Peter the eater
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Posts posted by Peter the eater
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Dulse on the left, toasted dulse on the right:
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One important thing with a lamb leg is to remove the large lymph node while carving. Many people serve this. I don't like it.
I presume you mean the the popliteal lymph node near the knee -- it doesn't bother me, but it's noticeable and gray and brings nothing to the party. The hardest aspect of a leg roast IMO is even cooking. Remove the bone, flatten it out and keep it ruby pink.
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My ex-husband's mother is from Grand Manan. When we visited there he and his mom would buy a huge paper bag of dulce and sit in the living room and consume it. I allowed myself a small taste - but found it didn't appeal - particularly after noting the small dried star fish and the seagull shit attached.
Kerry, I'd forgot about your ex (post #35)!
Grand Manan is the Mecca of the dulse world, so at least you took one for the team on holy ground. I recommend washing or at least inspecting the dulse, then toasting it, then crumbling it onto mashed potatoes or something.
I agree that shit-encrusted starfish doesn't exactly make me drool.
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Dulse
Dulse is an edible seaweed found in the intertidal zones of coastal Nova Scotia. Harvesters collect the plant by hand then lay them out to dry in the sun. It gets cleaned and bagged and sold around the world as a ready-to-eat snack loaded with nutritional virtues. Dulse is high in protein, vitamins B6 and B12, iron and fluoride.
People here have been eating the stuff for thousands of years. It's taken me a long time and several kitchen experiments, but I now consider myself a fan of dulse. Straight from the bag it's purple, a bit chewy and certainly tastes of the ocean. I've never been too clear on how the intact plant looks -- it's like trying to visualize the shape of a tobacco leaf by pulling apart a cigar.
Dulse can be toasted by the campfire, in an iron skillet, directly on a stove burner, or in a microwave. I tried this last way yesterday for the first time following a recipe that called for a "handful of dulse, microwaved on high for forty-five seconds". At the eighth second my seaweed exploded in a ball of flames behind the glass door. The center bits were black and inedible, but the outer bits were toasty brown and nutty. I got much better results from the toaster oven, and a 100% usable yield.
I've found plenty of local recipes for dulse soup, dulse chowder and dulse salad. If I had to go with a favorite way to enjoy this weird sea vegetable, I'd say as a condiment, like toasted flakes of dulse on a baked fish fillet.
Maybe there are some love or hate dulse stories out there?
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I think re-using the fat from confit, as long as it still smells good, is perfectly OK, and can give fantastic results.
I agree, Chris. I guess what I'm less sure about is the "authentic French way" of doing it.
I regard this confit technique as another way to slow poach in oil. I'm sure I'll be fine filtering and sniffing the oil, which BYW has developed quite a fine nose after one six hour cooking session.
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This weekend I've been making Paula Wolfert's slow-cooker confit of pork. The results have pleasing and surprising. The meat is a bit more salty and chewy than I would've expected but it's also extremely flavorful in a porky way, so I'm happy.
I defrosted two "hands" of pork -- the arm between the hocks and shoulder -- that were frozen last November after the slaughter of my 2008 half pig. Once thawed, I dried them off and coated them with coarse salt and sage for a day and a half. Over the winter I've been trimming and saving lots of pork fat for confits and sausages, so I rendered just enough to cover the pork in my slow cooker.
I've got a question: since I'm not putting up any confit, I'm thinking of using the rendered lard again for another batch of confit later this week. Can anyone share some pro's and con's? The fat never smoked and likely stayed below 100C the whole time.
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Well, I went a week with no shopping, and like others I found it to be . . . not really that difficult. Here's what I discovered:
1. I have way more ingredients on hand than I realize.
2. Every day can be a black box challenge if you want it to be.
3. I grocery shop because I like to, not because I need to.
4. I know I'm an eGulleter when . . . I get worried when there's no huckleberries in David Ross's freezer, and I recognize several projects in chrisamirault's freezer.
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In the meanwhile, I thought I would add a link to this excellent blog:
Thanks Martin, that link is outstanding!
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Goat shanks braised in buttermilk is nice -- great for a coconut curry.
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How is that Trish Magwood cookbook? You like?
I like her as a person so I like the book by extension. There's nothing earth-shattering about it, just a lot of good ideas for entertaining, and the photography is excellent. There are a few practical ideas about catering as well.
She did turn me on to green peppercorns from Madagascar.
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It's always a good idea to revisit how we do the basics. For dry pasta, I always boil the minimum amount of water that will do the trick (cook without sticking) whether I'm camping or not.
At home we make fresh pasta less than once a month and usually do the Orecchiette thing meaning hand-formed, no rollers, quick to cook in a broad and shallow pot of water.
Fresh pasta broth seams more appealing than dry past broth.
Great, now I'm going to have to explain to my family why I'm steaming the spaghetti for dinner.
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Day 4 was easy -- it's Pancake Tuesday and the $5 church suppers are easy to find in my neck of the woods. You typically get two flapjacks, a piece of bacon, a mediocre breakfast sausage, choice of 10% real maple syrup or blueberry sauce, and a Sanka.
Speaking as an devout Anti-Creationist Atheist, I'd have to say Shrove Tuesday is my favorite religious holiday. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera.
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A raw oyster on a peach half with maple syrup.
Conceptual nightmare,yes, but visually intriguing.
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Silver Dart Party
Who needs the 81st Oscars when you can celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight in Canada? Read the CBC story Silver Dart replica takes flight in Nova Scotia.
It was a few years after the famous Wright Brothers achievement. It took place in Cape Breton on the frozen Bras d'Or Lake overseen by Alexander Graham Bell -- telephone inventor, part-time Nova Scotian, Helen Keller's teacher, hydrofoil and aeronautics scientist. He also dabbled in eugenics, but hey, nobody's perfect.
There was a party, I made some finger food.
Local shrimp on parsnip chips with roasted bell pepper mayo:
Roast beef sirloin on rye toast with horseradish mayo and sea salt:
Maple-seared scallops and bacon in potato baskets:
I tried to include capers wherever possible because a person from Cape Breton is also known as a Caper. Although born in Scotland, Bell himself became a Caper and spent much of his later life overlooking the Bras d'Or Lake. He's been interred there atop Beinn Bhreagh mountain since his death in 1922.
For these appies I was in part inspired by the good book below from the lovely chef and fellow Queen's University alumni Trish Magwood.
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Day 3 and I've experienced no interruptions thus far -- this challenge will get much more interesting once the midweek shopping trip is skipped. It was difficult not to stockpile last Friday, the only thing I did was buy 8 litres more milk and some stuff for a party.
I'm still having trouble with the formula: hot dogs + jam + mustard = good.
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Mallet, you've really raised the bar -- that's looks like a $100+ tasting menu. All home-cooked, correct?
I have questions. I thought I saw a red-winged blackbird, a red-winged blackbird . . .
sorry, David Francey joke -- I'm a big fan. Seriously, I grew up around these birds, and mourning doves and porcupines and I've never known anyone to eat them. How does one acquire these things, and are permits required? -
Wow. I'm finding all sorts of things in the freezers and now my mind is really wandering with ideas.
David, I'm looking and I'm not seeing any huckleberries in your freezer -- can't you stock up and freeze?
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May I use that expression and pretend I invented it?I was a recessionista before it was the in thing
My place, The North End Diner, burnt down last year and I'm still adrift.
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Haha! Spamalot Spam—I didn't know they produced that. And a preserved duck egg—how do they go about preserving it? It looks like it's covered in hay, or wood chips!
Vyieort, I think I'll never open the Spam to preserve the value. The egg smells like chalk and beets, if that can be imagined. I bought it only a week ago but there were two kinds -- black and yellow -- and the lady refused to sell me the other one, which she said was no good. She also said one had to be cooked first but I forget which one.
Utenya, thanks for the translation. The bag is three years old and the only thing inside I recognize are yellow beans, so I may not try it out on my frozen pork hocks.
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My McCain Burger would be plain, sparsely garnished with North Vietnamese ingredients.
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I've got a 22 cubic foot kitchen fridge which includes a freezer, and a basement freezer which is small but full of pork, chicken and berries from the in-laws' farm. Freezer archaeology yielded the following surprise reminders:
Top row, L to R: small hen (15 months), lamb leg (1 month), pork hocks (3 months)
Bottom row, L to R: tuna steak (6 months), venison (3 months), lamb loin chops (2 months), pork loin (15 months)
From the pantry I found four things that leave me wondering:
Top row, L to R: bag of dry yellow things with a picture of pig's feet and the word ZHUSHOUPAIGUTANG (39 months), salted soy beans from Hong Kong (no date)
Bottom row, L to R: $0.45 preserved duck egg (bag says lead-free), a collector's edition can of Spamalot Spam
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Here are two fine films that feature honey as subject and metaphor: Ulee's Gold (1997) and more recently The Secret Life of Bees (2008). That last one has Joy Luck Club power to make surly men cry.
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. . . . I'll make do with what I have and save the "Au Poivre" preparation for another time.
. . . if a recipe calls for rosemary and I only have thyme, well; then, that goes in instead.
That's the way to cook at home this week. Reminds me of The Urban Peasant (who along with Julia and The Joy were the beginning for me) because he often said "we'll use it, because that's what we've got".
By the way, I'm not setting foot in a grocery store again until March.
Freezer pictures to follow . . .
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I wonder what a McCain Burger would've looked like . . .
Cooking with 'The Cooking of Southwest France'
in France: Cooking & Baking
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Paula's words are having quite an impact on my kitchen -- almost everything I see is a potential confit. Reminds me of the time ten years ago when I became equipped to flambé. At first it was a banana here, a quail there -- over time it escalated to a clear and present fire hazard.
These are the pork hands from the weekend, before & after:
and a hen that spent 18 months in my freezer:
That bird was a dud destined for the stock pot until it spent a half day simmering in flavoured oil. It came out looking and tasting of pheasant -- dark red, stringy but moist, mildly gamey.