pstock

well, I had to just guess. wound up using about 2 cups of sugar for 5 pints of strawberries (assuming pints are those 4" square containers.) it tasted darn good going into the jars. we'll see what they taste like coming out. Peter

HELP! I am in the middle of preserving a few pints of strawberries. and I am perlexed as to why all the recipes call for adding SOOOO much sugar. I mean, the berries are agreeable (if a bit tart) when noshed raw/fresh. what happens to that sweetness when they are preserved. I fear that many recipes are holdovers from an olden day when the more white sugar one could add the better. Can anyone suggest an alternative and what a reasonable low sugar amount should be? many thanks Peter

years ago, before the Mad Cow scare, at a bistro in Paris, I had a delicious dish which was basically veal spinal marrow with a parsley-garlic sauce. (It looked like and had a texture like gnocchi.) I've been trying to remember the french term for this (now probably banned) dish. IT was something like "amonette", "aumonette", ..... can anyone help me here? Peter

ooops, having read the carnitas info, i'm going that route. I'll report on the results. Peter

excellent input, thank you. It is not pork belly--that was a couple of slots over in the meat counter. I will look up those preparations unfamiliar to me (char sui, carnitas??) for another time. I had forgotten about the brining option. No time for that for this go round I am afraid. I am going to just try a straight roast and see what happens. Peter

Hmmm, looks like I cannot post a photo, which, still being worth a thousand words, would have made this easier... [ ahh, I learned that you can post a photo: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=mo...md=si&img=84408 ] I picked up a beautiful looking piece of pork yesterday at a local Chinese supermarket (they move a LOT of pork there.) but I have no clue how best to prepare it. Let me try to describe it. It looks basically like the outer layer of a fresh ham. Each piece (I got two) measures about 12inches in length, 2 inches thick and about 2 inches wide. There is a half inch layer of fat and then the skin. It's about the size of a piece of pork belly (each piece is 2-2.5 lbs) but with only a single thick layer of fat; the mean is otherwise quite lean. Normally I would score and salt the skin and roast it to get a nice crackling crust. But I am afraid that with so little meat, it would dry out before the fat was rendered and the skin crispy. Has anyone seen this cut before or does anyone have any suggestions as to how to handle it? Peter