FoodMan

I tried the pomegranate soda yesterday, it is ok, but over all the blood orange one is still my favorite by far. I also noticed that they not only have duck fat, but they have two different products. One from Grimaud Farms and one form D'artagnan. Needless to say the latter one is much much more expensive (like 4X more than the Grimaud). For my money the Grimaud farms one is perfect at 3.99/lb, it makes awsome confit. Another item I was both surprised and glad to see is French goose fat! Imported and for about $5/lb. I have not trie dthis yet, but will soon.

White collar crime. Whoa! ← that is waaaay overpriced! I saw the same product at Central Market yesterday for $9.99.

nope, no cheese. Only eggs, creme fraiche, bacon and lots of slow cooked onions. It is great, I actually ate most of the tart by myself between Sunday and this morning

Christmas eve dinner this year is charcuterie centric. We will have, the "Marjoram Kielbasa", "Turkey sausage with tart cherries" and hopefully the "Roasted Duck Roulade". I already made the sausages using my recently acquired manual meet grinder. The machine does require some elbow grease but over all works fine. I need the workout anyways. I made the Kilebasa first and since it was my first time doing this I hit some snags. Mainly I did not make sure all gristle is removed and I had a serious problem with the meat smearing. I had to stop midway and clean the machine and resume. Needless to say I was not taking pictures during this time . I will post pictures of the cooked sausage once it is cooked. The Turkey-cherry sausage experience was much better since I made sure everything that is not meat or fat is out of the mix: Yes, the sausage tastes as good as it looks. I used collagen casings because htey are very easy to work with and to store. They do not twist too well though so, tying with butcher twine is a good idea. I froze the sausages until Saturday's dinner. I am planning on making the duck roulade soon, Michael will it stay in the fridge for a couple of days or should I wait to make it the night before?

The Bresaola is out of the cure and has been for a couple of days. Now it is drying. To prevent drying I rubbed a scant amount of olive oil on the meat and wrapped it with cheese cloth before tying with twine. I set up a make shift curing box involving a cardboard box in the coolest closet of the house. The thermometer clearly states an even 60 degrees. For humidity, I followed the book's advice and put a pot filled with heavily salted water in the box. The meat weighs 2lbs 12oz, so the target weight at the end of the cure is a little under 2 lbs. Here is a picture of the meat right before it was wrapped, it has a nice dry feel to it and is quiet firm. Fifi- Of course the book has weights!

Alsatian onion and bacon tart with a green salad in raspberry vinegar-walnut oil dressing.

Beirut! Finally. I am definitly looking forward to this one. Let me know if you need any tips or pointers...although I am sure you already procured whoever the Samir equivelant over there is .

the Lebanese way (never done it, only obserevd my grandma cook the things after I enjoyed collecting them after a summer rain): 1- Fast them for a day or two to rid them of "Le crap" 2- Wash and simmer for maybe an hour or two. they should be soft but not mushy. 3- Remove from the shell and discard any inteestines, sacs (black or otherwise), leaving only the muscle that is also attched to the coiled part that was in the shell. 4- either saute with lots of onions, olive oil, tomatoes and garlic or simply dress with olive oil and lemon juice and eat with garlicky Tahini sauce. Both methods require pita bread .

That is true. In J. Oliver's "Jamie's Italy" he talks about it and provides the recipe for cooking the octopus with no added liquid. He uses this octopus as the base for all the rest of the recipes (grilling, sauteing, braising,...) just like Mario cooks his in red wine with a cork. I've never tried the Oliver method though.

The recipe is from Peter Reinhardt's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". He soaks the cornmeal in the buttermilk overnight at room temperature and then the batter is made from that (eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder,...). the bacon cooks in the skillet and is then removed and crumbled. Leave some of the bacon fat in the hot skillet and pour in the batter. Top with the crumbled bacon and bake.

Sunday I made some homey chilli made with diced not ground beef and based on a Robb Walsh recipe. I served it with cast iron bacon-corn bread and topped it with sour cream, cilantro, onions and cheddar. I ate this for next day's lunch and dinner as well. the corn bread alone is worthy of a meal. Last night we had - Butterflied chicken cooked al mattone (under a brick..actually two of them) in my cast iron skillet. It was finished in the oven after it was flipped over. - Tuscan herb fries. these were delicious and a diffrent take on regular French fries. The recipe is from Steingarten's "The man who ate everything". - Salsa verde (parsley, anchovies, capers, garlic, olive oil) to serve with everything. Instead of vinegar I used my backyard-grown Meyer lemon juice and segments. It was a nice "twist" on the original recipe. You can see some of it topping the chicken in the picture. -Dessert: Ruby red TX grapefruit segments sprinkled with vanilla sugar.

I totally agree Fifi, but the guy is supposedly engaged to an Indian. Isen't he? Also the whole piece reeks of...don't know..."snobishness"! So what if someone does not know what a Biryani or a Dahl is. Is it a crime to ask? It's not like these pple went to Kiran and ordered a burger. Seriously, the more I think about this the more I wonder who this dude is and has he ever written a food piece before. My research yielded nothing so far. Now excuse me, I need to cook an "al dente" steak with potatoes. Well at least he did not call it "Al dAnte" .

No Frank, the Cook review was published Dec 1st, last Thursday.

I knew I was forgetting something: al dente prawns?! I am not sure that term can be used for anything but pasta and risotto. I would hate to eat chewy, slightly "toothy" prawns.

From today's Digest I have several problems with Mr. Harkinson's review the least of which is his lack of coherence. He says towards the end that he actually likes Kiran, but I just ...don't believe him. the whole piece seemed like it was written by a person who is learning about Indian food as he writes. I know this is odd because apparently Mr. Harkinson's fiance is Indian. Other comments that stood out to me: Ah-hah...so he likes the place but it is not worth the money, well not really. but we are in a dump of a town called Houston and we have no good restaurants, so it's ok for us. Then we have the Alison Cook reference: What's up with that? I fail to see what anything Cook says has anything to do with this specific review. That was her opinion and claiming, more or less, that Cook does not know what she is talking about is kind of lame. Here is Cook's review of Kiran's that Harkinson is refering too and IMO it is a much better article than his. now, please tell me Robb Walsh will be back next week!

Houston Press' Dining Section Suburban Import Josh Harkinson reviews Kiran’s Indian gourmet and Wine Bar, and writes a jumbled up report that includes an odd attack at Alison Cook! Houston Chronicle's Dining Guide Good then, Better Now Alison Cook has never written such a passionately positive review. At least none that I’ve read. It is clear in this long writeup that she is in love with the new Tony’s that has all the positives and none of the negatives of it’s former self. More than Just Barbecue Mary Vuong informs us about Korean bibimbap that offers versatile, elaborate rice-based combinations This thread is for food media DIGEST entries. If you want to discuss one of these news items, please start a separate discussion thread.

3 cups long espresso (ie espresso made with more water than normal) 1 cup sugar mix until dissolved and chill. Pour in a shallow baking dish, and put in the freezer. After an hour or so start scraping the partially frozen mixture with a fork and fullfing it. Do that every 30 minutes until you have granita with dry ice crystals. Should take about 3 more "fluffings". When done put it in a tupperware in the freezer. It should last for 3-4 days with not problem. Putting it in my ice cream maker will make sorbet, no? Granita has to have a distinct good size ice crsytals. the machine will make it too smooth.

For the last few days, I have been addicted to espresso granita with a slice of brioche, both homemade. Sounded very odd to have this for breakfast at first after reading that it is pretty common in Sicily. The combination however is amazing, especially with a little helping of fresh whipped cream. I just finished my batch of granita and brioche this morning. P.S. this works as a late night dessert too

Welcome Christine! I made falafel early this week with lots of garnishes insluding homemade pickles, tomatoes, babba ghanoosh and of course Tahini sauce. Drank lots of, what else, Pepsi. For the past few days, Wolfert's recipes get better with age , I have been eating her Kibbeh with Sumac, eggplant and Chickpeas (from "The Cooking of the Eatsern Mediterannean"). the kibbeh are stuffed with ground lamb and spices and drained yogurt. then they are steamed and finiched in a stew of eggplant, chickpeas and lots of sumac. I served it with rice and spiced yogurt. A lovely and heart warming Middle eastern dish.

That is the Bresaola so far. It already cured for 7 days and was just rubbed with the second half of the cure and is back in the fridge in a ziploc bag to cure for another 7 days before drying. The only thing I am a little worried about is that there was not that much liquid to drain out of the bag. Maybe a few tablespoons in all. The meat did feel firmer and had a cured feel to it though. So, next week I will take it out rinse and dry it and hang it to dry/age. I will make sure to weigh it before I hang it though to guage the water loss. As for a proper drying area, that is tricky in Houston . What I am going to try and do is use a box to hang the meat in the coolest area of the house and place a large salted water pot (like Rhulman/Plocyn recommend) to add humidity. I guess constant monitoring is key at that point. Any advice is appreciated

PCL- Check out my eGCI class on Lebanese cuisine HERE. Scroll all the way to the bottom and I have instructions how to make this type of coffee. The brand I like most is Najjar. Cardamom is optional as is sugar.

I wonder how that fits in with their annonymity for critics stand ?

Glossy- that looks perfect. as for a beginner bread, several ones come to mind inslcuding the potato rosemary. Another one I can recommend is the "Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire" (sp?), or maybe the plain white bread loaf. the first recipe I tried from this book was the Annadama Bread. Not sure why, maybe becuase it is the very first recipe.

Lunch? I thought they don't do that anymore. For the survey purposes: Last year I requested a specific date (May 26th) but was open to any date in May. I sent in an email a day or two after the reservations opened and we got a confirmation about a month or so later. We had a blast!

The recipe does not take long at all (well, relatively speaking). For a full recipe, you need 48hrs. For half a recipe, like I did, 24hrs. It should supposedly last in the fridge for a good 3 weeks, so you can make it ahead of time too. I am pretty sure mine will be gone way before then .