dougal

Is pasteurisation of butter the real question? Almost all commercial butter is 'cultured butter' - made using cream 'ripened' either with an added (bacterial) culture, or by souring naturally. The culturing provides the flavour that most folk call "buttery". The other stuff is 'sweet cream butter' - made from cream that hasn't progressed towards yoghurt (or *cultured* buttermilk). This has a very mild 'creamy' taste... and is *very* easily made at home - even from standard supermarket pasteurised *double* cream. Make it yourself and you can also salt to taste...

Norman, I'm no butcher, (or anatomist), but I can assure you that what Waitrose sell as "lamb neck fillet" is indeed tender meat - and makes wonderful kebabs!

Could the answer be an enclosed thermostatically controlled electric fryer? The vent filter should reduce the amount of "stuff" (other than steam) thrown into the air (which is what would trigger the alarm and muck up the kitchen). Such a thing (for small quantities) should be cheap, convenient, effective and *safe*. Having seen the result of a "chip pan" fire, I really don't like deep frying without a thermostat. But its the filter lid that could be what you need.

I've often seen this in print too. Yet I can crisp things effectively in a dry cast iron skillet - which isn't exactly porous... Unless the temperature falls to below 100C (212F) - which we really don't want or expect - there shouldn't be any moisture to be absorbed into those pores. We want it to be turned to steam as fast as possible by the heat. And stone (pizza stone even) seems just as draught-proof as cast iron (stone is not really very vapour permeable at about atmospheric pressure). Surely the much easier ways out for the steam are up and (especially) sideways? The important thing must be to have enough heat reserve to flash off that steam (as steam) effectively. I think there are likely better reasons for the (likely wise) advice to avoid glazed tiles...

Not sure that putting the pizza in the pan, on plural (maybe not exactly level) tiles. Using any sort of stone/brick isn't going to make much difference unless your pan - or better your pizza itself - sits in intimate contact (or at least absolutely flat) on the stone/brick. The idea is that you *conduct* lots of heat (by contact) into the pizza base, rather than get the oven air back up to heat quickly (which is what the thermometer/thermostat is probably detecting). And with a thick stone, you have enough stored heat that the pizza doesn't chill the stone very much... Anyway, contact is important! And a (dented?) "cheap metal pan" is unlikely to help. About thermal stresses: rate of heating and cooling matters (and slapping a cold pizza on a hot stone makes for a rapid local change) because the heating and cooling is not even throughout the stone, which is what leads to the stresses. "Defects" (like cracks, changes in composition, etc) act as what engineers call "stress concentrators" - focusing the forces, making the stresses around the defect much greater than elsewhere in the item. So something that works today, might not be so satisfactory tomorrow, if you happened to scratch it. Or if a small crack becomes big enough to be significant... I know marble slabs are used for chilling hot toffee, so its probably not too appalling for thermal shock *heating*, but that may not mean too much for thermal shock cooling (cold pizza dough remember). Cooling is going to mean contraction, putting it in tension, and generally stone has poor tensile strength... There are better materials, I think. And probably they are generally cheaper... Last comment - about "something that fits the oven correctly". Don't block air circulation in the oven! (You need the air to be able to move to spread the heat evenly) So make sure you leave a gap all round whatever stone/brick/tile you get. I'd suggest maybe 1.5 inches minimum each side, front and back. Only exception I can think of might be if you happened to have an electric oven with (top and) bottom heat (rather than side elements or a fan)

Dunno exactly, but I hope I can help. 1/ Vitamin K is actually an antidote to Coumadin (also known as Warfarin). So, yes, if you eat a constant-ish quantity of Vitamin K, then your dosage will be adjusted by the clinic to match your diet. But if you have major variations in diet (leading to changes in Vitamin K intake), while taking a constant drug dosage, then the clotting propensity of the patient's blood can/will vary. However, the good news is that everything happens rather slowly. If you always keep your Vitamin K intake totalled over any three day period fairly stable, then your blood clotting ("INR") will also be pretty stable. 2/ So what does "high" in Vitamin K mean? Lets put some numbers on that. For a healthy man the recommended daily minimum Vitamin K intake is 80microgrammes (mcg or µg). 60mcg or 70mcg for a woman. So over three days, 240mcg male, 180/210mcg female. Right, well against those numbers a 130g (say 1 cup) of boiled (frozen) kale (a leaf green) gives you 1147mcg (USDA figure - NDB 11236) which I'd say was high. Insanely high. Lots of green vegetables are almost as high. 5 sprigs of parsley gives a man 1 day's worth (82mcg USDA - NDB 11297). Working on the basis of a "days ration" is a fair way of thinking. Broccoli is the Warfarin clinic's poster bad boy. But the USDA (NDB 11093) says 1 cup of boiled broccoli (184g - that's a big portion IMHO) contains 183mcg or just 2 days worth (maybe 3 days worth for a female). But boiled spinach has 5x as much for the same quantity according to the USDA NDB 11458 & 11464. And frozen peas (boiled) give more than half a days worth (160g 1 cup has 48mcg NDB 11303) 3/ What numbers are there for liver? And indications for goose liver... Beef liver is nothing like those greens - 3oz (85g) of fried liver gives just 3mcg - a twentieth of a day's ration. Chicken liver scores 0mcg in a 20g liver (USDA NDB 05028) (BTW I'd reckon that as meaning "less than 0.1mcg" rather than "absolutely none".) But roast duck meat is fairly high for a meat at 8mcg in a 221g portion ... but thats still only about one tenth of a day's ration for "half" a duck (remember they are considering meat only) - its NDB 05142 at USDA. I said it was "high for a meat" but you'll find that a 3oz (85g) burger has 1.9mcg, so comparing equal weights, the duck is only very slightly richer. (NDB 23578) If Goose (and Goose liver) were known to contain troublesome amounts of Vitamin K, I'd expect to see it listed. How common is Dandelion eating? Therefore we can clearly see that, compared to the leaf greens, liver and duck (so likely goose and goose liver) aren't particularly rich in Vitamin K. And just how much Foie Gras does your friend shift? I really can't see NutritionData.com's suggested 13g portion making much impact on Vitamin K intake. Not that it actually matters much - if it were a constant amount over any 3-day period... 4/ Don't trust everything you find on the internet. There are some seriously bizarre figures to be found on some websites - which is why I've cited *only* the USDA National Nutrient Database - all figures from 19th release. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data...st/sr19w430.pdf Worth printing out and referring to, IMHO... 5/ But similarly, not all the advice from professionals is equally well-founded. Cranberry juice is strongly disapproved - but this actually stems from one particular individual starting drinking only cranberry juice, not eating ANY food, and maintaining his previous Warfarin dosage (based on his previous diet) - utterly daft behaviour! Change your diet - test the blood and change the Warfarin dose to suit. That is basic. Ask yourself why his medics blamed the Cranberry Juice... http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1454 There's a discussion of evidence for Cranberry interaction here http://www.warfarinfo.com/cranberry.htm It doesn't seem that there's any real evidence that normal small quantities as part of a balanced diet pose any risk at all... but it is disapproved. Officially. And then there's Vitamin E. The Daily RDA for different adults is between 20 and 30 IU. Taking tablets with 1200 IU per day (yep that's about 2 month's worth each day) doesn't fit well with Warfarin. You couldn't eat anything like that much on an unsupplemented diet, but nevertheless you'll be professionally warned to watch out for Vitamin E. I'm not a medic. However, I do have a scientific background, and a family member now on Warfarin for life - since a second pulmonary embolism (PE) 6 months after Warfarin was withdrawn, having been prescribed for just 6 months after a first PE. Go easy on the booze, don't self-medicate with extreme quantities of vitamins and "supplements", aim to be consistent over every (rolling period of) three days eating, and above all be consistent (and moderate) with the green veg ... and if one eats a bit of foie gras occasionally (or even regularly) it shouldn't do any harm (at least to the INR management). Note that I say the above as one who does rather disapprove of foie gras, on animal welfare grounds. So, on this one occasion, I wouldn't mind too much if part of my advice were grossly misrepresented... EDIT: typo

Use a low sodium 'salt'. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/foodand...warwick/losalt/ {LoSalt's own website is highly web-browser-specific } And if you use sugar, don't. And then scale back on the 'salt' since you aren't countering the sweetness of the sugar. Something I've done to *increase* saltiness is to mist the crust with brine. Doing that with a reduced-salt dough could fool the tastebuds that there was a normal amount of salt present.

I'd suggest you might take a look at Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" - plenty there using non-ordinary and wholemeal flours.

There's a chap in the North of Scotland who'd disagree... http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?p=51094#51094 he uses branches cut into 1/2 inch thick slices then briefly soaked (see linked thread for further detail) ... though I believe its absolutely correct that (even in the US) there is no commercial alternative.

Ah well, you see I didn't realise that the questions in your first post must have been purely rhetorical ! I think that its probable that the FDA's attention may have recently been drawn to the use of colours approved in the EU and not approved in the USA. Simple as that.

OK, so you're under the influence of Reinhart's BBA and I'd guess Dan Lepard's Handmade Loaf. Next step - maybe The Bread Builders by Wing & Scott... ? To reinforce the point above, pizza is older than commercial yeast. However, unless you are working in a Living History exhibit, that shouldn't mean that you MUST do anything a certain way. Do it the way that gives the results you like! I'd incline towards the belief that an extremely extensible dough (from the flour characteristics) is almost as important a characteristic of a good facsimile Neapolitan Pizza as the essential (quite literally) blisteringly hot oven, and that both are more important than the leaven used. In fact, come to think of it, the variety of tomato and its growing conditions (as emphasised by that NYC pizzeria) might also be more important than the leaven...

Ummm... that sounds the wrong way round! This is *not* my specialist subject, but... There are a number of food additives (including colours) that are approved for use throughout the EU, and therefore on ingredient listings they are listed by their approval number (spoken of as their "E number"). There is a current fuss about the UK disapproving of some of these - specifically azo dye colours - but requiring action at a European level to change the approval. http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2934325.ece I wonder whether this might have brought about a greater awareness/fussiness about differences between European and US approvals?

Another vote for Screwpull. The "Table model" is a simple reliable means of pulling corks occasionally (rather than several per hour, hour after hour). Its a very practical domestic tool. And requires neither skill nor strength. I just don't know if its "glitzy" enough for your gift needs. {But they did offer that corkscrew and a foil cutter in a boxed set... }

Hi - have you noticed the thread discussing the book "Charcuterie" by Ruhlman and Polcyn? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79195&st=0 It ain't only about pork! In fact the thread kicks off with some great Gravadlax photos. Searching within the thread you'll get more hits for Gravlax - and hey there are other spellings too... Using 'salmon' for the search will turn up some smoking stuff too, but there are pages of such discussion there. IMHO it sounds as though you are over curing, to end up with something stiff rather than just slightly 'firmed up'. The weight will help to squash moisture out of the fish flesh, but despite that the cure will still find its way in. Pacific "salmon" and Atlantic Salmon are rather different fish - curing seems to me to emphasise the differences...

For curing, I wanted some scales that were accurate to 1/10 th gram. I chose a scale with a sensitivity/precision (not quite the same as accuracy) of 1/100 th gram. Reckoning that the additional precision beyond my requirements increased my belief in the product doing what I wanted! I was careful to choose a scale with enough range to handle the most that I would want to weigh accurately PLUS the weight of a container for it. (Incidentally, turns out that paper cups - USA "dixiecups"? - make excellent scale pans!) And I chose a scale with a calibration function, and a vendor that sold appropriate calibration weights. (Generally, I think that they calibrate at full scale - my 200g scale needs a 200g calibration weight.) Such scales - and pocket-sized too - seem to be mass-produced. My guess is that their primary market just might be street sales of chemicals that weren't intended for cookery... My scale is just fine for my needs. Including the calibration weight, tax and signed for UK postage, IIRC it cost less than £20 ($40). Over a year ago. HOWEVER - that specific model is discontinued - and it seems that the retailer (I'm tempted to say 'dealer') has been absorbed by its major chinese supplier SO I haven't dealt with *exactly* these folk - but I did with their (then UK based) predecessors http://www.ukscales.com/shop/ They now ship from China. And have dollar (as well as sterling) prices. I can't see why you'd be better off with a brandname rather than a calibration function (and for the paranoid a couple of smaller checkweights even if they can't be used for calibration).

Should have also said that, actually, your existing stuff could probably be persuaded to work via a transformer. Here in the UK, building site tools (for pro use) are commonly 110v rather than 240v - this has to do with the risk of what happens after you electrocute yourself! Anyway, that means that chunky (small suitcase sized and incidentally waterproof) transformers are available for purchase, (but not in kitchenware shops ), and it seems the 50 versus 60 cycles ("hertz") efficiency hit is commonly fairly minor. See for example http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/content/view/89/45/ about successfully using a special US-bought power tool in the UK. The swiss are regulation mad, and likely wouldn't take too kindly to your doing a bit of domestic re-wiring, hiding the transformer, and giving yourself some properly built-in US wallsockets! So, it would probably best be an ad hoc sort of solution...

KitchenAid stuff is sold in Europe. However it is sold as a premium brand, at rather higher prices than in the domestic US market. And with lots of marketing emphasis on colour. In the UK, Kenwood (now de Longhi in the US?) sell for rather less than the prices that seem to be asked in the US... ! The Kenwood Major (and its descendants like the KM005) are a common domestic/semi-pro choice. If you go to http://www.google.ch (swiss) and click for 'Seiten aus der Schweiz' you'll get a good number of hits from a search for KitchenAid ... You may want to check detail model specifications. Of course any attachments you have should still fit a same-size 240 volt KitchenAid... 'Fraid I have no specific Zurich local knowledge. Just a brother in Geneva.

Relax! If bacon doesn't fully cure, you've got salt pork! With salamis and dried meats for eating raw, a little paranoia is probably justified, but bacon curing is really pretty safe. The sugar in a bacon cure is just there for flavour, somewhat (ie more or less, to taste) balancing the salt. Its supposed to be a bit more critical in salami where you may have sugars specifically to feed a fermentation culture, which acidifies the sausage, one line of defence against botulism. If you give it a bit a bit of time after you wash the remains of the cure off the outside, you are giving a chance for the salt (and sugar, etc) distributions in the meat to even out. Its a mistake to think that you can get the cure to stop dead in its tracks by washing off the residue. I don't know about others but I visualise a 'concentration gradient' of the salts. The saturated excess at the surface sets a maximum, and it will taper off, the deeper you go in. During the cure, the taper gets flatter. BUT, unless you intend storage at ambient (non-refrigerated) temperature, you don't want it as salty throughout as it is during curing at the surface. So you don't finish the cure on a zero gradient. But having removed the excess, it needs a little time for the stuff thats inside to even out. This is particularly important with British bacon, which doesn't get cooked before slicing and final cooking. Even smoked British bacon is cold smoked. The bacon that we buy in shops (sliced and packeted in supermarkets) is cured, but not cooked. The North American cooking or hot smoking must itself help to even out any non-uniformity in the distribution within the meat.

Make cake! Sponge example: http://www.duckeggs.co.uk/sponge.htm

I wouldn't want to take responsibility, especially as a snap judgement. You'd probably be absolutely fine, but using a bag and a space-filler is the easy, no-change-from-the-recipe answer. The book doesn't touch on Brine Calculations. Its something you only need to consider when branching out on your own. The FDA's brine calculations are the basis of the FDA limits for nitrite and nitrate. Whether or not these accord with reality, the limits are set on the basis of the calculations, so the calculations are the official guide as to what is considered a safe cure (or rather a commercially legal one!) They offer two calculations. One for a cure to 'equilibrium', the other for a short cure where the only thing that is assumed to happen is that the meat absorbs some brine (and the salts in exactly the same proportion as they were in the brine). The equilibrium calculation gives a different calculated result depending on the quantity of brine (at the same concentration). (Shown later) The short cure calculation method just depends on the weight increase through soaking and the brine's original concentration - and does not depend on the total brine quantity used. Personally, I have criticisms of both methods (but no suggestions for formal alternatives), however they are what the limits are based on, but I don't really think either is individually fully justifiable for an 8 day cure. I think you are somewhere between them! Note that in this specific case, the results of the two methods are quite divergent. Lets consider a 6.25kg ham. (So an 11kg system of brine + ham) At equilibrium 6.25/11 ie 57% of the brine's starting nitrite would be calculated to be in the ham. For the 'pickup' method, an 8 to 10% ham weight change would be maximal (thats what you'd get at equilibrium), so maximum is 10% of 6.25kg, ie 625g of brine "picked up", meaning 625/4752 of the nitrite going into the ham, ie just 13% of the available nitrite. Equilibrium 56%, pickup 13% - thats different! The FDA calculations (for what they are worth) are found here http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISDi...ives/7620-3.pdf The relevant section starts on the 26th page of the PDF (bearing a page number of 21) BUT should anyone look at the calculations in this document beware - the "percentages" used in the calculations are actually proportions (so % nitrite in Cure No1 "pink salt" is entered as 0.0625 *not* the 6.25 you might expect). Check that sort of detail in the worked examples! {eg the calculation at the bottom of page "15", the 20th page in the PDF} - of course all references to pints and gallons are to *US* pints and gallons... - and formulae that use lb on both top and bottom, can of course simply have kg (or g) on top and bottom - its the ratio between the weights that counts! As can be seen from my workings, I rarely use the equations in the form they are given, but I believe I *am* using exactly the same underlying logic. (Thinking in "pounds of nitrite" isn't my scale of working! ) And working in grams and kilograms is easy, at least compared to converting teaspoons into pounds... Lets throw in the numbers for this recipe: 42g of "pink salt" at 6.25% nitrite means 2.625g of total Sodium Nitrite in the starting brine. Equilibrium means the 2.625g ending up evenly spread between ham and brine, so we divide by the weight of the brine + ham total system (11kg for a 6.25kg ham) to get the final equilibrium g/kg of nitrite in the ham (and brine, its at equilibrium) and to turn that into parts per million, we multiply it by 1000. I calculate this as 206 ppm nitrite for the recipe, if a 6.25kg ham is used. Hence even if such a ham were left in the brine for perhaps two or three weeks to reach equilibrium, then it would only be slightly over the FDA's 200 ppm "ingoing" limit (see the 17th page of the PDF with the page number of 12). Using 50% extra brine (so 50% extra on salt, pink salt, sugar and water), means 63g Pink Salt, hence 3.9375g nitrite in the starting brine. The brine plus 6.25kg ham now totals 13.378kg. so, doing the numbers, there is an equilibrium at 294 ppm - a considerable change from before! And all we have done is use more brine, of the exact same composition! Whether this matters for 8 days, I really don't know, but I doubt it. As I said, I think it could be "slightly" different if you increase the quantity of brine. Significantly different? I doubt it, but I don't know for sure! Simplest to just use a bag to give yourself an ideal container!

A F H: no expert, but my simple-minded suggestion would be firstly to bag it, then before setting the bag into your pot, put something (suitable) between bag and pot, in order to squish the brine further up (over) the meat. It shouldn't matter what the thing(s) is/are because they aren't in contact with the meat or brine. Alternatively, line the more suitably shaped pan with food-safe plastic, like a bag! You could make up more brine in the same proportions, but, in theory (its late here and I'm not going into it now) it does change the curing conditions. Slightly. Its the proportion of meat to brine... Easy thing is to use a bag - just take care not to poke a hole in it!

Chad - would it be correct to infer from your post that 'true Damascus' is very rare indeed, and that the vast majority of product described as 'Damascus' should be more accurately described as 'suminagashi"? And that all such decoration needs especially considerate treatment?

A rather "old school" English preparation of beef (always called "Ox") Tongue would be to braise it, and then make a serving sauce with (particularly) Madeira from the braising liquor...

Pressed Tongue isn't uncommon in the UK (though IMHO less common than in my childhood). The basic recipe, widely reproduced (even in 1946 book in my possession) has one problem for you... it starts with "pickled tongue" ! ("Order it in advance from your butcher") -- however I think that the basic scheme for pickling in Ruhlman's Corned Beef recipe is going to get you to first base. Thereafter Auntie Delia can help: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cold-pr...gue,913,RC.html - basically soak out the excess salt, poach it for ages with veg and herbs (to an internal temp mid 60's Centigrade?) when you can pull out the small bones at the base, skin and trim it, curl it into an appropriately sized pan to act as a mould, mix gelatine with a little of the reduced poaching licquor, pour over the tongue, and press under a weight overnight in the fridge. Slice thinly and serve cold, in the same sort of way one would present/eat boiled ham...

Perhaps more importantly, the material of one section of rail is (hopefully) identical to the material of its neighbour. However, the design requirements for a pan handle and ban 'bowl' are somewhat different - and hence they often use different materials to obtain those properties. And joining dissimilar materials is a different game. Sometimes, the handle may be made integrally with the bowl, of the same material, formed at the same time. I have a cast Le Creuset omelette pan like that. (Excellent for a Tarte Tatin, BTW.) They actually sell an insulated handle glove to save burns when used on the stovetop... And sometimes (OK usually) the properties of the materials chosen (and their treatments) will severely restrict the options for joining or fastening. All design is a compromise! The market allows different designs, and design philosophies, to compete. Thank heavens! The tricky part of "non-stick" coating is of course getting the 'non-stick' to actually stick to the pan! You aren't going to be doing any metal melting (welding) after coating it, and persuading the coating to simultaneously adhere to different materials (rivet and pan) is also usually better not attempted. I think it must be much more convenient (ie massively more productive, so cheaper) for the manufacturer to finish coating the pan before attaching the handle. However the market allows you to seek out products who's performance, appearance and price have been balanced (ie compromised) to appeal to your own ideas. Although, yes, the most popular compromises will tend to become the most available - that's the way markets work.