Peter the eater

Well that explains the pub in Toronto (Bloor St. E of Yonge) named the Spotted Dick with the large dalmatian dog sculpture out front, pretty sure its still there. I look forward to trying out your recipe, thank you for sharing!

We have had some sorta similar kinda fun at home: click We don't go head-to-head under the camera and time constraints, but there is the big reveal of the featured ingredient, and a few guests around to eat the results.

I know, it sounds more like a venereal disease than a delicious dessert but it is definitely a favourite of mine, when I can find it. Such a notorious delight is worthy of its own thread. From the eG search engine I see it was discussed 5 years ago here and I did see another topic about English puddings, but I can't seem to find it. Spotted Dick, as I know it, is: flour, salt, suet, raisins or currants, and breadcrumbs steamed into pudding form then served with custard or brown sugar. I don't know that its very well known outside of the UK. I have only had it served to me in London and Victoria, BC. The only place I know of around here in Atlantic Canada that has it is the Mountain Equipment Coop (sporty retail store) but it is dehydrated in a foil pouch. It is good this way but I think one can do better at home with the right recipe. In Newfoundland you can get figgy duff which is related but clearly not the same. I'd like to see some spotted dick recipes, anecdotes and/or images . . .

Here is Wednesday's dinner: seared goat rib chop on curry couscous, microplaned dried papaya and homemade bacon bits on top (homemade as in I raised the pig) The goat was in my freezer for a few months but it was still sweet and moist, a lot like lamb in texture and appearance - without the lamb flavour. A few chunks of the thick cut bacon was the base of the curry (onion, turmeric, garlic, fenugreek, scotch bonnet hot pepper).

Agreed, though some say the pressure from an evacuated bag will alter vegetable texture (by crushing cell walls?) and help drive the marinade deeper into the food item.

Maybe it is meant to be paired with a mild seven cigarette? ← . . . or scooped into Nathan's tobacco infused bourbon!

Hey, I'm on the edge of my seat reading along . . . I'm just so freaked out by Korea and Korean food I don't have anything useful to add. On a less adventurous note, I have had P&C corn from Chilliwack.

Dr. J: nice ribs, very post modern! kellytree and proud daughter: fantastic! Ted Fairhead: a handsome and pubworthy meat pie. rooftop Tracey: I have oven envy. C. sapidus: buena comida. nakji: I just learned what nakji is! A chunk of Atlantic salmon (1912g @ $11/kg) became 12 boneless steaks and 2 tail fillets. We pan fried the tail pieces last night in terriyaki with ramen noodles, tomato and corn. The remaining cuts got cryovac-ed and round 10% of the fish (trimmings) went into the stock pot for later:

Recent excerpt from CBC News: Under current federal regulations, goods can be stamped with a "Product of Canada" label if 51 per cent of the production costs are Canadian. For example, companies can label their juice Canadian by adding water to imported fruit concentrate and bottling the product. Maybe something similar is going on with your groceries.

Great idea - its now on my growing sv to-do list! But why not leave the shell on? I suppose the bag could get punctured . . .

I cannot comment on the herbs, but I would very much like to see some images of your Normandy Phessy. Is that one of your future lunch birds in your avatar? I am hatching a plan to raise some free-range game birds next year in Cape Breton (Nova Scotia, Canada) likely pheasant and quail. This year we did several dozen meat and egg hens plus a handful of turkeys - all were processed this past weekend - a new and rewarding experience for me. After dressing a few 40lb turkeys I'm thinking quail will be a challenge.

This link may not help this discission, but its just about the coolest "beef site" I've ever seen.

What an array of flavours! The makers of the goat ice cream should be more specific - the milk, the head? Have you tried many of these flavours Ce'nedra? Speaking of ice cream in Japan . . . I have heard that Ben & Jerry's "chunky monkey" flopped in Japan because of the translation to "chunks of monkey". Could be true?

There was an exhibit a few years ago, in Ottawa at the National Archives. I went, it was good, here's the link: click

That amazing, chefmcone76 - thanks for bringing it up. Its always interesting when a physical fragment from long ago surfaces and makes the experts re-evaluate.

For me, it's just another tool - something to be explored and enjoyed. If it was all I did, over and over again, I'd get sick of it. Hell, if I had to look at the Eiffel Tower everyday of my life, I'd get sick of it too. But right now its 1889 and I'm at the World's Fair!

Bump again! Just read this thread through, fantastic education for me, thanks you all. I think this way of preparing meats and offal has almost limitless possibilities. What I have seen here is a very far cry from the "mock chicken loaf with green olives and macaroni" I remember seeing at the grocery store as a kid. I did not grow up in France. So, at the risk of riling up the haute cuisine traditionalists and the culinary Luddites out there . . . why not replace the bain marie with a sous vide approach. I could image a vacuum bag of delicious flavours coming together over time, and then maybe rolled into a crust or something. A well-evacuated bag would transfer lots of pressure to the cooking mixture, even afterward as it cools. Just a thought.

Unfortunately no. Ankimo is the only fish liver that is first of all clean enough to use a food preparation. Fish liver is typically ridden with all critters of all sorts that you would never want to come across. In fact, for those of you attempting to make Ankimo, I would hightly recommend searching the liver very carefully for small, white worms. They most often are coiled in appearance and are gennerally on the surface of the lobe. Also, Ankimo is the only liver big enough to really have any kind of success. I recommend only buying Ankimo from a well established Japanese vendor. I have seen this stuff run the gamut in quality. ← I'm not talking from experience, but . . . I can't beleive there is only one single species of fish in all the oceans and lakes of the world whose liver is suitable for human consumption.

Its my belief that a confit, or any kind of "lipid poach" for that matter, is best done below 100C otherwise water from the surface of the meat will simply boil off leaving the food too dry. AFAIC, the only difference between butter-poached and butter-fried is temperature, above and below 100 C, respectively.

I made confit of turkey thighs last Thanksgiving. They took a little longer to poach in the fat than do duck legs, but the result was absolutely ethereal. ← That sounds promising, thanks. So no drumsticks? You used goose fat?

I have been seeing lots of fresh trout and arctic char for sale at prices similar if not less than the farmed Atlantic salmon. As these three species are closely related and similar in many ways I wondered about doing a gravlax type of treatment to them. Do others have stories of such a substitution?

I saw a big tray of 10 turkey legs at the grocery store, didn't buy it but wondered . . . what would a traditional leg confit be like with turkey? Has anybody tried this?

In the spirit of good ingredients for little money . . . I bought an enormous bundle of dandelion greens for 99 cents, behold: (note: banana is for scale) The only thing I have ever done with dandelions is mow them down. I have been reading about their virtues and culinary uses, but wow they are bitter. Are they too big and too old? Any suggestions?

Thanks for that, Ted. There is a bit of a pork crisis here in Nova Scotia - five years ago there were around 300 registered pork farms in the province and now there are around 2 dozen. Earlier this year the CBC reported: The industry is overwhelmed by foreign competition, and local hog producers are losing $40 every time they ship a pig to market. Everybody what good food for cheap!

Taunton's Fine Cooking is my current fave.