DTBarton

I'm not sure what kind of knife your Hiromoto Gyuto is (chef's knife?), but I have better luck with seared tuna with a sharp, thin blade, like a sharp boning or fillet knife. I use a long, thin Global boning knife and try to cut directly across the grain as much as possible. A thin wipe of cooking oil with a paper towel might help as well.

You could roast some of the pork and serve it with the chutney.

More on this topic in this current thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=58499

I have to cut the hock end off of a country ham in order for it to fit in my roasting pan. I use a well washed cross cut saw, but a hack saw works as well. I save the hock raw for cooking beans or bean soup. I cook the rest of the ham (the usual wash, soak, change water routine) in the turkey roaster on top of the stove for about 4 or 5 hours until internal temp hits 165 or so. I put the ham on a small wire rack to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the roaster and put about 2 inches of water in the roaster and cook it at a simmer. I cut the cooked ham up into portion sized chunks and vacuum pack it, it keeps beautifully frozen.

We are a family from the USA staying in Oxford for schooling options. We would like to get some recommendations for good food, either at restaurants or good places to shop for food. We like everything and would like to find some good choices. Thanks very much in advance! Cheers!

Being that it's Christmas and all, I'd add some chopped green onions and maybe a sprinkle of chopped parsley to give it a touch of bright green, although pickles will help.

Here's a few of my faves: All time best is a South Carolina oyster roast. You need an open wood fire, cinder blocks, a piece of sheet metal, burlap bags (croaker sacks to the natives), a hose, a shovel and a piece of plywood on sawhorses. A few bushels of Bull's Bay oyster clusters. Put the sheet metal over the fire on the cinder blocks. Put oysters on the sheet metal. Cover with croaker sacks. Soak with hose, more if sacks start to burn. Remove when the outer oysters on the cluster start to open. Use shovel to spread on plywood. Serve with thin, hot cocktail sauce and wax paper sleeves of saltines. The cool thing is as you work through a big cluster, you get oysters cooked to all levels of doneness. The smallest outside ones can be almost smoked, they get closer to raw as you move into the center of the cluster. It is desirable, but not necessary, to consume copious amounts of your favorite adult beverage. Another favorite is Chinese fried oysters. I stole this preparation from a defunct (and sorely missed) Chinese restaurant in Hampton, VA, called the Ming Gate. Place large fried oysters (I usually add some 5 spice powder or curry to the breading) on top of a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce. Dress with spicy Chinese sauce similar to what you'd make for steamed dumplings. I use soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown vinegar, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, diced chili pepper, cilantro and a little sesame oil. Make the sauce ahead of time and let it jell. Eat immediately when the oysters are hot, a great combination of flavors and textures. Finally, I like to add diced bacon or pancetta and diced mushrooms to the onion and celery saute for my oyster dressing. I try to make the mixture a little wetter than for non oyster dressing, use all the oyster liquor.

I make pizzas on parchment paper and put them on a stone with no flour or corn meal. No mess and you get the benefit of the stone if you want it. It can take two people to put the pizza and parchment in the oven if the pie's large. I find that using a cooling rack helps keep the crust crisp also.

I use it as a flavoring in just about any dish that calls for bacon or pancetta or salt pork. The flavors a little different, but it works well.

When I was a kid in Delaware ('60s) we had a chain called Chicken Delight that delivered fried chicken (jingle: Don't cook tonight, call Chicken Delight! Yes Sir!). The delivery vehicles had big plastic chickens on top. Too long ago to say whether the food was any good, but my folks ordered it occasionally.

I'd go ahead and freeze it like you usually do (maybe more decorative packaging). Hey, it's Christmas, what's wrong with a wintery feeling gift? Then you don't have to worry about adequate drying or spoilage of egg yolks. It would have to be refrigerated anyway. And now the recipients can choose when to use it, it would be nice to have a homemade pasta meal to thaw and enjoy when the turkey leftovers are done.

I have been very pleased with hams from Scott hams in Kentucky for the last few years. No nitrates or nitrites, just really good country ham. http://www.scotthams.com/

Popeye's fried chicken and biscuits (dark meat, spicy)

Gotta like that Rice-a-roni! To attest to it's appeal, we use a web site called anysoldier.com http://www.anysoldier.com/ to send things to troops serving overseas. One thing that is often requested is microwaveable food. We sent one group in Iraq a big box of individual rice-a-roni servings from Sam's club, among other things. We got back a great thank you note saying the Rice-a-roni was the big hit of the package.

Put me in the pro honeycrisp group. I really like them for eating apples, the right balance of sweet and tart. Some are better than others, but I've never had a bad or mealy one.

I smoke fresh kielbasa from Ostrowski's in Baltimore http://www.ostrowskisausage.com/ in my Weber bullet. As you say, it doesn't take too long and comes out great.

The first thing I think of when I think southern is my grandmother's slow cooked green beans. She used beans from my grandfather's garden. Saute diced bacon with a lot of sliced onion until the whole thing (and the bottom of the pan) turn a nice brownish red color. Deglaze the pan with chicken broth. Add the beans and enough broth to just cover them. Simmer covered until very tender, adjust salt and pepper (this dish loves pepper). Cook time will vary with freshness of beans, but don't worry about over cooking the beans, that's kind of the idea!

Every time I stray from chicken, biscuits, and red beans and rice at Popeye's, I wish I hadn't. But I really don't stray very often.

Hard to go wrong with shallots, red wine, and butter, salt and pepper. A little pancetta goes nicely as well.

Soup definitely. Our favorite is Marcella Hazan's minestrone with rinds. Like the oil and stock ideas, very nice.

Popeye's in a walk. As someone whose first real job at age 16 was cooking KFC, I can say that you can make decent food with the tools they give you (or with what we had in 1976), but you have to do it right. Most KFC places don't let the oil get hot enough before they drop the chicken (gotta be 400) and don't adequately brown the chicken before closing the pressure vat. This leads to greasy, flabby chicken. Generally, they're in a hurry and don't give a rip. Also, in my day original recipe chicken was cooked in older grease, on purpose, to give it the dark color. I actually worked in Gino's, a long gone burger place that also served KFC. Our fat started as 50 lb. blocks of shortening (trans fats, anyone?) in the french fry vats. When the oil was too dark for fries, it went in the crispy chicken vats (the crispy is cooked in open vats, not under pressure like the original). Too dark for crispy, into the original recipe vats. Us employees found that the best chicken that could be made at KFC was to use the original recipe breading (much more flavor and spices), but cook it in the crispy open vat. Totally illegal, we got in trouble for doing it for ourselves, we'd have been drawn and quartered if we had tried to sell it.

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try. One thing I like to do to get richer stock is use roasted bones. I roast a whole chicken and roughly cut the meat off for a meal, leaving plenty of meat on the carcass. Roast the carcass at 350 or so with salt and pepper until it browns. I hit it with a broiler then for a couple minutes and use that as the base for stock with salt, pepper, onion, celery, carrot and a bit of dry bouquet garni. Yields a very flavorful stock with somewhat darker color.

I don't profess to be an expert, but I've had some good meals at a bagel/deli/restaurant place on Biscayne Blvd. in north Miami at about 109th street or so, on the west side of the street. Nice bagels, smoked fish, sandwiches and a bevy of neat Jewish ladies that sound like they just got off the boat from Krakow.

Not in South Carolina, but I've heard this guy does a good job and is set up for easy send in / redelivery. http://www.mrleonardknifesharpener.com/

Not sure when you're going, but be aware that Joe's Stone Crab is closed until October 12th: http://www.joesstonecrab.com/findus.html