dougal

Hot water crust pastry is the type used for the "old fashioned" raised pies such as the famous English Melton Mowbray pie. The pastry is very robust - not flaky. It is different from other pastry in that it can be moulded like clay - so free-standing crusts (used to be called "coffins" in the old days) can be modelled. ← Its important to understand that this type of pastry is not remotely 'flaky' ... "Robust" is a very polite way of putting it! There's a slight variation in the method used by my pal Pricey. His method is illustrated and described *here*. He mixes the pastry hot, but having added some butter, he can rest (and cool) it before rolling. He forms the pie *inside* a cake tin. Then having filled, topped and baked the pie, he unmoulds it, glazes it with egg-wash and briefly bakes on the glaze. It may be considered to be cheating a little, but I can personally confirm that Pricey does make a jolly good Pork Pie.

For the avoidance of doubt, thats a motivation and an aspiration that I share!

Strange isn't it that £100 is seen as exceptionally expensive even for an extraordinary knife to last a lifetime, but may not be enough for a single decent meal out for two... ?

Inspired by the clotted cream thread, I did a spot of searching, and I discovered a butter making thread (which heads for DIY butter, and how to 'culture' the cream - if wished). http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=80669 There's a link given to this (food processor) butter-making tutorial, which explains (as I've tried to do) that it really is a trivially simple process... http://www.milkpail.com/hbuttr.htm It continues with a cultured butter recipe... So, no excuses the next time you see a deal on cream...

Have you been asking around? Because, coincidentally, yesterday... an eGullet photo demonstration of making clotted cream! http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=109933 So now you can make your own butter, using your own clotted cream!

OK, so it was a Hattori HD Deba last time, or has there been some in-between ordering? (Noted that the first Hattori spoiled you for your Shuns, which had previously trumped the Globals... ) So, what was it this time? And how are first impressions?

Thanks for the clarification dougal. Do you have a bottle of "chili powder" in your cupboard? Could you have a look and tell me what is in it? ← Not currently... so I actually looked on a couple of shop shelves before, ... doh! The interweb thingy! This should illustrate that things, in reality, are actually rather inconsistent. Note the spelling in the page title and in the description - just one L But the pack label has two Ls ... http://www.schwartz.co.uk/productdetail.cfm?id=5153 Anyway, it gives you a list of all the ingredients (in decreasing weight order) The 'mild' is 10% Cayenne (hot is 20%) plus another mixture, called, yep, double L "chilli powder" (there's a callout of its ingredients) - but it does seem fair to say that you shouldn't rely on spelling alone! Hope that helps!

No. But thinking to oneself "that analysis sounds perfectly plausible" isn't usually justification for a post ! However, purely to reassure you -- That analysis sounds perfecty plausible, Naebody!

Clotted cream is made by heating cream, and evaporating off some of the water, to increase the fat content. Added: the heating changes the flavour slightly. Above, I mentioned "scalded" cream as one option. As I said above, you should be able to make butter from any cream (or cream mixture) that can be 'split'...

Is this the case? I was under the impression that UK butter is generally uncultured whereas in continental Europe it is cultured. ← I gather that's what McGee says. IMHO, (whisper it), he just might have it the wrong way round. But *do* try it for yourself! Beat cream till it splits. Rinse it. Extract some water, add some salt, mix it in and shape the butter. Easy! Really! In detail: - Get some fresh (therefore "sweet") double cream. (OK "whipping" will do, but not single) Beat it in your mixer. Until its "whipped" - then slow down the mixer, but keep whipping until it "splits" properly. Then strain off the liquid (its one of the various things that get called "buttermilk", so keep it if you like). Fine muslin in a colander would probably be ideal, but a new J-cloth should do. Then it needs to be rinsed with *cold* cold water, until the water runs clear. You can do this by returning the solids to the mixer bowl with a little cold water for a minute's further mixing. Repeat 3 or 4 times with fresh water. The last rinse should be pretty clean water. Now you just need to squeeze out some excess water, add salt to taste, mix it in and shape the block of butter (making a cylinder in clingfilm is probably easiest). Absent a pair of wooden "butter hands" to pat it around with, a rolling pin (and a cold slab) will do fine for a first try. You need to rinse out residual milk because that affects the keeping qualities (not that it'll last long). However, if you can bear to keep it, note how the taste changes with passing time. As the milk 'cultures' itself, so the taste gets more "buttery". You've just made sweet cream, uncultured butter. Initially its very creamy. And very different to normal British butters. Much more Beurre d'Isigny. Generalising wildly, uncultured butters are pale and creamy. The more yellow and "buttery" the more 'cultured' the butter. You can blend sweet and cultured ("cheesy") creams. Even some scalded cream. Cultured buttermilk. Up to you. Roll your own! A fun experiment for a rainy evening when the supermarket has some 'reduced to clear' double cream! (or when you over whip the cream accidentally) The salt probably wants to be from 1/2% to 2% of the weight of the butter, and as evenly distributed as you can manage - get it uneven and the final butter will show yellow streaking, a fault should you enter the County Show! By squishing the butter, you are aiming to get the water content down to about 10% or so. Do try it. Its easy!

Norman, this seems to have been concerning you for a while! http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=108760 You might be interested to see this photo-tutorial on butchering a lamb... http://overthegate.myfreeforum.org/about20...0&postorder=asc and, should you need more detail than the neck fillet photo shows, I'm sure the poster would be delighted to provide more detail - he's still around. Hope that this reassures you that the cut really does exist!

Politically and geographically, you do have a point. (Even though Turkey would rather be seen as part of Europe, and wants admission to the EU...) However, in terms of cuisine, Moroccan and Lebanese, for example, seem to be quite generally related, and there are of course connections between Lebanese and Turkish, and Moroccan and Moorish Spanish... My point is that modern political/geographical boundaries and thus names don't always serve well to understand the delineations of regional cuisine. And the cooking being discussed here is principally the cooking of the historically muslim-influenced parts of the Mediterranean region, which crops up not only in parts of the Balkans but also even in Sicily, Malta and (whisper it) can be detected in some Greek traditions - the coffee for one. But it only shows up in France through the much more recent North African ex-colonial immigrant connections... hence, I'd suggest, its influence being seen in street food and not in haute cuisine. Incidentally, its not that long ago that the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean would have been called the "Near East", while to travel further (by boat) beyond (I'd propose) Suez, would take you to the "Middle East" - which would include the Persian Gulf, and seemed to extend to about Calcutta or Dhaka. Beyond that, Rangoon and Singapore would have been in the "Far East". Where has that useful designation, the "Near East", gone in this age of air travel? A final, unrelated point: one of the early modern books on this regional cuisine was the 1950's "Fes vu par sa cuisine" (Fez, seen through its cooking) by Mme Zette Guinaudeau. Its available quite cheaply in paperback english translation as "Traditional Moroccan Cooking: Recipes from Fez". Its cited (IIRC) by both Wolfert and Roden - classic, ever so authentic, and interesting (if not terribly useful!)

If its one book only, and its geographically appropriate, that is the one.

I wish that they would offer the Electrolux in the UK! (Various bits of mainland europe, yes, but not the UK. Not yet anyway.) It seems to be the ideal domestic dough mixer, while being usefully able to do other non-dough stuff. But tipping it on its side for the mincer is a bit weird. In the UK KA has been the expensive brand, with designer colours and celebrity placement. Kenwood (deLonghi) mixers can be bought new rather cheaper than KA, and are much more common. I believe the reverse situation prevails in the USA. The Kenwoods are fine (especially the larger capacity "Major" models), though the very bottom of the range models might not have the toughness of the offerings from 20 years ago... ... but for mostly dough work, if I could get one, I'd love to have an Electrolux.

No. Here in the UK "chili powder" (one L) should mean a seasoning blend. "Powdered chilli" (or chillie, anyway two L's) should mean nothing but ground, dried, hot peppers - and Cayenne is one of the few specific named varieties of dried hot chilli on the typical supermarket shelf. And if that's what its claiming, in the UK, that's what it must, by law, be. I said "should mean" because of inevitable typo's, sub-editors, general ignorance, etc... As a backup, you might well be able to determine which is which by the context and quantity. If its a really large quantity, hopefully it isn't cayenne or other pure chilli ... The thing I always find myself evaluating is when a recipe mentions "cocoa powder". Does this guy mean pure cocoa, or does he actually mean drinking chocolate powder? Depends on the author... Again, phrasing it as "powdered cocoa" should remove all ambiguity.

... As you are probably guessing, it's not the healthiest approach. It is her life and telling people how to eat can be tricky business, especially siblings, but if you could suggest to her an alternative approach, you might very well be adding years to her life. Diabetes doesn't have to be that restricting but it should involve some moderation and a certain amount of self awareness. ← My late father was for many years a non-insulin-dependent diabetic. I have to agree that it is for the patient to recognise that they have a lot of control over their condition, and can, if they take an interest and make well-informed choices, make their own situation much more comfortable. Eating evenly throughout the day is one important factor - so no skimping on breakfast and pigging out in the evening! Trying to have regular routine meal times is pretty important too. The problem with alcohol-, sugar- or fat-rich foods is that they produce a spike and then trough in blood sugar levels. So the British advice was to eat so as to minimise those rapid variations. Hence spreading the food more evenly through the day - even to having 4 meals rather than three. (Not unlike the Scots' "High Tea" at the end of the afternoon, and a lightish supper shortly before bed.) Going for high fibre foods also helps to smooth the blood sugar levels. So seeking out 'high fibre options', wherever possible, can only be helpful. Any 'treats' should be small, and at well-separated times. A routine (which should include an exercise routine) should make it easier to get the dosing of medications accurate, and minimise the number of crash/burnout experiences. Hence, IMHO, consideration for a diabetic guest would involve somewhat high-fibre, somewhat low sugar, somewhat low fat regularly-timed meals (including a 'proper' breakfast) and a rather frugal hand with the hospitality in terms of alcohol! One problem (for a diabetic) with a "Mediterranean diet" is that it does tend to involve rather a lot of oil - and that's nearly as bad as sugar for unsteadying the blood-sugar level.

Gluten-free baking is a wide but specialist field. Different products are likely to be better suited in different applications. There do exist, as I have previously noted, specialised gluten free bread flours... http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1452483 I fear any 'general purpose' product/mix is going to be even worse that the specialist products...

Another thing to be taken "with a pinch of salt" is any direct (automated) conversion between volume (spoonfuls) and weight (grams) - this depends *greatly* on the grain size and shape, which varies with different products. I interpret such a vague instruction as meaning "a bit" of salt - it probably needs some, but the quantity is left slightly indeterminate 1/ so that I can adjust "to taste" and 2/ because volume measurement of salt is inherently a vague specification. My suspicion is that generally, professional cooks are rather heavier on salt than most home cooks, and can call rather a lot of salt "a pinch". If *you* are trying to specify the quantity of salt, use a weight measurement to convey your exact intention - and, if you feel the need, provide a volume indication for the guidance of those inadequately equipped. No volume measure of salt can be accurate unless you also list an absolutely specific type of salt...

Add me to those that recognise the authority of Claudia Roden. And I'd like to add to the list of suggestions the books by Sam and Sam Clark of the London restaurant "Moro" : Moro: the cookbook {based on the restaurant's then offerings} Casa Moro {more towards everyday domestic dishes} Moro East {due imminently and said to involve home growing (and hence preparation) of food of an Eastern Mediterranean origin} The central theme of their restaurant has been the Moorish aspect of Spanish cuisine, and its relationship with its Muslim Mediterranean heritage. Very well worth a look.

Signal crayfish have certainly damaged the population of native crayfish, which nevertheless do cling on in many places, and are legally *protected*. My emphasis. http://www.defra.gov.uk/fish/freshwater/crayfish.htm Just a couple of years ago, the Government introduced new legislation to facilitate the trapping of Signals - but one does nevertheless need a license for this. Previously, there was barely any provision to allow licensing (to prevent any trapping, which was intended to protect the native "White Clawed" Crayfish). Again, http://www.defra.gov.uk/fish/freshwater/crayfish.htm Here is a *link* to a relevant section of the EA website. Although one requires an additional license to "keep" crayfish, (and yet another to transport them), this does not seem to apply if the 'keeping' is for immediate personal consumption (holding briefly to allow some time to purge the intestines). It needs to be noted that they are very talented escape artists...

Maybe http://www.stjohnbreadandwine.com/home/ ? Added: Or search this forum for Gastropub references.

I had the chance to read the recipe yesterday. It *is* for a ham to be cooked - not eaten raw. It is supposed to be excessively salted, for preservation. Then soaked (in plural changes of water) to {rehydrate and} de-salt before cooking. The time in the cure is to be extended if one wants to then *store* the meat by hanging in cool ambient temperatures. The idea is that its so heavily salted that it can withstand just being left hanging around. If it dries out, it can be soaked to rehydrate it... before cooking. This is not a recipe for an air-cured ham. It is specifically suggested that the ham could go from cure to soak without air curing. Hanging is incidental and optional (rather than fundamental) to this recipe. If its not going to be stored, hanging, it is proposed that the curing time be towards the shorter end of the suggested range. Since this is a ham intended to be soaked to remove excess salt, it may be worth passing on a Jane Grigson tip for assessing the saltiness. She proposes tasting the poaching water once it is up to temperature. If it tastes "too salty" for you, dump that water, replenish with fresh, rewarm and retaste - repeating as many times as necessary. My personal tip is to use thermometers (one in the meat, one in the poaching liquor) to control/time the cooking. With the liquid having been kept at about 75C, kill the heat source when the meat's internal temperature reaches 65C (it'll continue to rise slightly). This is what the various tables and historic rules of thumb seem to have been trying to guide towards - but nowadays we can actually measure such things pretty easily. On another tangent, brining pork (and rabbit, chicken, turkey...) is quite commonly held to make the meat particularly moist and tender... The Zuni Café Cookbook might be the orthodox text to cite in that regard! Hope you enjoy it!

Sorry, but there are serious elements of running before walking in this thread! 1/ Its a great idea to start curing with much smaller bits of meat. Its easier, cheaper, and potentially quicker. All round a better learning experience. BUT a smaller quantity of meat does demand more precision in measuring smaller quantities of cure. (See later) 2/ IMHO many of HFW's cures need to be taken with a pinch {specifically less} of salt - or rather as 'inspiration', since if followed exactly, they seem to turn out at least rather salty. Generally, I'd suggest at minimum cross-checking with other authors as a comparison before diving in. For example http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=7491 when I was starting to learn... I'm not saying "don't follow HFW's ideas" - but I am suggesting that you should not follow his detailed curing advice with total blind faith that you will produce something with a 'usual' amount of saltiness. Do some cross-checking! Even search his own site's forum http://forum.rivercottage.net/ for the experience of others... 3/ Curing whole legs, bone-in. There is a problem that any rot tends to set in around the bone (sometimes called "bone sour"). Sure, care, experience, etc all help to minimise this risk. However, injecting cure, deep down to the meat near the bone, is one means of helping to combat this problem. Curing bone-in legs (especially by air curing in uncontrolled conditions) is something with a sadly low probability of success for the novice curer. 4/ Before doing any curing its worth getting some accurate scales! They are cheap. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=107829 You need to be weighing things to an accuracy of 1g or better. Probably 1/10g or better for working with saltpetre ("saltpeter"). Weigh stuff. And work in Grammes (grams). Consistently. It makes the maths much simpler! (and there is maths if you deviate at all from authoritative recipes.) Don't use volume measures (spoons and cups). And that goes for saltpetre especially. And salt. Different brands of ordinary salt, because of different size/shape crystals, pack different weights of salt into a cup (or spoon). Weight is the quantity that matters. 5/ "Pink salt" (or rather "Prague Powder No 1"/Cure No 1) should be standardised at 1/16 (an ounce in a pound, 6.25%) of Sodium Nitrite. 6/ Nitr*i*te and Nitr*a*te are not the same. Nitrite is very much 'stronger' and more immediate. Nitrite will 'pink' ham just fine though. Nitrate is however still needed for salami curing - because some Nitrate hangs around, long term. There is Nitrate in Prague Powder/Cure No 2, for that very reason. For an air cured ham, hanging for many months, and to be eaten raw, I therefore think No2 (and its saltpetre/nitrate) would be better at reducing the risk of Botulism - though many air cured, raw hams (like Parma) have notionally neither Nitrate nor Nitrite... Nitrite is so 'strong' (hence potentially dangerous) that it is only readily available diluted with salt as cure pre-mixes. 7/ "Air curing" - hanging the thing up where it will dry really slowly - is a form of preservation by *drying*. (snip detail about "water activity"). The usual preliminary is salting to pull water *out*, and get some salt in. This makes for a less good place for spoilage organisms to live while you do the air drying. But brining (whether with injection or not) actually puts *more* water into the meat. As such its an 'unusual' preliminary to air curing. Because its kinda the opposite of drying... Hence you'd either need to get a lot of salt in to preserve it while it dries (and so expect an even saltier product after drying has further concentrated the salt) or to be spectacularly clean in its handling and conditions while it dries. I know HFW offered a "cider cure" for a boiled and roasted ham, but not, I thought a dried raw ham... Are different recipes being combined/confused? Raw ham and cooked ham are generally cured rather differently. And, as below, even changing the brine quantity, can change the cure. This is not like putting double the cheese sauce on the macaroni. It is standard advice not to adjust curing recipes. At the very least until you might understand the significance of the changes that you are making... 8/ Calculations. Roughly a month in the brine is likely going to be fairly close to equilibrium, even for a "20 lb ham" - after that time it will have taken on very nearly all the water, salt, nitrite and flavouring materials that it possibly could. Equilibrium brine curing is about preservation in the brine - you could leave it submerged in there for ages without significant change. I think you are saying that with your "20 lb" ham (forgive me but for my calcs I'm approximating it for convenience to 10kg - do the accurate maths yourself!), you have 4kg salt and 12 litres of liquid. The equilibrium assumption for calculation (see link below) would be that you'd end up with 10/(10+12) {roughly 45%} of the salt (yeah and of the nitrite, but wait) in the meat... that's 1.82 kg salt going in, so ending up with the meat being horribly salty even before drying {I don't actually know if it could physically hold that much salt - even the brine is just about saturated}. Perhaps 2% salt in the dried product would be a target maximum (that's still pretty damn salty). Many brining recipes include some form of pre-cooking soak, to remove excess salt... A cooked ham having 1- 1.5% salt is about the norm. Note that the way the maths works, changing the quantity of brine liquid changes the amount of the salt (and nitrite, etc) ingoing to the meat. HFW's original recipe (6 litres, 2 kg salt) would have had 10/(10+6) ie 62.5% of 2kg so 1.25kg ingoing to the meat ... so simply doubling the brine recipe, you've upped HFW's (probably already excessive) ingoing salt by almost half as much again (1.2 to 1.82 kg) The same goes for the nitrate/nitrite, if you were to put in 80g of saltpetre, at equilibrium you'd have the same 45% {as above} of it "ingoing" to the meat, ie 36.36g, which for a 10kg (starting) ham would be 3.636 g/kg. 1g per kg is 1 in 1000, or 1000 in 1 million, so the saltpetre level is 3636 parts per million 'ingoing". The FDA limit for "immersion cured meat products" is 700 ppm "ingoing" of Potassium Nitrate. You would potentially be getting three thousand six hundred. Say 5x too much... NOT good. You might want to make allowance for bone weight, for example, but these are not justified as precise calculations - they nevertheless do give a clear indication of the way you are headed. And they are what the FDA use to regulate food products sold in the US. The best indication we have. 9/ Re "How much Pink Salt to add?" For Brine Calculations re the FDA's commercial "ingoing" limits of nitrate and nitrite see http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1466678 and the PDF linked therefrom. 10/ Although it won't tell you about Brine Calcs, ppm limits or 'rolling your own', I nevertheless think it would be helpful for you to take a long look at Ruhlman & Polcyn's book "Charcuterie" (and the mammoth eGullet thread discussing it). It leads you, one technique at a time, through the different processes. By no means perfect, (authenticity is sacrificed, and the 'depth' slightly uneven IMHO), it is nevertheless rather sensibly structured. And an excellent guide. For authenticity, (and an old-fashioned {now worryingly} heavy hand with the saltpetre), Jane Grigson's "Charcuterie" is one classic - but not so helpful at explaining 'why'. Sorry to be discouraging, but there's just so much that's *so* adrift here, that I'm rather pessimistic as to the likely outcome.

Keith Erlandson gives the general suggestion of 10/29ºC (50/85ºF) and "ideally" 24/26ºC (75/80ºF). Kate Walker (from a commercial smoking background) wants tighter limits 21/31ºC (70/88ºF) and "ideally about 25ºC (77ºF)" Chris, don't forget that that water (from your delay mechanism) has to go somewhere. You really don't want high humidity (you'd certainly like to avoid condensation) in the food chamber... The good thing about cold smoking is that it does not have to be done as one single continuous campaign. You can stop whenever and continue tomorrow if you choose. The time of smoking depends on the smoke density. Generally, you want some drying (weight loss) during cold smoking. So you are trying to shoot for a certain amount of weight loss in a certain time (dependant on airflow, temp and humidity in the chamber), and trying to get your chosen amount of smoke there in the same time! Its bloody hard to get temperature, airflow, humidity and smoke density to be in any way independent of each other! So its all going to be a bit approximate. If you are lucky/skilled/blessed then you may be able to hold one of the variables fairly reproduceably (from batch to batch) constant. Then you can try to find means to adjust other variables by independent means... I said try...

Chris, you can find really cheap humidity meters, on eBay even. Usually with a temperature readout and max/min recording too. Word of warning - humidity measurement (wired or wireless) remote from the display is fairly unusual (and so more expensive). Remote "outdoor" temperature with "indoor" humidity - no problem. Check descriptions very carefully! A large display makes it much easier to read if you must mount it inside a fridge or box. This seems a bargain for a unit with remote wireless humidity measurement... http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-TM005X-Wir...r/dp/B000EX83RU Doesn't seem to be available in the UK...