FrogPrincesse

On the dinner thread a while back I talked about her phenomenal burger recipe, the Grilled Pork Burgers that I've nicknamed triple pork burgers. It's impossible to go wrong with ground pork, chorizo, and diced bacon. Also the seasoning mix of sautéed shallots and garlic, roasted cumin, thyme, parsley, and chile de arbol is especially flavorful. Then she tops the burger with Manchego cheese (which I was not familiar with before the book and now love), arugula for a touch of bitterness, and aioli (my husband decided he preferred barbecue sauce so that's what you see on the picture). They are juicy and super flavorful. The recipe is available here on Google books.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Kabocha squash and was looking for something new to make with it, after trying David Lebovitz's excellent pie and a number of different soup recipes. I first heard about Kabocha in Sunday Suppers at Lucques. In the book, before going into the seasonal menus, she discusses her favorite ingredients for each season and explains that Kabocha is one of her favorite varieties of winter squash because it's so flavorful. I decided to make her "Pumpkin" Cake with Pecan Streusel. It is inspired by traditional pumpkin pies but she recommends using Kabocha or butternut squash (hence the quotation marks), which are less watery than pumpkin. It's a cake, so there is no crust per se. However the batter hardens at the bottom of the pan and forms a type of crust. The cake is flavored with traditional spices such as cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and also vanilla bean and honey. I will likely use vanilla extract next time as I found that the vanilla bean got lost in the mix, and prefer to reserve vanilla bean for applications where it is better showcased. My mold was a 9-inch mold instead of the 10-inch specified in the recipe, so the cake was a little thick. The topping gave a nice crunch to the cake. The recipe is currently available on Google books, here.

This wonderful book does not have a dedicated thread yet but does deserve one. One of the things I like about the book is its use of seasonal produce. Obviously I am very lucky to live in California and have access to the items that the recipes call for. Some of her favorite vendors mentioned in the book are even vendors at my local farmers' markets! (Schaner Farms for example). The book is organized by season and has a number of menus (for 6 people). I rarely prepare the whole menu but it's good to have ideas of dishes that go well together. I found that if I followed the recipes as written, including all the accompaniments, the recipes were somewhat involved but not overly difficult, and led to exceptional results. So I try to follow her recipes as is for dinner parties. However, for everyday cooking I do tend to simplify the recipes a little, meaning that I don't prepare every component of the dish or shorten the times required to marinate meats, for example. Last month I made the Grilled Duck Breasts with Roasted Grapes. The duck breasts are seasoned with juniper berries and thyme and then very simply cooked on the grill, which I had never done before and resulted in very flavorful meat and crispy skin (and also much less mess as I am used to when cooking duck breast on the stove). I used a muscovy duck breast which was quite large (about a pound) and ideal for this preparation as it stayed very moist. The grapes are roasted in the oven. In the book she serves this dish with crème fraîche and a potato-bacon gratin. This was a weeknight dinner, so I opted to skip that part to stay on the somewhat lighter side. Instead, I served it with roasted chestnuts on the side. The full recipe is available here.

This is the salt concentration in water, not taking the meat into account. For example, use 30 grams of salt per 1 liter of water.

I agree on the sauciers. I have the 2- and the 3-quart sauciers and love them. Great for sauces, risotto, stews, etc. The other All Clad pans that I use a lot are the 5- quart "casserole pan" (great to blanch vegetables or cook pasta), and the 10" fry pan. I have them in the MC2 finish which is cheaper but has thicker aluminum as others pointed out. Also you don't have to worry about maintaining the shiny exterior as opposed to the stainless line. I don't see the point of the nonstick versions. I only use nonstick for eggs, and have a cheaper T-Fal for that purpose.

+2 but about to buy a few more... Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh Beta cocktails

I could be wrong but I would imagine that alcohol should help to some extent. Both sugar and ethanol levels lower water activity, which in turn should limit microbial growth.

Nikki, It's lovely to see the Singapore Sling in its native habitat, thanks for that! Fantastic blog. I feel that a trip in Singapore is in my future. My husband has been trying to convince me to go there for a while now. It looks like there is a lot to explore!

That's it, the Joy of Mixology is now available in the database! I see that someone else has the Savoy cocktail book reserved, so that should be available soon as well.

Thanks! Last week I had a pound of dates that I was trying to find a use for. I found a recipe for a Date-Nut Torte in Ready for Desserts, not something I would usually go for. But since I had all the ingredients, I decided to give it a try. My dates were very sweet and sticky (a good thing for dates), so it was a little hard to get them not to stick together as a giant mass. I followed his advice to use a little flour which helped. These were local Medjool dates. I've been having a hard time finding anise seeds so I substituted fennel seeds. The recipe has the particularity of not containing any eggs. Here is the cake ready to be baked. After baking. The top became a little crispy which gave the torte a nice texture. The first bite hit me as incredibly sweet and rich (maybe I should have reduced the amount of sugar a little since my dates were so sweet). But then the taste really grew on me. I found they were perfect cut into small pieces and enjoyed with coffee.

I think it's actually nakji who has been travelling to Singapore quite a bit. The picture above was in one of her posts here.

Yes, it's definitely a summer drink!

Anna, I love Daiquiris! (And my favorite variation, El Floridita no. 1, which has a touch of Maraschino) What rum did you use?

I believe that they are all variations on the same theme. Tom Colicchio in Think Like a Chef also calls his version "lemon confit". The amount of salt in Eric Ripert's version seems off though, with 5 cups for 6 lemons. I've made Molly Steven's version, which seems very similar to Paula Wolfert's, with great results. You need to wait for at least a couple of weeks but they last for a long time and get better with age.

Please DO let us know your findings. I'm a bit paranoid about getting my hands on a bottle of the old LH151 (tasted but never owned). So far, reviews seem promising that quality has not suffered, but I'm in no position to say whether or not the overall character is a true recreation. I may like to snag an old bottle (read: some old bottles) while I have access to such resources. Anyone else have word on this issue? (Sorry to get off topic...) is what Ed Hamilton and Martin Cate have to say on this topic.

Here are a few interesting tidbits that I found on Wikipedia while trying to understand the specificity of Bolognese sauce versus Ragu in general.

Interesting thread. I've always wanted to research Bolognese sauce and understand its key components. Now I realize that I have never used milk in my meat-based pasta sauces. I will have to try that. Sam - Is it correct that you don't add any canned tomatoes or tomato puree, just the tomato paste?

I was thinking asteroid. Could've been an asteroid. But it was merely the perfect punch bowl ice orb. I wish I knew how to do that. Ice carving is a bit out of my wheelhouse. Was this a sphere or a half-sphere? If it's a half-sphere, it's easy to achieve with the right bowl.

Chris, Like you, I like to keep a record of things that I've tried together with notes for each recipe. Generally, my system consists of finding recipes that I want to try in the various cookbooks that I own using Eat My Books. I flag these recipes with a "Do later" bookmark, or I create a new bookmark if I am going to make the recipe for a special event (for example, "15Nov11 Dinner with friends"). When I make the recipe, I update the bookmark from "Do later" to "Tried" and I make sure to enter an electronic note at that time with my observations. If the recipe belongs to a cookbook/topic that is discussed on eGullet, I also try to post my notes here if they are worth sharing, and I include the eGullet reference in Eat Your Books. I've started doing this more than a year ago and it's great; now I have all of this information in one place. For restaurants, typically I just enter notes on my blackberry with the date, and then I decide later if it's worth sharing on eGullet (I do have a large backlog!). I've made a decision not to have a blog as this would be one more thing to maintain and I really don't have the time.

My vote goes to Lucques olives. I think they have the best texture (i.e., relatively firm) and a delicate taste.

Impress your colleagues and make a terrine! Most terrines are served cold or at room temperature and are great for potlucks/buffets.

Thanks annabelle! Although Julian was nearly destroyed in the 2003 fires, the downtown area and apple orchards were saved. I will be visiting in a few weeks for Thanksgiving which should be fun.

My order from DrinkUpNY just arrived. I gave up after trying to find these bottles in San Diego for several months now, and not being able to order them through my usual channels. So I got a bottle of Bols genever, although not as nice as the one tanstaafl2 posted upthread. I will use it to make John Collins. I've been introduced to that drink at my favorite bar in San Diego, the Noble Experiment, and really enjoyed it. The Clement Creole Shrubb will be used in Trader Vic's Mai Tais. I plan on comparing it side by side with Grand Marnier and Cointreau in that drink. The El Dorado will be also used for tiki drinks. Lastly, the Xocolatl bitters were simply too intriguing to pass up.

Local is definitely the way to go. But a couple of weeks ago I had no honey left in the house and no time to go to the farmers' market, so I picked up a bottle of "American honey" from my local grocery store. I threw it out after ready this article. This morning, another article (twitted by Bittman) goes on to explain that the vast majority of honey in grocery stores isn't technically honey since its pollen has been ultrafiltered out. The practice is most likely used to hide the honey's origin. As expected, honey bought at farmers' market does not have this issue, nor did honey from "natural" stores such as Trader Joe's.

Reviving an old thread. I've been cooking with winter squash a lot lately, and discovered this intriguing recipe for Penne with zucca, onions, anchovies, and bread crumbs in Babbo. The combination sounded a little odd to me (starch with starch?), but given my success with other recipes in the book, I decided to give it a try. The verdict? The squash (I used kabocha) became soft and caramelized a little, some of it "dissolved" and coated the pasta. The bread crumbs added texture. It was really delicious and a nice change from tomato sauce.