kanljung

Kevin, that looks excellent! I agree that they don't look as yellow as the piemontese tajarin. I've read in one place that the eggs used for tajarin sometimes comes from hens that have been given carotene enriched fodder. I'm unsure whether this is widely practiced or not. How wide did you cut your tajarin? The tajarin that I've eaten have been cut rather narrow, like tagliarini, maybe about 5 mm when cooked.

In addition to Hathor's excellent info on piemonte I'd like to add a couple of things. Commonly used vegetables are zucchini, leeks, bell peppers and oninons. In wintertime there is of course cabbage and kale. Hazelnuts are commonly used for cakes and desserts. Some examples of piemontese dishes (with a bias towards the langhe region): Antipasti: Onions stuffed with forcemeat Bell peppers struffed with tuna Savoury flans with e.g. zucchini or leeks Zucchini flowers stuffed with risotto Insalata carne cruda, finely chopped raw veal meat, dressed with EVOO and lemon juice. Vegetable crudites with bagna caoda Vitello tonnato Primi piatti: Tajarin, which is a rather thin fresh egg pasta. This pasta is very heavy with egg yolks. I've seen recipes that calls for up to 40 egg yolks to one kilo of flour. Tajarin may be served with just some sage infused butter a simple porcini sauce, meat sauces consisting of either veal or rabbit. Another popular sauce for tajarin is based on the sausage that hathor mentioned (salsiccia di Bra). Another option for tajarin is of course to just serve it with shavings of white alba truffle. Agnolotti are minuscule meat stuffed raviolis. The type of meat that are used in the stuffing varies form sub-region to sub-region, but topside veal, pork shoulder, rabbit or salsiccia all feature in different combinations. The meat is roasted or braised and then it is finely cut or minced and mixed with parmiggiano reggiano and egg yolks. Sometimes spinach or cabbage may be thrown inot the mix as well. The agnolotti are simply served with sage infused butter or the roasting juices ( sugo di arrosto). Potato Gnocchis may be served with a cheese fondue (fonduta) as the sauce. Risottos may contain truffles, different cheeses or wine (e.g barolo). Polenta. Secondi Rabbit, braised in white wine or together with bell peppers. Brasato al Barolo. Topside veal pot roast marinated and braised in barolo wine. Other types of wine may be used, for instance there are Brasato al Barbera or Brasata all'Arneis. Arneis is a white wine from the Lange or Roero regions. Stracotto. Another take on pot roast with wine. I've not managed to find out what the exact differences between this nad the brasato are, except that stracotto isn't marinated first. Different preparations with guinea hen are also quite common. Dolci Hazelnut cakes of different kinds. Panna cotta Bonet, a custard that contains cacao powder and powdered amaretti biscuits. Zabaione using either moscato or barolo wine.

Great idea, Kevin! Piemonte is one of my favourite italian regions and I've had some of my best meals in Italy in and around Alba. I'm thinking of making either agnolotti dal plin or maybe tajarin with some meat based sauce, something which I had planned to make sometime soon anyway. The books on Piemonte that I've got are a couple of Italian ones published by Slow Food: Ricette di Osterie di Langa edited by Armando Gambera. Ricette di Osterie di Cuneo e delle sue valli by Elma Schema and Adriano Ravera. Both of these only covers a sub-region of piemonte though.

There are a kind of cured sausages that are usually served on a christmas smorgasbord, they are often smoked. it could be one of these. The sausage that we makes for christmas is a fresh sausage and when I come to think of it, it probably is what you called a potato sausage. It contains ground pork, ground beef, potatoes, onions, pork fatback, ground white and black pepper and powdered dry ginger. Mumma is a a drink consisting of porter, gin, some other type of beer, It is topped up with a fizzy softdrink akin to Sprite. Sometimes other things like madeira is thrown inot the mix too. Glögg (mulled wine) is of course part of the christmas tradition as well. The non-alcoholic drink of choice for christmas is Julmust, which is a juniper flavoured soft drink. We usually buy some kind of paté for christmas. This year I'd like to have a go at making my own. I'll use Julia Child's recipe for a ham and veal terrine. I'm thinking of substituting either the veal or ham for strips of venison or roebuck and marinate the meat in gin instead of cognac. I haven't seen exactly one of these, but that doesn't mean that it isn't swedish. It coud be a regional thing. The painted woodwork and the straw ornaments are certainly typical for swedish christmas decorations. The red wooden balls also sounds rather typical.

It seems that you've managed to assemble most of the the stuff that goes onto our christmas smorgasbord (julbord). We usually have a variety of herrings, cold-smoked salmon, a terrin or paté, ham, sylta, a couple of different sausages including "prinskorv", meatballs (without gravy), braised cabbage, lutfisk, pork ribs. Other items that may be present on a typical swedish chrismas smorgasbord are different lax presentations, smoked eel, yet more kinds of cabbage preparations and brussel sprouts. The ham is as you say fresh, although it is brined. We usually roast it in the oven, but other swears by simmering it covered in water instead. The broth that you get from this is then traditionally used to dip your bread in. The sausage you talk about is probably from Göteborg, although I'm not sure of what it is. Could you describe it? My family has always made a special sausage for christmas since many generations back but I've never found any similarly tasting sausage elsewhere. The pork ribs are roasted in the oven and glazed with a mix of honey and powdered dry ginger. I will not make those this year though, instead I will make a terrine. I'll post a recipe for meatballs later. To all this we either drink english ales or a drink called "mumma".

I love lamb! It's my favourite red meat. I particularly fond of slow-braised cubed shoulder or shanks, but I'm up for any kind of cut. I'm lucky that my wife and son share my love for lamb. We have really good domestic lamb here in Sweden, but despite this, it's hard to find a good selection of cuts in the supermarket. You'll have to go to a good butcher to find cuts such as shoulder or shanks. Now and then I also get really good frozen lamb from NZ in middle eastern or indian stores.

How about dill? A traditional swedish seasoning for crayfish or langoustine.

The umami that may be present in chinese food (from soy sauce and/or MSG) may pose some problems for heavy reds, especially if they are rich with tannins. Reds may also be hard to match with foods that are hot from chilli. If the food normally would call for a red wine (e.g heavy red meat) I'd probably choose beer instead. If the food contains some sweetness I would choose a wine with residual sweetness. Those kind of wines will also stand up to a certain spicyness in the food. Some white varietals that often fall into this category are riesling, pinot noir or gewurztraminer grapes.

Thanks all for your advice on making siu yok! I'll definitely will try this out as soon as time allows.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to get any store-bought roast pork were I live. Wouldn't the recipe that TP linked to and some pork belly too provide an adequate home cooked substitute?

The dish looks really great! How has the pork belly been prepared? Is it some kind of barbecue pork?

A great umbrian red that I can recommend is Fobiano from an Orvieto producer named "La Carraia". It is a blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon. It may be hard to track down, but for a wine that regularly gets the three glasses award, I find it rather priceworthy.

Yes we get lots of Turbot here in Scotland (mostly farmed, which I don't buy). If you can get a large, wild caught fish it is excellent eating (I believe I am not the first one to work this out..,). ← This is the first time I've heard of farmed turbot. Is it farmed in scotland or is it imported from somewhere?

Yep, there was something about the mouth-feel and the overall consistency of the filling in the cooked ravioli.

We have this product here in sweden too, where it is called "kvarg". I've used it to substitute ricotta when filling pasta. At that time I thought the result lacked something compared to ricotta filled pasta. It probably is better when mixed with ricotta.

There are lot of good ones in this list, but if I should choose one, it got to be satay/kebabs. If we choose to include both satay and kebabs, we probably could look forward to many interesting variations from different regions. I've got both a thai satay recipe and a egyptian fish kebab recipe that are on my "pending list". Another idea is something north-african, maybe a moroccan tagine.

I got my copy of this marvellous book yesterday. I've only had time to read the introduction yet. This one will certainly keep me occupied for a very long time. Thanks Farid, for leading me on to this book!

I had some really good frango grelhado when I visited Algarve this summer. This version had only been basted with oil, salt and some garlic. The piri-piri sauce was served on the side instead. There is a recipe for piri-piri sauce on Leite's culinaria.

Chufi, your latest pasta looks really great, as did your previous one! On the topic of flour: The last time I made fresh pasta, I had managed to find some De Cecco "00" flour. Before that I've been using a strong bread flour (12% protein content) with good results. Sometimes I've cut it with some durum wheat flour (12% protein). This, in combination with extensive kneading and folding has given me a very elastic dough. Tastewise, the pasta made on the"00" flour may have been somewhat better though.

Yeasterday I finally came around to make Samke Harra based on Elie's recipe. Getting hold of fresh sea bass or red mullet was out of the question, so I got hold of some nice hake fillets instead. I spread the stuffing on top of the fillets like this: After baking them for about 10 minutes (350 degrees), I topped them with the tahini sauce and returned them to the oven for another 5 minutes. I served the fish with rice and a simple salad of mixed green leaves. Both my wife and I liked it very much. I love walnut based sauces. But my two year old son, who normally isn't a particularly fuzzy eater, disliked it right from the beginning. I guess it was the sharpness of the tahini sauce that put him off. Thanks Elie for a great recipe!

That cataplana looks absolutely delicious! One of the most memorable dishes I had when we were in the Algarve this summer was mussels, chorico and pork cooked in a cataplana. I agree that Vinho verde is excellent with this kind of dish. Thansk for sharing your version with us and for reminding me that I'll have to cook this myself sometime soon. I even have a bottle of Vinho Verde lying around.

There are a couple of stalls in the central food market (Stora Saluhallen) here in Gothenburg, Sweden which I usually go to. For merguez I go to a butcher called Araz Chark, which also is great for lamb in general. Then there is a stall called "Orientaliska Delikatesser". Here I get shelled pistachios and walnuts, turkish youghurt, bulgur and various other stuff. The place is currently undergoing a renovation and I hope that it will remain the same (or get even better) after this. I have my fears though, that it will turn into a bland all-purpose deli. For spices I usually go to a shop called Curry House. It is basically an indian place but they carry a huge selection of spices and spice blends which they package themselves. I'm still looking for a place where I can find freekeh and pomegranate molasses. There is a larger middle eastern grocery at the other end of town which I haven't had time to visit yet, but I have high hopes for that place.

A couple of days ago I made a rather small batch of raspberry/redcurrant sorbet from some leftover berries I had around. The fruit had been macerated for a while so there was a lot of liquid. I thus decided that I wouldn't make a sugar syrup and add to the fruit. Instead I pureed the fruit and strained it. I then added vanilla scented sugar and heated it to dissolve the sugar and then chill it again. I used about 300g of fruit and 30g of sugar. I then churned it in a Phillips ice cream maker. Since the batch was so small it frooze very unevenly, so I put the batch in a tub, stirred it with a fork and put it in the freezer for a final freeze. Yesterday we had the sorbet together with some bitter dark chocolate shavings. It was very intense and maybe a little on the sweet side. The next time, I would like to make some pistachio gelato.

I've never used a refractometer myself, but I've got a book in swedish which talks a little about the sugar content in sorbets. The book is called "Kockarnas Kalender" and according to the chef Anders Dahlbom the sugar content of a fruitbased sorbet should be 17 degrees Baume (~31 Brix) and 14 degrees Baume (~25 Brix) for wine based sorbets.

Princess cakes are very common in Sweden too. Layer cakes similar to the danish ones are common in Sweden as well. The swedish ones are likely to be topped with fruit or berries instead of marzipan though.