Blether

It's worth reading up (it's possible online) about the science behind commercial canning, and "T" times, if I remember the terminology right. It helps to give the kind of understanding of probabilities & risk that NASA abandoned in the period before its 7-up disaster. (I mean, a blind statement of "100% safety" may be an effective PR tool, but to actually enforce the same attitude as a practical approach on the engineering side ?!) There are different strains of C. Botulinum, with different low-temperature-resistance, but what I took away from a day or two's down-time research was that pretty much anything that starts out fresh will be safe for 2-3 weeks in the fridge. Please make your own judgment. The bacteria and the toxin are both destroyed at temperatures below 212F - it's the spores that are the danger. You can avoid ever being in a plane crash by never flying: and jeez, you wouldn't want to have to look at pictures of plane crash victims. That said, naskar, for room temperature and/or longer-term storage, 5 minutes at 220F is marginal at best, and at 250F only borderline.

Over like a flight of ass-less ducks.

You shoot a good picture As for rice cups - aren't they all the standard 1-go ('ichi-gou') size, i.e. 180ml ? A pain to measure against a scale each time, but it shouldn't be all that hard to find a suitable tea or coffee cup, or make / cut something.

... and the rings are squid, and the round, flat breaded things are... scallop slices ?

Since we're speculatin', Speculation 1: if it's folded, you won't mistake it for shortcrust when you're running on auto-pilot (hmm, not so credible) Speculation 2: if it's folded, it's less likely to end up broken before it reaches the customer's home (much more likely)

That was my thought - I've never seen puff pastry sold folded, but back in the UK in the 70's there was "Jus-rol" brand - it was sold frozen in a 1/2" thick slab that was maybe 9 x 4, and you rolled it out to the thickness you wanted.

PM'd and apologies to your delicate sensibilities in advance! ... Now you're in trouble, 'cos everyone wants a copy.

There are plenty of Grigson fans around, me included: Muddy mullet Franken-fry's and Gentleman's Pate

That's actually a 17.mumble% brine, the British pint being 20oz. In her preface to the chapter, under "Salting Time" she says - and goes on to provide specific recipes for meats salted in the manner you describe, hansjoakim, all of them involving boiling in plenty of liquid, and discards of the same when it's too salty. (Personally, I can see that 12 hours would get the right amount of salt into a joint, but only about 1/4" - 3/8" of the way in. I'd want to give it additional time in the fridge to equalise / penetrate to the centre; or as I do in practice, use a weaker brine for longer, with a short final equalisation time. It's also possible of course to plan a brine concentration that will result in the desired salt concentration throughout the finished meat and the final brine, as someone described (in connection with bacon curing) before on eG - so that you put the meat in and never have to worry about it ending up too salty).

Beautiful from start to finish.

Yikes ! I'm moving to Oz. "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-oh". Beautiful trout, and you 'll get neither uni nor awabi (abalone) for as little in Tokyo. "Bugs"... what are they ? Are the trout wild ? What I get locally is all Norwegian, farmed.

That looks like your oven under the hob - is the other one at knee-height your microwave ? It all looks spick & span.

Tobacco-infused booze is certainly an interesting idea, at, as you say, the one-cig-per drink level or thereabouts. I suspect nicotine's a lot safer taken this way than smoked, in the same way that hash brownies are healthfood beside a fat doobie. If you were looking purely for the hit, would the nicotine in commercial OTC nicotine tablets go quietly into tincture ? You'd have explicit dosage control. I can certainly understand the appeal of something that has the sweet, aromatic character of tobacco... I'm sure you've thought that other tobacco strains might lack the bitterness ? Try some good commercial rolling tobacco (again, nicotine content is tested for you) ? If the bitter aromatic comes through both with alcohol and fat, then it's likely to be hard to separate simply when extracting with organic solvents, even exotic things like butane - might there be a pleasant extraction to be made with water or mild acid, say ? You know nicotine processing better than I do (i.e. not at all) - how is it with other solvents ?

I'll take your experience at face value, Nick - maybe it's so long since the few times I ever used the commercial stuff at home that I'm missing something. I do know that if I go out and buy CBP bread for it, rather than whatever random mix of white & wholewheat home-baked I have on hand, I can't tell the difference (I have plenty recent experience, eating out, with panko-fried-stuff). For my taste, I don't think the CBP crumb is superior to properly-risen crumb. There is a difference in the resulting coating, but both can give great crispness.

That's interesting. Do you think they're better than fresh-or-slightly-stale bread, crumbed at home ? Because I don't find that at all, and the commercial panko are quite a bit more expensive than grinding up bread ends and leftovers.

I suppose it bears repeating, that "Japanese panko" are simply breadcrumbs. Yes, they make a super-crisp coating, but they're not magic.

Mmm, Branston Pickle.

Great stuff, Kim. I love it. BTW hot dogs in a tin = just the sausages, of course. The Germans do the same in jars ? Leastwise, the jarred ones I've seen have been German.

The shari, or rice ball. It has to be good rice of the right kind; it needs cooked right; the balance of sweet, salt & sour is crucial; and it must be formed so as to remain somewhat loose, not packed and hard.

Yes, 7-11. And you're mostly right about "actual food", but I do admire their veggie stick salad, with miso, and the frozen prawn "pilaf" at 100yen works well now and again. We don't get hot dogs here, but "might be chicken" appears in several forms.

For all you mutton lovers - 7-11 is currently doing a "beef stew doria" that tastes good, but turns out to feature lumps of meat that are unmistakably mutton.

Great picture ! And intriguing format

Or crank up the heat ?

Catherine, I assumed that you've been washing them before use (jesus - you have, haven't you ?). For myself, I'm generally more wary, for instance, of the solvent traces that must be left on stuff like cling wrap - now and again, sure, but do I want to have that stuff in contact with my food daily ? (No). Amateur that I am, I'm fascinated (no fascinated was when Jamie Lee Curtis got her jugs out in Trading Places) interested in foodsafe issues like this. I wish these Gerber diapers were readily available here - in kitchen shops in Japan, you ask for muslin, or "cloth you could use for draining yoghurt or cheese" and they just look at you in conternation.

I don't see myself going about souring heavy cream, but with off-the-shelf sour cream, that sounds like something I'd like to try.