FoodMan

Glad to hear that. There something bugging me though. Why aren't we worried about contamination of the fermenting beer? I mean the cheese cloth allows air in. Isn't that why brewers use airlocks for the fermentation vessel?

A little OT, but I have to disagree with him! American beef is one of the best in the world!

Good God, this is rediculous! How anyone can approve this new law based on arguments like this one is beyond me.

Where's Ling when you need her? Any other Montreal residents out there? I would love to know! u.e. ← Au Pied De Cochon is the place in Montreal featured most recently in Bourdain's No Reservation. Looked like heaven to me... I really have to contain myself not to break every egullet user agreement concerning political or inflamatory speach right now Hypocricy at it's best!

I agree, and I never use it, but I do not think it deserves all the bar rap that it gets. BTW, the Observer article is not the Steingarten article I am talking about, even though it does reference it.

I loved the Sicily show! Just goes to show you that it is not just your prejudice, likes and dislikes that come to play when the show is aired. Ours too. I love everything Italian and am particualry fond of Sicily and it's Arab influences. So, maybe things did go wrong there, but I watched this show when it ran and when it re-ran and it is one of my favorites...close second is probably Montreal although China was fantastic too...

exactly. but i've had go-rounds with thomas about it and he insists the ring mold is the only way to go. silly, but i'm just too damned tight to go out and buy a ring mold that looks just like a springform ring. ← That is too funny, then again we are talking about the man who insists his fish are paked and shipped "the way the swim"

Ron, these are awsome perfect looking sausages! I have to go to lunch right now... Molinari, I love that cotechino. I have to make some for this year's holiday season.

i hate to disagree with the august mr. ruhlman, and i know that this is the bouchon party line, but i have made it repeatedly with a springform pan without leakage--once i overcame my urge to over-roll (difficult because the pastry is such a joy to work with). ← Russ, how high are the sides for the pan? 2 inches? If so, then this is more or less a fancier ring mold like the one in the recipe. There is no reason that I can think of why it would not work.

I was not too crazy about this episode either. I expected more of the reindeer section. It felt like it was too low on food and high on everything else, including ABBA.

My favorite quiche ever. It it a little tricky especially using the straight sided ring mold (instead of say a deep dish pie pan), but after making it several times I can go from start to finish including baking in about two hours. My best advice is WEIGH the flour, do not go by volume and make sure your butter is chilled. See more comments early on in the thread from me and Russ and others along with some pictures. My wife and I also think it is a little too creamy, we like it more curdy. So, I altered the filling custrad slightly, by adding an extra egg and instead of 2C cream and 2C Whole milk, I use 3 C milk and 3/4C cream. This results in a texture that is more to our liking. Give it a try and see.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Steingarten's article titled soemthing along the lines of "Why doesn't everyone in china have a Headache?". It is published in his second essay book, "It must've been something I ate" and it is amusing and very thorough. In it he discussed how every restaurant kitchen in China that he visited had a big tub of MSG as part of their mise en place. That includes neighborhood joints as well as fancy fine places. He even asked several Chinese people after they had their lunch if they have any headaches. None did, so not EVERYONE suffers from the so called CRS He also went on to explain that Glutamates (the supposed BAD part in MSG) are in all savory good stuff we like including tomatoes (why we love fries and ketchup) and a lot in cheese (who doesn't love cheese). So it is not Chinese food that has it or that is causing all the problem. See Jason's note above and he is right, processed and fast food (KFC anyone) use lots of MSG as well. They just do not have the bad rap that Chinese restaurants do, my guess is because they have better PR groups. That brings me back to the dreaded CRS. Steingarten's conclusion was that CRS is related to BAD Chinese food served a couple of decades ago, especially the BAd soup they try to serve you as a first course and call it wonton soup. That was nothing more than salty broth chuck full of MSG. Americans had a couple of bowls of that and then moved on to the rest of the meal. By the end of their dinner, they were sleepy, with a headache and blamed it on Chinese food. Today, with so much more and far better ethnic restaurants available, including Chinese, CRS is nothing but a myth. I know I've never gotten a headache after eating Chinese food. My belief, some people are sensitive to glutamates. period. Especially those, like my wife who get migrains. In that case it is not "Chinese food" but anything that has glutamates that can cause a problem. This includes red wine, cheese, red fine beef, chocolate.....My wife still eats all of those (who wants to live without chocolate anyways) and she rarely gets a migrain, but if she feels one might be coming after a stressful work day, she tries to avoid pizza for dinner.

I did not use goat milk ricotta, I made my ricotta with whole cow's milk. I would think the goat one will have more of a pungent goat-cheese taste.

That is so true Something in the intro to that recipe made me conclude that it is Roman. I don't have the book at work (Occasionally I actually do), so I am not sure what it was. I know we've mentioned this before, but I sooooo wish books like Marcella Hazan's Essentials for example listed the region for each recipe as a small subtitle or in the index.

I got a note last week from Jessica's Biscuit that they carry the DVD as well, and if I am not mistaken, for less than 29.95. edit: here it is

If at all possible please post them in RecipeGullet.

Kevin, did you ever try frying them in EVOO like Mario says? Does it make much of a difference? I do appreciate the different texture, but for 1.90 or so a choke, the lovely braised ones are so much more worth it. I followed his advise once and fried some sardine fritters in EVOO. They were good but I felt the oil was certainly wasted. Man, you have to try those addictive salty polenta sandwiches. Make only half the filling amount though. I had a lot of that leftover.

This recipe of course

Swiss, don't fuss over finding the molds. You don't really need them, I don't have any. Just use a small (1/4 cup) ramekin or your hand to form the cookies. They might not look like the traditional ones, but they will still be wonderful.

Last night (Monday) I fried up some: Carciofi Alla Guidia- I have to say I much prefer the braised Romanna artichokes. Though very tasty, I felt like the "artichokiness" is lost. Maybe Mario us right and in this application only virgin olive oil should be used to fry them up.... fried zuchinni rounds using Marcella Hazan's simple water/flour batter Fried polenta sandwiches stuffed with anchovies and capers. Following mrbigjas advice, I avoided the plain egg coating and isntead used the batter from the zuchinni recipe. It worked great, the outside was crispy and the inside fluffy salty and tangy. We also had some leftovers from Sunday, including the crostada .

Calimero- Thank you for sharing these Roman specialties and produce with us. Very interesting soup! What happens to the skate? Do you discard it and just use the broth? mrbigjas- The fake asparagus I believe, is that piece in the picture he is peeling. It is part of the Puntarelle and it sort of looks like asparagus. For the third Sunday in a row, we had a Roman meal: Started off with the most wonderful Ricotta gnocchi from Molto Italiano. Made with homemade ricotta and tossed with tomato sauce, fennel, chillies, carrots, celery and romano cheese. The recipe in the book adds crumbled sausage as well, buit to make it more of a lighter primo I subbed sauteed mushrooms for the sausage. This dish easily was the star of the meal. The dumplings were very very fluffy, light and packed with flavor. I had to stop myself from eating the whole thing. This will make a great one dish meal with the sausage included. Main course from Marcella Hazan's Essentials was "Beef Alla Cacciatora"(sp?). I used flat iron steaks for this and I was amazed how tender, beefy and flavorful this quick-cooking inexpensive cut is! I will be buying it more often. Contorno was also from the same Hazan book, "Gratin of zucchini with tomatoes". Simple and a good match with the beef. Dolci, this I was very proud of, "Fresh strawberry Crostada". The crust is from Alton Brown's third book about baking. It has cornmeal in it (polenta ) and make for a crumbly crunchy crust. The filling is my own invention, and to account for the extreme juiciness of strawberries which might make the crust too soggy, I spread toasted sliced almonds and a little breadcrumbs on the bottom. It worked perfectly and the crostada was awsome with homemade vanilla gelato and a drizzle of honey.

I'm almost a week into fermentation and here is how my wort looks like That looks ok, right? the temperature where this is sitting is a little higher than the ideal, probably around 75-78F. Hopefully that is not too high. Unfortunatly it will be very difficult for me to actually get it an lower without investing in a fermentation chamber or something. Kegging? Maybe it is just me (very very new at this...) but I think bottles for 3-5 gallon batches are just more appealing.

Don't soak the basmati for that long, I never do. Maybe 30 minutes at the most.

I could not agree more. I DO find the crappy limp mealy ones here, but they are not worth the money. On another note a friend of mine who shops at Whole Foods frequently told me that they do carry frozen shucked Fava beans in the frozen food section under their 365 lable. Unfortunatly he forgot to check how much they sell them for, but he said they looked very good. So, I might chek them out soon. Those carciofi look great Kevin, that might be my dinner for tonight accompanied by a couple other fried trattoria items.

First, thank you for taking the time to make and post about this recipe. It really looks very good, and I like that brown clay pot you have it in. It seems to me, from the instructions you posted that the recipe in the book is just not very good. What on earth does mix it until you cannot tell if it is white or brown mean? That’s just sloppy recipe writing. Over all I am very tempted to try this dish now. It is similar to the Lebanese chicken rice with fatteh that I like so much. Basically it is cooked rice with lots of spices and nuts. Then at the time of serving, the rice is layered in individual plates with chunks of chicken, cooked chickpeas, crisp fried pita and garlicky cold yogurt. The textures and tastes are amazing. This brings me to conclude, that you are correct, you dish should be assembled right before serving and NOT baked. The chicken can be heated through in some stock and the sauce should be room temperature. Again, the recipe should’ve made this clear. As a side note, yesterday I was reading through Clifford Wright’s “Cucina Paradiso” about Sicilian–Arab cuisine and I loved the chapter about rice dishes, especially the layered baked “casseroles” whose main ingredient is rice. To me this is just so Arabic. With minor alterations your dish could probably fit anywhere in the Mediterranean.