A Patric

Wow, This is really interesting. It seems that a lot of you are doing a few things that I've never even heard of, i.e., adding chocolate, granola/oats, and/or coconut. I didn't even imagine these possibilities, let alone expect that they would be common. It looks like I'm going to have a bit of experimenting to do. Please keep the ideas coming!

If it's true that only one person shares my love of this type of muffin and that no one else has any preferences regarding techniques, then I'll forget all about this thread. But is it true?...that no one else has any insight? Thanks for any further comments.

Hi all, I'll be making some popovers today. I looked in the "Joy of Cooking" and the recipe calls for greased and dusted (w/flour) muffin tins at room temperature with batter added (also at room temp (70 F)). However, I've been reading a few e-gullet threads, and most people seem to preheat the tins, then brush with butter, add no flour to the tin, and then add the batter. Some don't specify, but some have said to add it chilled. So, my question is...how can two recipes vary so much? Anyone have any ideas why one would want to preheat the tin as opposed to not doing so, and why one would specifically want room-temp batter and another would want it chilled? Thanks for any suggestions.

I love them. They are by far my favorite muffin. For those of you who feel similarly, what is your theory for how to make the best ones? Pecans or walnuts? How many bananas per dozen muffins? Butter, oil, or shortening? Additional liquid? What type? Milk, buttermilk, other? Baking powder, baking soda or both? Recipes are welcome! Thanks!

I'd toss it also

I have. I used yogurt starter and heavy cream. I just kept an eye on it until it tasted tart enough but not too much so. It actually thickened up very quickly, so that's not an issue. It tasted 100 times better than any of the creme fraiche that I've found in the US. I don't doubt that there are some good brands at stores somewhere, but certainly not around here.

Abra, Sounds great. The only problem, though, is that I need to freeze my fat for about another 9 days. At that point, I'd be ready to get moving, but I am going to be out of town for a week from Dec 3rd to the 10th, and I won't have anyone who I can trust to know when to pull the sausage at the right moment. Since the recipe calls for 2-3 weeks of drying, that could cause some problems. So, I'll probably wait to make it until right before I leave as I can at least count on someone to wipe it with brine if any odd mold begins to show. That will be on the 30th or the 1st (somewhere in there). If you are willing to wait, great; if not, completely understood. Best, AP

An update: The bacon turned out perfectly after all. It certainly was cured, and actually was the best bacon I've ever had. At the same time I also made the chicken and garlic sausages and smoked those. They are definitely the best chicken sausages that I've ever eaten My brother couldn't even tell that they were chicken sausages. I'm looking forward to the next two things on the list which will both be for Christmas: The American-style glazed ham, and the sopressata (sp?)

How's it looking now? =R= ← Well, today it looks even drier than it did before. In fact, the liquid seems to all but have disappeared. I'm smoking it Thursday morning. That will make about 7.5 days. I'm sure it will be fine, but I just don't know if it will have that cured bacon flavor than I am expecting. Either way, no loss. I'll update when I find out how it tastes.

Not exactly and answer to your question, but here is my olive oil buying pattern: Rather than buy okay supermarket oil for all occasions (which is what I used to do), I now buy two type of olive oil. One type I buy from a local fine-foods market. That type varies depending upon my mood, but is always of very high quality, and for a relatively small bottle, usually costs around $30-$40. I use this type when flavor is very noticable and important. This type of olive oil would be good out of a glass on its own. I currently have Castelas from France, which is one of my favorites: http://www.worldsfoods.com/view.asp?prod_ID=2662 The other type I buy is from Sam's Club. I don't know the brand, but it is evoo in a huge plastic jug, and is quite a bit less expensive than the other stuff. I use this type where flavor is not as noticable like in stews with many other ingredients, etc. This way I save myself some money, but manage to enjoy really good olive oil too. Edited to say: I wouldn't buy anything but extra virgin olive oil personally.

It's only been 2 days so far. I dredged it too, and it was evenly coated, but I could still see some meat through the cure, though not a lot.

Hi all, I'm making bacon for the first time and have a question. I read in the recipe that it is supposed to release a lot of liquid. My bacon has released some, but I wouldn't call it a lot. I wonder if I might not have used enough dry cure. Could someone give me an idea about how the meat should look right after the dry cure is applied (i.e. should it be extremely caked or only mildly coated) and about how much liquid I should be seeing. Thanks in advance.

I know that you have rejected "entremets" twice now, but my wife, who is French, says unequivocally that the equivalent for intermezzo is entremets. She could be wrong I suppose, but are you 100% sure that you are asking the right question? It's not my area of expertise, so I can't really be of much help either way.

Great conversation! I looked in Paula's book (p 164), and it says that this dish came from Arrezo during a time when there was famine and hogs had to be slaughtered because there was nothing to feed them. Apparently the farmers figured that the pork could be salted and then cooked with olive oil and then preserved under olive oil. Wolfert notes that this is also basically how fresh tuna is preserved in Sicily. So, despite the fact that olive oil may oxidize and turn rancid far sooner than lard would, it seems that some people have still been succesful with using olive oil to preserve food. Perhaps they did keep the pork and oil in covered clay jars or pots of some kind that would minimize oxygen contact and rancidity. Who knows? At any rate, whether olive oil is the best for preservation or not, at least the part of the puzzle about the flavor of pork that is confited in olive oil has been solved...it's delicious! If you haven't already, but are interested in more about this dish, I recommend looking at this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=27577 where you'll find quite a few posts on this dish, and a number of photos as well. It seems that many people love it.

Thanks for this. I'll have to look into it. Certainly it would be nice for others familiar with this dish to chime in. UPDATE: I looked through that thread. It is really great, and there are a number of photos of this dish. It's exactly what I was asking about.

So is it the final concensus then that: 1) This technique has never been done anywhere traditionally 2) It wouldn't be any good in terms of flavor I also wonder if the flavor components of the evoo would truly be destroyed that quickly (3-5 hours) at 180 F? Thanks

Hi all, Here's a question, is there any culture that has used extra virgin olive oil to confit meat rather than it's own fat/lard, etc? Perhaps this has been done somewhere in one of the cuisines of the Mediterranean? I love the flavor of evoo, probably more than most animal fats, and I'm wondering if throwing some lean pork in a big pot of seasoned olive oil (pepper, garlic, various herbs, etc) and slowly cooking it at a low temp would result in something as delicious as the normal confit de porc? Aside from it being a bit cost-prohibitive due to the price of good evoo, is there any good reason not to try this? Have any of you tried it before? Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Hello, Does anyone here have a Bologna recipe. As I recall, Charcuterie doesn't have one, and I'm sure someone here has something they use and like. Thanks

Just found this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=15783 might be of interest regarding veggie burger "theory," though the thread is pretty short.

Though I love regular burgers, and almost always like them better than veggie burgers, I've come to find that I also really love some type of veggie burgers. The problem with veggie burgers is that some are absolutely horrible, and they ruin it for people who never get around to trying the good ones. Personally, I've tried making veggie burgers only twice before, and both times wasn't happy with them. They were kind of dry and starchy. I'll keep my eye on this thread for good ideas though.

I use the yeast waffle recipe in Shirley Corriher's book: Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed It has been proclaimed the favorite waffle recipe of more than one member of my family, one of whom is a huge fan of waffles. It has an excellent flavor, due to the yeast, proportion of sugar and salt, and the whole stick of butter, and is easy to make, is crispy on the outside and feather-light on the inside, and is just plain amazing. How's that for a sentence?! I've also used the separated egg trick (with the beaten whites) with these waffles, and they are even better that way, though it's not necessary if you're too tired in the morning. I'd give them a try if you have the recipe.

Update: The pork confit recipe from the book is excellent! I love it, and will certainly make it again. I used a small proportion of home-rendered duck fat with it too. The rillettes made from the pork confit using the recipe from the book had too much fat for my taste. To change it a bit, I'd brown the chunks of confit first, then make the recipe, adding the pork jelly, but not adding any additional fat, or only a little at any rate. I know that rillettes are supposed to be really fatty, but I think that using confited meat adds enough fat. Others of you might have different tastes of course. I'm currently brining the corned beef, and it is seeming promising. I'll be using the Russian dressing recipe from the book as well for some nice sandwiches. I made the hot dogs. They were great, but note to self: Poaching doesn't mean a rolling boil. Oh well, split sausages are still good sausages! Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the other pork products this past Friday, so it won't be until this weekend that I get to make a few other things. I'll give another update at that point. By that time I'll have my definitive opinion of the corned beef too. Even further down the line, but before the year's end, I'll be doing sopressata, the smoked american-style "holiday" ham, and starting a dry-aged ham too. I hope this thread keeps going because it has been an inspiration to me, and is filled with a wealth of great experience.

But you haven't answered my question about why you wouldn't be without one--is saving one trip back-and-forth to the sink with a full pot of water so valuable? Maybe my kitchen just isn't large enough to need the convenience (it's only three steps from stove to sink)? ← As I understand it, the point isn't necessarily to avoid lugging anything from the sink, although that may be a bonus, but rather, the point is that many pots are so tall that they won't fit into the sink to be filled. I have a number of pots that are too tall like that. So I end up standing at the sink with a smaller vessel gradually filling up the larger one. However, when the pasta or whatever is done, I don't have any problems taking the large pot to the sink to drain it. Maybe that would be an issue for some very elderly people, but I have a feeling that most of us would do just fine, especially if the pot isn't filled all the way to the very top.

Well, I'm doing the confit de porc right now. Tomorrow I'll use some for the rillette de porc which is one of my favorite pork "dishes" ever. This week I have some extra free time on my hands so I'll be doing the smoked andouille, the smoked garlic and chicken sausage, the tasso, the chicago-style hotdogs, and the corned beef. It's good that I have a foodsaver. I plan on using the exact recipes from the book as a starting point, so I'll let you all know how things turn out.

Hi all, Has anyone made the saucisson sec yet? When I lived in France for a year I had the opportunity to try multiple different brands of store-bought saucisson as well as some that had been produced by a winemaker, from his own pigs, for his family's consumption. I have to say that I liked some better than others. Some seemed to have more pepper and be slightly more acidic than others. The wine maker's saucisson seemed to have almost no flavor in it aside from pork, and was certainly not acidic. I'm wondering how you would describe the taste of the one in the book, and if you had to compare it to other dry cured pork sausages that you've made (sopressata, salami, etc.), how would it compare? Thanks for your thoughts. Alan