Blether

Oh. Unable to edit to add: 1.5 hours coming up to room temp before roasting.

I roasted a couple of small chickens this morning, mostly with the aim of making pie. Half of one of them made lunch. This is when I turned them during roasting: and this is them done: I need to use a little bit shallower pan to get the browning all the way down the sides. Other than that, not much room for improvement. I ate the half with just a spoonful of roasting juices - the breast's juicy & tender, the skin's crispy all over and the red meat's cooked just right, leaving the bones clean. - salted inside & out, 1tsp (~5g) salt per 2.25lb bird, bagged in the fridge for 48 hrs, & dried for another 48 hrs in the fridge, uncovered on the roasting rack in the roasting pan - turned every 12 hours throughout (or, once after dinner and once after getting up in the morning) - roasted at 200C breast down for 40 minutes. A few tablespoons of water added to the pan first, to keep the drippings from ending up burnt - turned and roasted 20 minutes - turning up to 210C at first, watching & going to 220C for the last 5 minutes Green beans to follow, then coffee.

As for books, there are also good resources online. I'm sad to find Edwin Leong's Camera Hobby isn't around any more, but Philip Greenspun, founder of photo.net, has some good articles here and photo.net's learning section is here.

A late breakfast might as well be a good breakfast:

Spike a good cava with a bit of good blended scotch and you'll feel flush enough.

If you say "flapjack" in the UK - maybe in commonwealth countries - you mean the same sweet caramelly oat bars that jmacnaughton's talking about. They're pretty good - you can bake to anywhere between crunchy like Nature's Valley bars, to soft and chewy.

Yikes ! I want some.

Yeah, it's the first time I've looked at that blog. I didn't see any buttons to get to the top page, but editing the URL, it looks like consistently good reading.

Roast half. Make rillettes with the other half, and with the other half, rillons.

That looks great ! (as does everything on the page so far). Cashew nut as in, all cashew nut ?

Oh that kind of sexy This isn't a positive suggestion, but I'd be wary of "rocher". I may be out of touch but AFAIK the only thing people will generally associate the word with is the Ferrero kind. Unless you plan for your brand to be that big, you risk looking like a wannabe. That, and as far as quality of the actual product goes, FR aren't any better than Toblerone. Aren't you using some particularly special chocolate - from a single locale or a cachet source ? You could have "Carenero Pecans" for example. This covers the not-nut items, too.. What with nut allergies, you'll need to be clear somewhere about what the nuts are, right ?

Shel, you could have been a bit more specific in your original question, which also wondered if you might leave alcohol out altogether - and didn't explain your unfamiliarity with alcohol. Then there are flavour substitutes, physico-mechanical substitutes and social substitutes. No-one's here to tell your lady how to run her parties, but rum & orange are so good together you could save the bother of baking, mix the rum with orange juice and all get a buzz on instead. But then you maybe don't have orange juice, either. What's the other Rum ? I'd choose a dark one over Bacardi for this cake, or a golden rum and a teaspoon of cocoa to give it more depth. If it were me, before I did that I would leave out the alcohol and use one of the other anise flavours listed above, and make up the volume of liquid with water (75% of the specified alcohol volume) - or use the anise flavour again and use vodka for the liquid. I don't think the alcohol amount that the recipe quantities give, means that the alcohol makes a significant contribution to the structure (physico-mechanical properties) of the cake.

Chocojones, haha ! How about "Chef's salty chocolate balls" ?

Truer-to-the-original subs would be Ricard / Pernod / Sambuca / Rak. Anise-flavoured booze. That said, if you think "an alcoholic drink" is fine, the only other main flavour is orange - orange & rum works. Orange & orange (Triple Sec) is a no-brainer, but you now have a plain old orange cake, not Marcella's Ancona orange cake (which is an orange & anise cake). Can you get anise flavour in another way ? Star anise, say, or fennel seeds ground up or anise oil ? ETA: you got there first, Dave.

It's nice to have time to make something for lunch, even if it's microwave-reheating cheese sauce made last night, to stir into pasta and finish under the grill. A very cheesy sauce with half mature cheddar and half fresh parmesan. More parmesan for a topping: And tomato salad:

Thanks, Franci. I really admire your cooking. aaaaaannnnnnndd... once more with feeling. I did sear those onions, honest. And the Chilean Chardonnay I chose blind from the shelves turned out to be on the sharp side, so I tossed in a good handful of raisins (not having sultanas in stock). Spuds hastily zapped and bashed in their jackets: Good to see you still rocking the kitchen talent, Patrick.

I did some chuck roll in white wine. In the excitement I forgot to add the button onions at the end - I'll do that tomorrow. I added some puree of sun-dried tomatoes to the onions: I'm pleased with how well-seasoned my saute pan is now. It never sees soap - just a wipe out with my fingers under a hot tap. Dijon mustard and a sneaky Oxo cube: Three hours in a fairly slow oven, and in the words of Bryan Adams, "It cuts like a spoon"

I use 3M green-scrubber-yellow-sponge dish sponges and despite always being sure to have the next one or two ready under the sinkm I use them till several chunks have fallen off and they're getting thin and not holding enough soap any more. The in-use sponge sits on it's own suction-cup drainer rack and dries out daily or every couple of days. That's it for the hygiene routine.

The sous vide guys on eG have gone in to in exact detail, but if I remember right, yolk cooks from about 62C, and white from a temperature close to that - anyway, both temperatures in the 60's centigrade. Here's my first result from Google. 60C is far too hot for hands. Any hot water you can hold your hand in for 5 seconds, won't cook your eggs.

Well, as you are already doing, of course you can adapt as you like, so as to get close to that Egyptian original, or according to your mood. Given that you're using water as it is, I expect you'll find a simple fish stock alone will make quite a difference. Generally if I'm doing one I'll think about black pepper, bay, white wine. Maybe some zest from those lemons ? Of course you can go the extra mile and add onion/celery/carrot. Typically the fishmonger will charge you for the filleting, and you might find you can get the whole fish for less than the two sides. But if your seafood options are limited, maybe you can get clam juice ?

Hi, Smithy. Are you able to get your hands on whole fish ? Have you tried using the carcass for a quick stock (30 mins), reduced as appropriate and used to thin the sauce ?

I'm buying you some whisky, rotuts, to turn you into a Malteser.

Andie, do you ever do cultured butter ? If one decides to culture the cream first, what can be used as the "starter" in the absence of a previous batch ? Is plain yoghurt good, or does it have to be the buttermilk that I saw specified elsewhere ?

I'm not making a lot infusions with it, but generally wash citrus with soapy water and the rough side of the dish sponge, the same way I do dishes. Did you already discount that approach, Kent ?

Relative to the cost of living, the butter here is expensive. I looked into it a few years ago - actually read up the customs department's tariff tables - and the levy on butter is over 50%, if I remember right. I dream of ghee(nie).