Foie and terrine maison\, waiting for it to arrive and got this This yesterday. Now I have a lobe in the fridge and I'm thinking of making a recipe from Fat, saute' foie gras with quince and the foie en papillotte from the Fifth Quarter. Tips and advice is welcome.

I feel I had more for dinner tonight than on Christmas Eve. We had oysters fine de Claires n. 1, spaghetti with mussel alla Tarantina (one of my hometown specialties, the mussels are open by hand before cooking, huge difference), oven baked sea bream, roasted potatoes and some puntarelle alla romana (they are too time consuming, I should get the "tool" to prepare them). I'm attaching just the spaghetti and the puntarelle, nobody is interested in roasted potatoes I suppose (although Jennifer Mclagan recipe rocks)

For Christmas it was our family of 4 plus my parents, the beauty it's everything can be pretty informal. For Christmas eve we got 24 oysters fine de claires, some smoked salmon, huge prawns with vietnamese spicy sauce, scallops and a festive fennel and pomegranate salad. On Christmas day, for Italians lunch is far more important than dinner. For dinner we had some mussels (that we didn't manage to eat on the eve and we had to cook) and a duck breast that also needed to be cooked and the liver from the goose we roasted for lunch, plus a leftover vegetable cake pomme anna style. No sweets.

I also used the bones in the past but I found the flavoring really strong. Now we are going to have new bones soon. I could ask my butcher to saw them for me. Any suggestions on how to use them? Blanch them before adding to stock (or beans)? Or? Also, I'm freezing the fat, it's inconceivable for me to waste it. In my mind I know how I would use prosciutto fat but I'd like to know if there are traditional ways to use the fat in Spanish cooking. Thanks

Tonight we decided to open the paletta de pata negra 5 jotas we got for Christmas, so we got that for appetizer and then breaded sweetbreads and artichockes. Pata negra is definitely on my top ten (or maybe five) highly rewarding foods. Very happy. I'm going to miss that when we move back to the US

Very nice meals, Soba! I particularly like the shrimp dish and the poached egg and roe. I thought I picked an easy meal but it was sort of a flop. I made the roasted quails in pomegranate molasses from Ad hoc at home and sweet potatoes with maple and pecan from Ottolenghi's book. I'm used to cook quails the Italian way:they need to be fully cooked. My (American Chinese born) husband didn't like the "undercooked" quail, he thought both the quails and the sweet potatoes were too sweet (I agree) and for him it was a dish too complicated to put together. My parents thought the flavors were very good, just the quail was not cooked enough. My mom cooked one quail for my son, her usual way, and indeed I think it was much more enjoyable for my taste as well. Maybe I could put the quails on a spit in the oven and baste with the pomegranate glaze.

Tonight we had minestrone and some bone marrow on toast

Hi everybody. It has been years since I posted on this thread. Lately I've enjoyed very much your dinners. I have a baby and a preschooler and dinner times can be challenging. I'd like to partecipate when I can and if I manage to photograph our food. Last night we had anticuchos, veal heart kebabs from J. McLagan's Odd bits and a salad of quinoa, celariac and apples by Y. Ottolenghi. Unfortunately we cannot use a charcoal grill or gas in my building so we have to resort to a cast iron grill but I really love heart texture.

I found a link here, on egullet, for a recipe of pancetta. I was amused by the sentence at the bottom "pancetta is not meant to be eaten uncooked". Is it just cultural? I grew up eating it. In my university cafeteria in Milan, it was the cheapest panino on sale, only 1,000 lire at the time. Nice and comforting for me a panino with pancetta dolce (the fattier pancetta). So, why not eating it raw? And lardo?

Thanks Dexter. I post because the holidays are getting closer and this is an easy recipe for foie. We cut it open yesterday night. Flavor very nice, the texture seems to me slightly creamier than terrine cooked foie. It's because I should have cooked longer in salt? The general reccomendation I found also online is 2 hours for every 100g of fresh foie. So, mine was just above 600 g and it was buried in salt around 12 hours. We didn't like the jelly it was a little salty (I put salt in it when marinating the foie) but overall very nice. My parents enjoyed it much more than the usual I buy from stores. foie gras au sel di Francesca Spalluto, su Flickr

Ambra, you can get all of those spices from the UK from Seasoned Pioneers or the Spice Shop

Hello. I'm trying a recipe from The fifth quarter: Foie gras au sel. The steps are: deveining the foie, marinating it in half wine half sherry with salt and pepper, wrap in cheesecloth and bury in salt for 12 hours. The authour suggests using the marinate for a gelée. But I'm a little dubious. Would you use it? Anybody already done a foie gras au sel? Experiences to share? I just marinated the foie overnight, I'm going to devein now because I didn't have time to do it earlier and I thought it will hold better a integer piece in the marinate. Thanks

Me too And in Italian supermarkets you have to wear gloves to pick your vegetables (don't remember anymore in the US or UK.) While here in France you don't.

Thanks for posting, sounds very nice, I'll try it! Yesterday night as a side for pork belly, I roasted some jerusalem artichockes following Nigel Slater Tender, , added some carrots and potatoes. Very nice.

Hello. Do you have a preferred way to roast your root vegetables? Do you add vegetables all at once? Use any liquid? Prefer cutting the vegetables of a particular format/size? Any herbs or seasoning you particuraly like? Cooking temperature and timing? Any tips for slow roasting? I cook root vegetables quite often, I think would be convenient for me to be able to slow roasting. The other day I had: jerusalem artichokes, carrots, potatoes, parsnip, celeriac, shallots, with thyme and bay leaves, with a splash of chicken stock. Sometimes I have issues with parsnip, it dries out faster than the other veg. Do you add it later? Curious to know how you cook them.

Thanks for posting. I'll take advantage of your experimenting

I didn't sterilized my jars. I made two batches last june with Menton lemons, with Ms Wolfert's recipe. For the first batch I used extra juice to keep the lemon submerged and every other day I placed the jar upside down and reverting it again (as I read the discussion on the preserved lemon thread). For the second batch I didn't have enough juice and used more salted water and the pickl-it, they sell a glass disk to keep food under brine. I don't know if it was for the fact I used just juice but first batch is so much more intense. I kept covered both jars to avoid sunlight. Interesting Kenneth, I'll give it a go next year.

Are you talking about fresh orecchiette or dried? Are the fresh homemade or store bought? If fresh home made usually they don't stick because in Puglia we use hot water in the dough and that not only gives more bite to the orecchiette but helps with the sticking issue. If fresh storebought make sure the are separated before dumping in water (like put them in a bowl and run your fingers through them, gently separate the stubborn ones). If dry, I don't know if you still often shouldn't happen.

I'm a southern italian and in the south I don't think that most of Italians are aware that there is milk in the classic ragu' alla bolognese. I've adopted recipe from the "Simili" sisters (watch for sorelle simili on youtube to see them in action) sfogline and bolognesi. First of all I use a very large saute' pan for starting the sauce, in order to sweat all the ingredients properly. I prep a good quantity of onions, carrots and celery. For about 800 g of meat I use 2 medium onions, some amount of carrots and half of the celery (although they use for 500 g meat only two tablespons of each vegetable). I start sweating the onion with evoo and a knot of butter, as soon as it soften, I add the celery, and after a couple minutes the carrots. I like to add a little bit of minced pancetta. Here, it really makes a difference to use some chicken liver in the ragu', it gets very creamy. Clean a couple livers from tough parts and chop with a chef knife. Since the liver has the tendency to tie up to other ingredients, push the vegetables on the side and add the liver in the center of the pan. As soon as it changes color, make sure to break it with the wooden spoon, mix with the other ingredients. Again I push the vegetables on the sides and start browning the meat in the center. I keep my heat on high, make sure I have enough fat to brown the meat. I like a mix of pork and ground beef. If the pan is large enough the meat will not release its own juice. As soon as I see it starts browning I break with the spoon any lumps and mix it with the other ingredients. I usually start with half of the meat, brown or better starts to brown, mix with the vegetagles, put at at sides and keep going with the rest of it. At this poing I add a little bit of tomato paste, like a couple tablespoons and brown. Then I deglaze with red wine (warm), making sure to scrape all the "sucs" from the bottom of the pan. Yes, I like red wine. I would add something like 400 ml of hot whole milk, a little at a time, more or less dipends if I feel I need more. When it looks nice and creamy, I pour the sauce in a taller pot, I add a can of peeled tomatoes (whick I usually crush by hand), if I feel I need the sauce to be a little more runny I add some hot water. I add some coarse salt and a bay leaf. I bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 2 to 3 hours. I made it also less red, just with concentrato,.

just the other day I was reading about drying mackerel in Secrets of the Red Lantern. It's a semi dried fish so it should be eaten within 2 days. Mackerel cutlets are washed very well to remove residual blood then dried well. Sea salt is massaged on each side of the fish, with reasonable pressure, without distroying the flesh. Cover with cheesecloth to let moisture drain away. Then the fish is dried in filtered sunlight for 4-6 hours. Shallow fry and serve with dipping fish sauce. He talks about drying in the oven on very low heat for different hours. I'm thinkign about a dehydratator, same temperature as for jerky (75 C). You made my think about my mother in law (chinese), once at my parent's house in the south of italy, she semi sun-dried some anchovies and deep fried. The best. Maybe I should do that with anchovies...

I come from a sea town on the Ionian sea, in the South of Italy. I grew up eating fish, any kind, cooked in different ways. Our eating of fish was very simple, the fish was so fresh that nothing needed to be done to it... Then I moved to the States, to the UK and now to the French riviera. Nowadays, I almost dislike fish, or better, the most of the times the idea of eating fish is revolting to me. I just went back to my hometown last month. Well, I tell you, I enjoyed my fish very much. We went to this little town called Savelletri, wild beaches with some restaurants. Sea urchins, raw mussels, oysters, delicious octopus beaten on the rocks nearby, very fresh prawns on the grill. Everything very simple, the fish was just very fresh. Here I cannot bring myself to like fish, distribution is centralized. I LOVE mackarel, every time I buy it I feel disgusted. And I think I have a better option than many people in the States. Every weekend we go to Nice or Menton to have fruit de mer, sometimes I'm happy, other time not so much. I had better luck with fish in the UK but I used to live in front of Billinsgate market. In the States I really miss my Maryland blue crabs. If I buy a holiday house in Apulia, maybe I'll start enjoying my fish again.

For what I'm reading, in the more traditional societies grains are still sprouted to maximize the absorption of nutrients and limit the toxicity (nixtamalized corn, sprouted millet, etc). I'm not a huge supporter of theWeston Price Fondation, because it seems to me it's almost a religion, but some stuff make sense. I think the highly processed cereals that babies are feed in the western world are not nutritious food. Is the quinoa soaked and/or sprouted? eh, eh. This is interesting instead. My son, the baby led weaning child, would not mix stuff and would not eat a veloute or a passato. thank you! This is my idea of traditional diets full of nutrients. How do you make the bone marrow soup? I generally add always bone marrow to my beef stock and often start a risotto with the marrow. Now I'm thinking of making congee with a little bone marrow and saffron...chinese meets italian And the Barley Aqua Fresca? I've definitely seen it done in here, in DK, and have seen mothers from Greenland do it, too. Never saw it done in Italy, however, I think it might feel too much like going in the direction of 'brutta figura' (what with taking chewed food out of your mouth), but it may just have to do with the particular parents I've known. It is done also in Italy. I do not like the idea though. Instead I'm more anxious with my second baby. My first child would just refuse to be fed, he was able to take the food bring to his mouth, chew and swallow. Yes, a little gagging at the beginning but not much. My daughter is different and I'm being more cautious with her. Thank you Jenny. Is the ragi also fermented? I'd like to incorporate more spices and herbs in my daughter diet. My son is not used to it. To the point that when we visited his Chinese grandmother he basically didn't touch food for a week. He was not used to the taste of soy sauce or coriander... Besides chillies, are there any other spices not reccomended for babies. I think in Chinese traditional medicine ginger is "hot" and not suitables for babies. I should ask my mother in law. Regards

Hello. I have a baby girl, just turning 8 months old in a few days, so I'm very interested to know what are other people traditions on weaning babies on solids and what are traditionally considered the most nutrient dense foods around the world. I'm Italian but with my first son, born in the UK, I didn't follow the general italians guidelines pediatricians give nowadays and honestly I'm not really aware of them much. I know they start with a vegetable broth, with some creamed cereals and pure vegetables, to add proteins later on. Nowadays everything seems to come in a jar. The baby led weaning movement was becoming very popular at the time and my very stubborn little boy already decided by himself. Puree? No, thanks. So he went straight on finger foods, eating whole maccheroni by age 11 months. I was very proud of my gourmet child. Now, of course, he is one of those difficult 4 years olds. It's the turn of my little girl, now. My husband origin is Chinese (who doesn't want to eat chinese, btw), so, yesterday, I feed my girl congee made with stock. The other day, I bought a little of lamb brain. The French butcher told me, smiling: est-il pour le bébé? Ah, ah, I was thinking if the same would happen in the States... I know this bookis very popular. But what are your believes in what is the most appropriate food for a baby, besides mother's milk, when available?