Jinmyo

CathyL, about 6 to 1 or less. Easy to add a bit more salt, hard to take it out. I usually use just kosher sea salt. Sometimes something like Brittany black salt or Hawaiin red just for the visual and textural effect with certain dishes.

Nina, I see. Whooshing is great, isn't it? CathyL, gomasio is splendid. I eat spoonfuls of it while it's still hot.

Throw it out. Throw them both out.

Ha. I had just posted about shrimp chips in the crackers thread. (Not the abalic bio, real crackers.) I've used smashed shrimp chips with egg to make crab cakes. Works quite well.

Miss J, ricotta and sambal is great! I've done in a salad of shaved peppers and onion. edit: Nina, fatoosh is a panzanella, right? What did you do with it in terms of the gazpacho? Just together with?

Conchiglie pasta salad with Sicilian black olives, congo peas, and fava beans with shavings of parmigiano; slaw of savoy cabbage and wilted white onion; microgreen salad with roasted mushroom vinaigrette; plum tomato halves filled with ricotta cheese; tomato water with cucumber confetti. It's hot hot hot.

I've tried Keller's method of butter poaching. Amazing texture and flavour.

Oh, so cuuuute!

Throw the stuff out, retaining: peeler, ricer, perhaps the grater. If there's a mandoline in there, keep it. If not, buy one. Thermometers are for candy makers.

paradise, you mean just a stock? even just gently simmering in water will do. Bring to a gentle boil and keep it there, about one hour. Or you could use a court boullion (white wine, mire poix). You can enhance with garlic or tarragon. But the simpler the stock is, the more options you have later. Skim, skim, skim. Then ladle the stock gently through a chinois.

Nina, I am. I used to be very very afraid. But now I'm just very afraid.

cabrales, at least I'm not as afraid of you now.

I think that wiping the face or back of the neck with oshibori is a bit much.

I agree entirely. I suppose it's just regarded as not part of the culinary culture of the west.

Sure, anything kept under a blanket too long will smell stale. But I find that the "creaminess" of the rice starch with butter or sometimes even olive oil is often exquisite just as it is. But then I'm one of those people who like dipping vegetables into different olive oils and tasting. And also one who simply adores rice in all of its forms, especially good gohan. So sometimes cream just seems deadening instead of lifting. I like to monte (lift or mount) with lipids that seem lucent in that context.

By the way, Steve. The "creaminess" of risotto is of course really emulsified starch. Quite a different thing from cream. Cream is nice in a risotto. Very nice. But I like risotto without it as well.

Adam's right. It's pretty atrocious stuff, really.

Yes. A Yorky recipe is: 1 part plain flour,. pinch of salt, one whole egg, 2 parts milk. The sausages should be pork.

There is a peppery flavour to porcini that I find is dulled by cream. Unless we're speaking of so little cream it was not really worth getting it out of the refrigerator. I truly truly love that peppery flavour. Robert, that's very kind.

Porcini risotto is splendid. But a nice mix of morels, chanterelles, oyster, and black trumpets with cream is a wonderful wonderful thing as well.

I've tried cream but find that I usually just monte au beurre (what is that in Italian? "Manchetta"?) and add fresh parmigiano and stir like a dervish to emulsify. Cream is particularly nice in an asparagus risotto though. Or for mushrooms other than porcini. Robert, a report on Roxanne's would be fascinating. Please PM me if you do post one so I don't miss it.

Steve seems to be hanging around with the wrong crowd lately. Veggie burgers and vegan risotto. Anyway. Carnaroli rice, use beer or wine or the soaking liquor from porcini, lots of EVOO. No problem. You just have to stir harder. I also always have several kinds of vegetabke stocks on hand.

Gah. Vegetarian cuisine can be wonderful. I've done vegetarian as well as omnivore menus for over thirty years. But a vegetarian "burger" or "loaf" is at best inoffensive. The setting the stuff is placed in disables it from being interesting and well-nuanced in its own right. They cannot be good because they invite comparisons that should not need to be made. Best to just use a grilled portobello or forget the "burger" and just do the "fixings". Fritters can be great though. Again, if not put forward as what they are not (like "fried chicken").

I just love it when Jim talks olive oil.

Liza, very gently and briefly steam. Of course, of course.