Blether

Ha ha, yeah, Costco. I've said before I'm not a regular customer but I drove a card-holding friend down there in the autumn. They were giving out samples of tinned salmon, served on crackers with mayo mixed in and without. Eating-wise, it was actually quite good - my friend and I were shopping independently, but when we were later together we passed the salmon again and he asked me for advice as we both tried some - "what do you think ? Should I buy this ?" he said. "Well, it's pretty good, but you know, it's *wild* salmon season right now and you get fresh-caught for less half the price of that, weight for weight", I told him. The promo rep nodded and smiled in agreement and set her head back down on her shoulders ...

I have the same natural aversion to these promotions that several posters have mentioned. But I've gotten over it completely. These days I very happily eat free food and feel absolutely no obligation to buy. I make friendly talk with the person who's doing the promotion and I'll show an honest response by word or gesture, of how good I think it is at the very least . "Delicious !" with a smile or "hmmm" or an "euh" face or something. If the spirit moves me I might make foodie observations about nuances of flavour/ingredients/prep/whatever, and I'll give brutally honest feedback if it's warranted, which I find myself doing mainly on prices. Since they have gone to the trouble to have a real, live person out front, engaging with me, the customer, and since I'm accepting free food from them, I feel I should give them the value they deserve in return. None of that means anything other than being happy/friendly/charming. I love free food. The people on the floor are only doing a job to get by like so many do. It's no responsibility of mine if the offer is an utter rip-off 4-dollar pack of two frozen slices of expanded-polythene bread topped with formulaic tomato smear and flavour-free plastic cheese. It's not as if I'm forced to eat it, or one mouthful is going to give me cancer of the finger. I'll scoff a piece, mention the price, laugh, meet their eye and say "there's what? About 25 cents worth of ingredients in there, isn't there ?", or in this instance, maybe "that cheese reminds me of... soft rubber" for a laugh. What really does get up my nose sometimes is written survey forms, whose value, used right, I understand but which I think are over-used by what I picture as officious, unimaginative, soulless paper-pushers. If it's an uber-expensive piece of artisan cheese, I'll scoff some and say "oh, that's excellent !". And then not buy any or offer any explanation whatsoever why I don't. And then have another piece. I've never bought anything after a sample from the lady who's regularly giving them out at one of the good supermarkets here, but having spent time chatting with her over the months is why I was able to score a whole two ounces of high-quality mimolette crumbs for nothing, recently. One thing I do remember buying from a sample is handmade iwashi ba-ga-, or sardine burgers, from Marusho. They were a bit expensive, but not prohibitive, and they were very tasty. I bought some of the bean burgers too and was less taken with them in full portion size, but it was great to be able to sample such unfamiliar foods that I wouldn't readily have taken a chance on buying based on simple display. You can ask the vendor how to prepare stuff, too, and what's more, even if it's more expensive than you'd regularly pick up, you can figure out by eating it how you might make your own. I guess that America being such a melting pot, the unfamiliar-ethnic-(to the shopper)-food is an element in in-store promos of what seem to the 'natives' very pedestrian products.

Exactly the same pot in both places ?

Ann - yes, absolutely. For myself, I got seriously into pre-salting maybe a year or two before joining eG, having read, as I've said in the forums before, Aidells & Kelly's Meat Cookbook. I didn't get much else out of the book, though it was 30 dollars or something, other perhaps than more clarity on the US names for cuts of meat, but the pre-salting advice alone was worth the whole amount and more. Coming on to eG, I asked a few times and it was clear it was accepted wisdom, amongst the veterans. (Not to diss the Meat Cookbook - I just found that with so many of the recipes being variations on spice rubs, and much of the meat knowledge aimed at the cook starting out in the subject field, I didn't feel I was learning much I didn't know already). Yes, any length of time to absorb is better than none, (and for their part fish of course take in salt very quickly indeed). I feel pre-salting is more sensitive than curing to being left too long, as the proportion of salt won't stop spoilage, but that only begins to come into things after 3 or more full days. Your chicken looks delicious, and RRO, those are beautiful makimono.

8 or 10:1 scotch-to-water isn't going to dilute the intensity much at all. Did you think about somewhere more like the other way round, say 5:1 water:whisky, as an experiment ? You might find you're able to approach it - or reach an armistice - if you start by keeping at at a longer arm's length. Back in November David Croll of whisk-e ran a whisky bar for us at the Tokyo St Andrew Society's St Andrew Ball, with a grand selection of single cask and vintage malts. There was a bar provided by the ANA Intercontionental on the other side of the room serving wine, beer & soft drinks and I'm an inveterate Luddite, so I made a number of round trips between the two, and my notes from the evening record in sequence my top 3 single-cask choices: 1 Glen Scotia 2 Craigellachie 3 Caol Isla - for mixing with coke, ice & a slice. Worth it just for the facial expressions and conversation - David & his Japanese barman played along in very good spirit.

Nice finish - crust, slash & dusting. Is that a special knife stroke ?

If by 'in at the deep end' you mean starting out with Scotch, you might be happier spending some time with Speysides. No point exploring the medicinal- and iodine- flavours if they're just now your thing - some folks love sour apples, some love sweet. My own natural inclinations are toward the smoother & mellower. How are you drinking it 'poured in the glass' ? Straight ? Room temp water 1:1 ? 3:1 ? 15:1 ? 1:15 ?

Breadmaker white toast, Skippy on the one hand, and on the other, some of the small batch of lemon curd I put down in the autumn thinking I'd use it to sauce pudding, before yuzu later fell into my lap: Lemon curd and East African coffee - what a combination !

And OK, here's a home-deep-fryer's confession. Basically I don't change or need to change the oil that I keep in the pot as I described above. Somewhere between the size of the pot / volume of oil (pretty much exclusively, in d-f'ing I do one or two portions, and the rig is that scale) and the frequency I do it, I find that if I replenish the volume of oil that's been spent on the food, it just keeps in good enough condition for my needs. In a cupboard at room temp, usually between 20C - 30C year-round with summer weekend bursts to 40C. I won't tell anyone that it's just as good as using a perfectly new batch of oil. I'll use a new batch if & when I'm ever cooking for company. But throwing out your deep oil at any sort of rate that makes it uneconomical ? You guys are nuts. (Background: my choice is peanut oil for which I pay JPY700 / maybe 8 bucks a litre).

Thanks, Katie. I'd now like to try it some time... when I'm in a different country. I surmise from that you've never shopped for tomatoes in Tokyo. On the exceedingly rare later-summer occasion I get a few pounds for as little as 6 bucks or so (and these are not an especially flavour-rich variety), I tend to make chutney, where the win is bigger (not available at all, retail).But "in the fridge" ? Is that then a proper preserving ketchup, or just a ketchup-esque fresh sauce ? Or is it just that you're not interested in off-fridge keeping, and simply leave out the sterilisation ? Seriously, I'd love if you'd point me at a recipe. My British-authored preserving bible includes ketchup, but it's an American thing, and it'd be cool to hear it from the source. Anyway what I have uses: 1-2tsp pickling spice 3/4 pint (1 US pint) white malt vinegar 4lb tomatoes 8oz onions 12oz cooking apple flesh 3/4 pint (3/4lb) caster sugar Salt/pepper/cayenne Have you ever made other-fruit ketchups like cranberry or blackberry ? Or mushroom ketchup ?

Well, you "cooked", "cooked" and "sauteed". You didn't mention at any point whether or not you stirred, so there's no evidence either way in the witness account. However, you already told us it wasn't a stir-fry, and you even said "certainly". You look like an honest fella, so we'll take you at your word. No. . . . I'll get my coat.

Weird. I like deep-fried things, now & again. But if I get lazy and cook two or, god forbid, three deep-fried meals in close succession I really don't want it any more. And until I fell under you guys' evil influence, I'd managed to avoid frying clams up in a bunch of butter and garlic every day without locking away my saute pan. Now, orange juice... juice squeezed from fresh oranges at a dollar and more per orange, locally ? When I can drink albeit-inferior Tropicana 'home-made style' for about 2 bucks a litre ? I love fresh OJ, but no, not worth it. Tomato ketchup - why would I go through all that effort to go up against Heinz ? (I've never tried, enlighten me if I'm making a mistake).

Thanks, andiesenji. I always appreciate your erudition, and that gives me a good framework to remember American gravy by (we'll get round to the Canadians and their Poutine later I did actually put a little balsamic in the gravy above, in case you didn't read about it before. With the combination of flour & cream, Ann's recipe reminded me of this dish from last year. You get a far greater variety of game across America, in general, than I'm used to - well, there was plenty of game in the Scottish countryside, even back in the 70's, of course. Here in Japan I've eaten bear in the deep mountains; I can imagine raccoon being similar. The bear was certainly fatty.

Thanks, Ann & Emily. It does sound 'right tasty'. Where I come from, we'd call that 'sausage in white sauce' or 'sausage in cream'. It's funny how the language has diverged, isn't it ? In the UK 'gravy', traditionally at least, is exclusively the brown, flour-thickened sauce made up from roasting pan drippings (or sauce made from instant powders that purport to give something similar). Talking of which, it's dinner for breakfast again. In fact it's exactly the same as the last dinner I posted in Dinner!, just as good if not better: I didn't forget to dress the sprouts with salt & butter this time. Roast pork 'n gravy, bacon-y mash: - fuzzy handheld photo shot on top of some scuzzy notes on my desk. I wasn't going to bother, which is why it's half-eaten already. Think I'll score a coffee before getting back to the coal-face.

I deep fry at home, at least monthly on average. No deep frying, no chips. The oil is perfectly hygienic for storage and re-use - I haven't space for an electric deep-fryer, but a dedicated pot works - it goes in a cupboard when it's cool. S'longs you cook out any water (not difficult, it mostly happens that way automatically, no thought required) it won't go rancid. Of course it won't stay good forever (integrity of the oil as opposed to rancidity), and some seafood products (taste) and meats (melted-out fat) will 'contaminate' it more than others. Battering/breading dampens both, and personally I don't deep fry much in the way of meat anyway. In Japan - the home of breadcrumbs and fritters, haha - they sell dedicated storage cans with a built in mesh strainer. My pot saves on pouring in & out, and I use a mesh-strainer ladle to lift out crumbs. Fish & chips. Kaki fry. Onion pakora (delicious and an absolute dawdle). Mmm.

Those all look great, Ann. Would you mind explaining to a poor uninitiated furriner what that sausage gravy is, that is to say, how you make it ?

My garlic naan rocks have always been fine, too. It's the naan bread that's the challenge...

Some time ago I concluded that the secret to good flavour in bread of all kinds (well, savoury loaves, rolls and pizza) is the long rise / development time. Long, undisturbed rising gives an open, coarse (big holes !) crumb. You can make the eventual crumb finer with one or more knock-downs during that time. Kneading the dough intensively at the beginning means you can achieve a high rise in a shorter time (than with the no-knead approach). In my experience the flavour of the bread is far better after long rising / development, and the good flavour can be achieved with both no-kneaded and kneaded approaches. Good flavour in bread is important to me - far more so than crumb texture, crust, appearance - and I spent some time experimenting to find out how to get it. I've noticed significant difference between different flours, even with the long-rise approach. Some flours are stellar, others disappoint.

Hi again. Mmm... how long did you bake in a pre-heated dutch oven / enamel pot ? I do a 100% wholewheat loaf of a bit over 2lbs, for ~40 minutes at 190C (375F ?) in a (greased / paper-lined) thin-walled, aluminium loaf tin, letting the loaf rise in the tin beforehand as I said. It's ready when I unmould it and rap lightly on the bottom with a knuckle and it sounds hollow. If it doesn't it goes back in the oven for 5 or 10 minutes. I could always drop the temperature by 10C / 20F if I think the extra time will brown the loaf too much, but for this loaf in my kitchen I'm well beyond that sort of experimentation. Bakers call the oven rise when the loaf is first exposed to baking heat "oven spring", and there's much discussion, if you care to listen to it, of how to replicate the initial burst of steam that is available in commercial ovens, in the domestic one. The "advanced search" function on eGullet (gear wheel icon beside the search box) is very useful, and I can tell you that the wealth of expert knowledge on bread-making (not mine, I'm no expert) already written down in eG even in 2007, is one of the things that attracted me to join. Nice loaves, Thampik.

Aye, and I'm on a standard American-sphere-of-influence 15ml Tbsp, so I could just measure out a 568ml Imperial oops, dirty word... British, well, old-fashioned pint and divide, but hell, 99% of the meat-salting jobs I do need a measurement between about 1/6tsp and about 1.5. Until I get my hands on a druggists's scale and get excited about a laboratory approach in the kitchen, I'll be happily eyeballing nameless fractions of teaspoons and describing them in text in rounded approximations. Anyway I cooked for years and years eyeballing salt entirely, and I want to keep my feel for it. I've made some commitment to measurement as a concession to predictability (& communicability) in certain applications. Thanks. Just as I started typing this, another shake rolled through. I'm getting fast on the draw with the TV remote, and guess what ? They're running victim-relief donation ads along with the impending-and-present e/q info. It's the perfect product placement ! I'm trying hard not to get any jumpier, but I get strangely more efficient at pastry snaffling with each passing day... (Seriously ? I'm happy to still have things like my home, food, water, and heat. Waste no worry on me).

There's a thread that's emerged here that I can really relate to - for me it's just not worth making, well, almost any Japanese cuisine because it's available everywhere I go (and I barely need go anywhere), done perfectly and often for less or little more than the ingredients will cost me at the market. For me, naan is in the 'eat out' category, but samosa is at least easy to make at better than restaurant quality, if somewhat time-consuming in the way that small pastrywork is. Hathor, I dunno if this is the topic for it, but I'd like to see some of your naan bread.

Sheepish - ha ! Yes. Some summer holidays in the 70's, us kids did the mile-and-a-half walk to the farm of a morning for the milk straight from the farm. I can't say I liked it on my cornflakes. To tell you the truth, I've been telling myself I have to learna bout those old glass preserving jars with the rubber seals and caged lids - what I suppose is the 'traditional' route to putting down pate for a period of months. "Is a pressure canner really needed ?" I ask myself in idle moments before heading out to one of the brasseries again. Terms of reference - pig liver is only available to me in packs of ~3lbs and upwards, frozen. For w ehile there was fresh but that seems to have gone again. Along with the reliable supplies of lamb at good prices ! Of course it's a question of compromise - what proportion of your overall consumption of pate de campagne / mayonnaise / choose-your-product do you make from scratch, and what proportion do you buy in ? I eat bread from the breadmaker, bread that I make by hand, and bought-in bread - both artisan and supermarket (and yes, I eat restaurant bread in restaurants). Mayonnaise, I will hand make for a special application, but for everyday lubrication in sandwiches I'm happy with the compromise of commercial. You read my mind, though - Charcuterie & FPC even has a proper place on the cookbook shelf, now that mother nature cleared it on to the floor and forced a re-organisation.

Hmm. "an oven so you can do limited reheating"... it's almost more Iron Delivery than Iron Chef. It could even be Iron Shopper if you had access to a good deli What seafood is best quality and most available to you this time of year ? How about "Avocado seafood terrine", like this for example ? Plenty of ways to create your own presentation. The idea of prosciutto as 'smoky' isn't really speaking to me, but prosciutto's a great ingredient, of course - I mean, serve some good prosciutto and unsalted butter, what more do you need ? - but it works with all kinds of other ingredients and carries the lead role with ease. You could give them "vietnamese summer rolls" (goi cuon) with prosciutto or serrano as the wrapper, kind of role-reversal ? The dipping sauce you come up with'd be key.

Hi, kayb. I always pre-salt meat, so that the salt-enhanced flavour permeates it. When I've brined pork belly for bacon (in an 80% brine), I've found the salt level gets where I want it in 3.5 days, then I give it more time to equalise throughout the meat. 60 hours is only 2.5 days, and the loin's a bit thicker than belly, but it gets most of the way there and I was ready to cook it, so I did so at that point. I salted the loin with 3/8tsp salt per pound, which is my standard for boneless meat, in a plastic bag. I just shook it over as evenly as I could from the measuring spoon, turning the meat as needed - if you imagine the meat as a tube shape, you want to coat the surface of the tube but not the ends (if you coat the ends, they will end up saltier than the middle). Then I sucked out the air and twisted the bag closed, and lay it in the fridge. I turned it over maybe three times, each 12 or 24 hours or so, when it was convenient. I can use a standard volume measurement for salt because I always cook with the same salt - it's not as fine as fine table salt, but isn't much coarser. It's certainly nothing like as big as fancy big-crystal salts like Maldon Sea Salt or what I understand 'Kosher Salt' to be like. I weighed a teaspoon of my salt some time ago and it seemed to be between 4 and 5g, on a scale that's labelled as accurate to within 2 Anyway, if you're starting out with pre-salting, the conventional wisdom is to start with 0.5% salt by weight for an average palate, and adjust from there.

(((((((Shel !))))))) (Instant folk wisdom #5: don't speak to strange men).