dougal

Creepy? Non-stick Teflon may be unpleasant to manufacture, but as long as you don't burn the coating, it should be perfectly safe - heck they even use the material for implanted bionic bits. Teflon is used for roasting tins, and should be safe in any normal oven. ('Normal' does not include eGulleteer Infernoo's oven!) The handle is much more likely to be problematic! Caramelising on non-stick is no problem - though it can be more difficult to see exactly what is going on because of the dark colour. My tarte tatin pan is a LeCreuset "omelette pan" (with their non-stick lining and a plain cast iron handle). Yes, its heavy, but it is cast iron! And its not as deep as you'd like - which is deep. I have an aluminium frying pan, that seems to be hard anodised, but also has some form of non-stick coating on the inside. For fish and steak it gets used on the stove top initially, and then finished more slowly in a low/medium oven. It works very well. It wasn't the cheapest pan in Asda (the UK's Walmart), but very few could call it at all expensive. Nearly two years on, its lasting much better than I'd expected. I gather that uncoated stainless steel, with a copper base, is considered ideal for SEEING what is happening in the pan, so you can properly control the degree of caramelisation. Those I've used like that have been rather disappointingly 'sticky' pans. Probably too thin on the base, as the way of making them affordable!

Indeed it is, and a favorite of mine, but I buy it in portions the size of a chestnut and use it sparingly as an accent. What, therefore, would be a creative - and cheaper - substitute in a mac & cheese venue that would accomplish the same, or close, subtle effect? ← A mix of a bit of blue brie and a bit of ordinary goat cheese?

I'm not quite sure anything is like 'demi' as in 'un demi de bierre'. Particularly since it refers (nowadays) to a quarter litre of beer. The French seem to love old unit names, while adjusting them to the modern day. For example, market traders may price their fruit and veg by the "livre" (pound), but they don't mean 453.6 grams (1lb) by that term, they actually mean 500 grams - an exact demi-kilo. However I'd suggest that 'demi-sel' was pretty much in the same direction as 'demi-sec', where 'demi' doesn't mean an exact half, but simply a partial fraction, anywhere between "a bit" and "less than fully". (In the same sort of way that the English term for an inadequate response, a 'half-measure', implies no precision whatsoever. Its probably significant this example also refers to a somewhat archaic useage of the word 'measure'!) I wonder if we could clarify another detail more explicitly? Does 'beurre doux' merely mean 'unsalted'? Or does it imply an unsalted sweet-cream (ie not cultured) butter? (Which would have a very much less "buttery" flavour... some might even say "tasteless"... ) I can imagine that the creamy, rather than buttery, taste of a non-cultured butter could be desirable when using it as the vehicle for other flavours - is that what PH is doing with his "La Viette"?

Is it possible that different people's experiences might be due to either 1/ beans being in a different state of preservation - maybe having spent differing numbers of years in storage (with differing dryness of storage), possibly even having had different drying methods or 2/ just using different varieties (let alone different types) of bean? I find it hard to believe that there could be 'one true way' for absolutely all beans. Or am I just an agnostic?

Of course it must be pre-cured, otherwise you'd have boiled leg of pork, rather than ham... Use of curing salts (nitrates and nitrites) is not something to be covered lightly. Old/traditional recipes often use them astonishingly heavily! The recommendation is to use "an approved recipe". The usual thing is to have the ham so well salted (and here I'm referring to ordinary salt) that it may need pre-soaking. Salting the poaching liquor really should not be called for. Tasting it for excess salt during cooking, and diluting if appropriate, is a good idea. (Conventionally, whatever aromatics would only be added after one was sure that the salting was appropriate.) In this instance, the cure, the size of the ham, and the size of the poaching pot all inter-relate as to how much pre-soaking might be needed. When it becomes routine, you (or the brigade) cease to worry about these 'first time' exploratory details! Its quite normal to poach the cured meat in an aromatic broth. (Which can become a wonderful stock base for a lentil soup, as one example.) Using hay as the principal aromatic is certainly an interesting twist! After the poaching, the ham might be skinned, basted and roasted to glaze - its not clear what M Bocuse's kitchen has done. I couldn't read the thermometer (shown in the movie) in the poaching liquor. My feeling is that its best to be very gentle. Its only a small step from sous vide - the idea is to cook the meat uniformly through its thickness - without overcooking the outside. The literature is full of timing rules to adjust for the size and weight of the ham, but the sensible thing is to monitor the internal temperature of the ham, as well as the liquid. I'd suggest a peak core temperature of mid 60's Centigrade (adjust that to your taste and regulations), with a maximum broth temperature in the very low 70's.

MAJOR importance that! Honestly, an "apple tasting" of different presentations of Golden Delicious (which is famously neither) is unlikely to impress or delight those who 'know their apples' ... Time to explore the rich diversity of apple varieties!

Ballast? Maybe a teaspoon would be excessive, but a few ceramic baking beans should do the trick, shouldn't it?

Do check the French section. But specifically, search within it for L' Os à Moelle...

Dissolved protein coagulating?

Hot custard (usually made from powder ) is a popular accompaniment to a hot desert in the UK. You might be offered it for example with a hot apple pie, or hot stewed fruit, and its the proper thing to serve with a proper steamed "pudding"...

I rather like Sarah Raven's "Garden Cookbook". (She's renowned as a practical gardening guru - flowers, veg and fruit.) It seems to have a different title in the USA: "In Season" (and I haven't seen that edition) http://www.amazon.com/Season-Cooking-Veget.../dp/0789318113/ Its produce lead, divided seasonally (chapters on a 2-monthly basis), and then grouping together the various recipes for each featured (fruit or veg) ingredient. So you can immediately get a variety of suggestions as to what to do with Celeriac, for example. Its about good, modern ("British" cosmopolitan), home/family cooking, including entertaining. Interesting yet achievable. The original UK edition even has a practical, sensible layout. Basically three columns to most pages, for three recipes. I don't think any recipe involves turning a page. Its exactly the sort of book that is going to end up with lots of interesting stains and splashes - a book to use in the kitchen, not to fantasise over, display on the coffee-table, nor (for most people) to read in bed! I highly recommend the British edition and trust that the US-titled-edition hasn't been excessively messed about. (Though I doubt quantities will still be given in grams!)

The first thing is to clarify what is meant by "smoking". It means different processes to different people. The steamy slow cooking of US 'BBQ' seems very different to, for example, the cold smoking of salmon, or the making of kippers. Chemically, the flavour question must be whether the compounds that one wishes to capture from the smoke are soluble in water or fats. Since 'cold smoking' was originally a preservation process, involving a considerable degree of drying, I'd venture to suggest that water-soluble compounds would be in a minority role. And a deliberately wet surface would be strange. My guess would be that the pellicle has a relation to the salt-induced protein stickiness responsible for "the bind" in sausages. And that the stickiness would help the adherence of particulates from the smoke. Once bound, the aromatics in those particulates could diffuse through the food, whether oil or water soluble. However an excessively steamy atmosphere, promoting condensation on the food, would have the effect of washing off rather than trapping particulates... I think it sounds as though McGee specifically is meaning only "US BBQ" when he writes there of the benefit of a wet surface for "smoking". That over-generalisation is a common difficulty for many lesser US-based authors! The point of BBQ, seems to be to get very long, very slow cooking, without achieving (indeed deliberately avoiding) the intensity of smokiness found, for example, in a kipper. And if one is measuring the 'effectiveness' of the smoking by such measures as the fabled 'smoke ring', then indeed, wetting might prove more effective. However, I believe the reverse to be the case for 'proper' smoking!

Joe, those are examples of the 'straight' Thermapen, not the whizzy "Fast Response" FR version. The US marketing may be confusing, with the FR taking centre stage and being referred to as THE Thermapen, but it would be as well to make absolutely sure before paying out. There IS a difference. http://www.etiltd.co.uk/catering_thermomet...CFQaT1QodFHFWrA And regarding Chris's tests of time and accuracy, I'd stress the value of looking at the testing on Cooking for Engineers http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article...en-Thermometers

I honestly don't know if it might be any help to anyone (he says he won't tell) but there was a piece about Damian Allsop (and water) in last weekend's Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/200...16/foodanddrink Edited to get the name spelling right! And edited again, on request, to add this short excerpt/précis ...

Thank you for that interesting idea!

I have the DLX. I'd say its quieter than an old Kenwood KM 210, which I believe to be quieter than KA's. I don't have the double beater whipper, so I can't speak for its performance. It handles normal dough (and lots of it) easily, but Reinhart's epoxy method (combining two stiff 'doughs' + more liquid) isn't easy because the liquid firstly lubricates the lumps of stiff dough, preventing the mixer 'getting a proper grip' on them. But it's probably just that I need to work on my DLX technique! Accessories seem generally high quality (the mega grinder makes the KA look like a plastic toy) but expensive. However there's a wider range of 'bits' for the Kenwood, and they seem to be getting better - I'm interested in the bronze die pasta extruder for example. The DLX just offers plastic pasta extruding disks to fit that grinder... I don't think there's an equally rugged, and equally capacious, dough mixer at anything near the DLX's price.

Now there IS a nutshell review! One might possibly think that the 455 grams, as specified, evidenced a burning desire for precision and a total rejection of easy round numbers, but of course its just 1.00 pounds in fancy dress!

OK. Gelato. You make a 'custard' base and then add your flavour. Here's an example: make the custard, add the Gianduja, churn & freeze. He is using half-and-half, but the idea is to make a rich custard, and if its creamy, that's a bonus. http://www.chocolategourmand.com/recipes/i...duja_gelato.cfm And Mr Liebovitz shows how to do it with a cornflour/cornstarch base, in this case adding Pistachio paste ... http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007...chio_gelat.html Hopefully that should get you going!

Aromatic chocolate is a better bait than traditional cheese... I'd be worried that it wasn't 'merely' a mouse problem. Bigger game steal bait from mouse traps...

Absolutely agreed that domestic goods manufacturers in general don't spend nearly enough design time on the operational aspects of their 'user interface'. Problem is, all these are reports on things that people actually paid money for. Until shoppers tell salespeople "I'm not buying that because its not good to use" then the message will not be fed back to the design managers that buyers demand usability. If people buy on feature lists (and looks) then the designers will be instructed to produce more of the same "but more modern-looking". And the designers will indulge their artistic fantasies rather than considering the science of ergonomics, and the subtle skills of making the complex simple to operate. AFAIK, all domestic time switched cookers have simply switched off at the end of their programmed time, ever since such timers were mechanical. I think it sounds as though there might have been confusion between two different functions, set time (switched) cooking, and a simple minute minder 'pinger' alarm - not actually controlling anything. Its making such distinctions clear to a user who hasn't studied the operators' manual that distinguishes the extraordinary from the very ordinary in 'human interface' design. And, OK, yes, I do choose to use a Macintosh...

Hmmm. The cooking of most of the population of Pakistan, would I think be described as Punjabi in style. But I'm sure things get different towards the Afghan and Iranian borders, for example. And in Kashmir... Most "Indian" restaurants (I think worldwide, not just in the UK) are actually Bengali or Bangladeshi. Bangladesh, being Moslem and once actually part of Pakistan, shares a certain amount of dietary code with Pakistan, but Bengali cuisine would differ somewhat from Punjabi... I think its as much of a mistake to talk about "Indian" cooking as it would be to talk about "European" cooking. Its a colossal generalisation! There are distinctly different regional cuisines in the sub-continent, and I think that distinguishing them would be a great place to start. Madhur Jaffrey's book 'Tastes of India' was a great primer. I think its been republished under the title 'Flavours of India' http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flavours-India-Mad.../dp/0563370777/ I think this book may have other identities in the USA including http://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-Flav.../dp/1884656064/ but the point is that this is an inexpensive book structured by the regional cuisines.

I've never heard of RIZE (I'm in the UK), so I Googled it. It seems to be an "Active Dry" (not an "instant mix") yeast. Can that really be suitable for mixing direct into 'no knead' breads? On another tack, I'd say you should measure (and definitely not look up a conversion table) the weights of flour (and water) that your cup measures are giving you. The amount of flour in a cup depends so much on the user that I really think its an inaccurate way of communicating flour quantities. A recipe using cups of flour is a vague recipe! (And 5% variation in flour quantity changes the character of the dough, and thus the bread, quite noticeably.) What weights are you actually using?

Anyone got any hands-on knowledge of Kenwood's new extruder attachment (A910/AT910) and its range of bronze extrusion dies?

What sort of temperature are we talking about here? Can we put numbers on it?

Its not to everyone's taste, and one certainly didn't go there for the décor!