Magictofu

Then, could we improve on the technique proposed by Tim Hayward by first cook the sausage at a relatively low temperature in oil (as with most sous-vide techniques) and then increase the temperature of the oil to crisp and brown the casing all around? Would it change anything? I think its hard to mess things up when cooking a good sausage and different techniques can all provide good results.

Fruits. I always have some on the counter. No need to cook and some, like bananas, can be very filling... add yogurt and granola if you are very hungry.

Your husband have great taste!

I would add that the worst frozen scallops cannot be seared properly at all.

I bet its safe, not sure it still taste as good as it should. The mapple products producers in Quebec use to keep a lot of syrup in their warehouse, sometimes for years, to keep the price high on the market. I have heard that the market have been so good in recent years that their inventory is very small now. Regarding Chris comment's, most can these days have a protective layer on the inside.

Tim Hayward recently wrote an interesting article in the Guardian on lamb home butchering. It includes a nice step by step pictorial of the whole dissection.

In terms of taste and overall quality, I can't argue with what has been said so far. However, given that almost all modern recipes call for a barely cooked center (with a number of raw or pickled recipe in this lot) and that most people eat wet frozen scallops, I would assume that they are relatively safe to eat raw... I certainly ate my share of these scallops on the raw side and although I was not always satisfied of the culinary results, I never suffered from any food borne disease.

And how did the kids react? What about the parents? I find this very interesting considering the reaction I tend to get around here when talking about similar issues.

People do hang some wild birds. We call this "faisander" in French (you should recognize the word "pheasant" in the word). Not all birds benefit from this I am told. HFW has a chapter on game birds which address this issue in his Meat book.

In essence you are pulling the trigger whenever you consume farm raised meat. Someone is killing the beef steer, chicken, hog...It might as well be you harvesting an animal that has spent its life running around wild rather than an animal that has spent its life relatively confined. ← Totally agree with that... this is partly why I would like to learn to hunt... but then I have to admit that the act of killing is not what would attract me the most to this activity. I think that I can live with the contradiction of the pleasure of eating meat and my dislike of killing.

Homemade cream of celery soup is delicious, unlike the canned version.

Even then I believe the risk of salmonela remains non-negligeable.

The only techniques I saw in books on th issue were: 1. Electric shock with specialized equipment + bleeding 2. Bullet in the head + bleeding I believe a simple bleeding can cause avoidable pain to the animal.

Thanks for this great report. Food looks very good.

You should jump on the occasion. I would love to learn how to hunt but my girlfriend thinks I would not be able to push the trigger.

I'm thinking stir fry and noodles.

Now that I think of it, you can get a sandwich locally called "guedille" in Quebec' chip wagons that is often offered covered with french fries. Typically, it is a hot dog bun with either an egg, lobster, shrimp or chicken salad (heavy in mayo) and you get the option of adding fries on top. I believe Martin Picard has a version of this at his Montreal restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon.

and here is an example of a Japanese potato sandwich While they are far from my favorite I do indulge occasionally. The potato pancake and muffin does sound good though. ← Kris, thanks for that image. . . it looks so white, processed and refined. Is it fair to call it junk food? What if it was made with a chewy loaf of wild yeast rounds (cooked and toasted on a wood stove) and heirloom tubers smothered with artisanal aioli? Could they become a favourite? ← Ah! but Japanese junk food is the best... their corner store sandwich are soooo good and lets not talk about ramen, sushi and ready made bento boxes. Never tried potato sandwich though... but if it is full of kewpie mayonnaise I'm sure its both delicious and bad for you.

There are more than a few videos of the procedure on youtube, this one is short but you can also click on icons in the related videos for more choices.

Although I never did butcher a whole animal, I find that Mettler's Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game is a very instructive book: http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Butchering-Liv...26547571&sr=8-1 Pictures and a short report would be very appreciated.

I assume Tim H and Chris H are talking about natural casings. In my fledgling sausage stuffing career I've used collagen casings all three times. I'd like to know the pros and cons of oil poaching with synthetic skins. My unsubstantiated hunch is that they hold water like latex but get real shiny and leaky with lipids. ← I would assume that they would melt when in contact with heat anyway... no?

I made a similar mistake tonight. My steaks were slightly thicker than an inch but not by much. Ended up with a medium-well-done steak with way too much "gray". I wonder if the usual sear/oven method help achieve more consistent results with different kinds of steak.

I find the various way people cook sausage very interesting. I always cooked my sausage at low heat in a pan for a relatively long time. It's probably time to experiment.

I thought this would catch the interest of some of you after reading the interesting debate on the best way to cook a steak. Tim Hayward wrote a piece on the best way to cook a sausgage on his Guardian blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wor.../nov/11/sausage Comments?

I love to gnaw on the bone and love the taste of the fat strips but then I also try to avoid it for health reasons. But to get back to the main point, I also wonder how this method would work for tenderloin. I always felt tenderloin were so lean that cooking in the oven was a must.