Kent Wang

There is a Specialty sugars topic in the Kitchen Consumer forum. The Billington's sugars are amazing. The dark brown molasses smells intoxicating. But I make them into syrups, because it's easier to stir into a drink. Except for their demerara, which I also use for muddling. Andy, what did you think of the pound of Billington's I gave you a few years ago?

Does the pectin turn it into a jelly, or are there other problems?

How is it integral? Do you mean that stewing the skin with the broth infuses the liquid with extra flavor? I've always been unsure of that, and believed that most of the flavor comes from meat and connective tissue.

Agreed. Wire rack is the way to go as it also renders out a lot of fat, if you're concerned about calories. It's much healthier to eat it this way than if it was not rendered.

I find a lot of cocktails that call for orange juice, like the monkey gland, can be improved immensely with blood orange. Regular orange juice I find too watery but blood has so much more flavor. I would also make a freeze-reduced syrup with it to preserve it as it's hard to get it out of season. You can use the zest for an infusion. I don't know if bloods have more zesty zest, but I think the bergamot is the most famous one for that.

I think I recall Yasuda at Sushi Yasuda saying that he only gets fish that are in season. Of course some fish are always in season, but not all. I think he said that if I were to come six months later, his offerings would be quite different. I'm not totally sure it was Yasuda that said this, but I know for sure Oyama-san at Oyama in Shanghai, a similar high-end sushi restaurant, also said this to me. Very true. Many ingredients in China are simply not available (or very difficult) out of season. Even fruits, which are often imported from tropical countries, will sometimes be unavailable for months at a time. Strawberries, for example, could not be found in the fall in Shanghai, though they popped up in February.

I find the Mae Ploy green too salty and spicy. I can't compare with other brands, but I don't enjoy cooking with it. Or maybe that's how green curry should taste?

Any idea how much it cost? LV didn't do it for free, did they? I would guess at least $20K.

There are truffle restaurants in Paris, and probably other parts of the world, too. In China, there are duck neck shops, and bullfrog restaurants.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think gators are primarily raised for their hides, which are more valuable than their meat. What did T-Mike say about this?

Is Champion the cheapest good quality masticating (or non-centrifugal) juicer at $225-255? Best Juicers has a reasonable-sounding guide about juicers. They favor the Green Star for highest quality juice, but it starts at $450.

Can anyone confirm (as in, tested for themselves) the disadvantages of the centrifugal type juicer, that it heats and oxides the product? I'm interested in using both the juice and pulp. The pulp I'm going to infuse with liquor. Andie, what do you use your pulp for?

I'm very impressed that Lowe's had kaffir lime. I used to have a tree when I lived in Austin and loved it. My parents live in League City and work in Galveston. Those fish cakes do look great. I've made crab cakes a lot but never thought to make fish cakes. I don't think there are stone crabs in the western part of the Gulf of Mexico. I've only hear of them from Florida. We just get blue crabs, and plenty of them, too!

I grew up in Galveston. Looks like the place hasn't changed too much since then. Can I ask what town you live in?

Does anyone actually think that shark fin has good flavor? It's hard to tell if it really contributes much flavor to soups when they use a rich stock to begin with. I can confidently say the texture is unimpressive. Mung bean noodle is almost the same.

Does anyone think Templeton tastes and smells like dill? Is this what Chris means by "rye flavor"? I think rye bread tastes a bit like dill. I did a side-by-side comparison with Rittenhouse BIB, and I still like Rittenhouse much more. I thought it odd that Templeton is almost devoid of any wood taste.

First, of course, you need to de-wax your citrus. Then, you can make an oleo saccharum for Regent's Punch. Well, I tried to peel the oranges with my cheap peeler and was having a hell of a time. Then I broke out my Microplane and did much better. I could do an orange in about a minute. I didn't go the oleo saccharum route because with the small pieces of zest produced by the Microplane, muddling with sugar didn't seem necessary. Recalling a discussion I had with Sam Kinsey, I decided to infuse the zest in rum. I filled a bowl with about 400 ml of Havana Club white, and Microplaned over it, so as to capture as much of the oils as possible. I let it soak for about an hour and strained out the zest. I didn't make a punch because I was all out of cognac, but I did make a daiquiri with the infusion: 1.5 oz Havana Club white 0.5 oz orange zest infused rum .75 oz lime juice .75 oz simple syrup It was excellent. Very orangey, and that's with the infusion diluted with plain rum. If I didn't know better I would've thought it had orange juice in it. But it's actually more effective and versatile than orange juice because orange juice is rather watery and too sweet. There are few cocktails with orange juice that I like. You can also use the infusion in other cocktails that call for orange curacao or triple sec. A margarita made with this really sings with orange flavor, and I dare say is more accessible to the layman than the standard Cointreau version, as Cointreau has all kinds of other funky flavors in addition to orange. You can do this with all kinds of other citruses, though I haven't tried yet. If you're going to have some friends over and know you're going to go through a few citruses, then you can zest them all beforehand. Back to Regent's Punch: is it really necessary to make an oleo saccharum? Why don't you just Microplane the zest into one of the base liquors, and add the appropriate amount of sugar? This seems easier, and may actually extract more flavor from the zest.

Dan's Kindred Cocktails has really come a long way. It's the absolute best source now, no need to use CocktailDB, Esquire, etc. If you're looking for an iPhone app, don't bother. All the ones I've seen have terrible content. Just dial up Kindred Cocktails in your phone's browser.

All the onions are perfectly normal here in Shanghai.

I've been there twice and approve. The fried chicken is up there with "best in the world" as Nubian Queen Lola's in Austin. The style is quite different from anywhere else that I've had. Crispy, but not grainy (from cornmeal), or flakey (like KFC). I think there may be some egg in the batter. I would guess that the beans are canned. They always look like that at Southern restaurants. I honestly prefer something fresher, with a better texture.

Swizzle Stick is pretty good, has quite a few of the cocktailian classics. Sazerac re-opened recently. It's posh but the drinks expensive, and when I went in the afternoon the staff did not seem knowledgeable, but were able to put together a decent Sazerac. Iris has more west coast type cocktails. Honestly, Cure was so much better than all the others I'd just go there every night. Just like what I did at Cochon.

I'm also intrigued by the technical aspects of the book production. There seems to be a lot of black backgrounds such as the Parametric Recipe for Risottos. Why did you make this choice? Does this account for much of the heavy amount of ink used? It does look nice and stark for some of the photos but for the recipes it seems unnecessary. About the color gamut of the inks, are the inks able to produce a total amount of colors greater than the 16.7 million colors available on a typical 24-bit computer screen? Though I see that purples are not so great. This is the first I've heard about this ink and printing technology; is it only beginning to be taken up by the publishing industry?

Could you give something like brisket a smoke and then finish it sous vide? I think I've read somewhere that only the first 30 minutes impart the smoke flavor, it doesn't absorb more after that and then it's just cooking.

Nice graphic design on the infused oils. I can't remember if you mentioned this already, but may I ask how many generations has your family been in New Zealand? I love questions like these. My stab in the dark is that pavlova is not obviously a proper noun to English-speaking audiences, as before you mentioned the dancer I had assumed it was something Eastern European like baklava. Wellington and Melba are better known as people's names.

Is the selection of imported spirits (and wines) in NZ pretty decent? I see you have Domaine de Canton and a tequila that Stilton seems to like (nice cat).