FrogPrincesse

Interesting-looking cider. How does it taste - is it dry or on the sweet side?

Here is a link to the full recipe for those who are interested! The recipe is featured on the cover of the book.

The goat birria turned out great! It was a bit of work but totally worth it. I used the recipe from Rick Martinez's Mi Cocina but also consulted this video by Rick Bayless (next time I may try his cooking method as it is quite simple). Back to Rick Martinez's version, birria estilo Aguascalientes. He explains that this recipe uses tomatoes which results in a thicker broth. The tomatoes' acidity counterbalances the richness of the goat meat, while their sweetness tames the heat of the chiles. I got 2 goat shoulders from my local middle eastern market. Like last time, the meat was frozen, from Australia. Each shoulder was about 4.5 pounds. The shoulders were rubbed with salt, transferred to a ziplock bag, and refrigerated for a couple of days. For the sauce, tomatoes, onions, chiles (guajillo, cascabeles, moritas), garlic, raw cashews or peanuts (I used fresh peanuts I had just bought in Hawaii), peppercorns, allspice, canela, and cloves are roasted in the oven (he also calls for 1 corn tortilla but I didn't have any on hand and skipped). The herbs and spices are added (oregano, thyme, cumin, and the goat is added on a rack above the roasted vegetables. Water is added to the pan, which is covered tightly with foil, and the goat is baked for 4.5 to 5 hours (mine took about 6 hours to get tender). Once cooked, the meat is shredded into small pieces, and the liquid blended to make a smooth puree (the consommé). It's served topped with onion and cilantro, with lime wedges. salsa de chile de arbol, and tortillas. The consommé was rich and complex in flavor - absolutely delicious!

Beautiful dishes @BonVivant, thanks for sharing!

My daughter loves it! She eats it on toast.

The theme of the upcoming event of the cookbook club I belong to is Korean, and below are the books that were selected. For those of you who have these books, how do you like them? Any standout recipes you'd like to share? Koreatown by Keuki Hong & Matt Rodbard (this one has its own thread here; @Norm Matthews have you made anything else from the book?) The Korean Vegan Cookbook by Joanne Lee Molinaro Korean BBQ by Bill Kim & Chandra Ram Korean American by Eric Kim Cook Korean! A Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha

What some of you call “French pizzas” are Alsatian flammekueche. Very thin crispy dough, typically covered with creme fraiche, raw onions, diced bacon. Nobody in France would think of them as a pizza. I like the Trader Joe’s version (the classic one), it makes for an easy meal with a green salad on the side.

I've been playing with Morgenthaler's rhubarb syrup. I used a nut bag to filter and there was still quite a bit of solid stuff left in there, but it sedimented to the bottom of the jar so I was able to avoid it. Rum version with Paranubes agricole-style Oaxacan rhum. It was a bit too busy, the rum & rhubarb sort of fighting each other. Gin version (front) and a whiskey version in the back for my husband. I really liked the gin version. Nikka has peppery notes that worked especially well with the rhubarb syrup. The rhubarb added interesting flavors without screaming "rhubarb", and the drink looked really pretty.

I am also a huge fan of bo kho. I made Andrea Nguyen's recipe from Vietnamese Food Everyday last year, and it was wonderful. Here is a link to the recipe.

I made the very tall quiche with zucchini & greens from Alison Roman's Sweet Enough for my daughter's high school graduation party this weekend. It uses 2 pounds of zucchini and is build in a springform pan. I used chard for the greens. As zucchini are rather bland, most of the flavor is from feta cheese and a grated onion. It turned out great and I would make it again. Side note, I made the pie crust in my new food processor and it was 1) really fast to make and 2) super flaky. I also used the food processor to grate the zucchini and onion which saved a lot of time (and knuckles). Lastly, I used a nut bag to drain the salted zucchini.

Here is a bunch of ideas to make use of your grapefruit.

Saucisses de Francfort are precooked, like American style hot dogs. But they do have skin, a very nice snappy skin.

Maybe they want to make sure that people don't use these weird jarred sausages for a different purpose inadvertently? Also odd to see the Trader Joe's label - they wouldn't dare offer this product in their US stores! Worth noting that in France people usually serve these sausages in baguettes, rather than buns, and with Dijon mustard. And that would be with a saucisse de Francfort, which is of course is different from the American version of a Frankfurter.

Looking for a cocktail to bring to a Cinco de Mayo party hosted by the cookbook club I am a member of, I spotted this intriguing cocktail with mezcal and Benedictine which seemed like a good way to celebrate this Franco-Mexican event . It was in one of the books we were cooking from, Oaxaca (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Lovely long, refreshing drink where the mezcal comes through and the Benedictine adds some interesting base notes. I also liked the fact that it is pretty diluted but still packed full of flavor. I need to play with Benedictine more often, it's great with tropical flavors (in a ying and yang sort of way).

Reading the exchange below in the Dinner thread made me think it'd be fun to start a thread about "American" food in France. As in, American food viewed through the lens of the French. It reminded me of this little series by David Lebovitz where he reviews the "American" offerings at Picard, the French frozen food store (here is their current line up). Being a French native living in the US, I find it silly, entertaining, and horrifying as well. You have to wonder what goes through the head of the people conceiving or consuming these products which are both familiar and strange (a version of hachis parmentier with pulled pork and mashed sweet potatoes representing American cuisine? ok...). I am sure things have evolved since the unfortunate days of the Indiana Café which, 30 years or so ago, introduced Parisians to "tex-mex" cuisine. Or have they? (a quick google search revealed that Indiana Café is alive and well with 10+ different locations, serving nachos and burgers...).

Another question. When baking in a metal pan (regular, not a non-stick), is this a bad idea to cut in the pan? It leaves marks obviously; I don’t care so much about the esthetics, I just want to make sure it doesn’t affect their longevity etc. I make recipes for parties that call for a 1/2 sheet plan and it would be challenging to take the pie out before cutting, hence the question. I am considering lining them with parchment but wanted to hear other people’s thoughts.

Still waiting with bated breath. 😉 I understand that there are plenty of recipes using parmesan rinds. My question was whether the moldy taste was normal. I don’t want to inadvertently contaminate a batch of sauce!

This (new to me) guacasalsa is pretty good. It's a green salsa-spiked guacamole. My favorite salsa at Trader Joe's remains the roasted tomatillo salsa.

For the main course for Mother's Day, I picked another dish from the book, the duck braised in Banyuls which I had last made a while back but not documented here. It's more involved than the asparagus dish but all the steps are easy. The most complicated step is probably finding the wine, which is more or less the French equivalent of port (but less sweet and more subtle, less heavy). Luckily a local wine shop happened to have it. It started with duck legs from Mary's (I picked large ones as recommended in the book). They get sprinkled with thyme leaves, orange zest, black pepper and go in the fridge for a few hours (overnight preferably). The next day you dice some onions, carrots, fennel. Meanwhile the duck gets sprinkled with salt and sauteed until brown and crispy. It's set aside, and the vegetables (+thyme sprigs, bay leaf) are cooked in a couple of spoonfuls of the duck fat. The pot is deglazed with balsamic and the Banyuls wine. The liquid is boiled, reduced by half, and then stock is added (I used duck stock because I happened to have some in my freezer from a previous cooking project). The duck legs are added back, and off they go to the 325F for 2.5 hours. The next day, the sauce is defatted (you are also supposed to remove the vegetables but I always leave them in), reduced as needed, and the duck is browned in a 400F oven. In the book she serves it with a turnip-parsnip gratin. I went with a traditional gratin dauphinois (Les Halles / Bourdain style) and served it with a bottle of rustic mourvedre. Everyone seemed happy. Going into the oven After 2.5 hours in the oven Plated

I had never seen anything like it either. And I loved the philosophy of not wanting to let anything go into waste, and transforming it into delicious jams! There are so many types of fruit in Hawaii that aren't available commercially, it makes for some very unique jams for sure.

Next up was the tropical botanical garden in Onomea Bay. Now Hawaii has some pretty fantastic botanical gardens, but this one takes the cake so to speak. The garden started as a 17-acre plot of land that was purchased in the 1970s by a family that slowly transformed it into their own version of the garden of Eden, preserving the natural beauty as much as possible, and creating trails with a machete through the (already beautiful and lush) existing vegetation to reveal a tiered waterfall, and adding an insane collection of orchids and other tropical plants to the mix (everything grows in Hawaii!). The trails eventually lead to a rugged beach of black rocks which is beautiful in its own right. I could have spent countless hours there exploring and marveling at all the plants. So much beauty! Afterwards, we stopped at Papa’aloa Country Store and Cafe for a late lunch based on the recommendation of our friends. I liked the little store that was selling a lot of local food items, but our lunch of kalua pork tacos was quite underwhelming, and my lilikoi lychee drink a poor choice unless you love sugar and artificial flavors. The ginger beer was a bit better. On the way home we drove down to Laupahoehoe Point, a village located at the end of a ravine that was tragically obliterated during a tsunami in 1946. That place is beautiful but has a very eerie vibe to it. They decided to not reconstruct the village after the tsunami, unlike Hilo, which was rebuilt post tsunami. One more stop at Rebecca’s to restock on produce, and we were back home. That night we weren’t very hungry and were happy to snack on leftover poke and fruit.

Day 3 (Thursday) We started the day with a nourishing breakfast of (island) eggs & bacon, supplemented by POG (which tends to be very sweet; we liked Sun Tropics a little better than the classic Meadow Gold, although they are very similar) and toast with lilikoi (passion fruit) butter from Liko Lehua (which is located in Hilo). We also had fresh papaya and apple bananas which are more aromatic and creamy than the (Cavendish) bananas we get on the mainland. We decided to go see ‘Akaka Falls that day, which are located north of Hilo and an hour drive from where we were staying at. I didn’t take pictures of the falls but they are spectacular, 300+ foot falls. The trails around the falls are very lush and beautiful, although they were partially closed for renovations during our visit. One of the native fish (o’opu, a type of goby) is apparently able to climb up these very steep and tall falls by using a little suction cup on their bellies, which is quite a feat! After our visit, we drove back to the charming little village of Honomu. On our way, we passed a goat farm, Honomu Goat Dairy, which was unfortunately closed that day. In Honomu, we spent some time with a very friendly blind cat who needed a lot of attention, in a store that had a beautiful selection of vintage glass objects, and finally at Mr Ed’s Bakery which I had never had a chance to visit before, although it’s been in business since 2000. I wasn’t so much interested in the breads; it was the collection of homemade jam that wowed me. As a home jam maker myself, I couldn’t help but marvel at the huge selection of jams (over 150 varieties) made in small batches using the local fruit (you can read more about it here – essentially, he uses whatever fruit his neighbors bring him and isn’t afraid to experiment!). We were handed lots of samples and left with a few jars: the poha berry mentioned in the article, longan for my daughter, and mango lilikoi for my husband. I would have bought more if I didn’t already have a pantry full of jams at home! The creativity of this was inspiring (this is only part of the collection!). 😊

Excellent! I have made a very large portion of the recipes in the book, and have never been disappointed. It is in my top 5 of most used cookbooks.

Here is the regular sourdough from Wildwood Flour bakery (I really like the crusty exterior) And here is their pain au chocolat. It shatters as you touch it, exactly the way it should! Super flaky interior.

I keep going back to this great book and am never disappointed. For Mother's Day, I made this simple appetizer of prosciutto and grilled asparagus with whole grain mustard. She says to use pencil-thin asparagus; mine were slightly larger, so I peeled them to make sure they would be tender. They are dressed with olive oil, salt, pepper and grilled for a few minutes, served on top of prosciutto (I used a locally-made wild boar prosciutto from Angel's Salumi which was ultra delicious), with a mixture of crème fraiche and whole grain mustard drizzled on top. By far the easiest recipe I have seen in the book!