francois

BTW, just where did you find this info on the KA website? I cannot seem to find it (or did they take it out ?). ← I found it via Google in an Amazon.com customer product review. Get your model and serial numbers off the tag on the bottom of the base and call the KA phone number. SB ← Unfortunatly, I was informed that the extended warranty only applies in the US. KA Canada does no want to hear about it. I don't quite see how the PRO 600 that sells here in Canada can be much different from the one sold in the US. Can anyone think of good arguments to help me convice KA to stand behind their product. I have had the mixer for 1 year and 3 months. Warranrty is 1 year.

I would think it is simply an error. I would make it with fennel. They probably also make a puree in the same way but with j.a. The recipe states that you cook the fenouil, not the topinambour.

BTW, just where did you find this info on the KA website? I cannot seem to find it (or did they take it out ?).

Very interesting! My two yr old pro 600 in currently being repaired. The transmission broke down. I will have to check to see if that extended warranty is also good in Canada. I am on my fourth Pro 600!!! The first 3 broke down while still under warranty and the store where I bought it exchanged them, no question asked (but you should have seen the look on their face when I came in the 3rd time!). I bake bread in a weekly basis. Always using the 2nd speed. Before that I had a heavy duty 5 qt. The transmission also broke just after my warranty expired. I dream of having a small Hobart but they are just too expensive (although in the long run, the KitchenAid might well cost me more)

Paula, If you are still keeping an eye on this thread... Do you think the recipe for Carpaccio of pig's feet would work with hocks intead of feet? I get high quality baby pork (porcelet) from a local producer. However for some reason, I can not get the feet. There is quite a few hocks in my freezer. It would seem to be a lovely way to use them, adjusting the cooking time.

Yucky?? Bitter?? I am a home cook (it may be a whole different thing for a restaurant chef) and I do press on the solids when straining stock, to get as much liquid out of it as possible. My resulting sauces are not bitter. Nor are the yucky. Cloudy?, I never noticed...,and I dont really care... In fact my sauces taste much better than in most restaurants.

Patricia Wells has written a excellent cookbook about the cuisine of Joel Robuchon. He comes across as an excellent chef, somewhat compulsive in his search for details. The recipes are truly excellent, some are kind of long to make and expensive, but fool-proof and memorable. Surprinsingly, Robuchon has written a few books by himself (so he claims). Not at all at the same level. More ordinary and kind of disapointing. A few of the recipes in the Atelier of Joel Robuchon are nice or comparable to Patricia Well's. Another book about classic french cuisine is ordinary... So, who is the real Joel Robuchon? My guess is that you'll find him in the details...

Go local. Try to get to know the producer. How he raises the lambs. What he feeds them. Compare a local lamb with an imported one. Usually a very interesting and rewarding experience... I far prefer local producers.

For the last few years, i have been getting baby lambs from a local producer (I am a home cook, not a chef). The kidneys I usually prepare like veal kidneys: sautéed in butter, flambéed with cognac, finished with cream. Excellent!

I have some saucisson sec drying up in my basement fridge. Made them last week end from a shoulder of a lovely pig, from a local producer... Cant wait for them to be ready. I hope for a pure pork flavor, with a slight garlic pepper taste. With a good baguette and great burgundy wine (as suggested in the book)!

I jsut ate a pork confit that I made last week. Truly excellent. Better (in my opinion) than most duck confits. Does anyone know if the fat in which the confit was made (duck in this case) can be used to make another batch of confit?

Anyone going to his conference at the Centre des sciences tomorrow night? It is certainly quite expensive ($85.00)...

I would like to have your thoughts on the pros and cons of injecting brine in larger pieces of meats, like turkey breasts and ham. There is no mention of injecting brine in 'Charcuterie'. Does it change the texture of the finished product? At first glance, it seems that it would be a good technique. Injecting brine will of course have quite an influence on brining time. Any guidelines?

Could there be an error in the 'smoked chicken and roasted garlic sausage' (p. 162)? It calls for 1 1/2 pounds of pork shoulder for 3 1/2 pounds of chicken. The non-smoked counterparts, (turkey sausage, p. 132, or the chicken sausage with basil (p. 124), call for 1 1/2 pounds of pork fat back for the same amount of chicken/turkey. Considering that pork shoulder is about 30% fat, that makes a big difference in fat content. In the recipe introduction, it is written that the sausage is not low in fat. It seems to be much leaner than the others. Any thoughts?

I have bought Quebec lamb and even pre-sale lamb from Kamouraska at Slovenia on St. Lawrence Street. ← Your pré salé lamb from Kamouraska is not pré salé... The only pré salé lamb around is from l'ile Verte (not far from Kamouraska but definitly not Kamousraka).

I get my lamb from 'La ferme de la Pastourelle' in Gatineau (if you want the phone # or more details, just PM me). The owner, Bill, is very dedicated and knowlegable. You have to buy the whole thing, but his butcher will prepare the different cuts to your specification (personally, I prefer working on them myself). The only thing is that they are not sous vide, but in my case, it gets eaten too fast to make a difference (this is my 6th lamb in the last 1 1/2 years). He also raises a few pigs. In in the spring, I was fortunate enough to get a porcelet, fed with milk and corn. Excellent! It was rather fun to make a whole ham of porcelet (a big 5 pounds!). Every so often, he also has turkeys and chickens. This week-end, I am actually planning to roast 1/2 of a turkey breast, smoke (from Charcuterie) the other 1/2, and make somed turkey and garlic sausages from the rest (again from Charcuterie). I have a large stockpot of turkey stock on the stove right now.

A while back, I used to spend my summer holiday on l'ile Verte (we would rent a house for 3-4 weeks). The last couple of years was when they started to make the agneau de pré salé, so I would buy bought a whole lamb (or 1/2 with a friend). Very expensive but in my opinion, not really any better than the local lamb I am now getting from a local producer - in the outaouais region- at a fraction of the price (mind you, the man makes a truly great lamb!). This is not to say that the agneau de pré salé is not good, far from it. But if you compare it to a good local product, it is just not worth the difference in price (I did a direct comparaison with 2 racks, prepared simply, à la provençale, and could not tell one from the other).

??? Ceasar salad from scratch, isn't that what we do at home??? With much better results than in most restaurants...

And that does mean saturated! I used a locally available block salt which comes in pyramid shapes about three inches tall, I have found that once the salt is saturated the blocks become water logged and actually help in transferring the moisture to the atmosphere in the refrigerator as they stick up above the water about two inches. Saves having to use a container which has a large suface area of water! ← What kind of store would sell block salt? I have never seen that anywhere.

Just had a very nice meal (not exactly fast food nor diet food...). I smoked a kielbasa (p.163) this afternoon. Ate it on buns (from Peter Reinhart's book), with dill pickles (p. 71) and mustard. Yum!!!! Should start brewing beer... The sausage was rather easy to do but a bit more time consuming that I expected. I used the kitchenAid stuffer but next time I will probably use a pastry bag - feeding the stuffing through the tube is a pain in the ***.

I know this is a stupid question but I'll ask anyway... I assume your fridge is working. In Charcuterie, It is written that 'an unused refrigerator can be a perfect drying box', Later an 'unpluged refrigerator' is mentioned. Would a fridge that is working, at it's lowest setting work? Even at the lowest setting it is probably much colder than the 60 F that is recommanded. I have a second fridge but I use it to store a few things and while it would give me room to cure some sausages, I just could not turn it off. Could I use the suggestion of water and salt in a working fridge to increase the humidity??

I spent a few days in Charlevoix. We stayed at the Auberge de la Falaise in La Malbaie. Very nice and confortable. Pool with a great view of the St-Laurent river. Dinner however was fair to good, no more. We decided to have our other dinners elsewhere. Breakfast was quite nice however. We went to La pinsonnière, recently renovated. Food was quite good but a bit averpriced. First course included a potato galette (which they called a blini) with smoked salmon and a lemony cream sauce with just a few specks of caviar, more for the looks than anything else as there was not anough to contribute any taste. Good but I can do better at home. The lobester bisque was outstanding. The ris de veau salad was great. Scallop cappacio with vanilla was quite good, heavily perfumed with vanilla. Halibut with onion compote was great as was the lobster with roasted vegetables. Desserts were excellent, specially the '5 C' - chocolate cake with caramel, champagne sorbet etc... Service was good but the overall athmosphere was rather aloft and snobish. My coup de coeur was Vices Versa, a small restaurant in La Malbaie that we would probably have overlooked if Lesley would not have suggested it (thanks!). Very small. Unfortunatly, there were only a few other clients in the restaurant. One can see the kitchen from the dining room. The 2 chefs were previously from L'auberge des 3 canards. After dinner we were invited to have a word with the chefs in the kitchen. The direct contact with the chefs was refreshing and very pleasant. The food was really good, reasonably priced. The amuse bouche was a large plate of rabbit cooked 3 different ways (rillette in a small choux, roasted rabe and liver). I started with a surprising but delicious dish of tuna tartare on a seafood flan and a sorbet of rhubarbe. The ris de veau was perfect. Dessert was a bit disapointing: chocolate ganache in phillo pastry. Wine list was reasonably priced. Overall, it was a very nice evening!! We brought back 1/2 of a meule of Migneron - I regret not having taken a whole one!

I smoked the ham yesterday. Turned out real nice. It was smaller than I thought, slightly over 5 pounds (the pig was about 3 months old, pretty much the size of a small lamb). I left it in the brine for 2 1/2 days but I did inject some inside, (following the suggestions in the CIA book - Garde Manger)Hardly any fat so to protect the meat, I smoked it with the rind on. After it was smoked, I removed the rind and quikly glazed it in the oven. It took about 5 hours in the smoker. The CIA book suggests smoking to an internal temp of 150 F vs 155 F in Charcuterie - Any thoughts on how much 5 degrees F can make in the finished product?

I would love to test your method. If I can do it, it is really a foolproof recipe!

Next weekend, I would like to try the American style brown sugar glazed ham (p. 93), using a 8 pound fresh ham from a baby pig. When I buy a ham at the supermarket, it benefits from being slowly braised, even if labeled 'fully cooked'. Should I do the same with the ham I am about to smoke? Also, any thoughts on how it would turn out if I cooked it with the rind on and remove it later, to glaze the ham in the oven (like what I usually do with a store bought ham). The recipe does not give any time estimate. Has anyone tried it? How long can I expect it to take to cook in the smoker?