abadoozy

Cook's Illustrated reviewed them July 2010:

The one I was in had brochures out talking about franchise offerings. I think they're actively trying to expand in the US. If you're serious, give 'em a call!

It's not really a logical thing - he knows that lots of food animals are mistreated, not just veal calves, but for whatever reason the veal thing really bothers him. He'll eat and love lamb (also cute widdle cuddly baby animals) and chicken (also stuff in pens and not allowed to move), but somehow the mix of cute widdle cuddly babies stuffed in pens and not allowed to move much really gets to him. Hell, it gets to me, but not enough to give up eating veal. I'd gladly pay a bit more for humanely raised meat of any kind - and do, at times - but given where I live that usually means either a huge markup and shipping costs to get it from someplace like Niman Ranch, or the occasional lower-quality, badly-butchered but still expensive meat from local farms (the local meat movement is only just starting here.) Heck, I'm not even sure he knows Weisswurst is veal. He ate it happily over the weekend (I honestly didn't think to tell him, or I would have.) Maybe I should just order a few of them instead of making them myself and continue to forget to tell him.

Interesting. What cut? I'm considering something tender and lean - chicken breasts? Pork tenderloin? Seems the closest to veal to me, but I'm not really all that familiar with cooking with veal, other than bones, so I'm just guessing. (oh, and for the record - whichever meat I go with, there will be copious amounts of pork fat to balance it out.)

I buy tubes of tomato paste like this to cut down on waste, but truly, those tubes are a LOT more expensive than the cans so I never know if it's worth it. When I'm being really good, I portion out tablespoon sized dollops of the canned stuff onto a plate lined with plastic wrap, freeze it, then roll the whole thing up and stuff it in a ziploc and keep it in the freezer for individual portions. Do the same thing with Chipotles. The Chipotles are actually really nice that way, you can dice them up while frozen much easier than room temp. You have to remember to label them, though, because dollops of frozen tomato paste and dollops of frozen chipotles look exactly the same. Granted, you can smell the difference, but sometimes I forget and end up with the wrong one.

I know it's not Weisswurst. Let's say I'm trying to make something in the style of Weisswurst with a different type of meat. So the Veal is responsible for the texture? That's really my question. As far as finding humanely treated veal... I'm not sure I want it enough to spend the time and money ordering it in. I can barely find veal at all in this town, much less veal raised to a certain standard.

I'm currently lusting over Weisswurst, and, as there's no place around here selling them, am considering making some of my own. Problem is, my husband has Veal Issues. Heck, I have Veal Issues, but not enough to keep me from eating Weisswurst. He, on the other hand, is serious enough about it that I thought I'd at least look into non-Veal Weisswurst. The thing I really like about them is the texture. Being an emulsified sausage, I'm wondering if that comes from the technique, the veal itself, or both? Can I get a similar texture if I substitute out pork for Veal? If it's worth trying, what cut would work well? Or is pork not the way to go at all? If it's just impossible, I want to know that, too. I can always just make a small batch.

I just got back from a long weekend in Madison. I was very happily surprised by the restaurant/bar scene there. The last time we'd been there was four or five years ago, and though there were some decent restaurants at that time, it seems that Madison has exploded into a foodie haven since then. We started out at Cooper's after reading rlibkind's review - it didn't hurt that it was practically next door to our hotel and had a nice selection of Belgiums on tap - and it was great. We didn't have dinner there, but over the course of a couple days stopped their three times for beers/appetizers/light lunches. The first day, we got some recommendations from our bartender for other good restaurants, and they proved to be spot-on. In addition to Cooper's, I can also recommend: Underground Kitchen: hard to find (no sign outside) so make sure you know the address. We stopped here for cocktails and appetizers, and the cocktails were hands-down the best we had in Madison. Interesting combinations, light and not overly sweet. Ended up eating the house-made charcuterie plate that blew us away - a combination of very high quality traditional dry cured salamis with a few unexpected highlights, like a spicy soft sausage from (I think) Africa. Also a nice selection of Wisconsin cheese and bread with whipped lardo to balance it out. Merchant: This place looks like a coffee shop from the outside. We stopped there for lunch/drinks one day, and were happy. Pork-jowl Cubano was nicely balanced, salty and just a bit gooey. Had some oysters, too, and they were fresh and delicious. Decent beer/wine selection. They also have a small but nice grocery & alcohol selection. We picked up some Bittercube bitters there, a nice find. Nostrano: We had no fewer than three unsolicited recommendations to this place in one day. This was the only real dinner we had the whole time we were in Madison, as we are typically happier with light fare and drinks. The cocktails here were good, and you could tell the bartender is passionate about what he does, but overall a bit too sweet, even after telling him we preferred them dryer. Food, though, was amazing. We had the scallop and oxtail dish, a combo I wouldn't have expected, but it worked. Also had Risotto with Morels and a Lamb Ragu, both out of this world. Way more food than we normally eat between the two of us, but we scarfed it all down, along with dessert. Service was a bit of a problem, it was very slow, and more than once our drinks came out one at a time, leaving one of us to sit and wait while the other imbibed. There was also a huge wait between our first and second courses, at least 30 minutes. Luckily, we weren't in a hurry, so it wasn't a big deal, but it needs to be mentioned. We were there on a Saturday night, and it was pleasantly busy but didn't seem like so many people that it should cause problems in the kitchen. Brasserie V: This is the only spot that isn't downtown that we went to. It's not far, just a couple miles west, and is well worth the drive. Amazing selection of beer, including a Flanders Red Ale I'd never had before so I was VERY happy. We were there for a late lunch, and plowed through two orders of Moules et Frites and a Belgian salad (roasted Belgian endives, frisee, bacon, yum). If we had more time, we'd be there again. Very fun place. Osteria Papavero: We ended up here one night for literally a second dinner. We'd eaten at the Old Fashioned (always fun in a touristy-Wisconsin way) and the bartender couldn't shut up about Papavero after we'd told him how much we like good Charcuterie. According to him, the owner at Papavero was the guy who brought good Charcuterie to Madison, and did the hard work to get the restaurant inspectors to approve his dry-cured salamis for sale. We got the charcuterie plate, and it was really nice. Much more traditional than we got at Underground Kitchen, but delicious. A couple terrines, a loose blood sausage, duck and lamb prosciutto and a duck pastrami that blew us away. Like Brasserie V, this place is on the short list for going back for an entire meal.

Stumbled into a Vom Fass the other day while on a weekend getaway - there's only 5 in the US, but apparently are ubiquitous in Europe. Their schtick is that they have a number of high-quality items such as oils, vinegars, liqueurs, and Scotches, that they sell in whatever quantity you want from casks in the store. You can sample everything before buying, and (in the case of oils and vinegars) they'll mix them if there's a combination you especially like. My first thought was that it sounded like a faddish store that you'd find in upscale malls, but then my husband found the wall of Scotches and was hooked. They were all high-quality single malt Scotches, available for sampling, and you could buy them in whatever quantities you like. He ended up with a couple half bottles of Scotches he'd been wanting to try, but didn't want to invest in an entire bottle. Price-wise, not discount, but not crazy expensive, either. You have to buy bottles there, or bring in your own. The bottle selection they have range from cheap & utilitarian to really nice bottles you could use for display or gifts. The oils and vinegars that I tasted seemed high quality - the fruit vinegars, for example, were mostly made from fruit, not low-quality vinegar mixed with fruit flavors or something. I was also very pleased with the quality of the nut oils - I found some pumpkin seed oil, something you don't see everyday and is going to find its way onto more than a few salads around here. I've never heard of the store before, and was wondering if anyone else had any comments/opinions on it.

I use a butter crock like so , and will never go back. I like having spreadable butter all the time. Growing up, my parents just left it on the counter (and still do) and I don't see anything wrong with that, though the outside does tend to get a little oxidized if you don't use it quickly. The butter crock makes that problem go away. The only issue I have with mine is that occasionally the butter will not stick to the sides well and it slides into the water. But that's not really a big deal, just dump out the water and put it back.

I never understood why you'd wash the dishes then put them in the dishwasher. If I had a dishwasher so bad that I had to wash the dishes by hand, I'd get rid of it and buy a new one. I remove the big chunks, but other than that, everything goes in. Even pots with dried-on stuff that I know won't come completely clean in the dishwasher - it's easier to get off what the dishwasher didn't get afterwards than it is to scrub it by hand before putting it in. And sometimes I'm wrong, and the dishwasher does get it clean.

This isn't really an error, but it's something I got wrong and I think a lot of people could make the same mistake. In the Goose Confit recipe, it says to take a whole 10-lb goose, cut it into 4 pieces, and confit it. The salt ratio is for 10 lbs of meat. The way I interpreted the recipe was to cut the goose into 4 pieces - 2 breasts and 2 leg/thigh quarters, and use the back and various trimmings for stock. Nope. My confit was ruined, because the it was WAY too salty. After comparing the salt the recipe called for with other confit recipes in the book, I saw that it was appropriate for 10 pounds, but not for the reduced weight I ended up with after trimming the bird. And indeed, the recipe doesn't call for doing anything but cutting the bird into 4 pieces. I honestly don't know why I'd confit the back and all the other bits of the carcass, but there you go. Truly user error, but I doubt I'm the only one who might not read the recipe carefully and make the same mistake. That said, I agree with Chris Hennes and others - Charcuterie is an amazing book, and it's taught me a whole lot about how to handle meat. Sure, it's got some mistakes, but I don't see it as any more error-prone than is typical with a book of this type.

I have the Presto Power Pop, and the Nordic ware one. The Presto has been used a lot; it works pretty well. But it does need those power cup things. They're not expensive and can be reused, so no big deal. The Nordic ware one doesn't work at all. I threw it away. But now I'm back to oil in a pan, in a large part because I've given up on thinking fat is bad for me. A smaller amount of popcorn that tastes really good because it's been popped in oil and has real butter on it is the way I go. And, like weinoo, I also think the popcorn itself matters; I buy Orville Redenbacher and it's head and shoulders above the cheap stuff.

I've seen that episode - one of my favorites. Jim Harrison is a really interesting guy. I guess I'd have to wonder what temperature we're talking about, since I'm talking Lake Superior, which according to Wikipedia has an average temperature of 40F in the summer. As far as my fish experimenting - heck if I've had time to do anything this week. The minute I get my motivation up for a project, my work schedule gets crazy. But I'm still very interested, and this thread has sparked lots of ideas. Keep 'em coming!

For me it's looking at a recipe and, if it's one with lots of non-standard ingredients, figuring out which ones I can substitute without changing the recipe too much. As BadRabbit said, sometimes you don't want to spend $50 and an entire day making duck stock, only to use a cup or less, and really, how much is that going to be noticed in place of chicken stock if it's just one of many ingredients? Same thing with stuff that you have to buy large quantities of just to use a little bit. Case in point: I made the Mushroom Ketchup from Modernist Cuisine a while back, and it called for honey, molasses, and barley malt syrup. I had honey and molasses around, but the only barley malt syrup I could find in town was a 3 pound can from the beer supply store. The recipe called for a tablespoon or so. Yes, barley malt syrup does have a distinctive taste, but I can't imagine that it really changed the final ketchup much when I used more honey and molasses instead. Note: I'm not saying that making substitutions doesn't matter at all, or that if you want to replicate the recipe faithfully that following the ingredients doesn't matter. But you can usually substitute some things and still produce a successful, if not entirely accurate-to-the-source, recipe.

budrichard, come on up, I can bring you many, many samples of whitefish and trout that are OK at best. You say "For me the standard prep for whitefish is successful and palatable to everyone who has eaten my prep" and I agree - I can make successful and palatable whitefish using a variety of common techniques. But in general, most people I know, given the choice, will choose just about any fish other than whitefish, unless they're people from out-of-the-area who just want to come here for the whitefish. The purpose of this thread is to explore the fish and see if I can figure out a way to make it pop, even for those of us used to eating it pretty much whenever we want. rlibkind, yes, I can get smelts on occasion, and I agree, they're delicious. I have memories of a smelt fry something like 20 years ago where they were some of the best fish I've ever eaten. But I can't get them consistently so I'm working on whitefish and/or trout as the first go-round.

Trust me when I say that I know the fish is fresh and palatable - I'm a local, I know what restaurants carry what fish, I know which stores sell it fresh, I've had it caught from the Lake where it was swimming around 10 minutes ago (I watched it being caught). The fish quality is not the issue. I guess what I'm looking for is a way to make it exemplary. I'm not really looking for advice on the traditional methods to cook it; I've done it most of the common methods (baked, grilled, broiled, fried) and have a pretty good idea of what each result in; in my opinion, with the exception of deep-frying, most of those methods produce fish that is at best OK, and at worst mushy and tasteless. I might be looking for something that doesn't exist: the piece of whitefish that you put in your mouth and go WOW! I honestly haven't had that. I'm also primarily looking for whitefish preparations, and maybe trout, as those are the most common fish and the ones most associated with the area. So far my list of stuff to try is: - sous-vide - poached (butter-poached, fumet, wine, what else?) - Girardet method as discussed in Modernist Cuisine 2-24 - Maybe some high-heat pan frying in various oils? I suspect some of the problems I've encountered with pan frying is that the pan is not hot enough or doesn't have enough oil. The fish tends to fall apart or become overcooked. - What else?

I live on the shore of Lake Superior, and one thing that's constantly bugged me is how badly prepared the local fish is. I can get fresh, locally caught lake trout and whitefish just about any day of the week, cheaply and easily. Occasionally I see walleye as well. Uniformly, most of this fish is badly prepared. Oh, it's not horrible - plenty of local restaurants do great business on the whitefish. It's almost always simply baked, with the fancier places making a simple sauce. But it's nothing compared to good ocean fish. It's mushy and very lightly flavored. The trout is similar, though not as ubiquitous, at least in the restaurants (not sure why). There's only one way I've had it that I can say is truly delicious, and that's deep fried, with a very light crumb coating. It's flaky and light and you can't really get enough of it. But I wouldn't say it really highlights the fish, and deep frying is messy and sort of a special-occasion thing for me to do, at least, if only because I don't like my kitchen smelling of fried fish for days on end. I'm thinking of making it my mission this summer to try to figure out how to cook this stuff in a way that makes it good. Something that preserves the texture, doesn't overcook it, and is tasty. Is it possible? Any suggestions? It's amazing how little innovation is done with this stuff locally. Even the better places just throw it under the broiler until it's mushy. Is there any hope?

I live in a small town. Believe me, it's not like those Mom and Pop stores are always somehow great and something to be preserved. Don't get me wrong - I like buying local and all that - but have you been to a grocery store in a small town with no competition? You're lucky if you can buy such exotic and crazy things like red bell peppers or any spice other than the most commonly used ones. All the Mom & Pop groceries from my childhood were long ago put out of business not by WalMart, but by local chains. About 7 or 8 years ago, WalMart put in a grocery store, and I can say it's done nothing but increased the competition in a good way. They had such outlandish things like a fish counter and organic vegetables. Now suddenly the local chains are carrying Mexican and Oriental ingredients. In contrast, when I first moved back to town 10 years ago, you couldn't find fresh cilantro. So for this small town, at least, WalMart's been fine. I don't agree with their business practices and a lot of their politics, but I cringe to think what the local stores would carry without the competition that some of the big boxes provide.

I think maybe I've found a mistake that I don't see in the corrections document, but maybe it's open to interpretation. In the Conversion section, 5-XXXVI, it lists the # of grams of all-purpose flour in a cup as 80. Now, I know that converting flour from volume to weight is somewhat subjective, but most charts assume somewhere in the realm of 4 to 5 ounces (112-140 grams) of flour per cup. 80 grams seems very low for a cup of all-purpose flour. King Arthur, for example, lists 1/4 cup as 30 grams on their nutritional info for all-purpose flour. So 120 grams per cup - MUCH higher than the conversion chart. So is that a mistake, or am I just missing some bit of Modernist Cuisine logic?

I did the watermelon last night, and it was great! 2-3 oz of liquor for about 24 ounces of melon was light but definitely tasty. I might use more liquor next time. Anyone else thinking of fruit salad? I also had a thought in the middle of the night that I just tried - cold brewed coffee. I know you can make a good cup of coffee by letting the grounds and water sit overnight then straining and heating, or keeping cold for iced coffee. Why not try speeding up the process with the vacuum sealer? Following this recipe, I put 1/3 cup (22 grams) of fresh ground coffee in a bag with 1.5 cups of water and vacuumed. At about the 25 second mark it started boiling over, to the point that it didn't seal. I figure that didn't really matter, what I was looking for was the vacuum, not necessarily the seal. I pulled it out and filtered through a gold filter. And it worked - the coffee was definitely strong and good. Still, I wanted to see what would happen with a longer vacuum, so put it back in the bag with the grounds and vacuumed again. Came out slightly stronger this time. Next time I'm going to use a larger bag and hopefully get a longer initial vacuum and see what happens. I'll definitely be using this technique for iced coffees this summer. Very nice to not have to brew then wait for it to cool. I'm also thinking I could use some cream and maybe some flavorings (nutmeg/cinnamon/vanilla bean/whatever) and make it interesting that way. Or liquor... there's always liquor. Iced Irish Coffee, anyone?

re: fun versus hobby. I can't imagine that anyone here hasn't cooked when they haven't wanted to at least sometimes. I try to explain that to my husband - yes, I like to cook, and often I have no problems working all day and then fixing a great dinner in the evenings. But that doesn't mean I want to do it every night, and that some nights it's a chore for me. Unlike other hobbies that can be put up & forgotten about when you're busy or tired or cranky, you still need to eat even when you don't want to cook, and there's only so much pizza that can be ordered in a given timespan. And yes, that's why we have 3 freezers full of frozen yum-yums despite being only two people!

For those of you who have done the watermelon, can I get some details? How long did you vacuum for? Did you do it more than once or just once? Did you let it sit for a while before eating, or open right away? I have a melon sitting in my kitchen right now, waiting for treatment.

Haha! I am a nerd! And proud of it. No offense taken on my part, and no need to apologize.

Beer & wine. <sigh> I would be much richer and skinnier if I didn't like those so much.