Gabriel Lewis

One of my favorite sandwiches, that I haven't eaten in a long time: 1) Start with good bread. Good bread, in my opinion, is crucial to a good sandwich. Here in montreal we have a wonderful chain bakery called Premiere Moisson that makes a lovely sandwich loaf. It is light and airy, has a crunchy crust, and packs some great yeasty flavor. 2) Assemble ingredients: good bread, good charcuterie ( I am partial to smoked turkey), mustard (preferably a smooth dijon), mayonaise, pickles, red onions, tomatoes, a few shreds of lettuce, swiss cheese, pepper, and a ripe avocado if you have one handy. 3) Slice everything thinly, and i do mean thin. I usually go with a few shavings of red onion, one half to a whole pickle, a few thin slices of tomato, maybe a quarter of an avocado, and quite a bit of swiss cheese (melt the cheese for bonus points). 4) Toast bread, not too crispy but definitely add some crunch. Spread mayo as desired with a little bit of mustard on both sides, grind black pepper as desired and then layer in the following order from the bottom up: meat, cheese, half lettuce, pickles, tomato, red onions, avocado, and the other half lettuce. Enjoy. oh, and sometimes i add a few thin slices of jalapeno or serrano too, if i want it hot

Wouldn't washing arborio also wash a lot of the starch that thickens risotto and gives it it's characteristic creamy texture? That aside, I am not sure why you are worrying about wet rice hitting the butter/oil. I am no expert on risotto, but am familiar with the basic principles and don't see what would be wrong with this. I do this all the time with Indian and some Mexican rice dishes where the rice has been soaked first. I simply wash the rice and then drain it in a sieve, patting the bottom lightly to get rid of excess water or combining this with letting it sit to drain, if I am not in a hurry. I don't see any real viable way of drying the rice after you wash it, short of spreading it on a sheet and letting it air dry or dry in a low temperature oven, but again you might have washed a way some of the starch that you want for risotto. Doesn't seem like you have too many options, hopefully you don't have a lot of this stuff.

Lindy, how do you usually roast your peppers, in the oven? I usually roast mine on the barbecue so never have any juices saved. I assume you peel the peppers before adding them? Maybe I will try roasting some in the oven ar using a tray on the barbecue.. About the dried chiles, do you bother to rehydrate them or do you just add them straight up? Ever have any problems with them not distributing in the sauce properly? Sometimes I like to try and leave a bit of texture when using a blender/food processor and don't like to overprocess. Also, do you toast your dried chiles? If not you might want to try it sometime, it "wakes" them up quite nicely. Just shake them back and forth on a cast iron pan over mediumish heat until they are quite pliable and have darkened somewhat, but be careful not to burn as they will turn violently bitter. Your sauces sound quite tasty, any combinations that you remember as having worked particularly well together?

Hey Kerry, I am planning on making your caramel soon and am very much looking forward to it. However, I would like to try making with some raw sugar I have, as well as perhaps piloncillo, palm sugar, and maybe even maple syrup if possible. All three of the sugars have considerably more moisture than regular white sugar. Would I have to adjust for the moisture content or any other factors if I were to switch the sugar? The raw sugar is similar to turbinado, but probably a little more moisture, the piloncillo and palm sugar are close to brown sugar. Would it even be possible to do it with maple syrup?

I arrived at the Jean Talon market today as it was beginning to wind down, shortly after four in the afternoon. It was somewhat cool today, but their were still quite a number of people or there, and the market appeared to be more or less in full swing. I did my usual circuit, cleaving to the perimeter and scanning those selections first. Chez Louis and Chez Nino appeared to have more or less their usual selection of regular and exotic fruits and vegetables. I have been buying tunas (fruit of the cactus) from them for a week or two now and enjoying experimenting with them. Nino has small key limes right now for 5$/lb, other than that nothing really struck me as particularly interesting. Finishing with the perimeter I proceeded to work my way into the center-area and begin scanning the rows one by one. Tomatoes, peppers of many different sorts, and eggplants are still available in bulk for good prices. Unfortunately Mr. Plante's stall is closed as he has run out of tomatoes for the season, there is a note on the stall indicating that he will be back in may of next year. It really seems quite difficult to find a decent tomato at the jtm, even when tomato season is in full swing. I bought a small basket of romas the other weekend, and while some are decent, most are really quite tasteless with an undesirable texture to boot. I purchased a basket of mixed heirlooms from a perimeter vendor today, and am hoping that some of them will be atleast decent. The relative abundance of chiles is an excellent development (atleast in my eyes). There seems to be about ten or so different types available, the ones of which I can remember are jalapeno, serrano, poblano, habanero, fresno, guero (or hungarian or banana), thai, cayenne, and a roundish hybrid called cherry bombs. Tomatillos are also readily available, and I would encourage you to buy them if you have any interest at all. They aren't terribly expensive (can be found quite cheap in fact), and make a wonderful simple salsa, and much much more if you care to learn a little about them or experiment with them. Both berries and corn continue to be readily available, as well as pickling and regular cukes, lots of beets, turnips, carrots of all different colours, and both fresh onions and fresh garlic (both hardneck and soft). Berries seem to be getting a little bit more expensive and scarce, I don't seem to remember seeing as many quebec signs today. All that comes to mind for now, gabe

So I tried Esperanza's recipe and just finished eating not but two minutes ago, it was quite tasty. I was a bit worried about the meat overcooking so I removed it for most of the steaming period and added it back towards the end. Not sure how it's supposed to turn out but mine ended up as strips of beef in a thick, rich, dark red sauce with lots of flavor. I ate it with some freshly made corn tortillas, salsa verde, hot sauce, and chopped cilantro. An excellent and simple meal.

By sources I mean anyone or anyplace that will sell me the lamb. I am interested in lamb that I would prepare myself for a number of different things. Francois, by the whole thing I assume you mean a whole lamb? While that would be nice, it's pretty much out of the question for me unless I were to share it with someone. I only have a tiny fridge-top freezer and as I live alone I'd never be able to finish it. I have been getting my pork at Porc Meilleur in the new section of the JTM. Mostly shoulders and some fat, but I have been very pleased with the results so far. Everything comes packaged sous-vide, and in my opinion is priced quite reasonably. I shop at slovenia from time to time, but am always interested in learning about new sources for quality meat (especially at reasonable prices for the quality).

I use so many of those in cooking that they go pretty quickly, but I often make simple sauces with them like these three. Making a chile paste from scratch (in a mortar and pestle), while being a lot of work, is incredibly satisfying and produces an excellent curry. I use atleast 20 thai chiles in a batch that will make one very large curry that serves 8-10 or more. Or you could make some nahm prik for steamed vegetables, or to go with a classic thai meal like in this recipe. I love those little peppers, they have such a pleasant glowing heat.

Would either of you (oceanfish or francois) be willing to elaborate on good sources for less expensive lamb?

Thanks for your responses everyone, I will be sure to try them. Jack - I would be very interested in seeing your file, you can use my e-mail gabriel.begin@gmail.com if that's alright. markemorse - Tamarind and Habanero? That sounds like a very interesting combination, even seems like it might work quite well though it's hard to imagine exactly how it'd come out. I'd be very interested to see the recipe if you manage to dig it up. I have been making a lot of salsa verde and other tomatillo salsas. The version I have been making is similar to other peoples versions except that I occasionally fry the salsa after blending and and some stock, this makes for a rich and flavorful salsa verde. Also, I usually add some chopped cilantro and onion a short while before I plan to eat the bulk of it ( I don't always prepare my salsas to eat right away). Interesting, I don't think I'd ever have considered roasting a mango. Do you roast them the same way one roasts a poblano or the like? And you mention that you simmer them in vinegar, it seems like you would need a lot of vinegar to simmer in, are you doing huge quantities? I agree on the use of overipe fruit, where the texture isn't necessarily as important, I usually let my tomatoes overipen for salsa or anything where I am going to cook them. Do any of you make salsas with dried chilies? I've found recently that I have to dilute many of my salsas too much in order to get the thin, smooth consistency I sometimes want. I am thinking of correcting this by holding back on the onions or any other thickeners. This doesn't seem to be as much as a problem with dried chiles though, as they are much more potent and can usually stand for more dilution. edit: spelling and grammar errors

Thanks for your response Sam, all your answers were very helpful. I had considered the thought that some foods are naturally high in glutamates while others or not, but I'm curious as to how many cooks actually take this into consideration. I'd be interested to see some actual numerical values of glutamates present certain foods and the amount of glutamate in say, a teaspoon of crystallized msg. Even if neither chicken breast or broccoli have high levels of glutamates, it wouldn't be at all out of place to add stock, oyster sauce, soy sauce, or any number of other things that are supposedly high in glutamates to that stirfry. I guess for myself I'd have to see some actual data to make a judgement. There are so many preserved/fermented etc flavorings in asian cooking in general that it seems strange that msg use is fairly prevalent in asian cooking. I tried looking through google results for some information on naturally present levels of glutamates but didn't find many results other than this website. I'd be interested to hear from any who does use msg in their cooking as to how they use it, i.e. what triggers a thought like "this needs some msg". The fact that msg is simply extracted for natural sources counts towards it in my book, but I'm still a little leary of it. I'm beginning to think that it all depends on how you use it, as there is a lot of difference between aiming for a subtle enhancement versus a substitute for something that should already be there (see Kinsey's mention of "less chicken" in an above post). Given that we use "essences" or highly concentrated forms of many other things found in plant and animal products, I have to wonder what is the major difference between these and msg that people object to. The use of gelatin doesn't seem all that different to me and I have yet to hear anyone demonize El Bulli. I do wonder about the importance of processing and storage techniques. I don't know the details, but the one method of synthesis from ammonia sounded a bit worrying to me. Salts are generally pretty sturdy molecules, but I think most people would agree that there is difference between vanilla extract synthesized from wood pulp and a vanilla bean.

If there is no chemical difference between msg present in unprocessed foods and pure msg does this mean that all naturally occuring glutamates break down into an anion of glutimate and cation x? Is it not possible glutamates taste different to different people? One thing I don't understand is that if there is no chemical difference between using pure msg and natural occuring glutamates and that if there are such already naturally occuring high concentrations of msg (particularly in asian food, where apparently its use in common) why does adding more make any difference. Is whatever flavor msg is supposed to provide somehow different from other flavors in that adding a small (many people have said that msg added is small as compared to msg naturally present) amount can make such a noticeable difference? Can anyone provide a more detailed description of how monsodium glutamate is produced? Are the topics of isolation or extraction, storage, and processing methods relevant considering the properties of msg? My i just noticed thats a lot of questions..

Great! Thanks a lot for sharing ruth. When prepared as an Agua are the tunas usually pureed with the sugar and water and the seeds strained? Or if not, how are they prepared? I am thinking of making a nice breakfast drink with them, also wanting to try the combination of orange juice and nopales which I hear is quite common.

Welcome Bruce, hope you like it here. I know I do. Flank steak does sound like it would work well, I will just have to find out what cut this is in french again. You seem knowledgeable on this particular dish, would you be willing to offer a bit more information? Perhaps common ways to prepare it or what ingredients it might include, or perhaps how you like to prepare it? I am cooking 100% mexican right now and very much enjoying it, but I feel my scope is a bit limited and always appreciate input. Ruth, I am planning on getting a Kennedy book, just haven't gotten around to it. I agree that overcooked meat is a terrible thing, but I might add it was never my intention to overcook it, simply a lack of skill and unfamiliarity with the dish. I might add though, that even if I did have a Kennedy book I would probably still post here. I really enjoy the dynamic aspect of discussion, and prefer to get my info from as many different sources as possible, so as to get a more complete picture.

I've been buying a lot of chiles as of late, and I tend to buy them in bulk as they are much cheaper that way. I have been dealing with my excess chiles by making all different assorts of hot sauce and salsa. Mostly i've been using the techniques and principles covered in the eCGI course and have been having great fun with it. Hot sauces made thus far include: Roasted serrano with onion Roasted serrano with onion and lime Roasted, then fried cherry-bomb with garlic green habanero with garlic the eCGI chile de arbol hot sauce things i'm planning on trying are: ripe habanero with mango green chile hot sauce (will include serrano, jalapeno, and poblano) Does anyone else make their own hot sauce? Have any ingredients or techniques you enjoy using? Looking to expand the range of my sauces but am a bit stumped at the moment..

I'll be in the same boat as you chris, well, that is if lard rendered a week or two ago counts as freshly rendered. I am planning on doing tamales de maiz tierno and tamales de puerco (green corn and pork tamales). The filling for my corn tamales includes corn, milk, butter, roasted chilies, and cheese (which I will probably have to subsitute for as I have no idea where to get mexican cheeses in montreal). Tamales de Puerco use carnitas (in my case, a la Jaymes), hominy, and spanish olives. I'd like to try mole tamales, but have neither the time nor the resources for mole atm. Shooting to make them this weekend, going to try using up all my corn husks and freeze the excess. Next time I might try them with banana leaves.

I've never before encountered any problems with "old rice" but it seems to me that it must vary by type of rice. I know that both basmati and jasmine rice are often intentionally aged, and most discerning consumers of these types of rice prefer aged rice of this type. I only read the first page and a half of the thread you linked, but it didn't seem like there was a very detailed description of what was wrong with old rice, are you sure you are facing the same problem? Although if you are, it'd be my guess that there is nothing to be done. I tried doing some searching to see if arborio is aged or not but didn't have any luck.

Brilliant! I just love the fact that you made your own tandoor. It is my dream to one day too construct a tandoor of my own, hopefully soon I will have the resources to build it and the space to store it. I had a discussion the other day with a friend of mine on tandoors, and he theorized that the reason they are able to cook things so quickly is that the clay creates infrared (radiating) heat that penetrates the meat (due to its short wavelength) rather than bouncing off the surface. This allows the tandoor cook to bypass the poor thermal conductivity of meat. A whole chicken in 20 minutes indeeed! I had read that it took half an hour. Would you be willing to go into more detail about your naan recipe? I have tried a number of recipes myself, though never in a tandoor. I wouldn't suggest the use of chapati flour, in fact I would suspect that the flour itself is not really that important. I have tried recipes that use milk, yogurt, and eggs among other things but usually the flour is unvaried - simply plain unbleached allpurpose or bread. I will have to go back and look over them and see if I can suggest a good one to you.

Esperanza, Thanks a lot for replying and including a recipe, I wil be sure to try it soon and report back. As to the recipe I tried, I'm not sure that it actually uses whole steaks, it may have just been a mistinterpretation on my part or poorly written on the author's part. The book I got it from has been quite good in my experience, and the author indicates he was given the recipe by a mexican friend. So, even if you have never seen it with potatoes I don't feel that rules it out as inauthentic. At any rate I just wanted an opinion, you gave me yours, and I appreciate it. Additionally, I was aware that ranchero meant "ranch-style" but was under the impression that this was a classic dish of sorts, rather than just "ranch style steak". Is this incorrect? gabe

Super piece dave, really enjoyed it. It really reminded me of the magic that is food and cooking.

Ok so I rendered my lard today and it turned out quite well using Fifi's marvelous recipe. I got about a cup and half of baking lard, two cups of savoury lard, two tablespoons of asiento, and 2 cups of cracklings from 2.5 pounds of pig fat. I'm sort of wondering how much asiento therre is supposed to be as there is really not much after I poured off both the baking and savoury lard. Plannng on making some refried beans tommorow but the tamales will probably have to wait until the weekened after next (maybe this weekend though!).

Ok so the other night I tired making Bistec Ranchero for the first time and while it turned out pretty well I have a number of questions on my mind. The recipe I had called for the following (in the order given) to be layered in a heavy, cold skillet and slow cooked over medium heat (lid on). 2 T corn oil Thinly sliced white onions minced garlic thinly sliced potatoes thinly sliced tomatoes and finely chopped cilantro breakfast steaks (coated in a mixture of salt and pepper) Additionally I subsituted a more tender cut of beef for the breakfast steaks (described as round steaks thinly sliced) as I have been having trouble finding round steaks from a decent butcher in montreal. After the heat had built up some everything started releasing a whole lot of liquid and at the heat I have it reached a pretty vigorous simmer. The meat seemed to cook on top via steam but quickly became overcooked before the potatoes were tender and before the dish seemed ready (there was still quite a bit of liquid in the pan and it still tasted somewhat bland). I proceeded to take the meat off and cook the rest of it till the potatoes were tender and until quite a bit of the liquid had cooked off, aside from the meat it was quite tasty... Should I have perhaps had the heat lower and cooked it longer? I suspect the heat was too high and the more tender meat cooked too quickly. I was curious about the use of breakfast steaks because I do not know how they are normally cut, but the author suggested serving with corn tortillas and it seems a bit akward to be eating whole steaks with corn tortillas... Does this sound like a good/normal way to cook Bistec Ranchero?

Your very welcome! I have struggled with many cooking tasks like this before and know how much of a difference a little help can make. In fact, I find it very satisfying to know that someone finds my knowledge helpful. I'm still on the fence on whether or not to grease. If I grease heavily the tortilla will move freely almost immediately after I place it on the comal, meaning that I lose (what some people consider) an indication of when to flip. On the other hand if I don't grease sometimes things seem to go fine, but other times they stick terribly and almost invariably the tortilla is ruined. However, I think it is really dependent on what kind of pan you are using, how well seasoned it is etc. I am thinking that I will spend a whole day or soon just making tortilla after tortilla. This way I hope gain a good understanding of the different variables involved such that I can tweak them to perfection. And of course I too will report back with whatever I may learn.

Snowangel: You can dry your own husks for use in tamales, although I don't know if there is any difference between the sweet corn husks we get here in the states and canada and the corn from mexico (I imagine there isn't). The thread about corn husks chris provided a link to in his opening post has some information about drying your own husks.

Ooh I'm excited! I've been planning to make tamales for a while now and now I get to share the process. I can relate to your frustration chris - I had little luck talking the guy at the tortilla factory near my house into selling me some of their masa. Yes I understand you sell maseca, but I want to buy some of your house masa (guess i need to learn spanish). I am going to try again but will probably just end up using maseca. Interestingly enough I was planning on starting with green corn tamales and after that maybe tamales de puerco..