Chufi

Thank you Chris! I am in awe of your seemingly boundless energy.. I could never do what you do (and yes I know this was not a normal week for you, but even a charcuterie project one week and chocolate the next would be too much for me.. and I´m not even writing a dissertation ) Very inspiring to see someone apply themselves to new and complicated tasks. Thanks for showing us your work! oh and how do you keep your counters so spotless.. I´m in a constant battle with mine and I lose every day...

lately I´ve been roasting rhubarb in the oven without any liquid added. I find this works great.. Just spread the rhubarb in one layer, sprinkle with sugar and roast in 180 C oven, tossing carefully a couple of times, for about 15 minutes. I made another version of the rhubarb mess (variation on Eton mess) I posted about earlier in this thread: the roasted rhubarb, layered with crushed meringues and whipped cream. Whether you flavor the rhubarb with ginger or orange or both or whatever I´m just urging anyone who loves rhubarb to give this dessert a try.. it´s really the best thing I´ve eaten with rhubarb in a long time. Assemble just before eating so the meringue stays crisp.

Rob, I'm sorry if you mentioned this before, but how old are your goats? I'm, asking because by some strange coincidence, I was invited to a goat dinner this weekend. A little background: there are several organic goatfarms in the netherlands, where goats are raised primarily for their milk (to make goatscheese, and other products). The male goats that are born, well, how to say this politely, they are not that welcome. Obviously they won´t turn into milkproducing goats, and in the meantime, they drink the milk. So these farms are trying to sell the male baby goats (at about 2 months old) to the public, and you can get them through various sources if you know where to look. They say it´s hard, people don´t want to eat baby goat (apparantly the Dutch have no problems with baby lamb, but feel sorry for baby goat). Anyway, a friend of mine who makes a food prgramme on local tv here in Amsterdam, got one of these goats, made a 10 minute program about it, and then went home to cook it and I was one of the dinner guests. ofcourse this is very different from your situation but what I wanted to comment on was the feeling I had when we were preparing the food and afterwards sitting at the table. There were 8 of us, we held one hind leg back, so the whole animal could have easily fed 10-12 (we ate a lot). We fried up the heart, liver, sweetbreads, and the tiny testicles. The bones turned into stock, the saddles were stuffed and rolled, the ribs were tied together into a sort of crownroast, the legs were marinated and roasted. the only thing missing was the head, I felt that we really used all other parts. Although I had never seen this animal, the feeling that we were all sitting at the table making a meal out of this one goat was very special. Oh and it tasted good too. The meat was incredibly succulent and tender, ofcourse with a 2 month old goat you can expect that, I was almost disappointed that it did not have a more pronounced goaty taste. The program will be online tomorrow, I´ll post a link for anyone who´s interested in watching 10 minutes of Dutch talk about goats

This is going to be interesting! I just had a look at your website and I must say, it's not often that you see the rotor noise of helicopters, home made bacon and coconut lemongrass truffles all together on one website Charcuterie and making chocolates, for me, are 2 of those 'maybe one day' things, and knowing myself, there´s a pretty good chance that day is never going to come! What made you decide to start doing it?

here's a little rhubarb dessert I made yesterday. Rhubarb compote (chunks of rhubarb tossed with sugar, roasted in a hot oven until soft, cooled) layered with coconut cream 8200 ml of cream, whipped, with 100 ml of thick coconut cream folded in). Drizzled with ginger syrup and topped with toasted almonds. Chilled until very very cold (I think it would have been even better with a short stay in the freezer)

We have been talking about the "other" endive, though...right? The green sort (disambiguation thread here)... ← oh right. I was talking about the belgian one. So please ignore my post above. which refers to the wrong kind. sorry. although I think that the OP was also referring to the belgian kind!

This is my favorite way to eat it...also very popular here to make it into a stampot, basically a potato mash with lots of shredded endive throughout...here's Chufi's recipe. ← I often make this endive mash and add chopped hardboiled eggs, chives and cubes of fried chorizo, sounds an unlikely combination, but it's very good. Also, if you have braised endive, put it on some puff pastry, dot with blue cheese and pinenuts or walnuts, and bake until the pastry is done.

I made it some time ago and I don't really remember which recipe I used, but it could have been this one Delia's Rhubarb crumble. I made a simple little rhubarb/ginger crumble yesterday, it was good but not great, the crumble mix was just butter/flour/sugar. I do like some oats or nuts in my crumble but I did not have any. The combo rhubarb/ginger was divine as always though. I'll be getting more rhubarb tomorrow and do some rhubarb cooking this weekend!

Elie, I was hoping you would add your wisdom here! Just to be clear, I never had this dish, I just read about it somewhere and it sounded good so I made my own version. I made it again yesterday, seasoning the beef with allspice, chiliflakes and cumin. When it was cooked I tasted it and felt it needed something. I added a big pat of butter, thinking I was doing something VERY wrong so it's good to read your recipe, with butter and all! The butter rounded out the flavors nicely, especially since I was using pretty lean beef. It was a great dinner together with some homemade griddle flatbread to scoop up hummus and meat.

Lahmi/Lahma or Awarma?

from your link, and googling some more, I gather that the Lebanese name for this dish is Hummus bi Lahmi or Lahma. (I'm guessing Lahmi/Lahma is lebanese for meat?)

Just wanted to bump one of my favorite topics! It is the season! I have found early, pink rhubarb in exactly 1 store so far in Amsterdam. I've been eating rhubarb compote with joghurt for breakfast for days, and I'll be making a little rhubarb cake for dessert tonight. I LOVE it when the rhubarb season starts! What have you been doing with rhubarb?

I've been having a craving lately for something I read about, somewhere (probably here on eG! ): a plate of hummus, topped with a mixture of spicy ground meat, pinenuts and fried onions. I've been a-googling and I find mentions of this dish, but it does not seem to be a traditional dish? or is it? Which country, and does it have a name other than "hummus topped with meat"? I've been seasoning the meat with all-spice, cumin, coriander and chiliflakes. Does anyone know of a good recipe for this dish? any other pointers? Thanks!

Thanks! okay here's what I did... for 2 150 grams of chestnut mushrooms, sliced 50 grams of butter 1 tablespoon soy sauce 2 pieces of (preferably wild) salmon, 150 grams each Melt half the butter in a small frying pan, and sautee the mushrooms over low heat, they will absorb the butter. When they´re nice and soft and brown remove them from the pan. Melt the rest of the butter in the pan and add the soy sauce. Put the pices of salmon in the pan and cook over low heat, spooning the butter mixture over the fish, turning the pieces over once. Total cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillets, about 5-8 minutes. Just before you think the fish is ready, add the mushrooms to the pan to warm them through. Soooo simple sooooo good

The minute I read the words "Butter"and Soy" in 1 sentence I knew I had to try this! Yesterday I made wild salmon with mushrooms, butter and soy. It was fantastic. There's a picture here on my blog. Thanks for the inspiration!

I love your writing!

Peter, I can't wait for this travelogue to unfold. I am so looking forward to following it in real time (I read through the entire Korea thread yesterday, how did I miss that?).

Technically, for it to be called rendang, it has to be dry (and very dark), if it still has some sauce, it's not rendang but kalio Lots of info in this rendang thread (gotta love the eGullet archives!)

Amy, I think you may be setting a new standard for future blogs, with your detailed description and pics of your kitchen and its lay-out. Very interesting to see! I can really see that you would feel closed in in a place like that. It looks like the window is non seethrough.. could you change that? Maybe you would feel better if you had a view, even if it was small. Oh and I can really relate to the low countertops. I'm 1.80 and when I used to live in old apartments my back was killing me from the ridiculously low countertops! I do LOVE your high and narrow dishrack though. I want one of those!

yes you can say anything you want and not just cause it's your birthday I think the candle is a lovely idea!

Nishla, great to see you again! That butternut squash tart looks brilliant. What a fabulous idea to have a savoury tart and top it with something after it comes out of the oven (I'm assuming that's what you did). I can see that working with other savoury tarts and quiches as well. Makes them look more attractive and gives a textural contrast as well.

allright, since you ask : that's the view I'll have when standing at the sink. Susan I really like the idea of bacon and eggs.. needs only one frying pan and 2 plates, and it will be nice to baptize the stove with some splatters of bacon grease. And maybe some Dutch applepie in the oven. The oven is tiny (and will be replaced in time) but I'm eager to find out what I can do with it.

what makes Japanese eggs safe to eat raw? I eat raw eggs (in mayonaise etc) but I always thought that no eggs are 100 % safe?

Isn´t the bottle of wine you bring to a dinner, a gift, like flowers or anything else? This is interesting to me because I don´t think that here (The Netherlands) it is ever considered rude if the bottle you bring, is put away for ´later´. In fact, when we bring a bottle we will sometimes say, keep it for later, so they can really enjoy it, instead of opening it with the chance that the host may not even taste it because other guests drink it. Ofcourse then there are the parties where you are asked to bring wine, in that case it´s expected that the bottle will be opened.

So, I´ve mentioned this a dozen times on every possible thread, but I´m moving next week Tonight we´re having tomatosoup from a can with a salad, tomorrow we´ll be dining at Ikea, and from then on we´ll be pampered by different friends and relatives who were kind enough to invite us over, then on Monday (moving day) we´ll probably go out to dinner, Tuesday will probably still be a mess, but I´m guessing that on Wednesday, I´ll be ready to Cook Something in my new kitchen. It´s not brand new, it´s been in the new apartment for 6 years, but it´s new to me, and it looks pretty good, and it especially will after the big cleaning I´m going to give it this weekend. Cooking means everything to me and I can´t WAIT to inaugurate the new kitchen. Ofcourse, there´s a pretty good chance that the first meals won´t be anything special, because we will still be unpacking and working and finishing up the house, but I´d like to dream about this special first dinner... something to keep my mind of packing What did you cook, first night in your new house? was it something special with symbolic meaning or was it just something quick and easy to feed the crowds?