mkayahara

Thanks to a very helpful friend who was recently on vacation in Hawaii, I have laid my hands on a bottle of okolehao. It's the "Hawaiian Moonshine" one, which, as I read about it, sounds like it's quite light in flavour. Still, I'm looking forward to trying it out. (And it wasn't that expensive.)

On a recent trip to Las Vegas, we paid a visit to the Downtown Cocktail Room. It was a very nice, friendly little bar, and I'm always amazed at how small the world is when I'm sitting at the bar chatting with the bartender and the other guests. For our first round, I had an "Oh, Baxter," which was described as containing "Scotch, Mezcal, Sarsaparilla, Stout." As I recall, it was also finished with a grating of nutmeg. It was one of the more successful uses of sarsaparilla flavour in a cocktail that I've ever encountered. My husband ordered the "Apple of My Eye," with applejack, "holiday spice", maple and "ACV." We had no idea what "ACV" was at first, but as soon as I picked up the glass and put my nose to it, it was evident: apple cider vinegar! Also very tasty. For our next round, I ordered off-menu; on FrogPrincesse's suggestion, I tried for a "Cynar That Time We Last Drank Manhattans?" with High West Bourye. The bar was lacking Punt e Mes, but the bartender was undaunted and cobbled together something to try and approximate the flavour. Fortunately, it's hard to go wrong with Cynar + whiskey + herbal liqueurs + maraschino, and the results were very enjoyable. My husband had a "Dread Pirate Roberts." I didn't write down what was in this one; all I recall for sure is that it was Batavia Arrack-based and had, I believe, mint and club soda in it somewhere. I didn't get around to trying this one (being deep in conversation at the time), but apparently it was quite good. I was happy that we found good cocktails in Vegas, especially given how difficult it turned out to be to find a good liquor store for bottles to bring home with us!

M.R. = Mateus rosé?

Buzz is starting to build about Corey Lee's Benu cookbook, to be released in April. I'll definitely be checking this one out, given that the "oyster, pork belly, kimchi" dish at Benu was probably the best thing I put in my mouth in 2013.

Too bad they don't ship to Canada. I've got lots of storage space... I seem to recall reading something from Paula Wolfert herself saying that, when making a tagine in enameled cast iron, you should reduce the liquid, since the porous clay of a traditional tagine allows the liquid to reduce during the cooking time. That certainly reflects my experience of using her books; I almost always end up with too much liquid, which needs to be heavily reduced at the end.

Blanch it in salted water until it's tender. Based on something I was reading last night, it should be about a minute. Ideally, you would want to then dry it out, in a dehydrator or a very low oven, then fry it. You could try shallow frying, though it wouldn't be as even as deep frying. Or you could try baking it as I described, probably in a medium oven. But as I said, that last bit is just a guess. I've certainly seen it done with duck skin and chicken skin, so I'm extrapolating.

In that case, I would probably try blanching it, laying it out on a sheet pan, brushing both sides with oil, and baking it with another sheet pan on top, but I'm guessing.

(Deep) fry it?

Thanks for your replies! Which Souss tagine do you have? It looks like tagines.com carries two sizes: an 11" and a 12". Thanks for the cross-reference, and the information. There are a lot of pages in this thread so it's easy to miss things!

Glad to see a revival of this thread. I'm looking at (finally!) getting my first tagine vessel, and the information contained herein is very useful, especially the discussion of unglazed vs. glazed. One thing that I'm still finding unclear, though, is the discussion of sizes. Tagines.com seems to measure the diameter of the base, while bramcookware.com gives a volume. Can anyone offer me guidance as to what size tagine I need? As I imagine many of you are, I'm mostly using the recipes from Wolfert's books, so that's the portion sizes I typically make. Thanks!

I like the information on weighing egg yolks found in Bouchon Bakery. They not only encourage you to weigh your yolks, they also encourage you to strain them first, to eliminate the chalazae. But I agree with Deryn: in baking, it makes sense to weigh yolks because it allows you to scale the recipe up or down. In other contexts, that level of precision may not be necessary. I wouldn't object to a book that had "47 g egg yolk" in one recipe and "20 g egg yolk (1 yolk)" in others, if it made sense contextually and/or was explained in the How To section.

I was going to say mezcal as well. Either that or another Islay scotch that's not as iodine-y.

It sounds like a good idea to me. Lately, I've noticed substantial movement among cookbooks from a strict "apps, mains, desserts" structure to a "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter" structure. (And why do they always start with spring?) Then there's Ruhlman's Egg book, which is structured by cooking method. So I think there's lots of room to manoeuvre, as long as you're clear in your own mind of how you're going to do it. I would discourage you from adopting the approach used in Anna Olson's book Another Cup of Sugar, though, which was to organize the recipes by colour. (For the record, cookies fall under "golden brown," while chocolate falls under "rich brown.") And remember, all things are possible if you have a killer index, which I think adequately addresses Melissa's concern about being able to re-locate a recipe later on.

Noted. Thank you!

Have any of you tried the High West American Prairie Reserve? It seems like the High West products are fairly well appreciated around here, and that's the only one my local liquor monopoly carries. And it doesn't come cheap. Is it worth the splurge?

Won't queso fresco just melt in the pan? Halloumi is a non-melting cheese. When I buy boudin noir, it's usually in regular hog casings. Rather than slice it, I just keep it whole. Brown it on one side in a cast-iron skillet, flip it over and throw it in a medium oven to heat through. Serve with potatoes - I typical do pommes purées, but lately I've been digging rösti - and sauteed apples.

Edge-trailing knife sharpening? I thought that practice was deprecated. Why do you go that way? (Sorry if I'm drifting off-topic. Believe me when I say I'll be putting your book on pre-order as soon as I can!)

And, more to the point, the toxin it produces is not denatured by reheating.

I couldn't quite decide where to file this one, but this seems like a good spot. Last night's libation was a straightforward brown-bitter-stirred: 2 oz. Bourbon (Evan Williams Single Barrel - a sadly undistinguished bottle, IMO) 0.5 oz. Cynar 0.5 oz. Punt e Mes Dash Xocolatl Mole bitters Call it a variation on the Boulevardier, or a Manhattan variation, or a Left Hand variation, or drifting-pretty-far-from-a-Red Hook variation, or whatever you like, it was pretty darn satisfying.

Figuring that, between the Pink Lady and weird Savoy concoctions like the Angel Face, gin and apple brandy might go pretty well together, I decided to split the difference between the Army and Navy and the Autumn in Jersey. Surely someone else has already done this, but in keeping with the NJ theme, and reflecting the fact that I've been obsessing with the Counting Crows song "Palisades Park" lately, I decided to dub it the... Fully Amplified Clyde 1 oz. Laird's BIB apple brandy 1 oz. Blackwood's "Limited Edition" gin (60% abv) 3/4 oz. orgeat 3/4 oz. lemon juice 2 dashes Regan's orange bitters Lovely stuff. Neither gin nor applejack predominated, but everything meshed together quite well.

I wonder if this would be a good application for the fresh-frozen pre-grated coconut you can buy in Asian markets. I've used it in the past for coconut milk for Thai dishes, and it sounds like this is a similar process.

This. Is content more important than images? It all depends on what the book is trying to say and who's going to be buying it. If it's meant to be a coffee-table book that people flip through but never actually cook from, then images may be more important. If it's aimed at a single parent who just wants to get a meal on the table for a family of four in under half an hour, then images are probably less important than accurate, well-tested, thoroughly explained recipes.

My go-to tends to be Chef Knives to Go, or Knifewear here in Canada. I know some people swear by Korin, and one of the cooks at my last job spoke highly of Chubo. Hope that helps.

Count me among those whose preferred method is a trip or two through the salad spinner, followed by spreading out on towels or paper towels to blot any moisture that's left. If you have time to let them air dry after that, that's even better.

I just opened a bottle of Lillet, so thanks for reminding me of the L'Amour en fuite. And the Sunflower is quite possibly my husband's favourite drink!