David Ross

I love gooseberries-a fruit that isn't used enough. Can you give details on the recipe?

An experiment that seemed to work out pretty good-Large shrimp that I marinated in Smith and Wollensky steak sauce. I had chilled the leftover roasted squash risotto from dinner the other night, cut it in rounds, then sauteed it in olive oil for a 'risotto cake.' The base is just spinach sauteed in olive oil and then a slug of apple cider vinegar.

Hopefully these photos will convince you to buy the Ron Popeil 'Set it and Forget it' Rotisserie. It is quite simply a fantastic contraption. It will give you incredibly juicy, tender chicken. I also use it for game hens, pork ribs and prime rib. It is well worth the price. It's a bit odd to think that the man who sold spray-on hair in a can could also invent such a wonderful piece of cookery equipment-but it works great. The second photo is the chicken plated with swiss chard with bacon, mashed potatoes and chicken jus.

Tonight I started with a Salmon Bisque. I used a recipe I got off the internet and not my own recipe. Didn't turn out to my liking so I decided not to post the photo. I plan on using my own recipe to make a lobster version of my shrimp bisque for the holidays. I'll post that one for you. But the main, oh man was it delicious-Roasted Squab with Huckleberry-Balsamic Glaze served with a Roasted Squash Risotto. I added a small amount of ricotta salata along with the parmesan and that extra tangy-salty bite from the ricotta really punched up the flavors. Do you ever make a dish at home and you just say "damn that is good!" As good as you might have in a restaurant? This was one for the must-have-again file.

I wasn't able to make the trip at the last minute due to some family obligations and our other dining companion-John Curtas aka The Dining Advocate and KNPR restaurant reporter, was suffering from some sort of bug he picked up while on a dining trip to Hong Kong. Alas, we were unable to be there, but we are girding up for the next trip. Great photos and reviews and when we do meet in Las Vegas, I'll definately be going to the places we had planned on.

From what I see in the pictures it looks like you have 'Salt Pork'-basically a cut of pork brined and cured in salt yet still basically raw meat. That's basically how most bacon is cured before smoking. The cut of pork and how it's cured can determine whether it's called bacon, pancetta, prosciutto or salt pork-but in today's food world the lines between what cured pork is called can get fuzzy. I would recommend you soak the cut in some water for about 30 minutes to leech out some of the salt. Then chop it up and use it in your Fall soups and stews. You can use it raw right in the soup or saute it first so it renders some fat and gets brown and crispy. You are right in realizing that what you have isn't the same type of pork belly that we've been talking about in this thread. The pork belly I use is raw, unbrined, uncured, cut right off the hog and sold in my Asian grocery store. The fat makes it tender and juicy and gives us that beautiful crispy outer skin. Any type of curing of the pork belly would probably not give those same results. You can certainly store whatever meat you don't use right now. But I would wrap it tightly or shrink wrap it using a foodsaver type of machine/bag. I wouldn't let it go longer than a week in the refrigerator. Even though it's salted and cured, the meat can go bad-sort of like strips of bacon we leave in the fridge for a couple of weeks-starts to smell a bit off. Let us know how it goes for you.

My Mother ONLY makes creamed onions for Christmas dinner-NEVER for Thanksgiving. She says that "the Pilgrims didn't eat creamed onions" and that is why she doesn't serve them on Thanksgiving. I don't know what history book told her that Pilgrims didn't eat creamed onions, but she's made them for around 55 years for Christmas dinner. She still makes them and they are delicious and taste exactly the same every year. While I use small pearl onions when I make creamed onions, Mother only uses medium size yellow onions. I actually prefer the bigger onions because I think they have more taste than the pearl onions. She peels the onions and then boils them a short time. She makes a basic white sauce with butter, flour and whole milk. She's always seasoned the onions with salt and nutmeg and in recent years she got a bit chi-chi and started adding white pepper-not something housewives used in the 1950's. She doesn't add any cheese. She combines the onions with the white sauce and puts it in a glass bowl and bakes the onions until the sauce is hot and bubbling. The glass bowl fits in a silver outer serving bowl and when the onions are ready, they are brought to the table in that glorious serving dish.

Williams-Sonoma used to sell a dried foccacia stuffing mix with Herbes de Provence. It made the best stuffing I've ever had. Unfortunately, they no longer offer it. My guess is it was probably not real popular or they had problems with their supplier. It was privately labeled for Williams-Sonoma, so I don't have a supplier I can go direct to. I can always make my own foccacia and then cube it and dry it for stuffing-but I'd rather find a company who makes it and offers it for sale online. Any ideas?

You might try Whole Foods. I was at one in Portland just last Friday and they had a nice display of poultry all the way from Cornish Game Hens, to Poussins, Fryers, Roasters, Stewing Hens and Capons. A size of chicken for anyone.

Since Kim Chee can be very strong, and hot/spicy, I would only add a few tablespoons for each cup of rice. I would keep it a rice dish with mainly rice and only a bit of Kim Chee for added flavor and texture. You will have the rich/sweet beef on top of a base of mild rice studded with spicy, crunchy Kim Chee. You could also try a Chinese style rice. I like to add diced Chinese sausage and some reconstituted dried Chinese black mushrooms to short grain sticky rice. That would be a take on steamed Chinese sticky rice wrapped in lotus or banana leaf-and your dish would be Korean style Beef on Chinese Sticky Rice.

Its fun following your progress Dr. J.. I really enjoy watching your ideas for plating and you definitely are on the verge of creating your own style.. What is a creme fraiche cheese sauce? What kind of cheese? Also when you say vegetables cooked with brown sugar and dill? how is it cooked.. There doesnt appear to me much carmelization on the vegetables.. Also, you should get a smaller ring mold or mold for the rice.. It looks like a lot of rice and its not bringing to much color or brightness to the plate. What kind of rice is that, looks very short grain? A polenta would certainly brighten the plate up. Also for the radish and capers, though pretty, I dont think it added much a complimentary flavor to the dish.. Maybe a sauce complimenting the korean marinade or dots of a sweet potato puree around the plate would look nice. I dont mean to be critical, I feel like you are looking for a discussion on your food.. ← Dr. J. all of your photos have looked really good and it's obvious you have a love of food and cooking, which is a love we all share. And I agree with Daniel's comments about presentation and plating. We'll all be better cooks learning from each other. I always try to use a garnish that accents a flavor or ingredient in the main dish. For example, if I did a lamb dish with rosemary in the sauce or in the marinade, I'd garnish the finished lamb meat with a sprig of rosemary. I probably wouldn't just put a sprig of rosemary on a lamb chop for color if I didn't use rosemary somewhere else in the dish. Following on my idea of using garnishes within your dish of Korean style steak (which by the way looks delicious with that nice dark outer crust and perfectly cooked interior), if you didn't use capers in the dish, I would leave them out of the garnish. However, radishes are certainly appropriate as a garnish because they would give that dish a crisp, clean, peppery flavor accent. You might want to take the radishes a step further and try pickling them with some Rice Wine Vinegar and a bit of ginger-sort of like making your own pickled red onions. That would give an Asian flavor to the radishes and act as a cool counterpart to the rich beef which probably has a sweet note in the glaze on the beef. An idea on your bed of rice would be to add some Korean style vegetables (maybe some kimchi), which would give the rice a bit of color and certainly some more flavor. I agree with Daniel that a ring mold is very helpful when creating a base on the plate. Keep your photos coming.

That is a beautiful salad! ← Thanks, it is really easy to make. I left the skin on the pear, took out the core and then sliced it on a mandoline. You don't need to poach quail eggs-regular chicken eggs are fine. I just saw the quail eggs and thought they'd be fun to use for presentation. I poached them about 2 minutes. I think the thing that took the longest was simply frying the bacon and then cutting it up. Easy salad but great taste. Thanks.

Tonight was a Northwest menu with French accents. To start, a classic French bistro dish: Frisee Salad. I added some daikon sprouts to the salad and dressed it with an apple cider vinaigrette. I added applewood smoked bacon and these cute little quail eggs I found in the Asian market. I poached the quail eggs just for a few minutes so the yolks would still be soft and ooze into the salad. I normally make this type of salad with bleu cheese, but the cheesemonger at Whole Foods recommended I try some ricotta salata. She was spot on-the ricotta was salty and tangy, yet milder than a bleu cheese so it didn't overpower the other flavors in the salad. I sliced some Bosc pear for a sweet and crisp note to the salad. The main dish was a roasted rack of pork with a rub made from juniper berries, black pepper, sage, thyme and garlic. I'm partial to juniper, not only because I like gin but because our family ranch in Central Oregon had a number of juniper trees. The scent of juniper is something you never forget, and I think a perfect accent to pork. I served the pork with roasted fingerling potatoes, broccoli rabe and these huge, fresh chanterelles from Oregon. The sauce was a bit over the top-mustard cream-but the mustard was a nice tangy counter balance to the other rich flavors. Had a nice 2005 Oregon Pinot Noir from Maysara Vineyards of McMinnville, Oregon. Enjoy.

Marlene-I just turned 50. I should have hired you to fly out West to prepare this EXACT meal for my birthday dinner. Wonderful.

This is my favorite photo of the year on eGullet. A child, a smile and the joy of cooking. How wonderful. I am sure you are a very proud parent. Thanks for posting.

What a wonderful topic and so appropriate to this time of year-Fruitcake! Aside from my Mother and Father and long gone Grandparents and Great Aunt Bertie, I'm alone among other family members and friends in terms of my love for fruitcake. I guess I knew I would find comfort in knowing other eGullet friends would share my passion for fruitcake and I wouldn't hide my fruitcake addiction from the outside world. I prefer the traditional, dark-style fruitcake. I use a recipe that was used for many years by the chefs aboard the Great Northern passenger trains. Here is a link to a piece I wrote for fun a few years back about my love of fruitcake, the tradition of fruitcake on the Great Northern and the special memories that fruitcake holds for my family. There is a link at the bottom of the page to click that will take you to a page with the Great Northern Railroad's famous fruitcake recipe: Great Northern Recipe I'm going to show you some photos of the fruitcake I'll be enjoying this year. But I won't start with photos showing you how I mix the batter and bake the fruitcake-I'm going to show the photos in 'reverse' order. In other words, we'll start with what the fruitcake looks like when it is ready to serve, and work backwards by showing the prep photos in coming days when I make a new fruitcake that will be ready for Christmas 2010. Why show the finished product first? Well, I'm a traditionalist and when that comes to fruitcake that means you bake your cake years in advance of serving it. You let it sit, or 'stew' as Aunt Bertie would say, wrapped in layers of cheesecloth and placed in a airtight container stored in a deep, dark, cool recess of the pantry. Every few months you douse the fruitcake with a good slog of booze. And that is my key to memorable fruitcake-letting the cake age and steep in liquor for at least a couple of years before cutting it into thick slices. In fact, Aunt Bertie was said to serve fruitcakes that were often 10 years old. Now don't wince at the thought of eating cake that is older than your toddler. My opinion is anything soaked in more booze than goes in the party punch bowl won't spoil. Mold just doesn't grow on my fruitcake-not when it's liquored up with a bottle of brandy and a few slugs of Kirsch or Grand Marnier. I hope you enjoy the fruitcake story and these photos. I am sure it doesn't look appetizing to a fruitcake hater. But I am sure that fruitcake afficianados will enjoy the photos:

One of my favorite fall apple desserts-Apple Charlotte. I use a classic French recipe from Julia Child. Instead of regular creme anglaise, I added some pumpkin puree-voila-Pumpkin Creme Anglaise.

I have some ideas for you-and you can catch some photos of the cannelloni I did last week by clicking the link below over to the Dinner thread. I myself also am doing a dish with braised beef tonight-in a lasagna style dish. But for your cannelloni, I would suggest buying wonton wrappers from the cold case at your market. They work fine for cannelloni. If you do want to make fresh pasta I would not go all the way to the final notch on your pasta machine because that might make the pasta sheets too thin. I'd maybe go to the second to last notch. Layer some Italian style tomato sauce in the bottom of a baking dish. Spoon the braised beef on the sheet of pasta/wonton wrapper and roll up. Place the rolled up cannelloni on top of the tomato sauce. Spoon some besciamella (white sauce), on top of the cannelloni. Dot the top with more tomato sauce, some grated parmesan and butter. Bake until bubbly, then broil for 5 minutes to crisp the top. You can see my step by step photos on the Dinner thread. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I think you'd be pleased with the results.

Wow. Thank you so much. It's a great compliment to know that you just took my photo of the pumpkin soup and created your own delicious looking dish. Great job.

Like others, I use salt cod in a traditional Brandade, but after that recipe is done, I let the brandade cool and then add stiff mashed potato to make a salt cod/mashed potato cake. You can dip the cake in some beaten egg and dredge in panko crumbs and then fry it in oil and clarified butter until it gets nice and golden. I use the salt cod cake as a base for seared/roasted fish like Halibut. It's rich just like that so I wouldn't serve it with a rich sauce, maybe something like a parsley oil.

I'll send you the recipe, it's pretty lengthy. There are instructions for 1) making the pasta sheets, 2) the tomato sauce, 3) the filling and 4) assembling the cannelloni and baking. It's all worth the effort as it's one of those memorable dishes that once you have it, you'll add it into your 'classic' recipe file. I'm not a fan of chicken livers and so I wondered about adding them to the recipe the first time I made the cannelloni. Most people eating the dish wouldn't even recognize the flavor of chicken liver in the filling. But the chicken livers add a creaminess and rich flavor that the recipe wouldn't be the same without.

I cheated a bit and used fresh wonton wrappers out of the dairy case from the supermarket. The traditional recipe in the Time-Life book calls for making fresh pasta sheets with a traditional pasta recipe using egg and semolina flour. I've used that recipe in the past, but it takes a long time and since I don't think I'm good at pasta, I sometimes cheat and use the wonton wrappers. I don't boil the sheets ahead of time-they soften and cook in the sauce as the cannelloni bake. The wonton wrappers aren't my first choice-they can taste a bit sticky and gluey in the finished cannelloni. I don't have a local source for fresh pasta sheets, but sometimes I use dried, flat lasgna noodles (not lasagna noodles with the frilled edges). If I'm using dried pasta sheets I would boil the pasta to soften it before using it to roll the cannelloni.

Yes, single man eating rich Cannelloni in the far reaches of chilly Eastern Washington. Now that I think of it, that would probably be my post on a dating site for foodies. And now that I think of that, what a concept, a dating site for foodies.

Tonight I started with a Roasted Pumpkin Soup. I roasted pumpkin and garlic together, then pureed it along with some currants and spices. Wish I had actually had a bit of black truffle to shave into the soup-I think it would have added depth and a more woodsy note to this Fall soup. I garnished it with smoked bacon and some yogurt that I spiked with cayenne pepper. Then one of my favorite Fall pasta dishes-"Cannelloni" from the Time-Life world cuisine series. The recipe is out of "The Cooking of Italy" published in 1968. I've amassed all of the cookbooks in the series through garage sales and trips to a local used bookstore. It is quite interesting to read through cookbooks that are 40 years old. The photos are as delicious as the reading and the recipes. Here are the steps to making the traditional, savory Cannelloni: Filling the pasta sheets with a mixture of ground beef, chicken livers, spinach, egg, cream and parmesan: Next is the laying of the cannelloni in a heavy baking dish on top of a thin layer of homemade tomato sauce: This shows the cannelloni topped with a traditional bechamel sauce-butter, flour, both cream and whole milk, white pepper and nutmeg: Next, to be more decadent, (remember this was a recipe 40 years ago), you top the cannelloni with parmesan and yes, butter: The cannelloni are baked for 20 minutes and then kept under the broiler for about 5 minutes: Finally, two photos of the plated, traditional Cannelloni. The second photo shows the filling. As you can imagine this is an incredibly rich dish so I usually can only eat two of the Cannelloni. I think I may be looking forward to my lunches at work this coming week: