mkayahara

Just to reply to my own post, in case others find themselves in the same situation, we ended up going to Roan Kikunoi for dinner, and had a fantastic time. Not only were the flavours on every single course perfectly spot-on, but I have never received a more gracious welcome from a restaurant. They did everything in their power to make us feel comfortable; when we expressed an interest in ingredients, they even went back to the prep kitchen to get the raw item to show us! (I now know what udo looks like.) And I think I will be dreaming about their dashi for the rest of my life...

I recommend checking out Pan Chancho. They usually have a variety of interesting ingredients. Good place for lunch, too.

I've found this, too, and always just assumed that the wider sections, with the least marrow and the most bone, were from the section toward the ends of the femur. I always look for packages that have a bunch of the smaller-diameter (centre-cut?) bones. Fortunately for me, marrow bones are also really cheap around here, so if I have to buy several packages in order to get the right amount of marrow, it's not too expensive.

Well, you wouldn't need to add more cocoa butter for that effect; you could just lower the proportion of water to chocolate. Pure cocoa butter is expensive. I just checked the original article in Molecular Gastronomy (translated by M.B. Debevoise), and he makes a few suggestions, including using orange juice or blackcurrant puree in place of the water. More crucially, he suggests using gelatin to stabilize (dissolving it in the water before adding the chocolate), rather than relying exclusively on the lecithin already present in the chocolate. Strangely, he omits this step in the recipe itself, so I'm not sure how much gelatin you'd need. He also suggests the following: Good luck!

My understanding of the technique is that it simply banks on cocoa butter crystallization: as you cool the chocolate in the ice bath, it promotes crystallization (just as butterfat crystallizes in whipping cream when it's chilled). But because you're whisking at the same time, you trap air bubbles between the crystals, which gives it its light texture. I've been meaning to try this for a while, but somehow have never gotten around to it. In particular, I think it'd be fun to use pure cocoa butter to get the same effect but with a flavour base other than chocolate. I don't know if it'd work, though.

I've never made a tarragon ganache before, but I did dehydrate a bunch of tarragon when I did a dish from the Alinea cookbook. To my palate, fresh tarragon has a "green" note that's not present once it's dehydrated. The anise flavour is also stronger in the dehydrated product. Although it doesn't help you make use of the tarragon in your garden, I imagine you could just use commercial dried tarragon... but only if it's from a really good source. I was impressed by the strength and quality of flavour that came from drying my own.

With an upcoming trip to Japan, I'm hoping I can get some advice on where to eat. (I thought I'd post to this thread, rather than starting a whole new one.) We'll be doing the usual tourist route, visiting Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima, as well as Osaka (for which I see lots of other recommendations in the forum). Mostly, I don't mind taking my chances and seeing what I can find, but there's one thing in particular that has me stumped: we'll be in Kyoto on our anniversary, and I'd like to have a kaiseki meal that night. Can anyone offer recommendations on good kaiseki restaurants? We're thinking a maximum budget of about 10,000 yen per person; does that seem reasonable? I'm also nervous about the fact that we're foreigners in a fine-dining environment, so if there are any points of etiquette I need to know, I'd love to hear them. Thanks in advance for any and all input!

Two well-known suppliers of freeze-dried fruits are Terra Spice Company and Just Tomatoes. Neither one is in Canada, though. I've had some luck with taking freeze-dried strawberries from Metro and buzzing them through my coffee grinder, so if you can find whole freeze-dried raspberries, it might be worth a shot...

There's no better place to start than a Mai Tai, and two bottles are all you need. (For rum, anyway.) One of my favourite combinations is Appleton Extra and Saint James ambre. If you can't get the latter, you could do a lot worse than Barbancourt. For that matter, even Gosling's and Barbancourt would probably work, though the colour might be a bit murky.

Reviving this old thread in the hopes that someone can help me: ever since I learned about Tiki drinks, I've been dying to track down some Lemon Hart 151 rum. They don't carry it in Ontario, and usually when I'm visiting the US, I'm flying, and it's illegal to fly with such high-proof alcohol. However, in May, I'll be visiting some friends in Vermont and driving home through New York state, so I'd like to be able to pick up a bottle. To that end, here's what I need to know: 1) Does anyone know of an online retailer that can ship Lemon Hart 151 to Vermont? 2) If not, does anyone know of a bricks-and-mortar store in, say, Buffalo or Niagara Falls that sells it? Thanks in advance for any help!

What about just a dry acid/base combination? Like citric acid and baking soda mixed together. Cf. Eben Freeman's jellied G&T.

I would definitely expect to cover starch-thickened sauces: roux, cornstarch, maybe a modified tapioca starch like Ultra-Tex, if you can get some in time!

I've both heard of and experienced first-hand the "dumbing-down" of jalapenos (though I can't speak to habaneros). Pretty much every time I buy a jalapeno in the grocery store, it has no appreciable heat, and tastes mostly like a bell pepper. The explanation I've heard is that jalapenos for the grocery store market have been bred to have lower capsaicin levels in order to cater to the tastes of the mainstream population, and that if you want "real" jalapenos, your best bet is an ethnic market. Unfortunately, I live in Canada, where there is no appreciable Latin-American population, so I haven't been able to test this theory.

I would say it depends on the types of flour available to you and the origin of the recipe. For instance, I've found - and heard others say - that many American recipes that call for all-purpose flour work better with cake or pastry flour here in Canada. I use pastry flour for many of my pastry applications (and all-purpose for the remainder), and bread flour or a mix of bread flour and all-purpose flour for breads. I've started to get the impression that flour specificity is much greater in Europe, and the technical side of my brain is a little jealous.

Thank you both, smallworld and Hiroyuki! I'm looking forward to making this. Now I just have to go and buy some sesame seeds.

For what it's worth, although I don't come from a Bratwurst-centric culture, I think the brats in Ruhlman's Ratio are awesome, and they're pure pork. They're one of my favourite grilling sausages. (And they work pretty well in a choucroute garnie, too.)

I'm interested in trying Hiroyuki's "magic furikake," but I have a question about the recipe: where it says "3 cans of mackerel," how big are the cans? The only canned mackerel I can get around here is 425g per can, so three of those would make a lot of furikake! Can someone help?

Well, calcium is a metal, right?

Here's an interesting interview with Jeff Berry about the new book. I can't wait for this to finally hit the shelves! On a separate note, I was excited to learn last night that Bernard DeVoto's The Hour is apparently being re-released this summer. I'm looking forward to picking up this one, too.

So would this law be applicable to, for example, restaurants making their own vanilla extract?

Thanks for the tip, Janet. Can I ask what method you were using for them? Was there vinegar in the brine, or were you pickling them naturally? I made natural red carrot pickles a couple of years ago and found the same thing: the brine ended up a lovely dark red, but the carrots ended up orange! Of course, red pearl onions are plentiful in my neck of the woods, so I'll probably give it a try at some point anyway...

There's a recipe for homemade cocktail onions in the January/February 2010 issue of Imbibe magazine. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for the quality, but it might be worth a look. I love David's idea of pickled red onions; they'd certainly look striking in my next Gibson.

The Germans and Austrians are awfully good at making fruit eaux-de-vie, but I imagine you were looking for from decent, cocktail-friendly and affordable! Edit: Either way, what you ended up with does sound good. If only I had a bottle of Aperol...

Has anyone heard anything about Jeff Berry's new book? From what I could see, it was supposed to be released in January, but neither of the two major online retailers in Canada seems to have it in stock, and my local independent bookseller - which is where I'll end up buying it - said that it didn't appear to be available, but they'd happily put it on order and let me know when it became available. Anyone know what's going on?

And if the quality of the food is good, why discourage people from eating there because of some publicity stunt? I thought we had outgrown Victorian-era prudishness around sex. By all means, avoid the restaurant on Valentine's Day, but, frankly, that's now the one night people are probably least likely to be able to have sex in the washrooms there, given the backlash. Look, people have sex in public places all the time. If you don't want to be exposed to it, I suggest you avoid going out in public. And especially avoid entering any establishment in the Church and Wellesley area.