Jinmyo

When I looked in a few days ago one of the cooks was trying to rouse a customer who was sprawled over on the counter. Drama.

"Skun"? And Happy Birthday.

When adding the cognac or brandy, be careful about the flames following the stream up into the bottle. Hold the bottle by the neck, pour a few jots instead of a stream, or cut off the stream by snapping the bottle back sharply.

Thanks RPerlow. So "some degree of bubbling", or a gentle simmer is my preference.

RPerlow, okay. A gentle simmer then. The main thing is not to bring up and mix the impurities. Even if one is using a raft, steady bubbling will result in about a dozen more strainings to get a crystalline stock. Let us please be gentle.

Oh well.

I use paper towels to: pat dry meat and fish before cooking or marinating; to line a double mesh strainer for stocks before they meet the chinois and coffee filter. I clean as I go, absorbent cotton waffle wash cloths, bar mops, hot hot hot water, bleach for this, dish soap for that. Stocks should be crystalline, kitchen surfaces should at least be without blemish. When I use prepared cleaning products they tend to be "President's Choice" tm products from Loblaw's.

Sorry, I missed the question about Cafe Henri Burger, which is in Hull. I haven't eaten there in a decade so I don't know how it is now. Then, the service was good but drew attention to itself. I remember that the sauce for the main course was cold but tasty. That's about all.

I haven't eaten at Kinki's but a friend has. She said it was much worse than Takara and it's easy to guess what packaged dashi Takara uses.

I don't know. Some restaurants even use a saké machine that dispenses heated saké, usually Gekeikan. On the other hand, there is an American company called Momokawa that is making some nice junmai. So I would just ask for junmai.

Since the chicken is cooked through poaching, I don't think marinating afterwards would be useful. You could of course marinate in buttermilk first and then poach.

Koji is made with koji spores, used to innoculate rice, wheat, barley or soybeans to make a basis from which fermented foods and beverages, such as miso, pickles, shoyu (soy sauce), mirin or saké can be made. It takes 48 hours to make koji and it's quite involved. It can be purchased ready-made in some areas, but I was interested in the process of growing it, so I ordered koji spores and made my own (one of my journeys into food chemistry). I'm not seriously suggesting you try making this. It is labour-intensive. But I decided to write it up as a node for the ages because people have made koji for centuries. This "recipe" will make enough koji to ferment ten gallons of saké. You will need the following items to begin making your own koji: Koji spores (one supplier mentioned below) Japanese short-grain white rice Distilled or spring water A small insulated picnic cooler Two hot water bottles An accurate thermometer. I used a dairy thermometer because they're large, won't get lost in the rice and are easy to read.They also float, so they're good for making saké. A spray bottle filled with ethyl alcohol for sterilizing dishes and utensils - very important. Koji will not incubate properly if it is contaminated. Rinse well after sterilizing equipment. Two eight or ten inch glass baking dishes. A plastic container with a lid large enough to hold the baking dishes. Supplier: Koji spores can be ordered from G.E.M. Cultures, 30301 Sherwood Road, Fort Bragg, CA 95437 U.S.A. (707) 964-2922. I ordered a 40 gram package of miso koji starter to make saké. A little koji spore goes a long way and it can be tricky to measure. The innoculant ratio is one gram of spore innoculant to eleven pounds of koji substrate. But if you mix the koji spores with rice flour to increase the volume, it's much easier to measure. The innoculant ratio is one gram of spore-flour innoculant to one pound of koji substrate. To prepare koji spores for use: Lightly toast two and a half cups of rice flour in a skillet to sterilize it. Cool to room temperature and pour it into a very clean, dry, wide-mouth jar. Tap the koji spore package to move contents to one end. Cut the edge of the package open. With your nose and mouth covered (I used a scarf) pour the koji spores into the jar very slowly, very carefully. Koji spores are very fine and definitely should not be inhaled, so any time you are handling the powder, you should cover your nose and mouth with cloth. Otherwise, you'll be growing mushrooms in your lungs. They are a deep vivid green and pour like smoke. Once the powder is mixed with rice, you won't need to worry about inhaling the spores. Cap the jar and rotate it until the contents are completely mixed and uniform in colour. Label the jar with the date and the type of spores it contains. Measure out the amount of spore mixture needed and replace the cap. Please store the unused portion of the spore mixture in a cool, dry, dark place, such as a refrigerator or air-cooled pantry away from heat sources. Stored in this manner it will maintain full potency for six months or more. *Note: If you do not own an accurate scale, measuring cups and measuring spoons will suffice. Purchase or grind some slightly course white rice flour which will not pack down and therefore will make measuring more consistent. To make koji starter (the first twenty-four hours): Wash six cups of a good quality short-grain Japanese white rice, removing as much of the surface starch as is possible. The starch will cause the rice to lump and this is not conducive to growing koji. Soak the rice in twelve cups of distilled or spring water (must be chlorine-free) for six hours. Steam the rice for fifty minutes. You can use the soaking water and just add more water to the pot. While the rice is steaming, sterilize the picnic cooler and the hot water bottles and then, using a thermometer, fill the picnic cooler with water to warm it. The water will need to be 35 degrees centigrade. Just before the rice has finished cooking, fill the hot water bottles with 35 degree centigrade water. Spread a small clean towel on the work surface. Lay a square of unbleached cotton on top of that, large enough to hold the rice. Empty the rice onto the unbleached cotton square, spreading it to an inch in thickness. Check the temperature of the rice. It needs to cool to about 45 degrees centigrade. Cover your nose and mouth with a scarf and sprinkle one teaspoon of the koji/rice flour mixture over the rice. Mix it into the rice well. Spread the rice to a thickness of one inch again. Sprinkle a second teaspoon of the koji/rice flour mixure over it and mix well. Mound the rice in the centre of the cloth to form a ball. Place the thermometer in the ball of rice, top extending so that you will be able to withdraw it to take readings. Wrap the cloth around the ball and then wrap the towel around that. Empty and dry the picnic cooler. Put one of the filled hot water bottles on the bottom of the picnic cooler and then place the wrapped rice ball on top of it. Put the second hot water bottle on top of, or partially covering, the wrapped ball and close the cooler. You now have a baby koji and you can't leave it unattended. You will need to check its temperature with the thermometer every three hours for the next twenty-four and replace the water in the hot water bottles with 35 degree C. water when the temperature drops. The margin is 25 to 40 degrees centigrade. A caution concerning overheating, also - koji produces its own heat, particularly in the last eight hours. The second twenty-four hours: When you unwrap the ball, it will have a sweet, sporey smell. Quite wonderful, actually. The grains should be more or less covered with white powder and flake apart. If this is not the case, you will need to repeat the above, taking care to sterilize utensils etc., as contamination is probably the reason it did not incubate. For the next phase, you will need to: Sterilize two (eight to ten inch) square or rectangular glass dishes baking dishes. Divide the ball of rice evenly in two and spread it in an even layer in each dish. Cut furrows one inch deep and two inches apart. This is done because the spores will be producing their own heat and the furrows prevent the rice from becoming too warm. Cover the bottom of the plastic container with an inch of water. Place the trays in the container, put the lid on it and then cover it with a towel. Check it every four hours for the next twenty-four to make sure that the temperature doesn't go above 45 degrees centigrade. The margin is now a little wider (25 to 40 degrees is best). If it goes too high or too low, you can regulate it by placing it in another location in your home that is warmer or cooler, or by putting a warmer or cooler hot water bottle underneath the dish inside the container. After twenty-four hours, have a look. The rice should be covered with a white fuzzy mould, not just on top but throughout, pushing the grains apart. It will look rather like white velvet. You can now use it to make saké, miso, shoyu, pickles, or whatever you wish. It can be refrigerated for about two weeks.

Junmai Brewed only with rice, water, koji, and yeast. Regarded as the height of the brewer's craft. Taste: Full body and may be slightly acidic. Ginjo Saké made with rice polished to the extent that 40% of each grain has been ground away. Taste: Smooth, fragrant, and complex. Daiginjo Saké made with rice ground to at least 50% of its original size. Taste: Even lighter and more fragrant that Ginjo. Honjozo Saké to which brewer's alcohol has been added. Generally lighter than Junmai and can sometimes be very nice at room temperature or warmed. However, brewer's alcohol can also be used to hide cheap saké and mask the impurities associated with a low quality manufacturing process. Taste: I'd rather not comment. Nigori Often called "antique" or cloudy saké, Nigori is saké that has been roughly filtred so that some of the rice and koji rice in the fermenting tank make it into the bottle. Prior to modern filtering technology, all sakés were Nigori. Home made. Taste: Very sweet and often served as dessert sake. These bottles need to be shaken to blend the rice lees that have settled to the bottom. Taruzake A saké that is aged in a cypress barrel. The wood imparts a spicy flavor that is similar to the familiar wooden box, the masu. Taste: The taste is not unpleasant but can hide the true flavour.

I think I've come upon the perfect fried chicken. I first gently poach chicken thighs and drum sticks in buttermilk with mire-poix and few crushed ancho chiles. When the meat starts to seperate from the bone, I remove the chicken, pat it dry and chill it. When I'm ready to fry I heat some Crisco in two deep skillets. Dredge in flour, pass through egg, roll in a panko breading with a bit of corn meal and various spices, salt and pepper. As the chicken is fully cooked (and much of the fat rendered out) all I have to do is achieve the perfect crust. Which is no problem since I don't have to worry about anything else. The meat is tender, moist, flavourful. So what do you do?

I'm glad that you had a nice time. What did you have? Do you know the chef's name?

Heh. Pringles? I gotcher Pringles right here, bahbee. I've used them to stand in for tuiles with creme fraiche and salmon roe. Folk loved 'em. Bwa-ha-haaa.

Simmering is not boiling. You might bring to a boil and then bring it down. Or just bring it to a bare boil (roiling bubbles) and then turn it down to a point where small bubbles ocassionally and lazily surface. That is a simmer. Boiling mixes all of the impurities oine strains out throughout the stock, making much more work and flattening out the stock. I like Alton Brown's show. But shortcuts usually short circuit the energy of any dish. Hypothetically, I can see using a pressure cooker. But if I needed to short cut that way, I'd just buy a prepared stock or use a base.

I always simmer pork ribs for an hour in plain water (which when skimmed and strained makes a great stock) before marinating the ribs in sauce (mushroom shoyu, oyster sauce, tomato paste, garlic, mustard, chiles, salt and pepper) and roasting them covered in foil for 40 minutes at 400 F.

By the way, ron johnson, I thought I would mention that I didn't think you might find my remark sarcastic, merely humorous. Or at least that the sarcasm might be directed towards you. I only meant that there are no standards for restaurant reviewers that I know of at all. And hoped that Fat Guy might jump in and contribute something to the thread. So, if I have given offense, /me seppuku.

Oh, right. Pies. I'd forgotten: Mowbray pies. Chicken pies. Steak and kidney pies. Pies. (I have some of each in my freezer now.)

Um...Uh... Hideous frozen pepperoni calzone things. I flip 'em half-way through to make sure the crust is crispy on both sides. Brush with butter, a few cranks of black pepper. Sometimes some ancho powder. Slice in half, let it cool a bit.

Yes, it is near Giverny. I went there as a child. And I remember relatives saying they were taking some Swiss visitors there. The city of Les Andley is overseen by a ruined castle on a hill, Chateau Gaier, built by Richard Lionheart. Quite picturesque. Hm. I know a bit about sake. Perhaps I should post a bit.

Gah. I haven't been there in decades and haven't discussed this with my tante and oncle. I'll see them in the summer. In the meantime, the area is around Les Andleys and Corny.

Nor mine nor anyone elses. I just like both. Oh well.

The vegetable turner (the Green Machine) is great! It comes in two models: horizontal and vertical. You can make potato noodles and then deep fry them for spectacular frites. Carrot and daikon noodles for a salad. Oh. Oh. I almost forgot: Celeriac noodles with mayonaisse and citrus, salt and black pepper! Delicious.