DerekW

At the risk of 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' I'll mention that the addition of the spices before the onions have reached the desired color can be a source of trouble - if you are working the onions down in a small amount of fat then the spices can absorb the fat leading to localised burning. Perhaps toasting / frying the spices separately then adding them to the onion pan would give more control?

Perhaps, but thanks for pointing out that it was on YouTube - I wasn't able to open the Flash site mentioned in the other posting. has a somewhat clearer version, with better color rendition.

I find that adding finely chopped crunchy bacon prevents browning - Guacamole thus adulterated has yet to last long enough for any discoloration to occur. Really! Add the bacon. Try it. Mmmm.

With its upright sides, the saute pan allows you to bounce food around - the 'jump' of 'saute' - without it flying out. Those same sides will prevent you from sliding something like an omelette out of the pan, where the low frying pan accomodates you. You're looking at stainless lined copper? I think it might be overkill for a straight saute pan. A solidly built stainless pan with a good thick disc base [probably encapsulated aluminum] will saute, and go on to shallow braise, just as well. That said, Falk's saute evasee might be a shape that would work well for you - I like mine Have you checked out the excellent eGullet Culinary Institute article on Understanding Stovetop Cookware?

Those things are evil! I've never been convinced of their sealing efficacy, and now I learn that not only are people like Daddy-A using them as skirmish weapons, but an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal indicts them in cases of bowel perforation, with the authors suggesting that "To prevent further morbidity and mortality, we recommend elimination or redesign of these clips." Seriously, people eat these?

Yes, or at least their authorised part source hereabouts. This machine is too old for them. Hopefully I'll be able to find suitable belts at an industrial supply place. There are a couple of parts of the machine which are resisting my attempts at disassembly, and I was hoping for an exploded diagram or similar guidance on what was meant to be taken apart, and what was not. A source for things like uncommonly long springs for the feed table and suchlike would have been nice, but we'll get by. The machine is from an age where the service tool kit meant two screwdrivers and a wrench. cheers Derek

Hmm. The vendor's picture of the machine is the only one I currently have showing it in one piece: At present the unit is stripped down to its component parts for cleaning and lubrication - several parts were stiff or seized. If anyone needs to see something specific to identify the machine beyond the make, model and serial number I'd be delighted to take the appropriate picture The two belts are not very photogenic; regular 1/2 inch wide cloth-backed rubber V-belts, so beaten and broken that the diametric measurements are suspect, but apparently 5 3/4" and 5 1/4" OD. They are both marked 'US Slicing Machine'. One carries the additional information '4L-180' and the other [smaller] says '4812-3 GILMER 3170'

Thanks to the wonders of eBay, we are now owners of 95 lbs of Berkel 1600 slicer. The serial number plate has patent application dates running from 1926 to 1940, and the main castings are iron rather than aluminum. Serial number is 1611/911. The blade has no dings, the bushings and bearings all appear sound and it looks like it should be just the thing for slicing the home-made charcuterie, but the ancient drive belts are shot. For once, Google is proving less than informative; does anyone know of an online resource for information and parts?

Most of the 'low cost' dehydrators I've run across are pretty plastic-y and insubstantial, but that's OK - they're not very highly stressed in use Ours is some off-brand thing we've had for ages, but it continues to work just fine. The American Harvest [Nesco] ones I've handled didn't seem much better put together. If you can, I'd suggest trying to get one with a fan, as moving air does a much better job of drying things. Cleaning the trays by hand is a pain, so if you have a dishwasher then getting dishwasher-safe trays would be a really good thing. They're not hard to make, either. Some mesh and a lightbulb in a box works for small tests. We have a 12 cubic foot monster made from plywood, a space heater and an old computer fan for those 'big-batch' dehydration tasks.

Hi Toni While we've used the oven on occasion, my usual method is to put it into the food deyhdrator. I turn the trays every few hours [or when I remember] and after half a day I start picking out the smaller thinner pieces, which of course dry faster. The end result sits out on racks until it cools. I'm fairly sure the temperature in the dehydrator is going to be less than 155, but I don't know exactly what it might be. Also, there's a very pronounced temperature gradient from the lowest, warmest tray to the highest in the stack. cheers Derek

The thin steel wok is going to have very little capacity for retaining heat - and being steel, it will not conduct the heat from the very hot bottom contact patch up the sides well either. By the sound of things, leaving the wok on the element for a long time is resulting [on conflagration day] in a wok base which is above the flash point for your oil, while the sides inevitably remain cooler than you would wish. A large gas burner will deliver heat over a much larger area of the wok, the spread of heat being achieved by the burner, rather than by conduction through the metal. Big BTU capacity allows the wok surface to remain hot even when the cold ingredients hit. The eGullet CI course on cookware is a great go-to resource for explaining cookware performance issues.

Spicy? My regular 'secret recipe' is moderately spicy. Marinade the sliced meat for at least 24 hours in a 1:1:1 mixture of Pearl River or similar dark soy, lime juice and 'cooking grade' hot sauce [such as Louisiana. Oh, and a big handful of chopped herbs, to taste. Oregano, for me, usually. Mix the marinade, pour it into a non-reactive tub, and layer in the slices of meat, ensuring a good coating on both sides. Don't rinse before drying, just gently shake off the biggest drips. cheers Derek

Ah, I see you posted as I was typing In case someone else wants the link, the website is at Whittington's Jerky Somehow I doubt that this will be the advice offered on the website, but we keep homemade beef jerky in a ziplock bag in the kitchen cupboard for months on end, and the last bit is as good and tasty as the first...

Perhaps someone who is confident with a pair of wire cutters could be persuaded to perform a little "buzzer-ectomy"? Relieving the immediate symptom might allow a more relaxed decision making process is all I'm thinking here... cheers Derek

Hmmm. No doubt you'll get more learned opinion than mine , and soon How about; Deglaze with your most acidic liquid first and reduce to intensify flavour. Two liquid additions is not too many, balsamic & red wine, &c. Keep those ice-cubes of frozen demi handy. A bag of frozen berry fruit in the kitchen freezer is your friend [no need to defrost]. Don't be afraid to put the sauce through a strainer. Deglazing for fish and chicken, the brightness of fresh lime juice can be welcome. Have fun.

We took thin slices off one of the "hunk o' ham" pieces and ate it uncooked. The book talks about the end result ideally being dried through the middle, and "as dense as any dry-cured ham". I think our humidity was perhaps too low to allow this. The texture achieved was softer and silkier then a commercial ham. Most of the big lumps went into the freezer - perhaps we'll try cooking one later. cheers Derek

Around the turn of the year the local supermarket had a special on pig legs. Time to try the cured ham thing: Twenty pounds of pig-leg, dry-rubbed with the rum and molasses [and salt] mixture. The leg went into the cure on the 13th of January, and stayed there for three weeks, in the un-heated outbuilding. Refrigerated, but not frozen. The recipe calls for what seemed like a lot of #2 cure. Mr Ruhlman was kind enough to look into things, and confirmed that the high level of curing salt was correct. After a couple of weeks, the cure had drawn a gallon or so of moisture out of the pig-leg. At the end of the three week cure, the leg was cold smoked for many hours - eighteen or so. Lacking a sophisticated cold smoker, I just made a wooden box and fitted that to the top of the electric "little Chief" smoker, moving the ham-to-be away from the heat source. Relying on the sub zero out doors temperature and an uninsulated box seemed to work well enough. After the smoking, the ham was hung in the unheated building. It stayed there from mid-February until mid-April, at which point the rising temperature started to make me nervous. Never having had a cured ham to play with before, I wasn't too sure how best to deal with the end result. Since Craigslist has so far failed to provide an antique Hobart slicer at a sensible price, I eventually just took big lumps off. The bone and some of the more shoe-leather sections of rind are destined to make a great pot of beans. Sliced thinly, [or even not so thinly] the end result is meltingly delicious, moist and tender. cheers Derek

Not to be confused with a Chip Butty, 'French Fried' potatoes between bread. Fried starch, with added starch. Mmm. Or maybe not.

Shallow fry a dried chili pepper or two until they blacken, then crank it up and brown chicken [bone-in thighs, usually, although drums with the tendons cut work too]. Set the chicken aside to drain, wipe out the pan and gently fry some chopped ginger and a few green onions, sliced big on a slant. Scallions, spring onions, whatever they're called near you. Pick the stemmage out of a good spoonful of szechuan peppercorns before crushing them a bit and adding to the vegetables. Don't omit. Return the chicken to the pan and add enough dark soy sauce and beer to make up a shallow braise. Into the crockpot with it all.

I'm pretty sure that those 'olives' are dollops of 'brown sauce', which would be HP Sauce or some variant on that theme. Bread & Butter, lots of good Bacon, you're done. Sauce optional. Edited for punctuation.

As well as an idea of the planned size, there are a couple of other questions that spring to mind; You have, or have access to a moderately well equipped woodshop? Are you thinking of an edge grained uppermost cutting board, or an end grain uppermost chopping [or butcher's] block? The wood you use may be dictated to some extent by what is available. Maple blocks are common in North America, Beech in the UK and many of the lower-cost commercial products are Hevea ['Rubberwood']. Something available locally at reasonable cost with good stability and durability ratings is what you'll need [Hevea doesn't really fit that description ]. There's probably more information than you want, online courtesy of the Forest Products Lab of the USDA..

Yay Side-towels. Or 'dish-towels' as I still persist in calling them, having grown up without a dish-washer. Towels win because they're so multi-purpose; wet-wipe, dry holder, chopping board stabiliser, &c. I grudge the counter space for a stack of towels, especially in the tiny galley I'm currently using. A small, simple stainless towelrail screwed onto the front of a drawer [in lieu of the handle] works adequately for me. Once the towel is wet it doesn't get back on the rail that session. How many of us, I wonder, have discovered for ourselves just why a wet towel makes such a poor pick-up tool? People give me mitts, and sets of mitts and matching towels [mitts too small for my big mitts, and towels usually too thin to be much use] - there's a whole 'gift for the cook' industry out there we'll be fighting against. T.J.'s / Homesense often have decent towels at decent prices, but then I'm not buying stacks of thirty. The things hardly ever actually wear out.... Given that the mitts get used around me as a heat-pads to protect table finishes, my eye was taken by a pair of "square mitts" recently. Think heat-pad with an extra layer of fabric sewn to the underside, open generously at one corner to allow it to be 'worn' temporarily. Better functionality than the usual mitts, but less useful than the humble towel.

Cooking at friends houses sometimes involves turning up with a big bag full of pans and a knife roll - while it can cause some raised eyebrows [at least the first time] the increased 'comfort level' is usually worth it. That's not to deny the joy to be had in just winging it, and trying to make something tasty out of the 'found' ingredients. Cooking with 'found' utensils has rarely brought me that same pleasure As a last line of defence from the spatulas masquerading as knives in friends houses I carry one of these (the knife, not the silly tweezers). Not ideal, but better than trying to fillet fish with a butter-knife [Good luck with the electric range Cleo - having grown up in the UK using gas I've never come to love electric ranges, and after far too many years of procrastination we're in the process of finally installing a decent gas range ]

They're a pretty regular item in the 'Marketplace IGA' on Broadway at Maple. Maybe call the store nearest you and ask if the Produce manager if they have/can get them?

The microplane blade you have will fit a standard hacksaw frame, allowing you to 'bow' it across those lemons and limes Perhaps more seriously, if you have a friend who does much woodwork then they could easily rustle you up a more 'violin bow' style handle. I'm thinking of something along the lines of the 'slice regulating' breadknives made from old bandsaw blades, often seen at craft fairs. I have a little one-handed microplane zester which I made for myself for fun one day...