Blether

It'd go nicely with a torque-sensing CVT and a big dramatic brass engine telegraph. I looked at the prices of Blendtec's seriously for the first time last month (after an attempted chicken liver mousse turned over-wet because the only way I could get my blender through it was by adding more cream). 350 bucks ?! Do you feel yours has been worth what you paid for it ?

So they're weakening the flour back towards a pastry / cake flour... what %age of gluten is there in US AP ? On the one hand it shouldn't be too hard to work out what their final %age is; on the other, apart from flour variation it's hard to guess what might throw the quantities off so far. Even variation in egg volume isn't that great, is it ? I should mention too, that with the breadmaker, for bread/pizza dough & pasta both, I can add water while it's kneading and it incorporates nicely (if prone to wee splashes at first as the tachometer goes off the scale. Just joking, there's no rev counter on it really).

I liked the idea that the solution for a pasta dough that's too stiff is more flour Clearly I'm too late anyway, but you could put some more water into the pasta's resting bag, leave for a while to soak up, and knead some more: in short, add more water to rescue that dough. To answer your question, I use my breadmaker to knead pasta dough. (I don't own a food processor or mixer). Of course the preferred solution is to hydrate the dough to consistency by look & feel when you first make it up. I'm interested to know, what percentage gluten-content flour MC specifies in that recipe ?

They have boats in Kazakhstan ? Ripley's another short drive - thank-you, Sidney. (I don't know "Jamie's Italian" as an eatery at all - though of course his cooking - that I've seen in his books - is all River-Cafe-rooted Italian). Come to think of it, River Cafe's on the way when I go into London, isn't it ? How is it these days ? I've never been, but I was sad when I read that Rose Gray had shuffled off. I liked her food writing.

Isn't Jaume great ?

The Poachers Pocket looks like a great suggestion, and a dozen miles is nothing at all - the menu looks like something I'd like to try to eat my way right through. I will be dropping by Vero Cibo, too. Thanks, gofes.

A guy in the hardware store last night recommended tung oil (over a harder-wearing tung oil blend with urethanes in it that I was buying for furniture) for cutting boards / other foodsafe apps. I'm enjoying your blog, Chris: the chocolates most of all, so far, for me too. Good to be able to share your Eureka moment ETA: as I've posted before, I use edible mineral oil on my own cutting board, sourced from a cosmetics supply outlet online.

I'll be staying in or near Guildford in Surrey for two weeks in March. Where is good to eat ? My tastes run to food that's good to eat, served in a welcoming atmosphere. In what could almost be a former life, I lived and worked not far away. twenty years ago I liked Terrazza in Ashford; was it Golden India on the High St in West Drayton ? I'll be making a few nostalgia visits, but I'm in serious need of an update - good pub food ? Great local restaurants ? Work will have me in Guildford itself, but I'll have a car and I'll be grateful for any suggestions.

It's a while since I ate much in London, but this Japanese blog suggests Matsuri's as London's best sushi - in Holborn, it says, though the home page only points at a location off Jermyn Street. Pictures look good.

I made bao in the autumn with Saf Instant, mixed into the dry ingredients. I retarded the dough in the fridge overnight and left to rise for 3 hours after forming. I got the light, fluffy results I aimed for. My own experience with "standard" bread recipes with a 40-60 minute rise, knock down and the same again has been disappointing. It doesn't develop the bread flavour well. I typically enjoy plain white bread that I've given 5 hours or more rising at room temp before baking.

Now that looks special.

Excellent special-occasion tour de force to finish up (which I shouldn't mention but join in saying "encore" instead). Can I ask for a tour of the sunchoke plate, please ?

I once changed the clutch in a transverse-engine-front-wheel-drive car. That was pretty much an engine-out job, except you only used your crane to lift the engine up a few inches, not all the way out. I chose to do it overnight, between work one day and work the next, but it didn't seem to involve any baking. D'you think Haynes missed a bit ? Nice looking dinner. In between bench-pressing gearbox/bellhousing assemblies at 4am in lieu of possessing the correct jack cradle, I like gurnard for robust things like curry because it stands up to them in both flavour & texture. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Now I have a Jones going for kidneys. I feel like Hannibal Lecter. Seriously speaking, those do look good and it's been a long time since I had them devilled.

Yikes. Keep those Aberdonians and their strange confections awa' frae me ! Your animals sure look healthy. What kind of apples did you plant ?

I agree with everyone's advice, as far as practicality goes. Ask yourself where the two of you stand in budget terms - can you treat yourselves to a luxury once a month ? Once a year ? Less ? When was the last time ? I'm very happy with my pressure cooker. Stock that used to be 5-hr proposition is now a 1-hr one, so soup isn't any more a project that covers two days. I even like it enough that it'll have it's own space in the new kitchen cabinet I'm slowly cobbling together. In the meantime, when not in use it takes up a chunk of real estate on the dining table. A cutting board you can keep in just a thin slice of space. You already have cutting boards, but it's a great feeling to work with the odd piece that feels like a piece of art as well as a tool. Practicality makes for sound advice, but if we applied it unfailingly we'd never treat ourselves to a single luxury.

Those mussels are just perfectly done. And the rib eye and fish look delicious. Here, UK home-style shepherd's pie, by shredding some of the cold roast lamb shoulder in the cup blender. But first, a wee seafood tartare with raw squid, lightly-salted sujiko (immature salmon eggs) from sockeye salmon (benizake), a dab each of miso and wasabi, minced negi (green onion), shiso and fresh red chilli and lemon zest & juice. Before adding the lemon: and complete, topped with some uni and more shiso: And since it's summer (in a greenhouse somewhere in Kyushu) strawberries & cream to finish, with some of the strawberries crushed and folded into the stiffly-whipped cream:

Nice work. Lots of colour on the duck necks - are they spice-tossed or finished with a browning or something ? Great-looking cake from Mrs. S, too. Funnily enough back home in Scotland we had a home-baked tea-soaked-raisins fruit bread we called a "Dublin loaf".

All that rolling effort sounds to me like, not enough liquid for the amount of flour. It should be more difficult to roll than shortcrust, but not crazy elastic.

Kim, Aaarggggh. Fantastic ! How was the football result for you guys ? The lamb shoulder last week was follow-up to these previous posts - pictures and method. So it is actually roasted. Very slowly. All the shoulder's connective tissue turns the meat pervasively unctuous; the fat cap is a lush, golden savour-bomb parchment - "better than bacon" - and there's enough dripping to give plenty of well-flavoured gravy. 122yen per 100g, about 7 bucks a pound ? That's only 10-20% more than pork shoulder/belly/loin (though compared to lamb leg, of course there's more fat to pour off. Haven't yet figured out a use for much lamb fat).

My first hand-rolled ravioli were rustic, too. From the second time onwards, no problem - I'd gotten used to how much the pasta expands on cooking, and so knew how thin to roll it out. I too wonder what kind of difficulty you had. I rolled mine out by hand on my 14" x 18" chopping board. I could have gone even thinner than ideal. Use plenty of flour for rolling ? ETA: oh yeah, with only 14" x 18" to work with, judging the size of dough lump (small!) to pull off the mothership for each rolling was an important part of the learning process.

It sounds like mostly, it's just undercooked. You went to deep dish from a recipe for "normal" depth pie ? Six pounds of fruit in the same diameter suggests it's 50%, or half again deeper than the recipe. The first 15 minutes to set the pastry will work the same, but you'd need to extend the bake time at 375, covering with foil if the pastry starts to get too brown. I'd guess a total time of 1hr 10m - 1hr 20m. Another thought is, go back & bake a pie of the size & shape the recipe makes, then use the result to gauge the doneness later when you're going off-road.

A foodblog from you, Rob. Splendid. And a nice hit of nostalgia from that first pic.

Wow.

Nice to see you, Kim. And Franci, the roe on toast looks great to me, too. I pulled another lamb shoulder - the two of us were so busy it sat in the oven for an hour after the oven switched off by timer (last-minute accompaniments were therefore zapped spuds and zapped sprouts). I adjusted the salt to 0.4% w/w and paper-towelled the meat before putting it in the oven, and both meat and gravy came out really well. Ingredioents in this dinner are: lamb, potatoes, brussels sprouts, flour, water, salt