Blether

That's funny, in the past I've recommended Talisker as a gateway to the more powerful west coast malts, exactly because it has such peaty, peppery, smoky seaweed but without the medicinal quality of Laphroaig.

That bass looks clean to me, now that the question's been raised. My first reaction was just "looks delicious".

Well, I can't agree with you more that pasta shouldn't be over-sauced, or cooked gummy, or the sauce so watery that no pasta or method will redeem it. It does seem to me that lightly-sauced pasta is more likely to end up dry than heavily-sauced, though. For me, the sauce consistency - and matching it with the pasta and the way of combining them - is very important. I've been served meat sauce pasta that's quite dry and that affects my enjoyment of it - of course it may be perfect to someone else's taste. At the other end of the scale, whilst I enjoy a bowl of ramen when I'm hungry, that noodles-in-lots-of-thin-soup isn't a natural for me at all. Give me a sauce with some body, and enough liquid to keep the dish moist. Dunno if there's Bolognese in my near future. but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's results.

Nice That part of the instructions shows the reset button - a wee circuit breaker that pops out if you ever overload it. Press back in to re-enter the fray.

... and you've never had a nice pot of meat sauce that seemed just right, then mixed it with the pasta and found the combination dry, because there wasn't enough liquid left after the noodles got their share ?

But you don't have to finish the pasta in the water: and even at al dente, fresh absorbs more liquid than factory.

Did anyone else notice that Wikipedia is quite good on the subject of bolognese ? I expect too that a wetter/thinner sauce can be redeemed by a fresh pasta that will soak some of it up.

Negi are allium fistulosum. Scallions can be the same or one of a few other species, harvested smaller. Wakegi have a small shallot-like bulb. Negi don't form a bulb.

That's famous brand "Koshinokanbai", from Niigata: literally, "Winter plum of Koshi". Koshi is part of an old name for the Niigata region, "Koshi no kuni". From esake.com Kudos to you if you can work out what sake grade you have there. It should be fine to drink, health-wise. Like old beer, it might not taste its best. You can always cook with it.

Ha ha ! I've just ordered instacure #1 & #2 from Amazon and thought I'd try and find your (Bertolli) calculation post again, Dave (searching for <nitrate tang> got me back here). I was just thinking "that belongs in a spreadsheet" before I scrolled down and found your follow-up. Thanks for sharing. ETA: oh, the download's no longer available ?!

The trout looks & sounds really delicious.

So that's what an empanada is.

While we're at it, caul fat, the "thin layer covering the internal organs" (cf, for example, Wikipedia)... does this mean covering all the organs, like a bunch of organs in a sack, in other words the equivalent what's called the peritoneum, or does it surround individual organs ? Lots on the web about using it, but I don't see much detail about where it comes from.

Thanks, Nick, Dejah & Keith. The pastry worked out pretty much like the top crust on my mince pie here, though the ingredients and equipment were partly different. I had 600g meat, so made pastry with 600g of flour. In keeping with the pasty tradition, a heavier flour using 5 parts 11% gluten bread flour and 1 part cake flour, by weight. - set a plastic bag, edges turned back, in the mixing bowl on the digital scale and zero the scale - weigh the flour into the bag, remove bagged flour to fridge till cold (a couple of hours) (no room for that bowl in the fridge yesterday) - return cold flour to (not chilled ) bowl, add 2tsp salt, mix - now add fats. Zero the scale and add soft beef fat skimmed from chilled beef stock, about 75g. Toss to coat with flour. Add harder fat collected from beef bone roasting to total 150g, toss again. - add 150g butter in 1-2tsp pieces cut with a knife from the chilled block held over the bowl, toss again. - cut fats in, not with crossed knives this time but with the new pastry knife - (looks like this one, about JPY800 / 10 bucks special order at Tokyu Hands), till no fat pieces bigger than a pea. That knife really cuts down on the work. - mix ice cubes and tap water in a bowl, add ice water to dough, sprinkling, a few tbsp at a time, then a tbsp at a time, forking in at each turn till the dough will come together into one piece with light hands (don't squeeze it). - chill (at least an hour for a lump this size) in the same plastic bag - cut into equal-size pieces, roll each & form - use plenty of flour for rolling out. I think the softer beef fat is what was gumming up the rolling pin and board this time, so that it turned into plenty flour, plus. I just scraped the board and pin down with the palette knife in between. - beaten egg to seal and coat Otherwise, the base recipe I picked up is this one, but making 8 pieces rather than the 16 it would suggest, and baking longer and lower: (1) chuck, not rump and (2) crimped pastry edges in a 220C oven for 45 minutes ? I don't think so, and (3) the size difference, of course. Also using a few more tablespoons of the soft beef fat and some of the beef stock, to moisten and enrich the filling.

It does look good To me, a cobbler involves a rich, thick batter dropped over the fruit in spoonfuls (it's the milk - and the amount of it - in that recipe that crosses the line out of strict crumble territory). Something like the picture here.

That's almost a cobbler rather than a crumble.

Thanks JAZ, that's great. I have kept the marrow in the pool of hard fat that came out with it (most of the fat went in pastry today, per Dinner!). Softened and cheese-toasted just went on the to-try list.

It was a national holiday here. Cornish pasties, using yesterday's beef stock: - beef chuck, spuds, onion, swede, salt, pepper, some of the beef dripping from the stock as well as some of the stock itself. 50/50 butter & dripping for the shortcrust. I used 600g of beef (a pound and an ounce or two) and came out with eight of them, each about 8" on the long edge: baked for an hour, 190C raised to 210C for the last twenty minutes (so 200C next time).

Right, that's settled, then. 200C it is Actually the bones are just finishing roasting for stock. I scooped out the marrow after 20 minutes, but my heart wasn't really in it tonight - what i have is still very white & pink except for the outer 1/8" or so that browned to the colour I've come to expect marrow to cook to (from looking at pictures ?). I'm guessing that the little water I put in the roasting tray for the longer stock-bound roasting took the edge off the heat for that 20 minutes and that the marrow is well underdone. There's always a next time. Katie, I think Prawn nailed it - yes, the only bone piece of mine that gave up any marrow was the one bottom right in the photo.

Shrimp roe in noodles is totally exotic.

I stumbled on a source for beef bones, something I'd been looking out for for ages. - that's a 200g / about 7oz block of butter, supposed to show scale but carelessly cut off, ho hum, by the photographer. The biggest lump must be 4 or 4.5" thick on any dimension. I want to roast these, spread a couple slices of toast with the marrow hot from the oven, and dedicate the rest to making stock. Roasting temp, anyone ? I trawled past threads and found Fergus Henderson's approach for marrow. Of course I can pull some marrow out and put the bones back in for more roasting if that's better... but how hot and how long ?

Shrimp roe noodles ? Do tell.

If Sunday's the big day off, it's when all the heavy YouTubing and Facebooking and the like go down - that's the sort of peak time that brings down net speed in a whole area these days, I think. The blog's shaping up nicely even this early - your food looks great. Do you fold the flattened multigrain in thirds, first one side in and then the other, to get that effect ? Or something else ?

Heh heh. I know what you mean, but if the alternative is "sunny side up"... come on, you got morning sunshine running riot there.

Ha ha ! I tend to save these now, though I tossed plenty of them before. How does onion jam keep ? Xilimmns, that looks good, but in American English, don't you have to turn over-easy eggs ?