FoodMan

I stack the bellies I cure all the time (I just smoked two pieces of very thick Red Wattle bellies that were stacked) but like was mentioned before, you need to keep an eye on them and cure them evenly. What I do is stack them always with a layer of the cure in between and, after "stacking" a few bellies I found that stacking them with both skin sides touching is best. I also flip them over every day. About halfway during the cure, I open the bag and redistribute the cure even more evenly, and maybe rotate the peices.

If you want to a try something a bit different, Paula Wolfert published my recipe for a Lebanese soup called m'tabla in her latest book. With her permission I also posted it on my blog here. Since you wanted to mill your own flour, I am guessing you are a baker. Try boiling a handful of wheat berries till soft and add them to whole wheat bread doughs (about 170gr per loaf). I do that with several breads following Peter Reinhart's tips and recipes. Actually I have a "soaker" at home now to make his whole wheat Struan bread that includes wheat berries and pearl barley.

I realize you have to be a bit nice here Chris, but I will have to disagree. Stick's comments are not a legitimate criticism. They are "bashing", that's all. He (or could be she I guess) essentially is calling everyone who chooses to buy the book a moron and likens that to buying a ficticious bridge in FL. He calls such purchases "frivolous". He also says that the price of the book is "inflated" even though he has no clue, NO CLUE at all about the actual cost and expense that went into creating it (none of us really do). He also ascertains that the contents are all available online which is bullshit to say the least. Then he hides behind the 'well it is my opinion' catch-all phrase. I have seen people critisize books like Fat Duck and French Laundry for being "coffee table" books after buying them and while I completely disagree, I understand their critcism and they are in a sense "correct". It is one thing to say "It's not worth it for me to spend $600 on a bunch of books" and a total different thing to attempt to bash a scientific piece of work without actually assessing the contents. Hell, things could change between now and March and I might decide that I need to spend my $$ on something else at this time, but I would not go around calling people idiots for choosing to buy it. It's the same syndrome that afflicts those people who think I am nuts for spending $200 per person once or twice a year on a nice fine dining meal since for that much cash I can eat for a month at McD. This really will get you no respect or agreement.

If you have any duck confit on hand, give the quinoa salad with confit, escarole and currants a try. It's simple and so damn delicious. It even tastes great a day or two later. In this version in the pic I threw in some roasted butternut squash I had in the fridge as well.

I got the "Complete Robuchon" when it first came out, but for some reason sadly I never managed to actually delve into it and cook anything. I need to make duck confit in the next week or two, maybe I'll remedy my neglect of the book by starting with that recipe.

How much was that bridge in FL for and where does it go? It might be worth it to some.

Very nice. With shipping to me in the US from Amazon.ca it cost less than $400 US. I should get it around March 17th. Best deal so far, but will keep my eye on Amazon.com as well just in case so I can get free shipping.

Very well said and I could not agree more. I am still gobsmacked by how lovely and "different" the recipes and plating style is than other high-end books (like Alinea, Fat Duck, French Laundry...). I am NOT saying it is better, just that it is unique to the chef's sensibilities, style and ingredients just like each one of those books is. This one, to me, is a bit more foreign is all. The internet is your friend when trying to translate some of these ingredients (how does ingredient "A" taste like? What do I have that compares? Can I omit it? WTF is malt flour??). I think oone of the first recipes/techniques I might try will involve a vegetable dish and some "soil". That being said, the design of the book seperating the recipe list from the pictures and recipes themselves is odd, serves no purpose and is very annoying. At least the recipes should've remained associated with their respective pictures.

I'd argue that it is in fact the most professional behavior possible. She didn't throw a tantrum. She didn't even decide she didn't care and just make awful food. She looked at the situation and said "This sucks much worse than I thought it was going to. Not only is it destroying something I loved doing, but I just watched another contestant completely lose it to the point they had to call an ambulance. I don't want that to be me, this is not what I thought it would be, I'm outta here." As a pastry chef, if your client asks you to do something you think is dumb, I think you are well within your rights to tell the client to find another pastry chef. You don't have to compromise your craft just because you agreed to work with them back when it wasn't clear exactly what it was they wanted. I understand the cultural resistance we all have to "quitting," but sometimes cutting your losses is the right call. You could interpret it like that I guess, but I think you are giving her way too much credit. Maybe the ones to blame are the show's producers in this case, for selecting two "duds" who melted down in the same episode. Like I said, TC Just Desserts reminded more and more of Hell's Kitchen than Top Chef.

No it's not. If that's the worst ice cream you've ever tasted, you didn't live on the poor side of town. Breyers is pretty good store-bought ice cream. I normally buy the French Vanilla to keep in the freezer even though I regularly have 2 or 3 home made ice cream flavors at any time. As far as this show goes, that last episode was by far the worst in the history of Top Chef franchise. It was simply rediculous even though Morgan made a decent looking dessert. Really? Seth wanted his paper cups? Reminded me of my six year old when he kept saying "this is not fair...". Monica just quit because she does not like it? Sure, she "can" do that but it is unprofessional. I stopped watching Hell's Kitchen because of crap like that a long time ago. I need to remember to remove it from my DVR schedule.

I am more or less at this point and I have not finished tonight's episode yet. I could not care less about any of these people, the desserts so far have been boring to say the least and way too much drama. I might just drop their Sundae-making party and watch 30Rock again...

That's a 9X2 ring.

Same here. The Keller quiche to me is perfect and a thing of beauty. It is certainly not too much filling for crust because the crust is fairly thick, rolled a bit less than a 1/4 inch thick. If anyone tries it and complains of a lack of crust, I'd be surprised. In my opinion (and I think Julia Child's if I am not mistaken) anything less than 1.5 inches thick is more suited to a sweet tart than a proper quiche. [

unfortunately nothing in the river area will fit your bill, since Le Reve closed. If you do not mind a short cab ride, go to Silo. We had a very good if not spectacular meal there a couple weeks ago.

Well, by now the original poster must've made his decision, but it is worth replying to clarify a couple fo things. What he neglected to mention in the original post is that this recipe in Under Preassure is for a CORNED beef tongue that is layered in between bread slices and cooked sort of like French toast. It is Keller's refined take on a deli corned tongue sandwich. He was not just making a cooked beef tongue dish or a stew. Whether his dish is perfect or not is besides the point, but he does make it his point to refine his dishes over and over again. Of course perfection is subjective, but Keller's recipes never failed me and he is who he is because of his obsessive seeking of 'perfection'. I guess I am still on the bandwagon... For what it's worth: - Leaving the meat to cure or pickle, preferably with the curing salt for the suggested period is a good idea. That is not to say that budrichard's shorter (by a week) time frame is going to result in a bad result, but I would try Keller's pickling method first if I am following his recipe. - Curing salt will help preserve the meat and give the attractive pink color. Leaving it out and curing it in the fridge is ok as well, provided that you do not also reduce the amount of salt in the brine. The final color will be greyish as oppposed to rosy pink if the curing salt is left out. - Adding the curing salt halfway through the process will do no harm, and will probably help. Hope you can give us an update of how it turned out for you YK81 at some point.

I just recently cooked and wrote about a sous vide pork shoulder I did here. I found out that arount 70C for about 20-22 hours worked great for my purpose and it is similar to what you are looking for. It sliced great and crisped nicely but was also tender and unctuous.

I'm six minutes in on DVR and am riveted. Listening to Eric Ripert defend -- defend! -- Le Bernadin is fascinating. Whatever the problems of this show, I continually am excited at the prospect of watching a new one. I certainly agree. NR is sort of the equivelant of an art house or Indy movie for me. You never really know how an episode is going to turn out, and it might occasionally blow, but more often than not it is miles more interesting than the next run-of-the-mill formulaic travel show next door. I thought they really hit it out of the park with Rome, Madrid, Lebanon and Paris this season. No wonder he says that he will keep doing it as long as they will let him. I mean he's been to Spain three or four times already and each episode is fantastic.

I wish I could take all the credit for the charred strawberries with game idea. I actually got it from the Alinea Mosaic forum here. In the Alinea dish they serve them as a component in a squab dish. If you want to know more about my venison dish, I blogged about it here.

Argh...Sorry about that and I have not even started drinking yet. My response was definitly about Bolurdain, but somehow since Chris' response was right after David's comment, I thought they both are talking about the same person. I actually totally forgot about Buzz even being on the show. Guess he really did not add anything.

That looks like a lot firmer bind than I had, and even if I had left out the liquid, there was no way that pork was going to gel like that. Next time, I'll try it with skin-on pork and see what happens. Having said that, this is a great addition to my growing SV repertoire and a terrific way to prepare carnitas. I think it is definitly lacking some more gelatin. Your idea of keeping the skin on next time is a good one. Also it looks like the shreds are too big. Try smaller shreds of pork. I hope to try this soon as well. The only similar meat I cooked and sliced dlike that was a shoulder of deer. It worked very well, so I guess deer shoulder had more than enough gelating on it's own.

So he could make a comment that included a reference to TANG. He's one of the most recognizable and entertaining food personalities on tv. Why should he not be there? He actually was very fair and provided legitimate criticism of this good but not great group of cooks. So he gave Ripert a ribbing? So what? They are old buddies and that's what he does best. I do agree with almost every one here that this season's contestants are very much lacking. Food is good I guess but mostly uninspiring. P.S. Sorry for the repost, but I did not "quote" the first time I posted this and did not notice it unitl the "edit" window was closed.

He's one of the most recognizable and entertaining food personalities on tv. Why should he not be there? He actually was very fair and provided legitimate criticism of this good but not great group of cooks. So he gave Ripert a ribbing? So what? They are old buddies and that's what he does best. I do agree with almost every one here that this season's contestants are very much lacking. Food is good I guess but mostly uninspiring.

It's going to depend on the thickness of the steaks. I would suggest you review Douglas Baldwin's or Nathan's tables for the cooking times that will get your steaks center up to the desired temperature. After that an hour or two is probably fine and will not result in a mushy steak. I've never left any tender steak more than an hour after it's "done" per the cooking tables though, I just never needed to.

I was mostly responding to a previous poster here. I am sure I've seen it somewhere though.

There is no caveat there, no "except in this or that case." Simple, literal "an excellent substitute." Not even an "adequate" substitute! "Excellent"! And of course it works sometimes: a beurre blanc is actually quite good with vermouth. But to simply state that you can make the substitution at any time is crazy. I will have to disagree with you Chris with my own caveat. White vermouth is indeed a very goood substitute for white wine, IF we know what vermouth to use. "cheap" vermouth is almost indistinguishale from white wine in 99% of cooked applications. So I usually have a bottle of Vya for drinks that I would not imagine putting in a risotto because you will taste it, and another much less expensive bottle of some vermouth that works perfectly fine if I want a 1/2 cup here or there without opening a bottle of white wine that I might not feel like drinking at the time. So I would have to say that vermouth is really an excellent substitute. I also almost always substitute butter for oil in quick breads (few exceptionjs include those amde with good olive oil) and never use shortening. I am with Tri2Cook here, I'll do away with a little tenderness for more flavor and no oily film in m y mouth that I always get with muffins made from oil. Now, Worcestershire sauce for soy? Disgusting and stupid and really makes no sense. And there is no substitute for fish sauce.